Egypt Sends Prime Minister to Gaza in Show of Solidarity

Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images

Smoke rose over Gaza on Friday. Israel denied launching airstrikes. More Photos »

JERUSALEM — After a night of ferocious airstrikes in Gaza and rocket fire toward Israel, Egypt on Friday launched a remarkable diplomatic initiative, sending its prime minister to show support for Palestinians in the beleaguered enclave, a move that prompted his Israeli counterpart to agree to a temporary cease-fire even as Israeli commanders sent armored vehicles toward the overcrowded coastal strip and called up reservists for a possible invasion.

But the frail truce did not seem to be holding, or even taking root. While news reports said the Egyptian official had arrived in Gaza, Israel Radio said Palestinian militants fired 25 rockets into southern Israel, with one rocket striking a house. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The thump of what sounded like airstrikes was also audible in Gaza City, residents said, but the Israeli military no such strikes had taken place.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made the temporary cease-fire by Israel’s airplanes conditional on a corresponding halt to rocket fire from Gaza.

Residents in Gaza said the night was filled with the boom and crash of airstrikes, with loud explosions at dawn on Friday, a day after Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza brushed aside international calls for restraint and escalated their lethal conflict. In Gaza, Palestinian militants launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, targeting Tel Aviv for the first time, and Israel intensified its aerial assaults.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel, expressing outrage over a pair of long-range Palestinian rockets that whizzed toward Tel Aviv and set off the first air-raid warning in the Israeli metropolis since it was threatened by Iraqi Scuds in the Persian Gulf war of 1991, said, “There will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.”

Within hours of the Tel Aviv air-raid warning, the Israeli Defense Forces said they had attacked 70 underground rocket-launching sites in Gaza and “direct hits were confirmed.” There were also unconfirmed reports that Israeli rockets had struck near Gaza’s Rafah crossing into Egypt, forcing the Egyptians to close it.

Early on Friday, the Israeli military said it had called up 16,000 army reservists, as preparations continued for a possible ground invasion for the second time in four years. Mr. Barak had authorized the call-up of 30,000 reservists, if needed, to move against what it considers an unacceptable security threat from smuggled rockets amassed by Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza and does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

It was not clear whether the show of Israeli force on the ground in fact portended an invasion or was meant as more of an intimidation tactic to further pressure Hamas leaders, who had all been forced into hiding on Wednesday after the Israelis killed the group’s military chief, Ahmed al-Jabari, in a pinpoint aerial bombing. But Mr. Netanyahu said he was ready to “take whatever action is necessary.”

At the same time, though, Israel signaled its concern to preserve its so-called cold peace with Egypt, with Mr. Netanyahu agreeing to the temporary cease-fire during the visit of Prime Minister Hesham Kandil of Egypt, who planned to visit the Al Shifa hospital and meet the Hamas cabinet. For the first time since Wednesday, Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, was seen in public on Friday accompanying Mr. Kandil, Israel Radio reported.

The visit of the Egyptian delegation is expected to last about three hours, and an official in Mr. Netanyahu’s office said by telephone that Israel had told Egypt that the cease-fire would hold as long as “there would not be hostile fire from the Gaza Strip into Israel.”

“Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to the peace treaty with Egypt,” the official said. “That peace serves the strategic interests of both countries.” There was no suggestion that the Israelis were considering a more permanent cease-fire at this stage.

Overnight, Israel said it launched 150 airstrikes while Palestinian fired a dozen rockets into Israel — far fewer than the hundreds that have hurtled toward Israel in the past two days.

President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt ordered Mr. Kandil to Gaza both as an initiative to ease the crisis and in a display of solidarity that would have been improbable in the era of President Hosni Mubarak before his overthrow last year.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, Rick Gladstone from New York, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Jodi Rudoren from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Bangkok.

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The X Factor Reveals Its Top 12

TV Watch

The X Factor

11/15/2012 at 11:00 PM EST

Demi Lovato and Simon Cowell

Double elimination time on The X Factor!

The top 12 performed songs by divas the night before – and then faced a night of diva-worthy drama on Thursday's show. And it was a particularly tough night for the young adults' coach, Demi Lovato, after the outcome of the viewers' votes were revealed.

Keep reading for all the results ...

Early in the hour, hosts Mario Lopez and Khloé Kardashian announced the act with the lowest number of votes was Simon Cowell's hip-hop group Lyric 145, who performed a mash-up of Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Katy Perry's "E.T." on Wednesday.

"We didn't get the opportunity to show what we really had," frontwoman Lyric Da Queen said. "We hard original lyrics ... But we're just taking the good with the bad right now."

Nine acts were then declared safe, leaving two to sing for survival – and they were both from Demi's team: Jennel Garcia and Paige Thomas.

Jennel performed an emotional rendition of Hoobastank's "The Reason," and Paige sang Coldplay's "Paradise."

Then the judges had to vote for the act they wanted to send home.

"I'm shocked that either of them are at the bottom," L.A. Reid said. He voted to send home Jennel. Britney followed his lead. Simon refused to say his choice and forced Demi to go first. "The act that I'm going to send home is Paige," she said. It was up to Simon to avoid a tie – and he picked Jennel.

So, Demi was the only one to reject Paige and she'll have to work with her again next week. Awkward!

"You're so unbelievably talented and you have a future ahead of you so I'm not worried," Demi told Jennel. "I love you and I really, really believe in you."

And then the co-hosts announced the ranking of the top 10 based on who got the most votes:

10. Paige Thomas
9. Arin Ray
8. Beatrice Miller
7. Diamond White
6. Fifth Harmony
5. CeCe Frey
4. Emblem3
3. Vino Alan
2. Carly Rose Sonenclar
1. Tate Stevens

The show's only country singer does it again!

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and the biggest jump over 15 years was in Oklahoma, according to a new federal report issued Thursday.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled, and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama also saw dramatic increases since 1995, the study showed.

The South's growing weight problem is the main explanation, said Linda Geiss, lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

"The rise in diabetes has really gone hand in hand with the rise in obesity," she said.

Bolstering the numbers is the fact that more people with diabetes are living longer because better treatments are available.

The disease exploded in the United States in the last 50 years, with the vast majority from obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. In 1958, fewer than 1 in 100 Americans had been diagnosed with diabetes. In 2010, it was about 1 in 14.

Most of the increase has happened since 1990.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body has trouble processing sugar; it's the nation's seventh leading cause of death. Complications include poor circulation, heart and kidney problems and nerve damage.

The new study is the CDC's first in more than a decade to look at how the nationwide boom has played out in different states.

It's based on telephone surveys of at least 1,000 adults in each state in 1995 and 2010. Participants were asked if a doctor had ever told them they have diabetes.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi — the state with the largest proportion of residents who are obese — has the highest diabetes rate. Nearly 12 percent of Mississippians say they have diabetes, compared to the national average of 7 percent.

But the most dramatic increases in diabetes occurred largely elsewhere in the South and in the Southwest, where rates tripled or more than doubled. Oklahoma's rate rose to about 10 percent, Kentucky went to more than 9 percent, Georgia to 10 percent and Alabama surpassed 11 percent.

An official with Oklahoma State Department of Health said the solution is healthier eating, more exercise and no smoking.

"And that's it in a nutshell," said Rita Reeves, diabetes prevention coordinator.

Several Northern states saw rates more than double, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

The study was published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

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Online:

CDC report: http://tinyurl.com/cdcdiabetesreport

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JPMorgan's California energy dealings draw more fire

State and federal energy regulators moved on two fronts against the giant investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. over its dealings in the California electricity market.

On Wednesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hit Morgan's electricity-trading unit with one of the most stringent penalties in its arsenal, barring it from selling electricity in California's auction-based market for six months starting in April.

The ruling, which may deprive Morgan of millions of dollars in profits in California, stemmed from FERC's conclusion that JPMorgan Ventures Energy Corp. had misled the agency in its investigation of alleged overcharges to the California Independent System Operator, which runs much of the state's wholesale power grid.

Meanwhile, the ISO moved Thursday to stop Morgan from blocking the upgrade of two Huntington Beach power plants considered key to keeping air conditioners humming next summer in Southern California. Morgan could not be reached for comment.

The operator of California's far-flung power grid filed a petition with federal regulators, accusing Morgan of raising legal obstacles to getting the plants working in time to avoid possible brownouts and rolling blackouts when the temperatures climb.

The shoreline facilities, currently not in use, are needed to help make up for the loss of more than 2,000 megawatts of power caused by the shutdown for safety reasons of both reactors at Southern California Edison's San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Several power plants in Huntington Beach are owned by AES Corp. Two of them currently supply power to Morgan. But it is two other plants there, currently not operating, that the state wants to upgrade.

But the ISO says AES is balking, saying Morgan doesn't want to go along with the upgrade. The state is trying to force Morgan and AES to go ahead.

Grid operators want FERC to rule that JPMorgan's consent is not needed to retrofit the Huntington Beach power plants. The retrofit is essential to maintain sufficiently high voltage in transmission lines to meet peak summertime demand.

"The inability to resolve the consent issue in time to allow construction to commence in early 2013 could leave Southern California exposed to reliance on a widespread load-shedding scheme in the summer of 2013," state officials warned the commission.

The state agency's petition was submitted one day after federal energy regulators suspended JPMorgan Ventures after finding that the energy firm had provided false data and omitted important information during the federal investigation. It is reviewing state allegations that the firm hit utilities with excessive charges of as much as $73 million in 2011 and the beginning of this year.

Of that, the state has recovered about $20 million in overcharges, said Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the state power grid operator.

The suspension was ordered to begin April 13 of next year. The delay was aimed at giving the grid managers sufficient time to contract for new power deliveries to ensure the lights stay on across the state.

JPMorgan Ventures is one of several energy-trading firms that buy and sell power nationally and play a key role in delivering electricity to states when demand is high and supplies are short.

The firm fought the suspension and told the commission in October that the company's actions were "inadvertent mistakes" and said that suspending its trading authority would be an "unjustified reaction to unintentional, good-faith mistakes, misunderstandings and miscommunications."

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

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BBC Failures Show Limits of Guidelines

LONDON — It was 2004, and the British Broadcasting Corporation was gripped by a crisis over journalistic standards that had led to Parliamentary hearings, public recrimination and the resignations of its two top officials. Vowing change, the corporation established elaborate bureaucratic procedures that placed more formal responsibility for delicate decisions in the hands not of individual managers, but of rigid hierarchies.

The corporation also appointed a deputy director general in charge of news operations; established a “journalism board” to monitor editorial policy; issued numerous new guidelines on journalistic procedures; and put an increasing emphasis on “compliance” — a system in which managers are required to file cumbersome forms flagging dozens of potential trouble spots, from bad language to “disturbing content” like exorcism or beheadings, in every program taped for broadcast.

More crises would follow — the history of the BBC can be measured out in crises — and with each new one, the management team under Mark Thompson, director general from 2004 through mid-September 2012, added more guidelines and put more emphasis on form-filling and safety checks in news and entertainment programs. An organization already known for its bureaucracy became even more unwieldy (the editorial guidelines are now 215 pages long).

But it is these very structures that seem to have failed the BBC in the most recent scandal, in which its news division first canceled a child abuse segment it should have broadcast, and later broadcast one it should have canceled. In the first instance, it appears that people overseeing the program were too cautious, so that top managers were left unaware of its existence; in the second, managers may have relied too much on rigid procedures at the expense of basic journalistic principles.

“They burned their fingers,” said Tim Luckhurst, a journalism professor at the University of Kent who worked at the BBC for 10 years. “They wanted systems that could take responsibility instead of people.”

The recent scandal has had a number of immediate results. Mr. Thompson’s successor as director general, George Entwistle, resigned after just 54 days on the job. (Mr. Thompson is now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company.) Outside investigators were appointed to interrogate BBC employees in at least three different inquiries. A number of lower- and midlevel managers had to withdraw temporarily from their jobs and, facing possible disciplinary action, hired lawyers. And, once again, the BBC is talking about reorganizing structures.

Through a spokesman, Mr. Entwistle declined to comment on the scandal or the BBC’s management practices, saying he was “not doing any media interviews at present.” Mr. Thompson also declined to comment.

But Mr. Entwistle’s temporary successor, Tim Davie, who had previously been director of BBC Audio & Music, acknowledged that changes had to be made. “If the public are going to get journalism they trust from the BBC I have to be, as director general, very clear on who’s running the news operation and ensuring that journalism that we put out passes muster,” Mr. Davie said in his first week on the job. The first thing to do, he said, was to “take action and build trust by putting a clear line of command in.”

This is a complicated scandal in two parts. The first part was over the BBC’s decision last December not to broadcast a report saying that Jimmy Savile, a longtime BBC television host, had been a serial child molester, and instead to broadcast several glowing tributes to his career. The second part was its decision on Nov. 2 to accuse a member of Margaret Thatcher’s government of being a pedophile, an accusation that turned out to be patently false.

But both exposed the problems in a system that seems to insulate the BBC’s director general — who is also the editor in chief — from knowledge of basic issues like what potentially contentious programs are scheduled for broadcast. And both decisions were the result, it seems, of a system that failed in practice, even as it was correctly followed in theory.

Ben Bradshaw, a former BBC correspondent and now a Labour member of Parliament, said the 2004 scandal, touched off by reporting about British intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, had created a system based on “fear and anxiety.” The BBC, he added, became “even more bureaucratic and had even more layers, which exacerbated the problem of buck passing and no one being able to take a decision.”

Speaking of the Nov. 2 broadcast, the chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, said in a television interview that the piece went through “every damned layer of BBC management bureaucracy, legal checks” without anyone raising any serious objections.

Matthew Purdy contributed reporting from New York, and Lark Turner from London.

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RIM to offer free voice calls over Wi-Fi with BBM

TORONTO (AP) — BlackBerry users will soon be able to make free voice calls over a Wi-Fi network using the popular BBM messaging service.

Research In Motion Ltd. announced Wednesday that it’s adding the feature to BBM. Users will be able to switch back and forth from a text chat to a voice call. A split-screen option will let them talk and text at the same time.

The new feature is a free update for existing customers and comes months before RIM introduces its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, which are seen critical to RIM’s survival.

RIM made a surprise disclosure in its most recent earnings report in announcing that the number of subscribers grew, thanks in part to emerging markets and its popular BBM service. It’s struggling in North America as customers migrate to flashier iPhones and Android phone.

RIM stopped short of offering the BBM voice feature over wireless carriers’ own cellular networks. Doing so would have potentially created more congestion on cellular data networks and deprive carriers of revenue for voice calls. With the new feature, the free calls are limited to times and places where Wi-Fi is available.

The Canadian company said the BBM voice feature is especially attractive for developing markets. Unlike regular texts, BBM messages are not charged on a per-text basis.

Although RIM is struggling in North America, the BlackBerry continues to sell well in such markets as South Africa, Nigeria and Indonesia.

The BBM service has long been a reason for BlackBerry users to not defect to other smartphones but there are rival messaging services.

RIM said the BBM voice update is currently available for BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry 6 operating system or higher, with plans for BlackBerry 5 later. RIM’s latest phones run the 7 operating system. The next version, BlackBerry 10, will come soon after a Jan. 30 launch event.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Hope Solo Weds Jerramy Stevens Amid Assault Allegations?

By Dahvi Shira

11/14/2012 at 06:35 PM EST

Jerramy Stevens and Hope Solo

NFL/Getty; Jeff Vinnick/Getty

One day after former Seattle Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his fiancée, U.S. women's soccer team goalkeeper Hope Solo, the pair reportedly tied the knot.

"Confirmed," Sportsradio 950 AM and 102.9 FM radio host Dave Mahler Tweeted on Tuesday. "Jerramy Stevens and Hope Solo were married tonight. Events of yesterday morning didn't change plans."

The pair, who had only been dating for about two months, applied for a marriage license last Thursday. According to court documents, the athletes were arguing over whether to wed in Florida or Washington State.

Stevens, 33, was reportedly released from custody by a Kirkland, Wash., Municipal Court judge on Tuesday after determining there wasn't enough evidence to hold the former football star.

All of the former Dancing with the Stars contestant's social media pages have gone silent since Nov. 6., and calls to her rep have not been returned.

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Booze calories nearly equal soda's for US adults

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans get too many calories from soda. But what about alcohol? It turns out adults get almost as many empty calories from booze as from soft drinks, a government study found.

Soda and other sweetened drinks — the focus of obesity-fighting public health campaigns — are the source of about 6 percent of the calories adults consume, on average. Alcoholic beverages account for about 5 percent, the new study found.

"We've been focusing on sugar-sweetened beverages. This is something new," said Cynthia Ogden, one of the study's authors. She's an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which released its findings Thursday.

The government researchers say the findings deserve attention because, like soda, alcohol contains few nutrients but plenty of calories.

The study is based on interviews with more than 11,000 U.S. adults from 2007 through 2010. Participants were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours.

The study found:

—On any given day, about one-third of men and one-fifth of women consumed calories from beer, wine or liquor.

—Averaged out to all adults, the average guy drinks 150 calories from alcohol each day, or the equivalent of a can of Budweiser.

—The average woman drinks about 50 calories, or roughly half a glass of wine.

—Men drink mostly beer. For women, there was no clear favorite among alcoholic beverages.

—There was no racial or ethnic difference in average calories consumed from alcoholic beverages. But there was an age difference, with younger adults putting more of it away.

For reference, a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola has 140 calories, slightly less than a same-sized can of regular Bud. A 5-ounce glass of wine is around 100 calories.

In September, New York City approved an unprecedented measure cracking down on giant sodas, those bigger than 16 ounces, or half a liter. It will take effect in March and bans sales of drinks that large at restaurants, cafeterias and concession stands.

Should New York officials now start cracking down on tall-boy beers and monster margaritas?

There are no plans for that, city health department officials said, adding in a statement that while studies show that sugary drinks are "a key driver of the obesity epidemic," alcohol is not.

Health officials should think about enacting policies to limit alcoholic intake, but New York's focus on sodas is appropriate, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a public health advocacy group.

Soda and sweetened beverages are the bigger problem, especially when it comes to kids — the No. 1 source of calories in the U.S. diet, she said.

"In New York City, it was smart to start with sugary drinks. Let's see how it goes and then think about next steps," she said.

However, she lamented that the Obama administration is planning to exempt alcoholic beverages from proposed federal regulations requiring calorie labeling on restaurant menus.

It could set up a confusing scenario in which, say, a raspberry iced tea may have a calorie count listed, while an alcohol-laden Long Island Iced Tea — with more than four times as many calories — doesn't. "It could give people the wrong idea," she said.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

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It's time to reform our initiative system

Hiram Johnson, the revered reformer and father of the California "citizens" initiative, must be either crying or laughing.

Maybe both.

It was 101 years ago that Gov. Johnson, a former San Francisco graft prosecutor, teamed with other do-gooder Progressives to create California's system of direct democracy: the initiative, referendum and recall.

That allowed citizens to bypass the special interest-controlled state Capitol and exercise power themselves at the ballot box.

Over the last century, 354 initiatives have qualified for the ballot through signature collecting, and 120 have been passed by voters. That's a success rate of only 34%, so voters do tend to be discerning, or at least unconvinced when confused.

But Johnson's ideal of citizen empowerment to fight the moneyed interests has been turned on its head. More and more over the years, California's initiative system has become a tool of the special interests and a plaything of the mega-rich.

It's almost unfathomable that $372 million was spent to promote or attack the 11 measures on last week's state ballot. That figure comes from MapLight, a nonpartisan organization that crunches numbers from the secretary of state.

To put it in perspective, that amount of money could pay for the annual tuitions of 31,000 undergrads at the University of California.

The top 20 donors provided 69% of all initiative funding, MapLight reported.

The most lavish spender was Pasadena civil rights attorney Molly Munger, who poured $44 million into her Proposition 38, which would have raised income taxes mostly to fund schools. Regardless of her largess, Prop. 38 was the biggest loser on the ballot, garnering only 28% of the vote.

The second-biggest donor was Molly's half brother, Stanford physicist and Republican activist Charles Munger Jr. He spent $37 million on two other losing causes: Prop. 32 to cripple labor unions and the fight against Gov. Jerry Brown's Prop. 30 tax increase.

So the Munger siblings — children of Warren Buffett's investment partner, Charles Munger Sr. — kicked in roughly $80 million between them to play the California initiative game this year.

Then there was hedge-fund billionaire Thomas F. Steyer of San Francisco, a Democratic donor and environmentalist. He wrote checks for $30 million on a winner, his Prop. 39, which will close a tax loophole used by out-of-state corporations and fund alternative energy retrofitting.

The Mungers and Steyer probably aren't the sort of ordinary citizens Johnson had in mind when he championed the initiative system.

Neither is it likely that he anticipated special interests using the system as their own branch of government.

Brown turned to unions to foot most of the bill for his tax increase. In all, Map-Light reports, he raised about $70 million, primarily from special interests. Think a few might have their hooks into him? You'd have to be awfully naïve to think not.

So what can be done about all this? Practically nothing — not as long as the U.S. Supreme Court continues to equate money with speech, not property.

However, one of this year's most cynical and arrogant abuses of direct democracy could be corrected by the Legislature. It could require complete disclosure of funding sources and ban the use of laundered money in initiative campaigns.

Actually, the obscure Arizona outfit that dumped $11 million of laundered money into the pro-32 and anti-30 campaigns wound up sullying its own causes. It gave Brown a sleazy target to shoot at and raised suspicions among voters: If these shadowy donors had nothing to hide, why were they hiding?

"Voters need to be able to identify who is supporting or opposing a measure," says state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).

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France Grants Its Recognition to Syria Rebels

Javier Manzano/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Smoke billowed from burning tires as a Syria rebel fired towards regime forces during clashes in the Al-Amariya district of Aleppo in Syria on Tuesday.

PARIS — France announced Tuesday that it was recognizing the newly formed Syrian rebel coalition and would consider arming the group, seeking to inject momentum into a broad Western and Arab effort to build a viable and effective opposition that would hasten the end of a stalemated civil war that has destabilized the Middle East.

The announcement by President François Hollande made France the first Western country to fully embrace the new coalition, which came together this past weekend under Western pressure after days of difficult negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The goal was to make an opposition leadership — both inside and outside the country — representative of the array of Syrian groups pressing for the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad. Although Mr. Assad is increasingly isolated as his country descends further into mayhem and despair after 20 months of conflict, he has survived partly because of the disagreements and lack of unity among his opponents.

Throughout the conflict, the West has taken half measures and been reluctant to back an aggressive effort to oust Mr. Assad. This appears to be the first time that Western nations, with Arab allies, are determined to build a viable opposition leadership that can ultimately function as a government. Whether it can succeed remains unclear.

Mr. Hollande went beyond other Western pledges of support for the new Syrian umbrella rebel group, which calls itself the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. But Mr. Hollande’s announcement clearly signaled expectations that if the group can establish political legitimacy and an operational structure inside Syria, creating an alternative to the Assad family’s four decades in power, it will be rewarded with further recognition, money and possibly weapons.

“I announce that France recognizes the Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people and thus as the future provisional government of a democratic Syria and to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Mr. Hollande, who has been one of the Syrian president’s harshest critics.

As for weapons, Mr. Hollande said, France had not supported arming the rebels up to now, but “with the coalition, as soon as it is a legitimate government of Syria, this question will be looked at by France, but also by all countries that recognize this government.”

Political analysts called Mr. Hollande’s announcement an important moment in the Syrian conflict, which began as a peaceful Arab Spring uprising in March 2011. It was harshly suppressed by Mr. Assad, turned into a civil war and has left nearly 40,000 Syrians dead, displaced about 2.5 million and forced more than 400,000 to flee to neighboring countries, according to international relief agencies.

“It’s certainly another page of the story,” Augustus Richard Norton, a professor of international relations at Boston University and an expert on Middle East political history, said of the French announcement. “I think it’s important. But it will be much more important if other countries follow suit. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

Some drew an analogy to France’s leading role in the early days of the Libyan uprising when it helped funnel aid, and later military support, to the rebels who had firmly established themselves in eastern Libya and would later topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But in Syria, rebels have not been as organized and have no hold on significant amounts of territory — at least not enough to create a provisional government that could resist Mr. Assad’s military assaults. The West has also refused, so far, to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, which was critical to the success of the Libyan uprising.

Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the new coalition would have to create a secure zone in Syria to be successful, and that that step would require support from the United States, which was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the group’s creation but has not yet committed to giving it full recognition.

What the French have done, Mr. Tabler said, is significant because they have started the process of broader recognition, putting pressure on the group to succeed. “They’ve decided to back this umbrella organization and hope that it has some kind of political legitimacy and keep it from going to extremists,” he said. “It’s a gamble. The gamble is that it will stiffen the backs of the opposition.”

Steven Erlanger reported from Paris, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Neil MacFarquhar and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva; and Richard Berry from Paris.

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The Voice Sends Two Contestants Home

TV Watch

The Voice

By Julia Haskins

11/13/2012 at 10:20 PM EST

Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera

Christopher Polk/Getty

It was a great night for Teams Cee Lo and Adam on The Voice Tuesday. And though not everyone got good news on elimination night, there were plenty of entertaining performances from the coaches and contestants alike.

To open the night, Christina Aguilera and Green performed the world premiere of "Make the World Move," from her new album Lotus. Guest Jason Aldean also took the stage, and Blake Shelton rocked out with his team to Tom Cochrane's "Life is a Highway."

Green's Trevin Hunte, Nicholas David and Cody Belew came together for a '70s inspired – bell bottoms and all! – performance of the Bee Gee's "Stayin' Alive." But was it a sign of things to come? Keep reading for all the results ...

All of Green's singers as well as Levine's Bryan Keith, Melanie Martinez and Amanda Brown felt the love from viewers at home, and will have another shot at next week's show.

America also saved Aguilera's Sylvia Yacoub and Dez Duron, and Shelton's Cassadee Pope and Terry McDermott.

But without enough votes to keep them in the competition, Team Aguilera's Adriana Louise and Team Blake's Michaela Paige said goodbye.

Aguilera consoled Louise by reminding her that even she didn't win Star Search, but still made it to superstardom. Louise was grateful for all her coach's support. "You believed in me more than I believed in myself," she told Aguilera through tears.

Paige also enjoyed an uplifting experience on The Voice. "If I inspired anyone, that's all I wanted to do," Paige said. "Follow your dreams and believe in your heart." But her coach Shelton isn't too concerned about the aspiring singer's future.

"Her big old mohawk is going to be walking across the stage at the Grammys," he said, "and I can't wait."

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Cal State and UC back off tuition hikes after Prop. 30 win

California's two public university systems retreated from various tuition hikes as Gov. Jerry Brown suggested the moves would be ill-timed coming just a week after voters approved a tax increase for education.

California State University trustees postponed action Tuesday on a plan to impose new student fees and University of California regents also agreed to shelve a proposal, scheduled for a vote Wednesday, to add supplemental fees to some professional degree programs.

Cal State's "incentive" fees were designed to encourage students to graduate more quickly, freeing space for new students. But Brown, who attended the meeting of the governing board in Long Beach, said the plan needed more study.

The governor also plans to attend the regents' meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday in a kind of victory lap for his Proposition 30 tax measure.

But he also carried a strong message to both systems.

"Right after the election is no time to be raising fees of any kind," the governor said, urging the universities to keep costs down and not pass them on to students. "Voters gave us a billion dollars in new revenues and now we have to use that very judiciously."

Students, he said, had been battered by the economy, successive years of tuition increases and large debt loads.

"The problem is we have a stratified society, those at the top are doing very well while those at the bottom are not doing well," he said. "I'm looking for segments to find ways of sharing the burden, but sharing according to the abilities people have."

Addressing the reduced class schedules that have made it difficult for students to progress toward graduation, Brown said universities might have to increasingly rely on online education. As governor, Brown is president of the Board of Trustees, but this was the first meeting he attended during his current term.

His timing was strategic: He acknowledged the support of students, trustees and faculty in working to pass Proposition 30, which raises $6 billion with a quarter-cent sales tax increase over four years and an income tax hike on high-income earners over seven years. Its failure would have triggered deep spending cuts to public education. After its victory, Cal State announced it would rescind a $249 per-semester tuition hike that took effect this fall, rolling it back to the 2011-12 cost of $5,472.

In opening remarks, board Chairman A. Robert Linscheid said he removed the fee proposal from the agenda to study its consequences further, in light of the passage of Proposition 30 and after hearing objections from students and others.

"The mission is still important, to free up space for other students, but there may be other avenues to get to that goal," Linscheid said.

Students expressed relief that the fee hikes were, at least temporarily, postponed.

"I'm really excited," said David Allison, a senior at Cal State San Bernardino who is president of the California State University Students Assn. "I hope this means they will look for ways to change behavior without raising fees on students."

The plan would have increased fees for students who accumulate more credits than they need to graduate, who carry more than a full load and who repeat courses. Officials said it would raise about $30 million in annual revenues, mainly by increasing enrollment at the system's 23 campuses.

Other students said they planned to continue with plans to hold a vigil late into the evening to keep pressure on trustees.

"Postponing this was one of our goals but ultimately, they need to get rid of this idea," said Miguel Garcia, 27, an anthropology major at the San Bernardino campus.

UC officials dropped consideration of a possible 20%, or $2,400, mid-year tuition hike for all students after Proposition 30 prevailed. But remaining on the agenda was the separate proposal to raise tuition next year for more than 50 graduate and professional degree programs in such areas as business, dentistry, law and social work.

Under the plan, the so-called professional degree supplemental tuition would have increased from 1.2% to 35%, depending on the campus and department. Most would have been 7% or lower.

Those supplemental fees are in addition to the basic $12,192 tuition. For example, the proposal would have raised the supplemental fee at UCLA's graduate business program to $28,052, an increase of $1,626; total tuition for that program would have been $40,244 a year.

The graduate nursing program at UC Irvine would have gone up to $10,440 with the supplemental fee, a $2,700 increase; total tuition would have been $22,632 under the plan.

According to a UC statement released Tuesday, the governor asked for "additional time to allow him to develop a better understanding of the policies and methodology" of the graduate and professional school charges.

carla.rivera@latimes.com

Times staff writer Larry Gordon contributed to this report.

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Afghan Warlord Ismail Khan’s Call to Arms Rattles Kabul

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Mujahedeen commanders at a gathering in Herat, Afghanistan, to address the threat to security posed by the Taliban.

HERAT, Afghanistan — One of the most powerful mujahedeen commanders in Afghanistan, Ismail Khan, is calling on his followers to reorganize and defend the country against the Taliban as Western militaries withdraw, in a public demonstration of faltering confidence in the national government and the Western-built Afghan National Army.

Mr. Khan is one of the strongest of a group of warlords who defined the country’s recent history in battling the Soviets, the Taliban and one another, and who then were brought into President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet as a symbol of unity. Now, in announcing that he is remobilizing his forces, Mr. Khan has rankled Afghan officials and stoked fears that other regional and factional leaders will follow suit and rearm, weakening support for the government and increasing the likelihood of civil war.

This month, Mr. Khan rallied thousands of his supporters in the desert outside Herat, the cultured western provincial capital and the center of his power base, urging them to coordinate and reactivate their networks. And he has begun enlisting new recruits and organizing district command structures.

“We are responsible for maintaining security in our country and not letting Afghanistan be destroyed again,” Mr. Khan, the minister of energy and water, said at a news conference over the weekend at his office in Kabul. But after facing criticism, he took care not to frame his action as defying the government: “There are parts of the country where the government forces cannot operate, and in such areas the locals should step forward, take arms and defend the country.”

President Karzai and his aides, however, were not greeting it as an altruistic gesture. The governor of Herat Province called Mr. Khan’s reorganization an illegal challenge to the national security forces. And Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, tersely criticized Mr. Khan.

“The remarks by Ismail Khan do not reflect the policies of the Afghan government,” Mr. Faizi said. “The government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not want any irresponsible armed grouping outside the legitimate security forces structures.”

In Kabul, Mr. Khan’s provocative actions have played out in the news media and brought a fierce reaction from some members of Parliament, who said the warlords were preparing to take advantage of the American troop withdrawal set for 2014.

“People like Ismail Khan smell blood,” Belqis Roshan, a senator from Farah Province, said in an interview. “They think that as soon as foreign forces leave Afghanistan, once again they will get the chance to start a civil war, and achieve their ominous goals of getting rich and terminating their local rivals.”

Indeed, Mr. Khan’s is not the only voice calling for a renewed alliance of the mujahedeen against the Taliban, and some of the others are just as familiar.

Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik commander who is President Karzai’s first vice president, said in a speech in September, “If the Afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, then call upon the mujahedeen.”

Another prominent mujahedeen fighter, Ahmad Zia Massoud, said in an interview at his home in Kabul that people were worried about what was going to happen after 2014, and he was telling his own followers to make preliminary preparations.

“They don’t want to be disgraced again,” Mr. Massoud said. “Everyone tries to have some sort of Plan B. Some people are on the verge of rearming.”

He pointed out that it was significant that the going market price of Kalashnikov assault rifles had risen to about $1,000, driven up by demand from a price of $300 a decade ago. “Every household wants to have an AK-47 at home,” he said.

“The mujahedeen come here to meet me,” Mr. Massoud added. “They tell me they are preparing. They are trying to find weapons. They come from villages, from the north of Afghanistan, even some people from the suburbs of Kabul, and say they are taking responsibility for providing private security in their neighborhood.”

Habib Zahori and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Herat, Afghanistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul.

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Belize wants to quiz anti-computer virus guru McAfee in murder probe

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) – Police in Belize want to question U.S. anti-computer virus software pioneer John McAfee in connection with the murder of a neighbor he had been quarrelling with, but they say he remains a person of interest at this time and is not a suspect.

McAfee, who invented the anti-virus software that bears his name, has homes and businesses in Belize, and is believed to have settled in the country sometime around 2010.

“He is a person of interest at this time,” said Marco Vidal, head of Belize’s police Gang Suppression Unit. “It goes a bit beyond that, not just being a neighbor.”

Police officers were looking for the software engineer, said Miguel Segura, the assistant commissioner of police.

Asked if McAfee was a suspect, he said: “At this point, no. Our job … is to get all the evidence beyond reasonable doubt that Mr A is the one that killed Mr B.”

“He (McAfee) … can assist the investigation, so there is no arrest warrant for the fellow,” added Segura, who heads the Criminal Investigation Branch.

McAfee’s neighbor, Gregory Viant Faull, a 52-year-old American, was found on Sunday lying dead in a pool of blood after apparently being shot in the head.

McAfee has been embroiled in controversy in Belize before.

His premises were raided in May after he was accused of holding firearms, though most were found to be licensed. The final outcome of the case is pending.

McAfee also owns a security company in Belize as well as several properties and an ecological enterprise.

Reuters was unable to contact McAfee on Monday.

Segura said McAfee had been at odds with Faull for some time. He accused his neighbor of poisoning his dogs earlier this year and filed an official complaint.

“There was some conflict there between (them) … prior to the death of the gentleman,” Segura said. “But those dogs didn’t have a post mortem to see if the toxicology would confirm what type of poison, if any.”

McAfee previously accused the police Gang Suppression Unit of killing his dogs during the May raid.

McAfee was one of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to amass a fortune by building a business off the Internet.

The former Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in 1989, initially distributing its anti-virus software as “shareware” on Internet bulletin boards.

He took the company public in 1992 and left two years later following accusations that he had hyped the arrival of a virus known as Michelango, which turned out to be a dud, to scare computer users into buying his company’s products.

(Reporting by Simon Gardner and Gabriel Stargardter in Mexico City and Jim Finkle; Editing by Kieran Murray and Todd Eastham)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dancing with the Stars: Which Couple Had a Perfect Night?

11/12/2012 at 11:15 PM EST

Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke Charvet

Adam Larkey/ABC

After performing twice last week, the remaining couples on Dancing with the Stars had double duty again Monday night. Each pair performed a tribute to America's troops as well as a trio dance with an eliminated pro or member of the DWTS troupe.

And it was a night of big scores! But the pressure is on ahead of Tuesday's double elimination.

Keep reading for all the details ...

Melissa Rycroft and Tony Dovolani furthered their lead after a night of perfect dancing. In the first round, they performed a quickstep that earned a standing ovation from the audience and 30 points from the judges. "It was like watching Ann Miller and Gene Kelly," Bruno Tonioli said. "It was as good as the best America has ever produced." Troupe member Henry Byalikov joined them for a trio paso doble in the second round – and another perfect score. "Of all of our celebrities," said Len Goodman, "you impress me the most."

Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough's Viennese waltz at the beginning of the night was well received. "You've turned into a beautiful, rich, in-depth performer," Carrie Ann Inaba said. They earned 29.5 points in the first round. But their trio with former partner Mark Ballas, a samba with tribal elements, caused a controversy in the ballroom. "It was very self-indulgent because there was very little samba content," Len said. "If you go home tomorrow don't blame me, blame those two." The second dance earned 26 points.

Apolo Ohno zip-lined across the ballroom to kick off his tango with partner Karina Smirnoff. "It was like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible," Len said of the routine, which earned 29.5 points. "I absolutely loved it." For their trio the pair did a jive with troupe member Sasha Farber and earned another 29 points.

Gilles Marini and Peta Murgatroyd's quickstep to "Danger Zone" from Top Gun had a "few wobbles," according to Carrie Ann. Still, they earned 29.5 points. In the second round of competition, the pair performed a super sexy salsa with Chelsie Hightower. "I loved how you came out and you took control of the dance floor," Carrie Ann said of the routine, which earned them 29 more points.

Kelly Monaco proved she's "growing every week," according to Carrie Ann, who praised her 28-point Viennese waltz with Val Chmerkovskiy. Louis Van Amstel joined them for a trio jive in round two. "It had the F-factor," Len said of the 28.5-point routine. "It was fun, it was fast, it was flamboyant and it was fabulous."

Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke started off the night with a 28-point salsa that had Len saying, "This man puts the 'ooh' in smooth." Kym Johnson joined them at the end of the night for a salsa that earned a perfect 30 points. "You were in the red-hot, spicy jalapeño zone," Carrie Ann said.

Once again at the bottom are Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who performed a Viennese waltz, which Len called their "very best dance," but earned just 27 points. Tristan MacManus joined them for a trio paso doble that Bruno said was "like watching Valley of the Dolls." "It did lack a bit of finesse," Len agreed. Their second routine scored just 24 points.

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British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

____

Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

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Some thoughts from pot-smoking skaters

Well, they've finally done it. The potheads will soon be running wild and free in Boulder and Seattle.

By becoming the first states to legalize recreational marijuana last week, Colorado and Washington have jettisoned the whole mishmash of medical marijuana cards and dispensary permits that have tied California up in knots. How did they pull that off ahead of us? We gave the world the Emerald Triangle, not to mention a West Los Angeles skate park some clueless bureaucrat named Stoner Skate Plaza.

Is this the beginning of the end to the second great American Prohibition? Or a fluke?

For answers, I turned to a panel of experts at the Lafayette Skate Park in Westlake. The skater punks were sitting on a park bench beneath the palm trees, smoking blunts and swishers (weed packed into cigar papers) and sipping 40s of malt liquor.

In front of them, other skaters practiced kickflips and popping ollies on ledges, steps and a star-shaped ramp wrapped in concrete. Overhead, dozens of sneakers dangled by their laces from a power line, trophies, they informed me, not of drugs or gangs but of their skating prowess.

The skaters were well aware of Colorado's and Washington's electoral feat. But after the initial cries of "very cool" and "road trip to Colorado" died down, it became clear that the skaters were as ambivalent about throwing our state wide open to the demon weed as the rest of California. Most of them already get their marijuana from dispensaries. They insisted they got their cards for legitimate medical conditions: migraines, insomnia, attention deficit disorder, skating injuries.

Robert, whose bottom lip was pierced with several black beads, said he gets his weed from a homie whose doctor recommended it for pain from a broken arm.

"He wasn't even a smoker," Robert said.

Leslie, in dreadlocks and a charcoal hoodie, said he didn't bother renewing his card this year because he also has a friend who shares.

"He smokes me out," he said. "I give him $10 every once in a while."

In the same breath, the skaters admitted their smoking was mostly recreational, a social thing. Marijuana is healthier than tobacco or alcohol — but not if you get addicted, they qualified.

"People stop doing what they normally do and just smoke weed," Kevin said.

The smokers were ages 18 to 21. To a man, they said they'd never help a kid get weed.

Well, when did you start? I asked. One after another, they answered. "I was 14." "14." "14."

But they have the same distaste for pushing drugs on children as the next guy.

"Just because I did it, you still have feelings for other people." Kevin said.

Even after I pointed out that the state had decriminalized possession of small amounts, they insisted that most of the people in California prisons were there for marijuana possession. No one but me seemed to be worried about putting potheads behind the wheel.

I tried to ask if they'd seen the Cheech and Chong movie in which police find the comics oblivious and stalled on a traffic island in a cloud of smoke? But Michael insisted that weed helped him concentrate while driving.

They would only concede that marijuana can make it more likely that "stupid people do stupid things," like texting while driving.

"Smoking just makes it easier for that person to get distracted," Leslie said.

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The New Islamists: Tunisia Battles Over Pulpits and a Revolution’s Legacy

Moises Saman for The New York Times

Female students at the Grand Mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia, a site of anti-Western sermons.

KAIROUAN, Tunisia — On the Friday after Tunisia’s president fell, Mohamed al-Khelif mounted the pulpit of this city’s historic Grand Mosque to deliver a full-throttle attack on the country’s corrupt culture, to condemn its close ties with the West and to demand that a new constitution implement Shariah, or Islamic law.

Articles in this series are exploring the rise of political Islam in the Middle East, as Islamic movements struggle to remake the Arab world.

Moises Saman for The New York Times

Mohamed al-Khelif, who at the Grand Mosque in Kairouan has attacked Tunisian ties with the West and demanded Islamic law.

“They’ve slaughtered Islam!” thundered Dr. Khelif, whom the ousted government had barred from preaching for 20 years. “Whoever fights Islam and implements Western plans becomes in the eyes of Western politicians a blessed leader and a reformer, even if he was the most criminal leader with the dirtiest hands.”

Mosques across Tunisia blazed with similar sermons that day and, indeed, every Friday since, in what has become the battle of the pulpit, a heated competition to define Tunisia’s religious and political identity.

Revolution freed the country’s estimated 5,000 officially sanctioned mosques from the rigid controls of the previous government, which appointed every prayer leader and issued lists of acceptable topics for their Friday sermons.

That system pushed a moderate, apolitical model of Islam that avoided confronting a dictator. When the system collapsed last year, ultraconservative Salafis seized control of up to 500 mosques by government estimates. The government, a proponent of a more temperate political Islam, says it has since wrested back control of all but 70 of the mosques, but acknowledges it has not yet routed the extremists nor thwarted their agenda.

“Before, the state suffocated religion — they controlled the imams, the sermons, the mosques,” said Sheik Tai’eb al-Ghozzi, the Friday Prayer leader at the Grand Mosque here. “Now everything is out of control — the situation is better but needs control.”

To this day, Salafi clerics like Dr. Khelif, who espouse the most puritanical, most orthodox interpretation of Islam, hammer on favorite themes that include putting Islamic law into effect immediately, veiling women, outlawing alcohol, shunning the West and joining the jihad in Syria. Democracy, they insist, is not compatible with Islam.

“If the majority is ignorant of religious instruction, then they are against God,” said Sheik Khatib al-Idrissi, 60, considered the spiritual guide of all Tunisian Salafis. “If the majority is corrupt, how can we accept them? Truth is in the governance of God.”

The battle for Tunisia’s mosques is one front in a broader struggle, as pockets of extremism take hold across the region. Freshly minted Islamic governments largely triumphed over their often fractious, secular rivals in postrevolutionary elections. But those new governments are locked in fierce, sometimes violent, competition with the more hard-line wing of the Islamic political movements over how much of the faith can mix with democracy, over the very building blocks of religious identity. That competition is especially significant in Tunisia, once the most secular of the Arab nations, with a large educated middle class and close ties to Europe.

The Arab Spring began in Tunisia, and its ability to reconcile faith and governance may well serve as a barometer for the region.

Some analysts link the assertive Tunisian Salafi movement to what they consider a worrying spread of violent extremism across North Africa — including an affiliate of Al Qaeda seizing control of northern Mali; a murderous attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya; a growing jihadi force facing Israel in the Sinai; and a mob looting an American school and parts of the United States Embassy in Tunis.

Senior government officials said the various groups share an ideology and are in contact with one another, suggesting that while they are scattered and do not coordinate their operations, they reinforce one another’s agendas. There have been several episodes of jihadists caught smuggling small arms from Libya to Mali or Algeria across Tunisia, for example, including two small trucks packed with Kalashnikovs and some manner of shoulder-fired missiles or grenades in June, said Ali Laarayedh, the interior minister.

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Tori Spelling Introduces Son Finn Davey

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

11/11/2012 at 08:00 PM ET

Michael Simon/Startraks

Meet Finn Davey McDermott!

Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott introduce their fourth child, posing inside the 10-week-old’s nursery in a set of recently released photos.

After a difficult pregnancy that included hospitalization and bedrest due to placenta previa, the actress delivered her son via c-section at 37 weeks.

“I would rub my belly and talk to Finn. I kept telling him, ‘We’re going to be fine’ and ‘I can’t wait to hold you,’” Spelling, 39, tells PEOPLE.

Now happy and healthy at home, Finn joins siblings Hattie, 13 months, Stella, 4, and Liam, 5½, as well as Jack, 14, McDermott’s son from a prior marriage.

Check back Monday, when PEOPLE.com will have an exclusive look at all of Finn’s nursery details.

Michael Simon/Startraks

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Food labels multiply, some confuse consumers

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Want to avoid pesticides and antibiotics in your produce, meat, and dairy foods? Prefer to pay more to make sure farm animals were treated humanely, farmworkers got their lunch breaks, bees or birds were protected by the farmer and that ranchers didn't kill predators?

Food labels claim to certify a wide array of sustainable practices. Hundreds of so-called eco-labels have cropped up in recent years, with more introduced every month — and consumers are willing to pay extra for products that feature them.

While eco-labels can play a vital role, experts say their rapid proliferation and lack of oversight or clear standards have confused both consumers and producers.

"Hundreds of eco labels exist on all kinds of products, and there is the potential for companies and producers to make false claims," said Shana Starobin, a food label expert at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment.

Eco-labels have multiplied in recent years in response to rising consumer demand for more information about products and increased attention to animal and farmworker welfare, personal health, and the effects of conventional farming on the environment.

"Credible labels can be very helpful in helping people get to what they want to get to and pay more for something they really care about," said Urvashi Rangan, director of consumer safety at Consumer Reports. "The labels are a way to bring the bottom up and force whole industries to improve their practices."

The problem, Rangan and other said, is that few standards, little oversight and a lot of misinformation exist for the growing array of labels.

Some labels, such as the USDA organic certification, have standards set by the federal government to which third party certifiers must adhere. Some involve non-government standards and third-party certification, and may include site visits from independent auditors who evaluate whether a given farm or company has earned the label.

But other labels have little or no standards, or are certified by unknown organizations or by self-interested industry groups. Many labels lack any oversight.

And the problem is global, because California's products get sold overseas and fruits and vegetables from Europe or Mexico with their own eco-labels make it onto U.S. plates.

The sheer number of labels and the lack of oversight create a credibility problem and risk rendering all labels meaningless and diluting demand for sustainably produced goods, Rangan said.

Daniel Mourad of Fresno, a young professional who likes to cook and often shops for groceries at Whole Foods, said he tends to be wary of judging products just by the labels — though sustainable practices are important to him.

"Labels have really confused the public. Some have good intentions, but I don't know if they're really helpful," Mourad said. "Organic may come from Chile, but what does it mean if it's coming from 6,000 miles away? Some local farmers may not be able to afford a label."

In California, voters this week rejected a ballot measure that would have required labels on foods containing genetically modified ingredients.

Farmers like Gena Nonini in Fresno County say labels distinguish them from the competition. Nonini's 100-acre Marian Farms, which grows grapes, almonds, citrus and vegetables, is certified biodynamic and organic, and her raisins are certified kosher.

"For me, the certification is one way of educating people," Nonini said. "It opens a venue to tell a story and to set yourself apart from other farmers out there."

But other farmers say they are reluctant to spend money on yet another certification process or to clutter their product with too much packaging and information.

"I think if we keep adding all these new labels, it tends to be a pile of confusion," said Tom Willey of TD Willey Farms in Madera, Calif. His 75-acre farm, which grows more than 40 different vegetable crops, carries USDA organic certification, but no other labels.

The proliferation of labels, Willey said, is a poor substitute for "people being intimate with the farmers who grow their food." Instead of seeking out more labels, he said, consumers should visit a farmers' market or a farm, and talk directly to the grower.

Since that's still impossible for many urbanites, Consumer Reports has developed a rating system, a database and a web site for evaluating environmental and food labels — one of several such guides that have popped up recently to help consumers.

The guides show that labels such as "natural" and "free range" carry little meaning, because they lack clear standards or a verification system.

Despite this, consumers are willing to pay more for "free range" eggs and poultry, and studies show they value "natural" over "organic," which is governed by lengthy federal regulations.

But some consumers and watchdog groups are becoming more vigilant.

In October, the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against Petaluma, Calif., organic egg producer of Judy's Eggs over "free range" claims. The company's packaging depicts a hen ranging on green grass, and the inside reads "these hens are raised in wide open spaces in Sonoma Valley..."

Aerial photos of the farm suggest the chickens actually live in factory-style sheds, according to the lawsuit. Judy and Steve Mahrt, owners of Petaluma Farms, said in a statement that the suit is "frivolous, unfair and untrue," but they did not comment on the specific allegations.

Meanwhile, new labels are popping up rapidly. The Food Justice label, certified via third party audits, guarantees a farm's commitment to fair living wages and adequate living and working conditions for farmworkers. And Wildlife Friendly, another third-party audited program, certifies farmers and ranchers who peacefully co-exist with wolves, coyotes, foxes and other predators.

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Follow Gosia Wozniacka at http://twitter.com/GosiaWozniacka

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Bethel AME Church in San Francisco rejects new pastor from L.A.

SAN FRANCISCO — In an unprecedented move, officials of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black pulpit in the city, have rejected the troubled Los Angeles pastor assigned to lead its flock.

The Rev. John J. Hunter was recently transferred from First AME, one of the nation's most prominent black churches, after an eight-year tenure marred by a sexual harassment lawsuit, a federal tax investigation and the questionable use of church credit cards.

Hunter was slated to make his pastoral debut at Bethel AME this month, but church officials drafted an emergency resolution barring him from taking control. They said the assignment could "impair the legacy, reputation, relationships and goodwill" of the church in the community.

When Hunter, cloaked in his white pastor robe and carrying his Bible, showed up at the church Nov. 4 ready to preach, church officials said, they confronted him in the foyer and demanded that he produce the signed declaration from Bishop T. Larry Kirkland stating his new assignment.

Hunter did not have a copy of the declaration and church officials blocked him from taking the pulpit.

The rejection — unheard of in the AME denomination — pits the small, 650-member congregation against the executive orders of Kirkland and has many churchgoers questioning the ramifications of their protest.

Neither Hunter nor Kirkland could be reached Sunday for comment.

Church officials fear that Hunter's blemished reputation would upend a multimillion-dollar business deal in the works. Some say the deal, which officials declined to detail, would unravel if lenders learned of Hunter's questionable financial transactions.

"That's how much weight his reputation carries," said one senior church official who asked not to be identified for fear of punishment if Hunter were to be seated as pastor.

In 2008, Hunter acknowledged using First AME's credit cards for $122,000 in personal expenditures on items including suits, jewelry, vacations and auto supplies. A year later, the Internal Revenue Service said he owed more than $300,000 in back taxes. Hunter has said he repaid both debts.

Additionally, members worry that Bethel AME might lose the good reputation it earned under the leadership of its former pastor, the Rev. J. Edgar Boyd, who served the church for more than 20 years.

Boyd was promoted to take the helm of First AME, a church that boasts a membership of 19,000. There, he was welcomed with open arms.

For years, critics of Hunter complained that he was inaccessible, overspent on personal security and refused to live in the South L.A. community where he preached. They said the church's membership, tithing and its activist profile declined during Hunter's tenure.

Hunter was appointed in 2004 to lead First AME, which had been led by the Rev. Cecil L. "Chip" Murray, a legendary pastor who propelled the church into a civic, social and political powerhouse. It became a regular stop for Democratic political candidates over the years, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore and President Obama.

After Hunter's transfer to Bethel AME was announced Oct. 28, members worried about his past.

It took Hunter days to formally introduce himself to church officials, further exacerbating the congregation's concerns about the pastor.

By the time Hunter landed in San Francisco on Nov. 3, his fate with the church was sealed. A driver picked up Hunter and his young daughter, Jaden, at the airport. They were dropped off downtown, where more than a dozen church officials greeted them. Hunter was handed a copy of the resolution, stating that members had rejected his appointment and demanded that Kirkland create a conciliation committee to "review the charges, issues and concerns" raised, church officials said.

"You could've emailed or faxed this to me," a stunned Hunter responded, according to church officials. Hunter said he would not preach where he was not wanted. The next morning, church members said they stood on the steps of Bethel AME on Laguna Avenue an hour before the early morning service to block Hunter from entering. Hunter was not present when the service began at 8 a.m.

Thirty minutes later, Hunter and a bodyguard bypassed the lone guard who monitors the front entrance, church members said. Officials said that when they blocked Hunter from the pulpit, his demeanor shifted.

"He was loud and boisterous," said one member who declined to be identified because the issues surrounding Hunter's assignment had not been resolved. "Not the temperament of a pastor."

Congregants in the church held hands and prayed.

Hunter left and has had little contact since then with church members. When Kirkland learned about the confrontation, he flew to San Francisco to admonish the congregation for making judgments about Hunter.

"This could be looked at as an embarrassment," he told members.

But the congregation remains firm in its decision. On Sunday, members said they were ready to walk out if Hunter showed up. The presiding elder, the Rev. W. Bartalette Finney Sr., delivered the sermon for the roughly 100 people who turned out for two morning services. He urged members to focus on their spiritual relationship with God and not the problems of the church.

"Bethel, you have lost your first love," he said in a deep, throaty baritone. "You have lost your pastor. But you didn't lose Jesus."

angel.jennings@latimes.com

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