Police search for Nordstrom Rack robbers who took hostages

Los Angeles police continued to search for armed suspects who took 14 hostages at a Nordstrom Rack store in Westchester this week, brutally assaulting some of them.

Law enforcement sources said detectives were following several promising leads in tracking the suspects.

Several of the hostages -- all store employees -- were hurt in the incident. But their injuries were not life-threatening, and by Friday afternoon the victims had all been treated and released.

The gunmen apparently stormed the store about 10 p.m. Thursday, as it was closing.

Two employees hid in a restroom, authorities said. The gunmen herded the rest into another restroom on the third level, according to dispatch audio posted on the Venice 311 server. There, at least two employees were told to strip.

One woman was dragged to a separate room, where she was sexually assaulted, police said. A second woman was stabbed in the neck, police said, and a third hostage was pistol-whipped.

After officers arrived, a vehicle with tinted windows and its headlights off sped out of the parking garage. The driver wore a black hoodie and the passenger a white T-shirt, according to dispatch recordings.

"White SUV! White SUV! White Ford Explorer!" an officer barked. "High rate of speed leaving the parking lot!"

"Go pursue that vehicle!" another officer said.

They did, to no avail.

"We lost sight of that vehicle," an officer said over the radio. "We're going on the 405 north. I need other units to try Sepulveda. We don't know where vehicle is now."

The suspects had apparently escaped — though officers didn't know that at the time and waited to move into the store. They called in a SWAT team, which arrived about 1 a.m. The mall remained on lockdown — stranding at least 200 moviegoers at the cineplex.

Simeon Campbell, 26, and two of his friends had gone to the 10 p.m. showing of "A Haunted House."

"It was funny until we got out," he said.

Theater employees told them the mall had been closed off but did not explain why. Some moviegoers were escorted to the second floor, where Campbell looked out a window.

"It became real when I saw the SWAT team," he said.

Some moviegoers munched on popcorn that theater employees handed out. Others tried to nap. Campbell paced, his head throbbing and his stomach in knots.

"What if they run in here? What if they have accomplices?" he said he thought.

The wait ended sometime before 3 a.m., when some of the Nordstrom hostages called 911, described their injuries and asked for medical aid, according to dispatch recordings.

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Obama won't support building 'Death Star'

WASHINGTON (AP) — A "Death Star" won't be a part of the U.S. military's arsenal any time soon.

More than 34,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the Obama administration to build the "Star Wars" inspired super-weapon to spur job growth and bolster national defense.

But in a posting Friday on the White House website, Paul Shawcross, an administration adviser on science and space, says a Death Star would cost too much to build — an estimated $850 quadrillion — at a time the White House is working to reduce the federal budget.

Besides, Shawcross says, the Obama administration "does not support blowing up planets."

The U.S., Shawcross points out, is already involved in several out-of-this-world projects, including the International Space Station, which is currently orbiting Earth with a half-dozen astronauts.

___

Online:

White House response to petition: http://tinyurl.com/asd565g

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Former Lab Technician Denies Faulty DNA Work in Rape Cases

A former New York City laboratory technician whose work on rape cases is now being scrutinized for serious mistakes said on Friday that she had been unaware there were problems in her work and, disputing an earlier report, denied she had resigned under pressure.

The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else’s.

“My work?” Ms. Mitchell said. “No, no, no, not my work.”

Earlier, the city medical examiner’s office, where Ms. Mitchell said she was employed from 2000 to 2011, said it was reviewing 843 rape cases handled by a lab technician who might have missed critical evidence.

So far, it has finished looking over about half the cases, and found 26 in which the technician had missed biological evidence and 19 in which evidence was commingled with evidence from other cases. In seven cases where evidence was missed, the medical examiner’s office was able to extract a DNA profile, raising the possibility that detectives could have caught some suspects sooner.

The office declined to identify the technician. Documents said she quit in November 2011 after the office moved to fire her, once supervisors had begun to discover deficiencies in her work. A city official who declined to be identified said Ms. Mitchell was the technician.

However, Ms. Mitchell, reached at her home in the Bronx on Friday, said she had never been told there were problems. “It couldn’t be me because your work gets checked,” she said. “You have supervisors.”

She also said that she had resigned because of a rotator cuff injury that impeded her movement. “I loved the job so much that I stayed a little longer,” she said, explaining that she had not expected to stay with the medical examiner’s office so long. “Then it was time to leave.”

Also on Friday, the Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal defense lawyers for most of the city’s poor defendants, said it was demanding that the city turn over information about the cases under review.

If needed, Legal Aid will sue the city to gain access to identifying information about the cases, its chief lawyer, Steven Banks, said, noting that New York was one of only 14 states that did not require routine disclosure of criminal evidence before trial.

Disclosure of the faulty examination of the evidence is prompting questions about outside review of the medical examiner’s office. The City Council on Friday announced plans for an emergency oversight committee, and its members spoke with outrage about the likelihood that missed semen stains and “false negatives” might have enabled rapists to go unpunished.

“The mishandling of rape cases is making double victims of women who have already suffered an indescribably horrific event,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

A few more details emerged Friday about a 2001 case involving the rape of a minor in Brooklyn, in which the technician missed biological evidence, the review found. The victim accused an 18-year-old acquaintance of forcing himself on her, and he was questioned by the police but not charged, according to a law enforcement official.

Unrelated to the rape, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to third-degree robbery and served two years in prison. The DNA sample he gave in the robbery case was matched with the one belatedly developed from evidence the technician had overlooked in the 2001 rape, law enforcement officials said. He was recently indicted in the 2001 rape.

Especially alarming to defense lawyers was the possibility that DNA samples were cross-contaminated and led to false convictions, or could do so in the future.

“Up to this point,” Mr. Banks said, “they have not made information available to us, as the primary defender in New York City, to determine whether there’s an injustice that’s been done in past cases, pending cases, or allowing us to be on the lookout in future cases.” He added, “If it could happen with one analyst, how does anyone know that it stops there?”

The medical examiner’s office has said that the risk of cross-contamination was extremely low and that it does not appear that anyone was wrongly convicted in the cases that have been reviewed so far. And officials in at least two of the city’s district attorneys’ offices — for Brooklyn and Manhattan — said they had not found any erroneous convictions.

But Mr. Banks said the authorities needed to do more, and that their statements thus far were the equivalent of “trust us.”

“Given what’s happened,” he said, “that’s cold comfort.”

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Madonna's Beverly Hills mansion materializes for sale

Hot Property columnist Lauren Beale talks with real estate agent Kofi Nartey of the Agency in Beverly Hills.

As a sign she may be getting serious about selling, Madonna has put her mansion in Beverly Hills up for sale in the Multiple Listing Service at $22.5 million. The property was being shown privately last year as a pocket listing, area real estate agents reported.

During her nearly decade of ownership, the pop icon rebuilt and expanded the estate, completing it in 2010. The gabled-roofed behemoth sits behind gates on 1.17 acres of landscaped grounds. The compound, accessed by a 500-foot tree-lined driveway, includes a nine-bedroom main house, two guesthouses, a resort-size swimming pool and a tennis court. There is a two-story dining room, a gym, a theater/screening room, an art studio, a bar and 17,000 square feet of living space.

The singer-songwriter, 54, is one of the best-selling female recording artists of all time. Among her hit songs are "Vogue," "Borderline" and "Material Girl."

The property is listed with Barry Peele of Sotheby's International Realty in Beverly Hills, and his partner, Andrew Clark, of the same firm.

Malibu sets an early 2013 record

Topping Los Angeles-area home sales in 2012 and setting the high-water mark for this year, a 9.5-acre estate in Malibu owned by billionaire Howard Marks and his wife, Nancy, has sold in the $75-million range in an off-market deal.

The exact sales price has not been disclosed. It can be several weeks or more before a transaction appears in the public records.

The property includes a 15,000-square-foot main house of eight bedrooms and 14 bathrooms, two guesthouses, a gym, a swimming pool and more than 300 feet of beachfront property.

Marks is chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, which he co-founded. The Los Angeles investment firm has owned about 23% of Tribune Co., whose media assets include the Los Angeles Times, since Tribune emerged from bankruptcy Dec. 31.

The Markses bought the home in 2002 for a reported $31 million. The seller was the estate of Herbalife founder Mark Hughes. They also bought an adjacent 2.5-acre property.

Fred J. Bernstein of Westside Estate Agency represented the sellers.

Home is now her old haunt

"Ghost Whisperer" star Jennifer Love Hewitt has sold a house in Toluca Lake for $2.15 million.

The traditional-style house, built in 1952, features a flexible floor plan, an office, six bedrooms, six bathrooms and 5,921 square feet of living space. The quarter-acre property has a swimming pool and a patio with a built-in bar.

Hewitt, 33, starred in the supernatural drama "Ghost Whisperer" from 2005 to 2010 and stars as a single mother and masseuse in "The Client List." She will be the executive producer of a modern version of "Pride and Prejudice" for Lifetime.

Public records show that the property was purchased in 1998 for $1.695 million. Hewitt owns another house on the same street.

Kathy Fisher of Gibson International was the listing agent. Fred Holley and Jana Jones-Duffy of Coldwell Banker's Beverly Hills South office represented the buyer.

'Partridge' star puts nest up for sale

Actress-singer Shirley Jones of "The Partridge Family" and her husband, comedian Marty Ingels, have listed their Encino home for sale at $2.1 million.

Described as ranch-style in the listing, the 5,400-square-foot house sits on nearly three-quarters of an acre with waterfalls, a swimming pool and gardens. Built in 1957, the home features two family rooms, an office, a game room, four bedrooms and six bathrooms. There are family room and master bedroom fireplaces.

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Southbound 5 Freeway at Grapevine reopened

Southbound Interstate 5 at the Grapevine was reopened Friday morning about 8 a.m. but the northbound lanes remained closed because of icy road conditions, the California Highway Patrol said.

Drivers were being escorted by CHP cruisers on the southbound side of the freeway as a precaution, officials said. CHP planned to escort cars on the northbound side Friday morning, but don't know what time that will begin.

The freeway was closed at the steep Grapevine grade Thursday afternoon as a cold winter storm pounded Southern California. 

Stranded motorists jammed hotels and parking lots of food outlets off Interstate 5 in Lebec on Thursday evening, trying to determine whether to wait out the reopening or find an alternate route. Truck drivers lined up along roadsides just off the freeway, near various food outlets.

At the Best Western Hotel in Lebec, which sold out of all rooms by early Thursday evening, many who were stranded crowded around tables in the breakfast room, watching the news and hoping for updates on the reopening of Interstate 5.

Tanya Viau said she sat for two hours on the freeway before being diverted off around 4:30 p.m. The deckhand for San Francisco ferries was headed from the Sacramento area to San Diego to visit her son, who had recently graduated.

"I felt fortunate to get a room," Viau said. "I've been driving this route for 30 years and this is the first time I've ever been stranded."

Jim McCluskey hurried out of the Best Western around 6:30 a.m. to try his luck getting onto the 58 Freeway and traversing the desert to try to get south. McCluskey had been headed to Castaic and turned up at the Best Western after being diverted from the freeway Thursday afternoon. 

"I've been stuck several times in the past, I'm used to it," he said.

Floyd Osborne and Dan Tobias, who were headed from Bakersfield to Lancaster, pored over computer maps to determine alternate routes.

Truck driver Samuel Watson, 23, said he arrived in Lebec around 1:30 p.m. Thursday and ended up getting stranded. He didn’t find out about the Grapevine being closed until he was already on the road from Ripon, Calif., to Torrance.

Watson ended up sleeping in the cab of his rig loaded with hazardous materials. He had extra warm clothing, adding he was always prepared and always had something to sleep on.

He was hoping to make it back to the Stockton area by Saturday to celebrate his 24th birthday.

Truck driver Ricardo Roman set out for an eight-hour trip from Sacramento and arrived in Lebec at 4 a.m. He was headed to Santa Fe Springs and was expected to make a delivery for Kohl’s department store at 8 a.m. Friday.

He said he had been in the trucking business for eight years and had enough clothes and food to get him through the ordeal.

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Sprint confirms it will launch BlackBerry 10 later this year

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Seattle bankruptcy hearing to decide Tully's sale

SEATTLE (AP) — The auction for beleaguered coffee company Tully's will likely conclude Friday in federal bankruptcy court, with an ownership group led by actor Patrick Dempsey in position to take over the chain. But Starbucks isn't' out of the running.

Dempsey — dubbed "McDreamy" in the "Grey's Anatomy" hospital TV drama — claimed victory last week after an auction.

But a company that teamed up with Starbucks to bid for the Tully's chain filed an objection Wednesday. AgriNurture Inc. says it's still willing to proceed with its combined bid with Starbucks of about $10.6 million. The bid from Dempsey's company, Global Baristas LLC, was for $9.2 million.

Tully's has 47 shops in Washington and California with more than 500 employees. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.

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The New Old Age Blog: Taking a Zen Approach to Caregiving

You try to help your elderly father. Irritated and defensive, he snaps at you instead of going along with your suggestion. And you think “this is so unfair” and feel a rising tide of anger.

How to handle situations like this, which arise often and create so much angst for caregivers?

Jennifer Block finds the answer in what she calls “contemplative caregiving” — the application of Buddhist principles to caregiving and the subject of a year-long course that starts at the San Francisco Zen Center in a few weeks.

This approach aims to cultivate compassion, both for older people and the people they depend on, said Ms. Block, 49, a Buddhist chaplain and the course’s lead instructor. She’s also the former director of education at the Zen Hospice project in San Francisco and founder of the Beyond Measure School for Contemplative Care, which is helping develop a new, Zen-inspired senior living community in the area.

I caught up with Ms. Block recently, and what follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Let’s start with your experience. Have you been a caregiver?

My experience in caregiving is as a professional providing spiritual care to individuals and families when they are facing and coping with aging and sickness and loss and dying, particularly in hospital and hospice settings.

What kinds of challenges have you witnessed?

People are for the most part unprepared for caregiving. They’re either untrained or unable to trust their own instincts. They lack confidence as well as knowledge. By confidence, I mean understanding and accepting that we don’t know all the answers – what to do, how to fix things.

This past weekend, I was on the phone with a woman who’d brought her mom to live near her in assisted living. The mom had been to the hospital the day before. My conversation with the daughter was about helping her see the truth that her mother needed more care and that was going to change the daughter’s responsibilities and her life. And also, her mother was frail, elderly, and coming nearer to death.

That’s hard, isn’t it?

Yes, because we live in a death-denying society. Also, we live in a fast-paced, demanding world that says don’t sit still — do something. But people receiving care often need most of all for us to spend time with them. When we do that, their mortality and our grief and our helplessness becomes closer to us and more apparent.

How can contemplative caregiving help?

We teach people to cultivate a relationship with aging, sickness and dying. To turn toward it rather than turning away, and to pay close attention. Most people don’t want to do this.

A person needs training to face what is difficult in oneself and in others. There are spiritual muscles we need to develop, just like we develop physical muscles in a gym. Also, the mind needs to be trained to be responsive instead of reactive.

What does that mean?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re trying to help your mother, and she says something off-putting to you like “you’ve always been terrible at keeping house. It’s no wonder you lost my pajamas.”

The first thing is to notice your experience. To become aware of that feeling, almost like being slapped emotionally. To notice your chest tightening.

Then I tell people to take a deep breath. And say something to themselves like “soften” to address that tightness. That’s how you can stay facing something uncomfortable rather than turning away.

If I were in this position, I might say something to myself like “hello unhappiness” or “hello suffering” or “hello aging” to tether myself.

The second step would be curiosity about that experience. Like, wow, where do I feel that anger that rose up in me, or that fear? Oh, it’s in my chest. I’m going to feel that, stay with it, investigate it.

Why is that important?

Because as we investigate something we come to understand it. And, paradoxically, when we pay attention to pain it changes. It softens. It moves. It lessens. It deepens. And we get to know it and learn not to be afraid of it or change it or fix it but just come alongside of it.

Over hours, days, months, years, the mind and heart come to know pain. And the response to pain is compassion — the wish for the alleviation of pain.

Let’s go back to what mother said about your housekeeping and the pajamas. Maybe you leave the room for five minutes so you can pay attention to your reaction and remember your training. Then, you can go back in and have a response rather than a reaction. Maybe something like “Mom, I think you’re right. I may not be the world’s best housekeeper. I’m sorry I lost your pajamas. It seems like you’re having a pretty strong response to that, and I’d like to know why it matters so much to you. What’s happening with you today?”

Are other skills important?

Another skill is to become aware of how much we receive as well as give in caregiving. Caregiving can be really gratifying. It’s an expression of our values and identity: the way we want the world to be. So, I try to teach people how this role benefits them. Such as learning what it’s like to be old. Or having a close, intimate relationship with an older parent for the first time in decades. It isn’t necessarily pleasant or easy. But the alternative is missing someone’s final chapter, and that can be a real loss.

What will you do in your course?

We’ll teach the principles of contemplative care and discuss them. We’ll have homework, such as ‘Bring me three examples of someone you were caring for who was caring toward you in return.’ That’s one way of practicing attention. And people will train in meditation.

We’ll also explore our own relationship to aging, sickness, dying and loss. We’ll tell our stories: this is the situation I was in, this is where I felt myself shut down, this was the edge of my comfort or knowledge. And we’ll teach principles from Buddhism. Equanimity. Compassion. Deep inner connectedness.

What can people do on their own?

Mindfulness training is offered in almost every city. That’s one of the core components of this approach.

I think every caregiver needs to have their own caregiver — a therapist or a colleague or a friend, someone who is there for them and with whom they can unburden themselves. I think of caregiving as drawing water from a well. We need to make sure that we have whatever nurtures us, whatever supplies that well. And often, that’s connecting with others.

Are other groups doing this kind of work?

In New York City, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care educates the public and professionals about contemplative care. And in New Mexico, the Upaya Zen Center does similar work, much of it centered around death and dying.

People who want to read about this might want to look at a new book of essays, “The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work” (Wisdom Publications, 2012).

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Best Buy shows improvement over holidays

Shares of Best Buy Co. jumped on Friday after the electronics chain showed signs of starting to reverse declining sales during the critical holiday selling season, a better-than-expected result.

Shares rose 12 percent during midday trading.

Best Buy has been facing tough competition from discounters and online retailers, as people browse electronics in stores and then go home to buy them more cheaply online, a practice known as "showrooming." To combat this, it has instituted a cost-cutting program, invested in more employee training and put an online price matching policy in place during the key holiday period of November and December. The holiday quarter accounted for about a third of Best Buy's revenue last year.

The chain said that revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.4 percent for the nine weeks ended Jan. 5. This figure is a key gauge of a retailer's health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

The company's U.S. performance was flat. While this was slightly below the 0.3 percent increase Best Buy reported a year ago, President and CEO Hubert Joly said in a statement that it was an better than the past several quarters.

Best Buy tapped Joly in August to help reverse its slide. Joly has made management changes, including hiring CFO Sharon McCollam in November, and embarked on a turnaround plan.

Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy said the results show that some of Best Buy's initiatives, such as increased employee training and online price matching, helped boost sales.

But he added that the company still faces bigger problems such as tough competition from sellers like Amazon.com and more and more vendors selling products to customers directly.

"Sales are incrementally positive, but Best Buy still faces an uphill battle with regard to its turnaround," he said.

Best Buy said that sales were strongest among cell phones, tablets, electronic readers and appliances, while sales of entertainment, televisions and computer-related items dropped.

Another encouraging sign was that online revenue rose 10 percent for the holiday period, bolstered by better traffic, an increase that shows that the chain is managing to grab its share of online buyers as well.

"While it will be a journey with ups and downs, we are focused on becoming an increasingly effective multi-channel retailer and engaging with the tens of millions of consumers who shop us online and in-store," Joly added.

Revenue at stores open at least a year declined 6.4 percent internationally, stung by softness in China and Canada.

Total revenue for the holiday period fell slightly to $12.8 billion from $12.9 billion.

Best Buy lost CEO Brian Dunn in April, after an investigation showed he had an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer.

That led to the departure of co-founder Richard Schulze, who knew about the relationship but didn't report it properly, the investigation found.

Schulze stepped down, but he has been considering making a bid for the company. That bid had not materialized by the end of 2012, although Best Buy has given Schulze more time to look over its books and arrange financing for an offer.

Best Buy shares rose $1.48, or 12 percent, to $13.69 during midday trading. That's still close to the low end of the stock's 52-week trading range of $11.20 to $27.95. The stock hit its lowest point of the year on Dec. 27, 2012.

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Irvine City Council overhauls oversight, spending on Great Park

Capping a raucous eight-hour-plus meeting, the Irvine City Council early Wednesday voted to overhaul the oversight and spending on the beleaguered Orange County Great Park while authorizing an audit of the more than $220 million that so far has been spent on the ambitious project.

A newly elected City Council majority voted 3 to 2 to terminate contracts with two firms that had been paid a combined $1.1 million a year for consulting, lobbying, marketing and public relations. One of those firms — Forde & Mollrich public relations — has been paid $12.4 million since county voters approved the Great Park plan in 2002.

"We need to stop talking about building a Great Park and actually start building a Great Park," council member Jeff Lalloway said.

The council, by the same split vote, also changed the composition of the Great Park's board of directors, shedding four non-elected members and handing control to Irvine's five council members.

The actions mark a significant turning point in the decade-long effort to turn the former El Toro Marine base into a 1,447-acre municipal park with man-made canyons, rivers, forests and gardens that planners hoped would rival New York's Central Park.

The city hoped to finish and maintain the park for years to come with $1.4 billion in state redevelopment funds. But that money vanished last year as part of the cutbacks to deal with California's massive budget deficit.

"We've gone through $220 million, but where has it gone?" council member Christina Shea said of the project's initial funding from developers in exchange for the right to build around the site. "The fact of the matter is the money is almost gone. It can't be business as usual."

The council majority said the changes will bring accountability and efficiencies to a project that critics say has been larded with wasteful spending and no-bid contracts. For all that has been spent, only about 200 acres of the park has been developed and half of that is leased to farmers.

But council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who have steered the course of the project since its inception, voted against reconfiguring the Great Park's board of directors and canceling the contracts with the two firms.

Krom has called the move a "witch hunt" against her and Agran. Feuding between liberal and conservative factions on the council has long shaped Irvine politics.

"This is a power play," she said. "There's a new sheriff in town."

The council meeting stretched long into the night, with the final vote coming Wednesday at 1:34 a.m. Tensions were high in the packed chambers with cheering, clapping and heckling coming from the crowd.

At one point council member Lalloway lamented that he "couldn't hear himself think."

During public comments, newly elected Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer chastised the council for "fighting like schoolchildren." Earlier this week he said that if the Irvine's new council majority can't make progress on the Great Park, he would seek a ballot initiative to have the county take over.

And Spitzer angrily told Agran that his stewardship of the project had been a failure.

"You know what?" he said. "It's their vision now. You're in the minority."

mike.anton@latimes.com

rhea.mahbubani@latimes.com

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Is BlackBerry back? Strong early BlackBerry 10 demand could signal RIM comeback

After hitting a rough patch that seemed to last for most of 2012, Research In Motion (RIMM) may finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. RIM plans to unveil the finished version of its next-generation BlackBerry 10 platform at a press conference on January 30th, and at least one new smartphone is expected to be revealed during the event. Generating interest in BlackBerry 10 within the crowded global smartphone market will be no easy task for the struggling vendor, but if demand at top Canadian Rogers is any indication, RIM is off to a promising start.

[More from BGR: ‘Apple is done’ and Surface tablet is cool, according to teens]

In mid-December, Rogers began taking reservations for RIM’s first BlackBerry 10-powered handset. The carrier offered almost no information about the BlackBerry smartphone, which has not yet been announced, but asked subscribers interested in purchasing the device to register on the company’s website.

[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $ 45 Straight Talk plan]

BGR approached Rogers on Thursday to see how subscriber response has been thus far.

“While we can’t release the total number of reservations we have received for the BlackBerry 10 all-touch device, we can say that customer interest is definitely strong and reservations continue daily,” a RIM spokesperson told BGR via email.

The strong response from Rogers subscribers despite being provided only with the knowledge that the device will feature an all-touch form factor and will run the BlackBerry 10 OS is a good sign for RIM.

The vendor has a number of difficult challenges ahead, and convincing current BlackBerry users to upgrade en masse is near the top of the list. Strong early demand at Rogers for RIM’s first BlackBerry 10 handset is clearly a positive sign in this regard, as most early reservations likely came from current BlackBerry subscribers.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Lincoln' leads Oscars with 12 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Steven Spielberg has matched his personal best at the Academy Awards: 12 nominations for his Civil War saga "Lincoln," including best picture, director and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

That ties the 12 nominations for his 1993 drama "Schindler's List," which won seven Oscars, including best picture and director.

Also among the nine nominees for best picture Thursday: the old-age love story "Amour"; the Iran hostage thriller "Argo"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the musical "Les Miserables"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook"; and the Osama bin Laden manhunt chronicle "Zero Dark Thirty."

"Life of Pi" surprisingly ran second with 11 nominations, ahead of "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Les Miserables," which had been considered potential front-runners.

"I thought we'd get a few, so this is really great for us," said "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee. "Eleven really surprised me. But it's a good surprise. I'm very happily surprised."

More surprising were snubs in the directing category, where three favorites missed out: Ben Affleck for "Argo" and past Oscar winners Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Tom Hooper for "Les Miserables." Bigelow was the first woman ever the win the directing Oscar for 2009's "The Hurt Locker," while Hooper won a year later for "The King's Speech."

The best-picture category also had surprising omissions. The acclaimed first-love tale "Moonrise Kingdom" was left out and only got one nomination, for original screenplay. Also snubbed for best-picture was "The Master," a critical favorite that did manage three acting nominations, for Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Two-time winner Spielberg earned his seventh directing nomination, and also in the mix are past winner Lee for "Life of Pi" and past nominee David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook." The other slots went to surprise picks who are first-time nominees: Michael Haneke for his French-language "Amour" and Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Oscar directing contenders often are identical or at least usually line up closely with those for the Directors Guild of America Awards. But only Spielberg and Lee made both lists this time. The Directors Guild also nominated Affleck, Bigelow and Hooper, but not Haneke, Russell or Zeitlin.

Haneke's "Amour" also was a best-picture surprise. The film, which won the top prize at last May's Cannes Film Festival, mainly had been considered a favorite in the foreign-language category, where it also was nominated. "Amour" had five nominations, including original screenplay and best-actress for Emmanuelle Riva.

"It is fulfilling to discover that a film has found the audience and critical acclaim that 'Amour' has garnered," Haneke said. "I have been very fortunate on both those fronts, but it is especially rewarding to discover that a film has found favor among one's industry peers who know, in particular, the effort that goes into getting a film — any film — made."

The year's second-biggest box-office hit, "The Dark Knight Rises," was shut out entirely, even for visual effects. The omission of its predecessor, "The Dark Knight," from best-picture consideration for 2008 was largely responsible for the expansion of the Oscar category from five nominees to 10 the following year. "The Dark Knight" had earned eight nominations and won two Oscars.

Chronicling Abraham Lincoln's final months as he engineers passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, "Lincoln" stars best-actor contender Day-Lewis in a monumental performance as the 16th president, supporting-actress nominee Field as the notoriously headstrong Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting-actor prospect Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Joining Day-Lewis in the best-actor field are Bradley Cooper as a psychiatric patient trying to get his life back together in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hugh Jackman as Victor Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables"; Phoenix as a Navy vet who falls in with a cult in "The Master"; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."

Cooper had been a bit of a longshot. John Hawkes, a potential best-actor favorite, missed out for his role as a man in an iron lung aiming to lose his virginity in "The Sessions."

Nominated for best actress are Jessica Chastain as a CIA operative hunting bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow struggling to heal in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Riva as an ailing woman tended by her husband in "Amour"; Quvenzhane Wallis as a spirited girl on the Louisiana delta in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; and Naomi Watts as a mother caught up in a devastating tsunami in "The Impossible."

Best actress had a wild age range: Riva is the oldest nominee ever in the category at 85, while Wallis is the youngest ever at 9.

Along with Field, supporting-actress nominees are Adams as a cult leader's devoted wife in "The Master"; Anne Hathaway as an outcast mother reduced to prostitution in "Les Miserables"; Helen Hunt as a sex surrogate in "The Sessions"; and Jacki Weaver as an unstable man's doting mom in "Silver Linings Playbook."

Besides Jones, the supporting-actor contenders are Alan Arkin as a wily Hollywood producer in "Argo"; Robert De Niro as a football-obsessed patriarch in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hoffman as a dynamic cult leader in "The Master"; and Christoph Waltz as a genteel bounty hunter in "Django Unchained."

"Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, who will host the Feb. 24 Oscars, joined Emma Stone to announce the Oscar lineup, and he scored a nomination himself. He's up for original song for "Everybody Needs a Best Friend," the tune he co-wrote for his big-screen directing debut "Ted."

"That's kind of cool I got nominated," MacFarlane deadpanned at the announcement. "I get to go to the Oscars."

Walt Disney predictably dominated the animated-feature category with three of the five nominees: "Brave," ''Frankenweenie" and "Wreck-It Ralph." Also nominated were "ParaNorman" and "The Pirates! Band of Misfits."

"I'm absolutely blown away," ''Wreck-It Ralph" director Rich Moore said. "It is weird at 5:30 in the morning to hear Emma Stone say your name. It's surreal."

"Lincoln" is Spielberg's best awards prospect since his critical peak in the 1990s, when he won best-picture and directing Oscars for "Schindler's List" and a second directing Oscar for "Saving Private Ryan."

Spielberg's latest film could vault him, Day-Lewis and Field to new heights among Hollywood's super-elite of multiple Oscar winners.

A best-picture win for "Lincoln" would be Spielberg's second, while another directing win would be his third, a feat achieved only by Frank Capra and William Wyler, who each earned three directing Oscars, and John Ford, who received four.

"Lincoln" also was the ninth best-picture nominee Spielberg has directed, moving him into a tie for second-place with Ford. Only Wyler directed more best-picture nominees, with 13.

Day-Lewis and Field both have two lead-acting Oscars already, he for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood" and she for "Norma Rae" and "Places in the Heart." A third Oscar for either would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn is the record-holder with four acting Oscars.

An Oscar for Jones would be his second supporting-actor prize; he previously won for "The Fugitive."

"Lincoln" composer John Williams — whose five Oscars include three for the music of three earlier Spielberg films, "Jaws," ''E.T. the Extra-terrestrial" and "Schindler's List" — earned his 43rd nomination for best score, extending his all-time record in the category.

The Oscars feature a best-picture field that ranges from five to 10 films depending on a complex formula of ballots from the 5,856 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Nominations in most categories are decided by ballots from members of specific academy branches — such as directors, writers or actors. All members are eligible to vote for best-picture nominees, and the entire academy can vote in every category for the actual Oscars, whose balloting begins Feb. 8.

Winners for the 85th Oscars will be announced Feb. 24 at a ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.

___

AP entertainment writers Christy Lemire, Sandy Cohen, Anthony McCartney and Derrik Lang in Los Angeles and AP writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

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F.D.A. Requires Cuts to Dosages of Ambien and Other Sleep Drugs

The Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday that it was requiring manufacturers of popular sleeping pills like Ambien and Zolpimist to cut their recommended dosage in half for women, after laboratory studies showed that they can leave people still sleepy in the morning and at risk for accidents.

The agency issued the requirement for drugs containing the active ingredient zolpidem, by far the most widely used sleep aid. Using lower doses means less of the drug will remain in the blood in the morning hours, and leave people who take it less exposed to the risk of impairment while driving to work.

Women eliminate zolpidem from their bodies more slowly than men and the agency told manufacturers that the recommended dosage for women should be lowered to 5 milligrams from 10 milligrams for immediate-release products like Ambien, Edluar and Zolpimist. Dosages for extended-release products should be lowered to 6.25 milligrams from 12.5, the agency said. The agency also recommended lowering dosages for men.

An estimated 10 to 15 percent of women will have a level of zolpidem in their blood that impairs driving eight hours after taking the pill, while only about 3 percent of men do, said Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director for clinical science in the F.D.A.'s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Doctors will still be told that they can prescribe the higher dosage if the lower one does not work, Dr. Temple said.

“Most people thought that by the morning it is gone,” he said. “What we’re reminding people is that is sort of true, but that in some women who take a full 10 milligram dose, and in a lot of people who take the control release dose, it is not entirely true. Some people will be impaired in the morning.”

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Investors, Starbucks co-bidder oppose McDreamy's Tully's buy

It’s not just the “Grey’s Anatomy” mid-season premiere Thursday night weighing on Patrick Dempsey’s mind – the would-be coffee company owner is facing several objections to his pending purchase of Seattle’s Tully’s chain.

Last week, the actor known as McDreamy triumphantly announced that his group Global Baristas’ $9.15-million bid for Tully’s was deemed the winner by the bankrupt company.

Several of the six other bidders, however, now say they won’t go away without a tussle.

AgriNuture Inc., a food producer and distributor based in the Philippines, wrote in a Seattle bankruptcy court this week that it was willing to proceed with its bid.

The company’s offer, when combined with Starbucks Corp.’s proposal to transition 25 Tully’s shops to its own brand, amounts to $10.56 million – or $1.35 million more than Dempsey’s.   

AgriNuture, which runs six Tully’s franchises in the Philippines, noted in the filing that it “understands that Starbucks is prepared to proceed.”

Finance group Kachi Partners, which managed the stalking horse bid for Tully’s from Neon T Coffee Shops, filed a separate document contesting Dempsey’s purported victory.

The Jan. 3 auction for Tully’s “had substantial irregularities and the purchase price, to the benefit of all the Debtor’s constituents, could have been – and could still be – at least $1.4 million higher,” wrote Kachi Partners spokesman Shawn Hallinan in the filing.

Investor Tom T. O’Keefe, who wrote in yet another filing that he owns more than 5% of Tully’s common stock, said he supported “restarting of the competitive bids.”

A Seattle bankruptcy judge is scheduled to make a final call Friday on the Tully’s purchase.

“We remain confident that the Court will reach the right decision and find that Global Baristas, LLC submitted the highest and best bid,” Dempsey said in a statement.  “The company chose between three final bids, and ours was millions more than each of the other two.”

ALSO:

Yum Brands apologizes for KFC chicken scare in China

Supervalu sells grocery chains, including Albertsons, to Cerberus

Patrick Dempsey beats Starbucks, will pay $9.15 million for Tully's

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Weight-loss regimen a preferred choice for countering diabetes

After all those well-intentioned New Year's resolutions have yielded to the force of habit, many of the nation's 79 million obese adults will have a day of reckoning with their primary care physicians.

Lose weight and get active, the doctor will order, or risk developing diabetes. Then the MD will scribble a prescription.

For most patients, the prescribed treatment will not be a pill. It will be a 12-week program aimed at preventing Type 2 diabetes by getting obese adults to shed as little as 10 pounds and exercise for a little more than 20 minutes a day.

That regimen — the Diabetes Prevention Program — may soon become the blockbuster prescription medicine you've never heard of. In 2013, it is poised to become the envy of pharmaceutical companies, a new rival to programs such as Weight Watchers, and a target of opportunity for healthcare entrepreneurs.

Led by a trained coach, it is a testament to the power of a mentor and of setting modest goals in spurring healthful behavior. And it may be a crucial first test of the Affordable Care Act's focus on preventive health.

In nearly 30 clinical trials, scientists have established that the program is far more effective at helping people lose weight and prevent or delay the onset of diabetes than "usual care" — essentially, a doctor telling a patient to slim down and get active, and then sending him on his way. But the program hasn't been packaged in a form that healthcare providers can simply and cheaply offer to patients, said Dr. Jun Ma of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, who studies diabetes prevention.

The Diabetes Prevention Program is not rocket science. In 12 weekly sessions, a coach teaches obese subjects at high risk of developing diabetes to set goals for losing 5% to 7% of their body weight, limit the fat and calories they consume, track their food intake, get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week, and devise strategies to avoid gaining back lost pounds.

In trials, subjects who attended the tightly scripted sessions and followed the regimen were far more likely than those who were on their own to reach their weight-loss goals in three months — and to keep that weight off for more than a year. By doing so, they drove down their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 58%, according to a landmark report published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002.

The program, in short, is powerful medicine.

"If you could take it as a pill, it would definitely be commercialized," said Sean Duffy, a software designer and former Google employee who launched an online version of the program about a month ago.

In June, a panel of physicians and public health experts that advises the Department of Health and Human Services gave the program a mighty push into everyday medical practice. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that doctors refer their obese patients to "intensive, multicomponent behavioral interventions" designed to promote weight loss and physical activity. It cited only one that met its strict standards: the Diabetes Prevention Program.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that carries significant weight. Starting in June, most health insurers will be required to make proven weight-loss and behavior-modification programs available without a copayment to obese customers with a doctor's referral.

No one knows whether expanded coverage of such programs can save money and head off a public health disaster. But without it, experts believe a tidal wave of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease — with a 20-year price tag estimated at $550 billion in the U.S. alone — is a virtual certainty.

For all its promise, the program has remained little more than a good idea — and a pretty expensive one at that — for years. The researchers who developed it at the University of Indiana pegged the cost of the trial's intensive 12-week phase and nine months of maintenance at about $1,300 per patient. To make it cheaper and more accessible, they trained a few YMCA chapters to deliver the program.

Today, about 75 chapters in 28 states and the District of Columbia offer it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been charged with broadening access to "lifestyle change" programs, disbursed $6.75 million in 2012 to encourage health insurers, public health advocates and employer groups to offer versions of the program.

But with more than 78 million people potentially in line to get it, demand far outstrips supply.

Researchers like Ma have been working on ways to use technology to make the program more widely available. In a study published last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine, she and her colleagues found that putting the 12-week curriculum on an inexpensive DVD and assigning a coach to answer questions and offer support helped 37% of obese participants lose 7% of their body weight — a rate more than twice as high as for those who got no help at all.

In a related study published in the same journal, researchers gave obese volunteers a personal digital device to monitor their weight, diet and physical activity and had them check in with a coach every other week. The volunteers lost more weight than trial subjects who were on their own.

The UnitedHealth Group's Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance in Minnetonka, Minn., has worked to make the Diabetes Prevention Program available on demand to Comcast cable subscribers nationwide. UnitedHealth Group physicians and public health specialists worked with a TV production crew to create a reality-show version of the program. After the pilot aired last year in Philadelphia and Knoxville, Tenn., it took just three weeks to get 700 people to volunteer for a clinical trial of the TV-based program. The results of that will be published soon, said Dr. Deneen Vojta, chief clinical officer for the UnitedHealth program.

"These people lost a ton of weight," she said.

The growing scientific consensus around the diabetes program has not been lost on one of the nation's most ubiquitous and respected weight-loss programs, Weight Watchers. With 20,000 meetings a week across the United States, Weight Watchers International has the infrastructure that the Diabetes Prevention Program lacks. Like the diabetes program, its groups are run by coaches who give advice and encouragement and teach members to track their intake. The company has steadily added features — most recently a spate of food-tracking apps — as clinical trials showed their value.

Weight Watchers has been lobbying the government to recognize its programs as an effective tool for diabetes prevention. The stakes are huge: If insurers were required to cover the costs of patients' Weight Watchers memberships, the customer base could expand by leaps and bounds.

In Britain, the National Health Service will pay for the company's initial 12-week course, said David Kirchhoff, chief executive of Weight Watchers International in New York City. Given the program's widespread presence in the U.S. and evidence of its effectiveness in clinical trials, it makes sense for insurers here to pay too, he said.

Entrepreneurs are also getting in on the act. Duffy's San Francisco-based startup, Omada Health, launched an online version of the Diabetes Prevention Program called Prevent that may be the first of many digital spinoffs.

Designed to win the CDC's seal of approval, Prevent resembles a Facebook version of the Diabetes Prevention Program while preserving the privacy of customers who prefer it. Incoming members are matched to a group, and everyone works toward a goal of losing 5% to 7% of their body weight in 12 weeks under the supervision of a coach. Members' weights are transmitted to the coach by a digital scale upon enrollment and weekly thereafter.

Early testing has shown that as groups jell, members learn from — and lean on — one another, Duffy said. He plans to sell the program at about $120 per month for four months, primarily to insurers and companies for use by their customers and employees.

Payment will be due only after users show results, he said.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

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Why bother with a Facebook phone? Facebook’s app is already on 86% of iPhones and iPads

Rumors suggesting Facebook (FB) is working on a smartphone have resurfaced a number of times over the past year. Each time, Facebook denied the various claims. Facebook may indeed still be working on its own phone but as a new report from market research firm NPD Group shows, it probably doesn’t need to.

[More from BGR: Is Samsung the new Apple?]

Facebook makes money by gathering information about its users and serving targeted ads based on that data. Allowing users to update Facebook with fresh data as often as possible is obviously beneficial to the company, and smartphones present a terrific opportunity to give users access to their Facebook accounts from anywhere. The more people using Facebook’s mobile apps, the better, and Facebook’s smartphone penetration is absolutely staggering right now.

[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $ 45 Straight Talk plan]

According to data published by NPD Group on Tuesday, Facebook’s iOS application was used by 86% of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners as of November 2012. On the Android platform, 70% of smartphone and tablet owners used Facebook’s mobile app in November.

No other third-party app even comes close to approaching Facebook’s mobile penetration. Google’s (GOOG) YouTube app is the next most popular third-party app on iOS with 40% penetration and Amazon’s (AMZN) mobile application is the second most popular third-party Android app with just 28% penetration.

So why would Facebook bother making its own phone?

One answer — perhaps the obvious one — is that an own-brand smartphone with custom software would give Facebook access to far more personal data than it can reach using third-party applications. Considering Facebook’s track record with matters relating to privacy, however, users may be reluctant to buy a Facebook phone.

In any case, a Facebook phone certainly doesn’t seem like a necessity for the time being. Instead, focusing on ways to effectively monetize the hundreds of millions of users who interact with Facebook from a smartphone or tablet each month might be a wiser use of resources.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Oprah to interview Armstrong for Jan. 17 show

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lance Armstrong has agreed to an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he is to address allegations he used performance-enhancing drugs during a career in which he won seven Tour de France titles.

According to Winfrey's website on Tuesday, this will be a "no holds-barred interview." It will be the first with Armstrong since his cycling career crumbled under the weight of a massive report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The report detailed accusations of drug use by Armstrong and teammates on his U.S. Postal Service teams.

It's unclear if the interview at Armstrong's home in Austin, Texas, has already been taped. Nicole Nichols, a spokeswoman for Oprah Winfrey Network & Harpo Studios, declined comment.

The show will be broadcast Jan. 17 at 9 p.m. EST on OWN and Oprah.com.

Armstrong has strongly denied the doping charges that led to him being stripped of his Tour de France titles, but The New York Times reported Friday he has told associates he is considering acknowledging the use of performance enhancers.

The newspaper report cited anonymous sources, and Armstrong lawyer Tim Herman told The Associated Press that night he had no knowledge of Armstrong considering a confession.

Earlier Tuesday, "60 Minutes Sports" reported the head of USADA told the show a representative for Armstrong offered the agency a "donation" in excess of $150,000 several years before an investigation by the organization led to the loss of Armstrong's Tour de France titles.

In an interview for the premiere on Showtime on Wednesday night, USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said he was "stunned" when he received the offer in 2004.

"It was a clear conflict of interest for USADA," Tygart said. "We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer."

Herman denied such an offer was made.

"No truth to that story," Herman wrote Tuesday in an email to the AP. "First Lance heard of it was today. He never made any such contribution or suggestion."

Tygart was traveling and did not respond to requests from the AP for comment. USADA spokeswoman Annie Skinner said Tygart's comments from the interview were accurate. In it, he reiterates what he told the AP last fall: He was surprised when federal investigators abruptly closed their two-year investigation into Armstrong and his business dealings, then refused to share any evidence they gathered.

"You'll have to ask the feds why they shut down," Tygart told the AP. "They enforce federal criminal laws. We enforce sports anti-doping violations. They're totally separate. We've done our job."

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Wall Street gains as earnings flow in; Alcoa up

Stocks rose on Wall Street Wednesday after U.S. corporate earnings reports got off to a good start.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 86 points to 13,415 as of noon EST. The Dow is coming off of two days of losses.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained six points to 1,463 and the Nasdaq composite rose 17 points to 3,109.

Stocks, having rallied after a last-minute resolution stopped the U.S. going from over the “fiscal cliff,” are facing their first challenge of the year as companies start to report their earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012. Throughout last year, analysts had cut their outlook for earnings growth in the period and now expect them to rise by 3.21 percent, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.

“Maybe earnings expectations were a little too low,” said Ryan Detrick, a strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. “You don't need to have great earnings, you just need to beat those expectations” for stocks to rally, Detrick said.

Alcoa predicted rising demand for aluminum this year as the aerospace industry gains strength. Late Tuesday the company reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat analysts' estimates. Investors pay close attention to Alcoa's results and forecasts because the aluminum it makes is used in so many industries including construction and manufacturing.

Alcoa's stock rose 8 cents to $9.18.

Consumer products maker Helen of Troy, whose brands include Dr. Scholl's, Vicks and Fabreze, rose 89 cents to $34.42 after reporting a 15 percent increase in net income. Agricultural products giant Monsanto gained 84 cents to $99.34 after it said that its profit nearly tripled in the first fiscal quarter as sales of its biotech corn seeds expanded in Latin America.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged at 1.87 percent.

Among other stocks making big moves:

— Wireless network operator Clearwire jumped 22 cents to $3.14 after Dish network made an unsolicited offer to buy the company, which has already agreed to sell itself to Sprint. Dish rose $1.17 to $37.14 and Sprint fell 8 cents to $5.89.

— Online education company Apollo Group plunged 10 percent after reporting a sharp decline in fall-term student sign-ups at the University of Phoenix. The stock fell $2.04 to $18.88.

— Seagate Technology, a maker of hard-disk drives, jumped $1.52 to $32.91 after predicting revenue for its fiscal second quarter that topped Wall Street expectations late Tuesday.

— Bank of America fell 29 cents to $11.69 after Credit Suisse analysts lowered their outlook on the lender to “neutral” for “outperform,” saying the current stock price overestimates the improvement in cost reduction that the bank can achieve this year.

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LAPD force exceeds 10,000 for the first time, officials say

For the first time in the city's history, Los Angeles' police force now exceeds 10,000 officers, city officials said Monday.

Appearing with LAPD Chief Charlie Beck to discuss the continued drop in crime last year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the department is budgeted for 10,023 officers, up from the 9,963 authorized over the last three years, during a deep budget crisis.

The staffing increase took effect Jan. 1, when 60 sworn officers moved into the LAPD from the General Services Department, which patrols parks, libraries and other municipal buildings, said Villaraigosa spokesman Peter Sanders. Those officers will continue to patrol city facilities, budget officials said.

Some questioned the significance of the staffing milestone, since the overall number of sworn officers employed by the city hasn't grown.

"It's an increase for show," said Kevin James, a candidate for mayor in the March 5 election who has questioned Villaraigosa's LAPD hiring goals. "The mayor really wanted to get to 10,000 one way or the other before he left office, and this was the way he could do it under the current budget constraints."

Los Angeles experienced a 10.5% decrease in gang crime and an 8.2% drop in violent crime last year, compared with 2011. The city had the lowest number of violent crimes per capita of any major city, including New York and Chicago, Villaraigosa said.

The mayor attributed those numbers — and a decade-long decline in crime — in large part to the expansion of the police force.

Villaraigosa originally promised to add 1,000 new officers to the department during the 2005 election campaign, criticizing then-Mayor James K. Hahn for failing to do so. Since then, he has succeeded in adding 800 officers, Sanders said. On Monday, Villaraigosa suggested that the addition of the final 200 will not be achieved until after June 30, when he leaves office.

"I would hope that the next mayor would, as we get out of this economic crisis, increase our Police Department to that 1,000," he said.

While Villaraigosa has been pushing for continued hiring at the LAPD, Beck has warned in recent weeks that the LAPD would lose 500 officers if voters fail to approve Proposition A, a half-cent sales tax measure on the March 5 ballot. That would represent more than half of the LAPD buildup accomplished by Villaraigosa.

Despite Beck's warnings, Villaraigosa said he is not ready to endorse Proposition A until the council makes a series of cost-cutting moves, such as turning over operation of the city zoo to a private entity.

Since Villaraigosa took office, homicides have decreased 38% and gang crime has dropped by a similar amount. The number of slayings has stayed largely the same over the last three years, with 297 homicides in 2010, 297 in 2011 and 298 last year. Overall crime dropped 1.4% last year. Property crimes, which are more numerous than violent crimes, increased for the first time in several years — driven in part by a 30% increase in cell phone thefts, officials said.

With little money to pay officers for overtime, the department has been compensating them with time off. The resulting staffing loss has been the equivalent of about 450 officers at any given time, according to department figures — a hit that has complicated crime-fighting strategies.

Preserving LAPD funding has become increasingly challenging for council members. For nine months they have debated whether to lay off dozens of civilian LAPD employees while continuing to hire enough police officers to maintain current staffing levels.

Councilman Paul Koretz, who opposed the layoffs, said the movement of the 60 building patrol officers to the LAPD was "a little smoke and mirrors." He questioned whether the LAPD buildup in the Villaraigosa era was financially sustainable.

"It just seems like we really never did the analysis to see if we could afford it," he said.

A defeat of the sales tax increase, which is projected to generate roughly $215 million in new revenue, would leave council members no choice but to roll back the size of the LAPD, Koretz said.

But Villaraigosa warned that would be dangerous, saying other California cities have seen upticks in crime after cutting back on officers.

"I know some people think that 10,000 cops is a magical illusion, a meaningless number, that more officers don't necessarily lead to a reduction in crime," said the mayor, adding: "Those critics talk a lot, but they're just plain wrong."

david.zahniser@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Target to match some rivals’ online prices year-round

(Reuters) – Target Corp said on Tuesday it will match on a year-round basis the prices found on the websites of key rivals Amazon.com Inc, Best Buy Co Inc, Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Toys R Us, its latest tactic to hold onto shoppers focused on price.

The move extends an online price-matching program that Target introduced over the holiday season and which was supposed to last only from November 1 to December 16. It also comes after Target last week reported flat sales growth in December at stores open at least a year.

In November Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel said the retailer was not seeing a lot of price-match activity in its stores.

While shopping online has grown rapidly in recent years, it still represents a small fraction of overall shopping in the United States. Target’s policy of matching online prices differs from policies at several chains, which match only printed advertised prices for items sold at stores.

Target said that throughout the year it will match the price when a customer buys an eligible item at one of its stores and finds the same item at a lower price in the following week’s Target circular or in a local competitor’s printed ad. It will also match the price if the customer finds the same item at a lower price within a week on Target’s website or the websites of Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Toys R Us.

Amazon says it offers competitive prices and does not offer price matching when an item’s price drops after a customer buys it, with the exception of televisions. Walmart matches the prices of print ads from competitors. Walmart also says it checks the prices of 30,000 items at competing chains each week to make sure it has the lowest prices.

Best Buy matches the price from a local competitor’s store, a local Best Buy store or its own web site. Toys R Us matches in-store prices and certain online prices.

(Reporting By Jessica Wohl in Chicago and Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Alden Bentley and John Wallace)

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Quarterback's girlfriend in spotlight after game

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's routing of Notre Dame for its second straight national championship has been overshadowed in part by a new breakout star — Katherine Webb, girlfriend of quarterback AJ McCarron and Miss Alabama USA 2012.

Webb gained tens of thousands of Twitter followers during and after Monday night's game, when ESPN cameras visited and revisited Webb in the stands and announcer Brent Musburger piled on the compliments. As of noon Tuesday, she had topped 143,000 followers, trumping McCarron's 101,000. Before the game, Webb had only a few hundred.

"Wow, I'm telling you quarterbacks: You get all the good-looking women," Musburger said as the camera focused on Webb, sitting with McCarron's mother. "What a beautiful woman. Wow!"

Arizona Cardinals defensive end Darnell Dockett was among those who noticed Webb during the broadcast. He tweeted her his telephone number and suggested they meet after the game. He later tweeted that he meant to message her privately.

McCarron responded after the game, telling Docket on Twitter, "(hash)betterkeepdreaming like the rest of these dudes."

Webb, a 23-year-old model, told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that she first encountered McCarron on Twitter, and they met in early December when he attended the Miss Alabama USA pageant in Montgomery. The two visited over the holidays and publicly confirmed their romance right before the New Year.

"(McCarron) has such an amazing heart. He realizes that family and friends and the people closest to you are most important," she told the paper.

Webb's pageant biography says she was born in Montgomery and grew up in Phenix City. Webb worked for Chick-fil-A as a training director in Columbus, Ga., before moving to Los Angeles to pursue modeling. She finished in the top 10 in the national pageant.

The biography also notes that Webb studied business at longtime Alabama rival Auburn University.

Before Monday's game, Webb tweeted a photo of herself wearing a jersey with McCarron's number, her arms wrapped around the quarterback.

Early Tuesday, Webb posted her first tweet to her new followers: "So extremely blessed... (at)10AJMcCarron. Congrats to Alabama and making history! (hash)BCSChamps."

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Health Spending Growth Stays Low for 3rd Straight Year

WASHINGTON — National health spending climbed to $2.7 trillion in 2011, or an average of $8,700 for every person in the country, but as a share of the economy, it remained stable for the third consecutive year, the Obama administration said Monday.

The rate of increase in health spending, 3.9 percent in 2011, was the same as in 2009 and 2010 — the lowest annual rates recorded in the 52 years the government has been collecting such data.

Federal officials could not say for sure whether the low growth in health spending represented the start of a trend or reflected the continuing effects of the recession, which crimped the economy from December 2007 to June 2009.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that “the statistics show how the Affordable Care Act is already making a difference,” saving money for consumers. But a report issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in her department, said that the law had so far had “no discernible impact” on overall health spending.

Although some provisions of the law have taken effect, the report said, “their influence on overall health spending through 2011 was minimal.”

The recession increased unemployment, reduced the number of people with private health insurance, lowered household income and assets and therefore tended to slow health spending, said Micah B. Hartman, a statistician at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In the report, federal officials said that total national spending on prescription drugs and doctors’ services grew faster in 2011 than in the year before, but that spending on hospital care grew more slowly.

Medicaid spending likewise grew less quickly in 2011 than in the prior year, as states struggled with budget problems. But Medicare spending grew more rapidly, because of an increase in “the volume and intensity” of doctors’ services and a one-time increase in Medicare payments to skilled nursing homes, said the report, published in the journal Health Affairs.

National health spending grew at roughly the same pace as the overall economy, without adjusting for inflation, so its share of the economy stayed the same, at 17.9 percent in 2011, where it has been since 2009. By contrast, health spending accounted for just 13.8 percent of the economy in 2000.

Health spending grew more than 5 percent each year from 1961 to 2007. It rose at double-digit rates in some years, including every year from 1966 to 1984 and from 1988 to 1990.

The report did not forecast the effects of the new health care law on future spending. Some provisions of the law, including subsidized insurance for millions of Americans, could increase spending, officials said. But the law also trims Medicare payments to many health care providers and authorizes experiments to slow the growth of health spending.

“The jury is still out whether all the innovations we’re testing will have much impact,” said Richard S. Foster, who supervised the preparation of the report as chief actuary of the Medicare agency. “I am optimistic. There’s a lot of potential. More and more health care providers understand that the future cannot be like the past, in which health spending almost always grew faster than the gross domestic product.”

Evidence of the new emphasis can be seen in a series of articles published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, now known as JAMA Internal Medicine, under the title “Less Is More.” The series highlights cases in which “the overuse of medical care may result in harm and in which less care is likely to result in better health.”

Total spending for doctors’ services rose 3.6 percent in 2011, to $436 billion, while spending for hospital care increased 4.3 percent, to $850.6 billion.

Spending on prescription drugs at retail stores reached $263 billion in 2011, up 2.9 percent from 2010, when growth was just four-tenths of 1 percent. The latest increase was still well below the average increase of 7.8 percent a year from 2000 to 2010.

Federal officials said the increase in 2011 resulted partly from rapid growth in prices for brand-name drugs.

Prices for specialty drugs, typically prescribed by medical specialists for chronic conditions, have increased at double-digit rates in recent years, the government said. In addition, spending on new brand-name drugs — those brought to market in the previous two years — more than doubled from 2010 to 2011, driven by an increase in the number of new medicines.

“In 2011,” the report said, “spending for private health insurance premiums increased 3.8 percent, as did spending for benefits. Out-of-pocket spending by consumers increased 2.8 percent in 2011, accelerating from 2.1 percent in 2010 but still slower than the average annual growth rate of 4.7 percent” from 2002 to 2008.

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Target will offer year-round price matching with online retailers

Target said its policy of matching the prices of select online retailers will now be year-round. Above, Target shoppers in Chesapeake, Va., get a jump on Black Friday on Thanksgiving night. (Ross Taylor / Virginian-Pilot / January 8, 2013)

By Shan Li

January 8, 2013, 9:51 a.m.

Retail giant Target Corp. said it is extending price-matching with select online retailers beyond the holidays into a year-round policy.

The Minneapolis company said shoppers can now request price matches anytime on identical items found at some big Web merchants, including Amazon.com and the online sites of Toys R Us, Best Buy and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Also surviving beyond the holidays: the retailer's pledge to match in-store prices with those found on its own website. Target's original holiday price-match policy ended on Dec. 16.

"We believe that our prices are competitive year-round," Mark Schindele, Target's senior vice president of merchandising operations, told the Associated Press. "We also know that our guests shop in many ways."

Schindele said the extension is intended to give Target customers assurance that they are getting the best deal. The retailer already compares prices on over 30,000 products it offers with competitors.

Price matching is one strategy big-box retailers such as Target and Best Buy had adopted over the holidays to fight back against shoppers who browse stores and then hop online to find better prices from competitors. Target may be motivated by a holiday season that proved disappointing, with same-store sales in December remaining flat compared to the same month in 2011.

ALSO:

Macy's to close six stores, including one in Pasadena

Holiday hiring was up 10% among retailers, report says

Indian man buys $230,000 solid gold shirt as an "investment"

Follow Shan Li on Twitter @ShanLi

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From gang member to team player

SAN FRANCISCO — Luis Aroche learned about violence at Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School, across from the projects where his friend Carl lived.

He remembers sitting down at his desk and seeing his teacher, Mrs. Foster, in tears. His class had just finished the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Carl was playing on the swings and got shot," Aroche said. "And died. Kindergarten. He got found laying in a pool of blood in the park," Aroche paused. Swallowed. Started up again. "He was my desk buddy. He would go with me to the bathroom. And now, Carl wasn't there.

"That was my first experience of loss. And I didn't understand it. To this day, I don't understand it."

Aroche since has become something of an expert on violence — as victim, perpetrator and now as part of a hoped-for solution. Last year, San Francisco Dist. Atty. George Gascon hired the former gang member to be his office's first "alternative sentencing planner," part of an effort to keep offenders from ending up back behind bars.

The position, criminal justice experts say, has no equivalent in any prosecutor's office in the country.

And Aroche is as singular as his job. An Aztec skull tattoo stretches down his right forearm to his hand, its grimace partly wiped away by laser removal. The day his juvenile record was sealed, he says, was the happiest of his life.

Today, he helps prosecutors figure out who among San Francisco's low-level offenders deserves a jail cell and who deserves a second chance.

He knows a lot about both.

::

If you were Aroche, 12 years old and living in the Mission District in 1990 — when gangs and crack cocaine meant funerals were as commonplace as quinceañeras — you got a tattoo, cut school and drank beer. You thought a stint in Pelican Bay State Prison was like going off to "Stanford or Yale." You practiced how to sit and talk and smoke like the toughest prisoners.

"We would learn how to iron our clothes using a comb, 'cause that's how you iron your pants in prison," Aroche said. "You iron it with the teeth of the comb … and then you put it underneath the mattress."

Aroche's first tattoo was a small cross on his left hand, in the soft web between thumb and forefinger. He got it in an alleyway not far from the studio apartment where he slept on the floor with his five brothers, three sisters, the occasional niece or nephew. His parents got the bed in the corner.

His Salvadoran mother was a chambermaid at a Fisherman's Wharf motel, his Puerto Rican father a security guard in the Navy shipyards.

And his older brothers? They would disappear for years. Aroche didn't know why until his father took him to visit San Quentin State Prison. They were "main men" in a notorious Northern California prison gang. When they were out, they were "the mayors of the Mission."

By the time Aroche was 15, he was drinking so much and incarcerated so often that he gave himself a test every night before he went to sleep. If he put out his hand and felt warm, smooth drywall, he knew he was home. If he felt cold, slick concrete, he was in custody.

One night he ended up in the hospital. He'd been drunk, hanging out in Lucky Alley, when a car drove up and the doors flew open. Aroche saw his friend get sliced with a machete. Gunshots rang out.

"And I remember some guy grabbing me and hitting me with a crowbar and stabbing me in my stomach," he said. "And I could feel the pierce of my stomach, just ripping me open.... And I thought, this is it. This is it. This is my life."

::

At the computer in his spartan office at the Hall of Justice, Aroche is poring over the official tale of another life in the balance: a 28-year-old woman on a downward spiral.

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