S.F. mourns a twin with a passion for fashion









SAN FRANCISCO — They were known simply as the San Francisco Twins.


At 5-foot-1 and about 100 pounds apiece, the fashion enthusiasts were an integral part of the city fabric for four decades. With matching furs, hats and high-end purses, they completed each other's sentences, posed for countless tourist snapshots and modeled for the likes of Reebok, Joe Boxer and IBM.


Now one is gone.





Vivian Brown, 85, who had Alzheimer's, died in her sleep Wednesday, leaving behind Marian, who was eight minutes younger. The illness, and news of the twins' financial distress, brought an outpouring of support from city residents in recent months.


Donations managed by Jewish Family and Children Services helped Vivian move into an elegant assisted living facility in Lower Pacific Heights and provided for a car service so Marian could visit "as much as she wanted to," Development Director Barbara Farber said. "The community really responded.…It's been a beautiful thing."


At a benefit concert for the twins in August, the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin and other musicians honored Marian. Cash flowed in to cover her meals at Uncle Vito's Pizza on Nob Hill, long one of the ladies' regular haunts.


On Friday, fans offered collective condolences as they swallowed some bitter medicine: The sightings that brought joy to many — of the twins in leopard-print cowboy hats parading up and down Powell Street and window shopping at Union Square — are forever a thing of the past.


In saying goodbye to Vivian, the city has ushered out an era of style.


"All of that has gone, and that's true of all cities," said Ann Moller Caen, the widow of Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco columnist Herb Caen, who wrote often about the twins. "They've lost the elegant few."


Mayor Ed Lee echoed residents' grief in online postings throughout the day, saying that "San Francisco is heartbroken" over Vivian's passing and was "fortunate to have called her a true friend."


The twins, who were born in Kalamazoo, Mich., and held degrees in business administration, moved to San Francisco in 1973, prompted by Vivian's chronic bronchial condition. Once on the West Coast, Vivian became a legal secretary and Marian worked at a bank.


But fashion was their passion, and they cut a striking double image.


There were the fitted white suit jackets with pleated skirts, veiled hats and white fur coats; the red wool Ellen Tracy suits with black felt hats and black gloves.


"When you first came to the city and saw them, you might think it was a little joke. But it really wasn't," Caen said Friday. "They were very warm and very pleasant to everyone, and they just loved Herb. And he loved them."


Evelyn Adler recalled that her father, who sold shoes at the Emporium on San Francisco's Market Street in the 1970s, had regularly waited on "the girls," as he called them.


"They were always at the very height of sometimes ridiculous fashion," said Adler, 82. Her father, she said, had talked of how years of wearing pointy shoes left the twins with overlapping toes. (They later embraced lower heels that were "much more suited to their feet," Adler said.)


As a volunteer for Jewish Family Services, Adler recently shopped for a new wardrobe for Vivian — and was taken aback by the sight of the twins in separate outfits. About a quarter-century ago, the twins admitted to an interviewer that after a six-month attempt to dress differently in their 20s, they had abandoned the project forever. Even their lingerie matched.


They had their regular haunts, which Marian now frequents solo.


David Dubiner, owner of Uncle Vito's Pizza, said the sisters began coming in nearly two decades ago. They always sat at the table by the window, chatting with tourists for so long that their food had to be reheated.


Vivian often did more talking, Dubiner said, but Marian now holds court for two.


On Thursday evening, Marian arrived alone at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Union Square to "have a glass of champagne and toast her sister goodbye," said Tom Sweeney, chief doorman at the hotel who for the last 37 years watched the twins descend the four blocks from their Nob Hill apartment.


"They're quite the personalities of San Francisco," Sweeney said. "We'll definitely miss Vivian."


lee.romney@latimes.com





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Softbank to sell stake in eAccess to Samsung, others: source






TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Softbank Corp is in final talks to sell its stake in eAccess Ltd, representing around 67 percent of voting rights, to Samsung Electronics Co and 10 others, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.


The sale would ease concerns that Softbank could hold a monopoly on spectrum allocation designated by Japan’s Communications Ministry, the source said.






Softbank, which is awaiting regulatory approval to buy a 70 percent stake in No. 3 U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Nextel Corp , bought Japanese rival eAccess last October as it stepped up competition with its nearest competitor KDDI Corp .


Softbank turned eAccess into a wholly owned subsidiary on January 1 after a share exchange, using 220 billion yen ($ 2.47 billion) worth of its own shares.


After dividing eAccess shares into voting and non-voting shares, Softbank is considering reducing its ownership of eAccess voting rights to less than one-third, the source said.


Non-voting shares make up around 1 percent of overall shares. The sale of eAccess’ voting rights would total several billion yen.


Other than Samsung, likely buyers include Sweden’s LM Ericsson , Orix Corp , the source said, adding that the eAccess voting shares would be divided between companies into hundreds of millions of yen each.


Softbank said on Saturday the news was not announced by the company and that it continued to mull options regarding its share holdings.


The Nikkei business newspaper reported earlier on Saturday that Softbank was also considering selling the eAccess stake to Finland’s Nokia Siemens Networks and five Japanese leasing companies.


Softbank cutting its eAccess stake would allow the company to work around the Communications Ministry’s policy on spectrum allocation to telecom service providers and avoid suggestions of any monopoly, but still allow Softbank or eAccess to seek spectrum.


Under the policy, either a parent company, or one of its units in which it owns more than 33 percent, can apply for an allocation of spectrum.


Softbank will remain the top shareholder in eAccess but lose veto power after the sale, which is expected to close by end January and raise several billion yen, the Nikkei daily said.


(Additional reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore, Writing by Mari Saito; Editing by Michael Perry)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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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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Simple, solid strategies for investing money









Investing has been a massive exercise in frustration for millions of Americans over the last decade or so.


Two market crashes in 12 years drove many people away from equities. Now key U.S. stock market indexes are at or near record highs again, after a strong 2012 rally that has spilled into 2013.


The average domestic stock mutual fund rose 15% last year, the third annual gain in four years. Meanwhile, the hunger for perceived safety has driven interest rates on bonds and other fixed-income securities to record lows. It's a backdrop that seems to cry out for a complex, headache-inducing game plan.





But in fact, the best strategy for many people may be just the opposite: Focus on the basics. Mainly, keep sight of the things you can control to reduce your mental stress and improve your odds of long-term success.


Here are four strategies for keeping it simple:


Keep it balanced. You say you can't decide how to build and maintain a diversified portfolio? Then don't bother. Let someone else do it for you. That's the beauty of "balanced" mutual funds — portfolios that always own a mix of stocks and bonds.


A balanced or "allocation" fund is the simple, elegant solution for people who know they want to be in financial markets for the long haul but don't have the time or interest to devote to closely managing their nest eggs.


The basic idea is that the stock portion of a balanced fund provides long-term growth while the less-volatile bond portion provides regular interest income and a buffer against any plunge in stock prices. A typical mix is 60% big-name stocks, 40% bonds, but the mix varies depending on whether a fund follows a conservative, moderate or aggressive strategy.


Here's how it works in practice: In the 10 years ended Dec. 31, the average moderate-mix balanced fund gained 6.4% a year, according to investment research firm Morningstar Inc. That was only modestly less than the 7.1% average annual gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index in that period.


But the balanced fund's return came with a lot less volatility, including much smaller losses than in the overall stock market in down years.


You could create a balanced portfolio of individual stock funds and bond funds on your own. But if your goal is to maintain a specific percentage of your portfolio in each type of asset, you'd need the discipline to "rebalance" each year by selling some portion of the funds that have done best and channeling that money into the funds that have performed worst.


"Buy low, sell high" always sounds easy, but psychologically it's very difficult. "What you're asking investors to do is really against their human intuition," said Fran Kinniry, a principal at Vanguard Group's investment strategy unit in Valley Forge, Pa.


A balanced fund makes that decision for you. And it keeps you in the stock market in periods when your instinct might be to flee — such as after the 2008 crash.


There are two types of balanced funds in most 401(k) retirement savings programs. One is the conventional balanced fund, including such hugely popular offerings as the Vanguard Wellington fund and American Balanced fund. These funds generally keep the stock-versus-bond ratios in a specific range, depending on where the manager believes there is better value.


The other type is the target-date retirement fund. You pick a target-date fund based on your expected retirement year, and the portfolio is automatically adjusted over time to gradually lower its stock assets and raise its bond assets. The goal is to lower the portfolio's risk and volatility as you age.


Lately, some investors may be worried less about the stock portion of their balanced fund than the bond portion. With bond yields at or near historic lows, a jump in market interest rates could devalue bonds.


That may happen eventually. But calling the turn is no easy feat.


"Just because the level of interest rates is low doesn't tell you about the direction of rates," Kinniry said. "Japan has had low rates for 25 years."


And if stocks pull back soon, high-quality bonds would be a logical refuge.


Get on the right side of the tax man, and stay there. This is the true no-brainer. Shelter as much wealth as you can from current taxes, allowing your nest egg to compound over time.





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Restored funding for prescription drug-monitoring program urged









California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris on Thursday called on Gov. Jerry Brown to restore funding to a prescription drug-monitoring program that health experts say is key to combating drug abuse and overdose deaths in the state.


Harris' appeal to restore funding to CURES, as it is known, follows an article in The Times last month that reported that the system, once heralded as an invaluable tool, had been severely undermined by budget cuts and was not being used to its full potential.


The CURES database contains detailed information on prescription narcotics, including the names of patients, the doctors prescribing the drugs and the pharmacies that dispense them. The system was designed to help physicians detect "doctor-shopping" patients who dupe multiple physicians into prescribing drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Xanax.








Harris' request followed Brown's unveiling of a proposed $97.7-billion budget, which projects a surplus — a feat that has been accomplished only one time in the last decade. With California's fiscal condition improving, Harris said it was up to the state to make sure the money was "spent wisely."


"This includes smart investments that benefit Californians, such as restoring funding for the state's prescription drug-monitoring program," she said in a statement.


Brown's office had no comment.


The governor's budget does increase Harris' Department of Justice general fund allocation by 4.5% to $174.3 million, but it does not earmark money for CURES. Harris could seek legislative authority to spend some of her budget on the program.


"We are going to have a discussion on the funding and where the money will come from," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Harris.


CURES is the nation's oldest and largest prescription drug-monitoring program and once served as a model for other states. Today, it has fallen behind similar programs elsewhere. CURES data could be used to monitor physicians whose prescribing puts patients at risk. But it is not.


The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends that states use such data to keep tabs on doctors, and at least half a dozen states do so.


As part of spending cuts aimed at maintaining the state's solvency amid a deep recession, Brown gutted the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which ran CURES, in 2011, shortly after Harris succeeded him as attorney general. Harris kept the program alive with about $400,000 in revenue from the Medical Board of California and other licensing boards. But it is down to one employee and has no enforcement capacity.


State officials have estimated it would cost about $2.8 million to make CURES more accessible and easier to use, and $1.6 million more per year to keep it running. However, officials say the program — with little or no additional financial resources — could now be used to identify potentially rogue doctors.


Bob Pack, an Internet entrepreneur, has advocated using CURES more vigorously to track reckless physicians and pharmacies as well as doctor-shopping patients. He became active on the issue after a driver high on painkillers and alcohol struck and killed his two young children in the Bay Area suburb of Danville in 2003.


Pack, who helped design an online portal to give physicians and pharmacists immediate access to CURES, said he was happy to see Harris ask Brown to restore funds for the program.


"But that's only a request," he said. "No one knows if that's really going to happen. Meanwhile, doctors are continuing to over-prescribe and thousands of Californians are dying from prescription drug overdoses. I hope this … has some bite to it."


An aide to Harris said restoring the CURES program is a high priority.


"She's committed to fixing the database and making it as strong as possible," said Travis LeBlanc, special assistant attorney general. "When we have limited resources and in a budget crunch, we need to focus our resources and use it in smart, efficient ways, and [CURES] is one of those," he said.


lisa.girion@latimes.com


scott.glover@latimes.com


Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.





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Holiday sales of PCs slide for first time in five years: IDC






SEATTLE (Reuters) – Holiday season sales of personal computers fell for the first time in more than five years, according to tech industry tracker IDC, as Microsoft Corp’s new Windows 8 operating system failed to excite buyers and many opted for tablet devices and powerful smartphones instead of PCs.


PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Lenovo Group and Dell Inc sold 89.8 million PCs worldwide in the fourth quarter of last year, down 6.4 percent from the same quarter of 2011. That was slightly worse than expected by most.






For all of 2012, 352 million PCs were sold, down 3.2 percent from 2011. That was the first annual decline since 2001, according to IDC. (Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Spielberg's in at Oscars, Bigelow, Affleck are out


BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Steven Spielberg had a great day at the Academy Awards nominations, where his Civil War saga "Lincoln" led with 12 nominations.


It was not so great for Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper and Ben Affleck, whose films did well but surprised — dare we say shocked? — Hollywood by failing to score directing nominations for the three filmmakers.


"I just think they made a mistake," said Alan Arkin, a supporting-actor nominee for Affleck's Iran hostage-crisis tale "Argo."


"Lincoln," ''Argo," Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller and Hooper's Victor Hugo musical "Les Miserables" landed among the nine best-picture contenders Thursday.


Also nominated for the top honor were the old-age love story "Amour"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; and the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook."


A mostly predictable bunch. But it's baffling how Bigelow — the first woman to earn the directing Oscar for her 2009 best-picture winner "The Hurt Locker" — missed out on a nomination for one of last year's most-acclaimed films.


"Yes, it was a surprise," Spielberg said of Bigelow. "But I've been surprised myself through the years, so I know what it feels like."


Spielberg was snubbed for a directing slot on 1985's "The Color Purple," which earned 11 nominations, including best picture. He also was overlooked for director on 1975's "Jaws," another best-picture nominee.


"I never question the choices the academy branches make, because I've been in the same place that Kathryn and Ben find themselves today," said Spielberg, who finally got his Oscar respect in the 1990s with best-picture and director wins for "Schindler's List" and another directing trophy for "Saving Private Ryan." ''I'm grateful if I'm nominated, and I've never felt anything other than gratitude even when I'm not — gratitude for at least having been able to make the movie. So I never question the choices."


Especially this time, when "Lincoln" has positioned itself as the film to beat at the Feb. 24 Oscars. Its nominations include best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis for his monumental performance as Abraham Lincoln, supporting actress for Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.


Oscar directing contenders usually are identical or at least line up closely with those for the Directors Guild of America Awards. But only Spielberg and "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee made both lists this time.


The Directors Guild also nominated Affleck, Bigelow and Hooper, but the Oscars handed its other three slots to David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook" and two real longshots: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for "Amour" and newcomer Benh Zeitlin, who made his feature debut with "Beasts of the Southern Wild."


Zeitlin, whose low-budget, dream-like film about a wild child in Louisiana's flooded backwoods won the top honor at last year's Sundance Film Festival, said he never expected to be competing "alongside the greatest filmmakers alive."


"I'm completely freaking out," Zeitlin said. "Those guys taught me how to make films. The VHS pile that was on the VCR when I was born was past Spielberg movies, and that's why I started wanting to do this, was watching them thousands and thousands of times."


Other nominees were caught off guard over how the category shook out.


"I would be lying if I didn't say I was surprised," Russell, a past nominee for "The Fighter," said about Bigelow.


Lee, who won the directing Oscar for "Brokeback Mountain," agreed that there were surprises — but pleasant ones, particularly for Zeitlin's inclusion.


"Newcomers, veterans, a European," Lee said. "It's great company, and it's an honor to line up with them, and encouraging because there is a newcomer."


Colleagues of snubbed filmmakers were not so happy.


"That put a damper on my enthusiasm," ''Argo" co-star Arkin said of Affleck, an A-lister who's arguably proving himself a better director than actor. "I thought his work was the work of an old master, not somebody with just two films under his belt. I thought it was an extraordinary piece of directing."


"I would have loved him to have been recognized in this," Hugh Jackman, a best-actor nominee as Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean for "Les Miserables," said of director Hooper. "But no one will be able to take away the achievement, nor really that the eight nominations that 'Les Miz' has are more shared with him than with anyone."


Composer Alexandre Desplat, who wrote the music for "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo" and earned a best-score nomination for the latter, said he was puzzled over Affleck and Bigelow's exclusion.


"I think they both deserved to be nominated," Desplat said. "Unfortunately, I don't decide."


"Zero Dark Thirty" has had backlash in Washington, where some lawmakers say it falsely suggests that torture produced a tip that led the U.S. military to Bin Laden. It's hard to imagine that affecting the film's Oscar nominations, though, given Hollywood's history of playing loose with facts in depicting true-life stories.


The academy's directing snubs virtually take "Argo," ''Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" out of the best-picture race, since a movie almost never wins the top prize if the filmmaker is not nominated. It can happen — 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy" did it — but a directing nomination usually goes hand-in-hand with a best-picture win.


The nominations held other surprises. "Amour" won the top prize at last May's Cannes Film Festival but mainly was considered a favorite for the foreign-language Oscar. It wound up with five nominations, the same number as "Zero Dark Thirty," which came in with expectations of emerging as a top contender.


Along with best-picture, director and foreign-language film, "Amour" picked up nominations for Haneke's screenplay and best actress for Emmanuelle Riva as an ailing, elderly woman tended by her husband.


"It's the last stage of my life, so this nomination is a gift to me, a dream I could never had imagined," Riva said. "Michael's talent is to make the film real. ... That's why it touched the world. We are all little, fragile people on this earth, sometimes nasty, sometimes generous."


Riva is part of a multi-generational spread: At 85, Riva is the oldest best-actress nominee ever, while 9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest ever for her role as the spirited bayou girl in "Beasts of the Southern Wild."


Spielberg matched his personal Oscar best as "Lincoln" tied the 12 nominations that "Schindler's List" received.


Two of Spielberg's stars could join the Oscar super-elite. Both Day-Lewis and Field have won two Oscars already. A third would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn holds the record with four acting Oscars.


A best-picture win 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.


"I think Steven is a full-fledged genius. I think he has transformed the motion-picture industry more than once, and he's constantly pushing the envelope and changing," Field said. "He stands alone. And he has the most profound respect, and he's a scholar of John Ford and William Wyler and many others. ... He's a scholar of all of this because he's so endlessly curious."


___


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


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Parental Consent Rule May Proceed for a Circumcision Ritual, a Judge Says





New York City health officials may proceed temporarily with a plan to require parental consent before an infant may undergo a particular Jewish circumcision ritual, a federal judge ruled Thursday.




City officials say 12 cases of herpes simplex virus have likely resulted from the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, since 2000, including one Brooklyn case reported this week. Two infants died, and two suffered permanent brain damage. Most Jews no longer practice metzitzah b’peh, in which the circumciser uses his mouth to suck blood from the wound, but it remains common among some ultra-Orthodox communities.


Citing the risk of infection, health officials in September introduced a regulation that would require parents to provide written consent stating that they were aware of the health risks.


But the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, Agudath Israel of America, and the International Bris Association sued in October to stop the rule from taking effect, calling it an infringement of their constitutional rights. They also denied the procedure posed a risk and asked a federal court to put the rule on hold while the litigation proceeded.


In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the United States District Court for the Southern District wrote that the risks were clear.


“In light of the quality of the evidence presented in support of the regulation, we conclude that a continued injunction against enforcement of the regulation would not serve the public interest,” she wrote.


City lawyers said they were gratified by the ruling, but Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said the groups would appeal. “We continue to believe that this case is a wrongful and unnecessary intrusion into the rights of freedom of religion and speech,” he said.


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Herbalife fires back at hedge fund giant









Herbalife Chief Executive Michael Johnson was tired of a powerful hedge fund manager bad-mouthing his company.


So he put on a show Thursday before hundreds of investors at the Four Seasons hotel in Manhattan, rebutting claims that the Los Angeles nutritional supplement company is a pyramid scheme. The presentation accused hedge fund giant Bill Ackman of lies and snobbery, compared Herbalife to the Girl Scouts and featured the company's president entreating that "the world needs more hugs."


Who says Wall Street is more boring these days?





The company's two-hour defense of itself is the latest in a battle since Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management labeled Herbalife as "the best-managed pyramid scheme in the history of the world," during a similar presentation he made late last month. The outspoken fund manager has made a $1-billion bet that the stock would plunge in value.


"Just the very nature of the 'battle' has never been seen in the history of the Earth," said Tim Ramey, an analyst with D.A. Davidson and Co. "This was a very, very orchestrated attack."


Herbalife has hired a battalion of researchers to prove that it has a legitimate and stable business model. Executives held back no punches Thursday before a crowd of investors and analysts, labeling Ackman an elitist who made "false statements," "distortions" and "misrepresentations" about Herbalife and vowing to use "every means available to protect our reputation."


"In recent weeks, there's been a tremendous amount of misinformation about Herbalife," Johnson said. "This misinformation has found its way into the marketplace. Therefore we are sitting with you to correct some of this today."


In addition to outside experts brought in to bolster Herbalife's claims, company executives went through Pershing's presentation last month, disputing individual slides.


To the complaint that Herbalife is not focused on its products, Chief Operating Officer Rich Goudis showed figures indicating that the company spends millions on research and development.


To a Pershing slide that accused Herbalife of having a small distribution network, the company countered with a map of more than 300 company-run distribution points and showing its expansion in Indonesia and South Korea.


To a Pershing slide showing Herbalife products as more expensive than competitors' per 200-calorie servings, the company offered its own slide that compared the prices of the products per unit and showed costs in line with those of its competitors.


"Pershing intentionally used a misleading metric," Goudis said. "They did this to knowingly create a false impression."


They paraded out experts.


Kim Rory, representing Lieberman Research Worldwide, said distributors she surveyed had joined Herbalife because they wanted to get a discount on the products for personal use. Few signed up because they thought they'd make a large amount of money, and about two-thirds would recommend being a distributor to friends, she said.


Anne Coughlan, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management, defended Herbalife's marketing structure and disputed the allegation that it is a pyramid scheme.


"I didn't even see a scintilla of evidence that would suggest to me any hint that this company is running anything but a legitimate multi-level marketing program," she said.


Perhaps the most personal attacks came from Herbalife President Des Walsh, who said he was "highly offended" by Ackman's portrayal of Herbalife's nutrition clubs and defended the company for bringing nutritional products to poor neighborhoods.


After showing a video featuring happy distributors in crowded nutrition clubs, Walsh suggested that Ackman was out of touch with real America.


"This doesn't look like a country club in Westchester, Connecticut, but let me tell you, inside this club is real America," he said. (Earlier in the presentation, Walsh explained that people come to the club for a hug, adding, "the world needs more hugs.")


His comments echo a note sent out last week by D.A. Davidson analyst Ramey, who has a "buy" rating on Herbalife.


"Perhaps where Mr. Ackman lives he never sees a car with the 'Lose weight, ask me how' message across the rear window," he wrote. "I can tell Mr. Ackman that in my hometown, which is not quite Chappaqua, Herbalife is an iconic and widely recognized brand."


Ackman responded quickly Thursday, saying that Herbalife's presentation "distorted, mischaracterized and outright ignored large portions of our presentation," and that he had been contacted by people who provided more information into Herbalife's business practices, which he will soon reveal.


The unusual fight on Wall Street ramped up in December, when Ackman laid out his case against Herbalife in a three-hour, 200-plus slide presentation. He questioned whether the company was focused on recruiting new distributors, who pay to join the company, instead of on selling products. His announcement sent the company's stock down 36% and turned heads when analysts heard he'd sold short 20 million Herbalife shares.


Ackman's biggest beef with Herbalife focused on its so-called multi-level marketing model, which he said led to only those at the top of the company making money. More than 90% of distributors break even or lose money, he said. Ackman even drew UCLA into the controversy, saying Herbalife mentioned a lab at the university multiple times during each investor presentation to lend itself legitimacy.


Herbalife shares recovered some of their losses in the weeks after Ackman's presentation as some investors expressed confidence in the company. Hedge fund Third Point said it was taking an 8.2% stake in Herbalife, betting that the company would survive Ackman's assault.


Analysts at Thursday's meeting seemed supportive of Herbalife, with some expressing their belief in the company during a question-and-answer period after the presentation. One analyst urged the company to fight back against Pershing Square's method of "slandering" the company.


"It was a good, thorough presentation that certainly accomplished the job of defending the legitimacy of their business model," Ramey said.


Still, not all investors were convinced by the presentation. Herbalife's stock closed down 71 cents, or 1.8%, at $39.24. That may be because on Wednesday the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into Herbalife, according to published reports.


alana.semuels@latimes.com





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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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Samsung sets sights on RIM’s corporate users






Now that Samsung (005930) has bested Apple in the consumer smartphone market, at least where shipment volume is concerned, the company is setting its sights on Research in Motion’s (RIMM) corporate user base. The company is investing heavily in enterprise devices that incorporate a higher level of security and reliability than consumers require. Various government agencies and corporations aren’t fully sold on RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system and are still unsure if will satisfy their needs. As a result, they have begun to explore alternatives for their employees.


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






“The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open,” Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA, said in an interview with Reuters. “The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions.”


[More from BGR: CES has sadly become a complete waste of time]


The executive revealed that Samsung’s corporate market ambitions advanced after its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone gained various security certifications. He noted that companies “want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems,” and that “Samsung is investing in that area.” Packingham said that enterprise has been a focus of the company for a long time and its products have finally evolved enough to “really take advantage” of the market.


“We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market,” he said. “What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3.”


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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'Lincoln,' 'Les Miz' look for big Oscar haul


BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Crusaders for good, old-fashioned Western democracy look to be the key figures vying for this year's Academy Awards.


Best-picture favorites for Thursday morning's Oscar nominations include "Lincoln," Steven Spielberg's portrait of the great emancipator who abolished slavery and reunified the United States; "Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow's chronicle of the hunt for U.S. public enemy No. 1, Osama bin Laden; and "Les Miserables," Tom Hooper's musical epic set against an uprising of freedom fighters in 19th century France.


Among other prospects are "Argo," Ben Affleck's thriller about a CIA scheme to save Americans from Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis; "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's bloody revenge saga about a former slave hunting white oppressors just before the Civil War; and "Life of Pi," Ang Lee's story of a free-thinking Indian youth cast adrift on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger while traveling to a new life in North America.


This year's nominations come earlier than usual in Hollywood's long awards season, leaving the awards picture a bit murkier. By the time Oscar nominations come out most years, the Golden Globes already have given their trophies, helping to sort out prospective front-runners for show business' biggest night.


The nominations this time precede the Golden Globes ceremony, which follows on Sunday.


The Globes and other honors presented in late January and February by directors, actors, writers and producers guilds will clear up the best-picture race for the Oscars. Right now, "Lincoln," ''Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" appear the most likely contenders for the top prize.


All three films come from directors who delivered best-picture winners in the past: Spielberg with 1993's "Schindler's List," Bigelow with 2009's "The Hurt Locker" and Hooper with 2010's "The King's Speech." Bigelow also won the directing Oscar, the first woman ever to earn that honor, Hooper earned the same prize a year later, and Spielberg has received the directing trophy twice, for "Schindler's List" and 1998's "Saving Private Ryan."


"Lincoln" also has good chances on acting nominations for three past winners: two-time Oscar recipients Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, and supporting actor recipient Tommy Lee Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.


"Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain, a supporting-actress nominee last season for "The Help," is in the running for a best-actress slot this time as a CIA operative relentlessly pursuing bin Laden.


Two past Oscar ceremony hosts have strong shots at nominations for "Les Miserables": Hugh Jackman for best actor as Victor Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway for supporting actress as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution.


Other acting possibilities include Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro for the oddball romance "Silver Linings Playbook; Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz for "Django Unchained"; Affleck and Alan Arkin for "Argo"; John Hawkes and Helen Hunt for the sex-surrogate story "The Sessions"; Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams for the 1950s cult tale "The Master"; Bill Murray for the Franklin Roosevelt comic drama "Hyde Park on Hudson"; Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren for the filmmaking chronicle "Hitchcock"; Marion Cotillard for the French-language drama "Rust and Bone"; and Denzel Washington for the airliner-crash saga "Flight."


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


"Family Guy" creator and vocal star Seth MacFarlane — a versatile performer whose work includes directing and voicing for the title character of last summer's hit "Ted" and a Frank Sinatra-style album of standards — is the Oscar host.


Thursday's nominees will be announced at 8:40 a.m. EST by "The Amazing Spider-Man" star Emma Stone and MacFarlane, the first time that an Oscar show host has joined in the preliminary announcement since 1972, when Charlton Heston participated on nominations day.


___


Online:


http://www.oscars.org


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Recipes for Health: Tunisian Style Baked Cauliflower Frittata — Recipes for Health


Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times







In the authentic version of this frittata there is a lot more olive oil, as well as chopped hard-boiled eggs. This one is lighter and simpler. It is great for lunch or dinner and keeps well in the refrigerator.




1/2 medium head cauliflower (about 1 1/4 pounds), trimmed of leaves, bottom of the stem trimmed away


2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil


1 small onion, finely chopped


2 garlic cloves, minced


8 eggs


Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste


1/2 cup finely chopped parsley


2 teaspoons ground caraway seeds


2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan


1/2 teaspoon harissa dissolved in 1 teaspoon water, or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne


Freshly ground pepper


1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a 2-quart casserole, preferably earthenware or in a 9-inch cast iron skillet, and brush the bottom and sides of the dish with the oil.


2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Add the cauliflower and boil gently until very tender, about 15 minutes. If you prefer, you can cut up the cauliflower and steam it for 15 minutes. Using slotted spoons or tongs remove the cauliflower from the water (or from the steamer), transfer to a bowl of cold water and drain. Cut the florets from the stem and mash into little pieces with a fork. You should have about 3 cups.


3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic, stir together for about 30 seconds and remove from the heat.


4. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in the cauliflower, onion and garlic, parsley, ground caraway and Parmesan. Make sure the harissa is dissolved in the water if using, and stir in; otherwise stir in the cayenne. Scrape into the casserole dish.


5. Place in the oven and bake 40 minutes, or until set. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. In Tunisia these frittatas are served at room temperature, but you can also serve it hot.


Yield: Serves 6


Advance preparation: The frittata is delicious served the next day. Bring back to room temperature or heat slightly in a low oven before serving. The cooked cauliflower will keep for about 3 days in the refrigerator.


Nutritional information per serving: 165 calories; 12 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 249 milligrams cholesterol; 5 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 139 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein


Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”


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Consumer bureau to unveil new mortgage standards









In sweeping new rules aimed at fixing the home lending market, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday will define a "qualified mortgage" — one a borrower can actually be expected to pay back — while in effect banning a slew of dicey loans at the center of the financial crisis.


The regulations, among the most important handed down yet by the 18-month-old agency, also aim to loosen the choking loan standards that have prevailed since the housing crash. They do so by limiting bankers' liability for prime loans that can be sold to government-backed mortgage giants such as Fannie Mae.


The rules, to be phased in over the coming year, aim to improve access for creditworthy borrowers to today's historically low-interest loans and to create a stable and predictable housing finance system for banks and their customers alike.





Complying with the rules would provide a "safe harbor" shielding lenders from being sued for one of the most frequent and bitter complaints of the subprime era: sticking borrowers with unaffordable loans, then selling off the loans — and the risk.


One leading consumer advocate said the bureau had gone too far out of its way to accommodate bankers, whose loose lending had triggered the foreclosure crisis and the worst economic collapse since the 1930s.


The bureau's action "invites abusive lending and erodes the progress made by Dodd-Frank," the landmark regulatory reform bill passed after the financial crisis, said Alys Cohen, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.


"The safe harbor the bureau has afforded for prime loans provides absolute shelter to lenders who knowingly make unaffordable loans, in direct violation of congressional intent," said Cohen, who was to appear at a home lending forum Thursday in Baltimore with bureau officials.


The safe harbor provision shields lenders only from lawsuits over borrowers' ability to pay. Consumers would still be able to pursue claims that lenders violated other laws, such as those governing deceptive advertising or wrongful foreclosures.


The rules met with relief from mortgage bankers, who had feared Draconian restrictions from the bureau, created by consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren. The former Harvard law professor, newly sworn in as a U.S. senator, was so at odds with the industry and congressional Republicans that President Obama backed away from appointing her to head the agency after tapping her to set it up.


"The goal of this regulation, ensuring that borrowers receive loans that they can repay, is in everyone's best interest. We cannot, and should not, go back to the high-risk lending environment of the early 2000s," Debra W. Still, chairwoman of the Mortgage Bankers Assn., said in a statement.


Consumer bureau Director Richard Cordray, who was scheduled to formally unveil the rules Thursday, said the aim was to achieve "the true essence of 'responsible lending.'"


"The American dream of homeownership was shaken to its foundations," Cordray said in prepared remarks. "But, in the wake of the financial crash, we have been experiencing a housing market that is tough on people in just the opposite way — credit is achingly tight."


The qualified mortgage rules rest on the principle of ability to pay, the goal Congress told the bureau to implement in the regulatory reform law passed after the financial crisis. Senior officials at the consumer agency briefed reporters on it Wednesday.


The rules notably limit a potential borrower's total payments, including those for property taxes, fire insurance and non-housing debt such as credit cards, to 43% of gross income.


During the housing boom, aggressive lenders had set the bar at 50% or higher for mortgage payments alone — disregarding other debt — and then allowed borrowers to qualify by merely stating their incomes, with no documentation.


The rules simultaneously aim to ban mainstream use of the riskiest practices of the housing bubble, such as loans made without checking tax returns and pay stubs; loans with payments so low that the loan balance rises instead of falls; and qualifying borrowers based on low "teaser" rates instead of fully adjusted payments.


Certain subprime loans to borrowers with credit problems could be qualified mortgages, but not the loosely underwritten loans that helped fuel the housing boom and bust.


Lenders would still have to determine that borrowers could afford to repay such loans, which would carry significantly higher interest rates than prime mortgages. They also could be challenged more easily in court — for instance, by borrowers claiming a lender gave them a loan that left them too little money to live on, even though their debt payments were only 43% of their incomes.


Lenders are expected to continue lending outside the guidelines in some cases. For example, jumbo mortgages — those too big for purchase by Fannie and Freddie — are often written to affluent borrowers who for a variety of reasons choose to pay interest only for a period of time. There's no reason that practice should stop, senior consumer bureau officials said.


Lenders will be given a year to phase in compliance with the new rules. Some question certain limits imposed by the regulations, such as limits of 3% on points and fees that borrowers could be charged upfront, and the 43% cap on total debt payments.


The 3% fee limit would be hard to meet in some cases, said the mortgage trade group's Still.


Laguna Beach mortgage broker Richard Cirelli said that the debt ratio could pose problems, especially in expensive real estate markets.


"Capping the debt limit at 43% is going to create some problems," Cirelli said. "Especially for first-time buyers in California. It's still pretty expensive here."


scott.reckard@latimes.com





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Charlie Sheen downplays Baja encounter with L.A. mayor









Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa found himself sucked deeper into the Charlie Sheen-TMZ-Hollywood gossip vortex Tuesday, with the actor speaking out again about the night they met up at a hotel in Mexico over the holidays.


Sheen made news last month after he tweeted a picture of himself with his arm around Villaraigosa the night of Sheen's bar opening in Baja California, Mexico. The former star of "Two and a Half Men" praised the mayor as a man who "knows how to party." But Villaraigosa downplayed the significance of the image, telling KNBC's Conan Nolan over the weekend that he had only "bumped into" Sheen and engaged in a three-minute conversation.


On Tuesday, Sheen challenged Villaraigosa's account, telling celebrity website TMZ that the mayor was drinking in Sheen's hotel suite in a room full of beautiful women, including at least one porn star. "I memorize 95 pages a week, so the last thing that I am is memory challenged," Sheen told the website. "We hung out for the better part of two hours."





Hours later, Sheen issued a more muted account, saying the mayor had spoken to many other people at the opening of the bar. "I am a giant fan of the mayor's and apologize if any of my words have been misconstrued," the statement said.


By then, however, Villaraigosa found himself fending off related questions at a news conference meant to be devoted to billionaire Eli Broad's new downtown art museum. "Can you just set the record straight for us?" asked one reporter. "What was it? Two hours or three minutes?" asked another. Then came the zinger: "Does what happens in Cabo stay in Cabo?"


Villaraigosa cackled at the Cabo crack but refused to take the bait. "I've said what I'm going to say on that, everybody," Villaraigosa declared. "You had fun. Let's talk about the important things, like a thousand jobs today" — a reference to construction work going on at Broad's museum.


Villaraigosa has frequently bristled at media questions about his personal life, going silent on some occasions and becoming visibly angry on others. Last week, he told KNBC's Nolan that Nolan had asked a "bozo question" about the Sheen photograph. He also noted that Nolan and other newsroom staffers have, like Sheen, asked the mayor to pose for pictures with them.


Sheen has been a TMZ staple, using the website as a platform to talk up his $100,000 gift to celebrity Lindsay Lohan and his porn star "goddesses." And Villaraigosa has glided easily between the world of politics and the entertainment industry since being elected in 2005.


"He's a celebrity mayor. And he's always wanted to be that," said Jaime Regalado, professor emeritus of political science at Cal State L.A. "If you're going to be a celebrity mayor, you have to take the good and the bad and everything in between" when it comes to news coverage.


david.zahniser@latimes.com


kate.linthicum@latimes.com





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Panasonic considers headcount savings, asset sales in revival plan






LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Japan‘s Panasonic Corp may see its headcount fall further and may sell non-core money-making business units to raise cash, president Kazuhiro Tsuga told reporters at the CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.


Hammered by competition from South Korean rivals such as Samsung Electronics, Panasonic may also squeeze wages and seek joint ventures in its semiconductors and other struggling operations in a bid to rekindle profit growth, Tsuga said.






Shares in Panasonic slipped 1.4 percent to a two-week low in Tokyo morning trade, compared to a 0.4 percent increase on the benchmark Nikkei average.


The Panasonic chief said in an earlier keynote speech he would pursue strategies to expand business-to-business sales of car batteries, in-flight entertainment systems, hydrogen cells, solar panels and LED lighting.


Japan’s share of the world’s flat panel TV market this year likely contracted to 31 percent compared with 41 percent in 2010, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association.


Panasonic earlier unveiled a prototype of the world’s largest organic light-emitting display screen in a show of technological one-upmanship with its South Korean rivals Samsung and LG Electronics Inc.


Sony Corp, which is cooperating with Panasonic in OLED technology, unwrapped on Monday its own 56-inch ultra high-definition model.


Tsuga, who heads Japan’s biggest commercial employer with 300,000 staff, is also pursuing a niche strategy and bolstering the company’s appliance business in a bid to capture more profitable markets while the likes of Samsung and Apple Inc slug it out in mass-market consumer electronics.


The executive has promised to deliver the details of the revival plan by the end of March, when he plans to reorganize 88 businesses into 56 units.


So far he has said that businesses that fail to achieve a 5 percent operating margin within two years will be shuttered or sold. Sales of the weakest ones may start next business year. Panasonic in the year to March 31 is forecasting a net loss of $ 8.9 billion.


(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Paul Tait and Muralikumar Anantharaman)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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'Lincoln' leads race for British Academy Awards


LONDON (AP) — Historical biopic "Lincoln" leads the race for the British Academy Film Awards, with 10 nominations including best picture at the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars.


Epic musical "Les Miserables" and boy-meets-tiger saga "Life of Pi" received nine nominations each on Wednesday. James Bond adventure "Skyfall" got eight — rare awards recognition for an action movie — and Iran hostage thriller "Argo" took seven.


"Lincoln" focuses on the last months in the life of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, as he struggled to end the Civil War and pass a constitutional amendment banning slavery.


Britain's Daniel Day-Lewis is nominated for leading actor for his uncanny embodiment of the iconic president, and there are supporting nominations for Sally Field as his wife Mary Todd Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens. But the film's director, Steven Spielberg, failed to get a nod.


The best picture nominees are "Lincoln," ''Les Miserables," ''Life of Pi," ''Argo" and Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty."


"Les Miserables" is also a contender in the separate category of best British film, alongside "Anna Karenina," ''The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," ''Seven Psychopaths" and "Skyfall."


Ben Affleck is nominated both as director of "Argo" and as its leading actor. The other male acting contenders are Day-Lewis, Bradley Cooper for "Silver Linings Playbook," Hugh Jackman for "Les Miserables" and Joaquin Phoenix for "The Master."


"Skyfall" star Daniel Craig was snubbed, but the film received supporting acting nominations for Judi Dench's spy chief and Javier Bardem's scene-stealing baddie.


The best-actress shortlist includes 85-year-old "Amour" star Emmanuelle Riva — who was nominated for the same prize 52 years ago for "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" — Helen Mirren for "Hitchcock," Jennifer Lawrence for "Silver Linings Playbook," Jessica Chastain for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Marion Cotillard for "Rust and Bone."


The heavyweight best-director list includes Affleck, Michael Haneke for Cannes Film Festival prize-winner "Amour," Quentin Tarantino for "Django Unchained," Ang Lee for "Life of Pi" and Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty."


Poignant old-age portrait "Amour" is up for best foreign-language film, along with Norway's "Headhunters," Denmark's "The Hunt" and French films "Rust and Bone" and "Untouchable."


In recent years, the British awards, known as BAFTAs, have helped underdog films including "Slumdog Millionaire," ''The King's Speech" and "The Artist" gain momentum for Oscars success.


The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Feb. 10, two weeks before the Hollywood awards.


___


Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless


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Recipes for Health: Cauliflower and Tuna Salad — Recipes for Health


Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times







I have added tuna to a classic Italian antipasto of cauliflower and capers dressed with vinegar and olive oil. For the best results give the cauliflower lots of time to marinate.




1 large or 2 small or medium cauliflowers, broken into small florets


1 5-ounce can water-packed light (not albacore) tuna, drained


1 plump garlic clove, minced or pureéd


1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley


3 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed


1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice


3 tablespoons sherry vinegar or champagne vinegar


6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil


Salt and freshly ground pepper


1. Place the cauliflower in a steaming basket over 1 inch of boiling water, cover and steam 1 minute. Lift the lid for 15 seconds, then cover again and steam for 5 to 8 minutes, until tender. Refresh with cold water, then drain on paper towels.


2. In a large bowl, break up the tuna fish and add the cauliflower.


3. In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix together the garlic, parsley, capers, lemon juice, vinegar, and olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper. Add the cauliflower and toss together. Marinate, stirring from time to time, for 30 minutes if possible before serving. Serve warm, cold, or at room temperature.


Yield: Serves 6 as a starter or side dish


Advance preparation: You can make this up to a day ahead, but omit the parsley until shortly before serving so that it doesn’t fade. It keeps well in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.


Nutritional information per serving: 188 calories; 15 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 10 grams monounsaturated fat; 10 milligrams cholesterol; 8 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 261 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein


Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”


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Disneyland fights multiday pass abuse by photographing holders









Workers at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park took photos of visitors entering the parks Tuesday as part of a new crackdown on abuse of multiday passes.


The photographing of guests — including children — delayed visitors' getting into the park by about 45 minutes, parkgoers said.


"They delayed literally thousands of people in line to do this process," said Bob Shoberg, a San Jose resident who visited Disneyland with his wife, daughters, in-laws and grandchildren.





Disneyland officials denied that guests suffered significant delays and said only multiday pass holders were photographed.


Disney has been struggling to stop several ticket brokers in Anaheim from buying multiday park passes and then "leasing" or "renting" them to visitors for individual days.


The scenario works like this: A ticket broker buys a three-day "park hopper" pass for $205 and rents the ticket to three guests for $99 a day. The broker makes a profit of $92, and the guests, who would otherwise pay $125 for a one-day "park hopper" ticket, save $26 each.


Disneyland prohibits visitors from sharing multiday passes, but the practice does not violate local laws.


To help stop the practice, Disneyland workers a few months ago began adding the names of parkgoers to the passes and requiring that they show identification at the front gate.


On Tuesday, Disneyland took the latest step of photographing visitors who are using a multiday pass for the first time, park spokeswoman Suzi Brown said.


When the pass is used a second time, Disneyland workers at the park turnstiles will see a photo of the guest pop up on a computer screen, she said. If the person at the turnstile is not the person shown on the screen, Brown said the guest won't be allowed to use the ticket.


Disneyland officials declined to say what percentage of visitors use multiday passes, but Brown said only a "very small percentage of guests" were photographed, and that did not cause a significant delay.


"So that our guests are not taken advantage of, we strongly advise that they only purchase tickets at Disneyland Resort, at our hotels or through an authorized seller to ensure that tickets are valid," Brown added.


Brown said the parks realized the problem was growing when park workers noticed ticket brokers waving signs hawking discounted passes on the streets around the park.


One business, Bestticketshere.com, says on its website that it rents multiday passes for Disneyland and Universal Studios. The website said the business guarantees its tickets will be accepted or customers will get a full refund.


In response to an email request for comment on Disneyland's new crackdown, the company wrote: "Is the ultimate goal to shut these companies down so everyone has to pay full price?"


Most theme parks take photographs of people who buy annual passes and affix them to the pass.


Universal Studios Hollywood uses fingerprints and cross-checks the names printed on the annual passes to ensure that the tickets are not shared, park officials said. At Raging Waters in San Dimas, annual pass buyers are photographed and their photo is affixed to the pass.


hugo.martin@latimes.com





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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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181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter






Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like “social media freak” and “social media wonk” and “social media authority.”


RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends’s Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage






B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 “social media stars” and 79 “social media ninjas” on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn’t just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like “social media warrior.” (We’re tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using “guru” — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:



While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.


I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence.



Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 “mavens” (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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David Bowie readies 1st album in 10 years


NEW YORK (AP) — David Bowie is celebrating his birthday by releasing new music.


The English singer announced Tuesday, his 66th birthday, that he has released his first song in 10 years titled "Where Are We Now?"


A new album, "The Next Day," will be out March 11 and 12 in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively.


The slow groove was released on iTunes and in 119 countries. It was produced by longtime collaborator Tony Visconti.


Bowie's last album was 2003's "Reality." The fashion forward singer debuted in the 1960s, releasing multiple successful albums with sounds that range from rock to pop to glam rock to soul and funk.


The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer's hits include "Let's Dance," ''China Girl," ''Fame" and "Dancing In the Street."


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