Please report to post-op at Keck Hospital of USC early Monday morning.
I'm coming back to have the other knee done.
That's right, folks, I'm kicking off the new year by getting a partial right knee replacement because my medial cartilage is cottage cheese and I'm bone on bone, just like I was on the left knee. I need to be in top shape this year because I've got mayoral candidates to chase and a 9-year-old daughter who's already too much for me to handle on the tennis courts.
Last August, the surgery was a breeze, but I had a little surprise in post-op. A heart arrhythmia was a bigger problem than anyone knew, and my ticker went on strike for half a minute or so. Fabella, a nurse, saw me flat-line and started chest compressions, which brought me out of sudden cardiac arrest.
Some readers have questioned my sanity in going back for more, but I feel pretty good about it. As several doctors have pointed out, my knee problem may have saved my life, revealing a condition for which I now have a pacemaker.
Besides, I've heard from lots of readers who rave about the surgeon we share: Dr. Daniel Oakes. Same with my cardiologist, Dr. Leslie Saxon, who told me she'll drop by post-op to make sure I don't try any new tricks.
What I dread, more than surgery, is having to strap my leg into the continuous passive motion machine for six hours a day when I get home from the hospital. While you're flat on your back staring at the ceiling, the monotonous motion machine bends your leg, it straightens your leg. Bend. Straighten. Bend. Straighten.
Six hours of this.
The police should strap suspects into these things. They'll confess to anything.
The other thing I dread is the stream of medical mail that is guaranteed to land in my mailbox every few days, every last bit of it entirely indecipherable.
BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois keeps sending me things that say, "This is not a bill."
Then don't send it to me.
It's not as if anything in the correspondence makes sense. And then there's always the line that says, "Amount you may owe provider."
If they're not sure, how can I be?
I was notified by the insurance company last time that home physical therapy was not a covered expense. I'm guessing they'd rather have your knee lock up until your leg has to be amputated, ruling out any future billing for osteoarthritis.
I was looking for a number to call, so I could contest the decision, when I discovered on the last page of a six-page waste of paper that I "may be eligible" to receive my "adverse determination" in several languages. According to this document, I could be denied coverage in Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese or Navajo.
Sure, send one of each.
A Keck medical assistant told me to ignore the denial and get the physical therapy while the insurance company bean counters and medical administrators fought it out.
Author’s note: Most people don’t realize that we knew in the 1920s that leaded gasoline was extremely dangerous. And in light of a Mother Jones story this week that looks at the connection between leaded gasoline and crime rates in the United States, I thought it might be worth reviewing that history. The following is an updated version of an earlier post based on information from my book about early 10th century toxicology, The Poisoner’s Handbook.
In the fall of 1924, five bodies from New Jersey were delivered to the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office. You might not expect those out-of-state corpses to cause the chief medical examiner to worry about the dirt blowing in Manhattan streets. But they did.
To understand why you need to know the story of those five dead men, or at least the story of their exposure to a then mysterious industrial poison.
The five men worked at the Standard Oil Refinery in Bayway, New Jersey. All of them spent their days in what plant employees nicknamed “the loony gas building”, a tidy brick structure where workers seemed to sicken as they handled a new gasoline additive. The additive’s technical name was tetraethyl lead or, in industrial shorthand, TEL. It was developed by researchers at General Motors as an anti-knock formula, with the assurance that it was entirely safe to handle.
But, as I wrote in a previous post, men working at the plant quickly gave it the “loony gas” tag because anyone who spent much time handling the additive showed stunning signs of mental deterioration, from memory loss to a stumbling loss of coordination to sudden twitchy bursts of rage. And then in October of 1924, workers in the TEL building began collapsing, going into convulsions, babbling deliriously. By the end of September, 32 of the 49 TEL workers were in the hospital; five of them were dead.
The problem, at that point, was that no one knew exactly why. Oh, they knew – or should have known – that tetraethyl lead was dangerous. As Charles Norris, chief medical examiner for New York City pointed out, the compound had been banned in Europe for years due to its toxic nature. But while U.S. corporations hurried TEL into production in the 1920s, they did not hurry to understand its medical or environmental effects.
In 1922, the U.S. Public Health Service had asked Thomas Midgley, Jr. – the developer of the leaded gasoline process – for copies of all his research into the health consequences of tetraethyl lead (TEL).
Midgley, a scientist at General Motors, replied that no such research existed. And two years later, even with bodies starting to pile up, he had still not looked into the question. Although GM and Standard Oil had formed a joint company to manufacture leaded gasoline – the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation - its research had focused solely on improving the TEL formulas. The companies disliked and frankly avoided the lead issue. They’d deliberately left the word out of their new company name to avoid its negative image.
In response to the worker health crisis at the Bayway plant, Standard Oil suggested that the problem might simply be overwork. Unimpressed, the state of New Jersey ordered a halt to TEL production. And because the compound was so poorly understood, state health officials asked the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office to find out what had happened.
In 1924, New York had the best forensic toxicology department in the country; in fact,, it had one of the few such programs period. The chief chemist was a dark, cigar-smoking, perfectionist named Alexander Gettler, a famously dogged researcher who would sit up late at night designing both experiments and apparatus as needed.
It took Gettler three obsessively focused weeks to figure out how much tetraethyl lead the Standard Oil workers had absorbed before they became ill, went crazy, or died. “This is one of the most difficult of many difficult investigations of the kind which have been carried on at this laboratory,” Norris said, when releasing the results. “This was the first work of its kind, as far as I know. Dr. Gettler had not only to do the work but to invent a considerable part of the method of doing it.”
Working with the first four bodies, then checking his results against the body of the last worker killed, who had died screaming in a straitjacket, Gettler discovered that TEL and its lead byproducts formed a recognizable distribution, concentrated in the lungs, the brain, and the bones. The highest levels were in the lungs suggesting that most of the poison had been inhaled; later tests showed that the types of masks used by Standard Oil did not filter out the lead in TEL vapors.
Rubber gloves did protect the hands but if TEL splattered onto unprotected skin, it absorbed alarmingly quickly. The result was intense poisoning with lead, a potent neurotoxin. The loony gas symptoms were, in fact, classic indicators of heavy lead toxicity.
After Norris released his office’s report on tetraethyl lead, New York City banned its sale, and the sale of “any preparation containing lead or other deleterious substances” as an additive to gasoline. So did New Jersey. So did the city of Philadelphia. It was a moment in which health officials in large urban areas were realizing that with increased use of automobiles, it was likely that residents would be increasingly exposed to dangerous lead residues and they moved quickly to protect them.
But fearing that such measures would spread, that they would be forced to find another anti-knock compound, as well as losing considerable money, the manufacturing companies demanded that the federal government take over the investigation and develop its own regulations. U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, a Republican and small-government conservative, moved rapidly in favor of the business interests.
The manufacturers agreed to suspend TEL production and distribution until a federal investigation was completed. In May 1925, the U.S. Surgeon General called a national tetraethyl lead conference, to be followed by the formation of an investigative task force to study the problem. That same year, Midgley published his first health analysis of TEL, which acknowledged a minor health risk at most, insisting that the use of lead compounds,”compared with other chemical industries it is neither grave nor inescapable.”
It was obvious in advance that he’d basically written the conclusion of the federal task force. That panel only included selected industry scientists like Midgely. It had no place for Alexander Gettler or Charles Norris or, in fact, anyone from any city where sales of the gas had been banned, or any agency involved in the producing that first critical analysis of tetraethyl lead.
In January 1926, the public health service released its report which concluded that there was “no danger” posed by adding TEL to gasoline…”no reason to prohibit the sale of leaded gasoline” as long as workers were well protected during the manufacturing process.
The task force did look briefly at risks associated with every day exposure by drivers, automobile attendants, gas station operators, and found that it was minimal. The researchers had indeed found lead residues in dusty corners of garages. In addition, all the drivers tested showed trace amounts of lead in their blood. But a low level of lead could be tolerated, the scientists announced. After all, none of the test subjects showed the extreme behaviors and breakdowns associated with places like the looney gas building. And the worker problem could be handled with some protective gear.
There was one cautionary note, though. The federal panel warned that exposure levels would probably rise as more people took to the roads. Perhaps, at a later point, the scientists suggested, the research should be taken up again. It was always possible that leaded gasoline might “constitute a menace to the general public after prolonged use or other conditions not foreseen at this time.”
But, of course, that would be another generation’s problem. In 1926, citing evidence from the TEL report, the federal government revoked all bans on production and sale of leaded gasoline. The reaction of industry was jubilant; one Standard Oil spokesman likened the compound to a “gift of God,” so great was its potential to improve automobile performance.
In New York City, at least, Charles Norris decided to prepare for the health and environmental problems to come. He suggested that the department scientists do a base-line measurement of lead levels in the dirt and debris blowing across city streets. People died, he pointed out to his staff; and everyone knew that heavy metals like lead tended to accumulate. The resulting comparison of street dirt in 1924 and 1934 found a 50 percent increase in lead levels – a warning, an indicator of damage to come, if anyone had been paying attention.
It was some fifty years later – in 1986 – that the United States formally banned lead as a gasoline additive. By that time, according to some estimates, so much lead had been deposited into soils, streets, building surfaces, that an estimated 68 million children would register toxic levels of lead absorption and some 5,000 American adults would die annually of lead-induced heart disease. As lead affects cognitive function, some neuroscientists also suggested that chronic lead exposure resulted in a measurable drop in IQ scores during the leaded gas era. And more recently, of course, researchers had suggested that TEL exposure and resulting nervous system damage may have contributed to violent crime rates in the 20th century.
Images: 1) Manhattan, 34th Street, 1931/NYC Municipal Archives 2) 1940s gas station, US Route 66, Illinois/Deborah Blum
PASADENA, California (Reuters) – Michael Douglas takes on larger-than-life entertainer Liberace as he plays the singer in an HBO film about a secret love affair in the 1970s that Douglas on Friday called “a great love story.”
Director Steven Soderbergh said he chose to tell Liberace’s story through the lens of his romance with Scott Thorson – a young man who walked into the singer’s Las Vegas dressing room in the summer of 1977 – in part to expand public perception beyond his outsized personality and lavish lifestyle.
“I was very anxious that we not make a caricature of either of their characters or the relationship,” Soderbergh told reporters at a meeting of the Television Critics Association.
“The discussions they’re having are discussions every couple has. We take the relationship very seriously,” he said.
The film called “Beyond the Candelabra” debuts this spring on Time Warner Inc-owned HBO. It is based on Thorson’s book of the same name about their relationship, which ended in a bitter breakup. Matt Damon plays Thorson.
The idea for the film was budding 12 years ago, when Soderbergh and the “Wall Street” actor were working on the 2000 movie “Traffic.” Soderbergh randomly asked Douglas if he had ever thought of playing Liberace.
Douglas said he thought “is this guy messing with me?,” but launched into an impersonation that stuck with Soderbergh years later when he began envisioning the Liberace film.
The movie depicts “a great love story,” Douglas said.
“This is a couple that felt for each other. There’s a lot of joyful moments; there is humor to it,” until their emotional split, he said.
Liberace tried to keep his relationship with Thorson from the public. When Thorson sued Liberace for palimony after their breakup, the entertainer denied that he was gay or that the two had been lovers.
“It’s unfortunate to see the movie through a contemporary lens and know they were not allowed to be as open back then as people are today,” Soderbergh said.
Liberace died in 1987 at age 67.
The filmmakers used locations and props directly from Liberace’s life. Scenes were filmed at the musician’s Los Angeles penthouse and on the stage at the Las Vegas Hilton where Liberace performed. The filmmakers also reunited his trademark, matching “Dueling Pianos.”
The movie’s costume designers worked to recreate his elaborate costumes. In one of the star’s dramatic entrances, the real-life Liberace wore a $ 300,000 white virgin fox coat, lined with $ 100,000 worth of Austrian crystals, that weighed 100 lbs (45 kg). In the film, Douglas wears a replica made of fake fur that weighs much less.
Damon also got to wear his share of flashy outfits. While he said he normally doesn’t pay too much attention to wardrobe fittings, he said he embraced the glamorous costumes in the Liberace film.
“I probably spent more time in wardrobe fittings in this thing than I have in the previous 15 projects,” he said. “I really enjoyed it.”
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine, editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)
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Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times
Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.
Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.
In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.
In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.
The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.
Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.
The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.
New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.
The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.
Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.
“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.
While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.
The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.
Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.
“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.
Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.
“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.
As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.
Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times
Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.
Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.
In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.
In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.
The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.
Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.
The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.
New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.
The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.
Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.
“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.
While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.
The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.
Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.
“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.
Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.
“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.
As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.
WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to nominate Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator and Vietnam veteran, to be Defense secretary, officials said, setting up a confirmation battle with lawmakers and interest groups critical of Hagel's views on Israel and Iran.
White House officials said Friday that the president hadn't formally offered the job to Hagel, but others familiar with the process said that the announcement could come as soon as Monday.
Hagel, who was elected to the Senate from Nebraska in 1996 and retired in 2008, was awarded two Purple Hearts for wounds he received as a soldier in Vietnam. His experience serving in that war made him wary about using force unless other options had been tried, he said in a recent interview with the history magazine Vietnam.
"I'm not a pacifist. I believe in using force but only after a very careful decision-making process. … I will do everything I can to avoid needless, senseless war," he said.
By nominating a Republican to run the Defense Department, Obama would give his second-term national security team a bipartisan cast as the White House is rapidly winding down the war in Afghanistan and planning for even deeper cuts in the defense budget. Hagel's criticism of the Iraq war has made him deeply unpopular with many conservative Republicans, however.
The choice also sets up a possibly contentious confirmation fight with Israel's defenders in Washington, some of whom mounted a public campaign to head off Hagel's nomination. They criticized him for past comments calling on Israel to negotiate with Palestinian groups and for opposing some sanctions aimed at Iran.
Hagel, who would succeed Leon Panetta as Defense secretary, has also been criticized by some liberal Democrats and gay rights organizations for a comment he made during the Clinton presidency, calling an ambassadorial nominee "openly, aggressively gay" — a comment Hagel recently apologized for.
Diving into a fight over nominating Hagel would appear to mark a sharp departure for Obama, who has generally avoided battles over selections for major posts. But a decision to pick another candidate would also have been damaging to Obama because it would have been his second surrender on a top Cabinet choice within a month.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, withdrew her name from consideration as a possible secretary of State nominee last month after drawing heavy criticism from Republicans over her statements after the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
The selection of Hagel would also leave unresolved the problem of how Obama is going to add more women to the senior ranks of his national security apparatus. Senior Democratic women — including some in the administration — have said that aside from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, foreign policy has been decided by a small group of men in the White House.
Though senators from both parties have voiced reservations about Hagel, few have announced they would vote against him, a sign of caution the White House may be counting on to get him confirmed.
Hagel's record on Israel and Iran are likely to be the main focus of the nomination battle. William Kristol, the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, published a "special editorial" Friday accusing him of having "dangerous views on Iran" and an "unpleasant distaste for Israel and Jews."
Critics have cited a comment Hagel made in 2008 to author and former State Department Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller about why he sometimes opposed pro-Israel groups in the Senate.
"The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here," Hagel said, but "I'm a United States senator. I'm not an Israeli senator."
They also have cited his calls for direct negotiations with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that the U.S. and Israel refuse to deal with directly, and his votes against some Iran sanctions.
But defenders and former aides say Hagel showed his support for Israel by voting repeatedly to provide it with military aid and by calling for a comprehensive peace deal with the Palestinians that should not include any compromise regarding Israel's Jewish identity and that would leave Israel "free to live in peace and security."
They note that he also supported three major Iran sanctions bills: the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act of 1998, the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 and the Iran Freedom Support Act of 2006.
In the Senate, Hagel initially voted to give the George W. Bush administration authority to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he later harshly criticized the conduct of both wars, irritating fellow Republicans and making him popular with Democrats critical of those wars.
Obama and Hagel formed a close relationship in the Senate, and their foreign policy views seem closely aligned. Like Obama, Hagel has called for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, a position that made some pro-Israel advocates wary about whether Hagel would back using force against Iran if diplomatic efforts to halt the program failed.
Andrew Parasiliti, an aide to Hagel from 2001 to 2005, said Hagel has never ruled out using force against Iran if negotiations fail.
"He is a patriot and war hero, and he has developed a caution, and wisdom, about the use of force that was shaped in part from his experiences on the front lines in that war," Parasiliti said, referring to Vietnam.
Hagel is close to Vice President Joe Biden, the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 2009, Obama appointed him to be chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, which advises the White House on intelligence issues.
A Hagel nomination appealed to some White House aides after the bitter election campaign because it would show bipartisanship and might help win congressional support for expected cuts to the defense budget. He would be the second Republican to run the Defense Department for Obama, who kept Robert M. Gates at the Pentagon after taking office in 2009.
But Hagel's maverick qualities while in the Senate and his criticism of the Bush administration's foreign policy left him with little support in the conservative Republican Senate caucus. And the pro-Israel and gay rights groups that oppose him have strong influence in the Democratic Party
Obama will need to deal with opposition from a number of pro-Israel senators from both parties who have already raised questions about their support for Hagel. One example is Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has distanced himself from Hagel in comments last month. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has also raised questions about Hagel's past comments.
The presumption is that a president will win approval in the Senate for his nominees for top posts. Only in rare cases, such as Sen. John Tower's nomination for the Defense post in the 1980s, has the Senate blocked such a choice.
david.cloud@latimes.com
brian.bennett@latimes.com
Paul Richter and Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s planned trip to North Korea promises few returns for the company’s shareholders. But for the world’s most locked-down country, where only a few thousand citizens have internet access at all, his visit could offer the strongest hint yet of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s tortured longing for openness.
To be sure, the gulf between Google and North Korea couldn’t seem wider.
“The face of probably the most important facilitator of borderless information in the world is going into the hyperstate for the control of information,” says Victor Cha, a director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council during the second Bush administration and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The past quarter-century has seen ex-presidents, diplomats, and the world’s most powerful nations try and fail to crack open North Korea’s totalitarian regime. During the visit reportedly planned for later this month, Schmidt will join former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson for what Richardson described as a “private humanitarian visit” to free a detained U.S. citizen over the State Department’s objections.
Richardson told CBS that Schmidt’s presence on the trip had nothing to do with Google.
“I invited Eric. He is going as a private citizen,” Richardson said. “This is not a Google trip.”
Perhaps. “We do not comment on personal travel,” a Google spokeswoman said in response to questions.
But since stepping down as Google’s CEO in 2011, Schmidt has continued to serve as the search giant’s most visible public face. The significance of showing that face in Pyongyang isn’t lost on North Korea, Cha says.
“I don’t know if it’s a good opportunity for Google. But it’s a good opportunity for the North Korean leadership to signal to the world that they’re serious about going forward,” he says.
Cha accompanied Richardson to North Korea in 2007 as part of a team seeking the return of the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War. He says about 4,000 North Koreans have internet access out of a population of 25 million. Even then, that access is tightly controlled and only granted in the interest of ensuring that at least some members of the ruling class are conversant in 21st century technology.
It’s also hard to imagine that 29-year-old Kim Jong-un, who was educated in the West, can resist the same tech that defines the lives of twentysomethings around the world. “He’s got to be interested in this stuff,” Cha says. But the risks are great: “As soon as he allows open access to it, he can kiss his leadership goodbye.”
Cha believes that piercing the information bubble could accomplish more than any diplomacy in bringing change to North Korea, which could soon face further sanctions over its successful launch of a long-range rocket last month.
But whether Google could provide the necessary needle also depends on what Google could get out of the deal. In a country where starvation is common and home computers aren’t, the company would seem to have little to gain.
“Google depends on making money from people who have money, and North Koreans don’t have a lot of it,” says Danny Sullivan, founding editor of Search Engine Land and a longtime Google watcher.
At the same time, a successful trip could cement Schmidt in the role of Google’s ambassador to the world. Google may have escaped its recent scrape with the FTC with nothing more than a hand slap, but it still has European regulators to contend with. As the company’s reach extends further around the world, having an international man of mystery with a jet at his disposal could come in very handy going forward. Already a fixture among the Davos set, with this trip Schmidt seems more ready than ever to embrace that role.
“He seems to be doing an exceptional job at government relations — note that Google has avoided antitrust problems, at least in the U.S.,” says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Pfeffer says that while not common in the U.S., it’s typical in other parts of the world for CEOs to stick to their companies’ internal affairs while the chairmen interact with the outside world: “By all indications, this is working stunningly well for Google.”
(Reuters) – Octogenarian Playboy founder Hugh Hefner briefly swapped his iconic silk pajamas for a tuxedo to marry Crystal Harris, the one-time “runaway bride” who followed through this time at a New Year’s Eve wedding.
“Happy New Year from Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Hefner!” the Playboy magazine publisher tweeted early on Tuesday.
The message accompanied a photograph of Hefner, 86, wearing what appeared to be purple silk pajamas under a black bathrobe and snuggling his bride, 26, still wearing her pale pink wedding dress. He also wore his trademark captain’s hat.
An hour earlier, Hefner posted a picture of himself in a tuxedo with his bride under an arch of pink and white flowers at the wedding ceremony in the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.
“Crystal & I married on New Year’s Eve in the Mansion with Keith as my Best Man. Love that girl!” Hefner wrote on Twitter with the picture, referring to his brother Keith Hefner, a songwriter.
The couple tied the knot more than a year after their planned 2011 wedding was scuttled when Harris got cold feet.
The blonde Playboy Playmate of the Month for December 2009 jettisoned the adult entertainment mogul in what was called a “change of heart” five days before a lavish June 2011 wedding before 300 guests.
Harris, who appeared on the July 2011 cover of the adult magazine with a “runaway bride” sticker covering her bottom half, tweeted on Monday that she was ready to commit and changed her name to “Crystal Hefner” on the micro-blogging site.
“Today is the day I become Mrs. Hugh Hefner,” Harris, who has a psychology degree, wrote on Twitter after writing “Feeling very happy, lucky, and blessed.”
The San Diego native, whose parents are British, said she asked for Christmas ornaments rather than lingerie at her pre-Christmas bridal shower to help decorate Hefner’s famed mansion.
Hefner, founder of the Playboy adult entertainment empire, has been married twice before. He and his second wife Kimberley Conrad, also a former Playmate, divorced in 2010 after a lengthy separation. His first marriage to Mildred Williams ended in divorce in 1959. He has two children from each marriage.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Paul Simao)
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Amber Jupe, right, attended a session conducted by Margo Shanks at a Care Net facility; the program addressed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.
WACO, Tex. — With free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, along with diapers, parenting classes and even temporary housing, pregnancy centers are playing an increasingly influential role in the anti-abortion movement. While most attention has focused on scores of new state laws restricting abortion, the centers have been growing in numbers and gaining state financing and support.
Largely run by conservative Christians, the centers say they offer what Roland Warren, head of Care Net, one of the largest pregnancy center organizations, described as “a compassionate approach to this issue.”
As they expand, they are adding on-call or on-site medical personnel and employing sophisticated strategies to attract women, including Internet search optimization and mobile units near Planned Parenthood clinics.
“They’re really the darlings of the pro-life movement,” said Jeanneane Maxon, vice president for external affairs at Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group. “That ground level, one-on-one, reaching-the-woman-where-she’s-at approach.”
Pregnancy centers, while not new, now number about 2,500, compared with about 1,800 abortion providers. Ms. Maxon estimated that the centers see about a million clients annually, with another million attending abstinence and other programs. Abortion rights advocates have long called some of their approaches deceptive or manipulative. Medical and other experts say some dispense scientifically flawed information, exaggerating abortion’s risks.
Jean Schroedel, a Claremont Graduate University politics professor, said that “there are some positive aspects” to centers, but that “things pregnant women are told at many of these centers, some of it is really factually suspect.”
The centers defend their practices and information. “Women who come in are constantly telling us, ‘Abortion seems to be my only alternative and I think that’s the best thing to do,’ ” said Peggy Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International, which she described as a “Christ-centered” organization with 1,100 affiliates. “Centers provide women with the whole choice.”
One pregnant woman, Nasya Dotie, 21, single, worried about finishing college and disappointing her parents, said she was “almost positive I was going to have an abortion.”
A friend at her Christian university suggested visiting Care Net of Central Texas. She met with a counselor, went home and considered her options. She returned for an ultrasound, and though planning not to look at the screen, when a clinician offered, she agreed. Then, “I was like, ‘That’s my baby. I can’t not have him.’ ”
Thirteen states now provide some direct financing; 27 offer “Choose Life” license plates, the proceeds from which aid centers. In 2011, Texas increased financing for the centers while cutting family planning money by two-thirds, and required abortion clinics to provide names of centers at least 24 hours before performing abortions. In South Dakota, a 2011 law being challenged by Planned Parenthood requires pregnancy center visits before abortions.
Cities like Austin, Baltimore and New York have tried regulating centers with ordinances requiring them to post signs stating that they do not provide abortions or contraceptives, and disclosing whether medical professionals are on-site. Except for San Francisco’s, the laws were blocked by courts or softened after centers sued claiming free speech violations. Similar bills in five states floundered. Most legal challenges to “Choose Life” license plates failed, although a North Carolina court said alternate views must be offered.
Some observers say harsh anti-abortion statements from the 2012 elections may also benefit pregnancy centers.
“Do you want some individual politician talking about rape, or some woman who says, ‘I care about you’?” Dr. Schroedel said.
Conservatives like Rick Santorum, during his presidential campaign, and the Texas governor, Rick Perry, have praised pregnancy centers.
Some centers use controversial materials stating that abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer. A brochure issued by Care Net’s national organization, for example, says, “A number of reliable studies have concluded that there is an association between abortion and later development of breast cancer.”
Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer, who calls himself a “pro-life Catholic,” said studies showing abortion-breast cancer links are “very weak,” while strong studies find no correlation.
Other claims include long-term psychological effects. The Care Net brochure says that “many women experience initial relief,” but that “women should be informed that abortion significantly increases risk for” clinical depression, suicidal thoughts and behavior, post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems. An American Psychological Association report found no increased risk from one abortion.
With largely volunteer staffs and donations from mostly Christian sources, centers usually offer free tests and ultrasounds, services that clinics like Planned Parenthood charge for. They offer advice about baby-rearing or adoption, ask if women are being pressured to abort, and give technical descriptions of abortion and fetal development. Many offer prayer and Bible study.
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed two sweeping rules aimed at preventing the contamination of produce and processed foods, which has sickened tens of thousands of Americans annually in recent years.
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
A new rule imposed by the F.D.A. would establish different standards for ensuring the purity of water that touches fruits and vegetables.
The proposed rules represent a sea change in the way the agency polices food, a process that currently involves taking action after contamination has been identified. It is a long-awaited step toward codifying the food safety law that Congress passed two years ago.
Changes include requirements for better record keeping, contingency plans for handling outbreaks and measures that would prevent the spread of contaminants in the first place. While food producers would have latitude in determining how to execute the rules, farmers would have to ensure that water used in irrigation met certain standards and food processors would need to find ways to keep fresh food that may contain bacteria from coming into contact with food that has been cooked.
New safety measures might include requiring that farm workers wash their hands, installing portable toilets in fields and ensuring that foods are cooked at temperatures high enough to kill bacteria.
Whether consumers will ultimately bear some of the expense of the new rules was unclear, but the agency estimated that the proposals would cost food producers tens of thousands of dollars a year.
A big question to be resolved is whether Congress will approve the money necessary to support the oversight. President Obama requested $220 million in his 2013 budget, but Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the F.D.A., said “resources remain an ongoing concern.”
Nonetheless, agency officials were optimistic that the new rules would protect consumers better.
“These new rules really set the basic framework for a modern, science-based approach to food safety and shift us from a strategy of reacting to problems to a strategy for preventing problems,” Michael R. Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in an interview. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for the safety of about 80 percent of the food that Americans consume. The rest falls to the Agriculture Department, which is responsible for meat, poultry and some eggs.
One in six Americans becomes ill from eating contaminated food each year, the government estimates; most of them recover without concern, but roughly 130,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die. The agency estimated the new rules could prevent about 1.75 million illnesses each year.
Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010 after a wave of incidents involving tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.
But it took the Obama administration two years to move the rules through the regulatory agency, prompting complaints that the White House was more concerned about protecting itself from Republican criticism than about public safety.
Mr. Taylor said that the delay was a function of the wide variety of foods and the complexity of the food system. “Anything that is important and complicated will always take longer than you would like,” he said.
The first rule would require manufacturers of processed foods sold in the United States to come up with ways to reduce the risk of contamination. Food companies would be required to have a plan for correcting problems and for keeping records that government inspectors could audit.
An example might be to require the roasting of raw peanuts at a temperature guaranteed to kill salmonella, which has been a problem in nut butters in recent years. Roasted nuts would then have to be kept separate from raw nuts to further reduce the risk of contamination, said Sandra B. Eskin, director of the safe food campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
“This is very good news for consumers,” Ms. Eskin said. “We applaud the administration’s action, which demonstrates its strong commitment to making our food safer.”
The second rule would apply to the harvesting and production of fruits and vegetables in an effort to combat bacterial contamination like E. coli, which is transmitted through feces. It would address what advocates refer to as the “four Ws” — water, waste, workers and wildlife.
Justin Bieber and his collection of exotic cars have been tantalizing targets for celebrity photographers ever since the young singer got his driver's license.
A video captured the paparazzi chasing Bieber through Westside traffic in November. When Bieber's white Ferrari stops at an intersection, the video shows the singer turning to one of the photographers and asking: "How do your parents feel about what you do?"
A few months earlier, he was at the wheel of his Fisker sports car when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over for driving at high speeds while trying to outrun a paparazzo.
This pursuit for the perfect shot took a fatal turn Tuesday when a photographer was hit by an SUV on Sepulveda Boulevard after taking photos of Bieber's Ferrari. And the singer now finds himself at the center of the familiar debate about free speech and the aggressive tactics of the paparazzi.
Since Princess Diana's fatal accident in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by photographers, California politicians have tried crafting laws that curb paparazzi behavior. But some of those laws are rarely used, and attorneys have challenged the constitutionality of others.
On Wednesday, Bieber went on the offensive, calling on lawmakers to crack down.
"Hopefully this tragedy will finally inspire meaningful legislation and whatever other necessary steps to protect the lives and safety of celebrities, police officers, innocent public bystanders and the photographers themselves," he said in a statement.
It remained unclear if any legislators would take up his call. But Bieber did get some support from another paparazzi target, singer Miley Cyrus.
She wrote on Twitter that she hoped the accident "brings on some changes in '13 Paparazzi are dangerous!"
Last year, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threw out charges related to a first-of-its-kind anti-paparazzi law in a case involving Bieber being chased on the 101 Freeway by photographer Paul Raef. Passed in 2010, the law created punishments for paparazzi who drove dangerously to obtain images.
But the judge said the law violated 1st Amendment protections by overreaching and potentially affecting such people as wedding photographers or photographers speeding to a location where a celebrity was present.
The L.A. city attorney's office is now appealing that decision.
Raef's attorney, Dmitry Gorin, said new anti-paparazzi laws are unnecessary.
"There are plenty of other laws on the books to deal with these issues. There is always a rush to create a new paparazzi law every time something happens," he said. "Any new law on the paparazzi is going to run smack into the 1st Amendment. Truth is, most conduct is covered by existing laws. A lot of this is done for publicity."
Coroner's officials have not identified the photographer because they have not reached the next of kin. However, his girlfriend, Frances Merto, and another photographer identified him as Chris Guerra.
The incident took place on Sepulveda Boulevard near Getty Center Drive shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday. A friend of Bieber was driving the sports car when it was pulled over on the 405 Freeway by the California Highway Patrol. The photographer arrived near the scene on Sepulveda, left his car and crossed the street to take photos. Sources familiar with the investigation said the CHP told him to leave the area. As he was returning to his vehicle, he was hit by the SUV.
Law enforcement sources said Wednesday that it was unlikely charges would be filed against the driver of the SUV that hit the photographer.
Veteran paparazzo Frank Griffin took issue with the criticism being directed at the photographer as well as other paparazzi.
"What's the difference between our guy who got killed under those circumstances and the war photographer who steps on a land mine in Afghanistan and blows himself to pieces because he wanted the photograph on the other side of road?" said Griffin, who co-owns the photo agency Griffin-Bauer.
"The only difference is the subject matter. One is a celebrity and the other is a battle. Both young men have left behind mothers and fathers grieving and there's no greater sadness in this world than parents who have to bury their children."
Others, however, said the death focuses attention on the safety issues involving paparazzi
"The paparazzi are increasingly reckless and dangerous. The greater the demand, the greater the incentive to do whatever it takes to get the image," said Blair Berk, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented numerous celebrities. "The issue here isn't vanity and nuisance, it's safety."
The leader of the in-theater camcording gang known as the IMAGiNE Group was handed a 60-month prison term Thursday in what is the nation’s longest sentence in a file-sharing case.
The sentence handed to Jeramiah Perkins, 40, of Portsmouth, Virginia, surpassed one of largest file-sharing terms handed to IMAGiNE co-defendant Gregory A. Cherwonik, 53, of New York, who received 40 months in November for his role in the operation.
In all, five IMAGiNE members have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement for operating what prosecutors described as the world’s most prolific piracy release group between 2009 and 2011.
The Motion Picture Association of America said IMAGiNE was more successful than any other illegal internet release group because of its “short latency periods between the theatrical release and their pirated release, their consistently good quality of audio captures, their high volume of releases, and their connection to international suppliers.”
What’s more, the group sought “to be the premier group to first release to the internet copies of new motion pictures only showing in movie theaters,” according to the indictment. (.pdf)
According to Perkins’ plea agreement with prosecutors and accepted by U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen of the Eastern District of Virginia, Perkins rented computer servers in France and elsewhere for the group, registered domain names and, among other things, created e-mail and PayPal accounts “to receive donations and payments from persons downloading or buying IMAGiNE Group releases of pirated copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted works,” the authorities said.
Group members would audio-record films such as Friends With Benefits and Captain America: The First Avenger. Others members would record the film at a theater with a camcorder. Then the sound and video would be combined into a full-featured movie, the authorities said.
Other films the group recorded and uploaded included The Men Who Stare at Goats, Avatar, Clash of the Titans, Iron Man 2, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and, among others, The Green Hornet.
The authorities said the group utilized servers in France, Canada and the United States to offer in-theater-only movies from websites like unleashthe.net, pure-imagination.us and pure-imagination.info.
The indictment said the group accepted donations “to fund expenses, including the cost of renting servers used by the conspirators, and to accept payments for the unauthorized distribution and sale of pirated copies of copyrighted works.” The indictment charged that the IMAGiNE Group’s websites included member profiles, a torrent tracker, discussion forums and a message board.
Sean Lovelady, 28, of California, was handed 23 months in October for his role. Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania, was given 30 months. A fifth defendant is expected to be sentenced in March.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Star Wars” creator George Lucas will marry his longtime girlfriend Mellody Hobson, the director’s production company Lucasfilm Ltd said on Thursday.
Lucas, 68, and Hobson, the president of Chicago investment firm Ariel Investments LLC, have been together for the past six years. It will be Lucas’ second marriage. He was married to Oscar-winning film editor Marcia Lucas from 1969 to 1983.
No date or location for the wedding has been made public.
Hobson, 43, serves on the board of directors for Hollywood studio Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc, cosmetics company Estee Lauder Companies Inc, coffeehouse chain Starbucks Corp and Internet coupon company Groupon Inc.
Lucas, who rose to fame directing the 1971 science-fiction film “THX 1138,” launched “Star Wars” in 1977 developed it into one of the highest-grossing film franchises of all time.
Lucas sold Lucasfilm and the “Star Wars” franchise to the Walt Disney Co in November for $ 4.05 billion.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)
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Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.
Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.
The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.
“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.
Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.
Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.
As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.
Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.
“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”
A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.
In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.
Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.
Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.
On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.
But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.
Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.
WASHINGTON — Just a few months after announcing a campaign to reduce unemployment, Federal Reserve officials are already debating how soon to stop it, reflecting persistent internal divisions about the effort’s value.
At a meeting in December, several members of the Fed’s policy making committee argued that purchases of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities should be reduced or ended “well before the end of 2013,” according to an account of the meeting the Fed published Thursday after a customary three-week delay.
The Fed announced after the meeting that it would keep buying assets until the pace of job creation improved substantially, part of an effort to increase the impact of its policies by announcing economic objectives rather than end dates. But the account shows that many members of the 12-person committee continue to think in terms of end dates, partly because they are worried about the potential costs.
The concerns include the potential disruption of financial markets and the delicate balance between encouraging private borrowing and unleashing speculation. Fed officials professed less concern that the purchases could loosen the Fed’s grip on inflation. They noted that inflation remained low, and that they expected it to stay under control.
“While almost all members thought that the asset purchase program begun in September had been effective and supportive of growth, they also generally saw that the benefits of ongoing purchases were uncertain and that the potential costs could rise as the size of the balance sheet increased,” the meeting account said.
The stock market declined after the Fed released the account of its deliberations, suggesting some investors were surprised by the cautious tone, but the drop was modest. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 0.21 percent of its value at the close of trading.
Joseph LaVorgna, an economist at Deutsche Bank, said investors had expected the Fed to keep buying “through much, if not all, of this year.” He said investors would now need to watch more closely for evidence that the recovery was gaining strength, which could lead the Fed to curtail its purchases.
“This should significantly amplify the financial market’s sensitivity to upcoming economic data,” Mr. LaVorgna wrote in a note to clients Thursday.
The government will release its monthly jobs report Friday morning.
But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, said investors should keep the account in perspective, as a reflection of modest misgivings in the middle of the most aggressive effort the Fed has ever undertaken to stimulate the economy.
The central bank announced after the December meeting that it planned to hold short-term interest rates near zero at least until the unemployment rate fell below 6.5 percent, provided inflation remained under control, and it estimated that the rate would cross that threshold no sooner than mid-2015.
The Fed also plans to maintain for the foreseeable future the vast portfolio of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities it has acquired since 2008 to further reduce borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.
And Ms. Swonk said she saw nothing in the account to alter her conviction that the Fed intended to keep adding to that stockpile through the coming year. She said the reservations of some officials had not prevented the new campaign, and would not force an early conclusion, because the basic argument for the purchases remained compelling: the economy is not growing fast enough, too many people remain unemployed, and the rest of government is not helping.
“I think that they would love to be able to stop,” Ms. Swonk said, but given the condition of the economy, “I think there’s still a huge bias toward buying.”
She said that four of the 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee would be replaced in January, and that two new arrivals — Charles L. Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston — had been outspoken supporters of asset purchases.
The Fed’s current program of asset purchases began in September with the announcement that it would buy $40 billion in mortgage bonds each month until the outlook for the labor market “improved substantially.”
In December, the Fed said it would also expand its holdings of Treasuries by $45 billion each month, replacing a program in which it acquired that amount of long-term Treasuries each month by selling the same amount of short-term Treasuries, so that the total size of its portfolio remained unchanged.
The account said that a few officials predicted the purchases would need to continue through the end of the year, and a few said it was too soon to make a judgment.
“Several others thought that it would probably be appropriate to slow or to stop purchases well before the end of 2013, citing concerns about financial stability or the size of the balance sheet,” the account continued, before concluding, “One member viewed any additional purchases as unwarranted.”
WASHINGTON — Despite the huge relief rally on Wall Street, the incomplete resolution of the so-called fiscal cliff will do little to boost the economy but assures an intense budget battle that is expected to weigh on spending and hiring at least over the next few months.
The New Year's Day deal let payroll taxes for all workers revert to their previous higher rate, though it avoided the worst of the "fiscal cliff" issues by blocking tax-rate increases on all but the wealthiest Americans and postponing federal spending cuts.
That means workers will start seeing on average about $20 less a week in their paychecks starting this month, a cut in incomes that is expected to dampen spending and contribute to slower hiring.
But that's not what business leaders and economists are fretting about; the payroll tax cut was meant to be temporary, and most had factored its expiration into their new year's forecast. The big concern is that the deal did nothing to reduce government spending and fell short of taking needed steps to stabilize the rising U.S. debt.
Lawmakers also left for the new Congress the hard work of raising the nation's debt limit before the end of February, the rough deadline for action in the latest Treasury Department estimates.
Policymakers still must try in the next two months to replace $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over the next decade with a package that would cause less economic damage.
And the fates of many tax deductions and loopholes are up in the air because overhauls of the individual and corporate tax codes are expected to take place this year as part of a deficit-reduction plan.
Wall Street, however, rejoiced. In the exuberant first day of trading in the new year, the Dow Jones industrial average surged 308 points, or 2.4%, to nearly 13,413. The rally gave the Dow its best day since Dec. 20, 2011.
"There's relief that something got passed that was better than the worst-case scenario," said Doug Cote, chief investment strategist with ING Investment Management U.S.
But he called the rally one of "false relief" because the longer-term deficit problems remain an unresolved threat.
"There's still plenty of uncertainty, unfortunately, that remains," said John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, a group of top corporate chief executives.
The group's quarterly survey last month projected the economy would maintain roughly last year's mediocre growth of 2% in 2013, and Tuesday's deal probably won't change that forecast much, he said.
Still, Engler said: "You can certainly say the potential for some harm was averted, but the potential for greater certainty still lies ahead."
Some analysts say prolonged uncertainty — coupled with the loss of consumer spending from higher payroll taxes — could hold back employers from hiring and spending as they wait for Congress to make more decisions about the budget.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release employment numbers for December on Friday, and economists are generally expecting continued steady growth of about 150,000 jobs, a decent number that would slowly bring down the unemployment rate.
But that report may be the best for months ahead if reduced demand and concerns about the upcoming budget fight cause businesses to pull back.
"The cautiousness on the part of businesses will persist," said Michael Gapen, senior U.S. economist at Barclays in New York. He reckons that the biggest hits to the labor market may be in the first quarter when companies purge payrolls after the holiday season.
The deal did extend emergency unemployment benefits for some 2 million long-term jobless workers who faced an abrupt end to their economic life support, providing about $30 billion in aid that would be pumped directly into the economy.
It also permanently fixed the alternative minimum tax, which threatened to hit millions of middle-income Americans because the provision, which was enacted in 1969 and aimed at making sure the wealthy paid some taxes, had not been indexed to inflation.
Businesses, too, expressed satisfaction with some parts of the tax agreement. Congress permanently extended much of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts, which gave companies clarity on income tax rates.
Apple suffered a major setback Wednesday in its fight with Amazon over the use of the term “app store” when a federal judge in Oakland rejected Apple’s claim that the Amazon Appstore for Android was committing false advertising.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton noted that although Apple’s digital storefront for apps is called the App Store and Amazon’s is called the Appstore, Apple has failed to provide any proof that Amazon ever tried to pass itself off as a place to get iPhone or iPad apps.
“There is no evidence that a consumer who accesses the Amazon Appstore would expect that it would be identical to the Apple App Store, particularly given that the Apple App Store sells apps solely for Apple devices, while the Amazon Appstore sells apps solely for Android and Kindle devices,” Hamilton wrote in her order to dismiss the claim. “Further, the integration of Apple devices has more to do with Apple’s technology than it does with the nature, characteristics, or qualities of the App Store.”
But while Wednesday’s dismissal is a noteworthy victory for Amazon, the battle between Apple and the online retailer wages on. The false advertising complaint is just one piece of Apple’s lawsuit against Amazon, which also accuses Amazon of copyright infringement and calls for a court order that prevents Amazon from using the Appstore name. For its part, Amazon is arguing that the Appstore and app store names are generic and that Apple doesn’t own exclusive rights to the use of the phrases.
Apple filed its suit against Amazon on the day the Amazon Appstore for Android launched, March 22, 2011. A trial over the matter is set to begin on Aug. 19, 2013.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – American pop singer Patti Page, whose 1950 hit “Tennessee Waltz” topped the charts for months, has died in Southern California, her manager said on Wednesday. She was 85.
Nicknamed “The Singing’ Rage,” Page sold more than 100 million albums in her 67-year career, which included 1950s chart toppers “(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window,” “I Went to Your Wedding” and “All My Love (Bolero).”
She died on Tuesday in a nursing home in Encinitas, north of San Diego, after suffering congestive heart failure, her manager, Michael Glynn, told Reuters.
“She’d been having some health issues for the past couple of years,” Glynn said. “She was actually doing better yesterday. I spoke to her and she sounded well.”
Page won a Grammy for her 1998 album “Live at Carnegie Hall: The 50th Anniversary Concert” and will be honored with a lifetime achievement Grammy in February. She had expected to attend the ceremony, Glynn said.
Page was born in Oklahoma as Clara Ann Fowler in 1927 and was known for her light, every-girl voice. Her first big hit was “With My Eyes Wide Open, I’m Dreaming,” which peaked at No. 11 on the charts in 1950.
Eight years later, Page scored her penultimate top-10 song, “Left Right Out of Your Heart,” as rock ‘n’ roll was emerging as the dominant trend in popular music.
Her final big hit was “Hush … Hush Sweet Charlotte” in 1965. The song served as the theme of a film of the same name starring Bette Davis.
Her reputation was burnished in recent years when rock group The White Stripes covered her 1952 song “Conquest” on their Grammy-winning 2007 album “Icky Thump.”
She was married three times, most recently in 1990.
Page is survived by her two children, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)
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ACCORDING to the United States government, nearly 7 out of 10 American adults weigh too much. (In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorized 74 percent of men and 65 percent of women as either overweight or obese.)
But a new meta-analysis of the relationship between weight and mortality risk, involving nearly three million subjects from more than a dozen countries, illustrates just how exaggerated and unscientific that claim is.
The meta-analysis, published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association, reviewed data from nearly a hundred large epidemiological studies to determine the correlation between body mass and mortality risk. The results ought to stun anyone who assumes the definition of “normal” or “healthy” weight used by our public health authorities is actually supported by the medical literature.
The study, by Katherine M. Flegal and her associates at the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, found that all adults categorized as overweight and most of those categorized as obese have a lower mortality risk than so-called normal-weight individuals. If the government were to redefine normal weight as one that doesn’t increase the risk of death, then about 130 million of the 165 million American adults currently categorized as overweight and obese would be re-categorized as normal weight instead.
To put some flesh on these statistical bones, the study found a 6 percent decrease in mortality risk among people classified as overweight and a 5 percent decrease in people classified as Grade 1 obese, the lowest level (most of the obese fall in this category). This means that average-height women — 5 feet 4 inches — who weigh between 108 and 145 pounds have a higher mortality risk than average-height women who weigh between 146 and 203 pounds. For average-height men — 5 feet 10 inches — those who weigh between 129 and 174 pounds have a higher mortality risk than those who weigh between 175 and 243 pounds.
Now, if we were to employ the logic of our public health authorities, who treat any correlation between weight and increased mortality risk as a good reason to encourage people to try to modify their weight, we ought to be telling the 75 million American adults currently occupying the government’s “healthy weight” category to put on some pounds, so they can move into the lower risk, higher-weight categories.
In reality, of course, it would be nonsensical to tell so-called normal-weight people to try to become heavier to lower their mortality risk. Such advice would ignore the fact that tiny variations in relative risk in observational studies provide no scientific basis for concluding either that those variations are causally related to the variable in question or that this risk would change if the variable were altered.
This is because observational studies merely record statistical correlations: we don’t know to what extent, if any, the slight decrease in mortality risk observed among people defined as overweight or moderately obese is caused by higher weight or by other factors. Similarly, we don’t know whether the small increase in mortality risk observed among very obese people is caused by their weight or by any number of other factors, including lower socioeconomic status, dieting and the weight cycling that accompanies it, social discrimination and stigma, or stress.
In other words, there is no reason to believe that the trivial variations in mortality risk observed across an enormous weight range actually have anything to do with weight or that intentional weight gain or loss would affect that risk in a predictable way.
How did we get into this absurd situation? That is a long and complex story. Over the past century, Americans have become increasingly obsessed with the supposed desirability of thinness, as thinness has become both a marker for upper-class status and a reflection of beauty ideals that bring a kind of privilege.
In addition, baselessly categorizing at least 130 million Americans — and hundreds of millions in the rest of the world — as people in need of “treatment” for their “condition” serves the economic interests of, among others, the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry and large pharmaceutical companies, which have invested a great deal of money in winning the good will of those who will determine the regulatory fate of the next generation of diet drugs.
Anyone familiar with history will not be surprised to learn that “facts” have been enlisted before to confirm the legitimacy of a cultural obsession and to advance the economic interests of those who profit from that obsession.
Don’t expect those who have made their careers on fomenting panic to understand that our current definition of “normal weight” makes absolutely no sense.
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the author of “The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession With Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health.”
