Car Bomb Hits Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A series of early morning attacks hit eastern Afghanistan Sunday, with three separate suicide bombings in outlying provinces and a shootout between security forces and a would-be attacker in the capital city of Kabul.

The deadliest attack was a suicide car bombing at a state intelligence site just after sunrise in the eastern city of Jalalabad. In that attack, a car approached the gate of a compound used by the National Directorate of Security and exploded, killing two guards and wounding three others, said regional government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai. The building was damaged in the attack, he added.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Shortly before the Jalalabad attack, an assailant detonated a van packed with explosives at a highway police checkpoint in Logar province, also in the east. That explosion wounded three police officers but no one was killed, said Deputy Police Chief Rais Khan Abdul Rahimzai.

In Kabul, meanwhile, police shot and killed a would-be suicide bomber who was trying to attack an intelligence agency office downtown, according to the city's deputy police chief, Gen. Mohammad Daud Amin. Intelligence agents spotted the bomber before he could detonate the explosives in his vehicle and shot him, Amin said.

The explosives in the vehicle were later defused, he added.

Later in the morning, a man wearing a suicide vest blew himself up outside the police headquarters for Baraki Barak district in Logar province. The man was stopped by police as he tried to force his way into the building, but still managed to detonate his vest, said Din Mohammad Darwesh, the provincial government spokesman.

One policeman was wounded in the Baraki Barak attack, Darwesh said.

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Breaking Dawn - Part 2 Sweeps the Razzies

By Stephen M. Silverman

02/23/2013 at 10:00 PM EST

Taylor Lautner and Mackenzie Foy, in Breaking Dawn – Part 2

Andrew Cooper, SMPSP/Summit

Who's misérable now?

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Adam Sandler and Rihanna are among the "winners" of the 33rd annual Golden Raspberry Awards – the Razzies – which are not so much handed out as they are thrown at those who are voted as perpetrating Hollywood's worst achievements of the year.

Breaking Dawn – Part 2, the fifth and final installment in Stephenie Meyer's vampire saga, was recognized in seven categories, including worst picture.

The flick's Kristen Stewart was also cited as worst actress; Taylor Lautner, worst supporting actor; Lautner and 12-year-old Mackenzie Foy, worst screen couple; the entire cast, including Robert Pattinson, worst screen ensemble, and Bill Condon, worst director.

In addition, the film, which since opening last November has taken in more than $828 million at the box office, was named worst sequel.

Sandler, who last year monopolized the Razzies – and set a record by winning in 10 categories with the "comedy" Jack & Jill – this year got only two awards: for worst actor of the year and worst screenplay, both for That's My Boy.

Unlike the Oscars, which keep voting tallies a secret and will be handed out Sunday night during a very glamorous event, founder and Head RAZZberry John Wilson announced Razzie recipients Saturday night in the utilitarian Continental Breakfast Room of the Holiday Inn Express Hollywood Walk of Fame hotel, near (and yet so far from) the Dolby Theatre, home of the Academy Awards.

Wilson revealed to the press that although Rihanna, as worst supporting actress in the movie Battleship, won her Razzie by a landslide, worst screenwriter Sandler only beat the authors of Breaking Dawn by a single vote.

It's close shaves like that that really make or break the Razzies.

Adam Sandler, in That's My Boy, and Rihanna, in Battleship

Columbia; Universal

The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on ABC starting at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Sunday, Feb. 24, from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Paroled sex offenders disarming tracking devices

SACRAMENTO — Thousands of paroled child molesters, rapists and other high-risk sex offenders in California are removing or disarming their court-ordered GPS tracking devices — and some have been charged with new crimes including sexual battery, kidnapping and attempted manslaughter.

The offenders have discovered that they can disable the monitors, often with little risk of serving time for it, a Times investigation has found. The jails are too full to hold them.

"It's a huge problem," said Fresno parole agent Matt Hill. "If the public knew, they'd be shocked."

More than 3,400 arrest warrants for GPS tamperers have been issued since October 2011, when the state began referring parole violators to county jails instead of returning them to its packed prisons. Warrants increased 28% in 2012 compared to the 12 months before the change in custody began. Nearly all of the warrants were for sex offenders, who are the vast majority of convicts with monitors, and many were for repeat violations.

The custody shift is part of Gov. Jerry Brown and the legislature's "realignment" program, to comply with court orders to reduce overcrowding in state prisons. But many counties have been under their own court orders to ease crowding in their jails.

Some have freed parole violators within days, or even hours, of arrest rather than keep them in custody. Some have refused to accept them at all.

Before prison realignment took effect, sex offenders who breached parole remained behind bars, awaiting hearings that could send them back to prison for up to a year. Now, the maximum penalty is 180 days in jail, but many never serve that time.

With so little deterrent, parolees "certainly are feeling more bold," said Jack Wallace, an executive at the California Sex Offender Management Board.

Rithy Mam, a convicted child stalker, was arrested three times in two months after skipping parole and was freed almost immediately each time. After his third release, his GPS alarm went off and he vanished, law enforcement records show.

The next day, he turned up in a Stockton living room where a 15-year-old girl was asleep on the couch, police said. The girl told police she awoke to find the stranger staring at her and that he asked "Wanna date?" before leaving the home.

Police say Mam went back twice more that week and menaced the girl and her 13-year-old sister, getting in by giving candy to a toddler, before authorities recaptured him in a local park. He is in custody on new charges of child molestation.

Californians voted in 2006 to require that high-risk sex offenders be tracked for life with GPS monitors strapped to their bodies.

The devices are programmed to record offenders' movements and are intended, at least in part, to deter them from committing crimes. The devices, attached to rubber ankle straps embedded with fiber-optic cable, transmit signals monitored by a private contractor.

They are easy to cut off, but an alarm is triggered when that happens, as it is when they are interfered with in other ways or go dead, or when an offender enters a forbidden area such as a school zone or playground. The monitoring company alerts parole agents by text message or email.

Arrest warrants for GPS tamperers are automatically published online. The Times reviewed that data as well as thousands of jail logs, court documents and criminal histories provided by confidential sources. The records show that the way authorities handle violators can vary significantly by county.

San Bernardino County releases more inmates early from its cramped jails than any other county in California, according to state reports. But sex offenders who violate parole there generally serve their terms. A spokeswoman said the county closely reviews criminal histories, and those with past sex offenses are ineligible for early release.

By contrast, parole violators in San Joaquin County are often set free within a day of arrest.

A review of the county's jail logs shows that nine of the 15 sex offenders arrested for violating parole in December and January were let out within 24 hours, including seven who immediately tampered with their trackers and disappeared. One of the nine, a convicted rapist named Robert Stone, was arrested two weeks later on kidnapping charges and returned to jail, where he remains.

Raoul Leyva, a sex offender with a history of beating women, was arrested in April for fleeing parole and ordered to remain jailed for 100 days. He was out in 16 days and soon bolted again, after allowing the battery on his device to go dead, according to the documents reviewed by The Times.

Less than two weeks later, a drug dealer led police to a Stockton apartment where Leyva's girlfriend, 20-year-old Brandy Arreola, had lain for days on the floor, severely beaten and in a coma. Now brain damaged and confined to a wheelchair, Arreola spends her time watching cartoons.

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Chinese City Reports Second Bird Flu Fatality

HONG KONG — China has reported a second fatality from the deadly H5N1 bird flu, a 31-year-old man who died of organ failure in the south-central Chinese city of Guiyang.

The flu, which is circulated in poultry and birds, has infected only 600 humans in the last decade, but has proven fatal in half the cases, so public health officials closely monitor its transmission. Scientists fear that the flu could mutate into a form that is highly contagious in humans.

In the most recent case, the man died Friday at a hospital in Guiyang. That city is also where a 21-year old woman died on Feb. 13. The official Xinhua news agency said that both victims had been in close contact with birds, the most common means of transmission.

The news agency added that 110 people who had been exposed to the victims had been released from quarantine.

As of Feb. 15, there have been 10 cases of H5N1 reported worldwide since the start of the year, according to the World Health Organization. In all of 2012, there were 32 cases worldwide.

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Courtney Lopez: Gia Thinks Our Dog Is Having a Baby

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/22/2013 at 01:00 PM ET

Denise Truscello/Wireimage

Mario Lopez is a man of his word.

Following a December wedding, the EXTRA host declared he and wife Courtney would get to work expanding their family immediately — and he wasn’t kidding.

In January, the couple discovered they were indeed expecting.

“Mario and I are so excited to add to our family! I found out a month ago and surprised Mario with the good news at breakfast,” Courtney tells PEOPLE.

But the proud parents aren’t the only ones gearing up for a new addition. Big sister Gia Francesca, 2, already has babies on the brain.

“Gia kind of understands that there is a baby in my belly,” Courtney notes. “She also told me our dog Julio has a baby in his belly — so who knows!”

Despite a bumpy start — “I had a rough couple of weeks when I first found out,” she shares — the mom-to-be is feeling better and already sporting quite the blossoming belly. “I am showing so much faster this time around,” she says.

And with warmer weather on the way, Courtney will be swathing her bump in floor-length frocks — but plans on forgoing a few fashion ensembles from her past.

“I love being pregnant in the summer! I live in maxi dresses,” she says. “Looking back at my first pregnancy, there are certain things that I wore and I have no idea why. I looked horrible and I won’t do that again!”

Originally from Pittsburgh, the expectant mama is thrilled to have settled down with her growing family on the West Coast. Her only wish? That her children will one day enjoy a winter wonderland.

“I don’t miss the East Coast at all — especially the humidity,” she explains. “The one thing I do want my children to experience from an early age is snow. There is nothing like being a kid playing in the snow.”

– Anya Leon

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Bell jury is handed the fates of six onetime civic leaders

Before jurors left the courtroom to deliberate, the prosecutor took a final shot at the six former City Council members accused of corruption.

"The one-percenters of Bell," he called them, a band of small-town politicians who had "apparently forgotten who they are and where they live."

After four weeks of testimony, a jury of seven women and five men was handed the fates of six onetime civic leaders accused of raiding the small town's treasury with huge salaries.

Jurors now must decide whether it was legal for Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabal to receive salaries as high as $100,000 a year, spiked by pay for serving on city boards that the prosecution insisted seldom met and did little work.

If convicted, the former officials — one a preacher in town, another a retired steelworker — could be sentenced to prison.

The huge salaries in Bell were exposed in 2010, an era when the town's finances were sagging, workers were being cut from the city payroll and a long-promised sports park remained fenced off.

While the prosecution cast the six as thieves who thought more of their own wallets than their constituents' needs, defense attorneys argued their clients were tireless advocates in a town that had been forced to weather the misdeeds of a scheming, ruthless city manager.

They stressed to jurors that the prosecution failed to prove criminal negligence — that their clients knew what they were doing was wrong or that a reasonable person should have known.

Throughout the trial, the defense maintained that their clients relied on experts to tell them if their salaries were illegal. Stanley L. Friedman pointed out that his client, Hernandez, had only an elementary school education and was elected for his heart, not his intellect.

"There's a lot of elected officials who we have quite a bit of respect for who maybe, maybe, weren't the most scholarly," Hernandez said, mentioning former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Cole, Jacobo and Mirabal, the only defendants to take the stand, said independent auditors and former City Atty. Edward Lee never raised concerns about their paychecks. Although Lee was on the prosecution's witness list, neither side called him to the stand.

The defense pinned much of the blame on a culture where City Administrator Robert Rizzo ruled with a strong hand, drafting resolutions for salary increases and manipulating council members to take city money. Cole testified that he voted in 2008 for a 12% annual pay raise because he feared Rizzo would gut the community programs he helped develop.

"We're here for Mr. Rizzo's sins," said defense attorney George Mgdesyan.

His client, Artiga, a pastor at Bell Community Church, said people around the country were praying for him. "I believe God already has set in motion that I will be found not guilty," said Artiga, who days before his arrest described his bountiful salary as "a trap from the devil."

At the center of much of the trial was Bell's charter, which was passed in a 2005 special election in which fewer than 400 people voted. The charter allowed Bell greater flexibility in governing itself than if it had remained a general law city.

However, Miller argued that the charter limited council members' annual pay to what state law dictated a city of a similar size could receive. That amount — $8,076 — was paid to Lorenzo Velez, the lone sitting council member in 2010 who was not charged with a crime. Velez said he was unaware how much his colleagues were making until the salaries were revealed by The Times.

Velez's salary, as well as the council's refusal to answer a resident who asked during a 2008 meeting how much they were being paid, was proof that defendants knew their pay was illegal, Miller said.

"They knew they were in trouble," he said.

The defense insisted that the charter allowed their clients to be paid extra for city boards, such as the Surplus Property Authority, and that those raises were voted on in open session.

Defense attorneys also urged jurors to take into consideration the character of their clients, who multiple witnesses had testified were so dedicated to their community that they often put residents ahead of their own family.

Miller cautioned that a person who is well-liked can still commit a crime.

"A liquor store robber's weapon is a gun," he said. "The weapon of the white-collar criminal is the trust he or she has gained over a number of years that allows them to occupy positions of elevated trust where they can steal a large amount of money."

corina.knoll@latimes.com

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

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India Ink: Classes Warfare

NEW DELHI — It was a widely awaited verdict: Tens of thousands of parents seeking admission for their children to nursery schools in New Delhi were hoping for some remedy against a system that rewards inherited privilege and access to political power. But the High Court of Delhi upheld the status quo on Tuesday.

Most parents have little or no choice over which school their children will attend.

Two years ago the India blog for The Wall Street Journal ran a piece entitled “Delhi’s Nursery Schools Still Tougher to Crack Than Harvard?” The catchy headline was only partly true: New Delhi’s top private nursery schools are perhaps as competitive as an Ivy League college, but that’s not saying much about the means required to get in.

I should know: I spent the last month filling in application forms to 10 private schools for my three-year-old son, and he wasn’t admitted to any.

The Indian public school system is too dysfunctional to be a serious choice for most middle-class parents. As a result, the total number of applicants to the top 20 private nursery schools in New Delhi is well over 50,000 for about 1,500 slots. (This is my rough estimate.) Most parents have little or no choice over which school their children will attend. Rather, the question is which school, if any, will admit their children.

A few years ago, worried about the growing pressure to which children no more than four years of age were being subjected, the city government forbade entrance exams and interviews for nursery schools, as well as the screening of parents’ educational background. Before then, New Delhi schools openly sought out candidates whose parents were affluent, spoke English fluently and mattered in the city’s power hierarchy. A privileged class kept replicating itself.

In theory, the new norms suggested a more egalitarian process: They prescribed a point system, and a lottery would be drawn among candidates who were tied. In practice, this favored the old elite. A school could attribute points to a child who lived nearby, whose siblings were pupils or whose parents were alumni. The residency requirement benefited the rich because the best schools are in affluent parts of the city, and the legacy criteria only served those already entrenched in the system.

Some schools also went out of their way to bypass the law by creating subjective criteria for assigning points to applicants. One top school I sent an application to has a special category for the “Promotion of Indian heritage/Exceptional achievement/Significant inspirational work for the nation/Any other, please specify.” I have asked them to clarify what this means.

The new norms also created two sets of restricted seats. All schools were required to set aside 25 percent of seats for students from poor families, which in New Delhi are defined as having annual incomes of less than $2,500. Perhaps to compensate for the attending monetary loss — poorer students pay reduced fees — the city government also allowed schools to allot 20 percent of the total seats under a management quota free of any regulation.

While I have had no direct access to any school official who decides on such quotas, anecdotal evidence I’ve gleaned from other parents suggests that some schools are trading admission for donations of $40,000 or more — unless, of course, applicants are backed by ministers or powerful bureaucrats. Even schools that are less sought-after are asking between $2,000 and $3,000 just to register students who have been admitted. No receipts are being issued.

The Indian middle class, especially in a city like New Delhi, is a substantial and growing presence. But very few of its members have the means or the connections to secure seats in good schools for their children.

The new admissions system is only a pretense at nondiscrimination. As much as the old, it ensures that rich or well-connected Indians will continue to corner most seats in the country’s top schools.

---

Hartosh Singh Bal is political editor of Open Magazine and co-author of “A Certain Ambiguity.’’

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American Idol: Sudden-Death Round Begins for Men

TV Watch

By Steve Helling

02/21/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

George Holz/FOX

On Wednesday, 10 women sang for five spots on American Idol's live shows. On Thursday, it was the remaining guys' turn.

The judges have their own euphemisms when they don't like a performance – it's usually easy to read between the lines: If they compliment a singer on his shoes, he won't advance. On Thursday, Nicki Minaj actually told a contestant, "Kudos to you for being really freshly, nicely groomed." They might as well have had a stagehand pull him offstage with an oversized vaudeville hook.

After several weeks of good behavior by the judges, Thursday's episode showed a spark of life when Nicki – who was wearing her very best Jan Brady wig – began rolling her eyes whenever Randy Jackson spoke. At one point, Ryan Seacrest even tried to get them to kiss and make up. There was talk about lipstick, and Mariah Carey did her best to look at anything other than the awkward air kiss that followed.

But the theatrics did not eclipsed some solid singers – and a few performances that just weren't good enough for the competition.

The Good: Curtis Finch Jr. wowed judges with his version of Luther Vandross's "Superstar." It was oversung. But there was no denying Finch's vocal talent. Charlie Askew's rendition of Elton John's "Rocketman" was interesting and well-suited to his voice. And Devin Velez pleased the crowd when he infused Spanish lyrics into Beyoncé's "Listen." The three of them advanced easily.

The Okay: Elijah Liu chose Bruno Mars's "Talking to the Moon," a song that felt current and new. Paul Jolley sang Keith Urban's "Tonight I'm Gonna Cry." Generally, it's a risky move to sing a song made popular by one of the judges, but Jolley's performance was pleasant, if a little shaky. Both advanced, although the judges were split on their assessment of Jolley.

The Others: Johnny Keiser, Kevin Harris, Chris Watson and Jimmy Smith sang unspectacular versions of various songs that everyone knows. Each of them had a decent voice, but none of their performances were all that unique, and none of them advanced. On the other side of the spectrum, J'DA performed an over-the-top rendition of Adele's "Rumor Has It." It wasn't enough for him to advance, but his performance – at one point he collapsed on the floor but continued singing – was by far the most memorable of the night.

There are ten contestants – five men and five women – who have made it to the next round. Next week, the remaining 20 contestants will complete for the remaining 10 spots – and all will hope the judges don't compliment what they're wearing.

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APNewsBreak: Govs to hear Oregon health care plan

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber will brief other state leaders this weekend on his plan to lower Medicaid costs, touting an overhaul that President Barack Obama highlighted in his State of the Union address for its potential to lower the deficit even as health care expenses climb.

The Oregon Democrat leaves for Washington, D.C., on Friday to pitch his plan that changes the way doctors and hospitals are paid and improves health care coordination for low income residents so that treatable medical problems don't grow in severity or expense.

Kitzhaber says his goal is to win over a handful of other governors from each party.

"I think the politics have been dialed down a couple of notches, and now people are willing to sit down and talk about how we can solve the problem" of rising health care costs, Kitzhaber told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Kitzhaber introduced the plan in 2011 in the face of a severe state budget deficit, and he's been talking for two years about expanding the initiative beyond his state. Now, it seems he's found people ready to listen.

Hospital executives from Alabama visited Oregon last month to learn about the effort. And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it's giving Oregon a $45 million grant to help spread the changes beyond the Medicaid population and share information with other states, making it one of only six states to earn a State Innovation Model grant.

Kitzhaber will address his counterparts at a meeting of the National Governors Association. His talk isn't scheduled on the official agenda, but a spokeswoman confirmed that Kitzhaber is expected to present.

"The governors love what they call stealing from one another — taking the good ideas and the successes of their colleagues and trying to figure out how to apply that in their home state," said Matt Salo, director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

There's been "huge interest" among other states in Oregon's health overhaul, Salo said, not because the concepts are brand new, but because the state managed to avoid pitfalls that often block health system changes.

Kitzhaber persuaded state lawmakers to redesign the system of delivering and paying for health care under Medicaid, creating incentives for providers to coordinate patient care and prevent avoidable emergency room visits. He has long complained that the current financial incentives encourage volume over quality, driving costs up without making people healthier.

Obama, in his State of the Union address this month, suggested that changes such as Oregon's could be part of a long-term strategy to lower the federal debt by reigning in the growing cost of federally funded health care.

"We'll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn't be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital — they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive," Obama said.

The Obama administration has invested in the program, putting up $1.9 billion to keep Oregon's Medicaid program afloat over the next five years while providers make the transition to new business models and incorporate new staff and technology.

In exchange, though, the state has agreed to lower per-capita health care cost inflation by 2 percentage points without affecting quality.

The Medicaid system is unique in each state, and Kitzhaber isn't suggesting that other states should adopt Oregon's specific approach, said Mike Bonetto, Kitzhaber's health care policy adviser. Rather, he wants governors to buy into the broad concept that the delivery system and payment models need to change.

That's not a new theory. But Oregon has shown that under the right circumstances massive changes to deeply entrenched business models can gain wide support.

What Oregon can't yet show is proof the idea is working — that it's lowering costs without squeezing on the quality or availability of care. The state is just finishing compiling baseline data that will be used as a basis of comparison.

One factor driving the Obama administration's interest in Oregon's success is the president's health care overhaul. Under the Affordable Care Act, millions more Americans will join the Medicaid rolls after Jan. 1, and the health care system will have to be able to absorb the influx of patients in a logistically and financially sustainable way.

The federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs for those additional patients in the first three years before scaling back to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond.

"There are a lot of governors who are facing the same challenges we're facing in Oregon," Kitzhaber said. "They recognize that the cost of health care is something they're going to have to get their arms around."

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Garcetti and Greuel in duel for funds

Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti remain locked in a tight fundraising battle, with the front-runners in Los Angeles' mayoral contest each raising just under a half-million dollars in recent weeks and both showing ample cash reserves to wage a vigorous effort in the closing days of the primary campaign, according to disclosure reports filed with the City Ethics Commission on Thursday.

Greuel has a razor-blade edge — the city controller raised $473,582 and spent more than $1.7 million in the latest reporting period between Jan. 20 and Feb. 16. She enters the final days before the March 5 contest with nearly $1.7 million cash on hand, according to the reports.

Noting that nearly three-quarters of her recent contributions came from first-time donors and more than half were from contributors who gave $250 and under, Greuel said the figures signified the momentum behind her campaign.

"It's amazing that so many Angelenos from every corner of the city are coming together to join our grassroots campaign," Greuel said in a statement. "In this election, we can fight together to change our city. We can build a stronger economy that creates jobs, a seamless public transportation system and better schools. We can crack down on waste in government so Angelenos can get the services they deserve. Today's report shows that people across L.A. are joining together to make this vision a reality."

Greuel's main rival, City Councilman Garcetti, raised $452,819 and spent nearly $2.5 million during the same time frame, ending the filing period with $1.5 million cash on hand, according to campaign filings. He noted that with more than 10,000 donors, he leads the field in grassroots support.

"I'm proud that our campaign's momentum is growing every day as more people learn about my plans to create jobs and solve problems for L.A. residents," Garcetti said in a statement. "You can see our grassroots strength through our fundraising, our energized volunteer corps and our thriving online network."

Overall, fundraising by the mayoral candidates has topped $11 million. Greuel and Garcetti are saturating the television and radio airwaves and have started attacking one another in voters' mailboxes. They have been fairly even in their fundraising efforts for many months, allowing them both to run a robust advertising campaign. But while Garcetti spent more during the filing period, Greuel has a steep advantage in outside efforts on her behalf. Of the $1.7 million spent by independent committees, more than $1.2 million has been spent to boost her bid, largely by labor.

Voters typically only see the candidates' ads and mailers, or clips of them on the nightly news. Under the radar, the candidates are spending significant time raising the kind of money it takes to campaign in a city as sprawling as Los Angeles. On Wednesday night, Garcetti held a fundraiser at the Petersen Automotive Museum with some of the city's hottest chefs — turning out a young and stylish crowd who sampled craft beers and delicacies such as braised and crispy pork with salted oats, house mostarda and toasted broccoli. On the same night, Greuel held a fundraiser with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) at the Beverly Hills manse of billionaire media mogul Haim Saban. But unlike Garcetti, her campaign did not allow the media to attend.

Greuel's ads have highlighted her efforts as controller to root out "waste, fraud and abuse" — claims her opponents say she has exaggerated. On Thursday, Garcetti launched two new 15-second ads featuring his endorsement by the Los Angeles Times. Those followed two introductory spots in English and Spanish. The councilman is spending more than $600,000 this week airing ads, according to a Democratic media consultant who is not working for any candidate. Greuel and the efforts on her behalf, which are not allowed to legally coordinate with her campaign, spent about $1.3 million in the same period, according to the media consultant.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who has been waging a blistering mail campaign against Greuel, continues to lag behind. She raised nearly $68,000 in the filing period, and spent nearly $809,000, leaving her with less than a half-million dollars for the remainder of the race. Emanuel Pleitez, the former technology executive who has never held elected office, reported raising nearly $20,000 and spending nearly $194,000 during the period, leaving him with nearly $146,000 cash on hand.

Kevin James, the sole Republican in the race, has been the beneficiary of nearly $500,000 in outside spending. He has had difficulties raising money, but his campaign has claimed that the numbers were improving. They did not file a disclosure report by press time, but his campaign manager said James had raised $52,000 and had spent $181,000 during the filing period, leaving the former entertainment attorney with about $25,000 cash on hand.

seema.mehta@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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Police Detective in Pistorius Case Faces Attempted Murder Charges

PRETORIA, South Africa — In a remarkable twist in the case of Oscar Pistorius, the double amputee track star accused of murdering his girlfriend, the South African police said on Thursday that the officer leading the investigation against the athlete is himself facing attempted murder charges.

Stephane De Sakutin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Police detective Hilton Botha arrived at court for the bail hearing of Oscar Pistorius on Wednesday.

The disclosure deepened questions surrounding the detective, Hilton Botha, who, under cross-examination at a bail hearing on Wednesday, was forced to concede that he could not rule out Mr. Pistorius’s own version of events based on the existing evidence.

While the prosecution has accused Mr. Pistorius, 26, of the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, 29, a week ago, the track star himself said he opened fire thinking there was an intruder in his home in a gated community and had no intention of killing her.

In a development that seemed as bewildering as it was sensational on Thursday, Police Brig. Neville Malila said that Mr. Botha is himself set to appear in court in May facing attempted murder charges relating to an incident in Oct. 2011, when Mr. Botha and two other police officers were accused of firing at a minivan carrying seven people.

The case had initially been dropped but was reinstated on Wednesday at the insistence of the state prosecutor, even as Mr. Botha was appearing as the lead police witness in the prosecution’s attempt to prevent Mr. Pistorius from securing bail.

“Botha and two other policemen allegedly tried to stop a mini bus taxi with seven people. They fired shots," Brigadier Malila told Reuters.

“We were informed yesterday that the charges will be reinstated," he said. “At this stage there are no plans to take him off the Pistorius case.”

Mr. Pistorius returned to court on Thursday for further arguments about whether he should be granted bail in a case that has riveted South Africa and fascinated a wider audience, reflecting Mr. Pistorius’s status as one of the world’s most renowned athletes, whose distinctive carbon-fiber running blades have given him the nickname Blade Runner.

On Wednesday, what was supposed to be a simple bail hearing took on the proportions of a full-blown trial, with sharp questions from the presiding magistrate, Desmond Nair, and a withering cross-examination that left Detective Botha grasping for answers that did not contradict his earlier testimony.

Initially, Detective Botha explained how preliminary ballistic evidence supported the prosecution’s assertion that Mr. Pistorius had been wearing prosthetic legs when he shot at a bathroom door early on Feb. 14. Ms. Steenkamp, a model and law school graduate, was hiding behind it at the time.

Mr. Pistorius said in an affidavit read to the court on Tuesday that he had hobbled over from his bed on his stumps and had felt extremely vulnerable to a possible intruder as a result.

But when questioned by Barry Roux, Mr. Pistorius’s lawyer, Detective Botha was forced to acknowledge sloppy police work, and he eventually conceded that he could not rule out Mr. Pistorius’s version of events based on the existing evidence. Mr. Roux accused the prosecution of selectively taking “every piece of evidence” and trying “to extract the most possibly negative connotation and present it to the court.”

Lydia Polgreen reported from Pretoria, South Africa, and Alan Cowell from London.

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American Idol: Women Face Sudden-Death Round

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

02/20/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

Mariah Carey

Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/Landov

American Idol threw yet another new twist at its 40 remaining contestants: a sudden-death round.

"One song, one chance, no mercy," Ryan Seacrest said as the first group of 10 female contestants gathered in Las Vegas to try to finally sing their way – in front of a boisterous studio audience – through to the "America votes" phase of the competition.

Five women moved on, five went home.

Kentucky high school junior Jenny Beth Willis, whose rendition of a Trisha Yearwood song earned mixed reviews from the judges, was the first up. Although Keith Urban appreciated her "effortless confidence," Nicki Minaj said her performance lacked excitement (a comment that elicited the first audience boos of the season). Final result: It was the end of the road for Willis.

Tenna Torres, 28, – who attended Mariah Carey's camp for kids as a youngster – took the stage next and impressed the judges with her take on the Natasha Bedingfield's "Soulmate." But she lost style points with Minaj, who didn't like one particular aspect of her look. "Lose the hair," said Minaj, who felt the contestant's coif aged her. Final result: She made it through to the Top 20.

The three most powerful performances of the night all made it to the next round: Nashville's Kree Harrison, who despite taking a decidedly plain-Jane approach to styling, wowed the judges with her version of Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain." "You sang the hell out of that song," said Carey.

Angela Miller, 18, of Massachusetts, belted out Jessie J's hit "Nobody's Perfect." But she pretty much was.

And Amber Holcomb, an assistant teacher from Texas, closed the show with a rousing (and well received) rendition of "My Funny Valentine."

For the final spot of the night, it came down to Anchorage, Alaska, resident Adriana Latonio, 17, who tackled Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way," and Shubha Vedula, a Michigan high school senior who sang Lady Gaga's "Born This Way."

Although the judges saw potential in both contestants, they ultimately picked Lantonio's powerhouse vocals in a final emotional moment.

Thursday will bring out the guys. The first round of 10 will take the stage to try to make the top 20 – but once again, five will go home.

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Doc groups issue list of overused tests, therapies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Don't be afraid to question your doctor and ask, "Do I really need that?"

That's the advice from leading medical groups who came up dozens of tests and treatments that physicians too often prescribe when they shouldn't.

No worrisome stroke signs? Then don't screen a healthy person for a clogged neck artery, the family physicians say. It could lead to risky surgery for a blockage too small to matter.

Don't routinely try heartburn medicine for infants with reflux, the pediatric hospitalists say. It hasn't been proven to work in babies, and could cause side effects.

Don't try feeding tubes in people with advanced dementia, say the hospice providers. Helping them eat is a better option.

These are examples of potentially needless care that not only can waste money and time, but sometimes can harm, says the warning being issued Thursday from medical specialty groups that represent more than 350,000 doctors.

Too many people "think that more is better, that more treatment, more testing somehow results in better health care," said Dr. Glen Stream, former president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which contributed to the list. "That really is not true."

The recommendations are part of a coalition called Choosing Wisely, formed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. Participating medical societies were asked to identify five tests or treatments that are commonly overused in their specialty. The list is aimed at doctors and includes references to published studies. Consumers Reports and other consumer groups are publicizing the information in more patient-friendly terms.

Last year, the coalition listed 45 overused tests and treatments. It included some of the best known examples, such as too much imaging for back pain and repeating colonoscopies too frequently.

This year's list adds 90 more overused kinds of care. Some are the result of doctors' habits, hard to overcome despite new evidence, Stream said. Others come about because patients demand care they think they need.

Some other examples:

—Don't use opioid painkillers for migraines except as a last resort, say the neurologists. There are better, more migraine-specific drugs available without the addictive risk of narcotics. Plus, frequent use of opioids actually can worsen migraines, a concept known as rebound headache.

—Just because a pregnant woman misses her due date, don't race to induce labor if mom and baby are doing fine, say the obstetricians. Inducing before the cervix is ready often fails, leading to an unneeded C-section. "Just being due by the calendar doesn't mean your body says you're due," Stream notes.

—Don't automatically give a child a CT scan after a minor head injury, say the pediatricians. About half of children who go to the ER with head injuries get this radiation-heavy scan, and clinical observation first could help some who don't really need a CT avoid it.

—And don't leave an implanted heart-zapping defibrillator turned on when a patient is near death, say the hospice providers. This technology clearly saves lives by guarding against an irregular heartbeat. But if someone is dying of something else, or is in the terminal stages of heart disease, it can issue repeated painful shocks, to no avail. Yet fewer than 10 percent of hospices have formal policies on when to switch off the implants.

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Bulgari shows off Liz Taylor's gems

It isn't easy sometimes to be an ordinary person in Los Angeles, so near to and yet so far from the city's glamorous events.

You hear about the grand Oscar parties, but you will never be invited. The award ceremony may be taking place minutes from where you live, but you watch it at home, on TV, in your sweat pants — and you might as well be in Dubuque.

Rodeo Drive too can make you feel like a scrap on the cutting room floor. As you stroll the wide and immaculate sidewalks of Beverly Hills' iconic shopping street, you pass by boutiques you'd feel self-conscious walking into. In the windows are baubles and trinkets you could never in three lifetimes afford.

Which is why it is rather nice to be invited to make a private appointment at the house of Bulgari, the fine Italian jeweler that opened its doors in 1884.

Elizabeth Taylor loved Bulgari jewels. Richard Burton, whose torrid affair with her began during the filming of "Cleopatra" in Rome, accompanied her often to the flagship shop on the Via Condotti. He liked to joke that the name Bulgari was all the Italian she knew.

So it is fitting that starting Oscar week, the jeweler is celebrating the Oscar-winning star with an exhibit of eight of her most treasured Bulgari pieces.

They are heavy on diamonds and emeralds — of rare size, gleam and value.

And Bulgari knows their value well.

After Taylor's death, it reacquired some of the gems at a Christie's auction. One piece, an emerald-and-diamond brooch that also can be worn as a pendant, sold for $6,578,500 — breaking records both for sales price of an emerald and for emerald price per carat ($280,000).

That brooch, whose centerpiece is an octagonal step-cut emerald weighing 23.44 carats, was Burton's engagement present to Taylor. He followed it upon their marriage (his second, her fifth) with a matching necklace whose 16 Colombian emeralds weigh in at 60.5 carats. Bulgari bought the necklace back too, for $6,130,500.

They are in the exhibit, along with Burton's engagement ring to Taylor and a delicate brooch — given to her by husband No. 4, Eddie Fisher — whose emerald and diamond flowers were set en tremblant so that they gently fluttered as Taylor moved.

The jewels are not for sale.

On Tuesday night, actress Julianne Moore wore the Burton necklace, with pendant attached, at a gala for Bulgari's top clients. At the dinner hour, guests were escorted along a lavender-colored carpet to a nearby rooftop that had been transformed into a Roman terrace.

Those honored guests, of course, got private viewings of Taylor's jewels.

But so did Amanda Perry, a healer from West Hollywood who arrived the next morning for one of the first appointments available to the public.

Someone had emailed news of the collection to the 35-year-old Taylor fan. She walked in off the street Tuesday, when the exhibit was open only to press — and Sabina Pelli, Bulgari's glamorous executive vice president, fresh from Rome, was taking sips of San Pellegrino brought to her on a silver tray between back-to-back interviews that started at 5 a.m.

The camera crews were long gone when Perry came back Wednesday. She had the exhibit, and handsome sales associate Timothy Morzenti of Milan, entirely to herself.

In a black suit, still wearing on his left hand the black glove he dons to handle fine jewels, Morzenti whisked Perry off via a private elevator to the exhibit on the second floor. The jewels stood in vitrines mounted high off the ground. Behind them were photos and a slide show of Taylor, bejeweled.

"Which piece would you like to see first?" Morzenti asked her as a security guard stood by. "I personally love the emerald ring."

Then he proceeded at leisure to explain Bulgari-signature sugar-loaf cuts and trombino ring settings, while tossing in occasional Taylor stories.

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India Ink: Irene Genovese, the Traveler from Italy

Why do millions of people, from entire Indian villages to urbane middle managers to foreign tourists, brave the crowds at the Kumbh Mela? During this year’s 55-day pilgrimage, to Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, an estimated 100 million Hindus and others are expected to take a holy dip in the Ganges River to wash away their sins. India Ink interviewed some of them.

Irene Genovese, 55, a traveler from Tuscany, Italy,  was one among them. This is what she had to say.

Why did you come to the Kumbh Mela this year? Is it your first time?

Yes, it is my first time. I love the experience so far. My partner has been teaching yoga in Italy for about 40 years now, so he wanted to come down here and meet the sadhus who practice yoga regularly.

How have you found it so far?

I am overwhelmed by the number of people there are here! We knew there would be crowds, but didn’t expect this. These are unbelievable numbers. We have also liked the interactions with the sadhus. We live in the Hare Krishna tent so get to interact a lot more with the devotees.

Describe your journey to the Kumbh. Did you travel alone? How long did it take?

We took a stopover in Delhi before coming here. Our Kumbh trip is for only four days. Now we are wondering how we would get back to Delhi. They say there are no last-minute reservations on trains.

Do you consider yourself a religious person?

Yes, I am religious. But my partner is more religious than I. And I respect that.

Do you follow Indian politics? Who do you think is going to win the 2014 election?

I don’t follow Indian politics. I don’t follow politics at all.

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What's Next for Mindy McCready's Two Young Boys?

By Steve Helling

02/19/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Mindy McCready's apparent suicide on Sunday has left her two young sons in custodial limbo.

The boys – Zander, 6, and Zayne, 10 months – had been in state custody since Feb. 7, when McCready called police to ask for help in making her father and stepmother leave her home. When police arrived, McCready appeared to be intoxicated, according to a Department of Human Services report.

In a subsequent petition, the singer's father, Tim McCready, asked the court to order her to undergo mental health and substance abuse evaluation and treatment, alleging that his daughter, who had recently lost her boyfriend, "hasn't had a bath in a week ... screams about everything ... [is] very verbally abusive to Zander."

After a judge granted the petition, the children were quickly removed and placed into foster care. Although McCready was released from treatment, the boys remained in state custody.

At the time, Zander's father, Billy McKnight, requested custody of his son. "My son needs me," he told PEOPLE on Feb. 8. "I'm married, working and successful. I'm on the right track and proud of it. I've been sober for years. I just want my son."

But McCready's mother and stepfather, Gayle and Michael Inge, also want custody of the children – and authorities seem to agree.

In a proposed order sent to Circuit Judge Lee Harrod, the Department of Human Services proposed that the Inges might be a better fit for the children, claiming that they have "a substantial relationship." The Inges had custody of Zander for much the past few years, during McCready’s rehab and jail stints.

With McCready's death, the judge will have to determine what is in the children's best interest. A custody hearing has been scheduled for April 5.

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Jan Perry attack mailers seek to siphon votes from Wendy Greuel

Jan Perry occasionally lets loose a subtle swipe at her rivals in the Los Angeles mayor's race. But for the most part she has been a polite voice in the campaign's many debates, presenting herself as a truth-teller willing to forthrightly confront the city's challenges.

But away from the public forums, the councilwoman who represents South Los Angeles and part of downtown has unleashed a blistering attack on City Controller Wendy Greuel in an effort to draw fiscally conservative voters into her column. Her latest mailer goes after Greuel's ties to the city utility workers' union and features the smiling controller holding a sign that reads, "I sold you out."

At least three of Perry's mailers include disingenuous criticisms of Greuel, a tactic that appears at odds with the plainspoken and upright image she has sought to nurture. Among other things, Perry has criticized Greuel for supporting utility rate hikes and a city contract that Perry also voted to approve.

Perry defends the attacks as effective campaigning.

"You target your mail and target your message," she said. "Everybody does that. A smart person does."

The mailers are part of a larger gamble Perry is making that she can weaken Greuel and siphon off votes in the relatively conservative San Fernando Valley, the controller's home base of support. Perry, who presents herself as pro-business and willing to stand up to public employee unions, recently opened a field office in North Hollywood and has been courting area activists.

Former City Councilman Greig Smith, a Valley Republican who has endorsed Perry, said that if Perry hopes to make it into a May runoff election, "her best shot is taking out Wendy." And the mailers could help, he said. "Wendy has some liabilities that are going to come up — all her union endorsements aren't going to help her in the Valley."

Valley voters are getting "a tremendous amount of targeted mail from the Perry campaign," said Tom Hogen-Esch, a political science professor at Cal State Northridge who has studied city politics for nearly two decades. "This is a battle between two candidates who are positioning themselves for the conservative vote," he said.

Perry may win over some Greuel supporters, but probably too few to stop her chief rival, he said.

"Wendy Greuel has a long history in the Valley, and I think people know her record. Jan Perry, to a large extent, is unknown outside of her district," he said. And the negative tone of Perry's mailers could work against her, Hogen-Esch said. "I just don't think those kind of attacks are really going to resonate with a lot of voters," he said.

Perry is running third in fundraising and appears unlikely to have money for television ads unless she receives a late infusion of contributions. In a mass media market such as Los Angeles, that puts her at a disadvantage against Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti, who have been airing TV ads heavily for more than a week.

Perry and the other two elected officials in the race have been painted by other candidates as three peas in a City Hall pod. But Perry is viewed as having a more fiscally conservative record than Greuel or Garcetti, and has a testier relationship with organized labor. Indeed, she underscores not being the favored candidate of the powerful union that represents Department of Water and Power workers and that is the primary funder of an independent pro-Greuel effort that has raised nearly $1.3 million.

Perry hopes that political profile will attract Valley voters. But Greuel grew up in the area, serving as senior class president at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, and later representing much of the area on the City Council. She has a long list of Valley endorsements, including from the Los Angeles Daily News and the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

With less campaign cash, Perry has been dependent on less-costly mailings for her flanking maneuver against Greuel.

Some contain attacks on Greuel that were inconsistent with Perry's own record.

In one, Perry criticizes Greuel for voting three times to raise DWP rates, when Perry also voted for the hikes. Perry said Greuel's votes were fair game in light of the DWP union throwing its support behind her. In another about a controversial expedited parking-ticket review program used by public officials and their staff — known as the Gold Card desk — Perry criticizes Greuel for backing the contract with a firm that ran the program. But Perry voted for the contract as well. Perry also defended that hit, saying that she and her staff never used the service, an allusion to the fact that a Greuel staff member used the service to process a parking ticket for his mother.

In yet another mailer, she criticizes Greuel for her ties to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. At the same time, Perry was sending mailers to Latino voters with photos of her alongside Villaraigosa and suggesting that he views her as a good successor. The mayor has not endorsed anyone in the race.

A spokeswoman for Greuel, who previously called Perry a hypocrite for the mailers, said the latest pieces raise troubling questions about the councilwoman.

"Either Jan doesn't know how deceptive her campaign mail is or she knows and doesn't care," Shannon Murphy said. "Neither inspires much trust in someone who wants to be the mayor of Los Angeles."

Perry's campaign consultant, Eric Hacopian, said the mailers are "common-sense" campaigning. Perry has remained true to her fundamental beliefs about reforming city government, he said.

"What you try to do is try to tailor your message to a particular constituency," he said. "You must always be strategically consistent, but tactically flexible."

He asserted the mailers are working and that Perry's name-recognition among voters now equals that of Greuel and Garcetti.

Smith said some Valley voters assumed Perry was more liberal than she is because she's an African American who represents South Los Angeles. But when they hear directly from Perry, many are impressed, Smith said.

"More and more people are saying I know why you endorsed her," he said, citing her candid approach to the city's financial woes.

But she can't meet the entire region through kaffeeklatsches, homeowners association gatherings and meet-and-greets.

Perry's biggest obstacle remains "not enough name-recognition," Smith acknowledged. "We'll see."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

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Japan Finds Swelling in Second Boeing 787 Battery

TOKYO (Reuters) - Cells in a second lithium-ion battery on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner forced to make an emergency landing in Japan last month showed slight swelling, a Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) official said on Tuesday.

The jet, flown by All Nippon Airways Co, was forced to make the landing after its main battery failed.

"I do not know the exact discussion taken by the research group on the ground, but I heard that it is a slight swelling (in the auxiliary power unit battery cells). I have so far not heard that there was internal damage," Masahiro Kudo, a senior accident investigator at the JTSB said in a briefing in Tokyo.

Kudo said that two out of eight cells in the second battery unit showed some bumps and the JTSB would continue to investigate to determine whether this was irregular or not.

The plane's auxiliary power unit (APU) powers the aircraft's systems when it is on the ground. National Transportation Safety Board investigators in the United States are probing the APU from a Japan Airlines plane that caught fire at Boston's Logan airport when the plane was parked.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority grounded all 50 Boeing Dreamliners in commercial service on January 16 after the incidents with the two Japanese owned 787 jets.

The groundings have cost airlines tens of millions of dollars, with no solution yet in sight.

Boeing rival Airbus said last week it had abandoned plans to use lithium-ion batteries in its next passenger jet, the A350, in favor of traditional nickel-cadmium batteries.

Lighter and more powerful than conventional batteries, lithium-ion power packs have been in consumer products such as phones and laptops for years but are relatively new in industrial applications, including back-up batteries for electrical systems in jets.

(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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Mindy McCready: Under Police Scrutiny at Time of Suicide?

By Steve Helling and Mike Fleeman

02/18/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

Mindy McCready and David Wilson

Courtesy Mindy McCready

When Mindy McCready talked to police in recent weeks, her account of how her boyfriend came to be found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head concerned police, a law enforcement source tells PEOPLE.

"At first, she said she hadn't heard the gunshot because the TV was too loud. Then she said she had heard the gunshot," the source says. "So obviously there were a lot of questions, and the Sheriff was asking for clarification."

But before investigators could re-interview her, the long-troubled country singer also would die under eerily similar circumstances, her body discovered at the same Heber Springs, Ark., house just feet away from where David Wilson died.

McCready's death was blamed on what "appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound," the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

This differed from how the sheriff characterized Wilson's case. His cause and manner of death still have not been established by the coroner. It was McCready's publicist, and not a law enforcement official, who announced that Wilson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

After Wilson's death, McCready, 37, spoke to investigators three times, but they didn't feel as if they were through with her.

"At no point did [police] tell her she was a suspect, and she wasn't officially one," says the source. "But she knew that some of her answers didn't stand up to questioning. She was very cooperative, but she just wasn't making a lot of sense."

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.

The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.

"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.

Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.

"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."

Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.

That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.

The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.

"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."

___

Online:

Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com

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Complaint alleges racial bias in Palmdale elections

Latinos and African Americans make up about two-thirds of the population of Palmdale. But since the city's incorporation in August 1962, not a single black resident and only one Latino has ever served on the City Council.

That's the backdrop of a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Antelope Valley civil rights activists alleging racial bias in city elections in this High Desert locale. The complaint argues that Palmdale's system of at-large council seats dilutes the influence of minority voters.

"Latinos and African Americans are locked out of the political system in the city of Palmdale," said Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who is representing plaintiff Juan Jauregui, a Palmdale resident. Three local black activists and the NAACP have also said they will join the case, scheduled to go to trial in May.

The litigation is the latest in a series of racially themed conflicts in the Antelope Valley as blacks and Latinos have moved into once mostly white areas. Housing programs and police practices have been flash points as activists have challenged policies they perceive as unfairly targeting minority residents.

Plaintiffs say the city's at-large election system violates the state's 2001 Voting Rights Act, which guards against disenfranchisement of minorities. They seek a change to district-by-district voting.

Palmdale is fighting back. In court documents, city attorneys argue that because blacks and Latinos are a majority of registered voters in the city, they are "in a position, numerically" to elect the mayor and City Council members.

The lawyers also insist that district voting would not have helped minority candidates who lost. "They simply had very little support from voters, and no drawing or gerrymandering of districts would have resulted in a district which would have elected them," the attorneys said.

Moreover, in November 2001 Palmdale's residents voted against a measure to introduce district voting. City Atty. Wm. Matthew Ditzhazy said via email that "ultimately it was the community's decision to make."

In a recent deposition, James Ledford, who has been elected the city's mayor 11 times since 1992, said he did not even know the race of his fellow council members and was not aware that all but one had been white.

Asked whether it bothered him "in any way that racial minorities in Palmdale might feel that they are not being represented in the City Council," Ledford said no.

Ledford declined to be interviewed for this article, although in the past he has said he favored district voting.

Traditionally, low voter turnout among blacks and Latinos in Palmdale's municipal elections has shrunk their voting power compared with that of whites, who turn out in greater numbers, statistics show.

The majority of Palmdale Latinos voted yes for district elections in 2001, but the measure was defeated because 66% of whites opposed it, according to data compiled by a city consultant and cited by Shenkman.

Similarly, in 2009, when V. Jesse Smith, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP, ran for City Council, he split the Latino vote 49% to 51% with Steve Fox, who is white. But neither won a council seat. The spots went to white candidates Tom Lackey and Laura Bettencourt, who scored heavily among whites, although neither got a single Latino vote, Shenkman said.

Shenkman acknowledged the poor voting record of minority groups, but he blamed the system of at-large voting. Blacks and Latinos didn't vote because they had "grown to understand that their vote doesn't matter," he said.

At least a dozen government entities in California, including cities, school districts and county boards, have been sued under the state's Voting Rights Act, said Shenkman. Some cases are still pending, others have ended in settlements resulting in district elections, he said.

One of those was Compton, which placed the issue on the ballot last June to settle a lawsuit. Voters approved the switch from at-large to district voting. The change may give Latinos — who make up a majority of the city's population but a minority of eligible voters — a greater chance of putting the first Latino on the City Council in April.

For supporters of district voting in Palmdale, the claim represents a new effort to shake up the political status quo in the Antelope Valley. They say it will make city representatives more accountable to voters.

But Richard Loa, an attorney who in 2001 became the only Latino ever to win a council seat in Palmdale, said that although he supported Latinos' push for representation, he opposes resolving the issue through litigation.

"The important thing is to have effective leadership," said Loa, who has said he will run again.

Race isn't everything, agreed Darren Parker, who as chairman of the California Democratic Party's African American caucus helps recruit potential minority candidates to run for local office, but he said High Desert cities need black voices in leadership.

"I don't believe that anyone who doesn't get up in the morning and look like me can really walk in my shoes," Parker said.

Among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs is attorney R. Rex Parris, mayor of neighboring Lancaster, which uses at-large elections but is weighing a change.

Lancaster's population is about 40% Latino and 20% African American, but the City Council has four white men and one Latina. The city has also faced charges of racial bias, but Lancaster has a track record of minority representation on its council, including an African American who twice served as mayor.

Lilia Galindo, who has used her Palmdale-based Café Con Leche radio talk show to encourage Latinos to get out and vote, said High Desert Latinos were eager to find their political voice. District elections would help, she said.

"We've started to realize how important it is to express our rights as citizens," Galindo said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

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The Lede: Spectacular Videos of Meteor Over Siberia

Video posted on YouTube on Friday appeared to catch an explosion caused by a meteor streaking over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.

Last Updated, 5:40 p.m. As our colleagues Ellen Barry and Andrew Kramer report, Russians recorded video of a bright flash, apparently debris from a meteor, “streaking through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, accompanied by a boom that damaged buildings across a vast area of territory.” Hundreds of injuries were reported, mainly from breaking glass.

The video clips, many recorded from cars on the dashboard cameras that are popular in Russia, quickly spread from social networks to Russian news sites. While it was not possible to confirm the authenticity of all of the clips posted online, several tracked closely with witness accounts and each other. (Russian speakers should be aware that some of the videos contain strong language.)

Video uploaded to YouTube on Friday was said to have been recorded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk (although the camera’s time stamp displays an earlier date).

Video said to have been recorded on Friday in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk as a meteor passed low overhead. An explosion can be heard clearly at the seven-minute mark of the video.

Dashboard-camera footage appeared to record a meteor plunging to Earth on Friday in Russia.

A compilation of video clips posted online by Russia Today, a Kremlin-financed satellite channel.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported, “The Russian fireball is the largest reported since 1908, when a fireball hit Tunguska, Siberia.”

The fireball entered the atmosphere at about 40,000 mph (18 kilometers per second). The impact time was 7:20:26 p.m. PST, or 10:20:26 p.m. EST on Feb. 14 (3:20:26 UTC on Feb. 15), and the energy released by the impact was in the hundreds of kilotons.

Based on the duration of the event, it was a very shallow entry. It was larger than the fireball over Indonesia on Oct. 8, 2009. Measurements are still coming in, and a more precise measure of the energy may be available later. The size of the object before hitting the atmosphere was about 49 feet (15 meters) and had a mass of about 7,000 tons.

Later in the day, NASA released more information about the meteor.

#RussianMeteor grazed across the atmosphere, where the meteor trail was visible for ~30 secs. The meteor was also brighter than the Sun

— NASA (@NASA) 15 Feb 13

Our colleague Henry Fountain reminds us of the vastly greater impact of what’s known as The Tunguska Event on 1908.

Several clips showed a flaming object streaking through the sky and a burst of blinding light followed by a smoke trail. One, shot by a driver named Alexander Mezentsev, showed a bright light over a city street in Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million about 900 miles east of Moscow.

One clip, recorded on a street in Chelyabinsk, appeared to capture the chaotic aftermath of the event, as glass shattered after the shock wave and people shouted and tried to make sense of what was happening.

Video said to have been recorded in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Friday after a meteor passed overhead.

A very loud explosion could be heard about 25 seconds into another video, apparently recorded on a phone in the same city by a blogger named Sergey Hametov.

Video said to have been recorded on Friday in Chelyabinsk appeared to capture a loud explosion.

“There was panic. People had no idea what was happening,” Mr. Hametov told The Associated Press. “We saw a big burst of light, then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud, thundering sound.”

The blast, and breaking glass, was also captured about 70 seconds into another clip, which showed very clear images of the smoke trail after the meteor passed by.

Video posted on YouTube on Friday showed a smoke trail and a loud explosion after a meteor passed over Siberia.

Another video, shot from the window of a building, seemed to capture the long trail of smoke after the object passed through the sky.

Video posted on YouTube Friday appeared to show the trail of a meteor fragment in the sky.

Several clips also showed what bloggers said was the damage caused by the sonic boom.

Damage to a school in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, said to have been caused by the sonic boom from a meteor.

Video of what was described as damage caused by the sonic boom after a meteor passed over Russia on Friday.

As Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports, a blinding flash of light was captured by traffic cameras on top of buildings in Nizhny Tagil, around 220 miles north of Chelyabinsk.

A blinding flash of light was captured by Web cameras in Nizhny Tagil, north of Chelyabinsk

Another view of the meteor streaking across the sky in Nizhniy Tagil was captured on a driver’s dashboard camera.

Video of a meteor from a dashboard camera in the Russian town of Nizhniy Tagil.

Our colleague William Broad from The Times Science desk will be explaining what likely caused today’s spectacular event and answering questions on The Lede later today.

Send us your questions on the meteor strike. We’re hosting a Q&A with science writer @WilliamJBroad. Include #NYTScience

— NYT Science (@nytimesscience) 15 Feb 13

Almost immediately after the spectacular images appeared online, Russian bloggers started making comic alterations, adding aliens and President Vladimir V. Putin to the pictures.

Some of the numerous videos that quickly emerged of the incident highlighted a distinctly Russian phenomenon: the viral dashboard-cam clip. As the blogger Marina Galperina explained last year, they are commonplace in Russia partly because of the dangerous driving conditions that lead to so many accidents, and with an unreliable police force such cameras can provide valuable evidence after a crash.

The conditions of Russian roads are perilous, with insane gridlock in cities and gigantic ditches, endless swamps and severe wintry emptiness on the back roads and highways. Then there are large, lawless areas you don’t just ride into, the police with a penchant for extortion and deeply frustrated drivers who want to smash your face.

Psychopaths are abundant on Russian roads. You best not cut anyone off or undertake some other type of maneuver that might inconvenience the 200-pound, six-foot-five brawling children you see on YouTube hopping out of their SUVs with their dukes up. They will go ballistic in a snap, drive in front of you, brake suddenly, block you off, jump out and run towards your vehicle. Next thing you start getting punches in your face because your didn’t roll up your windows, or getting pulled out of the car and beaten because you didn’t lock the doors.

These fights happen all the time and you can’t really press charges. Point to your broken nose or smashed windows all you want. The Russian courts don’t like verbal claims. They do, however, like to send people to jail for battery and property destruction if there’s definite video proof.

One popular video posted on YouTube last year appeared to show just such a fight being prevented by a man facing down another driver clutching a baseball bat by pointing out that any attack on him would be recorded on his dashboard-cam.

Video of a confrontation between two Russian drivers recorded last year on a dashboard-cam.

Just last month, video recorded by a Russian driver on a dashboard-cam showed a tank suddenly cutting across a highway.

Last month, a Russian driver recorded video of a tank cutting across a highway.

The meteor that streaked across the Russian skies came from almost the opposite direction as 2012 DA14, the larger asteroid that missed Earth on Friday. That both showed up on the same day was just cosmic coincidence.

“There is no relation there,” said Paul Chodas, a scientist at NASA’s Near-Earth Object program office.

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