IHT Rendezvous: Muslims Seek Dialogue With Next Pope

LONDON — As the Catholic Church’s cardinal electors gather at the Vatican to choose a new pope, Muslim leaders are urging a revival of the often troubled dialogue between the two faiths.

During the papacy of Benedict XVI, relations between the world’s two largest religions were overshadowed by remarks he made in 2006 that were widely condemned as an attack on Islam.

In a speech at Regensburg University in his native Germany, Benedict quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

In the face of protests from the Muslim world, the Vatican said the pope’s remarks had been misinterpreted and that he “deeply regretted” that the speech “sounded offensive to the sensibility of Muslim believers.”

For many in the Muslim world, however, the damage was done and the perception persisted that Benedict was hostile to Islam.

Juan Cole, a U.S. commentator on the Middle East, has suggested that although the pope backed down on some of his positions, “Pope Benedict roiled those relationships with needlessly provocative and sometimes offensive statements about Islam and Muslims.”

Despite the Vatican’s efforts to renew the interfaith dialogue by hosting a meeting with Muslim scholars, hostilities resumed in 2011 when the pope condemned alleged discrimination against Egypt’s Coptic Christians in the wake of a church bombing in Alexandria.

Al Azhar University in Cairo, the center of Islamic learning, froze relations with the Vatican in protest.

Following the pope’s decision to step down, Mahmud Azab, an adviser on interfaith dialogue to the head of Al Azhar, said, “The resumption of ties with the Vatican hinges on the new atmosphere created by the new pope. The initiative is now in the Vatican’s hands.”

Mahmoud Ashour, a senior Al Azhar cleric, insisted that “the new pope must not attack Islam,” according to remarks quoted by Agence France-Presse, the French news agency, and said the two religions should “complete one another, rather than compete.”

A French Muslim leader, meanwhile, has called for a fresh start in the dialogue with a new pope.

In an interview with Der Spiegel of Germany this week, Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, said of Benedict, “He was not able to understand Muslims. He had no direct experience with Islam, and he found nothing positive to say about our beliefs.”

Reem Nasr, writing at the policy debate Web site, Policymic, this week offered Benedict’s successor a five-point program to bridge the Catholic and Muslim worlds.

These included mutual respect, more papal contacts with Muslim leaders and a greater focus on what the religions had in common.

“There has been a long history of mistrust that can be overcome,” she wrote. “No one should give up just yet.”

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Alec Baldwin Is Busy Fulfilling Expectant Hilaria's Fruit Requests

Mark Davis/WireImage

Fatherhood is nothing new to Alec Baldwin. But daddy duty later in life? Now that’s a whole new playing field.

Already dad to daughter Ireland, 17, the actor and his wife Hilaria are set to welcome their first child together this summer — and Baldwin is busy taking in the experience.

“Being around a woman when she’s pregnant and I’m older now — quite a bit older, actually — it’s just really … it’s amazing,” he joked with David Letterman Monday.

“Like my wife, the pregnant woman, the hormonally-charged woman if you will – uh, it’s thrilling. It’s a thrilling thing to observe.”

But the Orphans star, 54, isn’t just sitting back and taking it all in; The future father-of-two is doing his part to keep his yoga instructor wife relaxed, happy — and full!

“She’s been super fit her whole life and nutritionally very conscious. I’ll say to her, ‘You want to eat smart and keep up your nutritional values, but you gotta eat, you’re having a baby,’” he explains. “I’ll go, ‘Do you want me to go get you some pineapple?’ And she’ll be like, ‘I don’t know.’”

While Hilaria may be unsure of what she’s actually craving, Baldwin has been known to take matters into his own hands, heading out to the store to stock up on her favorite foods. And, as it turns out, his gut instinct that his pregnant wife could go for some fruit is typically proven true.

“There’s a container of pineapple that will probably serve four people. I put it on the counter [and] I go, ‘If you want some pineapple, here it is,’” he recalls of a recent episode.

“I go to the other room, I plug my phone in to charge it [and] sure enough I walk back — three quarters of the pineapple is gone and she’s like, ‘I was very hungry.’”

However, Hilaria is much more vocal when it comes to her constant bathroom breaks — or lack thereof. “My wife will be announcing, ‘I have to pee every five minutes, I can’t believe it!’ Then I’m like, ‘Well, we have four bathrooms in the apartment, so you’re covered. We got a bathroom in every quadrant of the house at the ready, clean and freshly papered and everything good to go,’” Baldwin jokes.

“And then the next day she’s like, ‘I don’t have to pee at all today. Something’s wrong!’ I’m getting whiplash here: pee, no pee…”

– Anya Leon

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

__

Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

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Trutanich struggling in bid to keep his city attorney post

With large numbers of Los Angeles voters yet to make up their minds, a new poll shows that first-term City Atty. Carmen Trutanich is struggling to stay afloat as Tuesday's primary election approaches.

Trutanich is in a statistical dead heat for second place with private attorney Greg Smith. Former lawmaker Mike Feuer enjoys a slight edge over both as the three candidates battle to advance to an expected May runoff.

Feuer, who served on the City Council and then in the state Assembly representing the city's Westside, was the choice of 23.8% of those surveyed for the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy/L.A. Times Los Angeles City Primary Poll, while 16.4% favored Trutanich, who won the office in a 2009 upset. Smith, a first-time candidate who has pumped more than $800,000 of his personal wealth into the race, was preferred by 15.2%.

But the poll has a margin of sampling error of 4.4 percentage points in either direction. Furthermore, 40% of those surveyed said they hadn't decided on a candidate.

"Feuer maintains a small advantage," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. But, he added, Smith's television and radio advertising and incumbent Trutanich's name ID "could change that," particularly with so many undecided voters.

Just 4.7% of respondents favor a fourth candidate on the ballot, private attorney Noel Weiss. Weiss, who also ran for the post in 2009, has not had the money to mount a viable campaign.

The bipartisan telephone survey canvassed 500 likely voters in the city from Feb. 24 through 27. It was conducted jointly by the Benenson Strategy Group, a Democratic firm, and M4 Strategies, a Republican company.

Earlier independent surveys by other organizations showed that Trutanich had started the race with a lead. But he got into the contest late — after failing to make the runoff in his bid for county district attorney last year — and has not been able to match the campaign treasuries of Feuer and Smith, both earlier entrants in the contest. The blunt-spoken Trutanich, who has tangled publicly with the mayor and City Council, has also alienated some of his past supporters with his style and his decision to run for D.A. despite his 2009 campaign promise to serve two full terms at City Hall before seeking another post.

"To the extent that voters know about the candidates, this race is a referendum on Carmen Trutanich," Schnur said.

In the survey, Trutanich did somewhat better than Feuer and Smith among Latinos: 22.8% of voters in that group said they would vote for the incumbent, compared with 17.8% for Feuer and 12.7% for Smith. Feuer fared best among whites — 26.1% favored him, while Trutanich and Smith were backed by 16.7% and 16.4%, respectively.

Feuer also fared better with female voters (25%) than either Trutanich (13%) or Smith (14%). A Democrat, Feuer also did best among voters who identified with that party — 32% preferred him to Smith, another Democrat, who was chosen by 11%; while 15% favored Trutanich, a former Republican who is currently unaffiliated with a party. Among Republicans, who make up about one-fifth of the city's voters, Trutanich and Smith tied with 23% apiece, while 8% preferred Feuer.

jean.merl@latimes.com

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At War Blog: Remembering a Silent Success in Afghanistan

December in the mountains of southern Afghanistan greeted me and my men with strong and seemingly endless gusts of wind. The frigid temperatures were equally unforgiving. Our living quarters were constructed out of cardboard boxes and plastic sheeting, which didn’t create much of an escape. The highlight of my day, despite the obvious threat, was leading patrols as a squad leader. The physical activity kept me comfortably warm and allowed me to distance my mind from our frosty reality.

Despite daily patrols, it took me a few months to build rapport with the residents of Kunjak in Helmand Province. During the first month of my deployment in 2010, barely any villagers talked to me. This is when my interpreter, who we called H.B., suggested I start inviting the elders to our base for a meeting, or shura. He assured me this would build a mutual trust.

Soon, my Sunday mornings consisted of two to three hours of conversing with dozens of village elders. At 9 a.m., my interpreter and I would greet them as they climbed the steep and sandy hill to my remote outpost. To present a less hostile environment, I chose to meet them without my body armor or weapon.

We sat outside, suffering in the wind together. My interpreter would make chai, but I always brewed a pot of Starbucks coffee and offered some to my guests. Some liked it, some didn’t. I would like to think my generosity was appreciated.

The shuras were full of requests for new wells and mosques. But if there are two things Afghanistan has a plethora of, it’s those two things. I chose to propose something different, which thrilled them all.

We would build a school.

The Taliban had prevented them from being able to send their kids to school for years. With one suggestion, I had won over the villagers.

As the sun rose the following day, despite not having a school yet, I had over a dozen children waiting outside my base. Many had traveled from afar to attend what they thought was the first day of class. The last thing I wanted to do was send the children away. We invited them on the base, and H.B. taught them the Pashtu alphabet on our dry-erase board. It was on that Monday morning I realized I had to do something fast.

Our supplies were stored in a small tent at the back of our outpost, but I made the decision to move the tent to the base of our hill to serve as the school. By positioning it there, we could maintain its security, protecting it from Taliban attacks.

At 8:45 every morning, my Marines patrolled the school and used our metal detectors to sweep for improvised explosive devices. The safety of the children had to be paramount or our efforts would be for nothing. As the days passed, a growing number of children ranging in the age from 4 to 10 arrived for school. Within weeks we were teaching more than 40 boys and girls. During our time in Afghanistan, not a single child was injured at our school, and for the last four months of my deployment, the school was a giant success.

The Afghan National Police officers attached to my outpost did not participate much in the security of the school. In fact, many of them disapproved of it because it catered to girls as well as boys. I fear that as the American military presence draws down in Afghanistan, initiatives like our school will be abandoned by the Afghan government or destroyed by the Taliban. While the district mayor of Musa Qala knew of our efforts at the school, we received little to no local government support. Requests for a teacher, supplies and a permanent structure were either ignored or forgotten.

Stories like the one of our school tend to never make the limelight. Far too often the news is only about the horrors of war, or mistakes made by NATO troops, rather than their successes. It is easy to focus on the negative, especially as the United States plans to withdraw most of its forces by the end of 2014.

As I left Afghanistan in the spring of 2011, dozens of Afghans were attending our shuras, and they were full of varying requests. They no longer asked for wells and mosques. Now they wanted a community center and a larger school. I left before I could make those dreams come true for them. But I hoped the Marines who relieved me would be able to fulfill them.

I came home and listened and watched the news a lot. I kept hoping I would see or hear something good from Afghanistan. To no avail; the stories were depressing. After spending seven months in Afghanistan, I now knew good things were happening, but they just weren’t being shown.

I hope that my school wasn’t short-lived, and I would like to think that it is still operating safely. Whether it is or not, I still fondly remember our efforts. They led to one of the silent successes that have happened and, I believe, will continue to happen in Afghanistan.

Thomas James Brennan is a military affairs reporter with the Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C. Before being medically retired this fall, he was a sergeant in the Marine Corps stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, and is a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. Follow him on Twitter at @thomasjbrennan.

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Jesse Tyler Ferguson Gives a Wedding Planning Update

By Paul Chi

03/01/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita

Desiree Navarro/Wireimage

Wedding bells will soon be ringing for Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson and his fiancé, lawyer Justin Mikita.

The couple is getting married this summer.

"We are in the middle of wedding planning. It's a process, but it's been a lot of fun," Ferguson told PEOPLE at Wednesday's Tie the Knot spring collection celebration party in New York.

Fortunately for Ferguson, who got engaged to Mikita last July while vacationing in Mexico, the stresses of preparing for the big day have not taken a toll on him.

"No Groomzilla here," Ferguson, 37, says with a laugh. "We have a really great wedding planner who is managing everything. It's been very exciting. I'm very picky about things, and everything is coming together nicely."

One thing to expect at the wedding: good drinks.

"We really want a great mixologist for a craft cocktail bar," says Mikita, 27. "We are looking around for one. There are some great New York speakeasies like Milk and Honey. … So we're trying to bring a cool vibe like that to our wedding."

As for the guest list, "We want Beyoncé to perform at our wedding," jokes Mikita.

Ferguson has an aim high approach to the guest list, too. "We want the Obamas to be our guests," he says, but adds, "It's going to be a small ceremony."

Amid the wedding planning, the two have created a new line of bow tiesnow available at The Tie Bar for their Tie the Knot Foundation that benefits marriage equality organizations. Working together on their passion project "has only helped and made our relationship and our love for each other grow," says Ferguson.

After dating for two years, the pair hit it off quickly.

"First of all, he's incredibly attractive and he's a lawyer and he's sweet. That's all those things you look for, but on top of that he has an amazing family who he loves so much, he's good to his siblings and his best friends," explains Ferguson. "I've always wanted someone like that."

"Justin is one of the most loving people I know," he continues. "If I didn't snatch him up, I would be an idiot. You want to tie that up immediately."

And what kind of partner is the Emmy-nominated Modern Family star?

"He's caring and kind and thoughtful," says Mikita. "We both bring a lot to the table and help each other in many ways, and I think that's the reason why it's right."

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Las Vegas Strip shooting suspect is arrested in L.A.

A man suspected in a deadly car-to-car shooting in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip was arrested Thursday at a Studio City apartment complex, bringing an end to a weeklong manhunt.

Los Angeles police and FBI agents surrounded the suburban apartment complex in the 4100 block of Arch Drive about noon and ordered Ammar Harris to surrender. Officers said there was a woman inside the apartment where he was holed up; she was not arrested.

Harris, 26, is being held on suspicion of murder and is expected to be extradited back to Nevada.

"This arrest is much more than just taking Ammar Harris," said Las Vegas Sheriff Doug Gillespie, speaking at police headquarters near the Strip. "The citizens of our community as well as tourists who visit and work in the Las Vegas Valley are entitled to a safe community."

Harris — described by law enforcement officials as a man with an "extensive and violent criminal history" — is accused of being the gunman in the Feb. 21 shooting that killed three people, including Kenneth Cherry Jr., an Oakland native and rapper known as Kenny Clutch.

Las Vegas police said Harris opened fire from his Ranger Rover on Cherry's Maserati on Las Vegas Boulevard after an altercation at a valet stand at the Aria hotel resort.

The Maserati then sped into the intersection at Flamingo Road, where it rammed a Yellow Cab, which erupted in flames near the mega-wattage casinos of the Bellagio, the Flamingo and Ceasars Palace. The explosion killed the taxi driver and passenger inside.

Cherry and a passenger in his Maserati were taken to a hospital, where Cherry was pronounced dead. Four other vehicles were involved in the fiery crash, which left three other people with injuries.

"What I can tell you is that Mr. Harris' behavior was unlike any other I've seen, and I've been in this community in law enforcement for 32 years," Clark County Dist. Atty. Steve Wolfson said.

"I cannot imagine anything more serious than firing a weapon from a moving vehicle into another moving vehicle on a corner such as Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo."

Even in a city accustomed to spectacle, the shooting and collision were shocking.

On the night of the shooting, Harris was accompanied by three people in his Range Rover, none considered suspects, said Lt. Ray Steiber of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. On Saturday, Las Vegas police found Harris' black Range Rover at an apartment complex in the city. The district attorney charged Harris with murder even though he could not be located, and a federal magistrate signed off on a charge of fleeing the jurisdiction.

Federal court documents show Las Vegas homicide detectives suspected that Harris may have fled to California because his phone showed he made calls in the state.

According to law enforcement sources, Harris operated as a pimp in Las Vegas. In a video released by Las Vegas police, Harris flashed a fistful of $100 bills as he bragged about the money. He boasted about money, guns, expensive cars and run-ins with the law on social media accounts, authorities said.

On one social media site, using the name Jai'duh, someone authorities believe was Harris posted pictures of stacks of $100 bills and a Carbon 15 pistol.

Harris' record includes a 2010 arrest in Las Vegas on suspicion of pimping-related offenses of pandering with force and sexual assault. He has previously been arrested on suspicion of a variety of crimes in South Carolina and Georgia, authorities said.

Harris is slated to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Monday for an extradition proceeding.

richard.winton@latimes.com

john.glionna@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

Glionna reported from Las Vegas. Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.

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IHT Rendezvous: Q and A: Keeping ‘A Chorus Line’ in Step

LONDON — For a musical that’s all about dancers, there’s not a huge amount of dancing in “A Chorus Line,” which opened last week at the London Palladium — the first West End revival of the musical since it opened here in 1976, a year after its smash-hit debut on Broadway.

But the most dance-intensive moments are fundamental to our very idea of “A Chorus Line”: the “Aaaah-5-6-7-8!” that unleashes the explosion of movement with which the musical opens, and the slow sideways-moving line of gold-clad top-hatted dancers with which it closes. In between those moments is the meat of the show; the passage from anonymity as the dancers begin the audition, to individuality as they tell their stories — and then back again, to an impersonal line of identically dressed, identically moving performers.

On opening night at the Palladium, the audience greeted those first moments with a roaring cheer, a salute to the love-story that “A Chorus Line” tells — not between its characters, but between them and showbiz. The choreography may look stylized, but it doesn’t really matter. Watching, we are both in 1975 (as the opening projection tells us) and in 2013; leotard and dance styles might have changed, but the desire to be on Broadway has not.

Michael Bennett, who conceived of the show, choreographed and directed it, died in 1987, and it is his co-choreographer, Bob Avian, who has been responsible for directing the major “Chorus Line” revivals since.

So how much does the dance (and the dancing) matter in “A Chorus Line”? Two days after the London opening — greeted by a positive storm of approval by the critics — Mr. Avian flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a well-earned rest after several months of putting the musical together in London. Speaking by telephone, he discussed the choreography, his approach to staging the work, and why “A Chorus Line” still speaks to a contemporary audience.

Q.

How did you and Michael Bennett approach the choreography? Is the opening number really the kind of routine you would have asked an audition group to do?

A.

Michael and I were a good team, because he was a jazz dancer, and my training was classical. Between us we came up with a lot of choreography that was more integrated. A lot of it was based on dance crazes of the time — disco, the toe-heel-heel, the body shifts that go along with that. We pulled on elements of popular dancing as we were doing it; we were children of our times, dance-wise. There’s actually not much contemporary dance in there; there is ballet, typical broadway and tap. The only jazz combos are in the opening sequence and the montage sections.

Q.

Did you initially think it would be more of a dance show?

A.

Well, it was a very slow process and I’m not sure we had an idea of how it would be. We had the original tapes of the stories from our dancers and once we decided to put those stories in the framework of an audition, we were able to construct the piece. But it took us a very long time. We did four workshops, which no one did in those days — we were the first ones ever to do it. The montage, which is 22 minutes, took us six weeks. You wouldn’t be able to do that today, it would be too expensive.

Q.

Is the routine we see at the beginning a realistic idea of what you might see at a Broadway audition today?

A.

A dance call is still pretty much the same. When we have an open call, you might get 700 people. We divide them into groups of 10 and make them all do double pirouettes — you can immediately see people’s training. We keep 2 or 3 people from each group, then we teach them the opening combination, a shortened version, then the full one, then the ballet combination. You get a feel for their jazz style, and the ballet combination is very revealing in terms of technique.

Q.

Are you strict about remaining faithful to the original choreography? Do you adapt to different dancers or, perhaps, a more contemporary style of dancing today?

A.

The ensemble stuff is set in stone, but with the solo work, we are very open. For Cassie’s dance, for instance, we try to pull on the strengths of the dancer performing the role. If she has a great extension, or very supple back, we make tons of adjustments along the way. In structure it’s still the same, because it’s about the music and the storytelling — it’s about narcissism, about the need to have her gifts recognized.

In the individual stuff, the staging of the songs, I make adjustments all the time. At the beginning of the rehearsal process, I just let them do the number and see what they will bring to it. In that way, I suppose it becomes more contemporary because they are performers of today.

Q.

Have the technical capacities of dancers changed since you first staged the musical in 1975?

A.

Undoubtedly. The quality of the dancing is much higher than it was when we made it. Also, then you still had a singing chorus, or a dancing chorus; it was hard to get people who could do everything really well, and now that is the norm.

It’s still hard to get a woman who can do Cassie’s big song-and-dance solo; we’ve had performers who are great dancers, but can’t really sing it. It’s a very difficult song and you need a lot of stamina. But every time I return to the show, the caliber is higher in general.

Q.

Is there a difference between the U.S. and the U.K in the quality of musical theater performers, given that there is more of a conventional theater tradition here?

A.

Not essentially. They were perhaps a little behind America in the past, but that’s mostly to do with the fact that we pull from a population that is so much bigger — it’s a numbers thing. But now they have the same all-around training, and they are fully the equals of U.S. performers. In fact, I think this London cast is the finest company we’ve had in 35 years. Every time I do “Chorus Line,” I think, not again! But this was all pleasure.

Q.

The audience was beyond rapturous at the performance I attended. Why do you think people identify so strongly with “A Chorus Line”?

A.

I think it speaks to everyone because it’s really about people on an assembly line. They are not stars, and they aren’t trying to be stars — they are trying to succeed in essentially a humble way. And the musical talks about things that weren’t discussed on Broadway before: homosexuality, plastic surgery, angry or troubled or loving relationships with parents. Even though much has changed socially since we made it, those issues don’t go away.

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Rachel McAdams Finds Unlikely Suitor at Toronto Raptors Game

By Tim Nudd

02/28/2013 at 11:15 AM EST

Rachel McAdams and the Toronto Raptors's velociraptor mascot

IPHOTO

Rachel McAdams's last boyfriend was a little older than her. Now it looks like she's keeping company with someone from the Cretaceous Period.

The actress, 34, who recently split with her beau of two years, actor Michael Sheen, was courted by the Toronto Raptors's velociraptor mascot on Monday night.

He presented the Midnight in Paris actress with flowers and a stuffed dinosaur as the Toronto public-address announcer introduced the London, Ontario, native to the crowd, who cheered wildly.

McAdams, sporting newly red locks, seemed charmingly embarrassed by the whole episode, but took it in stride, grinning her famous smile as she accepted the presents.

As NBA mascots go, the Raptor would be a prize catch for any Hollywood actress. Described as "165 lbs. of pure solid fur," he's been voted the most popular NBA mascot in each of the past three seasons.

He also "enjoys making people laugh, whether with him or at him, usually at him," according to his bio.

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Eric Garcetti showed political savvy during busy student years

Fourth in a series of articles focusing on key periods in the lives of the mayoral hopefuls.

Ben Jealous still recalls walking into a Columbia University meeting of a new group called Black Men for Anita Hill and seeing a half-Jewish, half-Mexican kid from Los Angeles leading the discussion.

"What's he doing here?" he asked the professor who organized the meeting.

"Honestly brother," the teacher replied, "he's the only one here I'm certain will really work hard."

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It was Jealous' first exposure to Eric Garcetti, a committed young progressive known on campus for gliding between different worlds and liberal causes. As a political science major at Columbia, Garcetti patched plaster and painted walls in low-income apartments in Harlem while also serving as the president of an exclusive literary society known for its wealthy membership. He led a men's discussion group on gender and sexuality, ran successfully for student government, and wrote and performed in musicals.

His busy student years offered hints of the future political persona that would later help him win a Los Angeles City Council seat and emerge as a leading candidate for mayor. As he pursued countless progressive causes — improved race relations in New York City, democracy in Burma and human rights in Ethiopia — Garcetti also exhibited a careful stewardship of his image and a desire to get along with everyone.

Some of his critics complain that he is confrontation averse, and say his chameleon-like abilities are political. Others complain that he has lost touch with his activist roots, citing his recent advocacy for a plan to allow taller and bigger buildings in Hollywood despite strong opposition from some community members.

But Jealous, who went on to study with Garcetti at Oxford, where they were both Rhodes scholars, remembers his classmate as "authentically committed" to social justice and naturally at ease in different settings. That was a valuable trait in early 1990s New York City, when tensions between whites and blacks were high, said Jealous, who is now the president of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. Against a backdrop of racial violence, including the stabbing of the Rev. Al Sharpton in Brooklyn in 1991, "there was an urgent need to build bridges," he said.

On Columbia's campus, Garcetti pushed to involve more men in Take Back the Night protests against sexual violence and tracked hate crimes as president of the National Student Coalition Against Harassment. He also worked against homelessness and founded the Columbia Urban Experience, a program that exposes incoming freshmen to city life through volunteerism.

Judith Russell, a Columbia professor who taught Garcetti in a yearlong urban politics course, remembers him as a skilled organizer. "Eric was one of the best people I've ever met at getting people to agree," she said.

He was also ambitious. Russell says she wrote countless recommendation letters for Garcetti, who was always applying for some new opportunity. "For most people I have a file or two. For Eric I have a folder," she said.

Even as a student, Garcetti went to great lengths to guard his image and public reputation. In a 1991 letter to a campus newspaper, a 20-year-old Garcetti sought a retraction of a quote that he acknowledged was accurate. A reporter wrote that Garcetti called owners of a store that declined to participate in a Columbia-sponsored can recycling program "assholes." Garcetti said the comment was off the record.

"I would ask, then, if you would retract the quote, not because of the morality of my position, rather the ethics of the quoting," he wrote.

That self-awareness came partly from being raised in a politically active family. Back in Los Angeles, his father was mounting a successful campaign for county district attorney. His mother, the daughter of a wealthy clothier, ran a community foundation. Her father, who had been President Lyndon B. Johnson's tailor, made headlines in the 1960s when he took out a full-page ad in the New York Times calling on Johnson to exit the Vietnam War.

Garcetti's family wealth allowed him to carry on the legacy of political activism. While attending L.A.'s exclusive Harvard School for Boys, he traveled to Ethiopia to deliver medical supplies. In college, while other students worked at summer jobs, he traveled twice to Burma to teach democracy to leaders of the resistance movement.

In 1993, after receiving a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, Garcetti departed for Oxford. There he met Cory Booker, a fellow Rhodes scholar who is now the mayor of Newark, N.J., and a likely candidate for the U.S. Senate. Garcetti, Booker said, "was one of those guys who would be in the pub at midnight talking passionately about making a better world."

In England, Garcetti worked with Amnesty International and also met his future wife, Amy Wakeland, another Rhodes scholar with activist leanings. Garcetti remembers being impressed when Wakeland missed President Clinton's visit to the Rhodes House at Oxford because she was on the streets protesting tuition hikes. Her worldview aligned with his, he told friends.

In his second year at Oxford, Garcetti persuaded student leaders to join him in a hunger strike after the passage of Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot measure that denied immigrants access to state healthcare and schools.

Looking back, he sees the hunger strike as a bit of youthful folly. "We were young," Garcetti said. "Was a fast an ocean away going to overturn 187? No. But in my book, whether it's me in Los Angeles seeing an injustice across an ocean or vice versa, you have to stand up and be heard."

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 27

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Meet the Biggest Star in Music Right Now: A Goat!

By Cara Lynn Shultz

02/27/2013 at 11:15 AM EST

The biggest duet partner for music's biggest stars right now? A goat.

We're not kidding.

If your coworker bleating with joy, he or she has probably stumbled upon a new meme, which mashes up pop hits with an old clip of a goat screaming as if it were a human. (Some might argue that the goat improves the songs, but we'll leave that discussion to the comments section.) So far, Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble," Justin Bieber's "Baby" and Katy Perry's "Firework" have all gotten the wooly treatment.

Put on your headphones (our goat pal is loud), throw your hooves in the air, and wave them like you just don't care to some of our favorites – before this goat gets a record deal!

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont woman whose face was disfigured in a lye attack has received a face transplant.

Doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital say 44-year-old Carmen Blandin Tarleton underwent the surgery earlier this month.

A team worked 15 hours to transplant the facial skin, including the neck, nose, lips, facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

The 44-year-old Tarleton, of Thetford, Vt., was attacked by her former husband in 2007. He doused her with industrial strength lye. She suffered chemical burns over 80 percent of her body. The mother of two wrote a book about her experience that describes her recovery.

It was the fifth face transplant at the Boston hospital.

Physicians are planning to discuss the case Wednesday at the hospital.

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Imperial County betting its future on renewable energy

Situated in the southeastern corner of California, bordering Arizona and Mexico, Imperial County has long depended on agriculture and cash crops that grew from the good earth.

But lately the region — which carries the dubious distinction of having the state's highest unemployment rate at 25.5% — is betting its future on a different kind of farm: green energy.

Spurred by a state mandate that requires utilities to get a third of their electricity from green sources by 2020, renewable energy companies are leasing or buying thousands of acres in Imperial County to convert to energy farms providing power for coastal cities — bringing an estimated 6,000 building jobs and billions in construction activity to the county.

Although renewable energy projects are sprouting up across the Golden State, no county needs them as much as Imperial, which has consistently ranked as the worst-performing region of California even in boom times.

The prospect of a construction boom has excited residents hungry for work. But some farmers and Native American tribes are crying foul, angry that the new projects are encroaching on land that they claim has cultural value or should be devoted to crops.

Solar, wind and geothermal projects are popping up on farms that once grew wheat, alfalfa and sugar beets. County officials say the normally hardscrabble region is benefiting from vast tracts of affordable land and lots of sunshine, the one resource the region can almost always count on.

"It's sunny 365 days of the year, damn near," boasted Mike Kelley, chairman of the county's Board of Supervisors. "Renewable energy is going to give Imperial County a shot in the arm."

Local advocates are betting that a "green rush" will lift a county that has struggled with economic upheaval. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just ranked El Centro as the second-worst metro area for job hunters, after Yuma, Ariz. Its unemployment rate fluctuated between 25% and 33% from 2010 and 2012.

Two of the county's top five employers are the Calipatria and Centinela state prisons. The agriculture sector shed jobs as farmers moved to automation and switched to less labor-intensive crops. Construction work vanished when El Centro, the county's biggest city, was hit hard by the housing crisis. Long-standing businesses such as a food processing plant moved elsewhere, taking away hundreds of jobs.

But with green energy companies scrambling to build solar installations and wind farms throughout the county, some residents are convinced that Imperial's fortunes will soon be looking up.

Tenaska Solar Ventures plans to break ground this year on its second project in the county after nearing completion on its first site, known as the Imperial Solar Energy Center South, on nearly 1,000 acres near El Centro.

The company came to the region both for its "abundant sunshine" and also proximity to the Sunrise Powerlink, a power transmission line completed last year that connects Imperial and San Diego counties, said Bob Ramaekers, Tenaska's vice president of development.

More than 500 construction workers have been hired to work on Tenaska Imperial South, with 70% coming from the local community, he said. A job fair held last year drew about 1,200 applicants. The second project will generate as many as 300 construction jobs, with priority given to local hires.

"One of the advantages of solar projects is they are not really high-tech. Anyone who has worked at all in the construction business can work in a solar facility," said Andy Horne, deputy executive officer of the county's natural resources department. "It's like a big erector set — you bolt these things together and ba-da-bing, you have a solar project."

The lure of a steady, well-paid job is what persuaded Victor Santana, 27, to start training as a journeyman electrician two years ago. He had studied film in college and hoped to make movies, but ended up working a series of odd jobs after the economic downturn — driving tractors, operating hay presses, selling vacuum cleaners. Even a video-editing gig he eventually found paid minimum wage,

"Things had dried up. There was only field work, or fast food, or working at the local mall," the El Centro resident said.

Santana finally decided to switch careers after hearing the pitch from green energy companies trickling into town. Now he earns about $21 an hour with regular raises every six months, and the prospect of steady work for another seven to 10 years just from the stream of solar and wind projects. "I feel a lot more secure than I did," he said.

Green energy may help Imperial hold onto its young people, who often try to land a government job or leave the county altogether in search of better-paying jobs elsewhere. Calipatria Unified School District is launching a vocational program this fall to prepare high school graduates for jobs in renewable energy. San Diego State is building a power plant simulator at its Brawley campus.

"With the advent of renewable energy, we are seeing a different kind of industrial base," said Mike Sabath, associate dean of academic affairs at San Diego State's Imperial Valley campus. "Hopefully that will provide opportunities to develop more job stability in the region than what we have enjoyed."

But construction has raised the hackles of some locals. There are farmers wringing their hands over fertile land snapped up by energy companies; they worry that a way of life is being edged out by corporations eager to cash in on the modern gold rush.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 26

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Seth MacFarlane's TV Guide Critic Reacts to Oscar Mention

02/26/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Seth MacFarlane (far left) and William Shatner, with Stephen Battaglio (inset)

Zuma; Inset: Getty

So, how does it feel to have your name dropped before a billion people?

Surprising, says TV Guide columnist Stephen Battaglio, who was part of the lively opening exchange between Oscar host Seth MacFarlane and intruder from the future William Shatner.

In a spoof (and a screen grab), the Star Trek captain showed the Family Guy guy what would be his upcoming review from Battglio.

"I didn't know it was coming," Battaglio writes on TV Guide's website. "I was watching the show at home with my wife. Staring at the byline, it took a few seconds to absorb."

And once it did, he says, "every electronic device in our apartment was ringing, buzzing, pinging or vibrating."

For the writer's full reaction, click here.
– Stephen M. Silverman

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Does Eric Garcetti keep his word? Accounts vary

Santiago Perez and his neighbors went straight to Councilman Eric Garcetti when they heard that a developer planned to build a 62-unit housing and retail development on their quiet street in Echo Park.

Worried that the four-story complex would tower over homes and bring excess traffic, the group emerged from their meeting at Los Angeles City Hall feeling relieved. "He told us that, yes, he's with us and he will do everything possible to reject the plan," Perez said.

But months later in front of the citywide Planning Commission, a Garcetti representative offered the lawmaker's tacit support for the project, saying it was "designed well" and would bring needed jobs and housing to the area.

Perez and his neighbors felt blindsided. "He said one thing and then he did another," Perez said. One of his neighbors fired off an angry message via Twitter: "Eric Garcetti went back on his word."

If Garcetti succeeds in his bid to become L.A.'s next mayor, he will face new pressure to take decisive action on hotly contested issues. A number of colleagues and constituents say he has not always been a steadfast ally and decision maker.

Another mayoral front runner, Wendy Greuel, alluded to that allegation in a recent appearance before city workers, saying they need someone who will "be true to their word."

Garcetti insists he never wavers from a promise. In nearly 12 years in office, he has made decisions that have upset some people, he acknowledged. But the vast majority of people he has worked with have had positive experiences, he said.

He said that he never committed to fighting the Echo Park development and that he "reserves the right" to take his time forming a position on an issue. "I listen to a lot of people to make sure I'm as well-informed as possible up until the last hour," he said.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who has served alongside Garcetti for more than a decade, said Garcetti too often tests the political winds before taking a stand. Parks, who is backing Councilwoman Jan Perry's bid for mayor, alleges that Garcetti misled him last year by voting for a controversial redistricting plan after indicating he opposed it. Garcetti also undermined the city's efforts to hold down costs of employee union contracts, Parks said.

"I think he doesn't want to make an enemy of anyone," Parks said.

Garcetti said that he never told Parks he would oppose the redistricting plan and that the tough stance he took with the unions is "the reason I don't have [them] lining up behind me."

Questions of Garcetti's reliability arose for Marc Galucci, who went to the councilman for support in turning his Echo Park cafe into a restaurant serving beer and wine.

Galucci assembled neighbors to back his application for a liquor license for Fix Coffee, but parents of some children at a nearby school opposed it.

Galucci said Garcetti told him that he would remain neutral but offered suggestions on how to gain community support. Then, at 10 p.m. the night before the liquor license hearing, a Garcetti representative phoned. "Tomorrow at the hearing we're going to oppose this," she said.

"I was just flabbergasted," said Galucci. He later learned that Monica Garcia, president of the Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District, had asked Garcetti to oppose the request.

In the end, Galucci got the license, but he said the situation left him with a bad taste.

Garcetti acknowledged that the issue had been "a contentious one," but he said he had not pledged to remain neutral. He said that he initially liked the idea of a liquor permit for Fix but that community opposition "continued to grow and grow."

Former Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who has endorsed Garcetti, said that it's important to be flexible but that avoiding a strong stand can leave the wrong impression. "I do know that he is a person who tries to make people happy, and when you do that, people hear what they want to hear," she said.

On the campaign trail, Garcetti often touts his strengths as a consensus builder. Some current and former colleagues say his desire to find a compromise can be a weakness when consensus isn't possible.

Former City Councilman Greig Smith recalled a 2010 struggle in which the Department of Water and Power and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sought to raise rates to a level the council thought inappropriate. On the day of the vote, Garcetti and Perry appeared before the DWP commission to say the council would not support the plan.

When Garcetti returned to the council for a late-night hearing, he urged his colleagues to rethink the rate hike, according to Smith, who is supporting Perry. Smith said that before Garcetti had a chance to persuade his colleagues to reconsider the hike, Smith pushed through a vote to table it.

Garcetti disputes the account, saying he did not seek reconsideration.

In the wake of the DWP fight, Garcetti backed a successful ballot measure to create the Office of Public Accountability intended to scrutinize the utility. Jack Humphreville, an activist who has long complained about high salaries at the city-owned utility, said Garcetti's office at first seemed to support a multimillion-dollar budget for the office and broad powers for a ratepayer advocate.

Garcetti later allowed the ballot measure to be "neutered" after pressure from the utility workers union, Humphreville said. The ratepayer advocate's powers were reduced and its granted funding was cut.

"Eric agreed to all this stuff, and then he started backpedaling on us," Humphreville said.

Garcetti disagreed, saying the office has substantial powers.

Nick Patsaouras, a former DWP board member, said that he also was disappointed by the final measure but that Garcetti's concessions probably kept it from "being killed" entirely by labor advocates.

"I think Eric did well, considering," he said.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

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Top British Cardinal Resigns After Accusations of ‘Inappropriate Acts’

VATICAN CITY — Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric announced his resignation on Monday, a day after being accused of “inappropriate acts” with priests, saying he would not attend the conclave to elect a new pope.

The cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, said that he had submitted his resignation months ago, and the Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted it on Feb. 18. However, the timing of the announcement — a day after news reports of alleged abuse appeared in Britain —suggested that the Vatican had encouraged the cardinal to stay away from the conclave.

The move is bound to raise questions about other cardinals. It comes amid a campaign by some critics to urge Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles not to attend the conclave because of his role in moving priests accused of abuse.

It also comes just days after the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a harsh statement against recent media reports —including ones alleging a gay sex scandal inside the Vatican —that cardinals should not be conditioned by external pressures, including from the media, when they vote for the next pope. There are expected to be some 115 cardinals at the gathering.

Vatican watchers said that Cardinal O’Brien’s decision not to attend the conclave was rare.

“It’s quite unprecedented,” said Sandro Magister, a Vatican expert with the Italian weekly L’Espresso. “He made it clear that his resignation came under the pressure of the accusations. His certainly isn’t a frequent case and hasn’t happened in conclaves in recent memory.”

Cardinal O’Brien’s announcement came a day after The Observer newspaper reported that four men had made complaints to the pope’s diplomatic representative in Britain, Antonio Mennini, that reached him the week before Pope Benedict XVI announced Feb. 11 that he would be stepping down as of Feb. 28.

The Observer said that the accusations, which dated back to the 1980s, had been forwarded to theVatican.

Last week, Cardinal O’Brien drew different headlines, telling the BCC that the next pope should consider abandoning the church’s insistence on priestly celibacy, and suggested that it might be time for the papal conclave to choose a new pontiff from Africa or Asia, where church membership has been growing even as it has fallen across Europe and North America.

On Monday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, downplayed the connection between the media reports and Cardinal O’Brien’s resignation, which the pope accepted under a norm of church law that says he had reached the normal retirement age of 75.

A statement issued by the media office of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said Cardinal O’Brien had informed the pope some time ago of his intention to resign as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh as his 75th birthday approached on March 17 but that no date had been set.

The cardinal said in the statement: “The Holy Father has now decided that my resignation will take effect today, 25 February 2013.”

“Looking back over my years of ministry: For any good I have been able to do, I thank God,” he said. “For any failures, I apologize to all whom I have offended.”

“I also ask God’s blessing on my brother cardinals who will soon gather in Rome,” the statement said, adding, “I will not join them for this conclave in person. I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me — but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor.”

Cardinal O’Brien, whose office had initially said he would fly to Rome before the conclave, has been the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland since 1985, and was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003. He was among the cardinals who attended the conclave that chose Benedict as John Paul’s successor in 2005.

The main role of a cardinal is to elect a new pope and they remain eligible to vote under any circumstances, even if they have been excommunicated, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, the secretary for the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said last week.

Ambrogio Piazzoni, a papal historian, told reporters last week that he could think of no examples of cardinals who refrained from voting for anything other than health reasons — or from the pressures of different governments in past years.

On Monday, Benedict changed the laws governing the conclave to allow cardinals to decide to move up the start date before the traditional 15-20 day waiting period after the papacy is vacant. He also met with three cardinals who had conducted a secret investigation into a scandal of leaked documents and ruled that the contents of their report would be known only to his successor — not to the cardinals entering the conclave.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.

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What You Didn't See at the Oscars

Curious about went down backstage during the ceremony? We've got your all-access pass!

Credit: Christopher Polk/Getty

Updated: Monday Feb 25, 2013 | 01:00 AM EST
By: Kate Hogan

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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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Mahony answers questions under oath about clergy sex abuse cases

A "relatively unflappable" Cardinal Roger Mahony answered questions under oath for more than 3 1/2 hours Saturday about his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, according to the lawyer who questioned the former archbishop.

"He remained calm and seemingly collected at all times," said attorney Anthony De Marco, who represents a man suing the Los Angeles Archdiocese over abuse he alleges he suffered at the hands of a priest who visited his parish in 1987.

Mahony has been deposed many times in the past, but Saturday's session was the first time he had been asked about recently released internal church records that show he shielded abusers from law enforcement.

De Marco declined to detail the questions he asked or the answers the cardinal provided, citing a judge's protective order.

The deposition occurred just before Mahony was to board a plane for Italy to vote in the conclave that will elect the next pope. In a Twitter post Friday, Mahony wrote that it was "just a few short hours before my departure for Rome."

Church officials did not return requests for comment.

The case, set for trial in April, concerns a Mexican priest, Nicholas Aguilar Rivera. Authorities believe he molested at least 26 children during a nine-month stay in Los Angeles.

Recently released church files show Aguilar Rivera fled to Mexico after a top Mahony aide, Thomas Curry, warned him that parents were likely to go the police and that he was in "a good deal of danger." Aguilar Rivera remains a fugitive in Mexico.

The archdiocese had agreed that Mahony could be questioned for four hours about the Aguilar Rivera case and 25 other priests accused in the same period. De Marco said he did not get to ask everything he wanted and would seek additional time after the cardinal returned from the Vatican.

Past depositions of Mahony have eventually become public, and De Marco said he would follow court procedures to seek the release of a transcript of Saturday's deposition.

Meanwhile, a Catholic organization Saturday delivered a petition with thousands of signatures asking that Mahony recuse himself from the conclave in Rome.

The group, Catholics United, collected nearly 10,000 signatures making "a simple request" that the former archbishop of Los Angeles not participate in the process because of the priest abuse scandals that happened under his watch, said Chris Pumpelly, communications director for Catholics United.

The petition was delivered Saturday to St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood, where the cardinal resides. It was accepted by a church staff member.

After delivering the petition, organizers attended Mass at the parish to pray for healing and for the future of the church.

harriet.ryan@latimes.com

Times staff writer Rick Rojas contributed to this report.

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In Last Sunday Address as Pope, Benedict Says He Will Continue to Serve

Andrew Medichini/Associated Press

Pope Benedict XVI delivered his final Sunday address from the window of his apartment overlooking St. Peter's Square.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict spoke from his window for the last time on Sunday, telling the faithful packed into St. Peter’s Square that the first papal abdication in centuries was God’s will and insisting he was not abandoning the Church.

Four days before the 85-year-old Benedict’s often troubled eight-year rule ends, new talk of scandal hit the cardinals who will choose his successor; one of them, a Scottish archbishop, had to deny news media accusations of misconduct with priests in the 1980s.

With an American cardinal urged not to go to the electoral conclave because of his role in handling sexual abuse cases in the United States, and the Vatican accusing media of running smears to influence the vote, the Church faces a stormy succession.

Benedict, however, defended his shock decision to resign as dictated by his failing health; his address to tens of thousands of well-wishers was met with calls of “Viva il Papa!”

“The Lord is calling me to climb the mountain, to dedicate myself even more to prayer and meditation,” the German-born pontiff said in Italian, his voice strong and clear.

“But this does not mean abandoning the Church. Actually, if God asks this of me, it is precisely because I can continue to serve her with the same dedication and the same love I have shown so far,” he said, adding that he would be serving the Church “in a way more in keeping with my age and my strengths”.

As he spoke, two of the some 117 cardinals who will enter the conclave next month to choose his successor as leader of the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics were mired in controversy.

Britain’s top Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh, rejected claims in The Observer newspaper that he had been involved in unspecified inappropriate behavior with other priests.

The paper said Cardinal O’Brien, 74, known for his outspoken views against homosexuality, had been reported to the Vatican by three priests and a former priest, who said they had come forward to demand he resign and not take part in the conclave.

“Cardinal O’Brien contests these claims and is taking legal advice,” a spokesman for the cardinal said.

He was the second cardinal to be caught up in controversy over his attendance ahead of the conclave. On Saturday, Catholic activists petitioned Cardinal Roger Mahony to recuse himself from the conclave so as not to insult survivors of sexual abuse by priests committed while he was archbishop of Los Angeles..

In that post from 1985 until 2011, Cardinal Mahony worked to send priests known to be abusers out of state to shield them from law enforcement scrutiny in the 1980s, according to church files unsealed under a federal district. court order last month.

The minds of those in the crowd in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, some holding banners reading “Thank you Holy Father,” were not on scandals, real or potential, but on the Church history unfolding around them.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Sarah Ennis, 21, a student from Minnesota who studies in Rome. “Bitter because we love our Pope Benedict and hate to see him go, but sweet because he is going for a good reason and we are excited to see the next pope.”

Others, however, saw it as a possible harbinger for the Church.

“This is an ill wind blowing,” said Marina Tacconi, a midwife. “It feels like something ugly could happen. I’m 58 years old, I have seen popes come and go. But never one resign.”

The Sunday address was one of Benedict’s last appearances as pontiff before the curtain comes down on a problem-ridden pontificate.

On Wednesday, he will hold his last general audience in St. Peter’s Square and on Thursday he will meet with cardinals and then fly to the papal summer retreat south of Rome.

The papacy will become vacant on Thursday night.

Cardinals will begin meetings the next day to prepare for a secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel.

They have already begun informal consultations by phone and e-mail in the last two weeks since Benedict announced his abdication in order to build a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church.

On Monday, the pope is expected to issue slight changes to Church rules governing the conclave so that it could start before March 15, the earliest it can be held under a detailed constitution by his predecessor John Paul.

Some cardinals believe a conclave should start sooner than March 15 in order to reduce the time in which the Church will be without a leader. But some in the Church believe that an early conclave would give an unfair advantage to cardinals already in Rome and working in the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration, which has been at the center of accusations of ineptitude that some say led Benedict to step down.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected by mid-March and then installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

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You're Invited to PEOPLE.com's Oscars Party!

02/24/2013 at 08:40 AM EST

From left: Bradley Cooper, Oscar, Jessica Chastain

AFP/Getty; Wireimage; Splash News Online

Oscars host Seth MacFarlane isn't the only one gearing up for Hollywood's biggest night – we are too!

Be a part of the glamour and excitement Sunday starting at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT when we roll out the red carpet for our PEOPLE.com VIPs.

Here's what you can expect:
• Tune in to our live red carpet preshow for exclusive A-list interviews
• Be the first to see the gorgeous gowns – and make your own best-dressed list
• Download your own play-along ballot – and vote on your Academy Awards picks
• Tweet with our editors at #PeopleOscars, and watch the conversation on our homepage. We'll be joined by DKNY PR Girl (@dkny), model Coco Rocha (@cocorocha), the hilarious Go Fug Yourself (@fuggirls), @WhoWhatWear and blogger @Possessionista!
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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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U.N. Rejects Claim for Direct Compensation to Victims of Cholera Epidemic in Haiti

There will be no direct financial compensation from the United Nations for the more than 8,000 Haitians who died and the 646,000 sickened by cholera since the disease struck the earthquake-ravaged country in October 2010, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Haitian president this week.

More than 15 months after the United Nations received a legal claim seeking to hold peacekeeping troops responsible for setting off the epidemic, its lawyers declared the claim “not receivable,” citing diplomatic immunity.

At the same time, Partners in Health, the leading nongovernmental health care provider in Haiti, has stepped forward to urge the United Nations to invest more seriously in Mr. Ban’s own largely unfunded anticholera initiative to make amends.

In an Op-Ed article posted Friday night on the Web site of The New York Times, Dr. Louise C. Ivers, the group’s senior health and policy adviser, says the United Nations has “a moral, if not legal, obligation to help solve a crisis it inadvertently helped start.” Evidence, she said, finds the United Nations “largely, though not wholly” culpable for the outbreak of cholera.

To date, Mr. Ban has not acknowledged the reigning scientific theory about the origin of Haiti’s cholera epidemic — that peacekeepers from Nepal imported the cholera and, through a faulty sanitation system at their base, infected a tributary of the country’s largest river.

Dr. Ivers, however, while noting the “causality” of epidemic disease is complex, says that no other reasonable hypothesis for Haiti’s cholera has been put forth.

What makes her comments especially striking is that her organization’s co-founder and chief strategist, Dr. Paul Farmer, served as the United Nations’ deputy special envoy for Haiti for the past three years and was appointed by Mr. Ban in December to lead the very anticholera initiative that she found lacking.

Dr. Farmer declined to comment, but a spokeswoman for Partners in Health said Dr. Ivers’s statements represented the group’s concerns about the 10-year, $2.2 billion anticholera initiative that he was supposed to advise.

The ambitious initiative is intended to upgrade Haiti’s abysmal water and sanitation infrastructure while increasing cholera prevention and treatment efforts, including the expansion of a small cholera vaccination campaign that Partners in Health and a Haitian health care group, Gheskio, undertook last year.

Donors have pledged $215 million. The United Nations said it would contribute $23.5 million — 1 percent of the initiative’s cost, Dr. Ivers said.

In contrast, she said, this year’s budget for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, $648 million, “could more than fund the entire cholera elimination initiative for two years.”

Expressing his “deep sorrow and solidarity with the many Haitian families who lost loved ones in this terrible epidemic,” Nigel Fisher, the new head of the peacekeeping mission, nonetheless said that the United Nations had “mobilized resolutely to combat the disease.” It spent some $118 million on cholera before the initiative was announced, officials have said.

Mr. Ban, through his spokesman, also expressed “his profound sympathy” while announcing on Thursday that the legal claim had been rejected.

Mario Joseph, lead lawyer for the cholera victims, said, “While these sympathies are welcome, they will not stop cholera’s killing or ensure that survivors can go on living after losing breadwinners to cholera.”

The demand, filed in an internal United Nations claims unit, had sought $100,000 for each bereaved family and $50,000 for each cholera survivor.

Mr. Joseph described the United Nations’ terse rejection of a claim filed over a year ago as “disgraceful,” and he and his American colleagues at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said they would file a lawsuit in Haiti or abroad.

Though the death rate from cholera has declined significantly since the epidemic initially devastated Haiti, the disease is still coursing through the country. National statistics show a spike of reported cases in December 2012 over that same month in 2011 — 11,220 compared with 8,205.

“The U.N. will not pay,” said a headline Friday on the Web site of Haiti’s Le Nouvelliste newspaper.

“It’s not surprising,” a reader responded.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 23, 2013

An earlier version of this article misrendered a quotation from an Op-Ed article by Dr. Louise C. Ivers. The quotation should have read “largely, though not wholly,” not “largely, if not wholly.”

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