Karzai to Forbid His Forces From Requesting Foreign Airstrikes

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he would issue a decree barring Afghan security forces from asking international troops to carry out airstrikes under “any circumstances.”

The announcement came amid anger over a joint Afghan-NATO operation last week that Afghan officials said killed 10 civilians, including women and children, in northeast Kunar Province.

“I will issue a decree tomorrow that no Afghan security forces, in any circumstances, in any circumstances, can ask for the foreigners’ planes for carrying out operations on our homes and villages,” Mr. Karzai said in a speech here in Kabul at the Afghan National Military Academy.

Civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces, particularly as a result of airstrikes, have been the cause of much conflict between Afghans and the international coalition, led by the United States, although it has devised measures to prevent them. But the Afghan military also relies heavily on air support to gain an advantage in the fight against Taliban militants and other insurgents.

Many analysts have expressed concern that the impending withdrawal of international combat forces by the end of 2014 will deprive government security forces of that crucial weapon.

President Obama has said that he will withdraw about half of the 66,000 American troops in Afghanistan within a year.

According to Gen. John R. Allen, the former top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, the coalition can provide air support to troops on the ground anywhere in Afghanistan within 12 minutes of a request. General Allen said that Afghan forces would have to get used to not having the same abilities in the future.

Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the coalition, declined to comment on Mr. Karzai’s remarks because alliance officials had not yet seen the decree.

Mr. Karzai said that General Allen’s successor, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., told him that Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, had requested the airstrike late Tuesday in the Shigal district of Kunar Province, which borders Pakistan.

Local Afghan officials said that five boys, four women and one man were killed in the bombardment. Coalition officials said that an investigation was under way. Four insurgents were also reported killed, but Mr. Karzai said that did not justify the loss of so many civilian lives.

Mr. Karzai said Afghan forces were ready to take over from foreign troops despite concerns about their abilities.

“We are happy that foreign forces are withdrawing from our country,” he said. “We are happy for all their help and assistance so far, but we don’t need foreign forces to defend our country. We want our Afghan forces to defend their homeland.”

However, a former Afghan officer, Gen. Amrullah Aman, expressed surprise over Mr. Karzai’s remarks, saying that international air power was essential since one of the main weaknesses of the Afghan military is the lack of a fully developed air force.

“In a country like Afghanistan, where you don’t have heavy artillery and you don’t have air forces to support soldiers on the ground, how will it be possible to defeat an enemy that knows the area well and can hide anywhere?” General Aman said. “There must be air support to help all those ground forces on the battlefield.”

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Blue Ivy Looks Just Like Dad Jay-Z in New Photo

02/16/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Daddy's little girl, indeed!

A new photo of Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 1-year-old daughter Blue Ivy – apparently leaked from the songstress's upcoming HBO documentary – shows the proud mama holding up her little girl, who bears a striking resemblance to her famous papa.

"When I wake up in the morning, the best thing in the world is seeing her face," the pop star said earlier this month.

"She's starting to talk. It's just such a beautiful time in my life to have a child and every day see something new and see her learn something new."

This marks the second time fans are getting a good look at Blue Ivy. One year ago, when Blue Ivy was just 4-weeks-old, her famous parents shared photos of their precious new arrival.

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

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San Bernardino County sheriff details final shootout with Dorner

Fugitive Christopher Dorner spent his final hours barricaded inside a mountain cabin armed with a high-powered sniper rifle, smoke bombs and a cache of ammo, shooting to kill and ignoring commands to surrender until a single gunshot ended his life, authorities said Friday.

The evidence indicates that Dorner, a fired Los Angeles police officer suspected of killing four people and wounding three others, held a gun to his head and fired while the Big Bear area cabin he was holed up in caught fire, ignited by police tear gas.

San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon, during a news conference Friday, offered the most detailed account yet of the manhunt and final shootout, which left one of his deputies dead and another seriously wounded. McMahon steadfastly defended the tactics used by his agency, dismissing assertions that deputies may have botched the hunt for Dorner or deliberately set the cabin on fire.

"We stand confident in our actions on that fateful day," he said. "The bottom line is the deputy sheriffs of this department, and the law enforcement officers from the surrounding area, did an outstanding job. They ran into the line of fire. They were being shot at, and didn't turn around in retreat."

During Tuesday's shootout, a television news crew recorded law enforcement officials shouting to burn the cabin down. McMahon acknowledged the comments were made, but said they did not come from the department's tactical team or commanders on the scene.

"They had just been involved in probably one most of the most fierce firefights," he said of the people heard on the recording. "And sometimes, because we're humans, we say things that may or may not be appropriate. We will look into this and we will deal it appropriately."

The blaze started shortly after police fired "pyrotechnic" tear gas into the cabin; the canisters are known as "burners" because the intense heat they emit often causes a fire.

Sheriff's Capt. Gregg Herbert, who led the assault on the cabin, said the canisters were used only as a last resort after Dorner continued firing at deputies, ignored commands to surrender and did not respond when "cold," less intense tear gas was shot into the wood-framed dwelling.

Herbert said that a tractor was deployed to tear down walls of the cabin to expose Dorner's whereabouts inside, but that Dorner set off smoke bombs to hide himself. Storming the cabin was considered too dangerous because of the belief that Dorner "was lying in wait for us," he said.

"This was our only option," Herbert said of the pyrotechnic tear gas, adding that the potential for igniting a fire was taken into account.

After about a quarter of the cabin was engulfed in flames, Herbert said, "we heard a distinct single gunshot" come from inside. The shot sounded different from those Dorner had fired at deputies, indicating a different type of weapon was used, he said.

Dental records were used to confirm that the remains found in the cabin were indeed those of Dorner, 33.

The Riverside County coroner's office conducted an autopsy on Dorner, and determined that his death was caused by a single gunshot to the head. The coroner has not positively determined that Dorner shot himself, but the evidence "seems to indicate that the wound … was self inflicted," said Capt. Kevin Lacy of the San Bernardino County coroner's division.

From the cabin and vehicles Dorner used in the San Bernardino Mountains, investigators recovered a cache of weapons and ammunition. Among them: numerous assault weapons — including a bolt-action .308 caliber sniper's rifle — silencers, handguns, high-capacity magazines, smoke bombs, tear gas and a military-style Kevlar helmet.

McMahon said it was unclear how Dorner was able to carry all those weapons while on foot and on the run in Big Bear. But he said there's no evidence Dorner had an accomplice or received aid from anyone.

During Friday's news conference, McMahon also was pressed to address the anger and frustration of Big Bear residents who questioned how Dorner was able to hide out undetected for five days. In fact, Dorner was hiding in a vacation rental condominium less than 200 yards from law enforcement's command center during the manhunt.

The sheriff said the condo had been checked early in the search. The door was locked and no one answered when deputies knocked. Since there was no sign of forced entry on the door or windows, the deputies moved on.

McMahon said the decision was made not to kick open doors of unoccupied homes because they had no search warrants, and doing so would have included "hundreds" of homes — since many of the cabins and homes are unoccupied vacation homes.

Investigators later learned that the owners of the condo, Jim and Karen Reynolds, had left the unit unlocked to allow workers inside. When the Reynoldses entered the condo Tuesday morning, Dorner tied them up and stole their car. One of them was able to break free and call 911, leading to the deadly standoff at the mountain cabin in Angelus Oaks.

"I don't believe we made any mistakes," McMahon said.

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The Lede: Spectacular Video of Meteor Over Siberia

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

Last Updated, 12:07 p.m. As our colleagues Ellen Barry and Andrew Kramer report, Russians recorded video of bright objects, 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.

Video recorded from the dashboard camera of a car in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on Friday.

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 7-minute mark of the video.

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.

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

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).

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 following 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 meteorite 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 on light was captured by traffic cameras on top of buildings in Nizhniy 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 answering questions on the meteor 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 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 following 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.

Just last month, for instance, 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.

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John Mayer & Katy Perry's 'Very Cute' Night Out

Caught in the Act

02/15/2013 at 11:15 AM EST

John Mayer and Katy Perry

AKM-GSI

Date night! John Mayer and Katy Perry joined friends for dinner at Katsuya Brentwood on Tuesday.

Sitting in a booth with pals, "the mood was great," an onlooker tells PEOPLE. "John and Katy were mellow but very sweet with each other and were really enjoying their friends."

With Perry looking "very cute" in a Herve Leger dress and high heels, the group indulged in baked crab hand rolls, crispy rice, shishito peppers, creamy rock shrimp, albacore with crispy onions and dessert.

After dining for two hours, the friends parted ways. Mayer and Perry left the restaurant through the front door to be greeted by paparazzi outside.

– Jennifer Garcia

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."

Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.

It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.

Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."

Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.

The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.

Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.

Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.

___

Online:

Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html

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San Diego ex-mayor used charity funds to cover gambling debts

SAN DIEGO — She married a fabulously wealthy man decades her elder, and became the first female mayor of San Diego. But when Maureen O'Connor left public life, she spent countless hours seated in front of video-poker machines.

Over a nine-year period, she wagered an estimated $1 billion, including millions from a charity set up by her late husband, who founded Jack in the Box.

That was the portrait that emerged in court Thursday as the frail former mayor tearfully acknowledged she skimmed more than $2 million from a charity founded by her late husband, Robert O. Peterson.

O'Connor, 66, admitted in a plea deal that she had a gambling addiction and is nearly destitute. Her lawyer, prominent defense attorney Eugene Iredale, suggested that a brain tumor may have impaired her reasoning; he gave reporters copies of her brain scan from a 2011 surgery.

O'Connor's rapidly declining medical condition "renders it highly improbable — if not impossible — that she could be brought to trial," according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors.

"This is a sad day for the city of San Diego," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Phillip Halpern. "Maureen O'Connor was born and raised in this town. She rose from humble origins.... She dedicated much of her life, personal and professional, to improving this city."

The $1-billion gambling binge stretched from 2000 to 2009, according to court documents. In 2008 and 2009, when the fortune she had inherited was not enough, she began taking from the R.P. Foundation to cover her losses.

Despite being ahead more than $1 billion at one point, O'Connor "suffered even larger gambling losses," according to prosecutors. Her net loss, Iredale said, was about $13 million.

She was considered such a high-roller that Las Vegas casinos would send a private jet to pick her up in San Diego. Records show that O'Connor won $100,000 at the Barona casino in San Diego County, while at roughly the same time she needed to cash a $100,000 check at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Those who knew the former political doyenne said she had become a recluse, inscrutable even to those she counted as friends.

"I considered myself one of her closest friends, but I would call her and she wouldn't return my call," said lawyer Louis Wolfsheimer. "I didn't want anything from her, just to know how she was. But it looked like she was becoming reclusive."

In a bargain with prosecutors, O'Connor agreed to repay $2,088,000 to the R.P. Foundation started by Peterson, which supported charities such as City of Hope, San Diego Hospice, and the Alzheimer's Assn., and was driven into insolvency in 2009 by O'Connor's misappropriation of funds, prosecutors said.

"I never meant to hurt the city," an emotional O'Connor told reporters gathered at a restaurant close to the federal courthouse. She promised to repay the foundation but declined to answer questions.

Prosecutors agreed to defer prosecution for two years. If O'Connor violates no further laws and makes restitution, the charge of making illegal financial transactions may be dismissed. Under the agreement, O'Connor acknowledged her guilt but was allowed to plead not guilty.

If convicted, O'Connor could have faced a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $250,000.

The daughter of a boxer who made his living as a cabbie and sometime bookie, O'Connor, a Democrat, rocketed to political prominence in 1971 when she was elected to the City Council at age 25. A onetime champion swimmer, O'Connor was working as a physical education teacher at a Catholic school and was pushed into politics when a group of students she took to a City Council meeting was treated rudely.

She met Peterson, 30 years her senior, when the Republican known for supporting liberal candidates and liberal causes offered to contribute to her council campaign. Political reform was in the air, and once elected, O'Connor helped persuade the council to adopt contribution limits, a reform later emulated by the state.

A close ally of then-Mayor Pete Wilson, O'Connor served two terms on the council and later was appointed to the Port Commission.

After marrying Peterson, O'Connor became a political anomaly in San Diego: although wealthy, she cultivated a base of political support in lower-income neighborhoods south of Interstate 8, the traditional dividing line of San Diego politics. When she traveled in minority neighborhoods, adults would come from their homes to wave at her; to all, she was known merely as Maureen.

As mayor, O'Connor organized a Russian arts festival and prowled the streets with the police chief, talking to prostitutes as she and Chief Bob Burgreen looked for information about a string of killings targeting streetwalkers. She went incognito as a homeless person to see how the homeless were treated in San Diego; she worked on a city garbage truck to experience the day-to-day life of blue-collar city workers.

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Way of the World: Technology, Trade and Fewer Jobs

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech this week confirmed it: The pre-eminent political and economic challenge in the industrialized democracies is how to make capitalism work for the middle class.

There is nothing mysterious about that. The most important fact about the United States in this century is that middle-class incomes are stagnating. The financial crisis has revealed an equally stark structural problem in much of Europe.

Even in a relatively prosperous age — for all of today’s woes, we have left behind the dark, satanic mills and workhouses of the 19th century — this decline of the middle class is more than an economic issue. It is also a political one. The main point of democracy is to deliver positive results for the majority.

All of which is why understanding what is happening to the middle class is urgently important. There is no better place to start than by talking to David Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Autor is one of the leading students of the most striking trend bedeviling the middle class: the polarization of the job market. That is a nice way of saying the economy is being cleaved into high-paying jobs at the top and low-paying jobs at the bottom, while the middle-skill and middle-wage jobs that used to form society’s backbone are being hollowed out.

But when I asked him this week what had gone wrong for the U.S. middle class, he gave a different answer: “The main problem is we’ve just had a decade of incredibly anemic employment growth. All of a sudden, around 2000 and 2001, things just slowed down.”

Academics can usually be counted on to have a confident explanation for everything. That is why I was surprised and impressed by Mr. Autor’s answer when I asked him where the jobs had gone. “No one really understands why that is the case,” he said.

It was a winningly modest reply. But work by Mr. Autor and two colleagues — David Dorn, a visiting professor at Harvard, and Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego — is starting to untangle the two forces that both the conventional wisdom and the academy agree are probably responsible for a lot of what is happening to the middle class.

Those forces are technological change and trade. The easy assumption is that the two go together. After all, trade needs technology — it is hard to imagine outsourcing without the Internet, sophisticated logistics systems and jet travel. Technology is dependent on trade, too: The opportunity for global scale is one reason technological innovation has yielded such outsize rewards.

But in a careful study of local labor markets in the United States, Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson have found that trade and technology had very different consequences for jobs.

“We were surprised at how distinct the two were,” Mr. Autor said. “We found that the trade shock had a very measurable impact on the employment rate. Technology led to job polarization, but its employment effect was minimal.” Trade, at least in the short term, really did ship jobs overseas. Technology did not kill jobs per se, but it did hollow out those essential jobs in the middle.

The big surprise, at least for believers (like me) in the classic liberal economic view that trade benefits both parties, is the strong and negative impact of globalization on U.S. workers — Mr. Autor estimates it accounts for 15 to 20 percent of jobs lost.

“The rise of China was such a huge change. It really did matter,” Mr. Autor said. “First, China is such a huge country. Two, China was 40 or 50 years behind in technology, so it had a lot of catching up to do. Third, it happened so fast.”

What is striking, and frightening, is the extent to which, at least in the U.S.-China trade relationship, the knee-jerk, populist fears intellectuals tend to deride actually turned out to be true.

“U.S.-China trade is almost a one-way street. This trade relationship doesn’t clearly give you the benefit that you can sell a lot of stuff to your trade partner,” Mr. Dorn said. “If you talk to someone who is somehow involved in the promotion of free trade, they may say that maybe the headquarters of Apple benefits. That may be true. But the first-order effect is of job loss.”

The impact of technology is more familiar. Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson found that it did not create fewer jobs overall, but it did hollow out the jobs in the middle.

“Technology has really changed the distribution of occupation. That doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with reduced unemployment, but it creates a more bimodal set of opportunities,” Mr. Autor said. “There is an abundance of work to do in food service and there is an abundance of work in finance, but there are fewer middle-wage, middle-income jobs.”

What is challenging about both of these trends, and what makes the hollowing out of the middle class a political problem as well as an economic one, is how different they look depending on whether you own a company or work for one.

Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss. That profound difference is why politics in the rich democracies are so polarized right now. Capitalism and democracy are at cross-purposes, and no one yet has a clear plan for reconciling them.

Chrystia Freeland is editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.

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Ashton Kutcher & Mila Kunis Put Their PDA on Display in Hollywood!

Caught in the Act

02/14/2013 at 11:45 AM EST

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher

AKM-GSI

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis couldn't hide their affection for each other at the afterparty for the Oz the Great and Powerful premiere on Wednesday.

Kunis and Kutcher showed up for the soiree at Lure Nightclub in Hollywood around 10:30 p.m. Holding court in a reserved area with friends, Kunis was dressed to the nines, while Kutcher kept things casual in a thick white sweater and baseball cap.

As guests arrived, Kutcher remained seated as Kunis welcomed everyone into the group and made a point to chat with most people. But eventually, they found their way back to each other, with Kunis sometimes sitting on Kutcher's lap and holding hands.

The cozy couple's PDA continued as the night went on – sharing kisses, hugging and staring into each other's eyes.

Just before 12:30 a.m., the former That 70's Show costars exited the event.

– Scott Huver

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Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.

The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went on the market and adults still needed a prescription.

The increased popularity is probably because it is easier to get now and because of media coverage of controversial efforts to lift the age limit for over-the-counter sales, experts said. A prescription is still required for those younger than 17 so it is still sold from behind pharmacy counters.

In the study, half the women who used the pills said they did it because they'd had unprotected sex. Most of the rest cited a broken condom or worries that the birth control method they used had failed.

White women and more educated women use it the most, the research showed. That's not surprising, said James Trussell, a Princeton University researcher who's studied the subject.

"I don't think you can go to college in the United States and not know about emergency contraception," said Trussell, who has promoted its use and started a hot line.

One Pennsylvania college even has a vending machine dispensing the pills.

The morning-after pill is basically a high-dose version of birth control pills. It prevents ovulation and needs to be taken within a few days after sex. The morning-after pill is different from the so-called abortion pill, which is designed to terminate a pregnancy.

At least five versions of the morning-after pills are sold in the United States. They cost around $35 to $60 a dose at a pharmacy, depending on the brand.

Since it is sold over-the-counter, insurers generally only pay for it with a doctor's prescription. The new Affordable Care Act promises to cover morning-after pills, meaning no co-pays, but again only with a prescription.

The results of the study were released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's based on in-person interviews of more than 12,000 women in 2006 through 2010. It was the agency's first in-depth report on that issue, said Kimberly Daniels, the study's lead author.

The study also found:

—Among different age groups, women in their early 20s were more likely to have taken a morning-after pill. About 1 in 4 did.

—About 1 in 5 never-married women had taken a morning-after pill, compared to just 1 in 20 married women.

—Of the women who used the pill, 59 percent said they had done it only once, 24 percent said twice, and 17 percent said three or more times.

A woman who uses emergency contraception multiple times "needs to be thinking about a more regular form" of birth control, noted Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that does research on reproductive health.

Also on Thursday, the CDC released a report on overall contraception use. Among its many findings, 99 percent of women who've had sex used some sort of birth control. That includes 82 percent who used birth control pills and 93 percent whose partner had used a condom.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Emergency contraception info: http://ec.princeton.edu/index.html

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Coach posed as girl to get nude images of boys, police allege

An Irvine baseball coach and high school history teacher posed as a young blonde woman on Facebook to persuade boys to send him pornographic images of themselves, prosecutors alleged this week.

Zachary Reeder, 30, of Orange has been charged with 110 felonies, including 34 counts each of distributing pornography to a minor, contacting a child with the intent to commit a lewd act and using a minor for sex acts.

Other charges include six felony counts of committing a lewd act upon a child and one felony count of bringing obscene material into California, according to court records.

Some of the 35 known victims were between the ages of 14 and 15, according to court documents filed in Orange County.

Reeder allegedly posed as a young blonde woman on Facebook to lure boys into taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and sending them to him, Irvine police said.

Irvine detectives were investigating whether Reeder targeted victims while working at Servite High School in Anaheim, where he has taught history since fall 2008, police said.

Reeder also worked at Beckman High School in Irvine for four seasons, ending last year, as a walk-on assistant baseball coach, police said.

Anyone who believes they may be a victim is asked to call Anthony Sosnowski, an investigator for the district attorney, at (714) 834-8794 or Irvine Police Det. Frough Jahid at (949) 724-7184.

ALSO:

Tow truck driver killed on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu

Dorner manhunt: Investigators pursue 1,000 tips about ex-cop

Dorner manhunt: Girls basketball scholarship honors slain couple

— Lauren Williams and Jeremiah Dobruck, Daily Pilot

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 13

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Tom Brokaw Welcomes First Grandson

By Maggie Coughlan

02/13/2013 at 11:45 AM EST

This just in!

Tom Brokaw welcomed a grandson on Monday, a spokesperson for NBC confirms to PEOPLE.

The NBC News Special Correspondent's daughter, Sarah Brokaw – a licensed therapist specializing in relational dynamics and a New York Times best selling author – gave birth to Archer Thomas Merritt Brokaw.

Sarah's book, Fortytude: Making the Next Decades the Best Years of Your Life – through the 40s, 50s and Beyond, explores the core values of aging.

Archer is the first grandson born to the news anchor, 73, who has six granddaughters.

• With Reporting by CHARLOTTE TRIGGS

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Report: Tracking system needed to fight fake drugs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the problem of fake drugs will require putting medications through a chain of custody like U.S. courts require for evidence in a trial, the Institute of Medicine reported Wednesday.

The call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.

Fake and substandard drugs have become an increasing concern as U.S. pharmaceutical companies move more of their manufacturing overseas. The risk made headlines in 2008 when U.S. patients died from a contaminated blood thinner imported from China.

The Institute of Medicine report made clear that this is a global problem that requires an international response, with developing countries especially at risk from phony medications. Drug-resistant tuberculosis, for example, is fueled in part by watered-down medications sold in many poor countries.

"There can be nothing worse than for a patient to take a medication that either doesn't work or poisons the patient," said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University who led the IOM committee that studied how to combat the growing problem.

A mandatory drug-tracking system could use some form of barcodes or electronic tags to verify that a medication and the ingredients used to make it are authentic at every step, from the manufacturing of the active ingredient all the way to the pharmacy, he said. His committee examined fakes so sophisticated that health experts couldn't tell the difference between the packaging of the FDA-approved product and the look-alike.

"It's unreliable unless you know where it's been and can secure each point in the supply chain," Gostin said.

Patient safety advocates have pushed for that kind of tracking system for years, but attempts to include it in FDA drug-safety legislation last summer failed.

The report also concluded that:

—The World Health Organization should develop an international code of practice that sets guidelines for monitoring, regulation and law enforcement to crack down on fake drugs.

—States should beef up licensing requirements for the wholesalers and distributors who get a drug from its manufacturer to the pharmacy, hospital or doctor's office.

__Internet pharmacies are a particularly weak link, because fraudulent sites can mimic legitimate ones. The report urged wider promotion of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's online accreditation program as a tool to help consumers spot trustworthy sites.

The Institute of Medicine is an independent organization that advises the government on health matters.

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Dorner manhunt leads to deadly standoff

When authorities hemmed in the man they suspected of killing three people in a campaign of revenge that has gripped Southern California, he responded as they had feared: with smoke bombs and a barrage of gunfire.

The suspect, who police believe is fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner, shot to death one San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and injured another Tuesday. He then barricaded himself in a wood cabin outside Big Bear in the snow-blanketed San Bernardino Mountains, police said.

Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear gas and called for the suspect to surrender. They got no response. Then, using a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot.

Then the cabin burst into flames. By late Tuesday evening, the smoldering ruins remained too hot for police to enter, but authorities said they believed Dorner's body was inside.

The standoff appeared to end a weeklong hunt for the former L.A. police officer and Navy reserve lieutenant, who is also suspected of killing an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer. But Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until a body was recovered and identified as Dorner.

"It is a bittersweet night," said Beck as he drove to the hospital where the injured deputy was undergoing surgery. "This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse. I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."

According to a manifesto Dorner allegedly posted on Facebook, he felt the LAPD unjustly fired him in 2009, when a disciplinary panel determined that he lied in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.

Dorner, 33, vowed to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families, the manifesto said. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not fear death as I died long ago."

Last week, authorities had tracked Dorner to a wooded area near Big Bear Lake. They found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside. The only trace of Dorner was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

On Tuesday morning two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed truck had been found and where police had been holding press conferences about the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near the cabin. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup. The suspect turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the vehicle, police said.

A short time later, authorities said the suspect carjacked a light-colored pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend Rick Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said. Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

"You can leave and you can take your dog," the man said. He then sped off in the Dodge extended-cab pickup — and quickly encountered two Department of Fish and Wildlife trucks.

As the suspect zoomed past the officers, he rolled down his window and fired about 15 to 20 rounds. One of the officers jumped out and shot a high-powered rifle at the fleeing pickup. The suspect abandoned the vehicle and took off on foot.

Police said he ended up at the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins, a cluster of wood-frame buildings about halfway between Big Bear Lake and Yucaipa. The suspect exchanged gunfire with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies as he fled into a cabin that locals described as a single-story, multi-room structure.

The suspect fired from the cabin, striking one deputy, law enforcement sources said. Then he ducked out the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb and opened fire again, hitting a second deputy. Neither deputy was identified by authorities. The suspect retreated back into the cabin.

The gun battle was captured on TV by KCAL 9 reporter Carter Evans, who said he was about 200 feet from the cabin. As Evans described on air how deputies were approaching the structure, he was interrupted by 10 seconds of gunfire.

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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 12

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Julianna Margulies: Every Day with My Son Is a New Adventure

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/12/2013 at 11:00 AM ET

Timothy Hyatt/Getty

Reading is fundamental for Julianna Margulies, especially when it comes to her 5-year-old son Kieran Lindsay.

“Since I’ve had a child [there hasn't been a day] that we haven’t read to him at night,” The Good Wife star, 46, tells PEOPLE Thursday at an event she hosted for LEGO/Duplo’s Read! Build! Play!

“And if I can’t be there my husband is or the babysitter is. Somebody is always there reading to him before he goes to sleep.”

To that end, weekly library trips have become routine in Margulies’ household.

“We have a great little neighborhood library, so once a week we take seven books out and then we bring them back and switch them,” she explains. “If we don’t go on a Monday, Kieran’s like, ‘Wait — it’s library day.’”

Margulies is continually surprised by what she refers to as her son’s “undying curiosity.”

“Everything is new and exciting, so it makes you look through their eyes and see the world that way. He wakes up 6 a.m. and just starts talking. Everything is interesting. And it can be anything — it can be a shadow on the wall or a prism light that you suddenly see a rainbow coming out of. Every day is a new adventure with him.”

–Shakthi Jothianandan

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.

There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.

"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.

Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.

When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."

One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.

The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."

In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."

"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.

Experts on aging agreed.

"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."

Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.

But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.

"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.

"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.

Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.

In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.

Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.

The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.

Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.

Other leaders who are still working:

—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.

—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.

—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.

__

Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Ex-Bell officials defend themselves as honorable public servants

Less than three years ago, they were handcuffed and taken away in a case alleged to be so extensive that the district attorney called it "corruption on steroids."

But on Monday, two of the six former Bell council members accused of misappropriating money from the small, mostly immigrant town took to the witness stand and defended themselves as honorable public servants who earned their near-$100,000 salaries by working long hours behind the scenes.

During her three days on the stand, Teresa Jacobo said she responded to constituents who called her cell and home phone at all hours. She put in time at the city's food bank, organized breast cancer awareness marches, sometimes paid for hotel rooms for the homeless and was a staunch advocate for education.

"I was working very hard to improve the lives of the citizens of Bell," she said. "I was bringing in programs and working with them to build leadership and good families, strong families."

Jacobo, 60, said she didn't question the appropriateness of her salary, which made her one of the highest-paid part-time council members in the state.

Former Councilman George Mirabal said he too worked a long, irregular schedule when it came to city affairs.

"I keep hearing time frames over and over again, but there's no clock when you're working on the council," he said Monday. "You're working on the circumstances that are facing you. If a family calls … you don't say, '4 o'clock, work's over.' "

Mirabal, 65, said he often reached out to low-income residents who didn't make it to council meetings, attended workshops to learn how to improve civic affairs and once even made a trip to a San Diego high school to research opening a similar tech charter school in Bell.

"Do you believe you gave everything you could to the citizens of Bell?" asked his attorney, Alex Kessel.

"I'd give more," Mirabal replied.

Both Mirabal and Jacobo testified that not only did they perceive their salaries to be reasonable, but they believed them to be lawful because they were drawn up by the city manager and voted on in open session with the city attorney present.

Mirabal, who once served as Bell's city clerk, even went so far as to say that he was still a firm supporter of the city charter that passed in 2005, viewing it as Bell's "constitution." In a taped interview with authorities, one of Mirabal's council colleagues — Victor Bello — said the city manager told him the charter cleared the way for higher council salaries.

Prosecutors have depicted the defendants as salary gluttons who put their city on a path toward bankruptcy. Mirabal and Jacobo, along with Bello, Luis Artiga, George Cole and Oscar Hernandez, are accused of drawing those paychecks from boards that seldom met and did little work. All face potential prison terms if convicted.

Prosecutors have cited the city's Solid Waste and Recycling Authority as a phantom committee, created only as a device for increasing the council's pay. But defense attorneys said the authority had a very real function, even in a city that contracted with an outside trash company.

Jacobo testified that she understood the introduction of that authority to be merely a legal process and that its purpose was to discuss how Bell might start its own city-run trash service.

A former contract manager for Consolidated Disposal Service testified that Bell officials had been unhappy with the response time to bulky item pickups, terminating their contract about 2005, but that it took about six years to finalize because of an agreement that automatically renewed every year.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller questioned Mirabal about the day shortly after his 2010 arrest that he voluntarily told prosecutors that no work was done on authorities outside of meetings.

Mirabal said that if he had made such a statement, it was incorrect. He said he couldn't remember what was said back then and "might have heed and hawed."

"So it's easy to remember now?" Miller asked.

"Yes, actually."

"More than two years after charges have been filed, it's easier for you to remember now that you did work outside of the meetings for the Public Finance Authority?"

"Yes, sir."

Miller later asked Mirabal to explain a paragraph included on City Council agendas that began with the phrase, "City Council members are like you."

After some clarification of the question, Mirabal answered: "That everybody is equal and that if they look into themselves, they would see us."

corina.knoll@latimes.com

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The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries.

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Gisele Bündchen Shows Off Post-Baby Body in Bikini

02/11/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Whether showing off her baby bump – as she did only last November – or showing off her post-baby body, as she does here – Gisele Bündchen knows how to get heads to turn.

The Brazilian beauty introduced 9-week-old daughter Vivian Lake Brady in a Facebook posting last Friday, when she was also displaying her washboard stomach while vacationing poolside at her hotel in Hawaii.

With the photo of Vivian, Bündchen, who is on the holiday with husband Tom Brady and their two kids (Vivian's brother is Benjamin, 3), wrote, "Love is everything!!! Happy friday, much love to all."

As for her figure, the supermodel said to Vogue U.K. in 2011, "Like I tell my five sisters, who don't work at it very hard at all, whatever you put in, you get out. I'm not afraid of working hard at anything, whatever it is. I just always want to be the best that I can."

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What heals traumatized kids? Answers are lacking

CHICAGO (AP) — Shootings and other traumatic events involving children are not rare events, but there's a startling lack of scientific evidence on the best ways to help young survivors and witnesses heal, a government-funded analysis found.

School-based counseling treatments showed the most promise, but there's no hard proof that anxiety drugs or other medication work and far more research is needed to provide solid answers, say the authors who reviewed 25 studies. Their report was sponsored by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

According to research cited in the report, about two-thirds of U.S. children and teens younger than 18 will experience at least one traumatic event, including shootings and other violence, car crashes and weather disasters. That includes survivors and witnesses of trauma. Most will not suffer any long-term psychological problems, but about 13 percent will develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including anxiety, behavior difficulties and other problems related to the event.

The report's conclusions don't mean that no treatment works. It's just that no one knows which treatments are best, or if certain ones work better for some children but not others.

"Our findings serve as a call to action," the researchers wrote in their analysis, published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

"This is a very important topic, just in light of recent events," said lead author Valerie Forman-Hoffman, a researcher at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

She has two young children and said the results suggest that it's likely one of them will experience some kind of trauma before reaching adulthood. "As a parent I want to know what works best," the researcher said.

Besides the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, other recent tragedies involving young survivors or witnesses include the fatal shooting last month of a 15-year-old Chicago girl gunned down in front of a group of friends; Superstorm Sandy in October; and the 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado, whose survivors include students whose high school was destroyed.

Some may do fine with no treatment; others will need some sort of counseling to help them cope.

Studying which treatments are most effective is difficult because so many things affect how a child or teen will fare emotionally after a traumatic event, said Dr. Denise Dowd, an emergency physician and research director at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., who wrote a Pediatrics editorial.

One of the most important factors is how the child's parents handle the aftermath, Dowd said.

"If the parent is freaking out" and has difficulty controlling emotions, kids will have a tougher time dealing with trauma. Traumatized kids need to feel like they're in a safe and stable environment, and if their parents have trouble coping, "it's going to be very difficult for the kid," she said.

The researchers analyzed 25 studies of treatments that included anti-anxiety and depression drugs, school-based counseling, and various types of psychotherapy. The strongest evidence favored school-based treatments involving cognitive behavior therapy, which helps patients find ways to cope with disturbing thoughts and emotions, sometimes including talking repeatedly about their trauma.

This treatment worked better than nothing, but more research is needed comparing it with alternatives, the report says.

"We really don't have a gold standard treatment right now," said William Copeland, a psychologist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center who was not involved in the report. A lot of doctors and therapists may be "patching together a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and that might not add up to the most effective treatment for any given child," he said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

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Dorner's LAPD firing case hinged on credibility

For a Los Angeles Police Department disciplinary panel, the evidence was persuasive: Rookie officer Christopher Jordan Dorner lied when he accused his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest.

But when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge examined the case a year later in 2010 as part of an appeal filed by Dorner, he seemed less convinced.

Judge David P. Yaffe said he was "uncertain whether the training officer kicked the suspect or not" but nevertheless upheld the department's decision to fire Dorner, according to court records reviewed by The Times.

As the manhunt for the ex-cop wanted in the slayings of three people enters its sixth day, Dorner's firing has been the subject of debate both within and outside the LAPD. An online manifesto that police attributed to Dorner claims he was railroaded by the LAPD and unjustly fired. His allegations have resonated among the public and some LAPD employees who have criticized the department's disciplinary system, calling it capricious and retaliatory toward those who try to expose misconduct.

Seeking to address those concerns, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced this weekend that he was reopening the investigation into Dorner's disciplinary case. "It is important to me that we have a department that is seen as valuing fairness," Beck said.

LAPD records show that Dorner's disciplinary panel heard from several witnesses who testified that they did not see the training officer kick the man. The panel found that the man did not have injuries consistent with having been kicked, nor was there evidence of having been kicked on his clothes. A key witness in Dorner's defense was the man's father, who testified that his son told him he had been kicked by police. The panel concluded that the father's testimony "lacked credibility," finding that his son was too mentally ill to give a reliable account.

The online manifesto rails against the LAPD officials who took part in the review hearing and vows revenge. Police allege Dorner killed his own attorney's daughter and her fiance last weekend in Irvine.

"Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over. Suppressing the truth will [lead] to deadly consequences for you and your family," the manifesto says.

Dorner's case revolved around a July 28, 2007, call about a man causing a disturbance at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Pedro. When Dorner and his training officer showed up, they found Christopher Gettler. He was uncooperative and threw a punch at one of the officers, prompting Dorner's training officer, Teresa Evans, to use an electric Taser weapon on him.

Nearly two weeks later, Dorner walked into Sgt. Donald Deming's office at the Harbor Division police station. There were tears in Dorner's eyes, the sergeant later testified.

Deming gave the following account of what happened next:

"I have something bad to talk to you about, something really bad," Dorner told him.

Evans, Dorner explained, had kicked Gettler once in the face and twice in the left shoulder or nearby chest area. Afterward, Dorner said, Evans told him not to include the kicks on the arrest report.

"Promise me you won't do anything," Dorner asked Deming.

"No, Chris. I have to do something," Deming responded.

An internal affairs investigation into the allegation concluded the kicks never occurred. Investigators subsequently decided that Dorner had fabricated his account. He was charged with making false accusations.

At the December 2008 Board of Rights hearing, Dorner's attorney, Randal Quan, conceded that his client should have reported the kicks sooner but told the board that Dorner ultimately did the right thing. He called the case against Dorner "very, very ugly."

"This officer wasn't given a fair shake," Quan said, according to transcripts of the board hearing. "In fact, what's happening here is this officer is being made a scapegoat."

At the hearing, Dorner stuck to his story. Evans, he said, kicked Gettler once in the left side of his collarbone lightly with her right boot as they struggled to handcuff him. She kicked him once more forcefully in the same area, Dorner testified, and then much harder in the face, snapping Gettler's head back. Dorner said he noticed fresh blood on Gettler's face.

Dorner did not immediately report the kicks to a sergeant, he said, because he was asked only what force he had used, not what his partner had done. And as a rookie who had already filed complaints against fellow officers, he feared retaliation from within the department, Dorner testified.

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IHT Rendezvous: A Different Kind of Labyrinth in the London Underground

LONDON — The artist Mark Wallinger has a few strings to his bow: he spent 10 days in a bear suit in 2004 in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; he won the Turner Prize in 2007; he enjoyed a few days of media admiration/derision in 2009 when he proposed a 50-meter white horse as a public art project in Ebbsfleet in Kent.

On Thursday, Mr. Wallinger presented his newest work: a commission from the London Underground, for which he has created 270 individual panels — one for every Tube station — showing a labyrinth design in black on white square enamel panels. A small red cross marks a point of entry, and each panel is individually numbered, according to the order used by the winner of the Tube Challenge, an eccentric affair in which people compete to pass through every Tube stop on the network in the shortest possible time. (The current record is 16 hours, 29 minutes and 59 seconds.)

The Underground has long had a tradition of commissioning art. Its headquarters in St. James’s Park boasts reliefs by Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein among others, and its Art on the Underground program has shown admirable eclecticism in its choice of artists for commissioned posters, map brochures and in-station work. Mr. Wallinger’s Labyrinth project is part of Art on the Underground’s celebration, this year, of the Tube’s 150th anniversary.

“Something like 4 million people every day have an opportunity to encounter the art works,” said Tamsin Dillon, the head of Art on the Underground, in a statement marking the official opening of the project.

On the basis of visits, on Friday morning, to 4 of the 10 Tube stations at which the panels were displayed, and the remaining 260 stations will get theirs over the next few months, it seems clear that opportunity is one thing, actual encounters are another.

At Baker Street station (No. 58), my first stop, a friendly Tube employee went to find out where the panel was located and came to look at it with me. It was next to the Marylebone Road exit, near a few public phones. In and out streamed the passengers; no one except the two of us seemed to notice the new artwork. “Nice,” he said cautiously.

Similar indifference pertained at Oxford Circus (no. 60), Victoria (no. 103) and Green Park (no. 232), where a man stood consulting his cell phone right next to the panel without noticing it was there.

While this may be a bit discouraging for Mr. Wallinger and Ms. Dillon, there was something rather nice about seeking out the unobtrusively placed artworks, and a slightly Harry Potter-ish aspect to being the only person who could apparently see them as the rest of the world wandered by. Looking for the panels may not be the journey that Mr. Wallinger had in mind (unlike a maze, the labyrinth allows a straightforward passage between entrance and exit, and presumably symbolizes each passenger’s trajectory), but it’s a pleasant diversion in the hurly-burly of commuting. I see a Labyrinth Challenge coming up.

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Mariah Carey Throws a Christmas Party During the Blizzard

By Alison Schwartz

02/10/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

As a midwinter snowstorm left much of the Northeast hunkered down and bundled up indoors for the weekend, Mariah Carey didn't break out a deck of cards or a book or even a movie to ride out of the weather.

Instead, the singer turned a nasty blizzard into a good party – actually more like a belated Christmas celebration.

In a bash she documented on YouTube and Twitter, the famously festive star gathered some pals to mark what she described as "our re-Christmas day."

"It's truly quite fabulous and festive," she told her fans in the video, posted Saturday. "I wish you could all be here." (Seemingly missing from the activities: husband Nick Cannon and 21-month-old twins Monroe and Moroccan.)

With her rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus" playing in the background and a decorated (albeit mini) tree setting the mood, Carey once again brought the North Pole to New York City – this time, without the help of Santa.

And it was a white Christmas, indeed, for her guests, who noshed on candy canes and snowman-shaped cookies, as well as some heart-shaped ones, of course.

"You could say what you want to say," she added, "but we having fun."

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Old mystery: Why did Gardena help get police vests to Cambodia?

A decade ago, Gardena Police Capt. Tom Monson was surprised to discover that a $5,190 check had been mailed to his station from the Honorary Consulate of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Monson was unable to figure out what business the small police agency had with the government of Cambodia.

Shortly afterward, Monson was presented with another vexing puzzle. His police department had recently purchased 173 bulletproof vests from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department — a lot, considering that the department had fewer than 100 officers.

Then he noticed the price of those vests: $5,190. The same amount the Kingdom of Cambodia had paid to the department.

So began a mystery about ballistic vests, international police connections and local politics that still endures 10 years later.

A Times investigation has found that top sheriff's officials used the City of Gardena to funnel hundreds of bulletproof vests to Cambodian police.

Sheriff's media representatives gave The Times differing accounts about the transaction, initially denying any sheriff's officials were involved in sending the vests to Cambodia, then offering explanations contradicted by records and interviews. The officials involved in the transaction refused to discuss it.

Prompted by The Times' inquiry, Sheriff Lee Baca recently asked the county auditor-controller's office to examine the sale, and a sheriff's spokesman called that review "a complete vindication" that proved the transactions were "above board." But Auditor-Controller Wendy Watanabe said in an interview she was only told that the vests were sold to Gardena, not that Gardena was a go-between to get them to Cambodia.

"The word Cambodia didn't even come up in the conversation," she said.

It is not unusual for U.S. law enforcement agencies to donate used or obsolete equipment to other departments, including foreign ones. But in this case, the vests were sent through an intermediary and not declared to customs officials, as required by federal law. Instead, they were stuffed inside one of a number of patrol cars that the Sheriff's Department was shipping directly to Cambodia, avoiding the rigorous vetting process the U.S. government requires to prevent body armor from getting into the wrong hands abroad.

The U.S. Customs Service launched an investigation into the sale of the vests in 2002, and federal agents were told that the transactions were coordinated by Paul Tanaka, who is both the sheriff's second-in-command and the mayor of Gardena. Other members of the City Council were kept in the dark about the purchase — and the vests were never claimed by the city. They were picked up from the sheriff's warehouse, signed for by a sheriff's reserve, then packed into a patrol car headed for the Southeast Asian country.

The existence of the federal probe was never made public until now. Customs agents decided not to seek criminal charges, concluding there wasn't enough evidence to show that anyone involved in the transactions knew the relevant export laws.

David Johnson, a Washington, D.C., export controls attorney who reviewed the records for The Times, called that a "curious rationale," saying authorities don't have to prove knowledge of the law to press charges. "On its face, it seems like someone was going to great lengths to obfuscate the actual transaction," he said.

After closing the case, federal authorities referred the matter to sheriff's investigators. But a sheriff's spokesman said the department did not conduct its own investigation.

The spokesman, Steve Whitmore, said officials did nothing wrong and sent the vests through Gardena because they were under the mistaken impression that county rules prevented them from dealing directly with foreign nations. He could not explain why that same misunderstanding did not apply to the patrol cars, which officials did send directly to the Cambodians as part of the same shipment.

Tanaka declined to comment for this story. Several of the Gardena council members serving at the time said they never knew about the vests. "I'm very troubled by it," former Councilman Steven Bradford said in an interview.

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City records showed that Gardena had made two purchases from the Sheriff's Department, the first in May for 173 unused ballistic vests and the second a month later for 300 used vests at a cost of $3,000. Monson and a colleague notified federal authorities.

Records obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act detail the customs probe. Though the names of those interviewed were redacted, it is clear that investigators approached City Manager Mitchell Lansdell.

Lansdell, the records indicate, explained that the purchase was ordered by a councilman who also worked for the Sheriff's Department — a profile that fits only Tanaka. That councilman, the city manager said, called him at home and told him to buy vests that were about to be put up for sale by the Sheriff's Department.

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