Israel Moves to Expand Settlements in East Jerusalem

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

Construction in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim last June. More Photos »

JERUSALEM — As the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the Palestinians’ status Thursday night, Israel took steps toward building housing in a controversial area of East Jerusalem known as E1, where Jewish settlements have long been seen as the death knell for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said on Friday that the decision was made late Thursday night to move forward on “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for housing units in E1, which would connect the large settlement of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem and therefore make it impossible to connect the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem to Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Israel also authorized the construction of 3,000 housing units in other parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the official said.

The prime minister’s office refused to comment on whether the settlement expansion — first reported on Twitter by a reporter for the Israeli daily Haaretz — was punishment for the Palestinians’ success in obtaining nonmember observer state status at the United Nations, but it was widely seen as such. The United States, one of only eight countries that stood with Israel in voting against the Palestinians’ upgrade, has for two decades vigorously opposed construction in E1, a 3,000-acre expanse of hilly parkland where a police station was opened in 2008.

Hagit Ofran, who runs the Settlement Watch project of Peace Now, called E1 a “deal breaker for the two-state solution” and decried the decision as “disastrous.”

“Instead of punishing the Palestinians, they are actually punishing Israel,” Ms. Ofran, who is Israeli, said in an interview. “Instead of taking advantage of this bid in the U.N. and calling for negotiations to get to a two-state solution, this government is choosing to take actions that might prevent the possibility of a two-state solution.”

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Watch Diana DeGarmo Find Her Dream Wedding Gown

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/30/2012 at 09:00 AM ET

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Some women take ages to find the perfect wedding dress, but for Diana DeGarmo, it was love at first sight.

“It stole my heart from the second I put it on,” the American Idol star says in the clip above.

DeGarmo, who became engaged to fellow Idol finalist Ace Young on the show’s season finale, recently visited Renée’s Salon on Brides of Beverly Hills (airing Nov. 30 on TLC), and immediately found what she was looking for.

Considering that this was the first wedding dress DeGarmo had tried on, the singer and Broadway actress struck gold: the $6,000 Sareh Nouri gown, accented with lace flowers, had everything she wanted in a dress.

“It had the beautiful sweetheart neckline, it had lace,” she says, and, for the self-described “rhinestone cowgirl at heart,” it featured “just a little bit of bling.”

In fact, the dress had DeGarmo tearing up at its beauty. And, she says, she rarely cries.

“For me it’s not about how much you spend on the dress, it’s about how you feel in the dress,” she says. Judging by her reaction, she made the right choice. Catch DeGarmo on Brides of Beverly Hills tonight at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.

–Julia Haskins

PHOTOS: SEE THE BIGGEST, BOLDEST ENGAGEMENT RINGS OF 2012!

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Kenya village of AIDS orphans hangs hopes on trees

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged adults in the Kenyan village of Nyumbani. They all died years ago. Only the young and old live here.

The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

UNAIDS says that as of 2011 an estimated 23.5 million people living with HIV resided in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 69 percent of the global HIV burden. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions.

Saturday is World AIDS Day.

Nyumbani is currently planting tens of thousands of trees for the fourth straight year in the hopes that the village will soon harvest the hardwood and become self-sustaining.

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Couple kept girl, 12, as sex slave, police allege

An Oceanside couple is being held on suspicion of keeping an underage Mexican immigrant as a sex slave, forcing her into prostitution and beating her severely, San Diego County Sheriff's Department officials said.

Marcial Garcia Hernandez, 45, and Inez Martinez Garcia, 43, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of 13 felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under age 14.

The girl had been smuggled into the U.S. at age 12, and the abuse by Hernandez and Garcia occurred over a 21-month period, the Sheriff's Department said.

Hernandez and Garcia forced the girl to care for their three children and cook and clean for the family, as well as have sex with Hernandez, according to Deputy G. Crysler, an investigator with the North County Human Trafficking Task Force.

"When the girl victim refused to participate in the sex acts or did not complete her tasks in a timely or correct manner, she was beaten," Crysler said.

The couple forced the victim into lying about her age so she could work at a local restaurant, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money she earned, according to the arrest documents. She was also forced into having sex with older men, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money paid by "johns," the documents said.

Authorities were called after the victim was allegedly beaten by Garcia. Reunited with her family, she returned to Mexico. Recently, she returned to the U.S. and is assisting in the criminal investigation, according to the Sheriff's Department.

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Search underway for driver who killed pedestrian in Gardena

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Inmate charged in 1991 slaying, rape of 16-year-old Compton girl

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

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Hacking Report Criticizes Murdoch Newspaper and British Press Standards

LONDON — The leader of a major inquiry into the standards of British newspapers triggered by the phone hacking scandal offered an excoriating critique of the press as a whole on Thursday, saying it displayed “significant and reckless disregard for accuracy,” and urged the press to form an independent regulator to be underpinned by law.

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson on Thursday with his inquiry on press standards.

The report singled out Rupert Murdoch’s defunct tabloid The News of the World for sharp criticism.

“Too many stories in too many newspapers were the subject of complaints from too many people with too little in the way of titles taking responsibility, or considering the consequences for the individuals involved,” the head of the inquiry, Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, said in a 46-page summary of the findings in his long-awaited, 1,987-page report published in four volumes.

“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court,” Sir Brian said, referring to what form new and tighter regulations should take. “They must now decide who guards the guardians.”

The report was published after some 337 witnesses testified in person in 9 months of hearings that sought to unravel the close ties between politicians, the press and the police, reaching into what were depicted as an opaque web of links and cross-links within the British elite as well as a catalog of murky and sometimes unlawful practices within the newspaper industry.

“This inquiry has been the most concentrated look at the press this country has ever seen,” Sir Brian said after the report was made public.

But in a first reaction, Prime Minister David Cameron resisted the report’s recommendation that a new form of press regulation should be underpinned by laws, telling lawmakers that they “should be wary” of “crossing the Rubicon” by enacting legislation with the potential to limit free speech and free expression.

Mr. Cameron’s remarks drew immediate criticism from the leader of the Labour opposition, Ed Miliband, who said Sir Brian’s proposals should be accepted in their entirety.

Mr. Cameron ordered the Leveson Inquiry in July, 2011, as the phone hacking scandal at The News of the World blossomed into broad public revulsion with reports that the newspaper had ordered the interception of voice mail messages left on the cellphone of Milly Dowler, a British teenager who was abducted in 2002 and later found murdered. Sir Brian said there had been a “failure of management and compliance” at the 168-year-old News of the World, which Mr. Murdoch closed in July, 2011, accusing it of a “general lack of respect for individual privacy and dignity.”

“It was said that The News of the World had lost its way in relation to phone hacking,” the summary said. “Its casual attitude to privacy and the lip service it paid to consent demonstrated a far more general loss of direction.”

Speaking after the report was published, Sir Brian said that while the British press held a “privileged and powerful place in our society,” its “responsibilities have simply been ignored.”

“A free press in a democracy holds power to account. But, with a few honorable exceptions, the U.K. press has not performed that vital role in the case of its own power.”

“The press needs to establish a new regulatory body which is truly independent of industry leaders and of government and politicians,” he said. “Guaranteed independence, long-term stability and genuine benefits for the industry cannot be realized without legislation,” he said, adding: “This is not and cannot reasonably or fairly be characterized as statutory regulation of the press.”

In the body of the exhaustive report, reprising at length the testimony of many of the witnesses who spoke at the hearings, the document discusses press culture and ethics; explores the press’s attitude toward the subjects of its stories; and discusses the cozy relationship between the press and the police, and the press and politicians.

John F. Burns, Sandy Lark Turner and Sandy Macaskill contributed reporting.

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RIM jumps 10 percent in Toronto trade after Goldman upgrade

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New York City Police Officer Buys Shoes for Homeless Man

Heroes Among Us

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/29/2012 at 11:45 AM EST

NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo and unidentified homeless man

Courtesy NYPD

Santa arrived early this year and was wearing an NYPD uniform.

When Officer Larry DePrimo encountered a barefoot, homeless man on his Times Square beat on the cold night of Nov. 14, the policeman promptly went inside the nearby Skechers store and bought a pair of $100 boots (a store employee sliced the price to $75 with his own staff discount) and presented them to the man.

As it so happened, Jennifer Foster, a tourist from Florence, Ariz., not only witnessed the generous act, but captured the moment with a cellphone photo. She emailed it to the NYPD, which then posted the shot on its Facebook page, reports The New York Times.

The result? Not surprisingly, the handsome 25-year-old DePrimo, who joined the force two years ago and lives with his parents on Long Island, is not only a hero, but an Internet sensation.

As of Wednesday night, the post had been viewed 1.6 million times, and by the following morning had drawn nearly 350,000 "likes" and 85,000 "shares" – and was a topic of discussion on morning television.

DePrimo, who said his own feet were freezing that night (despite his wearing two pairs of socks), still keeps the Skechers receipt is still in his vest, to remind him "that sometimes people have it worse."

As for the man in need, "He was the most polite gentleman I had met," DePrimo told the Times, adding that the man's face lit up at the sight of the boots.

And while the officer also offered him a cup of coffee, "as soon as the boots were on him," DePrimo said, "he went on his way, and I just went back to my post."

The two never so much as exchanged names.

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.

Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.

The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.

Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.

"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."

Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.

Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.

The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.

To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.

The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.

___

Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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As downtown L.A. grows trendier, Spring Street Arcade is left behind

The salesmen at the Spring Street Arcade spend their day gazing out at a city that's passing them by.

All around, a trendy downtown is on the rise — pet stores selling gourmet dog chews, chic bars with ginger and juniper soda cocktails, a new generation of mostly young residents jogging in spandex and cruising on bikes.

But inside the 88-year-old shopping arcade, with its giant curved skylight, arched Spanish Renaissance entryways and Beaux Arts exterior, many of the stores are vacant, and the remaining merchants seem stuck in another era. Bargain-rate clothes, toys, suitcases and DVDs share shelf space with dusty boomboxes and T-shirts from '90s rock bands like Korn and Nirvana.

Mohad Azimi lingers through the morning outside his kitchen appliance shop, chatting with the Taiwanese salesman at the toy store next to him. These days, the jokes focus on a new Starbucks that's just opened at Spring and 6th streets. Maybe that's where all the people are going now, the merchants say.

"Look around here — business is dead," Azimi says as he looks across the arcade's empty corridor, which stretches from Spring to Broadway. "Nobody comes inside."

Azimi opened his business in the early 1990s, after emigrating from Afghanistan. Back then, Los Angeles was still enjoying a boom in immigration from places like Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, and the mall was so busy on the weekends that you could barely walk inside. Broadway was a bustling promenade, with shoppers pouring in on bus lines from all over the city.

Families would come to buy kitchenware at Azimi's shop, sometimes shipping the products back to relatives in Latin America. And while they were there, he says, they'd pick up toys and clothes for their children.

Azimi still stacks the same goods on a white plastic table at the front of his shop — toaster ovens, blenders and microwaves in battered cardboard boxes. Inside the cluttered shop, there are old keyboards, calculators and Nintendo GameCube consoles.

But he makes only a few sales each week, he says, and he's not sure he can make it to the end of the year.

"The new residents, they don't have a family, they don't have anyone to cook for," Azimi says. "They just have a dog."

::

When the Spring Street Arcade opened in 1924, it was hailed as Los Angeles' premier shopping center — and celebrated with a bash that brought out Will Rogers and Charlie Chaplin.

Back then, the area was filled with department stores, high-end shops and rows of movie palaces. Even as downtown faded after World War II and the department stores and movie houses closed down, the small merchants along Broadway, Main and other downtown streets managed to find new customers.

By the 1980s, hundreds of them were making a good living catering to the city's rising Latino immigrant community, both new immigrants and Mexicans who would cross the border for shopping runs.

The retail economy was so strong that Broadway storefronts famously commanded rents similar to those of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

But changes in immigration patterns, improved economic conditions in Mexico, competition in other communities and the recession have left many downtown merchants fighting to survive. While new, "500 Days of Summer" residents are frequenting bars and restaurants and coffeehouses, they have little need for the bargain shops that line the arcade.

Joel Kotkin, an urban studies fellow at Chapman University, says the shift is evident all around downtown.

It's the "gradual dissolution of one economy — a really vibrant, unique economy — and an attempt to replace it with another," he says. "The question is, are we just seeing the death of something that will be replaced, or will we have this parallel universe of yuppies alongside the decline?"

::

Inside the arcade, merchants are quick to reminisce about the prosperous years — and lament how it went so wrong.

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Portuguese Join Europe’s Chorus of Discontent

Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

Protesters faced off against the riot police at the Parliament building in Lisbon during a coordinated European general strike on Nov. 14. The kind of demonstrations that have been seen in other countries facing economic crisis are increasingly common in Portugal. More Photos »

Until a few months ago, Portugal was seen as a role model in the grinding euro zone crisis, adopting deep spending cuts and raising taxes to reduce its deficit without the outcry, protests and strikes that austerity policies have set off in other Southern European countries. International lenders praised the Portuguese government even as they arranged a 78 billion euro bailout for the country last year, following similar deals with Greece and Ireland.

But the belt-tightening helped push Portugal deeper into one of Europe’s longest recessions — and the Portuguese have now joined the ranks of Europe’s discontented, even coordinating a general strike with workers in neighboring Spain earlier this month.

The hard times have also created strains within the center-right coalition government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. Still, the government managed to pass a stiff new austerity budget with steep tax increases on Tuesday, even as protesters demonstrated angrily outside the Parliament building.

Such protests and work stoppages have become much more common over the past year, as daily life for many Portuguese families has become a struggle to stay afloat. Pay is being cut for government and private-sector workers alike, the unemployment has risen to nearly 16 percent, retirees face higher health costs and students will pay more for tuition without any assurance that their degrees will lead to jobs. In fact, many graduates are packing their bags to emigrate instead.

 

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