Protests Erupt After Egypt’s Leader Seizes New Power

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians in central Cairo ran from tear gas during clashes with the police on Friday. Protesters took to the streets in several cities. More Photos »

CAIRO — Protests erupted across Egypt on Friday, as opponents of President Mohamed Morsi clashed with his supporters over a presidential edict that gave him unchecked authority and polarized an already divided nation while raising a specter, the president’s critics charged, of a return to autocracy.  

In an echo of the uprising 22 months ago, thousands of protesters chanted for the downfall of Mr. Morsi’s government in Cairo, while others ransacked the offices of the president’s former party in Suez, Alexandria and other cities.

Mr. Morsi spoke to his supporters in front of the presidential palace here, imploring the public to trust his intentions as he cast himself as a protector of the revolution and a fledgling democracy.

In a speech that was by turns defensive and conciliatory, he ultimately gave no ground to the critics who now were describing him as a pharaoh, in another echo of the insult once reserved for the deposed president, Hosni Mubarak.

“God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship,” Mr. Morsi said.

The battles that raged on Friday — over power, legitimacy and the mantle of the revolution — posed a sharp challenge not only to Mr. Morsi but also to his opponents, members of secular, leftist and liberal groups whose crippling divisions have stifled their agenda and left them unable to confront the more popular Islamist movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis over his power grab came just days after the Islamist leader won international praise for his pragmatism, including from the United States, for brokering a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.

On Friday, the State Department expressed muted concern over Mr. Morsi’s decision. “One of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in the hands of any one person or institution,” said the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland.

She said, “The current constitutional vacuum in Egypt can only be resolved by the adoption of a constitution that includes checks and balances, and respects fundamental freedoms, individual rights and the rule of law consistent with Egypt’s international commitments.”

But the White House was notably silent after it had earlier this week extolled the emerging relationship between President Obama and Mr. Morsi and credited a series of telephone calls between the two men with helping to mediate the cease-fire in Gaza.

For Mr. Morsi, who seemed to be saying to the nation that it needed to surrender the last checks on his power in order to save democracy from Mubarak-era judges, the challenge was to convince Egyptians that the ends justified his means.

But even as he tried, thousands of protesters marched to condemn his decision. Clashes broke out between the president’s supporters and his critics, and near Tahrir Square, the riot police fired tear gas and bird shot as protesters hurled stones and set fires.

Since Thursday, when Mr. Morsi issued the decree, the president and his supporters have argued that he acted precisely to gain the power to address the complaints of his critics, including the families of protesters killed during the uprising and its aftermath.

By placing his decisions above judicial review, the decree enabled him to replace a public prosecutor who had failed to win convictions against senior officers implicated in the killings of protesters.

The president and his supporters also argued that the decree insulated the Constituent Assembly, which is drafting the constitution, from meddling by Mubarak-era judges.

Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, courts have dissolved Parliament, kept a Mubarak loyalist as top prosecutor and disbanded the first Assembly.

But by ending legal appeals, the decree also removed a safety valve for critics who say the Islamist majority is dominating the drafting of the constitution.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Helene Cooper from Washington.

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6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job

Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss

Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted: 

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@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”

After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:

 @HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”

Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:

“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.” 

This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees. 

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The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation. 

Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.

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Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it. 

Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.

The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.

Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:

@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”

He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.” 

Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.

Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:

@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!” 

Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.

Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.

When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.

 — Rob Lammie

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Michelle Obama and Daughters Welcome Christmas Tree at White House

11/24/2012 at 10:15 AM EST

'Tis the season!

Michelle Obama and daughters Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11 – assisted by their not-so-little helper Bo Obama – welcomed a Christmas tree to the White House on Friday.

The 19-ft. Fraser fir from Peak Farms in Jefferson, N.C., arrived on a red and green wagon drawn by two Clydesdale horses while the Marine Band played the classic carol "Oh Christmas Tree."

How festive!

According to tradition, the tree will be displayed in the White House's Blue Room and the First Lady will select and supervise the decorating.

After sampling the scent of the tree's needles, Ms. Obama reportedly gave a thumbs-up and told onlookers, "It's a go."

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Program opens door to citizenship for immigrants

Ricardo Sepida gets emotional when he sees his son-in-law in a Navy uniform. Even aircraft carriers make him misty-eyed. There is no better country than the United States, says Sepida, an immigrant from the Philippines.

Yet despite possessing a green card for 40 years, Sepida has never become an American citizen. Life got in the way, as he raised two children, worked a full-time job as a biomedical technician and ran side businesses on the weekends.

"I was so busy at work, I had so many things to do and I'd forget about it," said Sepida, 61, of Sylmar. "I regret it now. I should have done it a long time ago."

Sepida is among the millions of immigrants who are eligible for citizenship but have postponed the milestone, whether because of the $680 fee, a busy schedule or fear of the English and civics exams. In 2011, about 750,000 immigrants applied for naturalization out of the 8.5 million who were eligible.

A $20-million effort is now under way to get more permanent residents to become citizens so they can vote, have access to a wider range of jobs and become fully American. The money for the New Americans Campaign comes from major foundations and is going mainly to nonprofits that have already been doing citizenship work. Two former commissioners of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have signed on as advisors.

"We're going to just grow the number of people who aren't really completely part of the American fabric, who aren't pitching their tent, unless we get them off the sideline and into the game," said Eric Cohen, executive director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which is the campaign's main coordinator.

The campaign is being touted as bipartisan — Doris Meissner and James Ziglar, the two former INS leaders, served under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively. Organizers chose to launch the effort after the November presidential election to avoid any association with partisan voter registration drives, Meissner said.

With the growing clout of Latinos and Asian Americans, who voted for Democrat Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by a ratio of nearly three to one, an increase in naturalization rates could have an effect on local and national politics.

Los Angeles is among eight cities targeted by the New Americans drive, which will last three to five years. The cities, which also include Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Miami, New York and San Jose, are home to about 40% of those who qualify for citizenship.

The money will pay for more workshops to help immigrants fill out the 10-page application and prepare for the exams. The New Americans project will also fund outreach efforts like the CitzenshipWorks website, which provides application guidance in English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

Separately, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes applications and is a successor agency to INS, has worked with Los Angeles officials to install a "citizenship corner" in each of the city's 73 public libraries.

"It's one of those things where you don't know how good it is unless you experience it," said Phyllis Coven, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' Los Angeles office. "It's a great gift, an honor and a privilege to hold a U.S. passport and become a full member of this society."

At the Chinatown library, the most pressing issue is English fluency, said Shan Liang, the branch manager. Elderly Chinese immigrants flock to the library's free English and civics classes, but some have a long way to go before they can answer such questions as, "Why did the colonists fight the British?" The cost can also be an issue for retirees living on a fixed income, Liang said.

"It is an intimidating process. It is quite a lot of questions," said Joyce Noche, head of the citizenship and immigration project at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, one of the groups conducting workshops under the program. "Our attorneys can't actually answer all the questions themselves. It is not a walk in the park."

Typically, the naturalization process takes about five months from submitting the initial application to reciting an oath of allegiance at a group swearing-in ceremony.

On a recent Saturday morning, Sepida attended a New Americans workshop in North Hills with his wife, Sally, who has been a citizen for decades. Among a group of procrastinators, Sepida stood out.

Tony Lu, who coordinates the CitizenshipWorks project for the Immigration Advocates Network, examined Sepida's permanent resident card. The pale blue document, dating from 1972, was so old that Lu had never seen that version of it. (Most versions are beige or pink; the agency returned to its original green hue in 2010).

Sepida sat down at a computer to work on his application. Others got one-on-one help with pen and paper, leaving with a completed application and free flashcards to practice English vocabulary and civics.

Elizabeth Lopez Perez, 45, who was brought across the Mexican border when she was 2, got her green card more than 25 years ago. As a single mother raising three children, she hardly had a spare moment.

Now, the impediment is the $680 application fee. The former nursing assistant, who has been unemployed for the last six years, hoped to qualify for a fee waiver for low-income applicants.

"Before, I didn't have the time, and I had the money," said Lopez Perez, of North Hills. "Now I have the time, and I don't have the money."

cindy.chang@latimes.com

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Military Analysis: For Israel, Gaza Conflict Is Test for an Iran Confrontation

Menahem Kahana/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

An Israeli missile is launched from a battery. Officials said their antimissile system shot down 88 percent of all assigned targets.

WASHINGTON — The conflict that ended, for now, in a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel seemed like the latest episode in a periodic showdown. But there was a second, strategic agenda unfolding, according to American and Israeli officials: The exchange was something of a practice run for any future armed confrontation with Iran, featuring improved rockets that can reach Jerusalem and new antimissile systems to counter them.

It is Iran, of course, that most preoccupies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama. While disagreeing on tactics, both have made it clear that time is short, probably measured in months, to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

And one key to their war-gaming has been cutting off Iran’s ability to slip next-generation missiles into the Gaza Strip or Lebanon, where they could be launched by Iran’s surrogates, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, during any crisis over sanctions or an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States and a military historian, likened the insertion of Iranian missiles into Gaza to the Cuban missile crisis.

“In the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. was not confronting Cuba, but rather the Soviet Union,” Mr. Oren said Wednesday, as the cease-fire was declared. “In Operation Pillar of Defense,” the name the Israel Defense Force gave the Gaza operation, “Israel was not confronting Gaza, but Iran.”

It is an imprecise analogy. What the Soviet Union was slipping into Cuba 50 years ago was a nuclear arsenal. In Gaza, the rockets and parts that came from Iran were conventional, and, as the Israelis learned, still have significant accuracy problems. But from one point of view, Israel was using the Gaza battle to learn the capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad — the group that has the closest ties to Iran — as well as to disrupt those links.

Indeed, the first strike in the eight-day conflict between Hamas and Israel arguably took place nearly a month before the fighting began — in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, as another mysterious explosion in the shadow war with Iran.

A factory said to be producing light arms blew up in spectacular fashion on Oct. 22, and within two days the Sudanese charged that it had been hit by four Israeli warplanes that easily penetrated the country’s airspace. Israelis will not talk about it. But Israeli and American officials maintain that Sudan has long been a prime transit point for smuggling Iranian Fajr rockets, the kind that Hamas launched against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem over recent days.

The missile defense campaign that ensued over Israeli territory is being described as the most intense yet in real combat anywhere — and as having the potential to change warfare in the same way that novel applications of air power in the Spanish Civil War shaped combat in the skies ever since.

Of course, a conflict with Iran, if a last-ditch effort to restart negotiations fails, would look different than what has just occurred. Just weeks before the outbreak in Gaza, the United States and European and Persian Gulf Arab allies were practicing at sea, working on clearing mines that might be dropped in shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz.

But in the Israeli and American contingency planning, Israel would face three tiers of threat in a conflict with Iran: the short-range missiles that have been lobbed in this campaign, medium-range rockets fielded by Hezbollah in Lebanon and long-range missiles from Iran.

The last of those three could include the Shahab-3, the missile Israeli and American intelligence believe could someday be fitted with a nuclear weapon if Iran ever succeeded in developing one and — the harder task — shrinking it to fit a warhead.

A United States Army air defense officer said that the American and Israeli militaries were “absolutely learning a lot” from this campaign that may contribute to a more effective “integration of all those tiered systems into a layered approach.”

The goal, and the challenge, is to link short-, medium- and long-range missile defense radar systems and interceptors against the different types of threats that may emerge in the next conflict.

Even so, a historic battle of missile versus missile defense has played out in the skies over Israel, with Israeli officials saying their Iron Dome system shot down 350 incoming rockets — 88 percent of all targets assigned to the missile defense interceptors. Israeli officials declined to specify the number of interceptors on hand to reload their missile-defense batteries.

Before the conflict began, Hamas was estimated to have amassed an arsenal of 10,000 to 12,000 rockets. Israeli officials say their pre-emptive strikes on Hamas rocket depots severely reduced the arsenal of missiles, both those provided by Iran and some built in Gaza on a Syrian design.

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Tom Cruise Reunites with Suri for Thanksgiving

By Michelle Tauber

11/23/2012 at 10:00 AM EST

Suri and Tom Cruise in January 2012

Sharpshooter Images/Splash News Online

Tom Cruise has a very special reason to be thankful this holiday.

After more than three months apart from his 6-year-old daughter Suri – the pair were last together on Aug. 5 after a week-long vacation – the actor, 50, welcomed his little girl to London earlier this week.

"He's super excited" about the visit, a source tells PEOPLE.

Mom Katie Holmes spent Thanksgiving in Toledo, Ohio, with the rest of the tight-knit Holmes clan. The actress, 33, had the day off from her Broadway comedy Dead Accounts.

For Cruise, the long-awaited reunion was especially sweet. Based in London since mid-August, where he is deep in pre-production for the sci-fi action film All You Need Is Kill, the actor has been struggling to cope with the distance between them since Holmes filed for divorce in June and was awarded primary custody of the couple's only child.

Although Cruise has been "heartbroken" by the situation, as his friend Christopher McQuarrie recently told PEOPLE, he and Suri have been speaking by phone daily. And sources on both sides have said that both Cruise and Holmes are continuing to try to work things out amicably. "They are all about co-parenting," a Holmes pal said in September.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

Read More..

Husband killed wife, cooked her on stove, police say

A 68-year-old Oceanside man is accused of killing and dismembering his 73-year-old wife.

He pleaded not guilty this week.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Flaherty told Vista Superior Court Judge J. Marshall Hockett that police found hunks of meat cooking on the stove at the family home and a severed head in the freezer.

Hockett ordered Frederick Joseph Hengl kept in jail on $5-million bail.

Police are unclear when Hengl's wife, Anna Faris, was killed. They went to the couple's home after neighbors reported a strange smell and hearing the sound of a power saw.

Neighbors also reported that Hengl sometimes wore a dress and his wife sometimes took her clothes off in the frontyard.

Read More..

Israel and Hamas Maintain Cease-Fire, After Push by the U.S. and Egypt

CAIRO — A cease-fire agreed to under intense Egyptian and American pressure between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to halt eight days of bloody conflict seemed to be holding on Thursday, averting a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip without resolving the underlying disputes.

With Israeli forces still massed on the Gaza border, a tentative calm in the fighting descended after the agreement was announced on Wednesday night. Some of the tens of thousands of Israeli reservists called up during the conflagration appeared to be making preparations on Thursday to redeploy away from staging areas along the Gaza border where the Israeli military had mounted a buildup of armor and troops.

The success of the truce will be an early test of how Egypt’s new Islamist government might influence the most intractable conflict in the Middle East.

In southern Israel, the target of more than 1,500 rockets fired from Gaza over the past week, wary residents began to return to routine. But schools within a 25-mile radius of the Palestinian enclave remained closed and thousands of soldiers, mobilized for a possible ground invasion, remained along the Gaza border. The military said that a decision regarding the troop deployment would be made after an assessment of the situation later Thursday.

A rocket alert sounded at the small village of Nativ Haasara near the border with Gaza on Thursday morning, sending residents skeptical from the start about the cease-fire running for shelter. The military said the alert had been a false alarm.

In Gaza, traffic returned to streets that had been deserted, stores and markets opened and workers began the huge task of cleaning up the debris left by days of aerial and naval bombardment. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza in support of the cease-fire as the Hamas leadership emerged from the fighting claiming victory.

Israel Radio said a dozen rockets were fired from Gaza in the first few hours of the cease-fire, but Israeli forces did not respond. In the rival Twitter feeds that offered a cyberspace counterpoint to the exchanges of airstrikes and rockets, the Israel Defense Forces said they had achieved their objectives while the armed Al Qassam Brigades in Gaza said Israeli forces had “raised the white flag.”

After more than a week of nights punctuated by the crash of bombardment and the sound of outgoing missiles, reporters in Gaza said the night had been quiet.

At the same time, Israeli security forces said on Thursday that they detained 55 Palestinian militants in the West Bank after earlier confrontations. The army said the detentions were designed to “continue to maintain order” and to “prevent the infiltration of terrorists into Israeli communities.”

The United States, Israel and Hamas all praised Egypt’s role in brokering the cease-fire as the antagonists pulled back from violence that had killed more than 150 Palestinians and five Israelis over the past week. The deal called for a 24-hour cooling-off period to be followed by talks aimed at resolving at least some of the longstanding grievances between the two sides.

Gazans poured into the streets declaring victory against the far more powerful Israeli military. In Israel, the public reaction was far more subdued. Many residents in the south expressed doubt that the agreement would hold, partly because at least five Palestinian rockets thudded into southern Israel after the cease-fire began.

The one-page memorandum of understanding left the issues that have most inflamed the tensions between the Israelis and the Gazans up for further negotiation. Israel demands long-term border security, including an end to Palestinian missile launching over the border. Hamas wants an end to the Israeli embargo.

The deal demonstrated the pragmatism of Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, who balanced public support for Hamas with a determination to preserve the peace with Israel. But it was unclear whether the agreement would be a turning point or merely a lull in the conflict.

The cease-fire deal was reached only through a final American diplomatic push: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conferred for hours with Mr. Morsi and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at the presidential palace here. Hanging over the talks was the Israeli shock at a Tel Aviv bus bombing on Wednesday — praised by Hamas — that recalled past Palestinian uprisings and raised fears of heavy Israeli retaliation. After false hopes the day before, Western and Egyptian diplomats said they had all but given up hope for a quick end to the violence.

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and Jodi Rudoren from Gaza. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Isabel Kershner and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem, Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo, Rick Gladstone from New York, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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Fitch cuts Sony, Panasonic debt ratings to “junk” status

TOKYO (Reuters) – Ratings agency Fitch downgraded the debt ratings of Japan’s Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp to “junk” status citing weakness in their consumer electronics and TV operations, further diminishing the luster of the once-great Japanese brands.

The cut to below investment grade, the first by a ratings firm, comes as the floundering Japanese tech giants face weak demand and fierce competition from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

A strong yen and bumps in China, where growth has slowed and Japanese goods have been targeted in sometimes violent protests recently, have also weighed on their earnings.

The two companies, along with Sharp Corp, racked up combined losses of $ 20 billion last year, leading them to axe jobs, sell assets and close facilities.

“Both Sony and Panasonic are struggling to generate operating profits, but each is restructuring and I don’t envision the current situation continuing,” said Masahi Oda, Chief Investment Officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

“A collapse of their core business would be a problem, but we are not at the point yet, and to me Fitch looks too negative,” Oda added.

Fitch downgraded Sony by three notches to BB-minus from BBB- minus, saying meaningful recovery will be slow. The move came after Sony, the maker of PlayStation game consoles and Vaio laptops, last week announced plans to raise 150 billion yen ($ 1.82 billion) through the sale of convertible bonds.

“Fitch believes that continuing weakness in the home entertainment and sound and mobile products and communications segments will offset the relatively stable music and pictures segments and improvement in the devices segment which makes semiconductors and components,” it said in statement.

In a separate statement, Fitch cut Panasonic to BB from BBB-minus, a two-notch downgrade, citing weakened competitiveness in its TVs and display panels as well as weak cash generation from its operations. It has a negative outlook on both the companies.

The downgrade sent Sony’s five-year credit default swaps (CDS), insurance-like contracts against debt default or restructuring, 5 basis points wider to 382.5/402.5 basis points.

Panasonic’s CDS for the same maturity were quoted at 295/315 basis points, 15 basis points wider than in Thursday morning Asian trade.

Standard & Poor’s rates the two consumer electronics makers at BBB, the second lowest of the investment grade, while Moody’s Investors Service has Baa3 on them, the lowest of the high-grade category.

With two of the three major ratings agencies still having the two companies as investment grade, institutional investors won’t face too great a pressure to cut their debt holdings in them, analysts said.

SONY SHARES TUMBLE

Sony shares shed 4.4 percent in Frankfurt on Thursday. The shares ended 1.8 percent higher at 834 yen in Tokyo before the Fitch announcement, trading not too far from their 32-year closing low of 793 yen hit on November 15. Sony stock is down 40 percent so far this year.

Panasonic shares were down 0.6 percent in Frankfurt in low volume. The stock inched up 0.7 percent to close at 407 yen in Tokyo trading, near its 34-year closing low of 385 yen reached on November 13.

Last month, Panasonic cut its forecast and warned it will lose close to $ 10 billion in the year to March, as it writes off billions of yen in tax-deferred assets and goodwill related to its mobile phone, solar panel and small lithium battery businesses.

Ahead of its earnings revision, Panasonic won $ 7.6 billion in loan commitments in October from banks including Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, a funding backstop it says will help it avoid having to seek capital from credit markets.

Sony made a small operating profit in the July-September quarter, helped by the sale of a non-core chemicals business, and kept its forecast for a full-year profit of $ 1.63 billion.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau in Tokyo and Umesh Desai in Hong Kong; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Study finds mammograms lead to unneeded treatment

Mammograms have done surprisingly little to catch deadly breast cancers before they spread, a big U.S. study finds. At the same time, more than a million women have been treated for cancers that never would have threatened their lives, researchers estimate.

Up to one-third of breast cancers, or 50,000 to 70,000 cases a year, don't need treatment, the study suggests.

It's the most detailed look yet at overtreatment of breast cancer, and it adds fresh evidence that screening is not as helpful as many women believe. Mammograms are still worthwhile, because they do catch some deadly cancers and save lives, doctors stress. And some of them disagree with conclusions the new study reached.

But it spotlights a reality that is tough for many Americans to accept: Some abnormalities that doctors call "cancer" are not a health threat or truly malignant. There is no good way to tell which ones are, so many women wind up getting treatments like surgery and chemotherapy that they don't really need.

Men have heard a similar message about PSA tests to screen for slow-growing prostate cancer, but it's relatively new to the debate over breast cancer screening.

"We're coming to learn that some cancers — many cancers, depending on the organ — weren't destined to cause death," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, a National Cancer Institute screening expert. However, "once a woman is diagnosed, it's hard to say treatment is not necessary."

He had no role in the study, which was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Archie Bleyer of St. Charles Health System and Oregon Health & Science University. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer and cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Nearly 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed each year. Other countries screen less aggressively than the U.S. does. In Britain, for example, mammograms are usually offered only every three years and a recent review there found similar signs of overtreatment.

The dogma has been that screening finds cancer early, when it's most curable. But screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers destined to cause death, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they cause symptoms.

Mammograms also are an imperfect screening tool — they often give false alarms, spurring biopsies and other tests that ultimately show no cancer was present. The new study looks at a different risk: Overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that is present but does not need treatment.

Researchers used federal surveys on mammography and cancer registry statistics from 1976 through 2008 to track how many cancers were found early, while still confined to the breast, versus later, when they had spread to lymph nodes or more widely.

The scientists assumed that the actual amount of disease — how many true cases exist — did not change or grew only a little during those three decades. Yet they found a big difference in the number and stage of cases discovered over time, as mammograms came into wide use.

Mammograms more than doubled the number of early-stage cancers detected — from 112 to 234 cases per 100,000 women. But late-stage cancers dropped just 8 percent, from 102 to 94 cases per 100,000 women.

The imbalance suggests a lot of overdiagnosis from mammograms, which now account for 60 percent of cases that are found, Bleyer said. If screening were working, there should be one less patient diagnosed with late-stage cancer for every additional patient whose cancer was found at an earlier stage, he explained.

"Instead, we're diagnosing a lot of something else — not cancer" in that early stage, Bleyer said. "And the worst cancer is still going on, just like it always was."

Researchers also looked at death rates for breast cancer, which declined 28 percent during that time in women 40 and older — the group targeted for screening. Mortality dropped even more — 41 percent — in women under 40, who presumably were not getting mammograms.

"We are left to conclude, as others have, that the good news in breast cancer — decreasing mortality — must largely be the result of improved treatment, not screening," the authors write.

The study was paid for by the study authors' universities.

"This study is important because what it really highlights is that the biology of the cancer is what we need to understand" in order to know which ones to treat and how, said Dr. Julia A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Doctors already are debating whether DCIS, a type of early tumor confined to a milk duct, should even be called cancer, she said.

Another expert, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the study's leaders made many assumptions to reach a conclusion about overdiagnosis that "may or may not be correct."

"I don't think it will change how we view screening mammography," she said.

A government-appointed task force that gives screening advice calls for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and stopping at 75. The American Cancer Society recommends them every year starting at age 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer, said the study should not be taken as "a referendum on mammography," and noted that other high-quality studies have affirmed its value. Still, he said overdiagnosis is a problem, and it's not possible to tell an individual woman whether her cancer needs treated.

"Our technology has brought us to the place where we can find a lot of cancer. Our science has to bring us to the point where we can define what treatment people really need," he said.

___

Online:

Study: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809

Screening advice: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

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

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Girlfriend helped actor killed 2 college students, police say

The former fiancee of a community theater actor charged in the double slaying of an Orange Coast College student and his tutor has been arrested by Costa Mesa police.

Rachel Buffett, 25, of Long Beach was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of being an accessory to murder after the fact and is being held on $1-million bail, according to police.

Police said Buffett remained a suspect during the two-year investigation. "She was never out of our focus," Costa Mesa Police Lt. Paul Dondero told the Daily Pilot. "She's always been in focus, along with other aspects of the case."

Authorities did not detail her alleged involvement in the killings.

At the time of the crimes, Buffett and Daniel Patrick Wozniak, 28, lived in the Camden Martinique complex in Costa Mesa, as did 26-year-old Samuel Herr, one of the victims.

Police said Wozniak, a noted community actor, killed Herr in the theater of the Joint Forces Training Center in Los Alamitos before dismembering his body and leaving his head and hands in nearby El Dorado Park Nature Center in Long Beach.

In May, a prosecutor from the Orange County district attorney's office presented evidence that Wozniak lured Herr to the military base under the pretenses of needing help to move furniture.

Authorities allege Wozniak then killed Herr's friend and tutor, Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23, in Herr's apartment, then staged the crime to make it look like a sexual assault.

Wozniak then used Herr's cellphone to text Kibuishi, asking her to come over and talk, police said.

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Fighting Continues as U.S. Seeks Truce in Gaza

JERUSALEM — To a backdrop of airstrikes and mounting casualties, American efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the latest Gaza fighting between Israel and Hamas continued on Wednesday but the struggle to achieve even a brief pause in the fighting emphasized the obstacles to finding any lasting solution.

Israeli airstrikes overnight continued into Wednesday morning, hitting government buildings, the smuggling tunnels under the southern Rafah border crossing and a bridge on the beach road that is one of three linking Gaza City to the central area of the strip. The Hamas health ministry said the Palestinian death toll stood at 140 at noon, with 1,100 injured. At least a third of those killed are believed to have been militants.

The eight-day conflict in the Gaza Strip also appeared to have spilled onto the streets of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with what the police described as a bomb blast aboard a civilian bus. Eleven people were injured, one of them seriously.

The latest exchanges, which included the interception of at least two rockets fired from Gaza, came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held talks with Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Israeli leaders in Jerusalem. She flew on Wednesday to Cairo where Egyptian-brokered cease-fire talks have been inconclusive.

Around noon on Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas government media office, a bomb hit the house of Issam Da’alis, an adviser to Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister. The house had been evacuated. Earlier, a predawn airstrike near a mosque in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp killed a 30-year-old militant, a spokesman said, and F-16 bombs destroyed two houses in the central Gaza Strip.

There were 23 punishing strikes against the southern tunnels that are used to bring weapons as well as construction material, cars and other commercial goods into Gaza from the Sinai Peninsula.

Within Gaza City, Abu Khadra, the largest government office complex, was obliterated overnight. Damage was also caused to shops, including two banks and a tourism office, and electricity cables fell on the ground and were covered in dust.

Separately, an F-16 bomb created a 20-foot crater in an open area in a stretch of hotels occupied by foreign journalists. Several of the hotels had windows blown out by the strike around 2 a.m., but no one was reported injured. By morning, the hole in the ground had filled with sludgy water, apparently from a burst pipe, appearing almost like a forgotten swimming hole with walls made of sand and cracked cinder block.

Surveying damage near a government complex, Raji Sourani of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said Gaza civilians were “in the eye of the storm,” and accused Israel of “inflicting pain and terror” on them. Israeli officials accuse Hamas of locating military sites in or close to civilian areas.

Overnight, as the conflict entered its eighth day, the Israeli military said in Twitter posts that “more than 100 terror sites were targeted, of which approximately 50 were underground rocket launchers.” The targets included the Ministry of Internal Security in Gaza, described as “one of the Hamas’ main command and control centers.”

While there was no immediate or formal claim of responsibility for the bus bombing in Tel Aviv, a message on a Twitter account in the name of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip, declared: “We told you IDF that our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are, ‘You opened the Gates of Hell on Yourselves.’ ” The letters I.D.F. refer to the Israel Defense Forces.

On several occasions since the latest conflagration seized Gaza last week, militants have aimed rockets at Tel Aviv but they have either fallen short, landed in the sea or been intercepted. Hundreds of rockets fired by militants in Gaza have struck other targets.

But the bombing seemed to be the first time in the current fighting that violence had spread directly onto the streets of Tel Aviv.

On Tuesday — the deadliest day of fighting in the conflict — Mrs. Clinton arrived hurriedly in Jerusalem and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to push for a truce. Her planned visit to Cairo on Wednesday to consult with Egyptian officials in contact with Hamas placed her and the Obama administration at the center of a fraught process with multiple parties, interests and demands.

Before leaving for Cairo, news reports said, Mrs. Clinton headed to the West Bank to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, which is estranged from the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip and has increasingly strained ties with Israel over a contentious effort to upgrade the Palestinian status at the United Nations to that of a nonmember state. Mrs. Clinton was to meet again with Mr. Netanyahu before heading for Egypt, the reports said.

Mr. Abbas’s faction is favored by the United States, but it is not directly involved in either the fighting in Gaza or the effort in Cairo to end it. Like Israel and much of the West, the United States regards Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Officials on all sides had raised expectations that a cease-fire would begin around midnight, followed by negotiations for a longer-term agreement. But by the end of Tuesday, officials with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza, said any announcement would not come at least until Wednesday.

Ethan Bronner reported from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram from Gaza; Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem; Alan Cowell from London; Peter Baker from Phnom Penh, Cambodia; David E. Sanger and Mark Landler from Washington; Andrea Bruce from Rafah; and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Bon Jovi Calls His Daughter's Heroin Overdose a 'Tragedy'

By Andrea Billups

11/21/2012 at 10:30 AM EST

Jon Bon Jovi and daughter Stephanie

Dave M. Benett/Getty

Jon Bon Jovi says his family has been touched by public support and will move forward after his daughter's arrest and hospitalization for a heroin overdose.

Speaking with Fox 11 in L.A., Bon Jovi called the Nov. 14 episode in a dorm room at New York's Hamilton College involving daughter Stephanie Rose Bongiovi, 19, a tragedy. Charges of drug possession against her eventually were dropped and she recovered at a local hospital.

"This tragedy was something that I had to face too, so we'll get through it," said Bon Jovi, 50, also father to three younger children with his wife of 23 years, Dorothea Hurley. "And people's incredible warm wishes for my family and I have been really reassuring. So, we're good."

Bon Jovi, who supported the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund along with fellow native Bruce Springsteen, also spoke about his rock world and the issues that come with it.

"It's human. What I do for a living, it seems glitzy and glamorous but if you don't take it too seriously it's a great way to make a living," he said. "And then life goes on. Things happen."

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OB/GYNs back over-the-counter birth control pills

WASHINGTON (AP) — No prescription or doctor's exam needed: The nation's largest group of obstetricians and gynecologists says birth control pills should be sold over the counter, like condoms.

Tuesday's surprise opinion from these gatekeepers of contraception could boost longtime efforts by women's advocates to make the pill more accessible.

But no one expects the pill to be sold without a prescription any time soon: A company would have to seek government permission first, and it's not clear if any are considering it. Plus there are big questions about what such a move would mean for many women's wallets if it were no longer covered by insurance.

Still, momentum may be building.

Already, anyone 17 or older doesn't need to see a doctor before buying the morning-after pill — a higher-dose version of regular birth control that can prevent pregnancy if taken shortly after unprotected sex. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration held a meeting to gather ideas about how to sell regular oral contraceptives without a prescription, too.

Now the influential American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is declaring it's safe to sell the pill that way.

Wait, why would doctors who make money from women's yearly visits for a birth-control prescription advocate giving that up?

Half of the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended, a rate that hasn't changed in 20 years — and easier access to birth control pills could help, said Dr. Kavita Nanda, an OB/GYN who co-authored the opinion for the doctors group.

"It's unfortunate that in this country where we have all these contraceptive methods available, unintended pregnancy is still a major public health problem," said Nanda, a scientist with the North Carolina nonprofit FHI 360, formerly known as Family Health International.

Many women have trouble affording a doctor's visit, or getting an appointment in time when their pills are running low — which can lead to skipped doses, Nanda added.

If the pill didn't require a prescription, women could "pick it up in the middle of the night if they run out," she said. "It removes those types of barriers."

Tuesday, the FDA said it was willing to meet with any company interested in making the pill nonprescription, to discuss what if any studies would be needed.

Then there's the price question. The Obama administration's new health care law requires FDA-approved contraceptives to be available without copays for women enrolled in most workplace health plans.

If the pill were sold without a prescription, it wouldn't be covered under that provision, just as condoms aren't, said Health and Human Services spokesman Tait Sye.

ACOG's opinion, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, says any move toward making the pill nonprescription should address that cost issue. Not all women are eligible for the free birth control provision, it noted, citing a recent survey that found young women and the uninsured pay an average of $16 per month's supply.

The doctors group made clear that:

—Birth control pills are very safe. Blood clots, the main serious side effect, happen very rarely, and are a bigger threat during pregnancy and right after giving birth.

—Women can easily tell if they have risk factors, such as smoking or having a previous clot, and should avoid the pill.

—Other over-the-counter drugs are sold despite rare but serious side effects, such as stomach bleeding from aspirin and liver damage from acetaminophen.

—And there's no need for a Pap smear or pelvic exam before using birth control pills. But women should be told to continue getting check-ups as needed, or if they'd like to discuss other forms of birth control such as implantable contraceptives that do require a physician's involvement.

The group didn't address teen use of contraception. Despite protests from reproductive health specialists, current U.S. policy requires girls younger than 17 to produce a prescription for the morning-after pill, meaning pharmacists must check customers' ages. Presumably regular birth control pills would be treated the same way.

Prescription-only oral contraceptives have long been the rule in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and a few other places, but many countries don't require a prescription.

Switching isn't a new idea. In Washington state a few years ago, a pilot project concluded that pharmacists successfully supplied women with a variety of hormonal contraceptives, including birth control pills, without a doctor's involvement. The question was how to pay for it.

Some pharmacies in parts of London have a similar project under way, and a recent report from that country's health officials concluded the program is working well enough that it should be expanded.

And in El Paso, Texas, researchers studied 500 women who regularly crossed the border into Mexico to buy birth control pills, where some U.S. brands sell over the counter for a few dollars a pack. Over nine months, the women who bought in Mexico stuck with their contraception better than another 500 women who received the pill from public clinics in El Paso, possibly because the clinic users had to wait for appointments, said Dr. Dan Grossman of the University of California, San Francisco, and the nonprofit research group Ibis Reproductive Health.

"Being able to easily get the pill when you need it makes a difference," he said.

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Online:

OB/GYN group: http://www.acog.org

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U.S. suspects' alleged terror plot beset by hurdles, FBI says

The alleged aspiring terrorists "liked" each other's jihadist Facebook postings. When they played paintball in Corona to prepare for Holy War, they commended each other for going full-throttle for shaheed (martyrdom) against timid opponents.

One man vowed to start hiking to get to know mountain terrain, and maybe try skydiving to see how he handled fear. Yet even as he expected to go on a suicide mission once he reached the Middle East, at home in Ontario, he briefly fretted over selling his car to fund the trip.

The federal complaint unsealed this week against four Southern California men depicts them as intent on joining Al Qaeda and killing American and coalition troops. But their alleged road to martyrdom was rutted with endless logistical problems, dubious connections overseas and their own equivocating over the smallest decisions: How do you pack for a jihad?

Ralph Deleon, 23, told two of his cohorts and an FBI informant "to bring thermal underwear, an XBox, sports magazines, and durable shoes." They cleanly shaved to avoid suspicion in transit to the Middle East — just before their friend in Kabul, the fourth defendant, told them to arrive with full beards to gain the trust of the Taliban.

That friend got sick and had to miss his scheduled suicide mission. His cohorts in the U.S. told him to hold off on his next mission at least until they arrived, so he could introduce them to their handlers before he killed himself. They had already talked him out of leaving Afghanistan altogether for Yemen.

Miguel Santana, 21, Arifeen Gojali, 21, and Deleon booked their tickets from Mexico City to Istanbul on Thursday, and were taken into custody during a vehicle stop in Chino the next day, authorities said. Santana is a Mexican national who was in the process of getting his U.S. citizenship. Deleon is a legal permanent resident from the Philippines. Gojali is an American of Vietnamese descent.

The central figure in the alleged plot is Sohiel Kabir, 34, a native Afghan and naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in Pomona and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2001. He converted Santana and Deleon to Islam in 2010, then left for Afghanistan to make arrangements for the three of them to join the Taliban or Al Qaeda. (Santana and Deleon subsequently recruited Gojali in September.) Kabir was apprehended Saturday in Kabul.

Federal officials took the defendants' plans extremely seriously, and expended "extraordinary resources" to track and stop them, said David Bowdich, special agent in charge of counter-terrorism in Los Angeles, at a news conference Tuesday.

Undercover FBI operatives began chatting with Santana online in February, and the informant had infiltrated the group by March.

"Not only were they playing paintball, they were going to shooting ranges," Bowdich said. "They saw this as jihad."

The charges appear to be based largely on the work of the undercover informant, who has been on the FBI payroll for more than four years and has received $250,000 and "immigration benefits" for his work. According to the affidavit included in the criminal complaint, he was once convicted of trafficking pseudoephedrine, a chemical precursor to methamphetamine.

News of the arrests rattled neighbors of the defendants, who lived in quiet neighborhoods in Ontario, Upland and Riverside.

Just a few months earlier, Deleon was regularly playing basketball in the driveway of his parents' Ontario home with his 15-year-old next-door neighbor, Martin Garcia.

"I was in shock. I was like, damn!" Garcia said. "He's actually a really nice guy. He'd offer to take me out to dinner when we played basketball together."

"Then he became Muslim. He would try to influence me to become Muslim, tell me all these nice stories and it sounded pretty cool."

Deleon's younger brother told Garcia that Deleon was moving to Afghanistan.

"He just said he was tired of all that life," Garcia said. "He was just a regular teenager, partying and all that before."

Ulises Vargas, 23, said he attended classes at Ontario High School in 2006 with Deleon, and ate lunch with him and other friends almost daily. Deleon was outgoing — someone who played on the football team, made Homecoming Court and cracked jokes at lunch.

"It's surreal because it's somebody that you knew," Vargas said.

Deleon's father politely declined to comment, saying only, "It's too difficult."

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Clinton to Visit Middle East in Effort to Defuse Gaza Conflict

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — President Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East on Tuesday to try to defuse the conflict in Gaza, the White House announced.

Mrs. Clinton, who accompanied Mr. Obama on his three-country Asia trip, left on her own plane immediately for the region, where she will stop first in Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, then head to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders and finally to Cairo to consult with Egyptian officials.

The decision to dispatch Mrs. Clinton dramatically deepens the American involvement in the crisis. Mr. Obama made a number of late-night phone calls from his Asian tour to the Middle East on Monday night that contributed to his conclusion that he had to become more engaged and that Mrs. Clinton might be able to accomplish something.

With Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, also scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday, a senior official in the prime minister’s office said Israel decided to give more time to diplomacy before launching a ground invasion into Gaza. But Israel has not withdrawn other options.

“I prefer a diplomatic solution,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle. “I hope that we can get one but if not, we have every right to defend ourselves with other means and we shall use them.” “As you know, we seek a diplomatic unwinding to this, through the discussions of cease-fire,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “But if the firing continues, we will have to take broader action and we won’t hesitate to do so.”

About three hours before Mr. Ban was scheduled to meet Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, sirens sounded across the city in the early afternoon announcing an incoming rocket from Gaza. The military wing of Hamas said it had fired at the city. The rocket fell short, landing harmlessly in the West Bank just south of Jerusalem, and the military said it landed on open ground near a Palestinian village.

The rocket attack on the city, which is holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, was the second in less than a week. The earlier rocket on Friday landed in a similar location, the police said.

The Israeli military said that in the course of the morning its air force had struck at 11 Palestinian squads involved in planting explosives and firing rockets, as well as underground rocket launchers and a store of weapons and ammunition. The military said it had also used tank shells and artillery fire against unspecified targets in Gaza.  

The Health Ministry in Gaza said the Palestinian death toll had climbed by late Tuesday morning to 112, roughly half of the dead civilians, including children. Three Israelis died in a rocket attack last week.

After an Asian summit dinner in Phnom Penh on Monday night, Mr. Obama called President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt to discuss the situation, then spoke with Mr. Netanyahu and called Mr. Morsi back. He was up until 2:30 a.m. on the phone, the White House said. He consulted with Mrs. Clinton repeatedly on the sidelines of the Asian summit meetings on Tuesday.

“This morning, Secretary Clinton and the president spoke again about the situation in Gaza, and they agreed that it makes sense for the secretary to travel to the region so Secretary Clinton will depart today,” said Benjamin Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama. “Her visits will build on the engagement that we’ve undertaken in the last several days.”

Mr. Rhodes said, “Any resolution to this has to include an end to that rocket fire” by Hamas militants on Israeli communities but “the best way to solve this is through diplomacy.”

He added, “It’s in nobody’s interest to see an escalation of the military conflict.”

Mrs. Clinton will not meet with Hamas representatives on her trip, but with the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, which is at odds with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip. “We do not engage directly with Hamas,” Mr. Rhodes said.

Instead, Mr. Obama is focused on leveraging Egypt’s influence with Hamas to press for a halt to the rocket attacks. “We believe Egypt can and should be a partner in achieving that outcome,” Mr. Rhodes said.

Mr. Rhodes reaffirmed that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself and said Mr. Obama did not ask Mr. Netanyahu to hold off a ground incursion into Gaza.

In Jerusalem, an official in the prime minister’s office said the country’s top nine ministers, who make up the inner security cabinet, held discussions late into the night on the state of the diplomatic efforts and Israel’s military operation in Gaza. The goal of the operation, Israel says, is to end years of rocket fire by Gaza militants against southern Israel.

Peter Baker reported from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Jodi Rudoren contributed reporting from Gaza City.

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Kopp: Impostor filed motion in NY Facebook case

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Lawyers fighting a New York man’s ownership claim against Facebook Inc. say a bizarre motion bearing the name of convicted abortion doctor killer James Charles Kopp earlier this month was apparently filed by an impostor.

In court papers, Facebook lawyers say they received a sworn statement from the imprisoned Kopp Monday denying he’s filed any motion in Paul Ceglia‘s lawsuit. An accompanying letter from Kopp to the federal judge handling the case says someone is impersonating him.

The motion signed with Kopp’s name had sought permission to intervene in Ceglia’s lawsuit while accusing Ceglia of a litany of personal slights, threats and crimes. Kopp’s serving life in prison for the 1998 killing of Dr. Barnett Slepian in suburban Buffalo.

Facebook says the Kopp motion, even if it’s real, should be denied.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Is Sarah Jessica Parker's Take on Fashion 'the Healthier Approach'?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/19/2012 at 09:00 AM ET

Henry Lamb/Photowire/BEImages

Sex and the City‘s Carrie Bradshaw is considered a fashion icon to many women, but the woman who played her says she doesn’t identify.

“It’s not an identity that I … connect to. I’m grateful if anyone says anything kind, and if they say something less kind, I take that as a part of anyone talking about you at all,” Sarah Jessica Parker told PEOPLE on Wednesday night at the Barneys New York and Walt Disney Company ‘Electric Holiday’ launch. “It’s not how I think of myself and I think it’s probably the healthier approach.”

Don’t get her wrong — the actress still appreciates a good outfit. “I love beautiful things,” she said, “and I’m privileged to borrow a beautiful dress. I feel really lucky and I genuinely enjoy it. I feel like [fashion] has a proper place in my life.”

But let’s just say you won’t catch her in a tutu at the grocery store. “It’s just not a reality — not when you have three kids and you go to the market and there are hungry people at home. You have a limited time to do it. There’s just no time to let vanity enter into that,” she said.

While picking the right dress was a priority for Wednesday night’s event (Parker, who hosted, wore L’Wren Scott), the star said the main goal of the evening was helping superstorm Sandy victims. Select Barneys stores and Barneys.com are donating 25 percent of sales from the Electric Holiday product collection to the American Red Cross for relief efforts.

“Everybody’s in serious need and this is going to go on for a while,” Parker said. “I’ve been giving back in a way that I feel I can and should and it’s not going to end in the next week. There’s still going to be a lot of opportunity in the future to see how people are doing and what they need.”

–Carlos Greer 

SEE CELEBRITY STYLE ICONS LOOKING THEIR BEST IN ‘LAST NIGHT’S LOOK’

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason that making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

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Family of man shot by sheriff's deputies calls for FBI probe

The family of an Inglewood man gunned down by L.A. County sheriff's deputies this month is requesting an FBI probe of the shooting and subsequent investigation by the Sheriff's Department.

Jose de la Trinidad, 36, was shot and killed by deputies Nov. 10, just minutes after leaving his niece's quinceanera with his older brother.

After police attempted to pull the older brother over for speeding, he sped off. After pleading with his brother to stop, Jose de la Trinidad was let out of the car in the 1900 block of East 122nd Street in Willowbrook, family members said.

There the unarmed man was shot and killed by deputies. But there is some dispute over what happened in those seconds before deputies opened fire.

Sheriff's Department officials said the deputies believed Jose de la Trinidad was reaching for his waistband and, fearing he had a weapon, used necessary force.

The slain man's family, however, said that a 19-year-old woman who witnessed the shooting from her bedroom window reported that she saw De la Trinidad with his hands behind his head before shots were fired.

The family's attorney, Luis Carrillo, said the witness heard the older brother's car screech to a stop and then watched Jose de la Trinidad get out of the vehicle.

"When they told him to stop, his hands went up behind his head and he kept them there," the witness told a private investigator working for Carrillo, according to a transcript of interview notes read to The Times.

Carrillo said the witness, whom he did not identify, was pressured to change her story by sheriff's deputies who were going door-to-door that night looking for information on the shooting.

"It's the classic 'He was reaching for his waistband' defense that is used any time an officer shoots an unarmed man," Carrillo said. "They tried to get her to change her story."

Sheriff's officials sharply reject the accusation and said that, as of Monday, they had yet to speak with any witnesses.

"It's a curious accusation because how can we intimidate people who we have not yet spoken to?" said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman of the Sheriff's Department.

Despite Carrillo's claims that uniformed deputies were going door-to-door seeking witness statements the night of the shooting, Whitmore insisted that no witness interviews were conducted that night.

Sheriff's officials have released few details about the shooting and say the incident will be investigated by multiple agencies, which is standard protocol for deputy-involved shootings.

Officials at the FBI office in Los Angeles said they have not decided wither the accusations merit an investigation.

The driver, who family members believe may have been intoxicated after a night of celebrating, sped off again before crashing his vehicle at the intersection of El Segundo and Avalon boulevards. He ran away but was apprehended by deputies.

On Monday, as more than a dozen family members huddled in a South Pasadena law office, Carrillo and De la Trinidad's widow, Rosie, demanded answers. His mother, Sofia de la Trinidad, seemed overwhelmed by the moment. "Mi hijo, mi hijo," she said, sobbing.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do, I still can't believe this has happened," the widow said. Making plans for a funeral and consoling her two daughters has left little time to process her husband's death, she said.

Family friends have set up a memorial fund in De la Trinidad's name at Wells Fargo Bank. They hope it will cover the costs of a private memorial ceremony planned for this week.

"He was the breadwinner," his wife said, fighting tears. "I don't even know how am I going to bury him."

wesley.lowery@latimes.com

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