Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores









L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election.


Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal.


In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count.





In an interview, he emphasized that the underlying thrust is to develop an evaluation that improves the teaching corps and that data is part of the effort.


"The public has been demanding a better evaluation system for at least a decade. And teachers have repeatedly said to me what they need is a balanced way forward to help them get better and help them be accountable," Deasy said. "We do this for students every day. Now it's time to do this for teachers."


Deasy also reiterated that test scores would not be a "primary or controlling" factor in an evaluation, in keeping with the language of an agreement reached in December between L.A. Unified and its teachers union. Classroom observations and other factors also are part of the evaluation process.


But United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher expressed immediate concern about Deasy's move. During negotiations, he said, the superintendent had proposed allotting 30% to test scores but the union rejected the plan. Deasy then pulled the idea off the table, which allowed the two sides to come to an agreement, Fletcher said. Teachers approved the pact last month.


"To see this percentage now being floated again is unacceptable," the union said in a statement.


Fletcher described the pact as allowing flexibility for principals, in collaboration with teachers, first to set individual goals and then to look at various measures to determine student achievement and overall teacher performance.


"The superintendent doesn't get to sign binding agreements and then pretend they're not binding," Fletcher said.


When Deasy settled on 30%, his decision was in line with research findings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has examined teacher quality issues across the country. Some experts have challenged that work.


The test score component would include a rating for the school based on an analysis of all students' standardized test scores. Those "value-added" formulas, known within L.A. Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, can be used to rate a school or a teacher's effectiveness by comparing students' test scores with past performance. The method takes into account such factors as family income and ethnicity.


After an aggressive push by the Obama administration, individual value-added ratings for teachers have been added to reviews in many districts. They make up 40% of evaluations in Washington, D.C., 35% in Tennessee and 30% in Chicago.


But Los Angeles will use a different approach. The district will rely on raw test scores. A teacher's evaluation also may incorporate pass rates on the high school exit exam and graduation, attendance and suspension data.


Deasy's action was met Friday with reactions ranging from guarded to enthusiastic approval within a coalition of outside groups that have pushed for a new evaluation system. This coalition also has sought to counter union influence.


Elise Buik, chief executive of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said weighing test scores 30% "is a reasonable number that everyone can be happy with."


The union and the district were under pressure to include student test data in evaluations after L.A. County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled last year that the system was violating state law by not using test scores in teacher performance reviews.


A lawsuit to enforce the law was brought by parents in Los Angeles, with support from the Sacramento-based EdVoice advocacy organization.


If the "actual progress" of students is taken into account under Deasy's plan, "it's a historic day for LAUSD," said Bill Lucia, the group's chief executive.


All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the upcoming March 5 election. The campaign for three school board seats has turned substantially into a contest between candidates who strongly back Deasy's policies and those more sympathetic toward the teachers union. Deasy supporters praise the superintendent for measures they say will improve the quality of teaching. The union has faulted Deasy for limiting job protections and said he has imposed unwise or unproven reforms.


In the upcoming election, the union and pro-Deasy forces are matched head to head in District 4, with several employee unions behind incumbent Steve Zimmer and a coalition of donors behind challenger Kate Anderson.


Anderson had high praise for Deasy's directive, saying it struck the right balance and that teachers and students would benefit.


Zimmer said that although he understands that principals need guidance, "I worry about anything that would cause resistance or delay in going forward. I hope this use of a percentage won't disrupt what had been a collaborative process."


howard.blume@latimes.com



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TV show with Pistorius' dead girlfriend airs


JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Reeva Steenkamp's last wish for her family before she was shot dead at boyfriend Oscar Pistorius' home was for them to watch her in a reality TV show that went on air in South Africa on Saturday night, two days after her killing.


Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, told The Associated Press that the model and law graduate was "proud of being in the show" and reminded them in their last conversation to make sure that they watched it.


The South African Broadcasting Corp. aired the "Tropika Island of Treasure" program, showing the late Steenkamp — the victim of a Valentine's Day shooting at the home of Pistorius, the Olympic star and double-amputee athlete. She is laughing and smiling, and blowing a kiss toward the camera in Jamaica when it was filmed last year.


South Africans also saw her swimming in the ocean and watching people jump off a cliff and into the sea, shaking her head as they leaped.


SABC said it was dedicated to Steenkamp and displayed the words "Reeva Steenkamp 19 August 1983 - 14 February 2013" between images of a rose and a candle in a short tribute before the show aired. She was also seen blowing the kiss as she sat on a Jamaican beach and her name again appeared on screen with the years of her birth and death.


The country was rocked Thursday when news broke of Steenkamp's shooting death at the upscale house of the star athlete. Pistorius was arrested and charged with her murder and remains in custody in a police station. His family has strongly denied prosecutors' claims that he murdered her.


Steenkamp's family said earlier Saturday that it had not been contacted by either the SABC — South Africa's national broadcaster — or the show's producers for permission to air it, but were not opposed to it because Reeva wanted everyone to see it.


"Her last words to us personally were that she wants us to watch it," Sharon Steenkamp said, hours before the program was shown.


SABC aired the reality show on its main channel, which prominently featured Steenkamp.


The show's executive producer, Samantha Moon, said going ahead with the show "is what she would have wanted."


Steenkamp, a 29-year-old blonde model who graduated from law school, died after suffering four gunshot wounds, police said. Officers recovered a 9-mm pistol from Pistorius' house and quickly charged the Olympian with murder for Steenkamp's killing.


Pistorius will appear in court Tuesday for a bail hearing, something police have said they oppose. Prosecutors also say they will pursue upgraded charges of premeditated murder against him, which means the disabled icon and double-amputee runner could face a life sentence.


Steenkamp was known in South Africa for appearing in commercials and as a bikini-clad model in men's magazines.


Pistorius and Steenkamp met Nov. 4 at the Kyalami race track, which sits between Pretoria and Johannesburg and has been used for Grand Prix and Formula 1 races, said Justin Divaris, a mutual friend.


Divaris said his own girlfriend was a close friend to Steenkamp. Pistorius and Steenkamp immediately hit it off and decided in the spur of the moment to attend a sports award ceremony together the same night, Divaris said. At the time, Pistorius had been dating another woman and his personal life was constant fodder for gossip pages.


Later, however, problems may have started, as police have said there were previous domestic altercations at Pretorius' home in a gated community near South Africa's capital, Pretoria.


A Steenkamp family spokesman said late Friday that relatives still faced a long struggle to come to terms with her killing.


"I can't see the family getting over this shortly," said Reeva's uncle, Mike Steenkamp. "It's going to be a long, long-term reconciliation with a lot of things and issues."


Family members plan for a memorial service Tuesday for the model in Port Elizabeth, her hometown on South Africa's southern coast. Pistorius has a court appearance scheduled in Pretoria on the same day for his lawyers to argue that he can be released on bail.


Portions released earlier Saturday of the reality show, sponsored by a milk fruit drink, feature Steenkamp laughing and smiling on the beaches of Jamaica. Another portion shows her swimming with two dolphins, which tap her on the cheek with their snouts.


"I think the way that you go out, not just your journey in life, but the way that you go out and the way you make your exit is so important," Steenkamp says in the video. "You either made an impact in a positive or a negative way, but just maintain integrity and maintain class and just remain true to yourself.


"I'm going to miss you all so much and I love you very, very much."


___


Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this report.


___


Gerald Imray can be reached at http://twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP


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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand





As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.




A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.


“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”


Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.


Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.


The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”


While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.


“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”


Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.


“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”


Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.


“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”


For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.


“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”


“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.


That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.


Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.


Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.


“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”


Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.


As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.


“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”


She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.


“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”


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Sun, sophistication and stainless steel


























































This 15th-floor condominium in the Remington blends contemporary and traditional elements. The kitchen, with professional-grade stainless steel appliances, opens to a sunroom with floor-to-ceiling windows, while hardwood floors and crown molding lend sophistication to the interiors.


Location: 10727 Wilshire Blvd., #1505, Westwood 90024


Asking price: $3.495 million








Year built: 2001


Unit size: Three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, 3,592 square feet


Features: Private elevator, oversized walk-in closet, fireplace, two balconies, washer and dryer, valet parking, community swimming pool


Website: http://www.Remington1505.com


About the area: Last year, 331 condos single-family homes sold in the 90024 ZIP Code at a median price of $527,000, according to DataQuick. That was a 5.5% increase from 2011.


Agent: Shawn Kormondy, Keller Williams, Hollywood Hills, (323) 638-7567


—Lauren Beale


To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, send high-resolution color photos on a CD, written permission from the photographer to publish the images and a description of the house to Lauren Beale, Business, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Send questions to homeoftheweek @latimes.com.






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'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius weeps as he faces murder charge









JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee revered in South Africa for overcoming his disability to compete in the London Games last year, wept in court Friday as he faced a murder charge in connection with the fatal shooting of his girlfriend.

During the proceedings in Pretoria, Gerrie Nel, one of the National Prosecuting Authority’s most senior advocates, said he would argue the killing of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp was premeditated murder, the most serious category of offense under South African law.


Nel is known for prosecuting high-profile cases, including winning the conviction of former police chief and Interpol boss Jackie Selebi on corruption charges.


Pistorius, nicknamed the "Blade Runner" because of the carbon-fiber prosthetic legs he uses to compete, did not enter a formal plea and was remanded into custody at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria until Tuesday, when his bail application is to be heard.








Under South African law, a suspect charged with such a high-level offense would have to prove exceptional circumstances to be granted bail.


In a packed courtroom, members of Pistorius' family struggled to pass through a media scrum and to find seats. The hearing coincided with "Black Friday," a day when people were being urged to wear black to protest rapes and violence against women.


[Updated, 8:35 a.m. Feb. 15: The family and Pistorius' management company later issued a statement denying that the athlete had murdered his girlfriend, saying: "The alleged murder is disputed in the strongest possible terms."


Some details of Pistorius' argument and the state's case are expected Tuesday.]

The famed athlete's court appearance came as South African media reported that he shot Steenkamp, his girlfriend of several months, four times through a bathroom door.


Under South African law, a person who fatally shoots an intruder has to prove he or she had a reasonable fear that the intruder posed a real threat to his or her life.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of gun homicides in the world, with killings of women by intimate partners the leading cause of female homicide in the country. About 57% of female homicide victims were killed by their partners in 2009, according to a report last year by the Medical Research Council.


One-third of female homicides were committed by partners with a history of prior violence against their partners, according to the report.

Friends of Steenkamp and Pistorius mourned the incident on social media.

"Drained, confused, I just can't wrap my head around things," one of Pistorius’ close friends, Alex Pilakoutas, posted on Twitter.


Darren Fresco, who described himself as one of Steenkamp’s best friends said he was hoping to wake from a nightmare and hear her infectious laughter again.

"We were just goofing off the other day talking to each other in only the way that we could to each other. My heart is on the verge of exploding with the pain of such a sudden loss of one of my best friends," Fresco, who said he was one of the last people to exchange tweets with Steenkamp, posted on Facebook.

ALSO:

Oscar Pistorius remains in jail facing murder charge

Mexico finds fire-god figure at top of Pyramid of the Sun

Iranian general reportedly assassinated while traveling from Syria


robyn.dixon@latimes.com





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Judge sets May trial date for Kardashian divorce


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kim Kardashian has a due date for her baby and now a trial date for her divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries.


A judge on Friday set a May 6 trial for the reality TV star who wants to end her marriage before July, when her child with Kanye West is due.


Kardashian filed for divorce on Oct. 31, 2011, after she and Humphries had been married just 72 days. Their lavish, star-studded nuptials were recorded and broadcast by E! Entertainment Television.


The trial is expected to last three to five days and could reveal details about Kardashian's reality show empire, which includes "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and several spinoffs.


Two judges determined Friday that Humphries' lawyers had adequate time to prepare for the trial.


Humphries wants the marriage annulled based on his claim that Kardashian only married him for the sake of her show.


She denies that allegation and says the case should be resolved through what would be her second divorce.


Humphries' attorney Marshall Waller asked for a delay until basketball season is over.


But Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon refused, saying firefighters, police officers, truck drivers and others have to miss work for trials, and Humphries must do the same if necessary.


Waller filed paperwork Thursday to withdraw from the case but didn't mention that development in court and refused to answer any questions about the document on Friday.


Waller said he was still hoping to obtain and review 13,000 hours of footage from Kardashian's reality shows to try to prove the fraud claim but noted he does not yet have an agreement to receive the footage.


Kardashian's lawyer said her client was ready for trial.


"Let's get this case dispensed with," attorney Laura Wasser said.


Humphries has provided a deposition in the case, as have West and Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner.


___


Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP


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Fat Dad: Baking for Love

Fat Dad

Dawn Lerman writes about growing up with a fat dad.

My grandmother Beauty always told me that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and by the look of pure delight on my dad’s face when he ate a piece of warm, homemade chocolate cake, or bit into a just-baked crispy cookie, I grew to believe this was true. I had no doubt that when the time came, and I liked a boy, that a batch of my gooey, rich, chocolatey brownies would cast him under a magic spell, and we would live happily ever.

But when Hank Thomas walked into Miss Seawall’s ninth grade algebra class on a rainy, September day and smiled at me with his amazing grin, long brown hair, big green eyes and Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, I was completely unprepared for the avalanche of emotions that invaded every fiber of my being. Shivers, a pounding heart, and heat overcame me when he asked if I knew the value of 1,000 to the 25th power. The only answer I could think of, as I fumbled over my words, was “love me, love me,” but I managed to blurt out “1E+75.” I wanted to come across as smart and aloof, but every time he looked at me, I started stuttering and sweating as my face turned bright red. No one had ever looked at me like that: as if he knew me, as if he knew how lost I was and how badly I needed to be loved.

Hank, who was a year older than me, was very popular and accomplished. Unlike other boys who were popular for their looks or athletic skills, Hank was smart and talented. He played piano and guitar, and composed the most beautiful classical and rock concertos that left both teachers and students in awe.

Unlike Hank, I had not quite come into my own yet. I was shy, had raggedy messy hair that I tied back into braids, and my clothes were far from stylish. My mother and sister had been on the road touring for the past year with the Broadway show “Annie.” My sister had been cast as a principal orphan, and I stayed home with my dad to attend high school. My dad was always busy with work and martini dinners that lasted late into the night. I spent most of my evenings at home alone baking and making care packages for my sister instead of coercing my parents to buy me the latest selection of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans — the rich colored bluejeans with the swan stitched on the back pocket that you had to lie on your bed to zip up. It was the icon of cool for the popular and pretty girls. I was neither, but Hank picked me to be his math partner anyway.

With every equation we solved, my love for Hank became more desperate. After several months of exchanging smiles, I decided to make Hank a batch of my chocolate brownies for Valentine’s Day — the brownies that my dad said were like his own personal nirvana. My dad named them “closet” brownies, because when I was a little girl and used to make them for the family, he said that as soon as he smelled them coming out of the oven, he could imagine dashing away with them into the closet and devouring the whole batch.

After debating for hours if I should make the brownies with walnuts or chips, or fill the centers with peanut butter or caramel, I got to work. I had made brownies hundreds of times before, but this time felt different. With each ingredient I carefully stirred into the bowl, my heart began beating harder. I felt like I was going to burst from excitement. Surely, after Hank tasted these, he would love me as much as I loved him. I was not just making him brownies. I was showing him who I was, and what mattered to me. After the brownies cooled, I sprinkled them with a touch of powdered sugar and wrapped them with foil and red tissue paper. The next day I placed them in Hank’s locker, with a note saying, “Call me.”

After seven excruciating days with no call, some smiles and the usual small talk in math class, I conjured up the nerve to ask Hank if he liked my brownies.

“The brownies were from you?” he asked. “They were delicious.”

Then Hank invited me to a party at his house the following weekend. Without hesitation, I responded that I would love to come. I pleaded with my friend Sarah to accompany me.

As the day grew closer, I made my grandmother Beauty’s homemade fudge — the chocolate fudge she made for Papa the night before he proposed to her. Stirring the milk, butter and sugar together eased my nerves. I had never been to a high school party before, and I didn’t know what to expect. Sarah advised me to ditch the braids as she styled my hair, used a violet eyeliner and lent me her favorite V-neck sweater and a pair of her best Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.

When we walked in the door, fudge in hand, Hank was nowhere to be found. Thinking I had made a mistake for coming and getting ready to leave, I felt a hand on my back. It was Hank’s. He hugged me and told me he was glad I finally arrived. When Hank put his arm around me, nothing else existed. With a little help from Cupid or the magic of Beauty’s recipes, I found love.


Fat Dad’s ‘Closet’ Brownies

These brownies are more like fudge than cake and contain a fraction of the flour found in traditional brownie recipes. My father called them “closet” brownies, because when he smelled them coming out of the oven he could imagine hiding in the closet to eat the whole batch. I baked them in the ninth grade for a boy that I had a crush on, and they were more effective than Cupid’s arrow at winning his heart.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the pan
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped, or semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs at room temperature, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Fresh berries or powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish.

3. In a double boiler, melt chocolate. Then add butter, melt and stir to blend. Remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix well.

4. Add flour. Mix well until very smooth. Add chopped walnuts if desired. Pour batter into greased baking pan.

5. Bake for 35 minutes, or until set and barely firm in the middle. Allow to cool on a rack before removing from pan. Optional: garnish with powdered sugar, or berries, or both.

Yield: 16 brownies


Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father appears occasionally on Well.

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Latinos crucial to Herbalife's financial health









The future of Herbalife is riding on Latinos.


The Los Angeles company estimates that Latinos account for about 60% of its U.S. sales made through its network of independent distributors. And a growing slice of those sales are coming from informal nutrition clubs run out of people's homes and strip mall shops.


It's a cultural phenomenon that got its start in Mexico and is quickly catching on among immigrants who have moved to Southern California. Budding entrepreneurs like Angel Perez, a 27-year-old from Inglewood, are forming the backbone to Herbalife's growth.





Perez runs her nutrition club out of a tiny, aging retail shop that from the outside shows no signs that she's even open for business. But behind a single glass front door, covered by a green curtain, there's a lively atmosphere inside.


Colombian singer Shakira's voice blares from overhead speakers. "Hola! Como estas?" Perez says before blending an Herbalife meal-replacement shake for a customer. She charges $4 for a protein shake, hot tea and glass of aloe vera juice — part of a weight-loss effort she said has helped her shed dozens of pounds.


But these nutrition clubs — and Herbalife's business structure — have come under intense scrutiny.


The company is in the middle of a Wall Street battle between two billionaire activist investors. On one side, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman contends the company is a pyramid scheme in which most of the independent salespeople lose money and get stuck with a product that nobody wants. Ackman said he wagered $1 billion that the company would fail, shorting an eye-popping 20% of the company's shares.


Betting against him is Carl Icahn, who dismisses pyramid scheme accusations with high praise about Herbalife's business model. Icahn disclosed this week that he bought nearly 13% of the company's shares, and was talking to executives about taking the company private.


At the heart of this battle: Herbalife's army of salespeople.


Among the biggest accusations facing the company is that it targets low-income members of minority communities, including Latinos, by making unachievable promises of vast wealth from selling its line of protein powders, vitamins, supplements and beauty products.


One of Ackman's biggest allegations is that most distributors end up with garages filled with products they cannot sell. Meanwhile, the distributors who brought them into the business get rich for recruiting them.


Herbalife, founded in 1980, has faced such criticism for decades. The debate centers on the way the company compensates its distributors, allowing them to profit from their own sales as well as sales made by distributors they've recruited — and distributors those distributors have recruited.


The company challenges the criticism, saying it's a legitimate company that sells nutritious products while offering entrepreneurs like Perez a chance to build their own businesses.


Herbalife President Des Walsh said the company does not target any specific demographic. The company's popularity among Latinos exploded in recent years, he said, when U.S. distributors imported the nutrition club concept from Mexico, which is second to the United States in Herbalife sales.


"This wasn't a company focus on the Latino community," Walsh said. "This was the Latino community in the United States seeing and hearing of the tremendous success of nutrition clubs in Mexico and then seeking to replicate that here."


Its marketing efforts do hit the Latino community. The company recently signed a 10-year, $44-million sponsorship of the Los Angeles Galaxy professional soccer team, which has a massive Latino fan base. Each year, it holds a national convention in Spanish called "Extravaganza Latina."


Before nutrition clubs started in Mexico, the only way for consumers to buy Herbalife products was in bulk containers to be used at home. A cheaper alternative is being served up at the nutrition clubs, where consumers can buy single servings and drink them in social settings, surrounded by other people with similar weight-loss goals.


This concept has taken off among Latinos, who are taught at an early age that natural remedies such as herbs and juices are a better option than U.S.-style medicine, said Alexandro Jose Gradilla, chair of the Chicano Studies Department at Cal State Fullerton. That makes Herbalife products popular among immigrants.


Selling the products for profit is also a good fit for Latinos because it allows distributors to take advantage of relationships within the close-knit immigrant community, Gradilla said.


Herbalife spokeswoman Barbara Henderson said in a statement that the company "follows all applicable laws in dealing with distributors, whether Latino or not," but she did not elaborate further.





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Oscar Pistorius remains in jail facing murder charge









JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who made history last year as the first double amputee runner to compete in the Olympics using prosthetic blades, will spend the night in jail Thursday after he was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend at his house, prosecutors said.


The National Prosecuting Authority said Pistorius would remain in custody until his hearing Friday, when police intend to oppose bail.


Reeva Steenkamp, a 30-year-old model, died after being shot several times in the head and arm in Pistorius’ house in an upscale suburb in Pretoria.








PHOTOS: Pistorius in the London Olympics


Pistorius was ushered from the home by police Thursday morning with a gray hoodie covering his head and obscuring most of his face.


South Africans were in shock about the accusation against Pistorius, who became a hero during his long battle for the right to compete in the Olympics. After a controversy on whether the blades he uses to walk and run gave him an advantage in races, Pistorius was granted the right to compete in the London 2012 Olympic Games.


South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of murder and violent crime, and many South Africans keep guns at home to guard against intruders.


The Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld suggested that Pistorius mistook his girlfriend for a burglar and killed her accidentally.


However, a police spokeswoman, Brig. Denise Beukes, said police were “surprised” at reports the killing was accidental, adding that that version hadn’t come from police, according to the South African Press Assn.


"I confirm there had been previous incidents of a domestic nature at his place,” said Beukes, adding that police couldn’t comment on the decision to oppose bail.


Beukes said police had interviewed neighbors who heard sounds at Pistorius’ home earlier in the evening, and also at the time the incident reportedly took place.


Pistorius’ father, Henke Pistorius, said his son was sad. But the older Pistorius said he didn’t know the facts.


“I don’t know nothing. It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate,” he said in a radio interview. “If anyone makes a statement, it will have to be Oscar.”


An advertisement for Nike, one of Pistorius’ major sponsors, was removed from his official website Thursday. It had shown the athlete in a green lycra athletic suit and the slogan, “I am the bullet in the chamber."


ALSO:


Six arrested in Acapulco rape case


Iranian general reportedly assassinated while traveling from Syria


British case of new virus suggests person-to-person transmission





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'Melrose' actress gets 3 years for deadly NJ crash


SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) — A former "Melrose Place" actress who was drunk when her SUV plowed into a car and killed a woman was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison, infuriating the victim's relatives, who had hoped for the 10-year maximum.


"What a travesty!" the victim's husband, Fred Seeman, yelled after the sentence was read.


"This is not justice," the victim's 26-year-old son, Ford Seeman, told the judge before he stormed out of the courtroom.


A jury in November convicted Amy Locane-Bovenizer of vehicular homicide in the 2010 death of 60-year-old Helene Seeman in Montgomery Township.


Locane-Bovenizer will be eligible for parole after 2 1/2 years and will be credited the 81 days she has already served. She also had her license suspended for five years and will be on probation for three years after her release. She must pay several thousand dollars in fines.


Locane-Bovenizer, who didn't testify at the trial, appeared in 13 episodes of TV's "Melrose Place" and in movies including "Cry-Baby," ''School Ties" and "Secretary."


Prosecutors say she was driving with a blood-alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit when her SUV slammed into a Mercury Milan driven by Fred Seeman as he was turning into his driveway. Fred Seeman's wife, Helene, was killed, and he was seriously injured.


During the trial, the defense argued that Fred Seeman was making a slow turn, which contributed to the crash. They maintained that it was an accident, not a crime.


The defense also shifted blame to a third motorist who they say distracted the actress by honking at her and chasing her after being rear-ended. They said the chase led Locane-Bovenizer to drive 20 miles over the speed limit on a dark two-lane road.


The judge lowered the maximum sentence citing the hardship on Locane-Bovenizer's two young children. One has a serious medical and mental disability. The defense went into detail about how her sick child was deteriorating physically and psychologically since the actress' incarceration and about how a prolonged sentence would make it worse.


"I'm just glad her little girls will have their mother back soon," Locane-Bovenizer's mother, Helen Locane, said as she walked out of the courtroom.


In an emotionally charged statement, Fred Seeman told the court that the defense contention that his vehicle was turning slowly added "salt on the wound," and he said he was appalled that Locane-Bovenizer took no responsibility for killing his wife.


The actress, in turn, apologized to Seeman's family and said she did take full responsibility.


"I am truly sorry for all of the pain I have caused," she said, struggling to get through her statement, as she looked toward the family that packed one side of the courtroom while her friends and family packed the other. "My own suffering will never go away."


Judge Robert Reed said that he had no sympathy for the actress but that the children should not suffer even more because of her actions.


The Seeman family said after the sentencing that the decision was a "mockery" and only added to the suffering they've endured since the accident.


"What's one more punch in the gut?" Ford Seeman said.


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Doctor and Patient: Afraid to Speak Up to Medical Power

The slender, weather-beaten, elderly Polish immigrant had been diagnosed with lung cancer nearly a year earlier and was receiving chemotherapy as part of a clinical trial. I was a surgical consultant, called in to help control the fluid that kept accumulating in his lungs.

During one visit, he motioned for me to come closer. His voice was hoarse from a tumor that spread, and the constant hissing from his humidified oxygen mask meant I had to press my face nearly against his to understand his words.

“This is getting harder, doctor,” he rasped. “I’m not sure I’m up to anymore chemo.”

I was not the only doctor that he confided to. But what I quickly learned was that none of us was eager to broach the topic of stopping treatment with his primary cancer doctor.

That doctor was a rising superstar in the world of oncology, a brilliant physician-researcher who had helped discover treatments for other cancers and who had been recruited to lead our hospital’s then lackluster cancer center. Within a few months of the doctor’s arrival, the once sleepy department began offering a dazzling array of experimental drugs. Calls came in from outside doctors eager to send their patients in for treatment, and every patient who was seen was promptly enrolled in one of more than a dozen well-documented treatment protocols.

But now, no doctors felt comfortable suggesting anything but the most cutting-edge, aggressive treatments.

Even the No. 2 doctor in the cancer center, Robin to the chief’s cancer-battling Batman, was momentarily taken aback when I suggested we reconsider the patient’s chemotherapy plan. “I don’t want to tell him,” he said, eyes widening. He reeled off his chief’s vast accomplishments. “I mean, who am I to tell him what to do?”

We stood for a moment in silence before he pointed his index finger at me. “You tell him,” he said with a smile. “You tell him to consider stopping treatment.”

Memories of this conversation came flooding back last week when I read an essay on the problems posed by hierarchies within the medical profession.

For several decades, medical educators and sociologists have documented the existence of hierarchies and an intense awareness of rank among doctors. The bulk of studies have focused on medical education, a process often likened to military and religious training, with elder patriarchs imposing the hair shirt of shame on acolytes unable to incorporate a profession’s accepted values and behaviors. Aspiring doctors quickly learn whose opinions, experiences and voices count, and it is rarely their own. Ask a group of interns who’ve been on the wards for but a week, and they will quickly raise their hands up to the level of their heads to indicate their teachers’ status and importance, then lower them toward their feet to demonstrate their own.

It turns out that this keen awareness of ranking is not limited to students and interns. Other research has shown that fully trained physicians are acutely aware of a tacit professional hierarchy based on specialties, like primary care versus neurosurgery, or even on diseases different specialists might treat, like hemorrhoids and constipation versus heart attacks and certain cancers.

But while such professional preoccupation with privilege can make for interesting sociological fodder, the real issue, warns the author of a courageous essay published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine, is that such an overly developed sense of hierarchy comes at an unacceptable price: good patient care.

Dr. Ranjana Srivastava, a medical oncologist at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, Australia, recalls a patient she helped to care for who died after an operation. Before the surgery, Dr. Srivastava had been hesitant to voice her concerns, assuming that the patient’s surgeon must be “unequivocally right, unassailable, or simply not worth antagonizing.” When she confesses her earlier uncertainty to the surgeon after the patient’s death, Dr. Srivastava learns that the surgeon had been just as loath to question her expertise and had assumed that her silence before the surgery meant she agreed with his plan to operate.

“Each of us was trying our best to help a patient, but we were also respecting the boundaries and hierarchy imposed by our professional culture,” Dr. Srivastava said. “The tragedy was that the patient died, when speaking up would have made all the difference.”

Compounding the problem is an increasing sense of self-doubt among many doctors. With rapid advances in treatment, there is often no single correct “answer” for a patient’s problem, and doctors, struggling to stay up-to-date in their own particular specialty niches, are more tentative about making suggestions that cross over to other doctors’ “turf.” Even as some clinicians attempt to compensate by organizing multidisciplinary meetings, inviting doctors from all specialties to discuss a patient’s therapeutic options, “there will inevitably be a hierarchy at those meetings of who is speaking,” Dr. Srivastava noted. “And it won’t always be the ones who know the most about the patient who will be taking the lead.”

It is the potentially disastrous repercussions for patients that make this overly developed awareness of rank and boundaries a critical issue in medicine. Recent efforts to raise safety standards and improve patient care have shown that teams are a critical ingredient for success. But simply organizing multidisciplinary lineups of clinicians isn’t enough. What is required are teams that recognize the importance of all voices and encourage active and open debate.

Since their patient’s death, Dr. Srivastava and the surgeon have worked together to discuss patient cases, articulate questions and describe their own uncertainties to each other and in patients’ notes. “We have tried to remain cognizant of the fact that we are susceptible to thinking about hierarchy,” Dr. Srivastava said. “We have tried to remember that sometimes, despite our best intentions, we do not speak up for our patients because we are fearful of the consequences.”

That was certainly true for my lung cancer patient. Like all the other doctors involved in his care, I hesitated to talk to the chief medical oncologist. I questioned my own credentials, my lack of expertise in this particular area of oncology and even my own clinical judgment. When the patient appeared to fare better, requiring less oxygen and joking and laughing more than I had ever seen in the past, I took his improvement to be yet another sign that my attempt to talk about holding back chemotherapy was surely some surgical folly.

But a couple of days later, the humidified oxygen mask came back on. And not long after that, the patient again asked for me to come close.

This time he said: “I’m tired. I want to stop the chemo.”

Just before he died, a little over a week later, he was off all treatment except for what might make him comfortable. He thanked me and the other doctors for our care, but really, we should have thanked him and apologized. Because he had pushed us out of our comfortable, well-delineated professional zones. He had prodded us to talk to one another. And he showed us how to work as a team in order to do, at last, what we should have done weeks earlier.

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Senate Democrats back Cordray renomination









WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said Thursday that they were united in opposing Republican efforts to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and told President Obama they supported the renomination of Richard Cordray to head the agency.


"It is time to confirm Richard Cordray as CFPB director to give the American people the protections they deserve and the marketplace the certainty it needs to help strengthen our economic recovery," Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) told reporters.


Johnson organized a letter signed by 52 of 53 Senate Democrats and the chamber's two independents, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, telling Obama they backed his decision to renominate Cordray and that they oppose Republican attempts to change the bureau's structure.





The only Democrat who did not sign the letter was Mark Pryor of Arkansas. But with 54 senators backing him, Cordray would have enough votes to be confirmed if Republicans allowed a vote.


Nearly all Senate Republicans, enough to mount a successful filibuster, said this month they would block the confirmation of any nominee to head the bureau unless its structure was changed.


Republicans complained that the agency, the centerpiece of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, is too powerful.


They want the single-director position to be replaced by a bipartisan commission. They want the bureau's funding to be part of the congressional appropriations process instead of flowing directly from the Federal Reserve. And they want to make it easier for other banking regulators to block actions by the consumer bureau.


"Far too much power is vested in the sole CFPB director without any meaningful checks and balances," the 43 Republican senators, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wrote to Obama on Feb. 3.


The same threat, issued in 2011, led Obama to install Cordray with a controversial recess appointment a year ago, along with three members of the National Labor Relations Board.


Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that Obama's NLRB appointments violated the Constitution because the Senate had not formally adjourned. The lawsuit challenging the appointments did not include Cordray, but it is widely believed that it would affect his appointment as well.


The Obama administration is almost certain to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.


Obama has renominated Cordray to the position; the recess appointment term expires at the end of this year.


The court decision and the renewed filibuster threat had led to speculation that Democrats might be willing to negotiate changes to the bureau's structure. But in Thursday's letter, Democrats said they did not intend to give in.


"As supporters of strong and effective consumer protection, we oppose efforts to weaken the CFPB through structural changes, including as the price for Senate approval of Director Cordray's nomination," the letter said.


Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Johnson in releasing the letter.


"They want to hold up his nomination for the sole purpose of trying to weaken the agency. We've now got 54 senators saying no," said Warren, who came up with the idea for the agency and helped launch it before being elected in November.


"American families deserve a strong watchdog, and Rich Cordray deserves a vote now," she said.


jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com





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Dorner manhunt: Investigators work to ID charred human remains









After what LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called "a bittersweet night," investigators Wednesday were in the process of identifying the human remains found in the charred cabin where fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner was believed to have been holed up after trading gunfire with officers, authorities said.


If the body is identified as Dorner’s, the standoff would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant suspected in a string of shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several years ago. Four people have died in the case, allegedly at Dorner’s hands.


Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until the body was identified as Dorner. Police remained on tactical alert and were conducting themselves as if nothing had changed in the case, officials said.








PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer


The latest burst of gunfire came Tuesday after the suspect, attempting to flee law enforcement officials, fatally shot a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy and seriously injured another, officials said. He then barricaded himself in a wooden cabin outside Big Bear, not far from ski resorts in the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles, according to police.


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


The injured deputy is expected to survive but it is anticipated he will need several surgeries. The names of the two deputies have not been released.


TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer


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


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


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

DOCUMENT: Read the manifesto


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


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


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


FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop


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


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


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


INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for suspected shooter


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





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Actress Alyson Hannigan obtains restraining order


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Alyson Hannigan has obtained a temporary restraining order against a man who she claims has repeatedly threatened her and her family.


The "How I Met Your Mother" star obtained the order Wednesday. It requires John Hobbs to stay 100 yards away and stop posting about her online.


Hannigan's court filings state that the 43-year-old resident of Nashua, N.H., was recently released from a mental hospital.


The filing says Hobbs has threatened in online posts to kill the actress and harm her family. He admitted to police in New Hampshire that he wanted to travel to California to meet the actress.


The order covers Hannigan, her husband and their two children, ages 1 and 3.


A phone number registered to Hobbs has been disconnected.


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Phys Ed: Getting the Right Dose of Exercise

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

Fitness Tracker

Marathon, half-marathon, 10k and 5K training plans to get you race ready.

A common concern about exercise is that if you don’t do it almost every day, you won’t achieve much health benefit. But a commendable new study suggests otherwise, showing that a fairly leisurely approach to scheduling workouts may actually be more beneficial than working out almost daily.

For the new study, published this month in Exercise & Science in Sports & Medicine, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham gathered 72 older, sedentary women and randomly assigned them to one of three exercise groups.

One group began lifting weights once a week and performing an endurance-style workout, like jogging or bike riding, on another day.

Another group lifted weights twice a week and jogged or rode an exercise bike twice a week.

The final group, as you may have guessed, completed three weight-lifting and three endurance sessions, or six weekly workouts.

The exercise, which was supervised by researchers, was easy at first and meant to elicit changes in both muscles and endurance. Over the course of four months, the intensity and duration gradually increased, until the women were jogging moderately for 40 minutes and lifting weights for about the same amount of time.

The researchers were hoping to find out which number of weekly workouts would be, Goldilocks-like, just right for increasing the women’s fitness and overall weekly energy expenditure.

Some previous studies had suggested that working out only once or twice a week produced few gains in fitness, while exercising vigorously almost every day sometimes led people to become less physically active, over all, than those formally exercising less. Researchers theorized that the more grueling workout schedule caused the central nervous system to respond as if people were overdoing things, sending out physiological signals that, in an unconscious internal reaction, prompted them to feel tired or lethargic and stop moving so much.

To determine if either of these possibilities held true among their volunteers, the researchers in the current study tracked the women’s blood levels of cytokines, a substance related to stress that is thought to be one of the signals the nervous system uses to determine if someone is overdoing things physically. They also measured the women’s changing aerobic capacities, muscle strength, body fat, moods and, using sophisticated calorimetry techniques, energy expenditure over the course of each week.

By the end of the four-month experiment, all of the women had gained endurance and strength and shed body fat, although weight loss was not the point of the study. The scientists had not asked the women to change their eating habits.

There were, remarkably, almost no differences in fitness gains among the groups. The women working out twice a week had become as powerful and aerobically fit as those who had worked out six times a week. There were no discernible differences in cytokine levels among the groups, either.

However, the women exercising four times per week were now expending far more energy, over all, than the women in either of the other two groups. They were burning about 225 additional calories each day, beyond what they expended while exercising, compared to their calorie burning at the start of the experiment.

The twice-a-week exercisers also were using more energy each day than they had been at first, burning almost 100 calories more daily, in addition to the calories used during workouts.

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

“We think that the women in the twice-a-week and four-times-a-week groups felt more energized and physically capable” after several months of training than they had at the start of the study, says Gary Hunter, a U.A.B. professor who led the experiment. Based on conversations with the women, he says he thinks they began opting for stairs over escalators and walking for pleasure.

The women working out six times a week, though, reacted very differently. “They complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time,” Dr. Hunter says. They did not report feeling fatigued or physically droopy. Their bodies were not producing excessive levels of cytokines, sending invisible messages to the body to slow down.

Rather, they felt pressed for time and reacted, it seems, by making choices like driving instead of walking and impatiently avoiding the stairs.

Despite the cautionary note, those who insist on working out six times per week need not feel discouraged. As long as you consciously monitor your activity level, the findings suggest, you won’t necessarily and unconsciously wind up moving less over all.

But the more fundamental finding of this study, Dr. Hunter says, is that “less may be more,” a message that most likely resonates with far more of us. The women exercising four times a week “had the greatest overall increase in energy expenditure,” he says. But those working out only twice a week “weren’t far behind.”

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New WellPoint CEO gets cool reception on Wall Street









Investors didn't give a warm welcome to the incoming chief executive of health insurance giant WellPoint Inc.


Shares of the nation's second-largest health insurer fell $3.01, or nearly 5%, to $63 in trading Wednesday, a day after the company named a veteran hospital executive to be its next CEO.


WellPoint, which runs Anthem Blue Cross in California and health plans in 13 other states, picked Joseph Swedish to lead the company through a tumultuous time in the industry as insurers prepare for drastic changes under the federal healthcare law.








Swedish, 61, has served as CEO of Trinity Health Corp., which runs 47 hospitals in 10 states. The nonprofit health system had $9 billion in revenue last year. Swedish will start his new job March 25, WellPoint said.


Citigroup healthcare analyst Carl McDonald questioned whether Swedish was a good pick when WellPoint needs better execution in its core health insurance businesses.


Swedish has had a "long and illustrious career in the nonprofit hospital world, but he's virtually unknown to investors," McDonald said. "WellPoint picked someone without a lot of managed-care background."


Jackie Ward, chair of WellPoint's board, said Swedish "is an agile leader at a time when major transformations are requiring health benefit companies to examine new ways to better serve our stakeholders."


WellPoint is the nation's second-largest health insurer, behind UnitedHealth Group Inc., and it has about 36 million customers nationwide.


The Indianapolis company had been searching for a new leader since August when Angela Braly stepped down after major shareholders expressed dissatisfaction with the company's performance.


The company's shares had slumped 30% during Braly's five years at the helm, which were marked by managerial blunders and lackluster earnings. John Cannon has served as interim CEO and will return to his previous role as general counsel.


Under Braly, the company sought to diversify through a series of deals. In December, WellPoint completed its $4.5-billion acquisition of Medicaid insurer Amerigroup Corp.


chad.terhune@latimes.com





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Christopher Dorner, wildlife officers got into car-to-car gun battle









Fugitive  Christopher Dorner suddenly resurfaced Tuesday afternoon, engaging in a vehicle-to-vehicle gun battle with California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers before holing up in a Big Bear-area cabin as dozens of officers homed in.


Two San Bernardino sheriff's deputies have been injured in the confrontation, sources said. The extent of their injuries was unknown.


The incidents quickly unfolded Tuesday morning after Dorner left a nearby home he had broken into days ago, a source said. He allegedly had tied up a couple inside and held them hostage.





PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer


Then Dorner was allegedly spotted by state Fish and Wildlife officers in a white pickup truck, the source said. When they attempted to stop him, Dorner crashed the truck and exchanged gunfire with the officers as he fled into a vacation cabin, where he was quickly surrounded by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies, the source said.


The source said one deputy was wounded as Dorner fired out of the cabin and a second was injured when Dorner exited the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke grenade and opened fire again in an apparent attempt to flee. Dorner was driven back inside the cabin, the source said.


Candy Martin, owner of the 84-year-old cabin, said she turned on the news and saw her cabin surrounded by police. It appeared Dorner was in the main cabin that is on the property with six smaller cabins.


PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer


Martin said she told police the cabins were supposed to be empty Monday and had no cable, phone or Internet service. There were also no firearms inside, she said.


"It's quite shocking," she said. "I mean, it's good and bad news. If it is him, I hope that they catch him and this whole horrible thing is put to rest. At the same time, who wants this happening on their property?"


Statewide alerts were issued in California and Nevada, and border authorities were alerted. The Transportation Security Administration also had issued an alert urging pilots and other aircraft operators to keep an eye out for Dorner.


The search turned to Big Bear last week after Dorner's burning truck was found on a local forest road.


At the search's height, more than 200 officers scoured the mountain, conducting cabin-by-cabin checks. It was scaled back Sunday — about 30 officers were out in the field Tuesday, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.


Dorner allegedly threatened "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against police in a lengthy manifesto that authorities say he posted on Facebook. The posting named dozens of potential targets, including police officers, whom Dorner allegedly threatened to attack, according to authorities.


Records state that the manifesto was discovered by authorities Wednesday, three days after the slaying of an Irvine couple: Monica Quan, a Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, a USC public safety officer.


Quan was the daughter of a retired LAPD captain whom Dorner allegedly blamed in part for his firing from the force in 2009.


Federal documents also provide new details on Dorner's alleged attack against officers early Thursday in Riverside County.


The first shooting was in Corona after an eyewitness reported a person matching Dorner's description at a gas station, telling an LAPD officer "who was detailed to the area to protect one of the officials whom Dorner had threatened," according to the court records.


"When the officer drove by the gas station, the suspect exited his vehicle and fired an assault rifle at the officer, hitting the officer's vehicle," according to the court records.


The LAPD later said the officer received a grazing wound. 


About 30 minutes later, Dorner opened fire on Riverside police officers "who were in the area searching for Dorner," the documents said. On that detail, the account conflicts with a statement provided to the media by Riverside police officials, who said the officers were stopped at a red light and were not looking for Dorner.


Riverside Officer Michael Crain, 34, a married father of two who served two tours in Kuwait as a rifleman in the Marines, was killed in the attack. His partner remains hospitalized, Police Chief Sergio Diaz said, and it was unclear if he would be able to return to active duty.


Dorner was charged Monday with one count of murder, with special-circumstance allegations in the killing of a peace officer and the discharge of a firearm from a vehicle, in connection with Crain's death. He faces three additional charges of attempted murder.


Riverside Dist. Atty. Paul Zellerbach said because of the special-circumstance allegations, Dorner could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.





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Alec Baldwin, wife expecting a baby this summer


NEW YORK (AP) — Alec Baldwin and his wife are expecting their first child together.


Publicist Matthew Hiltzik confirmed Tuesday that Hilaria Baldwin is due late this summer.


Alec Baldwin already is the father of a 17-year-old daughter, Ireland, from his previous marriage to actress Kim Basinger (BAY'-sing-ur). Hilaria Baldwin is a special correspondent for the TV show "Extra." The couple wed last June after a three-month engagement.


Alec Baldwin recently won a SAG Award for best actor in a TV series for the NBC comedy "30 Rock," which concluded its seven-year run two weeks ago.


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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.


Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.


A transcript of this interview can be found here.


Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.



Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.


This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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California tomato farmer gets 6 years in prison for price-fixing









A man who built one of California’s most successful food companies was sentenced to six years in prison for scheming to inflate tomato prices and deceiving consumers about his products' quality.


Frederick Scott Salyer, former owner of SK Foods, was accused of bribing buyers with companies such as Kraft Foods and Frito Lay to pay inflated prices for his tomato products, prices that were then passed along to consumers.


He also instructed employees to write false reports about the tomatoes’ quality, lying about mold content and whether the product qualified as organic, federal prosecutors said.





“Scott Salyer used bribery and fraud to deceive his customers about SK Foods’ products in order to maximize his profits,” said Benjamin B. Wagner, the U.S. attorney in Sacramento. “He turned his company into a machine of corruption and economic crime.”


U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton imposed the sentence Tuesday at a hearing in Sacramento.


Salyer, 57, pleaded guilty in March 2012 to racketeering and price-fixing charges. He had been free on $6 million bond, living under house arrest at his Pebble Beach home.


Ten other people have been convicted of charges related to the scheme, prosecutors said.


“This case is a prime example where public trust was breached by corporate greed,” said Herbert M. Brown, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Sacramento office.  “Salyer's business practices knowingly defrauded consumers for financial gain and he attempted to use the cloak of an agribusiness giant to insulate himself.”


Salyer’s attorneys had asked for a sentence of no more than four years in prison, saying he had already paid dearly for his crimes.


“Mr. Salyer has suffered in other ways. He has lost his business and his home, suffered personal financial ruin and lost all standing in the community and the business world,” defense attorney Elliot R. Peters said in a sentencing brief.


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Dorner manhunt: Riverside D.A. files murder charges against ex-cop









The Riverside County district attorney's office filed murder and attempted murder charges Monday against fugitive ex-police officer Christopher Dorner, who is accused of shooting three police officers, one fatally, in Riverside County.

Dist. Atty. Paul Zellerbach said Dorner was charged with one count of murder, with special circumstance allegations in the killing of a peace officer and the discharge of a firearm from a vehicle, in the death of Riverside police Officer Michael Crain, 34, a married father who served two tours in Kuwait as a rifleman in the U.S. Marines.

Dorner faces three additional counts of attempted murder of a peace officer for allegedly shooting and critically injuring Crain's partner and firing upon two Los Angeles police officers in Corona for a protective detail. One of the LAPD officers was grazed by a bullet on the head.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

The special circumstance allegations make Dorner eligible for the death penalty, Zellerbach said. A no-bail warrant has also been issued for his arrest, meaning he can be "apprehended anywhere," Zellerbach said at a Monday news conference.

Authorities have called Dorner's alleged attack on the Riverside officers a "cowardly ambush," saying he opened fire on them as they sat at a red light early Thursday. The officers were not actively looking for Dorner, officials said.

The surviving officer, whose name has not been released, was "in a lot of pain" and would likely need several surgeries, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz told reporters Monday. It was not yet known if he will be able to return to duty, Diaz said.

TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

The shootings attributed to Dorner began Feb. 3 with the deaths of Monica Quan, a Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, a USC public safety officer.

Quan was the daughter of a retired LAPD captain whom Dorner apparently accused online of not representing him fairly at a hearing that led to his firing. In what police said was his posting to Facebook, Dorner allegedly threatened the retired captain and others he blamed for his firing.

More that 50 LAPD families remained under police guard Monday.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop

Hundreds of officers have chased clues about Dorner across Southern California in recent days, responding to possible sightings in San Diego, Big Bear and elsewhere and serving warrants at homes in La Palma and Las Vegas.

The search centered on Big Bear after Dorner's burning truck was found on a forest road on Thursday, and included cabin-by-cabin checks for any sign of Dorner. A scaled-back search continued Monday morning with about 30 officers searching vacation homes and cabins in "an even more remote area," the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said.

Los Angeles officials announced on Sunday a $1-million reward for information leading to the capture and arrest of Dorner. The reward — raised from local governments, police departments, civic organizations, businesses and individuals — is thought to be the largest ever offered locally.

Investigators were already following up on more than 600 tips, LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman said Monday morning.

"Our commitment is to finding Mr. Dorner and making this city safe again," Neiman said.



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'Identity Thief' grabs $34.6M to debut at No. 1


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy's "Identity Thief" has made off with the weekend box-office title with a $34.6 million debut.


The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:


1. "Identity Thief," Universal, $34,551,025, 3,141 locations, $11,000 average, $34,551,025, one week.


2. "Warm Bodies," Lionsgate, $11,356,090, 3,009 locations, $3,774 average, $36,481,172, two weeks.


3. "Side Effects," Open Road Films, $9,303,145, 2,605 locations, $3,571 average, $9,303,145, one week.


4. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $6,425,271, 2,809 locations, $2,287 average, $89,519,510, 13 weeks.


5. "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," Paramount, $5,753,165, 3,285 locations, $1,751 average, $43,836,018, three weeks.


6. "Mama," Universal, $4,229,665, 2,677 locations, $1,580 average, $63,951,810, four weeks.


7. "Zero Dark Thirty," Sony, $4,006,860, 2,562 locations, $1,564 average, $83,567,450, eight weeks.


8. "Argo," Warner Bros., $2,375,344, 1,405 locations, $1,691 average, $123,608,957, 18 weeks.


9. "Django Unchained," Weinstein Co., $2,303,495, 1,502 locations, $1,534 average, $154,516,627, seven weeks.


10. "Bullet to the Head," Warner Bros., $2,078,192, 2,404 locations, $864 average, $8,269,214, two weeks.


11. "Top Gun" in 3-D, Paramount, $1,965,737, 300 locations, $6,552 average, $1,965,737, one week.


12. "Lincoln," Disney, $1,873,537, 1,517 locations, $1,235 average, $173,621,006, 14 weeks.


13. "Parker," FilmDistrict, $1,867,411, 2,004 locations, $932 average, $15,848,064, three weeks.


14. "Life of Pi," Fox, $1,745,744, 924 locations, $1,889 average, $108,530,249, 12 weeks.


15. "Les Miserables," Universal, $1,555,550, 1,447 locations, $1,075 average, $143,983,705, seven weeks.


16. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," Warner Bros., $1,468,374, 1,001 locations, $1,467 average, $298,333,426, nine weeks.


17. "Parental Guidance," Fox, $1,071,766, 1,219 locations, $879 average, $74,344,256, seven weeks.


18. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $1,065,817, 757 locations, $1,408 average, $184,414,532, 15 weeks.


19. "The Impossible," Summit, $957,594, 739 locations, $1,296 average, $16,668,338, eight weeks.


20. "Quartet," Weinstein Co., $940,930, 244 locations, $3,856 average, $5,000,417, five weeks.


___


Online:


http://www.hollywood.com


___


Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.


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