Ashton Kutcher files for divorce from Demi Moore


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ashton Kutcher filed court papers Friday to end his seven-year marriage to actress Demi Moore.


The actor's divorce petition cites irreconcilable differences and does not list a date that the couple separated. Moore announced last year that she was ending her marriage to the actor 15 years her junior, but she never filed a petition.


Kutcher's filing does not indicate that the couple has a prenuptial agreement. The filing states Kutcher signed the document Friday, hours before it was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.


Kutcher and Moore married in September 2005 and until recently kept their relationship very public, communicating with each other and fans on the social networking site Twitter. After their breakup, Moore changed her name on the site from (at)mrskutcher to (at)justdemi.


Kutcher currently stars on CBS' "Two and a Half Men."


Messages sent to Kutcher's and Moore's publicists were not immediately returned Friday.


Moore, 50, and Kutcher, 34, created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations' efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.


Moore was previously married to actor Bruce Willis for 13 years. They had three daughters together — Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle — before divorcing in 2000. Willis later married model-actress Emma Heming in an intimate 2009 ceremony at his home in Parrot Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands that attended by their children, as well as Moore and Kutcher.


Kutcher has been dating former "That '70s Show" co-star Mila Kunis.


The divorce filing was first reported Friday by People magazine.


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


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The New Old Age Blog: The Ex-Wives Club

Weather permitting, Kappy Lundy and Barbara Thompson are heading out to Vancouver, Wash., on Saturday night to have a holiday dinner with the parents of their daughter’s husband.

Yes, these women both mothered the same children — now grown and with children of their own. Ms. Lundy is their biological parent; Ms. Thompson is the stepmother who married their father after he and Ms. Lundy divorced.

But that doesn’t really begin to describe their relationship. Over more than 40 years, these two have been friends and what they call “wife-in-laws,” in addition to moms-in-tandem. Now, they’re so close they feel like sisters, they say.

There’s yet another dimension to this relationship that makes it so unusual: Ms. Lundy, who is 71, has become a caregiver for Ms. Thompson, who’s 67 and was given a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment in 2009.

One wife caring for another, through thick and through thin – think about that. It’s another example of how the new old age is spawning unusual — and creative — alliances.

Ms. Lundy went with Ms. Thompson to eight months of classes on memory loss offered by the Alzheimer’s Association chapter in Portland, Ore., where the two women live. And now they go together to monthly meetings of the Wild Bunch, a group of people with dementia and their caregivers who’ve come together to provide each other emotional support. (More on that group to come in a future post.)

Ms. Lundy talks to Ms. Thompson every day and tries to get together with her once a week.

“We’re just really good friends, and we want to know what’s going on, what are you doing, like everybody else,” said Ms. Thompson, who moved into an independent living facility in Portland nearly a year ago, after Ms. Lundy helped pack up her previous apartment.

Ms. Lundy, who lives across town, about 20 minutes away, said: “We’ll go to happy hour together and have a little toddy and maybe a nice meal. And crack up – she makes me laugh.”

Both women grew up in Eugene, Ore., but became friends later, after they moved to Portland in their 20s. Their favorite haunt was the Goose Hollow Inn, a tavern where artists, architects and writers would congregate. Ms. Lundy and her husband began to socialize regularly with Ms. Thompson and her first husband.

“She’s full of life and fun – a gypsy at heart,” is how Ms. Thompson describes Ms. Lundy.

“She’s funny and smart and a really good listener,” is how Ms. Lundy describes Ms. Thompson.

When Ms. Lundy’s marriage to Phil Thompson — a handsome bear of a man, with a charismatic personality and an artistic sensibility — began falling apart, both members of the couple turned to their friend Barbara for support. “She listened to me and my anger, and she listened to him about how he was hurting,” says Ms. Lundy, who was separated from her husband for a year before the divorce was official.

There were no hard feelings when Phil’s feelings toward Barbara turned romantic, Ms. Lundy says. But she didn’t see the couple much during subsequent years of work and travel abroad. During those years, her children, Jessica and David, stayed with their father in Portland.

Eventually, Ms. Lundy came home and was invited to holidays at the Thompson house. She grew close to Barbara again and let go of negative feelings toward her former husband, she said. Over time, they became bound together as family.

“It’s incredible,” their daughter said. “They’re just really caring for each other and not threatened by each other.

“My dad got a big kick out of it and would always introduce them as ‘my wives.’”

When Phil Thompson died in August 2008, both women were at his bedside. And when Ms. Thompson started having memory problems months later, Ms. Lundy was one of the first to notice. “We could see she wasn’t remembering things, but she said, ‘This is my grief,’” Ms. Lundy recalled. It became clear something else might be going on as problems persisted and a doctor’s evaluation yielded the mild cognitive impairment diagnosis.

Ms. Thompson described her reaction to that information: “It was scary. Very scary. I didn’t know if it meant the end of my freedom, of my ability to just live my own life.”

For her part, Ms. Lundy said: “The hardest thing for me from the very beginning was to see my party pal and my dear, dear friend changing. It was very frustrating to me. And very hurtful. I wanted to support her. But sometimes I didn’t have the patience. Because, you know, she wasn’t acting like Barbara. It’s taken a while, but slowly, slowly, slowly and surely, I’ve accepted that this is who Barbara is.”

Ms. Lundy isn’t the only caregiver for Ms. Thompson: Jessica and David, her stepchildren, and two close friends also help out, as needed.

For Ms. Lundy, the uncertainty associated with her friend’s mild cognitive impairment diagnosis is hard to live with. Will it progress to dementia? Will it stay stable, or even get better? The doctor can’t say, and “all that not-knowing business is unsettling,” she said.

Becoming a caregiver has “made our friendship even stronger, I think,” Ms. Lundy says. “We’re closer now. Even though we’ve been friends for years and years, I never felt responsible for her before.”

For Ms. Thompson, what’s hardest is living alone after nearly 30 years of being married to Phil and worrying about losing her independence — notably, her ability to continue driving.

“I feel isolated with the disease,” she said. “And being alone in a new apartment with lots of strangers here has been a little difficult.”

“I’m very grateful to Kappy,” Ms. Thompson said. “I didn’t used to feel that she would be this way. She was always doing her own thing. But she has definitely reached out, beyond what most people would do.”

On Christmas the two women will be at Jessica’s house, arriving at around noon, after the grandchildren have opened their presents, and staying through the late afternoon. After the holidays, Ms. Lundy says she plans to take Ms. Thompson out more often and “have a couple of beers and a laugh and be happy and just be Barbie and Kappy,” two old friends, enjoying each other’s company.

This is the one of the most unusual caregiving relationships I know of. It reaffirms what I’ve been told several times: You never know who will end up being there for you when you need help. Sometimes the people we expect will care for us don’t, and others step forward. Has that been your experience?

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Stocks sink after Republicans cancel budget vote












Stocks are closing sharply lower after House Republicans called off a vote on tax rates.

That left federal budget talks in disarray 10 days before sweeping tax increases and government spending cuts are set to take effect.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 120 points to close at 13,191 Friday. It had been down as much as 189.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 13 points to 1,430. The Nasdaq composite index fell 29 to 3,021.

The House bill would have raised taxes on Americans making at least $1 million per year and locked in decade-old tax cuts for Americans making less.

Two stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was 4.7 billion shares, higher than the recent average.

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Boehner rejects Democrats' push for immediate vote on gun bill









WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner rejected calls from Democrats to schedule a vote on new gun restrictions before the end of the year, saying he wants to wait for recommendations from a newly formed White House task force before committing to a legislative response to the mass shooting at a Connecticut school.

“When the vice president's recommendations come forward, we'll certainly take them into consideration,’’ Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday in his first public comments on calls for new gun legislation since the slaying of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “But at this point I think our hearts and souls ought to be to think about those victims in this horrible tragedy.”


President Obama on Wednesday said he had asked Vice President Joe Biden to lead a task force to come up with initiatives to stem gun violence by the end of next month. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and fellow Democrats have pressed for an immediate vote on a long-stalled bill that would ban ammunition magazines containing more than 10 rounds.





Obama has outlined a slightly slower pace for action, urging Congress to hold a vote “in a timely manner” in the new year.


Both Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill say they are trying to seize on what appears to be a burst of momentum behind gun legislation in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy. Similar efforts initiated after other high-profile shootings faltered after national attention veered elsewhere.


Biden held the first meeting of the task force Thursday, gathering several cabinet members and White House officials with a group of local law enforcement leaders. In remarks before the meeting, the vice president noted his work on the 1994 crime bill, which banned the sale of some assault weapons, and said he would again be working closely with police groups to craft proposals.


“What I think the public has learned about you is you have a much more holistic view of how to deal with violence on our streets and in our country that you’re ever given credit for,” Biden told the law enforcement officials. “I want to hear your views because, for anything to get done, we’re going to need your advocacy.”


richard.simon@latimes.com


Twitter: @richardsimon11


kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com


Twitter: @khennessey





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Video game shares down in wake of shooting






LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shares of video game makers and sellers fell Thursday in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which has renewed debate about violent games and their potential influence on crime.


Shares of GameStop Corp., whose stores sell video games as well as systems like the Xbox and Wii, fell 5 percent in afternoon trading.






Investors are seen as being increasingly concerned that the government may impose tougher rules on the sales of games rated for “mature” and older audiences.


Investors may be worried that parents will also avoid buying first-person shooter games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2″ after the tragedy Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary, in which 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.


“Maybe there will be more stringent efforts to make sure youth are not playing games that they’re not old enough to play,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst with National Alliance Securities. “Maybe there will be a greater effort by parents in managing the content their kids are playing.”


Shares of companies involved in the video game industry, many of which had been dropping since the shooting, declined further Thursday.


GameStop stock lost $ 1.37, or 5 percent, to $ 26.18. Shares have barely changed since last Thursday’s close, the day before the shooting, to Wednesday’s close.


— Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc., the publisher of “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” fell 9 cents to $ 10.70. The stock had already dropped 5.6 percent.


Electronic Arts Inc. shares fell 41 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $ 13.99. Shares had dropped 5.6 percent.


— Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. shares slipped 29 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $ 11.69. The stock had dropped 8 percent.


The declines came as broader markets rose. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.3 percent at 13,295.


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Twitter post offers clue to The Civil Wars' future


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — While there still remain questions about the future of The Civil Wars, there's new music on the way.


Joy Williams, one half of the Grammy Award-winning duo with John Paul White, said Thursday during a Twitter chat that she was in the studio listening to new Civil Wars songs.


It's a tantalizing clue to the future of the group, which appeared in doubt when a European tour unraveled last month due to "irreconcilable differences."


At the time, the duo said it hoped to release an album in 2013. It's not clear if Williams was referring Thursday to music for a new album or for a documentary score they have composed with T Bone Burnett. They're also set to release an "Unplugged" session on iTunes on Jan. 15.


Nate Yetton, the group's manager and Williams' husband, had no comment — though he has supplied a few hints of his own by posting pictures of recording sessions on his Instagram account recently. The duo announced last summer it would be working with Charlie Peacock, who produced its gold-selling debut "Barton Hollow." The photos do not show Williams or White, but one includes violin player Odessa Rose.


Rose says in an Instagram post: "Playing on the new Civil Wars record... Beautiful sounds."


Even with its future in doubt, the duo continues to gather accolades. Williams and White are up for a Golden Globe on Jan. 13, and two Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, for their "The Hunger Games" soundtrack collaboration "Safe & Sound" with Taylor Swift.


Williams' comments came during an installment of an artist interview series with Alison Sudol of A Fine Frenzy sponsored by The Recording Academy.


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Online:


http://thecivilwars.com


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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.


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German Health Care Attracts Foreign Patients





BERLIN — When Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, needed advanced medical care for a stroke suffered this week, he flew not to the United States or Britain but to Germany, for treatment here in the capital.




For many Americans, Germany is known as a way station where soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan received immediate medical care on United States military bases. But it is also a popular destination for wealthy and prominent patients from the Middle East, Russia and beyond, experts say.


Before the Arab Spring uprisings, the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak traveled to Munich in 2004 for back treatment and to Heidelberg in 2010 to have his gallbladder removed. Last year, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan reportedly had a surgical procedure on his prostate at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.


According to German government statistics, the number of hospital patients from the United Arab Emirates rose to 1,754 from 339 between 2000 and 2010, the most recent year available. From Saudi Arabia, the figure climbed to 712 from 143. The numbers from Iraq were smaller but still rose to 176 from 95. Over the same period, the number of Russians jumped to 4,873 from 842.


“We have one of the worldwide best health care systems and people from abroad know that,” said Isabella Beyer, research associate in medical tourism at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. Mr. Talabani, 79, is among them; he was treated in Germany before for back trouble.


Mr. Talabani is now being cared for at Berlin’s Charité hospital, which is more than 300 years old and is one of Europe’s largest university hospitals. The storied institution was home to several Nobel Prize winners, including Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich. A spokeswoman for Charité, Manuela Zingl, confirmed that Mr. Talabani was being treated there but said that she could not disclose any information on his condition because of rules on medical privacy.


Mr. Talabani was said to be in “stable” condition after suffering a stroke this week, though there were unconfirmed reports that he was in a coma. He was rushed to the Baghdad Medical City on Monday.


He was treated there by medical experts from Iran, Germany and Britain, according to Iraqi staff members. Barazan Sheik Othman, the head of the presidential media office, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Talabani left for Germany accompanied by doctors after they established that he was well enough to be transferred.


Hospitals and clinics here have increasingly sought to market themselves as a destination for international patients. Ms. Beyer said that Germany benefited from a combination of lower prices than the United States but still provided high-quality care. Shorter waiting times and the proximity to the Middle East also helped.


“Before, a lot flew to Geneva,” said Salah Atamna, 44, whose business, Europe Health, seeks to link up patients from abroad with German hospitals and clinics.


Many wealthy Arabs would fly to Germany in the summer to escape the blistering heat at home, Mr. Atamna said, scheduling their vacation to coincide with an operation or other treatment. They often traveled with family members and large entourages. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became harder to acquire visas to the United States, and medical travelers began searching for alternatives.


Duraid Adnan contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Victor Homola from Berlin.



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Stocks gain as traders hope for a budget deal









Stocks closed higher as traders hope that lawmakers and the White House can agree on a budget deal in time to avoid steep tax hikes and cuts in government spending at the beginning of the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 60 points to end at 13,312 Thursday. The Dow waffled between small gains and losses early in the day and moved higher in the afternoon.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose eight points to 1,444. The Nasdaq composite rose six to 3,050.

The Republican-controlled House passed a plan to avert the “fiscal cliff,” but President Barack Obama has threatened to veto it.

Rising stocks outnumbered falling ones two-to-one on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was lighter than usual at 3.6 billion shares.

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Russia bill to ban U.S. adoptions of Russian children advances









MOSCOW — Russia's parliament took a first step Wednesday toward banning the adoption of Russian children by American parents, a move intended as retaliation for an anti-corruption law recently passed by Congress.


The State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted 399 to 17 in favor of a bill that included the ban and also would annul an adoption agreement between the two countries that Russia ratified in July. The measure still has to be approved by the upper house and signed by President Vladimir Putin, who has sent mixed signals about his support.


The Dima Yakovlev law is named after a Russian boy who died of heatstroke in 2008 after being left in a parked car by his adoptive American father. If approved, the legislation would cut off adoptions as of Jan. 1.





American parents have adopted more than 60,000 Russian children over the last two decades. Americans adopt 1,000 to 3,000 Russian children a year, said Boris Altshuler, who heads Right of the Child, a Moscow-based advocacy group. Russian families adopt about 7,000 children a year, far from enough to meet the country's needs.


The ban is intended to punish the United States for the so-called Magnitsky law, passed by Congress this month and named for Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer and whistle-blower who died in pretrial custody in Moscow in 2009. The Magnitsky law imposed visa restrictions on a group of Russian officials connected to the lawyer's prosecution and death.


Calling the Magnitsky law unfriendly and provocative, Russian legislators initially retaliated with a bill that included visa bans on an unspecified number of U.S. officials as well as on American parents who mistreat adopted Russian children and judges who are deemed lenient with such parents. The State Duma later added the adoption restrictions, accusing U.S. parents of mistreating and killing adopted Russian children and blaming unspecified middlemen of turning adoption into a corrupt and lucrative business.


"More than 80% of Russian children [adopted abroad] are adopted by the United States, and it is no secret for anyone in Russia today that this is a dirty business," Svetlana Goryacheva, a lawmaker with the Just Russia party, told reporters after the vote. "So today we in Russia are notorious for selling our children, and it is high time to stop it."


Ilya Ponomaryov, the only Duma member to speak out against the adoption ban, said there are 1,500 Russian children, including 49 with serious disabilities, whose adoptions by U.S. parents are awaiting approval in Russian courts.


"Today the State Duma for all practical purposes issued a grave verdict for these seriously sick children, who, I am sure, will languish in Russian orphanages for the rest of their lives without proper love and care," Ponomaryov said in an interview after the vote. "Their last chance is Putin's veto."


Putin warned lawmakers last week against "an excessive response" to the Magnitsky law, but gave his blessing to Wednesday's vote, according to his press secretary, Dmitry Peskov.


In an interview with the Russia-24 television network, Peskov called the U.S. law "an unfriendly act" and said the president understands the Russian lawmakers' tough stance.


The measure faces opposition from human rights groups and some Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Kremlin's human rights envoy, Vladimir Lukin.


Besides adding the adoption ban, the measure was amended to suspend the activities of Russian nongovernmental organizations funded by the United States.


Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch, denounced both amendments. The U.S. law is designed to protect Russian citizens from corrupt officials, she said, so a symmetrical Russian response would be a measure aimed at corrupt American officials.


"Instead the Russian lawmakers decided to hit where it hurts more," she said in an interview. "They hit U.S. people who want to adopt Russian children and they hit U.S. organizations and activists who want to promote democracy in Russia."


"I am having a hard time believing that the prohibition of the adoption of Russian children by U.S. families can be in the best interests of Russian orphans," she added.


In the last 15 years, 19 adopted Russian children have died in accidents in the United States, while more than 1,200 adopted children have died in Russian families during the same period, according to Altshuler of Right of the Child.


"Our lawmakers thus sacrifice thousands of Russian orphans by locking them up in institutions instead of letting them have a chance to be adopted in the United States and have a real future," he added.


Altshuler said nearly 300,000 Russian children are in orphanages, about two-thirds of whom have parents who can't or won't support them. He called the situation critical and said that adoptions by Russian families aren't sufficient to resolve it.


Earlier Wednesday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev urged Russians to adopt more children.


"Foreign adoption stems from the weak attention of the state and the society toward orphans," Medvedev said at a gathering of the ruling United Russia party.


sergei.loiko@latimes.com





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Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy welcome a baby boy


NEW YORK (AP) — Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy's "Homeland" just got bigger.


Danes' rep confirms the couple welcomed a baby boy named Cyrus Michael Christopher.


People.com first reported Monday's birth.


It's the first child for 33-year old Danes and 37-year-old Dancy. They were married in 2009.


There's no word yet whether the new mom will attend the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 13. She's nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for her work on Showtime's "Homeland."


Up next, Dancy stars in NBC's "Hannibal," an adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon."


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