Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

A man injured by bombing in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday that also killed one person. More Photos »

GAZA CITY — Israel broadened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday from mostly military targets to centers of government infrastructure, obliterating the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister with a barrage of five bombs before dawn.

The attack came a day after the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, hosted his Egyptian counterpart in that very building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world. That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.

But as the fighting ended its fourth day, with Israel continuing preparations for a ground invasion, the conflict showed no sign of abating. Gaza militants again fired long-range missiles at Tel Aviv, among nearly 60 that soared into Israel on Saturday. Israel said it hit more than 200 targets overnight in Gaza, and continued with afternoon strikes on the home of a Hamas commander and on a motorcycle-riding militant.

The White House reiterated its strong support for Israel, with Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, describing rocket fire from Gaza as “the precipitating factor for the conflict.”

“We believe Israel has a right to defend itself and they’ll make their own decisions about the tactics that they use in that regard,” Mr. Rhodes told reporters on Air Force One en route to Asia.

Hamas health officials said 45 Palestinians had been killed and 385 wounded since Wednesday’s escalation in the cross-border battle. In Israel, 3 Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were also wounded on Saturday.

Two rockets were fired at Tel Aviv on Saturday. One landed harmlessly, probably at sea. The other was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system in the sky above the city. An Iron Dome anti-missile battery had been hastily deployed near the city on Saturday in response to the threat of longer-range rockets.

Since Wednesday, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said, while another 500 have struck Israel. The American-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and ignore those likely to strike open ground.

There have been failures — on Saturday a rocket crashed into an apartment block in the southern port city of Ashdod, wounding five people —   but officials have put its success rate at 90 percent.

Analysts said there is no clear endgame to the conflict, since Israel neither wants to re-engage in Gaza nor to eliminate Hamas and leave the territory to the chaos of more militant factions.

“Ultimately,” said Efraim Halevy, a former chief of Israel’s intelligence service, “both sides want Hamas to remain in control, strange as it sounds.”

But Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University here, cautioned that “there is no military solution to the Gaza problem.”

“There has to be a political settlement at the end of this,” he said. “Without that, this conflict is just going to go on and on.”

President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt said late Saturday night that “there could be a cease-fire soon,” after he and other members of his government spent the day in meetings with the Turkish premiere, the Qatari prince, and the political leaders of Hamas and other Gaza factions. But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, denied reports that a truce was imminent.

It is unclear whether the deal under discussion would solely suspend the fighting or include other issues. Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, wants to turn its Rafah crossing with Egypt into an open, free-trade zone, and for Israel to withdraw from the 1,000-foot buffer it patrols on Gaza’s northern and eastern borders.

Mr. Rhodes said the Turkish and Egyptian leaders “have the ability to play a constructive role in engaging Hamas and encouraging a process of de-escalation.”

Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, spoke Saturday with the leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, according to a statement from his office.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

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Rose McGowan's Dating Deal-Breaker: Sloppy Kisses

By Lilly Workneh

11/17/2012 at 05:25 PM EST

No need to find a secret spell on how to kiss Rose McGowan: The former Charmed star will tell you what she likes – and what she doesn't.

"Don't be sloppy!" McGowan, 39, tells PEOPLE. "That's the worst. You could find the hottest guy on the planet and if he's a bad kisser, it just doesn't work."

The actress hosted Cosmopolitan and Maybeline's Kisses for the Troops event on Monday in New York City and spilled the beans on what she considers to be a sexy smooch.

"I like the man to be medium aggressive, not somebody who's going to shove his tongue down your throat," she says. "That's not sexy."

Smooching comes with the territory for an actress says McGowan, who previously dated rocker Marilyn Manson and was engaged to filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

"I had to kiss a lot of people on Charmed and I would kiss people I wouldn't even know. I'd say 'Hi, you're Ted? Let's make out Ted. Okay, Ted, it was really nice to meet you. I'll never see you again.' "

As far as kissing skills go, McGowan says guys shouldn't bother trying to learn too much. "I don't think you can teach somebody [to kiss]," she says. "You either just know how to do it or you don't."

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Girl, 15, forced into prostitution by family counselor

A San Bernardino family counselor responsible for providing services to children and families also coerced a 15-year-old girl into prostitution and sold sexual services on the Internet, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said Thursday.

Daron Lamar Whitworth, 42, worked for EMQ FamiliesFirst, a nonprofit that provides social services, mental-health and foster care for young children and families in San Bernardino County, authorities said. He was arrested without incident Thursday and booked into Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. 

Police have issued arrest warrants for two alleged accomplices: Whitworth's uncle Jacory C. Williams, 30, and Charmaine Williams, 24, both of San Bernardino. Charmaine Williams is in Los Angeles County Jail for unrelated reasons. 

Whitworth faces 44 charges, including felony counts of human trafficking, pimping and pandering a minor under 16, and unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, according to court records. 

Investigators from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department began to gather evidence in August after the arrest of a juvenile for street prostitution in Hemet. The investigation gradually revealed that most of the unlawful activity had taken place in San Bernardino County, according to the release. 

Anyone with additional information or who believes they have been a victim is encouraged to contact Sgt. John Sawyer with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department at (951) 544-7000.

ALSO:

Four 14-year-olds arrested in more than 400 acts of vandalism

‘Western Bandit’ wanted in 9 armed robberies, transgender slaying

Police arrrest Hawthorne man accused of raping woman he met online

-- Frank Shyong

twitter.com/frankshyong

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Jerusalem Targeted by Rockets for First Time in Gaza Conflict

JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants fired rockets for the first time at Jerusalem on Friday in a daring new escalation of hostilities with Israel on the third day of their latest lethal conflict over Gaza, triggering air raid sirens and panicking residents who had thought themselves secure from such attacks because of the holy city’s multireligious heritage and large Palestinian population.

The Israeli authorities did not immediately confirm the origin of the rocket fire but responsibility was claimed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, which has amassed arsenals of smuggled rockets with increased ranges and more accurate trajectories in recent years. On Thursday, Hamas rocket squads launched at least two at Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest city, for the first time, and on Friday launched more as part of a response to a large-scale aerial assault by the Israelis on targets in Gaza and indications that Israel was close to launching its first ground invasion there in four years.

“We are sending a short and simple message: There is no security for any Zionist or any single inch of Palestine and we plan more surprises,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the military of wing of Hamas, in a message quoted by The Associated Press.

Jerusalem, a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, had been previously thought off-limits to rocket attacks by militant Palestinians and others who reject Israel’s claim to the city as its capital. Even Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, had avoided targeting the city when he aimed Scud missiles at Israel during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. The city is about 48 miles from the Gaza border.

The police in Jerusalem said no rockets fell within city limits, but one crashed harmlessly near a Jewish West Bank settlement just south of Jerusalem. A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said other explosions were heard in the same area but security forces had not located the landing sites.

The Jerusalem rocket attack came hours after scores of rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, striking major cities of the south, causing widespread panic and damage and shattering plans for a temporary cease-fire during a remarkable visit to Gaza by the Egyptian prime minister that showed the shifting dynamics of Middle East politics since the turmoil of the Arab Spring uprisings.

The rocket fired at Tel Aviv on Friday probably landed in the sea, Mr. Rosenfeld said. Israeli officials say the only rockets in Gaza with a range that can reach Tel Aviv are the Iranian-made Fajr-5 projectiles that Israel has been targeting in its hundreds of airstrikes over the last few days.

That these rockets were still being fired seemed to weigh heavily in Israeli military calculations about a ground invasion. After a meeting with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli Army was “continuing to hit Hamas hard and is ready to expand the operation into Gaza,” according to a statement from his office.

Mr. Netanyahu said the aim was “to take out the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza while doing everything possible not to harm civilians.”

The rapidly escalating confrontation between Hamas and Israel followed an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday that killed the top commander of Hamas, and the tit-for-tat violence is widely seen as a potential catalyst for broader hostilities at a time of spreading turmoil in Syria and elsewhere in the region.

The Israeli military said Col. Amir Baram, commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ paratroopers brigade, had addressed his forces during a preparatory briefing in the field, saying: “We are already 48 hours into an operation that we knew would have to happen. We have spoken about it during training, exercises and conferences. There is no doubt that we have to operate. This is why we enlisted, and why we have trained.”

Witnesses on the Gaza-Israel border said Israeli tanks had massed in several places.

Early on Friday, the Israeli military said it had called up 16,000 army reservists to move against what Israel considers an unacceptable security threat from smuggled rockets amassed by Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

It was not initially clear whether the show of Israeli force on the ground was meant as more of an intimidation tactic to further pressure Hamas leaders, who had all been forced into hiding on Wednesday after the group’s military chief, Ahmed al-Jabari, was killed in a pinpoint aerial bombing. But Israel’s preparations seemed to pick up on Friday after the attempts to land rockets in Tel Aviv, while Hamas itself seemed emboldened by Egypt’s support.

“The time in which the Israeli occupation does whatever it wants in Gaza is gone,” said Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, Jodi Rudoren from Gaza City and Alan Cowell from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rick Gladstone from New York, Rina Castelnuovo from the Gaza-Israel border, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, and Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem.

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Pittsburgh airport to offer free ‘cell phone’ lot

IMPERIAL, Pa. (AP) — Pittsburgh International Airport is offering free parking for folks who want to sit in their cars and wait for arriving passengers to call on cell phones to say they’ve arrived.

Allegheny County Airport Authority officials are hoping the plan will prevent motorists from congesting the curb near the airport’s terminal or the access roads around it by driving around in circles waiting for cell phone calls from arrivals.

Drivers can now park free for an hour in the extended term lot farthest from the terminal, and pay only $ 1 for a second hour of parking. After two hours, the spots will cost $ 8.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Why Kendall & Kylie Jenner Didn't Ask Their Sisters' for Advice on Their Clothing Line

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/16/2012 at 09:00 AM ET

Rowan Daly/Harper Smith for PacSun

Look out Kardashian Kollection: You’ve got some competition.

Little sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner have partnered with PacSun to create an affordable young women’s line that will be available online and in stores in February 2013.

“Everyone always talks about how much they love our style, so we took some of our favorite pieces from our closets and made them our own,” Kylie told PEOPLE on Wednesday at the photo shoot for the collection in Malibu.

The stylish sisters’ line includes many of their personal wardrobe staples, including dresses, crop tops, stretch pants and collared shirts.

“I’m really happy with how everything turned out, so I can’t wait for everyone to see it,” said Kendall.

Of course, the process of making the collection was not without a few spats between the siblings.

“There were definitely some little fights,” said Kylie. “Some pieces Kendall really liked that I didn’t like, but I think that’s what makes the line cool. People can have variety.”

Though the girls didn’t go to big sisters Kourtney, Kim and Khloé for advice — “We didn’t really [want] any … we wanted it to be more of a me and her thing,” Kendall explained — they are inspired by them. “They all have such different style, but I love it,” Kylie said, noting Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Miley Cyrus as additional fashion icons (Kendall prefers Blake Lively).

In fact, it was observing the Kardashians’ success that made the younger sibs want to launch a line in the first place. “Watching our sisters go through the process was really cool and inspiring,” Kendall said. So inspiring, in fact, that she and Kylie hope to grow their fashion empire someday, too. Tell us: Are you interested in seeing Kendall and Kylie’s clothing line?

–Gabrielle Olya

PHOTOS: SHOP STAR LOOKS — FOR LESS!

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Sheriff's officials probe exchange of photos of bloodied faces

After a violent confrontation with a teenage suspect, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy took a photo of the man's bloodied face and texted it to Sgt. Eric Gonzalez, a friend who worked at Men's Central Jail.

A few hours later, Gonzalez responded by sending his own photo of a battered suspect: a jail visitor who had been kicked, punched and pepper-sprayed by deputies.

The man in Gonzalez's photo had two black eyes, one swollen shut, and blood streaming down his face.

"Looks like we did a better job," Gonzalez wrote his colleague. "Where's my beer big homie."

"Hahaha," the anti-gang deputy responded, according to a text message exchange reviewed by The Times.

Sheriff's officials are now investigating whether Gonzalez violated the department's rules by bragging about the man's injuries. The altercation between the jail visitor and deputies supervised by Gonzalez has also drawn scrutiny from the FBI, which began investigating the incident last year as part of its wide-ranging probe of the county's troubled jails.

Prosecutors had initially charged the visitor, Gabriel Carrillo, with battery and resisting deputies based on the jailers' statements. But they later dropped the case. The district attorney's office concluded earlier this year that the deputies appeared to use necessary force on Carrillo.

In an interview with the Times, Gonzalez said his text message is being misconstrued and was not intended as a boast. He said he sent the photograph to determine whether his colleague recognized the visitor as someone who had recently run from him. The accompanying message, he said, was a joke unrelated to the injuries suffered by either man.

"Is this something to laugh about? Absolutely not," Gonzalez said.

The probe comes amid intense public scrutiny of the department's jails and allegations of abuse and other misconduct by custody deputies. A blue-ribbon commission recently concluded that sheriff's managers fostered a culture in which deputies were permitted to beat and humiliate inmates, cover up misconduct and form aggressive deputy cliques.

Internal department memos obtained by The Times show that top sheriff's officials raised alarms about deputies meting out "jailhouse justice" against inmates and supervisors conducting shoddy use-of-force investigations. Sheriff Lee Baca recently agreed to sweeping reforms aimed at reducing the violence.

The investigation into Gonzalez's text exchange is focusing on photographs of two men who are brothers.

Robert Carrillo was injured when he was arrested by two anti-gang deputies in an alleyway in the City of Commerce on Feb. 24, 2011.

Two days later, Gabriel Carrillo went to visit his brother at Men's Central Jail. In the waiting area, deputies learned he had a cellphone, a violation of jail visiting rules. He was handcuffed and escorted to a nearby break room, which also serves as a booking area when visitors are under arrest.

There are conflicting accounts about what happened next.

Carrillo said several deputies beat him and pepper sprayed him while he was handcuffed. He alleged in a lawsuit that he was kicked and punched until he blacked out, even though he wasn't resisting.

Deputies said they removed a handcuff from Carrillo's wrist so he could be fingerprinted, at which point Carrillo swung an elbow at a deputy and began fighting and then tried to flee from the room.

Gonzalez said that, as a supervisor, he stood by and directed the deputies involved in the fight, ordering them to pepper spray and punch Carrillo until he was under control and handcuffed. The sergeant said that during the struggle Carrillo injured some of the deputies and spat a mixture of blood, saliva and pepper spray on one, creating fears the deputy could contract a disease, such as hepatitis or AIDS.

"We're not trying to hurt him. We're trying to control him. He's trying to hurt us," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said he learned immediately after the incident that Carrillo had been at the jail to visit his brother. He said he began making calls to learn more about Robert Carrillo's arrest and found out that two others who had been with him fled the scene.

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Palestinian Rockets Kill Three Israelis and Trigger Air Sirens in Tel Aviv

KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas widened their deadly conflict over Gaza on Thursday, as militants fired dozens of rockets — including one that killed three civilians in an apartment block in this small southern Israeli town — and two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv, causing no harm but triggering the first air raid warning there set off by incoming fire from Gaza. The death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes rose to at least 19, including five children and a pregnant teenager.

There was no sign that either side was prepared to dial back the confrontation that has threatened a new war in the Middle East, despite entreaties for restraint by world leaders including President Obama and Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, who planned a visit there in coming days. If anything, the Israelis intensified their attacks on Gaza after the Tel Aviv scare and made new moves toward a possible ground invasion.

The Israeli deaths were the first since Israel’s military launched ferocious aerial assaults on Wednesday to stop the chronic rocket fire from Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave controlled by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a cryptic statement that one of the two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed but did not hit the ground — meaning that it likely crashed into the Mediterranean Sea — and that the other appeared to have landed far outside the city. Exact locations were not specified.

But the Tel Aviv air raid warnings — which residents of Israel’s largest metropolis had not heard except for drills or malfunctions since Saddam Hussein’s Scuds threatened them in the first Persian Gulf War, more than two decades ago — were a reminder of their vulnerability to an attack from Gaza, less than 40 miles away. They also underscored Israel’s stated reason for seeking to destroy the missile-launching sites in Gaza.

Ehud Barak, the minister of defense, said the targeting of Tel Aviv and the scope of the Palestinian rocket fire “represents an escalation, and there will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.”

Mr. Barak also dropped a further hint that planning for a ground invasion of Gaza had begun, saying he had instructed the army to broaden its draft of reservists to “be prepared for any kind of development if and when it will be required.” Israeli officials said 30,000 reservists could be called, and heavy machinery and tanks rumbled south along Israeli roads leading to Gaza on Thursday in preparation for a possible invasion.

The Israel Defense Forces said that within hours of the Tel Aviv air raid warning, they had attacked 70 underground rocket-launching sites in Gaza, and “direct hits were confirmed.” There were also unconfirmed reports that Israeli rockets had struck near Gaza’s Rafah crossing into Egypt, forcing the Egyptians to close it.

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Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said its aerial assaults had hit more than 200 sites in Gaza by late Thursday, and “we’ll continue tonight and tomorrow.” He also said militants in Gaza had fired about 300 rockets into southern Israel and at least 100 more had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system.

The Israeli aerial assault on Gaza that began on Wednesday was the most intense military operation by Israel in Gaza since an invasion four years ago.

The regional perils of the situation sharpened as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.

“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, the Egyptian government and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and the bloodshed of Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi said in nationally televised remarks before a crisis meeting of senior ministers. He also instructed his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday and said he had contacted President Obama to discuss strategies to “stop these acts and doings and the bloodshed and aggression.”

Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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Cesar Millan Reveals: I Attempted Suicide

People Pets

11/15/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Cesar Millan with dog Daddy

Meredith Jenks

It seemed Cesar Millan had been on top of the world, but then it all came crashing down.

In 2010, the trainer and television personality known as the Dog Whisperer was working with celebrity clients, had a hit show and was becoming an international advocate for bully breeds.

Millan, 43, was dealt his first loss when Daddy, the 16-year-old pit bull who had been Millan's best example of a "calm, submissive" dog, died in February.

Then, in June of that year, Millan learned that his wife of 16 years, Ilusion Millan, had filed for divorce.

"I was at the lowest level I had ever been emotionally and psychologically," Millan wrote on his blog in August of this year.

So low, in fact, that he attempted suicide, a revelation Millan makes in Cesar Millan: The Real Story, a documentary airing on Nat Geo Wild on Nov. 25.

"Daddy was my Tibet, my Himalaya, my Gouda, my Buddha, my source of calmness," Millan tells the Associated Press.

After surviving the overdose, Millan opted for work, exercise and affection over antidepressants. His recovery progressed further when he met Jahira Dar, a woman Millan calls "the one."

He plans to propose soon. "I am a traditional guy, so I like to do the whole parent thing," Millan said. "I know they are going to say yes, but I like the whole Cinderella story."

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and the biggest jump over 15 years was in Oklahoma, according to a new federal report issued Thursday.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled, and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama also saw dramatic increases since 1995, the study showed.

The South's growing weight problem is the main explanation, said Linda Geiss, lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

"The rise in diabetes has really gone hand in hand with the rise in obesity," she said.

Bolstering the numbers is the fact that more people with diabetes are living longer because better treatments are available.

The disease exploded in the United States in the last 50 years, with the vast majority from obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. In 1958, fewer than 1 in 100 Americans had been diagnosed with diabetes. In 2010, it was about 1 in 14.

Most of the increase has happened since 1990.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body has trouble processing sugar; it's the nation's seventh leading cause of death. Complications include poor circulation, heart and kidney problems and nerve damage.

The new study is the CDC's first in more than a decade to look at how the nationwide boom has played out in different states.

It's based on telephone surveys of at least 1,000 adults in each state in 1995 and 2010. Participants were asked if a doctor had ever told them they have diabetes.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi — the state with the largest proportion of residents who are obese — has the highest diabetes rate. Nearly 12 percent of Mississippians say they have diabetes, compared to the national average of 7 percent.

But the most dramatic increases in diabetes occurred largely elsewhere in the South and in the Southwest, where rates tripled or more than doubled. Oklahoma's rate rose to about 10 percent, Kentucky went to more than 9 percent, Georgia to 10 percent and Alabama surpassed 11 percent.

An official with Oklahoma State Department of Health said the solution is healthier eating, more exercise and no smoking.

"And that's it in a nutshell," said Rita Reeves, diabetes prevention coordinator.

Several Northern states saw rates more than double, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

The study was published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://tinyurl.com/cdcdiabetesreport

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Israelis Launch Major Assault on Gaza, Killing Hamas Commander

GAZA — Israel on Wednesday launched one of the most ferocious assaults on Gaza since its invasion four years ago, hitting at least 20 targets in aerial attacks that killed the top military commander of Hamas, drew strong condemnation from Egypt and escalated the risks of a new war in the Middle East.

The Israelis coupled the intensity of the airstrikes with the threat of another ground invasion and warnings to all Hamas leaders in Gaza to stay out of sight or risk the same fate as the Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was killed in a pinpoint airstrike as he was traveling by car down a Gaza street. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a Twitter message.

The ferocity of the airstrikes, which Israel called Operation “Pillar of Defense” in response to repeated rocket attacks by Gaza-based Palestinian militants, provoked rage in Gaza, where Hamas said the airstrikes amounted to war and promised a harsh response. It quickly launched dozens of rockets into southern Israel, including several that struck the city of Beersheba, shattering windows and damaging cars but causing no injuries.

Civil-defense authorities in Israel, anticipating retaliation, raised alert levels early in the day and told residents in southern Israel to take precautions. Many remained indoors or congregated in bomb shelters.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said the Israeli attacks had killed at least five others besides Mr. Jabari, including a baby and a 7-year-old girl, and had wounded at least 40.

The abrupt escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the militant organization regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction, came amid rising tensions between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors. Israel has faced growing lawlessness on its border with the Sinai, including cross-border attacks. It recently fired twice into Syria, which is caught in a civil war, after munitions fell in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and it has absorbed rocket fire from Gaza, which has damaged homes and frightened the population.

Israeli officials had promised a robust response to the rocket fire, but for the moment, at least, opted against a ground invasion and instead chose airstrikes and targeted killings.

The Israeli attacks especially threatened to further complicate Israel’s fragile relations with Egypt, where the Islamist-led government of President Mohamed Morsi, reversing a policy of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak, had established closer ties with Hamas and had been acting as a mediator to restore calm between Israel and Gaza-based militant groups.

In the first crisis in Israeli-Egyptian relations since Mr. Morsi came to power, he called the Israeli actions “wanton aggression on the Gaza Strip.” He ordered Egypt’s ambassador to Israel to return home, summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest, and called for emergency meetings of both the United Nations Security Council and the Arab League over the Gaza attacks. Egyptian state media said Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr had “warned Israel against the consequences of escalation and the negative reflections it may have on the security and stability of the region.”

Mr. Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, posted a video on its Web site of what was described as the burned body of a Palestinian child said to have been killed in the Israeli attacks, in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to inflame passions. His party also issued a statement saying: “The wanton aggression against Gaza proves that Israel has yet to realize that Egypt has changed and that the Egyptian people who revolted against oppression will not accept assaulting Gaza.”

A spokesman for Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, said the Israelis had “committed a dangerous crime and broke all redlines,” and that “the Israeli occupation will regret and pay a high price.”

Military officials in Israel, which announced responsibility for the death of Mr. Jabari, later said in a statement that their forces had carried out additional airstrikes in Gaza targeting what they described as “a significant number of long-range rocket sites” owned by Hamas that had stored rockets capable of reaching 25 miles into Israel. The statement said the airstrikes had dealt a “significant blow to the terror organization’s underground rocket-launching capabilities.”

Yisrael Katz, a minister from Israel’s governing Likud Party, issued a statement saying that the operation had sent a message to the Hamas political leaders in Gaza “that the head of the snake must be smashed. Israel will continue to kill and target anyone who is involved in the rocket attacks.”Hamas and medical officials in Gaza said both Mr. Jabari and a companion were killed by the airstrike on his car in Gaza City. Israeli news media said the companion was Mr. Jabari’s son, but there was no immediate confirmation.

Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman in Jerusalem, Rina Castelnuovo in Beersheba, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Steve Wozniak, Danny Trejo to appear in 8-bit video game

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – When it comes to the iPhone, Steve Jobs created it, but Steve Wozniak got game.

The Apple co-founder will appear as a playable character in an upcoming iOS video game “Danny Trejo‘s Vengeance: Woz with a Coz.”

The game, slated to be released around November 22, puts Wozniak alongside “Machete” star Trejo in an 8-bit mobile game, fighting a city full of enemies with an assortment of weapons.

The plot is simple: “Woz” is forced to save his wife, J-Woz, after she is kidnapped by street thugs. Teaming up with Vengence, Woz tears up Fusion City in his quest to rescue her.

“Featuring an over-the-top, old school inspired action combined with a retro 8-bit and exciting gritty art style, players will enjoy Woz’s brain power, translator apps, Danny Trejo’s machetes, guns and other crazy upgrades,” a Facebook fan page devoted to the game says.

Other playable characters will include musician Baby Bash and MMA World Champion “Suga” Rashad Evans.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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New gene triples risk for Alzheimer's disease

Scientists have identified a new gene variant that seems to strongly raise the risk for Alzheimer's disease, giving a fresh target for research into treatments for the mind-robbing disorder.

The problem gene is not common — less than 1 percent of people are thought to have it — but it roughly triples the chances of developing Alzheimer's compared to people with the normal version of the gene. It also seems to harm memory and thinking in older people without dementia.

The main reason scientists are excited by the discovery is what this gene does, and how that might reveal what causes Alzheimer's and ways to prevent it. The gene helps the immune system control inflammation in the brain and clear junk such as the sticky deposits that are the hallmark of the disease. Mutations in the gene may impair these tasks, so treatments to restore the gene's function and quell inflammation may help.

"It points us to potential therapeutics in a more precise way than we've seen in the past," said Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, which had no role in the research. Years down the road, this discovery will likely be seen as very important, he predicted.

It is described in a study by an international group published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

Until now, only one gene — ApoE — has been found to have a big impact on Alzheimer's risk. About 17 percent of the population has at least one copy of the problem version of this gene but nearly half of all people with Alzheimer's do. Other genes that have been tied to the disease raise risk only a little, or cause the less common type of Alzheimer's that develops earlier in life, before age 60.

The new gene, TREM2, already has been tied to a couple other forms of dementia. Researchers led by deCODE Genetics Inc. of Iceland honed in on a version of it they identified through mapping the entire genetic code of more than 2,200 Icelanders.

Further tests on 3,550 Alzheimer's patients and more than 110,000 people without dementia in several countries, including the United States, found that the gene variant was more common in Alzheimer's patients.

"It's a very strong effect," raising the risk of Alzheimer's by three to four times — about the same amount as the problem version of the ApoE gene does, said Dr. Allan Levey, director of an Alzheimer's program at Emory University, one of the academic centers participating in the research.

Researchers also tested more than 1,200 people over age 85 who did not have Alzheimer's disease and found that those with the variant TREM2 gene had lower mental function scores than those without it. This adds evidence the gene variant is important in cognition, even short of causing Alzheimer's.

"It's another piece in the puzzle. It suggests the immune system is important in Alzheimer's disease," said Andrew Singleton, a geneticist with the National Institute on Aging, which helped pay for the study.

One prominent scientist not involved in the study — Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and director of an Alzheimer's research program at Massachusetts General Hospital — called the work exciting, but added a caveat.

"I would like to see more evidence that this is Alzheimer's" rather than one of the other dementias already tied to the gene, Tanzi said. Autopsy or brain imaging tests can show whether the cases attributed to the gene variant are truly Alzheimer's or misdiagnosed, he said.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

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

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Medical response time lags in many pricey L.A. neighborhoods

Waits for 911 medical aid vary dramatically across Los Angeles, with many of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods seeing the longest response times, according to a Times investigation.

Under national standards embraced by the Los Angeles Fire Department, rescuers are supposed to arrive within six minutes to almost all medical emergencies. But the Times analysis found that in pricey hillside communities stretching from Griffith Park to Pacific Palisades, firefighters failed to hit that mark nearly 85% of the time.

In contrast, rescuers beat the six-minute standard in most of their responses in the more densely populated neighborhoods in and around downtown, where 911 calls are more frequent and the department deploys more resources.

The disparities were also seen in cases of cardiac arrest, one of the most time-sensitive emergencies because brain damage can begin just four minutes after the heart stops beating. Over the last five years, cardiac arrest responses to incidents in Bel-Air have been twice as long as those in the Westlake neighborhood surrounding MacArthur Park, where rescuers arrived on average in just over five minutes.

The findings come as the Fire Department's 911 response record is being closely scrutinized by auditors, fire commissioners and elected officials. In March, top commanders admitted the agency had for years been producing performance reports that overstated how quickly rescuers were reaching victims in need.

The Times investigation is the first independent block-by-block analysis of LAFD performance from the time dispatchers answer a call to when rescuers arrive at the scene. The findings reinforce the obvious risks of living in L.A.'s scenic and desirable canyon enclaves, where wildfires and mudslides are a perennial concern and narrow and winding roads can slow heavy rescue vehicles.

Battalion Chief Armando Hogan, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said rescuers do their best to get to patients as quickly and safely as possible. But he said difficult driving conditions in the mountains make that a challenge. "There's so many blind spots it's ridiculous," Hogan said. "Not a lot we can do about that."

Bel-Air residents Joe and Wanda Miller know how frustrating and frightening the long waits can be.

Last November, Joe, 84, had to wait more than 14 minutes for rescuers to come after Wanda, 86, passed out. She survived, but it was the fifth time the couple had called 911 in recent years. Each time, they waited more than 13 minutes for LAFD rescuers to arrive, records show.

"It's the hills. Just try to get around these curves," said Joe, who said the couple are thinking about leaving their elegant, white-columned home to be closer to help.

The city's 469 square miles are protected by 106 firehouses, with deployment plans based on population and call load. As a result, some LAFD stations serve areas more expansive than others, with some covering swaths of sparsely populated territory larger than entire cities. The firehouse responsible for portions of Bel-Air and Brentwood, for example, covers an area nearly twice as large as the city of Santa Monica, which has four fire stations.

Fire Chief Brian Cummings has said the department would need to nearly double its stations and staff to meet national response time standards everywhere in the city. Battalion Chief Trevor Richmond, who oversees the unit responsible for deployment, said, "We'd all like to have an unlimited amount of money and have a fire station on every corner.

"That would be the ideal situation," Richmond said. "But we know that's not reality."

Since questions arose about response times earlier this year, initial reform efforts supported by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his Fire Commission have focused on producing citywide averages. A report released Wednesday by a task force appointed by the Fire Commission found the average response time for calls in September was 6 minutes and 47 seconds.

But the Times investigation, which mapped out more than 1 million dispatches since 2007, found those broad performance measures mask stark disparities in emergency response times that have grown longer in recent years amid budget cuts.

The analysis found that the longest responses often occur when an area's primary rescue units are on other calls or are out of service, creating holes in coverage. Citywide, the first unit to reach victims in medical emergencies came from a more remote station at least 15% of the time, the analysis found.

The effect is less pronounced in areas with a high concentration of fire stations, The Times analysis found. But in parts of the city with fewer stations, coverage gaps regularly created long delays, including in the east San Fernando Valley, the southern edge of Playa del Rey and some neighborhoods in the Santa Monica Mountains.

In Bel-Air, rescuers failed to meet the six-minute response time standard nearly 90% of the time in part because more distant rescuers had to be called for hundreds of 911 calls. In those cases, they took nearly 11 1/2 minutes on average to reach those needing medical help.

Department officials acknowledged "simultaneous incidents" are a vexing issue and difficult to manage in some parts of the city with current staffing levels.

That alarms Haldis Toppel, a Pacific Palisades resident who last year rallied her neighbors in a failed bid to save a local fire engine that was taken out of service. The cutback was part of a round of budget reductions that shuttered units at more than one-fifth of the city's stations.

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White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan

President Obama has faith in Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, the White House spokesman said on Tuesday, after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair.

“The president thinks very highly of General Allen,” the spokesman, Jay Carney, said at a White House news briefing. “He has faith in General Allen,” and believes that he has done “an excellent job” as commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Carney added. General Allen’s recent nomination to become the supreme allied commander in Europe, Mr. Carney said, is delayed at the request of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta pending the investigation’s outcome.

Mr. Panetta and other officials disclosed overnight the investigation into General Allen’s e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s lover, as a rival for his attentions.

Mr. Petraeus’s affair led to his resignation as head of the C.I.A. on Friday, and the F.B.I.’s investigations into e-mails in the matter apparently led in turn to General Allen’s correspondence.

In a statement released to reporters on his plane en route to Australia early Tuesday, Mr. Panetta said the F.B.I. on Sunday had referred “a matter involving” General Allen to the Pentagon.

Mr. Panetta turned the matter over to the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct an investigation into what a defense official said were thousands of pages of documents, many of them e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said on Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her e-mails as a routine step.

“When you get involved in a cybercase like this, you have to look at everything,” the official said, suggesting that Ms. Kelley may not have considered that possibility when she filed the complaint. “The real question is why someone decided to open this can of worms.”

The official would not describe the content of the e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley or say specifically why F.B.I. officials had decided to pass them on to the Defense Department. “Generally, the nature of the e-mails warranted providing them to D.O.D.,” he said.

Under military law, adultery can be a crime.

The defense official on Mr. Panetta’s plane said that General Allen, who is also married, told Pentagon officials that he had done nothing wrong. Neither he nor Ms. Kelley, who is also married with children, could be reached for comment early Tuesday. Mr. Panetta’s statement praised General Allen for his leadership in Afghanistan and said, “He is entitled to due process in this matter.”

A senior Defense Department official said General Allen had denied having an extramarital affair with Ms. Kelley. But the official said the content of some of the e-mails “was of a flirtatious nature.”

“Some were of an affectionate nature,” the official said, adding that it was unclear whether the flirtatiousness expressed was from General Allen to Ms. Kelley, from Ms. Kelley to General Allen, or mutual.

“That is what makes the e-mails potentially inappropriate,” he said.

The official said that he had not read the e-mails, but had been briefed on the content, and that they did not contain anything inappropriate regarding operations or security.

But there were conflicting assessments of the content of the e-mails. Associates of General Allen said that the e-mails were of an innocuous nature. Some of the e-mails, these associates said, used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way.

Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of the number of documents, since some might be from e-mail chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.

The Pentagon inspector general’s investigation opens up what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military and became director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of the affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Although General Allen will remain the commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Panetta said that he had asked President Obama to delay the general’s nomination to be the commander of American forces in Europe and the supreme allied commander of NATO, two positions he was to move into after what was expected to be easy confirmation by the Senate. Mr. Panetta said in his statement that Mr. Obama agreed with his request.

Scott Shane and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.

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RIM sees BB10 devices in stores soon after launch

WATERLOO, Ontario (Reuters) – Research In Motion is confident its new BlackBerry 10 devices will be 100 percent ready for the January 30 launch and available in stores “not too long after” that, Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear said on Tuesday.

“We’re working hard right now to make sure all the bits and pieces and all the details are in place for the date, when the devices will be available for consumers and enterprises,” Tear told Reuters in an interview.

RIM, which virtually invented the concept of mobile email with its first line of BlackBerry devices more than a decade ago, was roundly criticized for the botched 2011 launch of its PlayBook tablet computer, which RIM had hoped would compete with Apple’s blockbuster iPad.

The PlayBook looked pretty and had top-of-the-line hardware. But its software was far from complete at the launch and needed multiple updates.

The device also lacked the library of apps available on the iPad and on devices that run on Google Inc’s competing Android operating system.

RIM says its the new devices will be faster and smoother than its existing phones and have a large catalog of applications that are crucial to the success of any smartphone.

The company hopes the new devices will allow it to claw back some of the market share it has lost to Android and Apple phones.

Tear said RIM has used input from current BlackBerry users to influence the design of the new devices, The new phones both build on the strengths of RIM’s existing operating system and improve on its weak points, he said.

RIM last month began carrier testing on the new devices, with an initial rollout to more than 50 carriers. Tear, who joined RIM a few months ago from Sony Mobile Communications, said RIM was expanding that to a wider group of carriers across the globe.

“We submitted to 50 carriers to begin with, and obviously that number is increasing as we move forward,” he said. “Our ambition is to make this a global launch, everything will not happen at the same time, but it will be a global launch.”

RIM has said it initially plans to roll out a high-end touchscreen version of the device. Phones with the mini QWERTY keyboards that many long-time BlackBerry users adore will come a few weeks later, while lower-end versions of both devices will be launched later in the year.

The company has yet to say exactly when the devices will be available in stores worldwide or how much they will cost.

“We have to agree with carriers as well on what they want to announce when, so it’s not absolutely to our own discretion,” Tear said.

COST CUTTING

RIM, whose share price has fallen more than 90 percent from a 2008 peak around $ 148, is part way through a major restructuring, as it seeks to trim costs in the run-up to the launch of the new devices.

The company, which has also said it is examining its strategic options, is lowering operating costs by about $ 1 billion and cutting about 5,000 jobs, or about 30 percent of its workforce, by the time its fiscal year ends in early March.

“We are on track to deliver on that,” said Tear. “It is an ongoing process, when it comes to efficiencies and costs.”

RIM’s Chief Legal Officer Steve Zipperstein said the company is pushing ahead with its strategic review.

“The process is ongoing and it continues to be a focus on RIM’s senior management, but we have nothing to report at this moment,” said Zipperstein.

RIM shares, which have risen slightly over the last couple of months in the run-up to the launch of BB10 devices, closed 4.7 percent lower at $ 8.40 on Nasdaq. RIM’s Toronto-listed shares fell by a similar margin to C$ 8.40.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Leslie Adler and Tim Dobbyn)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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GIF Named Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year

By Maggie Coughlan

11/13/2012 at 07:10 PM EST

Being a computer geek just got a little sexier.

Oxford Dictionaries announced Monday the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year for 2012 is GIF.

If you're not familiar with the verb, it's defined as "a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations," according to Katherine Martin, Head of the U.S. Dictionaries Program at Oxford University Press USA.

After popping up everywhere from PEOPLE.com to Tumblr, the word had an amazing year.

The tech-savvy term beat out some fierce competition, including Eurogeddon (the potential financial collapse of the Eurozone), Superstorm (an unusually large and destructive storm), YOLO ("you only live once"), Nomophobia (anxiety caused by being without one's mobile phone) and more.

While you're contemplating what buzzword will make the cut next year, ogle these sexy GIFs of Hugh Jackman, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Zac Efron and William Levy!

PEOPLE's choice for the Sexiest Man Alive title will be revealed Nov. 14. Be one of the first to find out.

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Santa Monica applies for funds to measure residents' well-being

Asked to compete in a grant contest, officials in Cincinnati responded with a proposal to reduce infant mortality. In High Point, N.C., they sought to reduce domestic violence.

And in Santa Monica?

The city where the sun shines and the waves beckon decided to establish the nation's first municipal well-being index to measure just how well its residents are doing.

Santa Monica city officials and researchers at Rand Corp. have proposed tracking such measures as residents' physical health, social connectedness and community resilience. They say the resulting index could be a first step toward changing the way city governments serve their residents.

"It's not just some squishy idea," said Julie Rusk, a city staffer leading the project.

The organizers of Bloomberg Philanthropies' first-ever Mayors Challenge agreed. Last week the panel included Santa Monica among 20 finalists distilled from a field of more than 300 entries. Next spring Bloomberg will name one winner and four runners-up. A $5-million first prize and four $1-million runner-up prizes are at stake.

The seaside town is often associated with the progressive vanguard. But the idea of tracking well-being is catching on in other places too. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has launched the Community Disaster Resilience project, which will test resilience strategies across Los Angeles in the coming months. Gallup-Healthways introduced its Well-Being Index in 2008 and now doles out a national score that varies daily based on polling.

Santa Monica has already completed a Youth Wellbeing Report Card as part of its Cradle to Career Initiative, which gathers data from several sources to track youth in the city up to age 24. The study presented an array of findings including that 81% of students were physically healthy, 67% said they felt safe at school and 25% said they experienced "significant periods of extreme sadness" during the last year.

That project gave city officials a jump-start on data collection, said Anita Chandra, a senior policy researcher at Rand who has been assisting the city with its proposal.

Advocates say well-being measures can capture intangible factors important to civic life. For example, the more connected people feel to their community, the more likely they are to bounce back after a natural disaster, Rusk said. And people with better mental health tend to pay less for healthcare.

"No one has looked at well-being in a concerted, integrated way, and until we do, everything is going to be piecemeal and inefficient," Chandra said. "This is the first time something is focused not only on stopping problems, but actually making people productive and thoughtful about their life course."

Santa Monica and San Francisco are the only two California finalists for the Bloomberg grant. San Francisco's proposal is to promote workforce development though volunteer work.

"We are extremely honored to be among the 20 finalists," said Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom, who remained locked in a tight state Assembly race Tuesday. "A broad range of our city priorities are encompassed in this. Now we'll have a tool to track our progress."

matt.stevens@latimes.com

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Ismail Khan, Powerful Afghan, Stokes Concern in Kabul

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Supporters of Ismail Khan gathered outside Herat city on Nov. 1.

HERAT, Afghanistan — One of the most powerful mujahedeen commanders in Afghanistan, Ismail Khan, is calling on his followers to reorganize and defend the country against the Taliban as Western militaries withdraw, in a public demonstration of faltering confidence in the national government and the Western-built Afghan National Army.

Mr. Khan is one of the strongest of a group of warlords who defined the country’s recent history in battling the Soviets, the Taliban and one another, and who then were brought into President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet as a symbol of unity. Now, in announcing that he is remobilizing his forces, Mr. Khan has rankled Afghan officials and stoked fears that other regional and factional leaders will follow suit and rearm, weakening support for the government and increasing the likelihood of civil war.

This month, Mr. Khan rallied thousands of his supporters in the desert outside Herat, the cultured western provincial capital and the center of his power base, urging them to coordinate and reactivate their networks. And he has begun enlisting new recruits and organizing district command structures.

“We are responsible for maintaining security in our country and not letting Afghanistan be destroyed again,” Mr. Khan, the minister of energy and water, said at a news conference over the weekend at his office in Kabul. But after facing criticism, he took care not to frame his action as defying the government: “There are parts of the country where the government forces cannot operate, and in such areas the locals should step forward, take arms and defend the country.”

President Karzai and his aides, however, were not greeting it as an altruistic gesture. The governor of Herat Province called Mr. Khan’s reorganization an illegal challenge to the national security forces. And Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, tersely criticized Mr. Khan.

“The remarks by Ismail Khan do not reflect the policies of the Afghan government,” Mr. Faizi said. “The government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not want any irresponsible armed grouping outside the legitimate security forces structures.”

In Kabul, Mr. Khan’s provocative actions have played out in the news media and brought a fierce reaction from some members of Parliament, who said the warlords were preparing to take advantage of the American troop withdrawal set for 2014.

“People like Ismail Khan smell blood,” Belqis Roshan, a senator from Farah Province, said in an interview. “They think that as soon as foreign forces leave Afghanistan, once again they will get the chance to start a civil war, and achieve their ominous goals of getting rich and terminating their local rivals.”

Indeed, Mr. Khan’s is not the only voice calling for a renewed alliance of the mujahedeen against the Taliban, and some of the others are just as familiar.

Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik commander who is President Karzai’s first vice president, said in a speech in September, “If the Afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, then call upon the mujahedeen.”

Another prominent mujahedeen fighter, Ahmad Zia Massoud, said in an interview at his home in Kabul that people were worried about what was going to happen after 2014, and he was telling his own followers to make preliminary preparations.

“They don’t want to be disgraced again,” Mr. Massoud said. “Everyone tries to have some sort of Plan B. Some people are on the verge of rearming.”

He pointed out that it was significant that the going market price of Kalashnikov assault rifles had risen to about $1,000, driven up by demand from a price of $300 a decade ago. “Every household wants to have an AK-47 at home,” he said.

“The mujahedeen come here to meet me,” Mr. Massoud added. “They tell me they are preparing. They are trying to find weapons. They come from villages, from the north of Afghanistan, even some people from the suburbs of Kabul, and say they are taking responsibility for providing private security in their neighborhood.”

Habib Zahori and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Herat, Afghanistan, and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul.

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John McAfee, Anti-Virus Software Creator, Wanted for Murder

By Johnny Dodd

11/12/2012 at 07:20 PM EST

John McAfee, in early photo

John Storey/Time Life Pictures/Getty

John McAfee, the high-tech pioneer whose anti-virus security software is installed on countless computers around the world, is on the lam from police in Belize who are investigating the murder of his neighbor.

The 67-year-old multimillionaire is a prime suspect in the Nov. 10 killing of Gregory Faull, says Vienne Robinson, assistant superintendent of the Belize's San Pedro police department, who spoke to Fox News.

"We are looking for him in connection with the murder," says Robinson, who adds that another suspect is currently in custody – although no charges have been filed yet.

Faull, who had recently filed a police complaint against McAfee for discharging firearms, was discovered by a housekeeper, according to a police report posted on gizmodo.com.

Faull, a 52-year-old builder from California, was reportedly lying face-up in a pool of blood with a bullet wound in the back of his head. On a nearby stair, police found a single 9-mm shell casing.

McAfee, whose former company was purchased by Intel in 2010 for nearly $7.7 billion, moved to Belize in 2008, intending to launch a company that manufactured herbal antibiotics from jungle plants.

In recent years, however, his strange behavior had alienated him from neighbors and others in the American expat community in the Central American country, according to reports.

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British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

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Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

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Mother charges 'Modern Family' star had unlawful sex in home

Authorities are investigating an allegation by the mother of "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter that her daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend had unlawful sex with the 14-year-old actress, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The L.A. County Sheriff''s Department's Special Victims Unit also is separately examining whether Winter's mother, Chrisoula Workman, physically abused the teenage actress.

So far, detectives have not gathered any specific evidence to substantiate the allegations in either investigation involving Ariel, otherwise  known to millions as Alex Dunphy, the brainy member of "Modern Family's"  Dunphy family.

The investigations began last month after a judge awarded temporary guardianship of Ariel, whose real name is Ariel Workman, to her adult sister, Shanelle Gray, also an actress. Ariel, through her sister's attorney, alleged in a court filing that she was subject to ongoing physical and mental abuse by her mother. 

Three days after Ariel took legal action to split from her mother, Chrisoula Workman reported on Oct. 6 to the sheriff's Crescenta Valley station that her daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend had unlawful sex with the underage actress.

Chrisoula Workman contends she discovered her daughter in the guest bedroom of her Montrose home on Sept. 24 in bed with a young man, believed to be 18, according to sources not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The young man was described as the teenage actress' boyfriend of several months, according to the sources. According to sources, both the teenagers have denied doing anything unlawful.

Detectives also have been unable to substantiate Ariel's abuse allegations, but the investigation remains ongoing.

"It's all untrue, it's all untrue," Chrisoula Workman told People magazine. "I have
my doctor's letter that my daughter's never been abused. ... I have
stylists' letters that she's never been abused."

She added in an interview with E!: "I would never abuse her in any way, and I have always tried my best to
always protect her and do what is right for her. My daughter is in a
business that requires you to grow up fast. It's hard enough being a
teenage girl, but it's even harder when you are in the public eye. 
However, because you are in the public eye, it doesn't mean you are no
longer in need of good parenting."

A judge last month ordered the actress' mother to
stay away from Ariel and have no contact with the minor, pending a Nov.
20 hearing on the guardianship and control of at least $500,000 in
assets.

"Minor Ariel Workman has been a victim of on-going physical abuse
(slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name-calling,
personal insults about minor and minor's weight, attempts to sexualize
minor, deprivation of food etc.) for an extended period of time by the
minor’s mother, Chrisoula Workman. ...," her attorneys said in a petition for guardianship.

As is standard practice in such cases, an attorney is representing
the interests of the young actress. To protect her earnings and existing
assets, lawyers are seeking to move her money to accounts off-limits
to her mother.

-- Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Actress Ariel Winter in September. Credit: Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press

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