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World Briefing | Middle East: Iran’s Navy Begins War Games Near the Strait of Hormuz

Label: World

Iran’s naval forces began six days of war games on Friday in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway considered vital to international oil tanker traffic. Accounts in the state-run news media said the war games, covering a 400,000-square-mile area, were devised to test combat ships, submarines, reconnaissance methods and a new version of the Thunder surface-to-air midrange missile. The official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted a commander, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, as saying the exercises were meant to transmit a message of friendship to neighbors and display “the armed forces’ military capabilities.” Iran, which periodically conducts such naval maneuvers, has said it could close the Strait of Hormuz as retaliation for Western sanctions imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear energy program.

Facebook Instagram use dived after photo fiasco: AppData

Label: Technology

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s Instagram lost almost a quarter of its daily users a week after it rolled out and then withdrew policy changes that incensed users who feared the photo-sharing service would use their pictures without compensation.

Instagram, which Facebook bought for $ 715 million this year, saw the number of daily active users who accessed the service via Facebook bottom out at 12.4 million as of Friday, versus a peak of 16.4 million last week, according to data compiled by online tracker AppData.

The popular app, which allows people to add filters and effects to photos and share them over the Internet or smartphones, experienced the drop over the brief, often-volatile holiday period.

Other popular apps also saw slippage in usage, and some were more pronounced. Yelp, for instance, saw daily active users — again via Facebook — slide to a weekly low of half a million on Thursday, from a high of 820,000 one week ago.

Instagram disputed the AppData survey, which was compiled from users that have linked the photo service to their own Facebook accounts, historically between 20 and 30 percent of Instagram members.

“This data is inaccurate. We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement on Friday.

Looking out over a broader timeframe, Instagram’s monthly active users edged up to 43.6 million as of Friday, an increase of 1.7 million over the past seven days, according to AppData.

“We’ll have to monitor the data over the coming weeks to gain perspective on trends in Instagram’s performance,” AppData marketing manager Ashley Taylor Anderson said in an email.

ATTENTION-SEEKING

The sharp slide in activity highlighted by AppData was bound to draw attention on the heels of the controversial revision to Instagram’s terms of service that, among other things, allowed an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation.

The subsequent public outrage prompted an apology from Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. Last week, a California Instagram user sued the company for breach of contract and other claims, in what may have been the first civil lawsuit to stem from the controversial change.

Instagram subsequently reverted to some of its original language.

The move renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.

Analysts say Facebook, the world’s largest social network, was laying the groundwork to begin generating advertising revenue, by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information, such as who users follow in advertisements.

Its shares closed down 13 cents or 0.5 percent at $ 25.91 on the Nasdaq, in line with the broader market.

(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Editing by Leslie Adler and Andrew Hay)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Matthew McConaughey & Wife Camila Welcome Baby No. 3

Label: Lifestyle

By Elizabeth Leonard

12/28/2012 at 06:10 PM EST

Camila and Matthew McConaughey

Gary Miller/FilmMagic

It's a very merry holiday week for Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila.

The couple welcomed their third child together in Austin, Texas, on Friday, sources confirm to PEOPLE.

The pair, who are also parents to Vida, who turns 3 next month, and Levi, 4, announced the pregnancy just one month after their June nuptials in Texas.

Camila, 29, joked that even as she put on pregnancy pounds, her actor husband, 43, was losing weight – dramatically – for The Dallas Buyers Club, in which he plays the real-life Ron Woodruff, who contracted HIV.

"We have gone the complete opposite direction eating wise, but we're navigating it," she said last summer. "But I don't really have cravings yet."

McConaughey's latest movie, Mud, will be released April. 26,

Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

Label: Health

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

'Terminator' actor arrested for lewd conduct at adult movie store

Label: Business

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Iran’s Only Female Cabinet Minister Fired

Label: World

Iran’s president on Thursday dismissed his health minister, the only woman to serve in the cabinet since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, after she publicly criticized the government’s response to acute shortages of medicine imports, an indirect consequence of the Western sanctions imposed on the country.

Accounts in the state-run news media of the dismissal of the minister, Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, did not provide an explanation for it. Iran’s Press TV Web site said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had appointed a caretaker health minister, Mohammad Hassan Tariqat-Monfared, and had told him in a presidential decree that the reduction of people’s health care expenses was among “the main priorities of this important ministry.”

Dr. Vahid-Dastjerdi, a gynecologist, was appointed in 2009 and is considered an advocate of women’s rights in Iranian society. She spoke out last month, apparently angering the president, by saying that an allocation in the budget of foreign currency needed to purchase medicines abroad was inadequate.

“I have heard that luxury cars have been imported with subsidized dollars, but I don’t know what happened to the dollars that were supposed to be allocated for importing medicine,” Dr. Vahid-Dastjerdi said on state television, according to a translation of her remarks reported by Reuters.

Absent such an allocation, she said, it was necessary to impose a large increase in the price of medicines, which would add to the inflationary pressures already afflicting the economy because of a plunge in value this year of the Iranian currency, the rial. Mr. Ahmadinejad opposed the price increase.

Many economists have attributed the rial’s depreciation to Iran’s increased isolation, a consequence of the penalties imposed by the United States and European Union to pressure Iran to stop enriching uranium for its disputed nuclear energy program. Some of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s critics in Iran have also blamed what they call his economic mismanagement for the currency problems.

The medicine shortage in Iran has become an urgent problem because many Western-made drugs are increasingly hard to obtain. Under the sanctions, a broad Western ban on many financial transactions with Iran has dissuaded many foreign companies from doing business with the country, even though medicines are among items exempted from the sanctions.

Recently, the president of the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences, Seyed Alireza Marandi, bitterly complained about the medical impact of the sanctions in a letter to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general. Dr. Marandi called the sanctions brutal measures that had increased mortality rates “as a result of the unavailability of essential drugs and shortages of medical supplies and equipment,” according to a report by the Fars News Agency.

Suri Cruise Celebrates the Holidays with Katie Holmes - and Tom Cruise

Label: Lifestyle

By Marla Lehner

12/27/2012 at 07:05 PM EST

Tom and Suri Cruise

Dave M. Benett/WireImage; Javier Mateo/Startraks

Suri Cruise celebrated her first holiday season since her parents' divorce, first with mom, then with dad.

"Suri spent Christmas day with her mother and her family in Ohio," says a source close to Katie Holmes. "It was a wonderful day."

The tot is now with her father, Tom Cruise, and his two older kids, another source tells PEOPLE.

Cruise, 50, mentioned earlier this month that he was looking forward to having a family holiday.

"We have got lots of very special things planned," he said at the London premiere of his film Jack Reacher, adding that he would be with his kids Bella, 20, Connor, 17, and Suri, 6. "We are all going to be together."

Now, the gang is indeed together, the second source confirms.

The source did not reveal where the family is, but Cruise's private jet was spotted in Telluride, Colo., on Wednesday.

This marks Suri's first holiday since her parents split in June. She lives primarily with Holmes in New York, but Cruise has visitation with her.

Just last month, Cruise reunited with Suri for the Thanksgiving holiday.

• Reporting by MARY GREEN

Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

Label: Health

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

Numerous women sexually assaulted by taxi driver, police say

Label: Business

123046shenoudabooking Manhattan Beach Police released the photo of a taxi driver suspected of sexually assaulting multiple women in the South Bay region.

Torrance resident Sameh Shenouda, 38, was arrested in November on charges of sexually assaulting a woman in August, according to Manhattan Beach Det. Michael Rosenberger.

“The victim did not initially report the crime until she saw a news report of a similar offense occurring in Redondo Beach,” Rosenberger said.

News of Shenouda’s arrest prompted other women to come forward with information.

Rosenberger said Shenouda would offer rides to women who were walking in the evening. He would open the front passenger door so they would sit up front with him, making it easier to assault them, he said.

The United Taxi, Shenouda’s employer, has been “very cooperative with investigators,” Rosenberger said.

Manhattan Beach police are asking that if anyone has been assaulted or touched inappropriately by a taxi driver in the South Bay in the last year to contact detectives at (310) 802-5127.

ALSO:

Submit your photos

Quiz: Test your photography knowledge

Southern California Moments: Best of November

-- Dalina Castellanos

Photo: Sameh Shenouda. Credit: Manhattan Beach Police Department.

World Briefing | Africa: South Africa: Mandela Is Released From the Hospital

Label: World

Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s former president, was released from the hospital late Wednesday, ending a 19-day hospital stay. Mr. Mandela, 94, has been in frail condition for several years. He retired from public life in 2004 and was last seen publicly in 2010, though he receives frequent visits from old friends. He was hospitalized on Dec. 8 and treated for a lung infection; he also had surgery to remove gallstones, government officials said. Mac Maharaj, a spokesman for South Africa’s current president, Jacob Zuma, said that Mr. Mandela would be staying at home in a suburb of Johannesburg and receiving high-level care there. Mr. Mandela was elected in South Africa’s first fully democratic elections in 1994.

Mint, otro Linux para quienes quieren explorar el mundo fuera de Windows

Label: Technology

Una de las grandes virtudes de Linux (un sistema operativo libre para PC y otros dispositivos) es la cantidad innumerable de versiones disponibles. Estas distribuciones, además, son en su enorme mayoría de uso gratis, y representan una buena alternativa para los que no desean invertir en una licencia de Windows o quieren explorar -sin gastar- alternativas para la computadora hogareña.

Hemos recomendado en varias ocasiones opciones sencillas de usar e instalar que tienen herramientas iguales o muy similares a las que pueden encontrarse en Windows, destacando la ductilidad de las distribuciones disponibles y cómo hacer para probarlas sin complicarse demasiado , usando un CD regrabable o un pendrive, para no afectar el Windows instalado en la computadora.

En los últimos años fue Ubuntu el que más hizo para facilitarle el trabajo a los neófitos que venían de Windows, automatizando y simplificando procesos de instalación, creando un sitio amigable, sumando instrucciones de instalación y uso en lenguaje no técnico e incluso haciendo acuerdo para preinstalarlo en equipos de marca , pero la elección de la interfaz de usuario Unity (algo rígida) le hizo perder adeptos.

Una de las alternativas que venía creciendo en popularidad era Linux Mint (gratis), y los últimos números de DistroWatch , un sitio que lista las diferentes distribuciones y su popularidad, lo dan como el rey de 2012. Mint usa a Ubuntu como base, por lo que aprovecha algunas de sus herramientas (como la que permite instalarlo dentro de Windows para poder usarlo sin afectar la instalación original) y viene con una gran cantidad de componentes multimedia preinstalados, para facilitar la reproducción de audio y video, entre otras cosas (las distribuciones más “puras” suelen evitar esto para promover el uso de estándares libres de audio y video).

Hace poco más de un mes Linux Mint liberó su versión más reciente, Nadia 14, que incluye dos entornos de escritorio que resultarán muy agradables para quienes no se sienten cómodos con Unity, porque mantienen el esquema tradicional de Windows y Gnome 2.x: una barra de herramientas en la parte inferior de la pantalla, ventanas con los botones de control a la derecha, etcétera.

Linux Mint 14 tiene dos versiones: MATE (basado en Gnome 2.x, y cuyo nombre está inspirado en la yerba mate) y Cinnamon (canela, en inglés) de aspecto similar pero con algunos detalles visuales más atractivos: menús de notificaciones más sofisticados, escritorios virtuales persistentes, miniaturas en el administrador de ventanas y más.

cómo instalarlo

Cualquiera de ellas se puede meter en un pendrive o disco externo y correr desde allí o, si se quiere, instalarlas en la PC, junto con Windows (es compatible con Windows 8) o en una partición nueva. Alcanza con descargar el archivo ISO de instalación (hay uno para MATE y otro para Cinnamon). Ese archivo (900 MB, aproximadamente) se puede grabar en un DVD con una aplicación para quemar imágenes de disco: en Windows está el freeware CDBurnerXP , por ejemplo. Con el disco en la lectora, al encender al PC debería cargar primero Mint antes que Windows (si no, habrá que cambiar una configuración en el BIOS). Podremos usarlo como si estuviera instalado en la PC y luego, si queremos, instalarlo en el disco rígido de nuestra computadora, cuidando de hacerlo en una partición vacía o dentro de Windows.

Otra opción es instalarlo en una memoria USB (de 2 GB o más de capacidad). Para eso hay que usar la aplicación Image Writer (gratis, hay que cliquear donde dice win32diskimager-binary.zip para descargar el archivo). Luego habrá que cambiar la extensión del archivo de .ISO a .IMG para que Image Writer reconozca el archivo y pueda copiarlo en el pendrive (atención que borrará todo lo que está allí).

Si al prender la PC con el pendrive conectado no lo reconoce, habrá que cambiar el orden de carga de sistemas operativos, una opción que suele aparecer apenas se prende la PC (y que no estará disponible si la computadora es muy vieja) para ordenarle que cargue primero el contenido de la memoria USB.

Para quienes estén pensando en probar una distribución de Linux y buscan reducir el “choque cultural” con una interfaz de usuario que sea parecida -pero no idéntica- a la del Windows tradicional, y que además sea sencillo de usar, tienen en Linux Mint 14 Nadia una opción muy atractiva.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Channing Tatum Cradles Wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum's Baby Bump

Label: Lifestyle

By Marla Lehner

12/26/2012 at 06:40 PM EST

Channing Tatum is already being sweet with his baby.

PEOPLE's Sexiest Man Alive, who announced earlier this month that he and his wife are expecting their first child, posted an adorable picture of himself cradling Jenna Dewan-Tatum's growing baby bump on Christmas Day.

"Merry Christmas," the Magic Mike hunk wrote on his WhoSay page where he shared the photo of the couple, both 32, smiling and dressed in matching baseball caps.

On Christmas Eve, Dewan-Tatum Tweeted a holiday message to her followers, saying, "Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you all!! Hope you are having fun with loved ones! Xox."

Discussing starting a family, "I'm ready; I think she’s ready," Tatum told PEOPLE recently. "The first number that pops into my head is three, but I just want one to be healthy and then we'll see where we go after that."

Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

Label: Health

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.

Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.

But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.

Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.

Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)

Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.

Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.

"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."

In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:

—Previous violent or aggressive behavior

—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse

—Guns in the home

—Use of drugs or alcohol

—Brain damage from a head injury

Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.

Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.

Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.

According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.

Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.

Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.

And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.

All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.

Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.

Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.

Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.

___

Online:

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org

___

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

Girlfriend denies helping actor kill college students

Label: Business

A woman accused of helping her former fiance cover up two gruesome murders pleaded not guilty Wednesday to three felonies she faces in connection with the crime.

Prosecutors say aspiring actress Rachel Buffett, 25, lied to police and repeated a fabricated account that Daniel Wozniak, 28, initially told detectives.

Wozniak is charged in the 2010 murders of Orange Coast College students Samuel Herr, 26, and Julie Kibuishi, 23.

At the time of the killings, Wozniak and Buffett were starring in a community theater production of the musical "Nine."

Prosecutors allege that on May 21, 2010, Wozniak lured Herr, his neighbor, to a theater facility at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base, then shot him twice in the head before stealing his ATM, wallet and cellphone.

Later that evening, Wozniak allegedly used Herr's cellphone to send a text message to Kibuishi, a friend of Herr's, to lure her to his apartment.

Authorities believe Wozniak shot Kibuishi twice in the head, and then removed some of her clothing to make it look like she was sexually assaulted.

Prosecutors say Wozniak later returned to the theater, where he allegedly cut off Herr's head, left arm and right hand before dispersing the body parts at a theater and in a local park.

Wozniak was arrested on May 26, 2010, at his bachelor party in Huntington Beach, after police traced money taken from Herr's account to him.

Prosecutors say that Wozniak wanted to steal Herr's savings account to pay for his wedding to Buffett and their honeymoon.

Wozniak has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of special-circumstances murder and is still awaiting trial. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

Buffett was arrested Nov. 20 on suspicion of being an accessory to murder after the fact.

She faces three felony counts of accessory after the fact and is currently free on $1 million bail. Buffett could get a maximum of four years in state prison if convicted.

ALSO:

Horse rescued from hayloft after wandering upstairs

Planned avalanche turns deadly, killing ski patrol veteran

Volunteers can still help with Glendale Rose Parade float

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Video: At a news conference in Long Beach earlier this month, Rachel Buffett discusses the charges she's facing. Credit: Ruben Vives / Los Angeles Times

Anatoly Shesteryuk, Former Russian Official, Arrested

Label: World

MOSCOW — The police said Tuesday that they had arrested a former official of a federal agency that manages state enterprises on charges of stealing $330 million in property, a theft noteworthy even by the standards of Russian public corruption.

The official, whom the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper identified as Anatoly Shesteryuk, worked for the Federal Property Management Agency and was in charge of companies in Moscow owned by the federal government.

Most of Russia’s profitable public companies were privatized in the immediate post-Soviet period, creating a capitalist economy and overnight billionaires. The state companies that were not privatized were of dubious commercial value; many limped into the new century barely profitable.

These companies were the focus of the corruption investigation that ensnared Mr. Shesteryuk and at least two other co-conspirators, said the Main Economic Crime Directorate of the Interior Ministry, which divulged details of the case in statements published by several Russian newspapers.

To pull off the plot, the investigators said, Mr. Shesteryuk and the other suspects, who were directors of private companies, worked from a database of failing government enterprises — the worse off, the better.

Mr. Shesteryuk, the investigators said, would arrange for the managers of these failing companies, like gas stations and other businesses with substantial real estate holdings, to take out loans using their land as collateral, and drawn from a financial company that was also part of the plot. When, predictably, the struggling enterprise was unable to repay the loan, the land was seized in bankruptcy court, and the conspirators — who included the managers of the failing companies — would divide the proceeds.

The plot led to the theft of more than 100 parcels of state property worth more than 10 billion rubles, or about $330 million, the Komsomolskaya Pravda article quoted an unnamed investigator as saying.

The investigators said they were looking into whether the judges in the Treteysk court, where the bankruptcies were processed, were complicit in approving the title changes.

The plot, though eyebrow-raising for being so lucrative, was not unprecedented for corruption cases here.

Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer representing a hedge fund, uncovered what he said was a plot against the Russian government in which taxes paid by at least two investment firms were stolen. Some estimates put the amount involved at more than a half-billion dollars.

Mr. Magnitsky, who was arrested in November 2008 as he tried to expose the fraud and died in prison, said about $230 million in taxes paid by his employer, the Hermitage Capital hedge fund, had been stolen. Collusive lawsuits in Russia’s flawed court system were also a factor in that case.

In 2010, a leaked audit suggested that as much as $4 billion had gone missing in a contracting fraud involving a pipeline project to connect Siberian oil fields with a refinery in China.

In neither case were any senior figures prosecuted.

But arrests have been made in more recent corruption cases. Since Vladimir V. Putin was elected to a third term as president last spring, the police have made half a dozen high-profile arrests for corruption. In November, Mr. Putin ousted his minister of defense in a corruption scandal, and the police have arrested housing officials in St. Petersburg and state telephone company executives in Moscow.

Selective prosecution of corruption cases, Kremlinologists say, serves to purge the elite of figures who have fallen from favor or whose loyalty has been called into question.

Removing the most visible signs of corruption and making high-profile arrests are also seen as a way to mollify the anger of Russians — who must pay bribes in many ordinary situations, as when they visit an emergency room — lest they embrace the opposition.

Also on Tuesday, Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev fired a deputy minister of regional development who is also director of the federal agency for housing maintenance and utilities, the Interfax news service reported, without providing an explanation for the dismissal.

And far to the east, in the Siberian city of Yakutsk, the police accused a regional official in the same housing agency of taking a $9,000 bribe from a contractor.

Tajikistan blocks scores of websites as election looms

Label: Technology

DUSHANBE (Reuters) – Tajikistan blocked access to more than 100 websites on Tuesday, in what a government source said was a dress rehearsal for a crackdown on online dissent before next year’s election when President Imomali Rakhmon will again run for office.

Rakhmon, a 60-year-old former head of a Soviet cotton farm, has ruled the impoverished Central Asian nation of 7.5 million for 20 years. He has overseen constitutional amendments that allow him to seek a new seven-year term in November 2013.

The Internet remains the main platform where Tajiks can air grievances and criticize government policies at a time when the circulation of local newspapers is tiny and television is tightly controlled by the state.

Tajikistan’s state communications service blocked 131 local and foreign Internet sites “for technical and maintenance works”.

“Most probably, these works will be over in a week,” Tatyana Kholmurodova, deputy head of the service, told Reuters. She declined to give the reason for the work, which cover even some sites with servers located abroad.

The blocked resources included Russia‘s popular social networking sites www.my.mail.ru and VKontakte (www.vk.com), as well as Tajik news site TJKnews.com and several local blogs.

“The government has ordered the communications service to test their ability to block dozens of sites at once, should such a need arise,” a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“It is all about November 2013,” he said, in a clear reference to the presidential election.

Other blocked websites included a Ukrainian soccer site, a Tajik rap music site, several local video-sharing sites and a pornography site.

VOLATILE NATION

Predominantly Muslim Tajikistan, which lies on a major transit route for Afghan drugs to Europe and Russia, remains volatile after a 1992-97 civil war in which Rakhmon’s Moscow-backed secular government clashed with Islamist guerrillas.

Rakhmon justifies his authoritarian methods by saying he wants to oppose radical Islam. But some of his critics argue repression and poverty push many young Tajiks to embrace it.

Tighter Internet controls echo measures taken by other former Soviet republics of Central Asia, where authoritarian rulers are wary of the role social media played in revolutions in the Arab world and mass protests in Russia.

The government this year set up a volunteer-run body to monitor Internet use and reprimand those who openly criticize Rakhmon and other officials.

In November, Tajikistan blocked access to Facebook, saying it was spreading “mud and slander” about its veteran leader.

The authorities unblocked Facebook after concern was expressed by the United States and European Union, the main providers of humanitarian aid for Tajikistan, where almost a half of the population lives in abject poverty.

Asomiddin Asoyev, head of Tajikistan’s association of Internet providers, said authorities were trying to create an illusion that there were no problems in Tajik society by silencing online criticism.

“This is self-deception,” he told Reuters. “The best way of resolving a problem is its open discussion with civil society.”

Moscow-based Central Asia expert Arkady Dubnov told Reuters that Rakhmon’s authoritarian measures could lead to a backlash against the president in the election. “Trying to position itself as the main guarantor of stability through repression against Islamist activists, the Dushanbe government is actually achieving the reverse – people’s trust in it is falling,” he said.

(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Boy Scout files on suspected abuse published by The Times

Label: Business

The Times on Tuesday released about 1,200 previously unpublished files kept by the Boy Scouts of America on volunteers and employees expelled for suspected sexual abuse.

The files, which have been redacted of victims' names and other identifying information, were opened from 1985 through 1991. They can be found in a database along with two decades of files released by order of the Oregon Supreme Court in October. The database also contains summary information on about 3,200 additional files opened from 1947 to 2005 that have not been released publicly.

Together, the material in the database represents the most complete accounting of suspected sexual abuse in the Scouts that has been made public. All of the material was obtained as a result of lawsuits against the Scouts by alleged abuse victims or by media organizations. The Boy Scouts kept the files for nearly a century for internal use only, to keep suspected abusers from rejoining.

DATABASE: Tracking decades of allegations

About as many files were opened in the six years before 1991 as in the previous two decades. At least in part, that reflects greater reporting of accusations, as awareness of child sexual abuse rose in the Scouts and society at large. About that time, the Scouts launched a concerted effort to train youths and adults on how to identify and prevent sexual abuse.

The files do not represent a complete accounting of alleged abuse in Scouting. Experts say many cases probably were not reported to the national office, and the Scouts say the organization destroyed an unknown number of files over the years.

The latest dossiers — used as evidence in a 1992 court case — are among those reviewed by The Times for a series of stories over the last year, http://www.latimes.com/boyscouts/ which detailed the Scouts' repeated efforts to keep allegations from police, parents and the public and its resistance to performing criminal background checks on all volunteers. The BSA's inaction or delayed response to allegations at times allowed alleged molesters to continue sexually abusing children. Alleged abusers consistently violated a policy, instituted in 1987, prohibiting adults from being alone with Scouts.

DOCUMENTS: A paper trail of abuse

The alleged abusers — including doctors, teachers, priests and other professionals — commonly preyed on children without father figures or gained the trust of both parents.

The Boy Scouts of America says it has improved its youth protection policies over time and now is regarded by many experts as a national leader in the field. It has conducted criminal background checks on all volunteers since 2008 and since 2010 has mandated any suspicion of abuse be reported to police.

Among the accusations in the newly posted files:

• Samuel J. Becker of Canoga Park was a Scout committee chairman for four years before the Scouts became aware in 1991 that he had "quite a record in regards to child molestation and had served a prison term" and was on probation for exposing himself.

• Leader Gary L. Findlay of Carol Stream, Ill., was accused of abusing a 15-year-old in 1986, convicted of sexual abuse and expelled from the Scouts. After the arrest, another area scoutmaster wrote to scout executives, saying, "This situation could have been avoided." He had reported suspicions of abuse to a superior but said he had been ignored. The Scout leader wrote, "I am angry and frustrated by the ineptness of this scouting executive."

• Beatrice T. Oubre, a transportation volunteer from Morgan City, La., was accused of molesting a 16-year-old Scout in 1988. The Scouts asked Oubre to resign, but there is no indication she was reported to police.

FULL COVERAGE: Inside the 'perversion' files

Becker, Findlay and Oubre could not be reached for comment.

Most files opened after 1991 have not been made public, although their release is being sought in various court cases. The brief case summaries posted by The Times, covering 1947 to 2005, were obtained from a Washington attorney whose office prepared them mostly from documents sealed by a court.

jessica.naziri@latimes.com

nell.gram@latimes.com

Naziri and Gram are researchers for The Times.

Times staff researcher Maloy Moore and staff writer Jason Felch contributed to this report.

As Envoy Meets Syria’s Assad, Russia Signals New Pessimism

Label: World

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lakhdar Brahimi, the special envoy seeking an end to the Syria crisis, held an urgent meeting with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Monday as new signs emerged that Russia, Mr. Assad’s most important foreign backer, was moving forward with plans to evacuate Russian diplomats and other expatriates.

Sana/European Pressphoto Agency

Syria's Arab News Agency, SANA, provided a photograph of President Bashar al-Assad meeting with the international envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi on Monday.

The New York Times

A Syrian warplane was reported to have conducted airstrikes that killed dozens of people in Hilfaya, according to antigovernment activists in the area.

Mr. Brahimi, the Algerian statesman who has been the special Syria representative for the United Nations and Arab League for three months, did not specify the substance or tone of his discussion with Mr. Assad, describing it only in general terms in brief remarks afterward.

“The president expressed his view regarding the current situation, and I briefed him on the meetings I had in several capitals with officials from different countries inside and outside the region,” Mr. Brahimi told reporters, according to an account posted on the United Nations’ Web site. “I also told him about the steps that, in my view, need to be taken to help the Syrian people find a way out of this crisis.”

But one member of Syria’s political opposition who said he had spoken with Mr. Brahimi’s aides said the envoy had intended to advocate a plan for a negotiated solution first proposed in June. The opposition member, Mohamed Sarmini, said the proposal would temporarily leave Mr. Assad in power, but curb his authority — an arrangement that some members of the opposition had previously rejected as inadequate.

Another prominent opposition member, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks, said he understood that Mr. Brahimi had been intending to deliver a “final proposal” to Mr. Assad to leave with members of his intelligence and security services.

Mr. Brahimi was scheduled to meet with opposition members in Damascus on Tuesday, according to Hassan Abdel Azim, a longtime domestic dissident who took a favorable view of the envoy’s visit.

“We are going to listen first to his proposals,” he said. “We support the Brahimi initiative, and we don’t say it has failed at all.”

The envoy arrived on Sunday as new violence gripped the country, particularly in west-central Syria, where rebel groups are trying to capture territory around the strategic city of Hama. Dozens of people were killed Sunday when a Syrian warplane dropped bombs on a bakery on the town of Halfaya, killing at least 58 people — all but three of them men — according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an antigovernment group based in London that maintains a network of contacts inside Syria.

In the signs of the growing perils facing civilians in Hama Province, a jihadist rebel brigade, the Nusra Front, along with other rebel groups, stormed parts of Maan village, where many of the residents belong to the minority Alawite sect, according to the Syrian Observatory. In recent days, some rebel groups have threatened to retaliate against Christian and Alawite villages where government forces have taken up positions.

Top Russian diplomats said that Mr. Brahimi, perhaps trying to broker a deal that would help ease out Mr. Assad, may visit Russia as soon as this week. Russian officials have sought to distance themselves from Mr. Assad in recent weeks as the nearly two-year conflict in Syria has worsened, although they still strongly oppose military intervention in favor of a negotiated transition. Some Russian expatriates working in Syria were abducted this month.

Russian security officials were quoted in Monday’s edition of Kommersant, a Russian daily newspaper, as saying that diplomats in Damascus would be evacuated with the help of special forces, if necessary. The authorities are also prepared to dispatch 100 officers from a special armed unit of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, called “Screen,” which was last used to evacuate Russian diplomats from Baghdad in 2003. The newspaper quoted an intelligence source saying the officers were “ready for a transfer to Damascus, however, the order from above has not been given.”

Ruslan R. Aliyev, an analyst with the Center for the Analysis of Strategy and Technologies, a defense research group based in Moscow, said renewed discussion of evacuations by Russia’s Foreign Ministry reflected what he described as Moscow’s deeply pessimistic prognosis for the region..

Reporting was contributed by Ellen Barry from Moscow, Hwaida Saad from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Kareem Fahim reported from Beirut, and Hala Droubi from Jidda, Saudi Arabia. Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow, Hwaida Saad from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Jack Klugman, Odd Couple and Quincy, M.E. Star, Dies

Label: Lifestyle

By Stephen M. Silverman

12/24/2012 at 07:35 PM EST

Jack Klugman, The Odd Couple and Quincy, M.E. star beloved by TV, movie and theater audiences for five decades, died suddenly in Los Angeles on Monday, one of his sons told the Associated Press. He was 90.

"He had a great life and he enjoyed every moment of it and he would encourage others to do the same," son Adam Klugman said of his father, who had lost his voice to throat cancer in 1980 and then taught himself to speak again through breath control.

With Tony Randall on ABC's adaptation of the smash Neil Simon play and movie of the '60s, Klugman played sloppy Oscar Madison from 1970 to 1975 to Randall's Felix Unger, and though they really were an odd couple, offscreen they were adoring friends. Randall died in 2004.

Born in Philadelphia, Klugman started acting in college, and his film credits included the all-star courtroom drama 12 Angry Men. On Broadway he starred as the love interest Herbie in the original production of the quintessential backstage musical, Gypsy, with the legendary Ethel Merman.

Klugman's wife, actress-comedian Brett Somers, costarred on The Odd Couple as his ex-wife Blanche. According to the AP, they married in 1953 and had two sons, Adam and David, and had been estranged for years at the time of her death in 2007.

Besides their sons, Klugman is survived Peggy Crosby, whom he married in February 2008.