Oscar Party Idea: Make Sheila G. Main's Truffles

02/16/2013 at 06:30 PM EST

Andrew Purcell; Inset: Courtesy Sheila G. Main

Oscar night is just around the corner so start prepping your viewing party menu now! Take inspiration from any of the films nominated or replicate what Sheila G. Main, the creator of the Original Brownie Brittle snack, will serve at studio head Harvey Weinstein's Oscar party!

Brownie Truffles

Makes 22 to 24 truffles

• 6 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into quarters
• 3 large eggs
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 cup flour
• 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1–2 tbsp. Grand Marnier
• 1 oz. (2 tbsp.) champagne

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease an 8x8-in. baking pan. In a bowl, melt chocolates and butter in microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Let cool.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt. Stir in the chocolate mixture. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and cocoa powder. Stir it into the chocolate mixture. Do not over mix. Pour batter into pre-pared pan. Bake for 25 minutes. (Brownies will be slightly underbaked.) Let cool.

3. Cut brownies into pieces and mix in food processor, along with Grand Marnier and champagne until creamy. Chill for at least 1 hour. Use an ice cream scoop to make truffles. Roll into balls, then roll in sanding sugar or a coating of your choice.

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

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Soledad re-brands itself as the 'Gateway to the Pinnacles'

SOLEDAD, Calif. — For decades the slogans have sought to entice motorists who pull off Highway 101 in this Salinas Valley farm town — usually for gas or a cup of coffee — to stay and visit a while.

"It's Happening in Soledad," declares a billboard that looms over the asphalt artery.

"Soledad: Feel the Momentum" urge the stone markers planted at the town's highway exits.

Now city officials think they have seized on an idea to provide the economic boost the community desperately needs: "Gateway to the Pinnacles."

"This is our chance," Mayor Fred Ledesma said recently, "and it's never going to pass this way again."

The Pinnacles' volcanic spires and talus caves are located five miles east of here, in the Gabilan Mountains. A release site for endangered California condors and a haven for rock climbers, the landscape also hosts a stunning wildflower season, 400 species of bees and more than a dozen types of bats.

A national monument since 1908, the area last month was elevated to national park status thanks to lobbying by federal, state, county and local officials throughout the region.

The change likely will benefit many communities, because national parks bring tourism. And tourism brings dollars.

Hollister, for example, sits 30 miles north of the park's eastern entrance — and Pinnacle's only campground.

But Soledad, whose only association for many people is the state prison here, perhaps has the most to gain.

At the urging of Ledesma and Adela Gonzalez, Soledad's city manager, the City Council in December hired a San Jose public relations firm to help re-brand the town. They set aside $150,000 for new river rock monuments touting Soledad's gateway status (it sits outside the park's west entrance). And officials snapped up nine Web domain names, among them: gatewaytopinnacles.com, gatewaytopinnaclesnationalpark.com and so on.

"It's been a month since the bill was signed, and we have not stopped jumping up and down," Gonzalez said. "We've been screaming it off the rooftops."

Incorporated in 1921, the town of 17,000 residents (prisoners not included) is named for the 18th century Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. It served as a backdrop for John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." Ledesma readily recites the opening line: "A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green."

While life here has been driven largely by agriculture — Ledesma and Gonzalez both are children of farmworkers — the economic boom of the late 1990s took the town by storm. Housing development soared; Soledad got its first and only shopping center. By the mid-2000s, this was among the fastest growing California communities of its size.

Then everything came to a halt. "Clearly we need a more thriving sales tax base," Gonzalez said.

The "gateway" designation may help provide it.

For example, a dozen well-regarded Monterey County wineries happen to sit within five miles of Soledad. Ledesma said that Carmel's mayor recently told him that the town would point tourists Soledad's way for winery tours and park visits.

Still, Gonzalez said, Soledad's success will turn on the foresight of its entrepreneurs — who could seize the chance to rent out bikes or rock climbing gear to park-goers, launch van tours, improve lodging opportunities or expand dining options.

It won't be easy.

Andrea Nield, director of Cal State Monterey Bay's small business development center, said the farming community is "used to things being the way they've been forever." The center still serves businesses there, but its small Soledad office recently was shuttered for lack of walk-ins.

Most retailers near downtown, a stretch of Front Street that parallels the highway, cater to farmworkers and their families: There are bakeries, discount stores and small Mexican restaurants that offer authentic seafood dishes as well as caldo de res and costillas. Sunday and Monday store closures, Gonzalez said, will need to be a thing of the past for tourism to thrive.

Some merchants are enthusiastic about the opportunity.

Sergio Gastelum, 44, opened El Camaron Mexican Grill with his brother seven months ago. The Mazatlan native, who has been in Soledad 14 years, recently leased an adjoining banquet room that would be perfect for tour groups. If the park designation "brings new people, new tourists, new customers to Soledad," said Gastelum, "it will benefit everyone."

At the official unveiling of the national park sign, held Monday on the east side, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said Pinnacles was now on par with the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone as being among the "iconic places of the United States of America."

"There will be a whole lot more people coming to this area," he told the crowd gathered in winter afternoon light.

Sitting in his office shortly before the event, Ledesma was philosophical, sharing a John F. Kennedy quote he'd come across that morning.

"There are risks and costs to a program of action," he recounted, "but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."

Then he paused. "That's us right now."

lee.romney@latimes.com

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Venezuela Releases First Pictures of Chávez

CARACAS, Venezuela — Amid a heated national debate over the state of the health of President Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan government on Friday released photographs of him for the first time since his cancer surgery in Cuba more than nine weeks ago.

Officials also provided a rare glimpse into the sequestered world of the convalescing leader, saying he has difficulty breathing and speaking but writes notes to aides while making all government decisions. Sometimes, there is music in his hospital room and it is like a party, one official said.

The four photographs released by the government show Mr. Chávez lying in bed and smiling, with two of his daughters, Rosa Virginia and María Gabriela, on either side.

Jorge Arreaza, the minister of science and technology, who is married to María Gabriela, said the pictures were taken Thursday. In three of the them, Mr. Chávez is holding a copy of what Mr. Arreaza said was Thursday’s edition of the Cuban newspaper Granma.

“There he is with his family, always attentive to the people of Venezuela, always attentive and in charge of his functions, working tirelessly,” Mr. Arreaza said.

The Venezuelan information minister, Ernesto Villegas, said that doctors had controlled a severe lung infection, but added that the president was breathing with a “tracheal tube,” making speech difficult.

In the photographs, Mr. Chávez wore what appeared to be a white and blue jacket, which covered his throat. No tube was visible.

Mr. Chávez, 58, has had four cancer operations in Cuba since June 2011. The latest was on Dec. 11. But in contrast to his previous absences from the country, Mr. Chávez has remained out of sight and has not even telephoned a government television program, which he often did before. That has led to widespread speculation about the severity of his illness, especially after he could not return from Cuba in time to be sworn in for the start of his new term on Jan. 10.

Government officials have repeatedly insisted that Mr. Chávez is continuing to run the government from his hospital bed in Havana, but the political opposition has long challenged that assertion, questioning how he could manage the country but be too sick to communicate with the public directly.

As Mr. Chávez’s absence has dragged on, the opposition has consistently demanded that the government provide proof that he is well enough to lead the nation. Some have even questioned whether he was still alive.

On Friday, an opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, posted on Twitter: “A few days ago, the liars said they talked with the Pdt., now they say he can’t talk! They make fun of their own people.”

Mr. Arreaza said later in a television interview that Mr. Chávez “does not have his characteristic voice” and sometimes writes notes when meeting with aides.

“He has difficulty expressing himself verbally,” Mr. Arreaza said. “Nevertheless, he makes himself understood. We are with him. You have to pay attention, and he perfectly communicates his decisions.”

Mr. Arreaza said in Spanish that Mr. Chávez was undergoing “palliative treatments,” which he described as strong and hard. He did not say what those treatments were but did say that Mr. Chávez had undergone the same treatments previously in the course of his illness. He has had both chemotherapy and radiation since his cancer was diagnosed.

In its Spanish definition, the word “palliative” refers especially to treatments used to relieve pain or slow the progress of an incurable disease. Mr. Villegas, the information minister, described Mr. Chávez on Friday as being in “delicate circumstances.”

Mr. Arreaza said that Mr. Chávez was keeping his spirits up. “There are days in which the commander practically has a party there in his room,” he said, “with his music from his beloved plains and with jokes and laughter.”

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Molly Sims: I Nursed a Little Vampire!

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/15/2013 at 01:00 PM ET

Following the birth of her baby boy, Molly Sims was ready to sink her teeth into breastfeeding.

The only problem? Her son Brooks Alan had beaten her to it.

“Early on in the hospital, they really want you to breastfeed, so I’m trying everything,” the model mama, 39, shared during a Wednesday appearance on Anderson Live.

“And I’m like, ‘Gosh, this really, really hurts.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, we know.’”

Determined to find the root of the pain, Sims went searching in her newborn’s mouth — and was shocked at her discovery.

“I’m like, ‘Is there any way a baby could be born with a tooth?’” she recalls. “And they went, ‘Oh sweetie, I know you’re a model, but … babies aren’t born with teeth!’”

She continues: “Come to find out, my baby was born with a tooth!”

Courtesy ANDERSON LIVE

Despite countless attempts to successfully nurse — “I did nipple shields, nipple guards, supplemental nursing system, it was horrible,” the new mom says — Sims eventually decided to call it quits.

“He was literally like a vampire on me for three months — it was unbelievable,” she says with a laugh. “Cut to I’m not breastfeeding and I’m proud of it.”

Now Brooks, 7 months, has moved on to other milestones — including crawling — and is already taking after his dad, Scott Stuber.

“He has the hairline of my husband. It’s like an Eddie Munster kind of hairline. It’s not so attractive, but [he'll] end up growing into it,” Sims says.

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Action on L.A.'s parking ticket problem is overdue

Parking tickets are a big deal in Los Angeles. For years, the city has been jacking up fines, which slams many low-income renters and young people who live in tightly packed neighborhoods where they have to fight over street parking.

Most politicians don't want to talk about it because parking fines are a big part of the city's revenue. Those tickets bring in $150 million a year. When the city runs into money problems — as it always does — it's the easiest thing in the world to raise fines instead of running afoul of unions, developers and political donors.

For the sixth time in seven years, the City Council voted last year to jack up parking fines by $5. The latest hike boosted the penalty for a street sweeping citation to $73.

That's a heavy price to pay, and it's $30 more than what violators pay for the same offense in neighboring cities, such as Torrance and El Segundo. In neighborhoods like Koreatown and Pico Union, which were built before garages and carports were needed, there is nowhere to park for blocks and blocks when the yellow dirt-sucking trucks lumber by.

In this campaign season, it seemed important to get mayoral candidates on the record about parking tickets, specifically about one issue that is even more aggravating than getting a ticket: appealing one.

Out there in the city, there are thousands of people for whom appealing a ticket is akin to trying to get out of Siberia.

Lucky for us, this is something the city can actually do something about. The contract is up for the private company, Xerox State and Local Solutions, now running the Parking Violations Bureau. Department of Transportation staff has recommended a five-year extension for Xerox, which had been operating on five-year contract that cost the city $86 million.

When I asked the mayoral candidates at a forum last week about Xerox's work, their responses were somewhat mushy.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti "will review the DOT contract recommendation when it comes to council," a spokesman said in an email. After which, Garcetti will "clearly take a position by voting yes or no."

City Controller Wendy Greuel, City Councilwoman Jan Perry and Emanuel Pleitez, a former tech exec, took similarly strong positions, saying they will closely review the contract when it comes to them.

Only Kevin James, a former prosecutor, promised to oppose the contract extension, saying, "I would vote against it."

Here's the issue with Xerox in a nutshell: Since Xerox took over, a group of people in the city says the company has been trying to keep more parking revenue by stonewalling attempts to fight tickets.

Jeff Galfer, an actor who lives in Atwater Village, filed a class-action lawsuit in January, claiming Xerox doesn't really consider their cases but just sends form letters stating that their appeals have been rejected. Then, when motorists try to appeal to the Department of Transportation, Xerox slaps them with late payment fees and penalties.

Galfer's case started with a $68 parking ticket in 2011. He paid, but he's mad.

The city's data on tickets seem to back up Galfer's claim that Xerox is rejecting too many appeals. Last year, the city dismissed thousands of tickets after Xerox had rejected the drivers' appeal — vindicating the small percentage of intrepid souls who managed to bring their case to City Hall.

City transportation spokesman Jonathan Hui said the dismissals are evidence that the city gives citizens a fair chance to beat their tickets.

Xerox would not comment on the litigation, but spokesman Chris Gilligan said that the company has been "successfully providing parking services to drivers and communities for 30 years, including our work in L.A."

Galfer, who started an online petition with hundreds of signatures against the parking bureau, finds both the city's and Xerox's statements hilarious. "I haven't talked to one person who got out of a ticket, ever," he said.

City staff has backed renewing Xerox's contract, saying in a report that the company provides "excellent services," although it has had "occasional challenges they had to work through."

The report did not specify what "occasional challenges" it was referring to, but perhaps the staff meant that flap concerning the "Gold Card Desk" awhile back. That was the program that let City Hall insiders and their friends get expedited review of their tickets.

James, who shows no campaign contributions from Xerox on the city website, says the gold card matter was reason alone to drop Xerox.

"As far as I'm concerned [their] willingness to let that happen should end their contract," he said.

Greuel has received $4,750 in political donations from Xerox, its employees or its predecessor company since 2002, according to a Times analysis. Perry took in $2,000 since 2003; Garcetti and Pleitez have nothing from Xerox listed on the site.

Greuel said she has been tough on the company. As city controller, she issued three harsh audits that uncovered, among other problems, $440,000 the city paid for processing tickets that were voided. "I was critical" of the company, she said, adding that political contributions don't "have an influence on me."

Her focus was on the company's failure to squeeze money out of scofflaws, not on how hard it is to appeal a ticket.

Later, Greuel called back and said she had directed her staff to start an audit of the bureau's appeal process. Greuel said she was not comfortable going forward with the contract "without looking at all the concerns."

The problems with the process are just part of a bigger picture in which no one in power seems to want to talk about how expensive our tickets have gotten.

Times are tough. But really, enough is enough.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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Pakistani Political Parties Call for Talks With Taliban

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Representatives from many of Pakistan’s political parties Thursday called on their government to engage in peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, on a day when continuing militant violence in the country’s northwest killed at least 18 people.

The call for a “peace through dialogue” was spearheaded by the Awami National Party, a secular political party that rules the restive northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, where Taliban violence has been most concentrated since 2007. The initiative followed recent overtures from the Pakistani Taliban that suggested it was ready for talks.

The proposal is entirely separate from efforts in Afghanistan, supported by the Western alliance, to draw the Afghan Taliban — a related but separate group — into negotiations.

Following daylong deliberation at a luxury hotel in Islamabad, representatives from 27 political parties issued a joint, one-page statement. But there is widespread skepticism about whether the Pakistani Taliban, which aims to overthrow the state, is really open to negotiations. It is equally unclear whether the powerful military is fully behind the process.

Two opposition political parties, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is led by Imran Khan, and Jamaat-e-Islami, considered the most organized Islamic party, declined to attend the meeting on Thursday.

The meeting came after a decade of domestic conflict that has cost thousands of civilian lives, and that many Pakistanis blame on their government’s difficult alliance with the United States. Political opinion is increasingly wary of using force against insurgents and many instead advocate holding talks.

“Time has come for Pakistani government to withdraw from United States-led war,” said a meeting participant, Maulana Sami ul-Haq, an extremist religious leader, who leads an alliance of far-right political parties and banned militant groups.

At the same time, political parties are under pressure to curry favor with right-wing voters or demonstrate their effectiveness in combating militancy in advance of the coming national election, due to take place by May.

Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Dawn, the country’s leading English daily, said the Awani National Party was being driven by its own electoral needs in the northwest, and predicted that the calls for peace with the Taliban would go nowhere.

“The A.N.P. is pushing a seemingly vague agenda: keep the door to talks open while trying to build consensus for punitive actions,” Mr. Almeida said, “in the likely scenario of the Taliban reverting to type and continuing down their path of violence.”

Despite the tentative signs of reconciliation, militants have not slowed down their attacks.

On Thursday the police in Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa said they had killed six suicide bombers, probably of Uzbek origins, who had assaulted a police station. Elsewhere in the same district, a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a police checkpoint, killing seven people, including four policemen.

In the neighboring Orakzai tribal region, at least eleven people were killed when a roadside bomb targeted a bus carrying members of an anti-Taliban militia. As people gathered for rescue work, another explosion went off, wounding at least 19 people.

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How Ben Affleck & Jennifer Garner Are Making a Hollywood Marriage Work

By Michelle Tauber

02/14/2013 at 07:30 PM EST

Ben Affleck & Jennifer Garner

Ramey

He kept his arm tenderly around her back. She beamed as he told her "I love you" from the stage, and when the show was over, gently reminded him to take his jacket. For Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, the British Academy Film Awards in London on Feb. 10 was another successful date night – and a rare grown-ups' weekend getaway, with their three kids staying home with Garner's sister.

Well, almost: "He's just like a child!" Garner lovingly joked to a friend as she tugged her still-schmoozing husband–who won the night's two biggest honors for his film Argo – toward the exit. Could an Oscar for Best Picture be his next stop? "This is a second act for me," he said in his London acceptance speech. "I am so grateful and proud." As he told PEOPLE recently, "I am very lucky. I have to knock on wood about my life."

Especially about the woman who's a lock for Best Supporting Spouse. After seven years of marriage and three kids–Violet, 7, Seraphina, 4, and Samuel, who turns 1 on Feb. 27–Affleck and Garner, both 40, seem to have struck that rarest of things for a Hollywood couple: balance. It's an old-fashioned arrangement, with Garner handling most of the day-to-day responsibility for keeping the children's schedules humming while Affleck rides his Argo hot streak – including Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe wins, despite a snub for the Oscar directing category.

"I've got a great family; I'm really inspired by where my career is," Affleck says. "I've seen a lot of different things rambling around in this business, and I'm just really, really happy to find myself where I am."

Several sources who know the couple well say that both stars are at ease in their "quite traditional roles," as a Garner friend puts it. Garner dialed back on her own career to commit herself to making the ballet-karate-playdate rounds.

"She blows my mind," says Affleck's Argo costar Clea Duvall. "She's such an amazing mom and such an amazing wife and so supportive of him. It's just . . . they're kind of the ideal." Although Affleck has made his share of school runs during a busy awards season, in many ways he's an old-fashioned dad.

Says a source who knows the couple: "Have you ever seen Mad Men? That's how he approaches [marriage and kids] – providing for your family is your priority, and raising the kids day-to-day is the wife's priority." But when he's not working, he's plenty hands-on, reading to the girls at bookstores and taking them to the farmers' market. "His wife and family are the best things that ever happened to him," says an Affleck pal. "They have always come first and always will."

 

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."

Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.

It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.

Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."

Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.

The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.

Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.

Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.

___

Online:

Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html

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Federal agents arrest 14 in alleged Southland stock scheme

Federal agents arrested 14 people, including a former deputy district attorney, on suspicion of running a stock manipulation scheme from Southern California that cost investors more than $30 million.

Authorities said the scheme involved the heavy promotion of worthless stocks, which the perpetrators later sold for huge profits in a classic "pump-and-dump" scheme. More than 20,000 investors worldwide are believed to have been victims.

Investigators with the FBI and Internal Revenue Service used wiretaps to secretly record thousands of telephone calls and text messages during a three-year investigation, building what U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. said was the most important evidence in the case.

One of the suspects was recorded saying that a company on which shares were traded simply did not exist: "There's nothing in there. There's nothing to the company. It's monkey business," the executive said, according to prosecutors.

"This scheme hurt innocent victims who were looking at the market, seeing high-volume trading and thinking, 'This will be a good investment,'" Birotte said. "What they don't know is it's all a sham."

The investigation is continuing and it's possible that total investor losses could reach $300 million, Birotte said.

The scheme allegedly was led by Sherman Mazur of Westwood, whom Birotte described as "a serial market manipulator." Mazur, 63, was convicted in 1993 of bankruptcy fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to six years in prison, prosecutors said in a motion asking that he be jailed without bail.

Before going to prison, Mazur made a fortune in real estate. He was accused of diverting money from his businesses and failing to pay income tax on it. He still owes more than $12 million in back taxes from the 1990s, prosecutors said.

Mazur faces 30 felony charges and a possible sentence of more than 100 years in prison in the new case.

Also charged in the case were Regis Possino, 65, of Pacific Palisades, a former deputy district attorney who was disbarred in the 1980s after his conviction in a marijuana sales case.

Another defendant is Joey Davis, a Los Feliz resident and head of a public relations firm, who allegedly promoted the stock of a company called frogads.com by writing a press release about actress Pamela Anderson's endorsement of the company.

Anderson, who promoted the stock in an informercial, is not suspected of wrongdoing, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. Anderson's spokeswoman issued a statement that said the actress was misled by officials with the company.

Mazur, Possino and Davis could not immediately be reached for comment.

The scheme involved a slick marketing campaign about the stocks, including misleading press releases, videos and cross-trading among defendants to create the illusion of high demand for the stocks, prosecutors said.

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

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