Veteran L.A. County sheriff's deputy charged with murder

After spending much of his life putting people behind bars, a veteran L.A. County sheriff's deputy stood in handcuffs Thursday, charged with gunning down a former neighbor who apparently got into a fight with his son.

Francisco Gamez, 41, is accused of shooting Armando "Cookie" Casillas, a well-known figure in his blue-collar neighborhood in Sylmar.

Gamez was off duty, sitting in his car, when he allegedly fired two shots on the night of June 17, killing Casillas and narrowly missing a second man, prosecutors said.

Gamez, a 17-year veteran who worked as a detective in West Hollywood, was allegedly furious over a fight between his 20-year-old son and Casillas, 38, prosecutors said. The younger Gamez had called his father to the scene, authorities said.

Casillas was later found by relatives lying near his home, and died later at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center.

Gamez was removed from duty in July after witnesses and evidence tied the detective to the slaying, authorities said. He was arrested Wednesday and led handcuffed from his San Fernando home by his former co-workers.

On Thursday he was formally charged with murder, attempted murder and discharging a firearm from an occupied vehicle. Gamez could face 75 years to life in prison if convicted of all charges.

In court, where he stood handcuffed in a plexiglass cage, sheriff's deputies peeked into the room to gawk at their former colleague. Sheriff Lee Baca described the whole thing as "deeply disturbing."

Gamez is being held on $4-million bail.

On Beaver Street in Sylmar, where the shooting occurred, Casillas' photo sat in a frame in the midst of a makeshift memorial, along with a cross and a potted plant with U.S. and Mexican flags and candles.

"He was a sweetheart, and very generous," said Patsy Telles-Cabrera, who lived across the street from Casillas for years. "He would check in on my parents." She left a box of chocolates at the growing shrine.

"It never should have happened," said one neighbor. "This is a family neighborhood."

sam.quinones@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Times staff writer Wesley Lowery contributed to this report.

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‘Journey,’ ‘Assassin’s Creed III’ among Spike Video Game Awards nominees

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The artsy downloadable game “Journey” leads the pack of nominees for this year’s Spike Video Game Awards.

The PlayStation 3 game received seven nods in such categories as best graphics, independent game, original score and game of the year.

Other game of the year nominees are “Assassin’s Creed III,” ”Dishonoured,” ”Mass Effect 3″ and “The Walking Dead: The Game.”

The nominees in the best shooter category are “Borderlands 2,” ”Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” ”Halo 4″ and “Max Payne 3.”

The 10th annual ceremony on Dec. 7 will be hosted by Samuel L. Jackson and broadcast live on Spike.

The show will feature debut footage from such upcoming games as “The Last of Us” and “Gears of War: Judgment,” as well as musical performances by Linkin Park and Tenacious D.

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Why David Geffen is getting the “American Masters” treatment

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – David Geffen is not a singer. Nor is he a movie star. Nor is he a writer.

Thus he would seem an odd subject for “American Masters,” a series devoted to artists ranging from Willa Cather to Woody Allen.

Yet series creator Susan Lacy claims that the mogul has had a profound impact on American popular culture that equals any of those figures. She pleads her case in “Inventing David Geffen,” which will be broadcast November 20 on PBS. The documentary had its premiere in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

“He seems like a bit of an odd choice,” Lacy admitted to TheWrap. “But I have a degree in American Studies and I learned that the people with the most influence are often the ones behind the scenes.”

In Geffen, Lacy saw a figure like Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer whose lasting legacy was a series of modernist shows he held at his New York galleries that influenced visual arts in this country and brought cubism to the masses.

Some arm twisting must have been required to get the press-averse Geffen to emerge from semi-retirement to reflect on his career in movies, music and Broadway. Lacy said that part of the reason she was able to convince him to participate is that he was a fan of the series and had participated in her documentaries on figures such as Joni Mitchell.

“It wasn’t hard,” she said. “I knew from other people that he thinks my Leonard Bernstein documentary is one of the best documentaries anyone ever made. Mike Nichols told me that he makes everybody who stays with him watch it.”

In addition to Geffen, the documentary features interviews with his friends and colleagues — an A-list rolodex that includes Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Elton John, Neil Young, Clive Davis, Barry Diller, and Irving Azoff. His sphere was huge, Lacy claims because his influence was tectonic.

By championing musicians such as Jackson Browne and Laura Nyro, Geffen put his own imprint on the emerging singer-songwriter movement in the 1970s. Later, Geffen managed to adapt to shifting tastes, by aligning himself with groups like Aerosmith and Guns ‘N Roses and helping to usher in the heavy metal craze. For more than 30 years, his labels – Asylum Records, Geffen Records, and DGC Records – represented the high-water mark for musicians, who clamored to get in the door.

“He had an incredible eye for talent,” Lacy said. “These people would have eventually found their way. But he helped them get there. He fixed their teeth and allowed them to write music that’s history.”

Though he made his name in music, Geffen also became a force in the theater and film businesses.

He enriched himself by producing hit musicals like “Cats” and “Dreamgirls,” and branched out into movies with memorable pictures like “Risky Business.” In 1994, he co-founded DreamWorks SKG, the studio behind Oscar-winners like “American Beauty” and “Saving Private Ryan.”

“In each decade, he has done something that has affected the culture,” Lacy said. “If I had to boil it down to one thing it would be his genius at business.”

It’s a mastery of deal-making and talent-scouting that has made him a very wealthy man, worth an estimated $ 5.5 billion. It is also a trajectory that Lacy maintains cannot be replicated in a more fractured media landscape, where mega-corporations wield disproportionate influence and are more interested in quarterly earnings than fostering rising stars.

“Even he would say that nobody could do what he did today,” Lacy said. “The times have changed so much. I asked him if he could raise $ 2 billion to start a new studio, and he said ‘absolutely not.’ And record companies, well, we know what happened to them. Behind all the conglomerates and corporations, to find someone with a genuine sensibility like David Geffen‘s would be impossible. He was unique.”

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Recipes for Health: Baked Acorn Squash With Wild Rice — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

The filling here is a Greco-Italian fusion, with a little American (wild rice) thrown in. I’m usually not a fusion sort of cook, but I wanted something creamy like risotto to fill these squash. Look for small acorn squash so that each person can have one. They’ll be like miniature vegetarian (or vegan) turkeys.

6 small acorn squash

1 bunch kale or 1 10-ounce package stemmed and washed kale, stems picked out and discarded

1 cup cooked wild rice (1/3 cup uncooked)*

1 quart vegetable stock

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup minced onion

Salt to taste

2/3 cup arborio rice

1 plump garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup dry white wine, like pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley Freshly ground pepper to taste

1/4 to 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (1 to 2 ounces) (optional)

Cayenne or freshly grated nutmeg to taste (optional)

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil and brush the foil with olive oil. Place the squash in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Each squash should be intact but beginning to give on the side it’s resting on, and soft enough to cut through. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes, until the squash has cooled slightly. Then, resting a squash on the slightly flattened side that it was sitting on in the oven, cut away the top third. You will be putting the top “cap” back on once the squash is filled, so cut it off in one neat slice. Scrape out the seeds and membranes from both pieces and set aside. Repeat for the remaining squash. Turn the oven heat down to 350 degrees. Oil a baking dish or sheet pan that can accommodate all of the squash.

2. Meanwhile, blanch the kale in a large pot of salted boiling water for 2 to 4 minutes, until just tender. Transfer to a bowl of cold water, drain and squeeze out excess water. Chop medium-fine and set aside. Cook the wild rice, following the directions below, and set aside.

3. Put the stock into a saucepan and bring it to a simmer over low heat, with a ladle nearby. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat in a wide, heavy nonstick saucepan or skillet. Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt, and cook gently until it is just tender, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Add the arborio rice and garlic and stir until the grains separate and begin to crackle. Add the wine and stir until it has been absorbed. Begin adding the simmering stock, a couple of ladlefuls (about 1/2 cup) at a time. The stock should just cover the rice, and should be bubbling, not too slowly but not too quickly. Cook, stirring often, until it is just about absorbed. Add another ladleful or two of the stock and continue to cook in this fashion, adding more stock and stirring when the rice is almost dry. You do not have to stir constantly, but stir often. Continue to add stock and stir until the rice is almost tender, about 20 minutes. The rice should still be a little chewy. Add another ladleful of stock and stir in the kale, wild rice and herbs. Stir together until the stock is just about absorbed, about 5 minutes, and add another ladleful of stock. Remove from the heat. Add pepper, taste and adjust seasonings. Stir in the remaining olive oil and the Parmesan if using.

5. Season the surface of the acorn squash with salt, pepper and nutmeg or cayenne (if desired). Fill the hollowed-out squash with the risotto. Place the tops back on the squash and put them in the baking dish or on the sheet pan.

6. Bake 40 minutes, or until the squash is tender all the way through when pierced with a knife.

* To cook the wild rice, bring 2 cups of the stock or water to boil in a medium saucepan. Add salt to taste and the wild rice. When the water returns to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 40 to 45 minutes, until the rice is tender and has begun to splay. Drain and transfer the rice to a large bowl.

Yield: 6 to 8 generous servings

Advance preparation: The risotto can be made a day ahead, but you will want to heat it and add a little more stock to get the creaminess that will be lost overnight.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 366 calories; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 75 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams dietary fiber; 53 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 274 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 56 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams dietary fiber; 40 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 6 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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In BP Indictments, U.S. Shifts to Hold Individuals Accountable

HOUSTON — Donald J. Vidrine and Robert Kaluza were the two BP supervisors on board the Deepwater Horizon rig who made the last critical decisions before it exploded. David Rainey was a celebrated BP deepwater explorer who testified to members of Congress about how many barrels of oil were spewing daily in the offshore disaster.

Mr. Vidrine, 65, of Lafayette, La., and Mr. Kaluza, 62, of Henderson, Nev., were indicted on Thursday on manslaughter charges in the deaths of 11 fellow workers; Mr. Rainey, 58, of Houston, was accused of making false estimates and charged with obstruction of Congress. They are the faces of a renewed effort by the Justice Department to hold executives accountable for their actions. While their lawyers said the men were scapegoats, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said at a news conference, “I hope that this sends a clear message to those who would engage in this kind of reckless and wanton conduct.”

The defense lawyers were adamant that their clients would contest the charges, and prosecutors said that the federal investigations were continuing.

Legal scholars said that by charging individuals, the government was signaling a return to the practice of prosecuting officers and managers, and not just their companies, in industrial accidents, which was more common in the 1980s and 1990s.

“If senior managers cut corners, or if they make decisions that put people in harm’s way, then the criminal law is appropriate,” said Jane Barrett, a University of Maryland law professor and former federal prosecutor.

She noted that it was unusual for the Justice Department to prosecute individual corporate officers in recent years, including in the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers, where only the company was fined.

BP said on Thursday it would pay $4.5 billion in fines and other payments, and the corporation pleaded guilty to 14 criminal charges in connection with spill. The $1.26 billion in criminal fines was the highest since Pfizer in 2009 paid $1.3 billion for illegally marketing an arthritis medication.

The crew was drilling 5,000 feet under the sea floor 41 miles off the Louisiana coast in April 2010 when they lost control of the well during its completion. They tested the pressure of the well, but misinterpreted the test results and underestimated the pressure exerted by the flow of oil or gas up the well. Had the results been properly interpreted, operations would have ceased.

Mr. Vidrine and Mr. Kaluza were negligent in their reading of the kicks of gas popping up from the well that should have suggested that the Deepwater Horizon crew was fast losing control of the ill-fated Macondo well, according to their indictment, and they failed to act or even communicate with their superiors. “Despite these ongoing, glaring indications on the drill pipe that the well was not secure, defendants Kaluza and Vidrine again failed to phone engineers onshore to alert them to the problem, and failed to investigate any further,” the indictment said.

The indictment said they neglected to account for abnormal pressure test results on the well that indicated problems, accepting “illogical” explanations from members of the crew, which caused the “blowout of the well to later occur.”

In a statement, Mr. Kaluza’s lawyers said: “No one should take any satisfaction in this indictment of an innocent man. This is not justice.”

Bob Habans, a lawyer for Mr. Vidrine, called the charges “a miscarriage of justice.”

“We cannot begin to explain or understand the misguided effort of the United States attorney and the Department of Justice to blame Don Vidrine and Bob Kaluza, the other well site leader, for this terrible tragedy.”

Several government and independent reports over the last two years have pointed to sloppy cement jobs in completing the well or the poor design of the well itself as major reasons for the spill. But none of the three was indicted in connection with those problems.

Mr. Rainey was a far more senior executive, one who was known around Houston and the oil world as perhaps the most knowledgeable authority on Gulf oil and gas deposits. According to his indictment, Mr. Rainey obstructed Congressional inquiries and made false statements by underestimating the flow rate to 5,000 barrels a day even as millions were gushing into the Gulf.

Campbell Robertson contributed reporting.

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L.A. County sheriff's deputy held in fatal off-duty shooting

A veteran Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was arrested Wednesday for allegedly shooting and killing a man in Sylmar while off-duty in June, authorities said.

The deputy, Francisco Gamez, 41, has been with the department for 17 years and was last working as a station detective in West Hollywood.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that the deputy's son got into a dispute with another person. The son, they said, called his father to the scene. The deputy allegedly drove up soon after and exchanged words before opening fire from inside his car, striking one man, the sources said.

He then allegedly drove a short distance before shooting at a second person, added the sources, who asked for anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

That person was not injured, according to authorities.

The other victim, Armando Casillas, 38, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to the chest just before midnight on June 17.

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FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article misspelled the victim's first name as Armondo.

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Neighbors said Gamez and Casillas lived a block apart.

In August, a person who identified himself as the victim's brother commented on the website of the Los Angeles Times, saying he suspected a deputy was responsible.

"We think he is a L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF," the comment stated. "The reason we think he is a Sheriff is that he shouted to my Brother "L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF WHERE YOU FROM" as if the sheriff was in a gang."

The person who wrote the comment could not be reached Wednesday evening.

At the time of the killing, authorities said the victim got into an argument with an unknown person. At some point, the other person left the area only to return and shoot Casillas in a drive-by, authorities said then. Now they are saying that the shooter was not the same person who initially got into the argument.

LAPD officers arrested Gamez on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He was booked into the LAPD's 77th Street station Wednesday in lieu of $4-million bail, officials said. He has not been charged.

Casillas' sister said that the family was thankful for the arrest, but that they were not prepared to discuss the events that led to the fatal shooting.

In a statement, Sheriff Lee Baca called the incident "deeply disturbing."

His spokesman Steve Whitmore said the department placed Gamez on leave July 3 after learning from the LAPD about the investigation.

"He's been stripped of all law enforcement power," Whitmore said. "It casts a pall over the scores and scores of deputy sheriffs that every day do their job."

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.

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RIM offers free voice calls over Wi-Fi with BBM

TORONTO (AP) — BlackBerry users will be able to make free voice calls over a Wi-Fi network using the popular BBM messaging service.

Research In Motion Ltd. announced Wednesday that it’s adding the feature to BBM. Users will be able to switch back and forth from a text chat to a voice call. A split-screen option will let them talk and text at the same time.

The new feature is a free update for existing customers and comes months before RIM introduces its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, which are seen critical to RIM’s survival.

RIM surprised analysts in September when it announced that the number of BlackBerry subscribers grew, thanks in part to emerging markets and its popular BBM service. It’s struggling in North America as customers migrate to flashier iPhones and Android phone.

RIM stopped short of offering the BBM voice feature over wireless carriers’ own cellular networks. Doing so would have potentially created more congestion on cellular data networks and deprive carriers of revenue for voice calls. With the new feature, the free calls are limited to times and places where Wi-Fi is available.

The Canadian company said the BBM voice feature is especially attractive for developing markets. Unlike regular texts, BBM messages are not charged on a per-text basis.

Although RIM is struggling in North America, the BlackBerry continues to sell well in such markets as South Africa, Nigeria and Indonesia.

The BBM service has long been a reason for BlackBerry users to not defect to other smartphones but there are rival messaging services. There are more than 60 million BBM users worldwide.

RIM said the BBM voice update is currently available for BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry 6 operating system or higher, with plans for BlackBerry 5 later. RIM’s latest phones run the 7 operating system. The next version, BlackBerry 10, will come soon after a Jan. 30 launch event.

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Billy Joel, Rihanna fight Pandora over compensation

(Reuters) – Some of music’s most notable names including Billy Joel, Rihanna and Missy Elliott have signed an open letter to Pandora Media Inc opposing the online music company‘s push to change how artists are compensated.

Pandora is currently lobbying lawmakers in U.S. Congress to pass the “Internet Radio Fairness Act,” which would change regulation of how royalties are paid to artists.

A group of 125 musicians who say they are fans of Pandora argue the bill would cut by 85 percent the amount of money an artist receives when his or her songs are played over the Internet.

“Why is the company asking Congress once again to step in and gut the royalties that thousands of musicians rely upon? That’s not fair and that’s not how partners work together,” said the letter, to be published this weekend in Billboard, the influential music industry magazine.

A statement with an advance copy of the letter was released on Wednesday by musicFirst, a coalition of musicians and business people, and SoundExchange, a nonprofit organization that collects royalties set by Congress on behalf of musicians.

“Internet radio and the artists whose music is played and listened to on the Internet are indeed all in this together,” Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder and chief strategy officer, said in a statement.

“A sustainable Internet radio industry will benefit all artists, big and small.”

FLASHPOINT

The issue of how musicians are paid for Internet streaming of their songs has been a flashpoint for Pandora.

Pandora is a mostly advertising-supported online music company, founded more than a decade ago, that streams songs through the Internet. In October, it said its share of total U.S. radio listening was almost 7 percent, up from about 4 percent during the same period last year.

Pandora’s success has been double-edged – the more customers it gains, the more money it has to pay overall for rights to stream music.

So far, that rate is set until 2015.

Pandora, along with other music services such as Clear Channel Communications, is supporting the bill on grounds that different providers, such as satellite and cable, pay different rates.

“The current law penalizes new media and is astonishingly unfair to Internet radio,” Pandora said on its website.

“We are asking for our listeners’ support to help end the discrimination against internet radio. It’s time for Congress to stop picking winners, level the playing field and establish a technology-neutral standard.”

The Internet Radio Fairness Act is a bipartisan bill sponsored by U.S. representatives Jason Chaffetz and Jared Polis along with Sen. Ron Wyden.

Shares of Pandora closed 4.6 percent lower at $ 7.31 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba in New York; editing by Matthew Lewis)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Alzheimer’s Tied to Mutation Harming Immune Response

Alzheimer’s researchers and drug companies have for years concentrated on one hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease: the production of toxic shards of a protein that accumulate in plaques on the brain.

But now, in a surprising coincidence, two groups of researchers working from entirely different starting points have converged on a mutated gene involved in another aspect of Alzheimer’s disease: the immune system’s role in protecting against the disease. The mutation is suspected of interfering with the brain’s ability to prevent the buildup of plaque.

The discovery, researchers say, provides clues to how and why the disease progresses. The gene, known as TREM2, is only the second found to increase Alzheimer’s risk substantially in older people.

“It points very specifically to a potential metabolic pathway that you could intervene in to change the course of Alzheimer’s disease,” said William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Much work remains to be done before scientists understand precisely how the newly discovered gene mutation leads to Alzheimer’s, but already there are some indications from studies in mice. When the gene is not mutated, white blood cells in the brain spring into action, gobbling up and eliminating the plaque-forming toxic protein, beta amyloid. As a result, Alzheimer’s can be staved off or averted.

But when the gene is mutated, the brain’s white blood cells are hobbled, making them less effective in their attack on beta amyloid.

People with the mutated gene have a threefold to fivefold increase in the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease in old age.

The intact gene, says John Hardy of University College London, “is a safety net.” And those with the mutation, he adds, “are living life without a safety net.” Dr. Hardy is lead author of one of the papers.

The discovery also suggests that a new type of drug could be developed to enhance the gene’s activity, perhaps allowing the brain’s white blood cells to do their work.

“The field is in desperate need of new therapeutic agents,” said Alison Goate, an Alzheimer’s researcher at Washington University in St. Louis who contributed data to Dr. Hardy’s study. “This will give us an alternative approach.”

The fact that two research groups converged on the same gene gives experts confidence in the findings. Both studies were published online Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Together they make a good case that this really is an Alzheimer’s gene,” said Gerard Schellenberg, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the work.

The other gene found to raise the odds that a person will get Alzheimer’s, ApoE4, is much more common and confers about the same risk as the mutated version of TREM2. But it is still not clear why ApoE4, discovered in 1993, makes Alzheimer’s more likely.

Because the mutations in the newly discovered gene are rare, occurring in no more than 2 percent of Alzheimer’s patients, it makes no sense to start screening people for them, Dr. Thies said. Instead, the discovery provides new clues to the workings of Alzheimer’s disease.

To find the gene, a research group led by Dr. Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics of Iceland started with a simple question.

“We asked, ‘Can we find anything in the genome that separates those who are admitted to nursing homes before the age of 75 and those who are still living at home at 85?’ ” he said.

Scientists searched the genomes of 2,261 Icelanders and zeroed in on TREM2. Mutations in that gene were more common among people with Alzheimer’s, as well as those who did not have an Alzheimer’s diagnosis but who had memory problems and might be on their way to developing Alzheimer’s.

The researchers confirmed their results by looking for the gene in people with and without Alzheimer’s in populations studied at Emory University, as well as in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany.

The TREM2 connection surprised Dr. Stefansson. Although researchers have long noticed that the brain is inflamed in Alzheimer’s patients, he had dismissed inflammation as a major factor in the disease.

“I was of the opinion that the immune system would play a fairly small role, if any, in Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Stefansson said. “This discovery cured me of that bias.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Hardy and Rita Guerreiro at University College London, along with Andrew Singleton at the National Institute on Aging, were intrigued by a strange, rare disease. Only a few patients had been identified, but their symptoms were striking. They had crumbling bones and an unusual dementia, sclerosing leukoencephalopathy.

“It’s a weird disease,” Dr. Hardy said.

He saw one patient in her 30s whose brain disease manifested in sexually inappropriate behavior. Also, her bones kept breaking. The disease was caused by mutations that disabled both the copy of TREM2 that she had inherited from her mother and the one from her father.

Eventually the researchers searched for people who had a mutation in just one copy of TREM2. To their surprise, it turned out that these people were likely to have Alzheimer’s disease.

They then asked researchers around the world who had genetic data from people with and without Alzheimer’s to look for TREM2 mutations.

“Sure enough, they had good evidence,” Dr. Hardy said. The mutations occurred in one-half of 1 percent of the general population but in 1 to 2 percent of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

“That is a big effect,” Dr. Hardy said.

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Obama Meets C.E.O.’s as Fiscal Reckoning Nears

Luke Sharrett for The New York Times

Ursula M. Burns, chief of Xerox, said the president discussed few specifics of a potential agreement but emphasized that “we cannot go over the fiscal cliff.”

WASHINGTON — President Obama extended an olive branch to business leaders Wednesday, seeking their support as he prepared to negotiate with Congressional Republicans over the fiscal impasse in Washington.

If Congress and the president cannot reach a deal to reduce the deficit by January, more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts will go into effect immediately — a prospect many chief executives and others warn could tip the economy back into recession.

Even so, Mr. Obama has some fence-mending to do before he can count on any serious backing from the business community.

“The president brought up that he hadn’t always had the best relationship with business, and he didn’t think he deserved that, but he understood that’s where things were and wanted it to be better,” said David M. Cote, chief executive of Honeywell. He was one of a dozen corporate leaders invited to meet Mr. Obama at the White House for 90 minutes Wednesday afternoon, after the president’s first news conference since the election.

While Mr. Obama did not present a detailed plan at Wednesday’s meeting or reveal what he would propose in terms of new corporate taxes, he strongly reiterated that he would not allow tax cuts for the middle class to expire. The president, according to attendees and aides, said he was committed to a balanced approach of reductions in entitlements and other government spending and increases in revenue.

With time running out, many people expect the president and Republican leaders in Congress to come up with a short-term compromise that prevents the full slate of tax increases and spending cuts from hitting in January. That would give both sides more time to come up with a far-reaching deal on entitlement spending, even as they work on a broad tax overhaul later next year.

One corporate official briefed on the meeting said that the chief executives came away with a sense that Mr. Obama was poised to present a more formal proposal in the next few days, but that he did not press them for support on particular policies. “It was more of a back and forth,” he said.

The chief executives from some of the country’s biggest and best-known companies, including Procter & Gamble and I.B.M., were not unified on everything, according to one who was interviewed after the meeting.

Many of the executives who described the meeting would speak only on condition of anonymity.

The outreach to business comes as both the White House and corporate America maneuver ahead of the year-end deadline, as well as the beginning of Mr. Obama’s second term. Many executives were put off by what they saw as antibusiness rhetoric coming from the White House in his first term, and many also oppose tax increases on the rich that Mr. Obama favors but would hit them personally.

Both sides have plenty to gain from a better relationship. Business leaders want to buffer their image after the recession and the financial crisis, while Mr. Obama would gain valuable leverage if he could persuade even a few chief executives to come out in favor of higher taxes on people with incomes over $250,000.

Lloyd C. Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, publicly endorsed higher tax rates in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

“I believe that tax increases, especially for the wealthiest, are appropriate, but only if they are joined by serious cuts in discretionary spending and entitlements,” he wrote.

While Mr. Blankfein and other Wall Street leaders have been speaking out about the dangers of the fiscal impasse, only one executive from the financial services industry, Kenneth I. Chenault of American Express, was at Wednesday’s meeting.

Afterward, the corporate leaders seemed pleased with the tone of the meeting but cautious about the prospect of finding common ground with the White House on the budget choices facing Congress and the president.

“I’d say everybody came away feeling pretty good about the whole discussion,” Mr. Cote said. “Now, all of us are C.E.O.’s, so we’ve learned not to confuse words with results. And that’s what we still need to see.”

Ursula M. Burns, chief executive of Xerox, who was also at the meeting, said afterward that it was clear that “we’re going to have to work through some sticking points.” But while “we didn’t get into too many specifics,” she said, it was also made clear that “we cannot go over the fiscal cliff.”

Ms. Burns’s comments about the potentially dire consequences of the fiscal impasse echoed those of other chief executives, including many in the Business Roundtable, which began an ad campaign Tuesday calling on lawmakers to resolve the issue quickly. The Campaign to Fix the Debt, a new group with a $40 million budget and the support of many Fortune 500 chiefs, began its own ad campaign on Monday.

Michael T. Duke, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores, warned in a statement after the meeting that “before the end of the year, Washington needs to find an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff.” He said Walmart customers “are working hard to adapt to the ‘new normal,’ but their confidence is still very fragile. They are shopping for Christmas now, and they don’t need uncertainty over a tax increase.”

 

Helene Cooper reported from Washington and Nelson D. Schwartz from New York. Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington.

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If soldier killed Afghan civilians in rampage, did he act alone?

JOINT BASE LEWIS MCCHORD, Wash. — The case against U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales appeared at first to be horribly simple: Days after a bomb blew off the leg of a friend in southern Afghanistan, the 39-year-old combat veteran picked up his rifle, a pistol and a grenade launcher, walked to two villages and allegedly conducted a one-man campaign of vengeance, killing 16 civilians and wounding six more.

But by the time a weeklong hearing wound up Tuesday in a military courtroom, one of the Army's highest-profile war crimes from Afghanistan raised almost as many questions as it answered.

If Bales acted alone, why were shots heard coming from one of the villages 20 minutes after he was spotted returning to the base for the first time?

Why was a witness who claimed to have seen two U.S. soldiers killing her husband while helicopters flew overhead not brought in to testify?

Why were the crime scenes so very different — at one house, a surgical execution of the head of the family, while at the next house, 11 men, women and children were shot and possibly stabbed, their bodies piled in a heap and burned?

The Article 32 hearing, held to determine whether there was evidence to hold the serviceman for a court-martial, drew a portrait not just of a rogue soldier, defense lawyers said. It revealed a U.S. combat outpost at which soldiers spent their evenings drinking alcohol, snorting Valium and taking steroids, all three of which Bales apparently had done before asking a friend to "take care of my kids" and setting out into the darkness outside the base perimeter, laughing.

"We have a dysfunctional, drinking and drugging … team," civilian defense lawyer Emma Scanlan said in her closing argument.

"We can't isolate Sgt. Bales within a bubble," Scanlan said, noting that he was under the supervision of Special Forces officers. "They are the command. They are in charge. And they are terrible at it."

Army prosecutors claim Bales acted alone and with chilling rationality: walking to the village of Alkozai, where he is accused of killing four people and wounding six, coming back to the base and telling a friend what he had done, then venturing out again to the village of Najiban, where he is accused of killing 12.

When Bales returned to Camp Belambay the second time, he admitted to friends he had done some "sick" things, and told them they would thank him when fighting season got underway again during warmer weather later in the spring, said prosecutor Maj. Robert Stelle.

"Terrible, terrible things happened. That is clear. The second thing that is clear is that Staff Sgt. Bales did it," Stelle said.

He urged investigating officer Col. Lee Deneke to recommend a full court-martial and that it be tried as a capital case, with the possibility of the death penalty. Bales committed "the worst, most despicable crime a human being can commit: murdering children in their own homes," Stelle said.

If Deneke recommends a court-martial, a lengthy process of mental health evaluations and further forensic reports will follow. Defense lawyers have pledged there will be a full exploration of the medical care Bales received at the Madigan Army Medical Center for an earlier traumatic brain injury.

The hospital south of Seattle was the subject of an investigation this year for tossing aside diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder, making it harder for those soldiers to receive follow-up medical care.

In the year before the shootings, Scanlan said, Bales had received an exemplary evaluation, in which he was praised for "a strong moral compass, never wavering from what was right."

What went wrong?

Scanlan suggested part of the answer might lie in the steroids and sleep aids Bales was taking, along with the Jack Daniels he drank with two friends on the evening before the killings as they watched "Man on Fire," a movie about a former CIA operative who executes a violent campaign of revenge.

"They drank a ton, and they were all drunk," Scanlan said, noting that testimony showed that one of the soldiers who'd been drinking with Bales that night, Cpl. David Godwin, was stumbling, slurring his words and smelled like alcohol four hours later.

The prosecution said Bales had plenty of time to reach both villages and return at the end of the night with his clothing and weapons covered in blood. Before he left, prosecutors said, he had discussed his frustration with the Army's lack of response to the bomb that blew off his friend's leg; after his arrest, he reminded one soldier of an Afghan machine gunner the unit had faced earlier.

"That's not going to happen again," Bales said, according to Staff Sgt. Ross O'Rourke.

Prosecutors also established that DNA from at least one of the women killed at the home of Haji Mohammed Wazir in Najiban was found on Bales' clothing.

Yet defense lawyers continue to raise questions about whether Bales was the only one responsible — whether one person could have killed so many people in so many locations in one night.

A lot of the evidence suggests otherwise, Scanlan said, pointing to an agent from the Army's Criminal Investigations Command who said that Masuma Dawood, whose husband was shot, told her that two soldiers had killed her husband.

Army officials said Dawood did not testify because of "cultural differences," and the reluctance of Afghan families to allow a woman to testify in an American courtroom, even by remote video from Afghanistan. But sources in Afghanistan have told the Los Angeles Times that Dawood was, in fact, willing to testify.

Scanlan said the timeline laid out by prosecutors also raises questions, beginning with the Afghan guard who testified that he checked his watch, and was certain that the U.S. soldier he saw — returning from the initial killings in Alkozai, prosecutors allege — had returned to Camp Belambay at 1:30 a.m.

The shots heard from the direction of Alkozai didn't stop till 1:50 a.m., the defense attorney said.

"I don't know what that means," Scanlan said. "But one thing it means is, if you believe what the government is telling you, that Sgt. Bales is the one who came back through that wire at 1:30, then somebody else was firing for another 20 minutes."

kim.murphy@latimes.com

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Rolling Stones add fifth date to anniversary tour

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones have added a fifth date to their 50th anniversary tour later this year, the band announced on its website.

In between two shows at London‘s O2 Arena starting on November 25 and two more at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ opening on December 13 the veteran quartet will play the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY on December 8.

Tickets for the fifth concert go on sale on Monday, November 19. The first four gigs quickly sold out despite complaints from many fans over high ticket prices ranging between around 95 pounds ($ 150) and 950 pounds for a VIP seat in London.

On auction website eBay, a pair of ticket with a face value of 406 pounds is on offer for as much as 1,500 pounds.

“You might say, ‘The tickets are too expensive’,” singer Mick Jagger told Billboard magazine in a recent interview.

“Well, it’s a very expensive show to put on, just to do four shows, because normally you do a hundred shows and you’d have the same expenses.”

He added that he did not agree with the secondary ticket market and stressed that the Rolling Stones did not profit from tickets changing hands at inflated prices.

The concerts celebrating 50 years of the band behind hits like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Honky Tonk Women” are part of a series of events marking the milestone including a new documentary, a photograph book and a greatest hits album.

The music press has been rife with speculation that the Stones could launch a full world tour next year including a set at the Glastonbury music festival.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Roasted Eggplant and Chickpeas — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Eggplant is always a good, substantial vegetable to use for a vegetarian main dish. The chickpeas and the feta provide plenty of protein. Vegans can leave out the feta and substitute sugar or agave nectar for the honey.

 

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with juice, pulsed to a coarse purée

1 teaspoon mild honey (more to taste)

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, to taste

Salt to taste

1 large or 2 medium eggplants (about 1 1/4 pounds), cut into 1/3-inch-thick slices

3 cups cooked chickpeas (2 cans, drained and rinsed, or, 1 1/2 cups dried – about 3/4 pound

4 ounces feta, crumbled (3/4 cup)

1 teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Greek or Turkish

 

1. Make the tomato sauce. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a heavy skillet or wide saucepan over medium heat, and add the garlic. Cook, stirring, until it smells fragrant, about 30 seconds, and add the tomatoes, honey, salt to taste and cinnamon. Cook over medium heat until the tomatoes have cooked down and the sauce is fragrant, about 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and brush the boil with olive oil. Place the eggplant slices on the baking sheet, salt lightly and brush with olive oil. Place in the oven and bake 20 minutes, or until eggplant is lightly browned and soft all the way through. Remove from the heat. Fold the aluminum foil over and crimp the edges together so that the eggplant steams as it cools. Do this in batches if you need more than one baking sheet. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees.

3. Oil a 2-quart baking dish or gratin. Place the chickpeas in the baking dish and stir in 1 cup of the tomato sauce. Layer the eggplant over the chickpeas and top with the remaining tomato sauce. Sprinkle the feta over the top and drizzle on any remaining olive oil. Sprinkle with the oregano and cover tightly with foil. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes, until the dish is bubbling.

Yield: 6 servings

Advance preparation: The eggplant slices can be cooked up to a day ahead. Hold in the refrigerator, covered. The tomato sauce will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator and freezes well.

Nutritional information per serving: 366 calories; 16 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 17 milligrams cholesterol; 44 grams carbohydrates; 14 grams dietary fiber; 431 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 15 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health

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At Microsoft, Sinofsky Seen as Smart but Abrasive

On a warm night in late October, Steven Sinofsky stood on a platform in New York’s Times Square, smiling as a huge crowd roared at the unveiling of a Microsoft retail store, where Windows 8 and the company’s new Surface tablet were about to go on sale.

Less than three weeks later, Mr. Sinofsky — who, as the head of Windows, was arguably the second-most important leader at Microsoft — suddenly left the company. His abrasive style was a source of discord within Microsoft, and he and Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, agreed that it was time for him to leave, according to a person briefed on the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Mr. Sinofsky was widely admired for his effectiveness in running one of the biggest and most important software development organizations on the planet. But his departure, which Microsoft announced late on Monday, parallels in many respects that of Scott Forstall, the headstrong former head of Apple’s mobile software development, who was fired by Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, in late October.

Both cases underscore a quandary that chief executives sometimes face: when do the costs of keeping brilliant leaders who cannot seem to get along with others outweigh the benefits?

The tipping point that led to Mr. Sinofsky’s departure came after an accumulation of run-ins with Mr. Ballmer and other company leaders, rather than a single incident, according to interviews with several current and former Microsoft executives who declined to be named discussing internal matters.

One example of the kind of behavior that hurt Mr. Sinofsky’s standing at the company occurred this year at a two-day retreat for Microsoft’s senior executives at the Semiahmoo resort on the coast just below the Canadian border in Washington State. At the meeting, Microsoft’s various division heads were expected to make presentations on their businesses, answer questions and remain to hear their peers repeat the exercise.

When Mr. Sinofsky stood on the first day to speak about the Windows division, he told the group he had not prepared a presentation, and if they wanted to catch up on the progress of Windows 8, they could read his company blog, where he publicly chronicled the software’s development. He answered questions from the audience and then left the resort, while his colleagues remained until the next day, according to multiple people who were present.

Mr. Sinofsky’s early exit and halfhearted presentation were widely noted by his colleagues, irking even his admirers in the company. “He lost a lot of support,” one attendee said.

It wasn’t until this Monday, though, that Mr. Sinofsky and Mr. Ballmer both decided it would be best if Mr. Sinofsky left. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, supported the move, a person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Sinofsky served as a technical assistant to Mr. Gates in the 1990s.

In an e-mail to Microsoft employees, Mr. Sinofsky said the decision to leave “was a personal and private choice.” Many surprised Microsoft insiders noted that Mr. Sinofsky’s departure was immediate, an unusual arrangement for someone with a 23-year track record at the company. A Microsoft spokesman, Frank Shaw, said Mr. Sinofsky was not available to comment.

Although Mr. Ballmer grew increasingly impatient with Mr. Sinofsky throughout the year, he held back from taking any action earlier to avoid disrupting the release of Windows 8, the most important product Microsoft has unveiled in years, a person with knowledge of his thinking said.

The final decision could not have come lightly. Although many people at Microsoft viewed him as a ruthless corporate schemer, Mr. Sinofsky ran the highly complex organization responsible for Windows as a disciplined army that met deadlines, and he was respected by people on his team.

He achieved hero status within Microsoft several years ago by taking over the leadership of Windows after the debacle that was Windows Vista, a much-delayed operating system whose sluggish performance and technical problems worsened Microsoft’s reputation for mediocre software. Mr. Sinfosky led the development of a new version of the operating system, Windows 7, which was positively reviewed and sold well.

“He did great things with Windows,” said Michael Cusumano, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “That’s still the core of the company.”

But while Mr. Sinofsky was effective, Mr. Cusumano said, he could be secretive and difficult to get along with, as he learned while dealing with Mr. Sinofsky while Mr. Cusumano was writing a book on Microsoft in the early 1990s. “I could imagine that he burned a lot of bridges and created a bunch of enemies,” he said.

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Prescription deaths: Lawmaker wants cases reported to Medical Board

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The chairman of a state Senate committee that oversees the Medical Board said Monday he would introduce a bill requiring coroners to report all prescription drug deaths to the agency — a move aimed at helping authorities identify doctors whose prescribing practices may be harming patients.

Sen. Curren D. Price Jr., responding to a Times' report that authorities have failed to recognize how often people overdose on medications prescribed by their doctors, said the medical board needed coroners reports to improve oversight of potentially dangerous practices.

“There appears to be a disconnect between coroners and the Medical Board,” Price (D-Los Angeles), said in an interview. “Hopefully legislation will tighten that up and provide the kind of accountability we all expect.”

FULL COVERAGE: Legal drugs, deadly outcomes

The Times investigation published Sunday found that in nearly half of the accidental deaths from prescription drugs in four Southern California counties, the deceased had a doctor's prescription for at least one drug that caused or contributed to the death.

The investigation identified 3,733 deaths that involved prescription drugs in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego and Ventura counties from 2006 through 2011. In 1,762 of those cases — 47% — drugs for which the deceased had a prescription were the sole cause or a contributing cause of death.

The Times found that prescription drug deaths often involved multiple drugs, sometimes prescribed by more than one doctor. In some cases, the deceased also mixed prescribed drugs with illegal drugs, alcohol or both.

The paper identified 71 Southern California physicians who prescribed drugs to three or more patients who later fatally overdosed. The doctors were primarily pain specialists, general practitioners and psychiatrists.

Price said that although there may be legitimate reasons for a doctor's prescriptions being linked to a death, “it’s cause for some further review.”

“I think a red flag goes up any time you have one [doctor] involved in several deaths,” he said. “And I think an investigation is not only warranted but called upon by the public.”

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‘Sesame Street’ Elmo puppeteer takes leave amid sex scandal

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The puppeteer and voice behind the character Elmo on “Sesame Street” has taken a leave of absence from the children’s television show following allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy, producers said on Monday.

New York-based Sesame Workshop said in a statement that its own inquiry concluded that the claim of underage sexual conduct was unsubstantiated, and that puppeteer Kevin Clash has denied any wrongdoing and called the allegation “false and defamatory.”

But the company said Clash, 52, was disciplined after an internal investigation showed he “exercised poor judgment and violated company policy regarding Internet usage.”

The Sesame Workshop statement said the puppeteer was “taking actions to protect his reputation” and that Sesame Workshop has “granted him a leave of absence to do so.”

Neither Clash nor his personal publicist was immediately available for comment.

CNN quoted a statement from Clash acknowledging a relationship with his accuser but denying he had sexual contact with a minor.

“I am a gay man. I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it,” it quoted him as saying. “I had a relationship with the accuser, it was between two consenting adults, and I am deeply saddened that he is characterizing it as something other than what it was.”

The statement went on to say, “I’m taking a break from Sesame Workshop to deal with this false and defamatory allegation.”

Sesame Workshop said the matter came to its attention when it received a communication in June from accuser, now aged 23, alleging that he had a relationship with Clash beginning when he was 16 years old.

“We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action,” the company said, adding that it met with the accuser twice and had “repeated communications with him.” The company said it also discussed the matter with Clash, who denied the allegations.

A spokeswoman for the show said she did not know whether law enforcement authorities were looking into the allegations.

Clash officially joined the “Sesame Street” cast in 1984, assuming the Elmo role that year.

Elmo’s character had debuted on the show in 1979, and though Clash was the third performer to animate the child-like shaggy red monster, Sesame Workshop credits him with turning Elmo into the international sensation he became.

For now, producers promised that Elmo would remain on the show despite the absence of Clash, saying “Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of ‘Sesame Street.’”

(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lance Armstrong Cuts Officials Ties With His Livestrong Charity

In the wake of being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, Lance Armstrong last week cut all official ties with Livestrong, the charity he founded 15 years ago while he was treated for testicular cancer.

On Nov. 4, he resigned from the organization’s board of directors; he had previously stepped down as the chairman of the board Oct. 17. He has distanced himself from the charity to try to protect it from any damage caused by his doping controversy, the new board chairman, Jeff Garvey, said in a statement.

“Lance Armstrong was instrumental in changing the way the world views people affected by cancer,” Garvey said. “His devotion to serving survivors is unparalleled, and for 15 years, he committed himself to that cause with all his heart.”

Garvey said that the Armstrong family had donated nearly $7 million to the foundation and that the organization under Armstrong had raised close to $300 million to serve cancer survivors.

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency made public its evidence in its doping case against Armstrong, saying he had doped and encouraged his teammates to dope so they could help him win races. He was subsequently barred from Olympic sports for life and was stripped of all the cycling titles he won from August 1998 on.

Since then, Armstrong has spent several weeks in Hawaii, out of the public eye. On Saturday, though, he posted a photograph on Twitter showing him at home in Austin, Tex. He is lounging on a couch with his seven yellow Tour jerseys framed on the wall in the background.

In the post, he said, “Back in Austin and just layin’ around.” The photograph had more than 400,000 page views as of Monday evening, with many people posting negative comments on the page.

“Lance, you have no moral conscious and it’s obvious many of your followers don’t either,” said one person who went by the Twitter handle “irobot,” who also posted that Armstrong needed “professional help.”

A person posting under the name “Aumann” said: “An art thief enjoying all his da Vincis.”

Other people posted words of support, including many who said they still thought Armstrong was the top cyclist in history.

“TomShelton” said of Armstrong’s seven Tour titles, “You earned all 7 of them no matter what is being said about you!”

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False Posts on Facebook Undermine Its Credibility

SAN FRANCISCO — The Facebook page for Gaston Memorial Hospital, in Gastonia, N.C., offers a chicken salad recipe to encourage healthy eating, tips on avoiding injuries at Zumba class, and pictures of staff members dressed up at Halloween. Typical stuff for a hospital in a small town.

But in October, another Facebook page for the hospital popped up. This one posted denunciations of President Obama and what it derided as “Obamacare.” It swiftly gathered hundreds of followers, and the anti-Obama screeds picked up “likes.” Officials at the hospital, scrambling to get it taken down, turned to their real Facebook page for damage control. “We apologize for any confusion,” they posted on Oct. 8, “and appreciate the support of our followers.”

The fake page came down 11 days later, as mysteriously as it had come up. The hospital says it has no clue who was behind it.

Fakery is all over the Internet. Twitter, which allows pseudonyms, is rife with fake followers, and has been used to spread false rumors, as it was during Hurricane Sandy. False reviews are a constant problem on consumer Web sites.

Gaston Memorial’s experience is an object lesson in the problem of fakery on Facebook. For the world’s largest social network, it is an especially acute problem, because it calls into question its basic premise. Facebook has sought to distinguish itself as a place for real identity on the Web. As the company tells its users: “Facebook is a community where people use their real identities.” It goes on to advise: “The name you use should be your real name as it would be listed on your credit card, student ID, etc.”

Fraudulent “likes” damage the trust of advertisers, who want clicks from real people they can sell to and whom Facebook now relies on to make money. Fakery also can ruin the credibility of search results for the social search engine that Facebook says it is building.

Facebook says it has always taken the problem seriously, and recently stepped up efforts to cull fakes from the site. “It’s pretty much one of the top priorities for the company all the time,” said Joe Sullivan, who is in charge of security at Facebook.

The fakery problem on Facebook comes in many shapes. False profiles are fairly easy to create; hundreds can pop up simultaneously, sometimes with the help of robots, and often they persuade real users into friending them in a bid to spread malware. Fake Facebook friends and likes are sold on the Web like trinkets at a bazaar, directed at those who want to enhance their image. Fake coupons for meals and gadgets can appear on Facebook newsfeeds, aimed at tricking the unwitting into revealing their personal information.

Somewhat more benignly, some college students use fake names in an effort to protect their Facebook content from the eyes of future employers.

Mr. Sullivan declined to say what portion of the company’s now one billion plus users were fake. The company quantified the problem last June, in responding to an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. At that time, the company said that of its 855 million active users, 8.7 percent, or 83 million, were duplicates, false or “undesirable,” for instance, because they spread spam.

Mr. Sullivan said that since August, the company had put in place a new automated system to purge fake “likes.” The company said it has 150 to 300 staff members to weed out fraud.

Flags are raised if a user sends out hundreds of friend requests at a time, Mr. Sullivan explained, or likes hundreds of pages simultaneously, or most obvious of all, posts a link to a site that is known to contain a virus. Those suspected of being fakes are warned. Depending on what they do on the site, accounts can be suspended.

In October, Facebook announced new partnerships with antivirus companies. Facebook users can now download free or paid antivirus coverage to guard against malware.

“It’s something we have been pretty effective at all along,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Facebook’s new aggressiveness toward fake “likes” became noticeable in September, when brand pages started seeing their fan numbers dip noticeably. An average brand page, Facebook said at the time, would lose less than 1 percent of its fans.

But the thriving market for fakery makes it hard to keep up with the problem. Gaston Memorial, for instance, first detected a fake page in its name in August; three days later, it vanished. The fake page popped up again on Oct. 4, and this time filled up quickly with the loud denunciations of the Obama administration. Dallas P. Wilborn, the hospital’s public relations manager, said her office tried to leave a voice-mail message for Facebook but was disconnected; an e-mail response from the social network ruled that the fake page did not violate its terms of service. The hospital submitted more evidence, saying that the impostor was using its company logo.

Eleven days later, the hospital said, Facebook found in its favor. But by then, the local newspaper, The Gaston Gazette, had written about the matter, and the fake page had disappeared.

Facebook declined to comment on the incident, and pointed only to its general Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

The election season seems to have increased the fakery.

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Mike D'Antoni to be next coach of the Lakers

Mike D'Antoni, not Phil Jackson, will be the next coach of the Lakers.

"We signed Mike D'Antoni to a multi-year deal," Lakers spokesman John Black said, mentioning the team's owner and top two executives. "Dr. [Jerry] Buss, Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak were unanimous that Mike D'Antoni was the best coach for the team at this time."

D'Antoni, 61, coached the New York Knicks last season and the Phoenix Suns before that. He will officially take over the Lakers within a week or two, depending how quickly he recovers from knee-replacement surgery.

The Lakers will announce their new coach at a news conference as early as Tuesday but more likely later in the week. Bernie Bickerstaff will remain the team's interim coach for now.

D'Antoni signed a three-year deal for $12 million. The team holds an option for a fourth year.

Jackson was the overwhelming favorite to return to the Lakers until they heard his demands, which included a stake in team ownership, according to another person familiar with the situation.

"He was asking for the moon," said the person, who also declined to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss the situation.

The Lakers then moved quickly to sign D'Antoni. He replaces Mike Brown, who was fired Friday after the Lakers began the season 1-4, their worst start since 1993.

Earlier Sunday, Lakers guard Steve Nash said it would "be a coup" for the Lakers to bring back Jackson, but he also had kind words for D'Antoni.

"Obviously, I think everyone knows how much I love Mike," said Nash, who played four seasons and won two MVP awards under D'Antoni in Phoenix. "If he were the coach, it would be seamless and terrific for me, and I think the team as well.”

D’Antoni was most recently employed by the Knicks, who was forced to resign last season after an 18-24 start.

Kobe Bryant did not hide his excitement for the prospect of Jackson returning but, like Nash, he was also on board with D'Antoni.

"They know how I feel about Phil. They know how I feel about D'Antoni," Bryant said Sunday. "I like them both."

D'Antoni has a 388-339 coaching record in the NBA. He led the Suns to the Western Conference finals in 2005 and 2006 with Nash at the helm.

ALSO:

Photos: Lakers vs. Kings

Lakers, Steve Nash playing waiting game

Interim Coach Bernie Bickerstaff tries to keep it simple

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China’s Alibaba Group Q2 net profit doubles: SEC filing

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China‘s Alibaba Group more than doubled its April-June net profit and grew sales by 71 percent for the period, proving the country’s largest e-commerce firm has shrugged off intensifying competition in the sector.

Yahoo Inc which sold a partial stake in Alibaba back to the privately-owned group in September, still holds 24 percent of Alibaba.

According to a Yahoo filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Alibaba Group’s net attributable income for the quarter was $ 273 million, up 129 percent from a year ago. Revenue rose 71 percent to $ 1.1 billion.

Based on the second-quarter results, Alibaba Group is the second-largest Chinese Internet company by revenue, behind Tencent Holdings and ahead of Baidu Inc. It is the last large China Internet firm that is still private and not required to publicly disclose financial statements.

Alibaba, which runs the Taobao Marketplace, China’s largest business-to-consumer e-commerce website, and Alibaba.com, China’s largest business-to-business platform, has a business model that revolves around online advertising and subscription fees.

Alibaba’s profit for the first nine months of the year was up more than 300 percent to $ 730.4 million, while revenue was up 74 percent to $ 2.9 billion.

Alibaba’s soaring growth reflects the underlying boom in China’s e-commerce industry that was worth 278.84 billion yuan ($ 45 billion) in gross transaction value in the second quarter.

However, the rise in e-commerce has led to intensifying competition in the sector with e-commerce firms launching price wars and sales events to lure consumers to their platform.

On Sunday, China’s e-commerce players such as 360buy, Ecommerce China Dangdang Inc and Alibaba launched a “11.11″ sale, a massive online sale akin to Cyber Monday in the United States. The “11.11″ sale offered big discounts on electronics and apparel to tempt users to shop.

Alibaba said it recorded its highest one-day gross transaction value, at 19.1 billion yuan ($ 3.06 billion), on Sunday. ($ 1 = 6.2450 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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BBC head says broadcaster must reform or die

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain‘s BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten said on Sunday confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the Newsight report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organizational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC than there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognizable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual license fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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