Obama girls rock out with military kids at concert






WASHINGTON (AP) — Usher sang “Yeah!” Katy Perry donned star and stripes for “Firework.” And a ballroom full of lucky kids got to rock out with Sasha and Malia Obama at Saturday’s Kids’ Inaugural Concert, a star-studded event that honors America’s military families.


“Now, inauguration is a pretty big deal,” first lady Michelle Obama, who hosted the event along with Jill Biden, told the assembled families at the Washington Convention Center. “But I have to tell you that my very favorite part of this entire weekend is being right here with all of you.” She paid tribute to the sacrifices that military families make, including their kids.






Pointing out that such kids often attend six to nine schools by the end of high school, always having to be “the new kid,” she said being a military kid meant “growing up just a little faster, and working just a little harder than other kids.” The concert was streamed live to several military bases around the country.


This was the second such concert for the Obama girls, and the choice of talent seemed to reflect the fact that they are four years older. While in 2009 they were entertained by Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, this time it was Usher and Perry, along with the groups Mindless Behavior and Far East Movement. Also performing were cast members from the Fox TV hit “Glee.”


Usher, in black leather, kicked off the proceedings with his hit “Yeah!,” followed by “Without You” and “OMG,” earning a huge cheer from the crowd. In between acts, there were kid-friendly diversions like a dance-off, or a race among mascots of the Washington Nationals: oversized versions of presidents like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.


Three members of the “Glee” cast were greeted warmly by the crowd: Naya Rivera, who plays Santana; Darren Criss, who plays Blaine; and Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes.


Nick Cannon emceed the evening, but it was Mrs. Obama, sporting her new bangs and wearing a white peplum shirt over black pants, who got to introduce the top attraction.


“It is now my pleasure to introduce the fabulous Katy Perry!” she said, and the singer emerged in what looked like a vintage swimsuit, covered patriotically with stars and stripes. She sang her hits “Teenage Dream,” ”Part of Me,” ”Wide Awake” and then “Firework,” which was accompanied by a slide show of President Barack Obama: Obama in the Oval Office, Obama exiting Air Force One, Obama greeting LeBron James.


“I’m very proud to be here … and to see the Obamas and the Bidens here for four more years,” she said.


Perry was the favorite of concertgoer Dylan Garvin, 12, who came from Wilmington, Del. “I thought it was incredible,” Dylan said of the concert. “It’s a great way to celebrate.”


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richter’s house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Hollywood Makes Its Case for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’


LOS ANGELES — Hollywood is pushing back, at least a little, against the Washington power players and others who have put the squeeze on “Zero Dark Thirty.”


In the last week, Mark Boal, who is a producer of the film and wrote the screenplay, hired Jeffrey H. Smith, a prominent lawyer who specializes in domestic security and First Amendment issues, Mr. Smith confirmed on Friday. His mission is to represent Mr. Boal with regard to any approach from Congress or the executive branch in connection with their inquiries into the film’s depiction of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.


Meanwhile, Christopher J. Dodd, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, raised a warning on Friday for those who are calling for investigations into the film.


“There could, in my view, be a chilling effect if, in the end of all this, you have a screenwriter or a director called before an investigating committee,” Mr. Dodd said. He stressed that he was speaking for himself rather than for the association’s member studios, including Sony Pictures, which released “Zero Dark Thirty.”


Mr. Dodd, who served five terms in the Senate before retiring in 2010, said he could not recall another movie being so heavily scrutinized by the government. He expressed concern that the military or other government agencies that have routinely helped filmmakers might withhold future cooperation rather than risk similar pressure.


“ ‘JFK’ and ‘All the President’s Men’ were controversial,” Mr. Dodd said, noting that neither of those films seemed to draw the same level of attention from lawmakers.


Three senators — Dianne Feinstein of California, Carl Levin of Michigan and John McCain of Arizona — have publicly criticized “Zero Dark Thirty” because they believe it sent a message that torture was an effective tool in the hunt for Bin Laden. In a Dec. 19 letter to Michael Lynton, the chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures, they asked the studio to act to change that impression, without specifying what they expected it to do. (The film had a limited theatrical run late last month, and was released more broadly on Jan. 11.)


In two letters sent in December to Michael Morell, the acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the senators, citing their affiliation with the Select Committee on Intelligence, asked that the agency provide information and documents about its contact with the filmmakers.


On Friday, Mr. Dodd said he initially screened “Zero Dark Thirty” at the Motion Picture Association’s Washington headquarters for Ms. Feinstein, whom he described as a close friend. “She had problems with it,” he said.


Ms. Feinstein’s objections have centered on what she has said is a portrayal of the efficacy of torture that is at odds with accounts that have been provided to Congress in the past by intelligence operatives.


In the meantime, Mr. Smith, a former general counsel of the C.I.A. who has represented Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara and other former government officials in security-related matters, confirmed in an e-mail that he represents Mr. Boal.


The government inquiries “raise serious questions about the nature of the cooperation between the government and those who seek to make films about sensitive and important issues,” Mr. Smith said in a brief statement.


To date, he said, Mr. Boal has not been contacted in connection with the inquiries.


Last week Kathryn Bigelow, the film’s director, made her strongest public statement to date about the torture controversy.


“Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement,” she said in a statement published in The Los Angeles Times. “If it was, no artists would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.”


Torture, she added, “is a part of the story we could not ignore.”


The criticism of “Zero Dark Thirty” has extended beyond Washington and included members of the film industry. Last weekend, as Hollywood gathered for the Golden Globe Awards, the actors David Clennon, Edward Asner and Martin Sheen — all members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — were organizing a public condemnation of the film for what they have called its “tolerance” of torture.


That push prompted a public response by Amy Pascal, the co-chairwoman of Sony Pictures, who called it “reprehensible.” Jessica Chastain, the film’s star, was honored as the year’s best dramatic actress at the Golden Globes, and the movie has received five Oscar nominations from the academy, including one for best picture. Ms. Bigelow was not nominated for a directing Oscar, leading to speculation that the torture controversy had worked against her selection.


After the Golden Globes, Mr. Boal flew to Europe to promote “Zero Dark Thirty” as it opened in Britain and France.


In a series of e-mails, Mr. Boal said he found the reception to the movie there to be “much smoother” than in the United States.


European interviewers appeared to regard the torture controversy more as a reckoning among Americans than as something that directly involved them, he said.


And in France, he said, a number of interviewers compared the film’s airing of the torture issue “favorably to France’s allergy to and even censorship of” movies about its role in Algeria’s war for independence.


“We might bicker,” Mr. Boal said, “but at least we face the past in my country. Sorta.”


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of Michael Lynton at Sony Pictures. He is the chairman and chief executive, not the co-chairman.



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State prisons not ready to end court oversight, official says









SACRAMENTO — A court-appointed monitor said Friday that Gov. Jerry Brown's quest to end judicial oversight in state prisons is "not only premature, but a needless distraction" from improving care for mentally ill inmates.


Special Master Matthew Lopes cited dozens of suicides last year, long isolation instead of treatment and lapses in care as reasons federal oversight should continue.


Lopes' assessment, in a report filed Friday with the U.S. District Court, came after he visited two-thirds of California's prisons. He had intended to see all 33 lockups, he said, but soon determined that only Sacramento — not individual wardens — could fix the underlying problems with mental health treatment in the corrections system.








A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the agency would have a full response to the 609-page report later.


Brown wants the courts to halt oversight of the mental health services and withdraw orders to reduce overcrowding. He declared last week that California has "one of the finest prison systems in the United States" and that inmates get "far better" medical care, including mental health care, in prison than those outside.


Lopes disagreed.


"Any attempt at a more abrupt conclusion to court oversight would be … not only premature but a needless distraction from the important work that is being done in the quality improvement project," he told the court.


He was especially critical of the suicide rate in California prisons.


He said there were at least 32 suicides in state prisons last year, averaging one every 11 days. Lopes said that translates to almost 24 suicides per 100,000 inmates, a 13% increase over 2011 and well above the national suicide rate of 16 deaths per 100,000 prisoners.


The state's high suicide rate prompted a 2010 court order to adopt suicide prevention practices. Lopes said the state has made progress on those steps, but fewer than one out of four prisons hold suicide prevention team meetings as required and only three prisons complied with the requirement for five-day follow-ups with inmates discharged from crisis care.


"The problem of inmate suicides … must be resolved before the remedial phase of the Coleman case can be ended," Lopes wrote, referring to the 2001 lawsuit that led to the appointment of a special master. "The gravity of this problem calls for further intervention. To do any less and to wait any longer risks further loss of lives."


Assistant Secretary of Communications Deborah Hoffman said, "We take suicides very seriously and have one of the most robust suicide prevention programs in the nation."


Lopes also said in his report that all 11 outpatient care hubs in the prison system still conduct inmate counseling sessions in public, despite the need for confidential settings, and 10 of those hubs fail to offer at least 10 hours of structured therapy per week, a provision Lopes said "should be made a priority."


A training program designed to help prison guards interact with mentally ill inmates and mental health providers showed no improvement in use-of-force incidents or missed treatment sessions, Lopes said.


He also documented instances of mentally ill inmates being housed for extended periods in isolation units. At Kern Valley State Prison, mentally ill offenders had been isolated as long as 292 days. The court compliance rate is 30 days.


Families of mentally ill inmates expressed their own frustration.


Blanca Gonzalez said her 31-year-old son's mental state has deteriorated since his incarceration. She said he was put into segregation on Thanksgiving and not moved to a psychiatric unit until last week.


"I am watching my son die in front of me and no one seems to care," Gonzalez said.


paige.stjohn@latimes.com





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Samsung, Apple seen pulling ahead in smartphone race: poll






HELSINKI (Reuters) – Samsung and Apple pulled ahead in the global smartphone race last quarter, according to forecasts by analysts in a Reuters poll, while Nokia and others are expected to have fallen further behind.


Overall shipments of handsets are expected to have risen in the fourth quarter, with most of that growth dominated by Samsung. Analysts forecast the South Korean company shipped 61 million smart devices, up 71 percent from a year earlier.






Samsung forecast earlier this month that it expected to earn a quarterly profit of $ 8.3 billion on strong sales of its Galaxy handsets as well as solid demand for flat screens used in mobile devices. Samsung’s full results are due by Jan 25.


While some are wary that Samsung’s momentum may slow in coming quarters owing to market saturation, it is still expected to outpace Apple as sales of the new iPhone 5 appear slightly weaker than originally forecast.


Apple is forecast to have shipped 46 million iPhones in the quarter, up 25 percent from a year earlier, according to the poll.


Shares in Apple dipped below $ 500 earlier this week for the first time in almost a year after reports it was slashing orders for screens and other components as intensifying competition eroded demand for the new iPhone.


The poll showed analysts expect Apple’s full-year shipments to grow to 167 million this year from 134 million in 2012, while Samsung’s shipments are expected to grow to 283 million smartphones in 2013 compared to 210 million in 2012.


NOKIA, RIM AIM TO CATCH UP


Nokia, once the world’s biggest handset maker, is expected to have lost more market share. It is now pinning its recovery hopes on Lumia smartphones, which use Microsoft’s Windows Phone software.


Analysts forecast Nokia’s fourth-quarter shipments of mobile phones fell 15 percent to 80 million units while those of smartphones, including Lumias, fell 65 percent to 7 million units.


Nokia last week said it sold around 4.4 million Lumia handsets in the fourth quarter. Full results are due on Jan 24, and analysts are anxious to hear whether Nokia is confident that Lumia sales will continue to grow in coming quarters.


BlackBerry-maker RIM, another handset maker struggling to claw back market share, is expected to report a 30 percent fall in fourth-quarter shipments to 7 million units, the poll showed.


RIM is to launch new BlackBerry 10 smartphones later this month. The poll showed, however, that analysts expect its full-year sales to fall to around 30 million in 2013 from 33 million in 2012.


(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Sophie Walker)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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FX May split off new FXX, targeting younger viewers: report






NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – News Corp. may split its successful FX network into two, with the new network, FXX, focusing more on twentysomethings and comedy.


The new network could replace Fox Soccer, the Los Angeles Times said.Broadcasting & Cable reported the possible name and focus of the new channel.






“We’re constantly evaluating our programming offerings and this is just one notion we have considered over the past year or so,” a Fox spokesman told TheWrap.


The move would make sense given the vast content available to FX, said Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media.


“They’re probably going to get more viewers with a second entertainment network,” he told TheWrap. “Why not create a second?”


If Fox Soccer becomes FXX, Fox could potentially air its games on the new network it is developing to compete with ESPN, Adgate noted.


News Corp. also has the movie channel FXM.


The possible split for FX comes as the company has dramatically increased its content in recent seasons. Besides dramatic hits like “Justified,” “Sons of Anarchy” and “American Horror Story,” it also airs comedies including the highly rated “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and the acclaimed “Louie.”


The network is also building a late-night lineup with “Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell” and “BrandX With Russell Brand.”


The split would follow the successful approach of other conglomerates. NBC Universal has USA, Bravo and E!, among other cable stations, while Turner airs its dramas on TNT and comedies on TBS. AMC Networks is taking a similar approach, airing dramas on AMC and developing new ones for Sundance as IFC focuses on comedy.


News Corp. may split its successful FX network into two, with the new network, FXX, focusing more on twentysomethings and comedy.


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control



Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency of urinary incontinence,” Dr. Hylton V. Joffe, director of the F.D.A.’s reproductive and urologic products division, said in a statement. “Today’s approval provides an important additional treatment option for patients with overactive bladder, a condition that affects an estimated 33 million men and women in the United States.”


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Analysis: Amid Tears Lance Armstrong Leaves Unanswered Questions in Oprah Winfrey Interview





In an extensive interview with Oprah Winfrey that was shown over two nights, Lance Armstrong admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his cycling career. He revealed that all seven of his Tour de France victories were fueled by doping, that he never felt bad about cheating, and that he had covered up a positive drug test at the 1999 Tour with a backdated doctor’s prescription for banned cortisone.




Armstrong, the once defiant cyclist, also became choked up when he discussed how he told his oldest child that the rumors about Armstrong’s doping were true.


Even with all that, the interview will most likely be remembered for what it was missing.


Armstrong had not subjected himself to questioning from anyone in the news media since United States antidoping officials laid out their case against him in October. He chose not to appeal their ruling, leaving him with a lifetime ban from Olympic sports.


He personally chose Winfrey for his big reveal, and it went predictably. Winfrey allowed him to share his thoughts and elicited emotions from him, but she consistently failed to ask critical follow-up questions that would have addressed the most vexing aspects of Armstrong’s deception.


She did not press him on who helped him dope or cover up his drug use for more than a decade. Nor did she ask him why he chose to take banned performance-enhancing substances even after cancer had threatened his life.


Winfrey also did not push him to answer whether he had admitted to doctors in an Indianapolis hospital in 1996 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs, a confession a former teammate and his wife claimed they overheard that day. To get to the bottom of his deceit, antidoping officials said, Armstrong has to be willing to provide more details.


“He spoke to a talk-show host,” David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said from Montreal on Friday. “I don’t think any of it amounted to assistance to the antidoping community, let alone substantial assistance. You bundle it all up and say, ‘So what?’


Jeffrey M. Tillotson, the lawyer for an insurance company that unsuccessfully withheld a $5 million bonus from Armstrong on the basis that he had cheated to win the Tour de France in 2004, said his client would make a decision over the weekend about whether to sue Armstrong. If it proceeds, the company, SCA Promotions, will seek $12 million, the total it paid Armstrong in bonuses and legal fees.


“It seemed to us that he was more sorry that he had been caught than for what he had done,” Tillotson said. “If he’s serious about rehabbing himself, he needs to start making amends to the people he bullied and vilified, and he needs to start paying money back.”


Armstrong, who said he once believed himself to be invincible, explained in the portion of the interview broadcast Friday night that he started to take steps toward redemption last month. Then, after dozens of questions had already been lobbed his way, he became emotional when he described how he told his 13-year-old son, Luke, that yes, his father had cheated by doping. That talk happened last month over the holidays, Armstrong said as he fought back tears.


“I said, listen, there’s been a lot of questions about your dad, my career, whether I doped or did not dope, and I’ve always denied, I’ve always been ruthless and defiant about that, which is probably why you trusted me, which makes it even sicker,” Armstrong said he told his son, the oldest of his five children. “I want you to know it’s true.”


At times, Winfrey’s interview seemed more like a therapy session than an inquisition, with Armstrong admitting that he was narcissistic and had been in therapy — and that he should be in therapy regularly because his life was so complicated.


In the end, the interview most likely accomplished what Armstrong had hoped: it was the vehicle through which he admitted to the public that he had cheated by doping, which he had lied about for more than a decade. But his answers were just the first step to clawing back his once stellar reputation.


On Friday, Armstrong appeared more contrite than he had during the part of the interview that was shown Thursday, yet he still insisted that he was clean when he made his comeback to cycling in 2009 after a brief retirement, an assertion the United States Anti-Doping Agency said was untrue. He also implied that his lifetime ban from all Olympic sports was unfair because some of his former teammates who testified about their doping and the doping on Armstrong’s teams received only six-month bans.


Richard Pound, the founding chairman of WADA and a member of the International Olympic Committee, said he was unmoved by Armstrong’s televised mea culpa.


“If what he’s looking for is some kind of reconstruction of his image, instead of providing entertainment with Oprah Winfrey, he’s got a long way to go,” Pound said Friday from his Montreal office.


Armstrong acknowledged to Winfrey during Friday’s broadcast that he has a long way to go before winning back the public’s trust. He said he understood why people recently turned on him because they felt angry and betrayed.


“I lied to you and I’m sorry,” he said before acknowledging that he might have lost many of his supporters for good. “I am committed to spending as long as I have to to make amends, knowing full well that I won’t get very many back.”


Armstrong also said that the scandal has cost him $75 million in lost sponsors, all of whom abandoned him last fall after Usada made public 1,000 pages of evidence that Armstrong had doped.


“In a way, I just assumed we would get to that point,” he said of his sponsors’ leaving. “The story was getting out of control.”


In closing her interview, Winfrey asked Armstrong a question that left him perplexed.


“Will you rise again?” she said.


Armstrong said: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s out there.”


Then, as the interview drew to a close, Armstrong said: “The ultimate crime is the betrayal of these people that supported me and believed in me.”


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Colorado movie theater reopens after shooting









AURORA, Colo. — A quiet crowd gathered Thursday at what is now Century Aurora for an "evening of remembrance." Young employees offered candy, sodas and popcorn to visitors who mingled inside the complex, which had been painted soft blues, greens and yellows.


The movie theater where a gunman killed 12 people and injured dozens more last July reopened under a new name after extensive remodeling. The governor, mayor, theater officials and a few hundred victims, families and community members attended, but relatives of several who died boycotted the event.


In one aisle, a young man comforted a young woman as she cried. A small room was set up with tables and tissues for those who might need a quiet space to grieve.





Corbin Dates, 23, who said he was in the second row of Theater 9 during the rampage and escaped with a small burn from a bullet casing, called the event empowering.


"Evil doesn't have the best of me and it never will," he said.


But Scott Larimer, whose son John Larimer, 27, was killed, did not come. He was among those who called for a boycott after receiving a brief email shortly after Christmas inviting him to the ceremony and to an unspecified movie.


"They were treating it like I lost my raincoat there and not my son," he said. "I'm not sure if they're just trying to drum up support so they can just reopen their theater and make some money, or what it is."


The fate of the Century 16 theaters was the subject of much debate in the aftermath of one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, for which James E. Holmes, 25, has been ordered to stand trial. City officials launched an online survey to gauge public opinion and said the response was overwhelming in favor of reopening.


But earlier this month, 15 family members of nine people killed wrote a letter to Cinemark, the theater's owner, blasting the invitation to the opening and criticizing the company for showing "ZERO compassion to the families of the victims whose loved ones were killed in their theater."


One of them, Jerri Jackson, said Cinemark had never contacted her before she received the invitation, which was sent by a victims' group on Cinemark's behalf.


"I would have thought early on that they would have contacted us and offered their condolences, tried to do something for the families, but they've done nothing," she said. Her son Matt McQuinn, 27, was among the dead.


Some who came to the ceremony had a different perspective.


"We will not let this tragedy define us," Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan said during the 30-minute remembrance. "Aurora is strong, Aurora is caring, and our focus remains on the road before us."


Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper acknowledged the families who were absent but praised Cinemark and its chief executive for working closely with the community in the aftermath of the shooting.


"Everyone heals. Some slower, some in different ways. Some wanted this theater open, some didn't," Hickenlooper said. "For many here tonight, this is the path to healing."


After the ceremony, everyone was invited to stay for a screening of "The Hobbit."


Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex Sullivan, 27, died, came to the remembrance. He and other family members spent several minutes exploring the complex before taking a seat for the ceremony. He sees the theater as part of his community, which supported him after the death of his son.


"The people of Aurora decided that's what they wanted," to reopen the theater. "So I decided, 'Well, that's what we'll do,'" he said. "The people of Aurora have done everything they can to help us through this very difficult time."


paloma.esquivel@latimes.com





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Obama Wants More Violent Video Game Studies, and That’s Okay






Here’s an interesting fact that came out of the recent debate over gun control: Thanks to the U.S. Congress, the government has been unable to fully research firearm safety for the last 16 years.


In 1996, as Reuters tells it, the National Rifle Association pressured lawmakers into cutting $ 2.6 million worth of Centers for Disease Control funding, which was being used for firearms research. Congress later restored the funds, but with a restriction on any research that “may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” Apparently the NRA had been dismissing past studies as “anti-gun propaganda,” but it’s hard to see the group as anything but afraid of what we might learn through more research.






Now that President Obama wants Congress to fund research into violent video games, I’m sad to see a parallel among some of my fellow gamers and game journalists, who think the government should just leave games alone.


“Dear Mr. President, We are not ignorant about the relationship between media including videogames and violence. Studies show there isn’t one,” Garnett Lee, Editorial Director of GameFly Media, wrote on Twitter.


“No matter how many studies show no links, it’ll never be seen as a reason to not fund another one,” Wired Editor Chris Kohler wrote.


Sorry, but I can’t join in on this collective freak out. For as defensive as I am about video games, and my right to enjoy them like any other form of speech, I draw the line at declaring we don’t need any more knowledge.


True, there isn’t much strong evidence to prove that violent video games make children violent in the real world. That’s why, in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to let California outlaw the sale of violent games to minors. The state didn’t have enough evidence to prove that violent video games cause violence — certainly not more than any other media — so just like the movie and music industries, the video game industry gets to regulate itself. It uses its own ratings system, and retailers take it upon themselves not to sell mature-rated games to minors. They happen to do an extremely good job, too, according to the FTC.


But just because existing research doesn’t link violent games with violent behavior doesn’t mean we know everything there is to know about how these games affect us. Just today, Kotaku published a lengthy story on everything we do know from violent games research. One of the most surprising takeaways: hardly anyone has studied whether video games are bigger primers for aggression than non-interactive media, such as movies. As Polygon reports, the CDC has supported violent media research before, and believes there’s more work to be done. We shouldn’t be afraid of that.


We also shouldn’t be afraid of the implications. There is a serious debate to be had about whether a certain level of media violence — I’m talking really gruesome, depraved stuff — deserves the same type of classification as pornography, which is illegal to sell to minors in the United States. The Supreme Court actually allowed for this possibility in its 2011 ruling, but it tossed out California’s violent game law in part because it was too broadly-defined, and because it unfairly targeted video games instead of all media. The government long ago decided that minors shouldn’t be allowed to see hardcore sex on the belief that it’s harmful, so either we start figuring out similar parameters for media violence, or we decide that trying to legally prevent minors from seeing anything is an impractical and misguided enterprise. Either way, it’s hard to have that debate without more knowledge about how violent media affects us.


I do wish Obama hadn’t singled out video games over all other media in Wednesday’s briefing to the press. And I admit that the parallel to the NRA’s crackdown on firearms research is a bit unfair. After all, guns literally are weapons; video games are not. One of these things is clearly more dangerous to possess than the other, and unless you’re NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, it shouldn’t be hard to recognize which.


The good news is that the Obama administration seems to be aware of all this, and I don’t see much evidence that there’s a video game witch hunt at hand. Obama’s official memorandum on gun violence research doesn’t specifically mention video games at all, and mentions the importance of giving parents the tools to decide what media their children consume. Even the video game industry’s main trade group, the Entertainment Software Association, is okay with Obama’s push for more research. That’s a pretty good indication that the government isn’t coming after our right to virtually shoot aliens in the face. It just wants to know more about what happens in our brains when we do. So should we.


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