Hillary Clinton hospitalized with blood clot after concussion

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hospitalized in New York on Sunday after doctors discovered a blood clot stemming from her concussion, the State Department said.

Clinton, 65, has been out of the public eye for the better part of December, at first because of what the State Department said was a stomach virus and later because of the concussion, which she suffered after fainting at her Washington home.

According to a spokesman, the clot was discovered in the course of a follow-up exam for the concussion at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She is being treated with anticoagulants and will remain at the hospital for the next 48 hours so doctors can monitor her response to the medication.

"Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion," Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement. "They will determine if any further action is required."

The State Department had said earlier that Clinton was set to resume her normal office schedule this week.

Earlier this month, the former first lady and New York senator had cited her concussion in canceling her scheduled appearance before a congressional committee investigating the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the ambassador.

A separate high-level investigative panel issued a scathing report blaming the State Department for security lapses. Clinton took responsibility, writing to the congressional committee that she  accepted "every one" of the Accountability Review Board's 29 recommendations.

She also praised the board, saying it had offered "a clear-eyed look at serious, systematic challenges that we have already begun to fix." 

Some conservatives had accused her of faking her illness to avoid testifying before the committee -- an accusation that the State Department strenuously denied. 

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Airline group predicts more fliers, more efficient airports

As crowded as airports have been over the holiday season, a new forecast predicts even more travelers will be hopping on planes in coming years.

The International Air Transport Assn., a trade group, predicts that airports around the world will serve 3.6 billion fliers by 2016. That represents an average of 5% growth each year, adding about 800 million new fliers in four years.

But don't worry, IATA's leaders recently released a vision for the airport of the future that will move all these extra passengers fast and efficiently. The catch is that more passengers will be asked to give authorities detailed background information to get pre-screened, enabling them to get through security checkpoints faster.

The Transportation Security Administration already operates such a program — known as PreCheck — but only a fraction of the 1.8 million passengers who fly across the country each day use it.

Quiz: Test your knowledge about airport security

"We encourage other governments to introduce a known-traveler program into the arena," said Perry Flint, an IATA spokesman. "We simply need to get more efficient."

Passengers will also benefit from advances in screening machines that will be able to evaluate liquids, aerosols and gels without having passengers remove them from carry-on bags, IATA predicts.

The goal will be to keep security lines from delaying passengers more than 10 minutes, Flint said.

By 2017, IATA predicts travelers won't have to remove shoes, belts and watches. That's a huge deal because an IATA survey found that removing shoes is the second-biggest gripe among travelers, followed by long screening lines.

TSA finding more firearms at airports

The variety and quantity of firearms discovered at the nation's airports continued to grow in 2012.

As of Nov. 30, the Transportation Security Administration had uncovered about 1,500 firearms in carry-on bags and in the clothes of would-be passengers in 2012. That's an increase of about 14% over the 1,320 weapons discovered by the TSA last year. The rise could partly be explained by an increase in the number of air passengers.

In the first nine months of the year, the number of passengers flying on U.S. carriers grew 1.3% compared with the same period in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The higher gun count could also mean TSA officers are doing a better job of screening passengers, TSA spokesman David Castelveter said. "I'd like to believe we are being more vigilant in intercepting weapons as well," he said.

The TSA does not arrest passengers with guns but instead alerts local law enforcement. With a few exceptions, passengers are banned from carrying firearms and other weapons into the cabin of a commercial plane.

The rising firearm trend extended to most Southern California airports.

At Los Angeles International Airport, TSA agents discovered 15 guns this year as of Nov. 30, up from 11 during that period in 2011, Castelveter said.

The only local airport that has shown a decline in finding firearms was Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, where five weapons were discovered as of Nov. 30, down from eight a year earlier.

American Airlines tops rude list

Almost everyone who flies often has run into a rude airline worker. But which airline has the rudest employees of them all?

According to a survey of more than 1,000 travelers, American Airlines tops the list, with 25% of fliers saying the Fort Worth carrier has the rudest personnel. United Airlines came in second (21%), followed by Delta Air Lines (18%) and US Airways (12%), according to the survey by travel website AirfareWatchdog.

American Airlines declined to comment on the survey.

Although smaller airlines such as Alaska and Frontier were ranked at the bottom of the list, the website's founder, George Hobica, said the rudeness level isn't tied to the size of the airline.

Instead, he said older workers for long-established airlines are probably more jaded, having gone through bankruptcies, layoffs, pay cuts and lost pensions.

"It's not really surprising," Hobica said. "The older worker has had a rougher ride."

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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Venezuela's Hugo Chavez said to suffer 'complications'

CARACAS, Venezuela — Hugo Chavez has suffered "new complications" after his cancer surgery in Cuba, his vice president said Sunday, describing the Venezuelan leader's condition as delicate.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro did not give details about the complications, which he said came amid a respiratory infection. Maduro spoke in a televised address from Cuba.

Maduro arrived Saturday in Havana on a sudden trip to visit Chavez. He said Sunday that he had met with Chavez and he "referred to these complications."

"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is facing this difficult situation," Maduro said, reading from a prepared statement.

"The president gave us precise instructions so that, after finishing the visit, we would tell the [Venezuelan] people about his current health condition," Maduro said. "President Chavez's state of health continues to be delicate, with complications that are being attended to, in a process not without risks."

The vice president spoke with a solemn expression alongside Chavez's eldest daughter, Rosa, and son-in-law, Jorge Arreaza, as well as Atty. Gen. Cilia Flores.

Maduro said he had met several times with Chavez's medical team and relatives. He said he would remain in Havana "for the coming hours" but didn't specify how long.

The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery Dec. 11, and government officials have said he might not return in time for his scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration for a new six-year term. If he were to die before being sworn in, a special election would be held to replace him.

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Cal State Chancellor Charles B. Reed leaves a mixed legacy

As chancellor of California State University, Charles B. Reed became a symbol of the problems and the promise of the massive public higher education system.

He has received national recognition for his efforts to increase the number of underserved students — low income, minorities, veterans — and for steering the country's largest four-year university system through a period of crippling budget cuts at a time of large enrollment growth.

He has been mocked in effigy by students critical of rapidly increasing tuition and slammed by lawmakers for granting executive pay hikes as others in the system were forced to tighten belts.

Reed, 71, who retires at the end of the year, offers no apologies for a leadership style that is seen as often blunt and bullheaded. He is an admitted workaholic, his only extensive time off a week in Italy for his daughter's wedding 11 years ago.

He's not much for sentimentality. Weeks before his departure, he cleaned out his office, inviting staff members to take his honorary degrees and awards. There will be no trophy room in the Florida home where he's retiring.

He arrived at Cal State in 1998 at a time of burgeoning state budgets, almost immediately butting heads with academic leaders while vowing to increase enrollment by more than 100,000 students.

But it is likely that the Reed legacy will hinge on the latter part of his tenure and on his management of nearly $1 billion in state funding cuts since 2008. Enrollment in the 23-campus system peaked at about 440,000 students in 2008, falling to its current 425,000 as many campuses turn away eligible students and reduce services.

"I may have done some of the best work in my 40 years as an educator these last five years figuring out how to continue to provide access and fund the system, keep the doors open," Reed said. "It's been a real struggle, and what I've seen is a lack of political will and a lack of political leadership in California."

And despite the passage of Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown's November tax measure that prevents even steeper cuts to higher education, Reed is not bullish on future financial support.

His supporters said that despite the challenges, he has maintained a perhaps underappreciated commitment to students.

Some of those efforts include increased recruitment of African American, Latino, Asian and Native American students and the development of an early assessment program for high school students to test their readiness for college-level English and math. (The percentages of African American and Asian students have declined in recent years mainly because of population shifts, officials said.)

His tenure saw the opening of Cal State Channel Islands in Camarillo and the first Cal State doctoral degree programs in educational leadership, nursing practice and physical therapy.

"You always know where he stands, and I find it interesting that a lot of people talk about wanting leaders to be honest with everybody and I think he's one of those leaders," said Cal State Fresno President John D. Welty. "He's consistently clear and honest even though not everyone likes what he says."

Reed developed a tough skin as a high school quarterback growing up in the coal-mining town of Waynesburg, Pa., the eldest of eight children. That won't-back-down attitude has placed him in frequent conflict with faculty and student activists.

In the last 10 years, student fees have increased 167%. Protests exploded on campuses and at meetings of the board of trustees. Demonstrators were pepper sprayed outside one meeting in November 2011, and people picketed outside Reed's Long Beach home.

An impasse over salary and class sizes led hundreds of members of the faculty union to stage a first-ever strike at two campuses last year. And the system's leaders received widespread condemnation after trustees approved a $400,000 compensation package for the new San Diego State president — $100,000 more than his predecessor — at the same meeting at which tuition was increased by 12%.

(Reed's successor, UC Riverside Chancellor Timothy White, requested a 10% cut from Reed's $421,500 salary and will receive $380,000 plus a $30,000 supplement from the Cal State foundation.)

"We felt like he [Reed] came in leading with his chin, ready for some kind of slug fest," said Lillian Taiz, a history professor at Cal State L.A. who is president of the California Faculty Assn. "The fundamental problem is, we don't share the same vision for the system and that has moved from a model that more resembled a privatized [corporate] university."

Reed has few kind words about union leaders.

"They don't represent the rank and file of our really good faculty out there every day working hard, doing really good things with our students," he said. "With the union, we have a group that want to fight, that want to demonize me for whatever reasons."

Reed made unpopular decisions by necessity, said incoming state Sen. Marty Block (D-San Diego), former chairman of the Assembly's higher education committee. Block said he largely agreed with the decision to offer high pay to get well-qualified campus leadership.

However, he said, "the timing was terrible. Making public the decision with salaries at the same meeting with student fees being raised was not the best public relations, and if Charlie has a fault, it is that he was more concerned with doing the right thing than getting the public relations right."

Despite a gruff exterior, Reed was fiercely loyal to his staff, board Chairman A. Robert Linscheid said.

"When we lost a staff member who died suddenly, Charlie did a lot of comforting for the family and a lot of comforting for the staff," he said. "Some consider him to be pretty headstrong, but I just look at him to be matter of fact."

Reed won a football scholarship to George Washington University and eventually earned a doctorate in education. He worked as the chief of staff for Florida Gov. Bob Graham and was chancellor of the Florida State University system for 13 years before heading west.

In retirement, Reed is likely to remain a national authority on higher education: He has committed to several speaking engagements each month through April.

"I feel I've had a good 15-year run at Cal State and it's hard work every day," he said, "but I don't know anything else I'd rather be doing."

carla.rivera@latimes.com

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Congress leaders scramble to find 'fiscal cliff' compromise

WASHINGTON — The momentary optimism that Washington could resolve the stalemate over New Year's Day tax hikes turned quickly Saturday to the backroom number crunching needed to broker what remained a difficult deal.

Top congressional leaders and their aides holed up inside the Capitol, swapping potential scenarios that might yield enough votes to pass legislation to prevent a tax increase on all but the wealthiest Americans.

The work being done off the Senate floor, in the offices of Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) involves such tricky math that even if the political will exists to craft a compromise, partisanship may still prevent one. How to deal with income and estate taxes, as well as extended long-term unemployment benefits, remain among the stickiest issues.

"We've been in discussions all day, and they continue. And we'll let you know as soon as we have some news to make," McConnell said Saturday night as he left the Capitol. "We've been trading paper all day and talks continue into the evening."

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) stopped by the negotiations in the morning as a light snow dusted the city, but by midday tourists milling about the Capitol were snapping photos of the empty corridor outside his office. The Democratic leaders, Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), did not come to the Capitol but remained involved in the talks.

President Obama, who received updates at the White House, used his weekly address to put pressure on congressional leaders. "We just can't afford a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy," he said. "The economy is growing, but keeping it that way means that the folks you sent to Washington have to do their jobs."

Congress will convene for a rare Sunday afternoon session, with the Senate opening at 1 p.m. and the House at 2 p.m. Votes could come as soon as Sunday but most likely would be pushed to Monday as talks continue. Both parties will meet behind closed doors Sunday afternoon to consider their options.

If no agreement is reached, Obama reminded Republicans, he'll call for a vote on a proposal that would block the tax hike on income of less than $250,000 and would extend the unemployment insurance that expired Saturday for 2 million out-of-work people.

Obama's threat capitalizes on a key advantage in the tax-and-spend battle: Without a compromise, taxes will go up on everyone Tuesday, when the George W. Bush-era tax cuts expire. Republicans who oppose his bare-bones bill would be in the awkward position of protecting the wealthiest at the expense of the middle class.

"I believe such a proposal could pass both houses with bipartisan majorities — as long as these leaders allow it to come to a vote," Obama said. "If they still want to vote no, and let this tax hike hit the middle class, that's their prerogative — but they should let everyone vote. That's the way this is supposed to work."

Republicans face the prospect of voting for a tax increase for the first time in two decades, a potential milestone that has deeply divided the party. Still, they suggested Saturday that they could stomach raising income tax rates if the income threshold was higher than Obama has proposed — $500,000 might be acceptable, according to a source who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal negotiations.

The GOP also wants to preserve the current estate tax rate, which is 35% on estates valued at more than $5 million. Most Democrats want the estate taxes set at 45% on those above $3.5 million; if no action is taken, the rate will revert to 55% on estates valued at more than $1 million.

The combination of income and estate tax rates may lead to a deal that could win Republican support, but it could also prove to be a deal killer for Democrats.

With Republicans divided, particularly in the House, Boehner is expected to bring at most barely half of his majority to any deal. Pelosi's support will be vital to pass the measure; she may have to muster about 100 votes.

A White House official stressed that whatever deal the Senate leaders broker will have to win approval from the House Democratic leader, who has shown her ability to deliver — or withhold — Democratic votes.

The deal may also draw support if it contains other must-pass year-end provisions, including a tweak to prevent middle-class households from being hit with the alternative minimum tax and an adjustment to ensure doctors treating Medicare patients do not take a pay cut.

The scene playing out on Saturday was a repeat of the cycle of brinkmanship and crisis that has characterized divided Washington for the last two years.

The optimism expressed by political leaders after Friday's White House meeting of Obama and congressional leaders appeared to be less about a major breakthrough or newfound comity than the hard reality that time was running short.

Congress has proved time and again that it works best — and perhaps only — under deadline pressure. With tax rates set to expire Dec. 31, just hours remained to approve a deal.

Despite the tight timeline, many senators left town, even if just for the day. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) posted a photo on his Twitter account of himself with the Oreo mascot at a college football bowl game in San Francisco.

Others stayed behind. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) tweeted that he was touring the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). "Back at it tomorrow," he added.

Yet even with political momentum, the deep divisions within parties were still evident, particularly as Republicans confronted a debate over their party's bedrock principles.

Influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist encouraged Republicans to move on to the next battles, as Congress will be asked within months to raise the nation's debt limit. Republicans see that as the next point of leverage in their fights with Obama to reduce federal spending, including on Social Security and Medicare.

Any deal being crafted this weekend is not expected to resolve those issues or alter the automatic federal spending cuts coming on Jan. 2, all but ensuring that 2013 will see a return of divisive tax and spending arguments.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

michael.memoli@latimes.com

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Officials warn holiday revelers against firing weapons

By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2012, 8:59 p.m.

Los Angeles officials are warning that anyone discharging a firearm into the air to celebrate the new year not only risks killing someone but could also face a lengthy prison sentence.

"Firing into the air weapons in celebration puts innocent lives at risk," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said last week. "Nothing ruins the holiday season like an errant bullet coming down and killing an innocent."

Villaraigosa said the misuse of firearms is on everyone's mind in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that left six adults and 20 children dead. The mayor vowed that authorities will pursue criminal charges for anyone caught in possession of a weapon in public.

For more than a decade, city and county leaders have tried to quell celebratory gunfire.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said a bullet discharged into the air falls at a rate of 300 to 700 mph, depending on the weapon — "easily enough to crack the human skull."

"Please celebrate New Year's with your family, not in [Sheriff] Lee Baca's jail or my jail," Beck said, pledging to capture anyone firing a weapon. "Firing a gun in the air isn't only dangerous and a crime but socially unacceptable."

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said that anyone caught firing a weapon — even if they don't hit someone — will face a felony charge and a fine of up to $10,000 and a possible three-year sentence. A conviction would be considered a strike offense and the suspect would lose the right to own a firearm.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said that in some county areas, special equipment has been deployed to spot shots within seconds and track their locations.

"The madness of gun violence has to stop," he said. "This is a matter of physics. What goes up must come down."

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Small-scale solar's big potential goes untapped

NIPTON, Calif. — Gerald Freeman unlocks the gate to the small power plant and goes inside. Three rows of solar collectors, elevated on troughs that track the sun's arc like sunflowers, afford a glimpse of California's possible energy future.

This facility and a smaller version across the road produce some 70 kilowatts of electricity, about 80% of the power required by Nipton's 60 residents, its general store and motel.

Freeman, a Caltech-trained geologist and one-time gold mine owner, understood when he bought this former ghost town near the Nevada border that being off the grid didn't have to mean going without power.

He contracted with a Bay Area company to install solar arrays on two plots of land. The town has a 20-year agreement to buy its power at a below-market rate.

Projects like these make do with scant financing opportunities and little support from the federal government.

The Obama administration's solar-power initiative has fast-tracked large-scale plants, fueled by low-interest, government-guaranteed loans that cover up to 80% of construction costs. In all, the federal government has paid out more than $16 billion for renewable-energy projects.

Those large-scale projects are financially efficient for developers, but their size creates transmission inefficiencies and higher costs for ratepayers.

Smaller alternatives, from rooftop solar to small- and medium-sized plants, can do the opposite.

Collectively, modest-sized projects could provide an enormous electricity boost — and do so for less cost to consumers and less environmental damage to the desert areas where most are located, say advocates of small-scale solar power.

Recent studies project that California could derive a substantial percentage of its energy needs from rooftop solar installations, whether on suburban homes or city roofs or atop big-box stores.

::

Janine Blaeloch, director of the nonprofit Western Lands Project, said smaller plants were never on the table when the federal solar policy was conceived early in President Obama's first term.

Utilities and solar developers wanted big plants, so that's what's sprouting in Western deserts, she said.

"There was a pivot point when they could have gone to the less-damaging alternative," Blaeloch said, referring to both federal officials and environmental groups that have supported large-scale solar projects.

"There's no question that it was a matter of choice, and it was the wrong choice."

Built in far-flung locations where there is plenty of open land, large-scale plants require utilities to put up extensive transmission lines to connect to the grid.

Utilities charge ratepayers for every dollar spent building transmission lines, for which the state of California guarantees utilities an annual return of 11% for 40 years.

By comparison, small-scale plants can be built near population centers and provide power directly to consumers, reducing the demand for electricity from the grid.

Rooftop solar goes one step further.

It not only cuts demand from the grid, but also can allow homeowners and businesses to sell back excess power.

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Prominent L.A. lawyer's 2009 slaying still unsolved

Jeffrey and Sheryl Tidus had just arrived home from a charity fundraiser at Sheryl's toy store just a few miles away. They had driven in separate cars.

Once inside, Sheryl called their daughter, Ilana, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She handed the phone to her husband and began laying out food for their five dogs.

After he finished talking to their daughter, Jeffrey Tidus went back outside to retrieve a laptop from his Prius. It was about 8:30 p.m.

Sheryl heard a pop, then the motor of a car slowly driving off. When she walked outside, her husband was on the ground. Sheryl figured he had tripped or had had a heart attack. What else could it be? They lived in Rolling Hills Estates, on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, one of the wealthiest communities in Southern California, where one is more likely to encounter a horse than a burglar.

A day later, Dec. 8, 2009, Jeffrey Tidus, 53, — a prominent attorney — was dead of a single gunshot wound.

Three years later, the slaying, the only one anyone can recall in Rolling Hills Estates, remains unsolved.

"It was an execution," said Det. Bob Kenney, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy working on the case.

Family and friends have offered a $90,000 reward, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has kicked in $10,000 more.

"I'm convinced we'll have an answer," Sheryl Tidus said, "because I can't live any other way."

Detectives have pored over Tidus' work and home computers for clues, and looked at his legal cases. Sheryl Tidus is quick to point out that her husband was a civil litigator, not a criminal or family law attorney involved in cases where emotions are pushed to the limit.

He worked with a number of well-known clients, including New Century Financial, Isuzu Motors, California Federal Savings and Tokai Bank. In the last year of his life, Tidus had won a number of large settlements, Sheryl Tidus said.

Neither she nor her husband had been worried about their safety. "Never in a million years," she said.

Kenney said there are "people of interest" in the case. One, the detective said, is former Los Angeles tax attorney Christopher Gruys, from whom a Tidus client won an $11.2-million judgment in 2007. Gruys' name surfaced in connection with the case shortly after Tidus' death.

During a deposition two years earlier, Gruys pulled out a camera and photographed Tidus and made what Tidus interpreted as a threat. The lawyer called Los Angeles police and obtained a restraining order against Gruys.

The State Bar of California placed Gruys on interim suspension in April 2007 after he was convicted of possession of an assault weapon. He gave up his license to practice law in California later that year.

Tidus had told his wife about the threat but told her not to worry.

The family had so little concern about their safety that Sheryl Tidus would leave the laundry room door open so their dogs could come in from the rain. Not any longer.

Gruys' attorney, Tom Brown, said investigators have not interviewed his client. "It's not unusual for someone who was an adversary to be looked at," Brown said.

Tidus had served as president of the young lawyer section of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and was on the State Bar's Board of Governors, as well as the bar's Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct.

He was one of the biggest donors to the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles, and was known to represent some clients for free. One pro bono client was a Polish woman who had saved the lives of at least 12 Jews during World War II. She alleged that a film producer had manipulated her into giving him the rights to her story. As the jury was about to read its verdict, the two sides reached a confidential settlement, giving Irene Guy Opdyke back the rights to her story.

When he was killed, Tidus, a dedicated runner, was training for the L.A. Marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Sheryl Tidus and Tidus' sister, Amy Zeidler, walked the marathon in his place, although they didn't complete it. "We did our best," Sheryl Tidus said. "I felt a need to be there." They raised $50,000, Zeidler said.

Sheryl Tidus, 54, walked part of the course in 2012, wearing a button that said, "I walk for Jeff."

Sheryl Tidus still wears her wedding ring, along with her husband's. Their daughter wears the watch her father received from his grandfather on his bar mitzvah.

Sheryl Tidus is angry that the legal community has not agitated harder to help find her husband's killer. "Someone was gunned down for doing his job," she said. "There has been no help from any legal association or the bar. That's sad and disappointing. He gave so much time to his own profession, yet they're amazingly silent. That's shameful."

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

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Jean Harris dies at 89; killer of 'Scarsdale Diet' doctor

Jean Harris, the onetime headmistress of an elite girls' school whose trial in the fatal 1980 shooting of the celebrity diet doctor who jilted her generated front-page headlines and national debates about whether she was a feminist martyr or vengeful murderer, has died. She was 89.

Harris, who spent nearly 12 years in prison for the shooting death of her longtime boyfriend, "Scarsdale Diet" doctor Herman "Hy" Tarnower, died Sunday at an assisted-living facility in New Haven, Conn., of complications related to old age, her son James said.

Convicted in 1981 of second-degree murder, Harris, who had at least two heart attacks in prison, was granted clemency on her 15 years-to-life sentence on Dec. 29, 1992, by then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who cited her health and advancing age.

"I honestly thought I would die in prison," Harris said after her release.

Harris, then 68, took up residence in a New Hampshire cabin overlooking Vermont's Green Mountains, where she walked her dog, wrote and raised money for a program to help children of inmates at New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Center, where she was imprisoned after her Feb. 28, 1981, conviction.

The March 10, 1980, shooting of Tarnower — which she claimed throughout her life was her own suicide gone awry — was one of the most sensational crimes of its era.

It riveted the nation, not only because of its titillating combination of sex and violence. It raised what many experts said were important sociological issues, with some feminists rallying to Harris as a symbol of society's disregard for the plight of older women and others arguing that her case had nothing at all to do with feminism.

Women's movement icon Betty Friedan dismissed Harris as a "pathetic masochist" for staying with a man who mistreated her. But author Shana Alexander, who wrote a book on the case, described Harris as the "psychological victim of a domineering person."

Whether morality play or soap opera, the case inspired two TV movies: "The People vs. Jean Harris" (1981), in which Harris was portrayed by Ellen Burstyn, and "Mrs. Harris" (2005), which starred Annette Bening.

In 1980, Harris was the 56-year-old headmistress of the fancy, private Madeira School overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, Va. Tarnower was a 69-year-old cardiologist and best-selling author of a book on a high-protein, low-fat diet that he developed for heart patients at his medical center in well-to-do Scarsdale, N.Y.

When they met in 1966, they were so taken with each other that Tarnower — a lifelong bachelor — gave Harris a 4-carat diamond engagement ring. He quickly changed his mind, telling her that he couldn't stop seeing other women.

Harris agreed to this condition, and through the years became what she wryly described as "the broad-he-brought" to dinner parties. By 1980 the 14-year relationship was on the skids as Harris became embittered watching Tarnower, in the wake of the Scarsdale diet book, growing ever more rich and famous.

The last straw for Harris: Tarnower was "wavering" about whether to invite her or a younger woman, Lynne Tryforos, to a dinner honoring him.

After one particularly harrowing week at the school when she expelled four seniors, Harris decided on suicide. She wrote notes to her grown sons, put her papers in order, packed a .32-caliber handgun in her purse and drove five hours from Virginia to Tarnower's six-acre estate in Purchase, N.Y.

She later testified that she wanted to see her lover one last time before killing herself at the estate's duck pond. But her plans went awry after she let herself into his home, found Tarnower asleep and spotted a negligee and hair rollers in a bathroom — evidence that her rival, 38-year-old Tryforos, had recently stayed over.

Harris threw the hair rollers at a window, breaking it, and also broke a cosmetic mirror. The ruckus woke Tarnower, who struck her, Harris said. She said that she challenged him to "hit me again, Hy, make it hard enough to kill," but he withdrew. Feeling the revolver in her pocketbook, she pulled out the gun and said to him, "Never mind, I'll do it myself."

But, she testified, when she raised the gun to her temple, he grabbed the weapon, which went off and wounded him in the hand, giving her time to grab the gun again; she later testified that she thought she had time to kill herself.

In the ensuing struggle, Tarnower was struck by bullets three more times — in the chest, arm and back. A fifth bullet also was fired. Harris maintained throughout her life that Tarnower was trying to prevent her from killing herself.

The call to the White Plains police was made at 10:56 p.m. by the doctor's housekeeper, who lived on the estate. The March 12 four-column headline in the New York Times read " 'Scarsdale Diet' Doctor Is Slain; Headmistress Is Charged."

The highly publicized 64-day trial that followed included 92 witnesses — most disastrously, Harris herself.

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Prominent L.A. lawyer's 2009 slaying still unsolved

Jeffrey and Sheryl Tidus had just arrived home from a charity fundraiser at Sheryl's toy store just a few miles away. They had driven in separate cars.

Once inside, Sheryl called their daughter, Ilana, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She handed the phone to her husband and began laying out food for their five dogs.

After he finished talking to their daughter, Jeffrey Tidus went back outside to retrieve a laptop from his Prius. It was about 8:30 p.m.

Sheryl heard a pop, then the motor of a car slowly driving off. When she walked outside, her husband was on the ground. Sheryl figured he had tripped or had had a heart attack. What else could it be? They lived in Rolling Hills Estates, on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, one of the wealthiest communities in Southern California, where one is more likely to encounter a horse than a burglar.

A day later, Dec. 8, 2009, Jeffrey Tidus, 53, — a prominent attorney — was dead of a single gunshot wound.

Three years later, the slaying, the only one anyone can recall in Rolling Hills Estates, remains unsolved.

"It was an execution," said Det. Bob Kenney, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy working on the case.

Family and friends have offered a $90,000 reward, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors has kicked in $10,000 more.

"I'm convinced we'll have an answer," Sheryl Tidus said, "because I can't live any other way."

Detectives have pored over Tidus' work and home computers for clues, and looked at his legal cases. Sheryl Tidus is quick to point out that her husband was a civil litigator, not a criminal or family law attorney involved in cases where emotions are pushed to the limit.

He worked with a number of well-known clients, including New Century Financial, Isuzu Motors, California Federal Savings and Tokai Bank. In the last year of his life, Tidus had won a number of large settlements, Sheryl Tidus said.

Neither she nor her husband had been worried about their safety. "Never in a million years," she said.

Kenney said there are "people of interest" in the case. One, the detective said, is former Los Angeles tax attorney Christopher Gruys, from whom a Tidus client won an $11.2-million judgment in 2007. Gruys' name surfaced in connection with the case shortly after Tidus' death.

During a deposition two years earlier, Gruys pulled out a camera and photographed Tidus and made what Tidus interpreted as a threat. The lawyer called Los Angeles police and obtained a restraining order against Gruys.

The State Bar of California placed Gruys on interim suspension in April 2007 after he was convicted of possession of an assault weapon. He gave up his license to practice law in California later that year.

Tidus had told his wife about the threat but told her not to worry.

The family had so little concern about their safety that Sheryl Tidus would leave the laundry room door open so their dogs could come in from the rain. Not any longer.

Gruys' attorney, Tom Brown, said investigators have not interviewed his client. "It's not unusual for someone who was an adversary to be looked at," Brown said.

Tidus had served as president of the young lawyer section of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and was on the State Bar's Board of Governors, as well as the bar's Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct.

He was one of the biggest donors to the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles, and was known to represent some clients for free. One pro bono client was a Polish woman who had saved the lives of at least 12 Jews during World War II. She alleged that a film producer had manipulated her into giving him the rights to her story. As the jury was about to read its verdict, the two sides reached a confidential settlement, giving Irene Guy Opdyke back the rights to her story.

When he was killed, Tidus, a dedicated runner, was training for the L.A. Marathon to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Sheryl Tidus and Tidus' sister, Amy Zeidler, walked the marathon in his place, although they didn't complete it. "We did our best," Sheryl Tidus said. "I felt a need to be there." They raised $50,000, Zeidler said.

Sheryl Tidus, 54, walked part of the course in 2012, wearing a button that said, "I walk for Jeff."

Sheryl Tidus still wears her wedding ring, along with her husband's. Their daughter wears the watch her father received from his grandfather on his bar mitzvah.

Sheryl Tidus is angry that the legal community has not agitated harder to help find her husband's killer. "Someone was gunned down for doing his job," she said. "There has been no help from any legal association or the bar. That's sad and disappointing. He gave so much time to his own profession, yet they're amazingly silent. That's shameful."

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

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Jean Harris dies at 89; killer of 'Scarsdale Diet' doctor

Jean Harris, the onetime headmistress of an elite girls' school whose trial in the fatal 1980 shooting of the celebrity diet doctor who jilted her generated front-page headlines and national debates about whether she was a feminist martyr or vengeful murderer, has died. She was 89.

Harris, who spent nearly 12 years in prison for the shooting death of her longtime boyfriend, "Scarsdale Diet" doctor Herman "Hy" Tarnower, died Sunday at an assisted-living facility in New Haven, Conn., of complications related to old age, her son James said.

Convicted in 1981 of second-degree murder, Harris, who had at least two heart attacks in prison, was granted clemency on her 15 years-to-life sentence on Dec. 29, 1992, by then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who cited her health and advancing age.

"I honestly thought I would die in prison," Harris said after her release.

Harris, then 68, took up residence in a New Hampshire cabin overlooking Vermont's Green Mountains, where she walked her dog, wrote and raised money for a program to help children of inmates at New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Center, where she was imprisoned after her Feb. 28, 1981, conviction.

The March 10, 1980, shooting of Tarnower — which she claimed throughout her life was her own suicide gone awry — was one of the most sensational crimes of its era.

It riveted the nation, not only because of its titillating combination of sex and violence. It raised what many experts said were important sociological issues, with some feminists rallying to Harris as a symbol of society's disregard for the plight of older women and others arguing that her case had nothing at all to do with feminism.

Women's movement icon Betty Friedan dismissed Harris as a "pathetic masochist" for staying with a man who mistreated her. But author Shana Alexander, who wrote a book on the case, described Harris as the "psychological victim of a domineering person."

Whether morality play or soap opera, the case inspired two TV movies: "The People vs. Jean Harris" (1981), in which Harris was portrayed by Ellen Burstyn, and "Mrs. Harris" (2005), which starred Annette Bening.

In 1980, Harris was the 56-year-old headmistress of the fancy, private Madeira School overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, Va. Tarnower was a 69-year-old cardiologist and best-selling author of a book on a high-protein, low-fat diet that he developed for heart patients at his medical center in well-to-do Scarsdale, N.Y.

When they met in 1966, they were so taken with each other that Tarnower — a lifelong bachelor — gave Harris a 4-carat diamond engagement ring. He quickly changed his mind, telling her that he couldn't stop seeing other women.

Harris agreed to this condition, and through the years became what she wryly described as "the broad-he-brought" to dinner parties. By 1980 the 14-year relationship was on the skids as Harris became embittered watching Tarnower, in the wake of the Scarsdale diet book, growing ever more rich and famous.

The last straw for Harris: Tarnower was "wavering" about whether to invite her or a younger woman, Lynne Tryforos, to a dinner honoring him.

After one particularly harrowing week at the school when she expelled four seniors, Harris decided on suicide. She wrote notes to her grown sons, put her papers in order, packed a .32-caliber handgun in her purse and drove five hours from Virginia to Tarnower's six-acre estate in Purchase, N.Y.

She later testified that she wanted to see her lover one last time before killing herself at the estate's duck pond. But her plans went awry after she let herself into his home, found Tarnower asleep and spotted a negligee and hair rollers in a bathroom — evidence that her rival, 38-year-old Tryforos, had recently stayed over.

Harris threw the hair rollers at a window, breaking it, and also broke a cosmetic mirror. The ruckus woke Tarnower, who struck her, Harris said. She said that she challenged him to "hit me again, Hy, make it hard enough to kill," but he withdrew. Feeling the revolver in her pocketbook, she pulled out the gun and said to him, "Never mind, I'll do it myself."

But, she testified, when she raised the gun to her temple, he grabbed the weapon, which went off and wounded him in the hand, giving her time to grab the gun again; she later testified that she thought she had time to kill herself.

In the ensuing struggle, Tarnower was struck by bullets three more times — in the chest, arm and back. A fifth bullet also was fired. Harris maintained throughout her life that Tarnower was trying to prevent her from killing herself.

The call to the White Plains police was made at 10:56 p.m. by the doctor's housekeeper, who lived on the estate. The March 12 four-column headline in the New York Times read " 'Scarsdale Diet' Doctor Is Slain; Headmistress Is Charged."

The highly publicized 64-day trial that followed included 92 witnesses — most disastrously, Harris herself.

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Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf dies at 78

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who topped an illustrious military career by commanding the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991 but kept a low public profile in controversies over the second Gulf War against Iraq, died Thursday. He was 78.

Schwarzkopf died in Tampa, Fla., where he had lived in retirement, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A much-decorated combat soldier in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was known popularly as "Stormin' Norman" for a notoriously explosive temper.

He served in his last military assignment in Tampa as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, the headquarters responsible for U.S. military and security concerns in nearly 20 countries from the eastern Mediterranean and Africa to Pakistan.

Schwarzkopf became "CINC-Centcom" in 1988, and when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait three years later to punish it for allegedly stealing Iraqi oil reserves, he commanded Operation Desert Storm, the coalition of some 30 countries organized by President George H.W. Bush that succeeded in driving the Iraqis out.

"Gen. Norm Schwarzkopf, to me, epitomized the 'duty, service, country' creed that has defended our freedom and seen this great nation through our most trying international crises," Bush said in a statement. "More than that, he was a good and decent man — and a dear friend."

At the peak of his postwar national celebrity, Schwarzkopf — a self-proclaimed political independent — rejected suggestions that he run for office, and remained far more private than other generals, although he did serve briefly as a military commentator for NBC.

While focused primarily in his later years on charitable enterprises, he campaigned for President George W. Bush in 2000 but was ambivalent about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying he doubted victory would be as easy as the White House and Pentagon predicted.

In early 2003 he told the Washington Post the outcome was an unknown: "What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind. It really should be part of the overall campaign plan," he said.

Initially Schwarzkopf had endorsed the invasion, saying he was convinced that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had given the United Nations powerful evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. After that proved false, he said decisions to go to war should depend on what U.N. weapons inspectors found.

He seldom spoke up during the conflict, but in late 2004, he sharply criticized then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon for mistakes that included inadequate training for Army reservists sent to Iraq and for erroneous judgments about Iraq.

"In the final analysis I think we are behind schedule. … I don't think we counted on it turning into jihad," he said in an NBC interview.

Schwarzkopf was born Aug. 24, 1934, in Trenton, N.J., where his father, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., founder and commander of the New Jersey State Police, was then leading the investigation of the Lindbergh kidnap case, which ended with the arrest and 1936 execution of German-born carpenter Richard Hauptmann for stealing and murdering the famed aviator's infant son.

The elder Schwarzkopf was named Herbert, but when the son was asked what his H stood for, he would reply, "H." Although reputed to be short-tempered with aides and subordinates, he was a friendly, talkative and even jovial figure who didn't like "Stormin' Norman" and preferred to be known as "the Bear," a sobriquet given him by troops.

He also was outspoken at times, including when he described Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, as "a horse's ass" in an Associated Press interview.

As a teenager Norman, accompanied his father to Iran, where the elder Schwarzkopf trained the country's national police force and was an adviser to Reza Pahlavi, the young Shah of Iran.

Young Norman studied there and in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, then followed in his father's footsteps to West Point, graduating in 1956 with an engineering degree. After stints in the U.S. and abroad, he earned a master's degree in engineering at the University of Southern California and later taught missile engineering at West Point.

In 1966 he volunteered for Vietnam and served two tours, first as a U.S. adviser to South Vietnamese paratroops and later as a battalion commander in the U.S. Army's Americal Division. He earned three Silver Stars for valor — including one for saving troops from a minefield — plus a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and three Distinguished Service Medals.

While many career officers left military service embittered by Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was among those who opted to stay and help rebuild the tattered Army into a potent, modernized all-volunteer force.

After Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Schwarzkopf played a key diplomatic role by helping to persuade Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow U.S. and other foreign troops to deploy on Saudi territory as a staging area for the war to come.

On Jan. 17, 1991, a five-month buildup called Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm as allied aircraft attacked Iraqi bases and Baghdad government facilities. The six-week aerial campaign climaxed with a massive ground offensive on Feb. 24-28, routing the Iraqis from Kuwait in 100 hours before U.S. officials called a halt.

Schwarzkopf said afterward he agreed with Bush's decision to stop the war rather than drive to Baghdad to capture Saddam, as his mission had been only to oust the Iraqis from Kuwait.

But in a desert tent meeting with vanquished Iraqi generals, he allowed a key concession on Iraq's use of helicopters, which later backfired by enabling Saddam to crack down more easily on rebellious Shiites and Kurds.

While he later avoided the public second-guessing by academics and think tank experts over the ambiguous outcome of Gulf War I and its impact on Gulf War II, he told the Washington Post in 2003, "You can't help but… with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'"

After retiring from the Army in 1992, Schwarzkopf wrote a best-selling autobiography, "It Doesn't Take A Hero." Of his Gulf war role, he said, "I like to say I'm not a hero. I was lucky enough to lead a very successful war." He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and honored with decorations from France, Britain, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain.

Schwarzkopf was a national spokesman for prostate cancer awareness and for Recovery of the Grizzly Bear, served on the Nature Conservancy board of governors and was active in various charities for chronically ill children.

"I may have made my reputation as a general in the Army, and I'm very proud of that," he once told the AP. "But I've always felt that I was more than one-dimensional. I'd like to think I'm a caring human being. … It's nice to feel that you have a purpose."

Schwarzkopf and his wife, Brenda, had three children: Cynthia, Jessica and Christian.

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L.A. gun buyback program breaks a record

A one-day gun buyback event in Los Angeles on Wednesday gathered 2,037 firearms, including 75 assault weapons and two rocket launchers, officials said. The total was nearly 400 more weapons than were collected in a similar buyback earlier this year.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the collection at two locations was so successful that the city ran out of money for supermarket gift cards and got a private donation through the city controller to bolster the pot.

The gun buyback was moved up from its usual Mother's Day date in response to the massacre Dec. 14 that claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 students, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"As you can see to my right and left, these weren't just guns that weren't functioning anymore," Villaraigosa said at a news conference Thursday morning. "These were serious guns — semiautomatic weapons, guns that have no place on the streets of Los Angeles or any other city."

The mayor described the event as a success, but acknowledged that there were still many guns on the streets.

Hundreds lined up in cars to get Ralphs gift cards in exchange for different types of guns. Villaraigosa said the LAPD collected 901 handguns, 698 rifles, 363 shotguns and 75 assault weapons. The weapons will be melted down.

He said that nearly three-quarters of those turning in the weapons said in an informal survey that they felt safer with the weapons off the street.

"Perhaps the most honest testament to the success of yesterday's program can be seen in the 166 weapons that were surrendered for nothing," Villaraigosa said.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said it was the most successful gun buyback event since the city began the program.

"Those are weapons of war, weapons of death," Beck said, motioning to a selection of military-style weapons on a display table. "These are not hunting guns. These are not target guns. These are made to put high-velocity, extremely deadly, long-range rounds down-range as quickly as possible, and they have no place in our great city."

Beck acknowledged that the weapons would not be checked for connections to crimes before being melted down. He said the sheer number would make that difficult, and he does not want to deter people from turning in firearms.

Villaraigosa again Thursday called for a national assault weapons ban and for strengthening the California assault weapons law to close loopholes.

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Media may argue against redactions in church files, judge rules

Media organizations will be allowed to argue against redactions in secret church files that are due to be made public as part of a historic $660-million settlement between the Los Angeles Archdiocese and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday.

Pursuant to Judge Emilie Elias' order, The Times and the Associated Press will be allowed to intervene in the case, in which attorneys are gearing up for the release of internal church personnel documents more than five years after the July 2007 settlement. The judge's ruling came after attorneys for the church and the plaintiffs agreed to the news organizations' involvement in the case.

The Times and the AP object to a portion of a 2011 decision by a retired judge overseeing the file-release process. Judge Dickran Tevrizian had ruled that all names of church employees, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other top archdiocese officials, should be blacked out in the documents before they were made public. In a hearing, Tevrizian said he did not believe the documents should be used to "embarrass or to ridicule the church."

Attorneys for the news organizations argued in court filings that the redactions would "deny the public information that is necessary to fully understand the church's knowledge about the serial molestation of children by priests over a period of decades." The personnel files of priests accused of molestation, which a church attorney has said were five or six banker's boxes of documents, could include internal memos about abuse claims, Vatican correspondence and psychiatric reports.

Contending that the secrecy was motivated by "a desire to avoid further embarrassment" for the church rather than privacy concerns, the media attorneys wrote: "That kind of self-interest is not even remotely the kind of 'overriding interest' that is needed to overcome the public's presumptive right of access, nor does it establish 'good cause' for ongoing secrecy."

An archdiocese attorney said Thursday that the church had spent a "great deal of effort" in redacting the files to comply with Tevrizian's order, and said the media attorneys misunderstand the legal process that both parties in the settlement agreed would be binding.

"We agree with Judge Tevrizian that enough time has passed and enough reforms have been made that it's time to get off this and move onto another subject," attorney J. Michael Hennigan said.

An attorney representing the victims also filed papers Thursday arguing that the church was "too broadly construing" Tevrizian's redaction orders, and asking Elias to release the files with church officials' names unredacted.

"Each of the higher-ups in the Los Angeles Archdiocese who recklessly endangered generations of this community's children by protecting pedophile priests will themselves be protected," wrote Ray Boucher, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

A hearing on the release of church documents is scheduled for Jan. 7. At the hearing, Elias will also hear objections from an attorney representing individual priests, who contend that their constitutional privacy rights will be violated if the files are made public. In a court filing this month, the priests' attorney, Donald Steier, said Tevrizian was "dead wrong" to rule that the documents can be disclosed because the public interest outweighs the clerics' rights.

"Under California law, it is the employees who own the information in the files, and the Archdiocese is merely the custodian who has a legal duty to defend the contents of the files and has no legal right to agree to disclose them," Steier wrote.

victoria.kim@latimes.com

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Former President George H.W. Bush in intensive care

Former President George H.W. Bush, seen in March, has been moved to intensive care at a Houston hospital. (Tom Pennington / Getty Images)

By Matt Pearce

December 26, 2012, 4:02 p.m.

Former President George H.W. Bush has been moved to the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital in Houston, hospital officials confirmed to the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.

Bush, 88, has been struggling with fever, weakness and a bronchitis-like cough, according to the Associated Press. He was originally planning to spend Christmas at home, but that plan was prevented by high fever.

Bush originally was checked into the hospital in November with bronchitis symptoms.

Bush suffers from vascular Parkinson's disease and missed the Republican National Convention this year.

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Deadly storm moves on to Northeast

A massive storm system upended post-Christmas travel plans Wednesday as it marched toward the Northeast after dumping snow and sleet on the middle of the country and producing tornadoes through the South on Christmas Day.

The storm stretched from Michigan to Florida and had been blamed for seven deaths so far.

The nation's airlines had canceled more than 1,800 flights and delayed more than 9,000 by at least 15 minutes, mostly into and out of Dallas, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Indianapolis and New York, according to the airline monitoring website Flightstats.com.

PHOTOS: Northeast braces for winter storm

Los Angeles International Airport, the nation's fifth-busiest, has been largely spared the impact of the storm, with only a handful of delays and cancellations Wednesday, to airports including New York's John F. Kennedy International and Chicago's O'Hare International.

The storm could dump 12 to 18 inches of snow from the lower Great Lakes to northern New England, the National Weather Service said.

A tornado watch had been in effect for part of the day in eastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina.

"It is a significant storm in terms of its size and its range of impacts from severe weather to winter weather," said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the weather service.

The storm was expected to clear most of the mid-Atlantic states Wednesday night, the service said, and northern New England could expect steady snow starting Thursday morning.

On Christmas Day alone, the weather service received 34 reports of tornadoes in eastern Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, Vaccaro said.

A twister touched down in Mobile, Ala., on Tuesday, blowing roofs off homes and knocking down trees and power lines. Several mobile homes north of the city were toppled, but no serious injuries were reported.

"Right now it's cleanup and damage assessment," said Donald Leeth, plans and operations officer with the Mobile County Emergency Management Agency.

The storm caused tens of thousands of customers to lose power across Alabama, but most had it back by Wednesday.

Snow and ice hit Arkansas hard, with about 200,000 customers losing power. Gov. Mike Beebe declared a statewide disaster Wednesday. The Arkansas Department of Emergency Management said two counties had opened shelters for those without heat.

The department received a report that a man died when a tree fell on his house in Saline County. Two children died on Christmas when the car they were in crossed the center line of an icy Arkansas highway and struck an SUV.

In Oklahoma, two people were killed in separate crashes Tuesday.

On Christmas, the storm's winds were blamed for toppling a tree onto a pickup in Texas, killing the driver, and for knocking another tree onto a house in Louisiana, killing a man there, the Associated Press reported.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency for several counties after the storm injured more than 25 people.

The New York City Office of Emergency Management issued a travel advisory for Wednesday evening through Thursday morning, citing forecasts of "snow with sleet and freezing rain." The area was also under a high wind warning, with gusts of up to 60 mph possible, Vaccaro said.

The worst of the weather should be gone by Friday, he said. "Come Friday morning, it will largely be a sunny day across the eastern third of the country."

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

Times staff writer Hugo Martin contributed to this report.

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Toyota to pay big to settle suits

Toyota Motor Corp., moving to put years of legal problems behind it, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle dozens of lawsuits relating to sudden acceleration.

The proposed deal, filed Wednesday in federal court, would be among the largest ever paid out by an automaker. It applies to numerous suits claiming economic damages caused by safety defects in the automaker's vehicles, but does not cover dozens of personal injury and wrongful-death suits that are still pending around the nation.

The suits were filed over the last three years by Toyota and Lexus owners who claimed that the value of their vehicles had been hurt by the potential for defects, including floor mats that could cause the vehicles to surge out of control.

ROAD TO RECALL: Read The Times' award winning coverage

In addition, Toyota said it is close to settling suits filed by the Orange County district attorney and a coalition of state attorneys general who had accused the automaker of deceptive business practices. The costs of those agreements would be included in a $1.1-billion charge the Japanese automaker said it will take against earnings to cover the actions.

"We concluded that turning the page on this legacy legal issue through the positive steps we are taking is in the best interests of the company, our employees, our dealers and, most of all, our customers," Christopher Reynolds, Toyota's chief counsel in the U.S., said in a statement.

Toyota's lengthy history of sudden acceleration was the subject of a series of Los Angeles Times articles in 2009, after a horrific crash outside San Diego that took the life of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and his family.

Under terms of the agreement, which has not yet been approved in court, Toyota would install brake override systems in numerous models and provide cash payments from a $250-million fund to owners whose vehicles cannot be modified to incorporate that safety measure.

In addition, the automaker plans to offer extended repair coverage on throttle systems in 16 million vehicles and offer cash payments from a separate $250-million fund to Toyota and Lexus owners who sold their vehicles or turned them in at the end of a lease in 2009 or 2010. The total value of the settlement could reach $1.4 billion, according to Steve Berman, the lead plaintiff attorney in the case.

The lawsuits, filed over the last several years, had been seeking class certification.

News of the agreement comes scarcely a week after Toyota agreed to pay a record $17.35-million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report a potential floor mat defect in a Lexus SUV. Those come on top of almost $50 million in fines paid by Toyota for other violations related to sudden acceleration since 2010.

The massive settlement does not, however, put Toyota's legal woes to rest. The automaker still faces numerous injury and wrongful death claims around the country, including a group of cases that have been consolidated in federal court in Santa Ana, and other cases awaiting trial in Los Angeles County.

The first of the federal cases, involving a Utah man who was killed in a Camry that slammed into a wall in 2010, is slated for trial in mid-February.

The California cases are set to begin in April, among them a suit involving a 66-year-old Upland woman who was killed after her vehicle allegedly reached 100 miles per hour and slammed into a tree.

Edgar Heiskell III, a West Virginia attorney who has a dozen pending suits against Toyota, said he is preparing to go to trial this summer in a case that involved a Flint, Mich., woman who was killed when her 2005 Camry suddenly accelerated near her home.

"We are proceeding with absolute confidence that we can get our cases heard on the merits and that we expect to prove defects in Toyota's electronic control system," he said.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the settlement would have no bearing on the personal injury cases.

"All carmakers face these kinds of suits," he said. "We'll defend those as we normally would."

The giant automaker's sudden acceleration problems first gained widespread attention after the August 2009 crash of a Lexus ES outside San Diego.

That accident set off a string of recalls, an unprecedented decision to temporarily stop sales of all Toyota vehicles and a string of investigations, including a highly unusual apology by Toyota President Akio Toyoda before a congressional committee. Eventually Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide and has since spent huge sums — estimated at more than $2 billion, not including Wednesday's proposed settlement — to repair both its automobiles and public image.

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Problems with new 787 Dreamliner continue to plague Boeing

Aerospace giant Boeing Co. just can't seem to escape trouble with its new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet.

More than three years late because of design problems and supplier issues, the much-anticipated plane has run into another bout of turbulence with fresh concerns about its safety.

The Federal Aviation Administration this month ordered inspections of fuel line connectors on Dreamliners because of risks of leaks and possible fires.

PHOTOS: Inside the Dreamliner

On the same day, a United Airlines Dreamliner flight from Houston to Newark, N.J., was diverted to New Orleans after an electrical problem popped up mid-flight. After accepting delivery of the aircraft just a month earlier, Qatar Air later said it had grounded a Dreamliner for the same problem that United experienced.

Despite criticism of the problem-plagued program, Boeing is confident that the plane will be a success once it gets more miles under its wings.

"We're having what we would consider the normal number of squawks on a new airplane, consistent with other new airplanes we've introduced," Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney said in an interview on cable network CNBC.

"We regret the impact on our customers, obviously," he said. "But … we're working through it."

The Dreamliner, a twin-aisle aircraft that seats 210 to 290 passengers, is the first large passenger jet with more than half its structure made of composite materials (carbon fibers meshed together with epoxy) instead of aluminum sheets. Major parts for the plane are assembled elsewhere and then shipped to Everett, Wash., where they are "snapped together" in three days, compared with a month the traditional way.

Chicago-based Boeing says the new plane burns 20% less fuel than other jetliners of a similar size. Because of this, the plane has been hotly sought-after. Through November, Boeing had delivered 38 Dreamliners.

The company has taken 844 orders for the plane from airlines and aircraft leasing firms around the world. Depending on the version ordered, the price ranges from $206.8 million to $243.6 million per jet.

Early customers get massive rebates on the first planes delivered because of bugs that may pop up in production. The plane maker sells these early aircraft at a loss.

David E. Strauss, an aerospace analyst at UBS Financial Services, said in a note to investors this month that his analysis indicates Dreamliner production "costs are not declining rapidly enough for [Boeing] to come close to its target for break-even 787 cash flow by early 2015."

Boeing spokesman Chaz Bickers said he would not comment on Strauss' analysis, but he did say that the company had already cut its production cost per plane by half. He did not specify how much that was.

"We're very pleased on the progress and confident on our processes," he said. "Once we get to 10 Dreamliners a month and stay there, that's when we expect a healthy production system."

Boeing is currently making five Dreamliners a month. The company doesn't plan on reaching 10 a month until late next year.

Many of the planes so far have gone to Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways, which has 16 of them. The airline said the Dreamliner has exceeded its expectations.

Since All Nippon began flying the planes in November 2011, it has flown nearly 7 million miles and saved 21% more fuel per flight than a different aircraft of similar size. The company also took a customer survey that found 98% of passengers said they would like to fly again on the Dreamliner.

"This is better than what we initially expected," said Kohei Tsuji, an All Nippon spokesman. "And the financial impact will only grow bigger for ANA as we continue to operate more Dreamliners."

Scott Hamilton, an aviation industry consultant and managing director of Leeham Co. in Issaquah, Wash., said that the latest Dreamliner problems are "irritants more than substance."

"The 787 problems are annoying for the airlines and embarrassing for Boeing," he said. "But I don't see these as major issues to worry about."

william.hennigan@latimes.com

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N.Y. gunman wrote that 'killing people' was what he did best

This time, there was a note.

Before ex-con William Spengler, 62, opened fire on firefighters who had responded to a blaze at his home in Webster, N.Y., on Christmas Eve, killing two and seriously wounding two others, he'd typed a couple pages announcing his plans, police said.

"I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I do best: killing people," Spengler wrote, police said Tuesday.

The previous morning, Spengler shattered the holiday calm with a shocking assault that officials found uncharacteristic of the 14 years he'd spent out of prison since killing his grandmother with a hammer in 1980.

Monday's blaze -- which officials think may have started as a vehicle fire -- consumed seven homes and damaged two more in the sleepy lakeside community, a suburb of Rochester. Officials also said they'd found human remains at Spengler's house that they suspect were his sister, Cheryl, 67.

Police think Spengler used a Bushmaster .223 rifle with a flash suppressor in his rampage. They recovered the weapon along with a Smith and Wesson .38-caliber revolver and a Mossberg pump-action 12-gauge shotgun. Officials weren't sure how Spengler -- a felon who was not allowed to own guns -- had obtained his weapons, but said he was armed to the teeth.

"He was equipped to go to war and kill innocent people," Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said at a televised news conference on Christmas Day. One of the men killed a day earlier was Mike Chiapperini, 43, a Webster  police lieutenant as well as a volunteer firefighter.

In a time of contentious debate over whether assault weapons should be banned or tightly controlled in the United States, Spengler's attack would mark the third time in two weeks that a shooter has attempted a mass killing with an assault rifle.

On Dec. 14, Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 grade-school students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., using a military-style Bushmaster .223 rifle. Lanza also killed his mother and himself. And on Dec. 11, Jacob Tyler Roberts  opened fire in a Clackamas, Ore., mall with an AR-15-style rifle, killing two and wounding one before taking his own life.

Spengler, who also shot himself,  is the only one of the three known to have left a note. Police characterized it as "rambling" and said he did not express a motive. They declined to release more excerpts Tuesday. 

"Motive is always the burning question, and I'm not sure we'll ever really know what was going through his mind," Pickering said.

A friend of the gunman told the Los Angeles Times that Spengler hated his sister and loved his mother, who had lived with the pair until she died Oct. 7. The fire began next door to the home where Spengler had killed his  92-year-old grandmother,  for which he served 18 years in prison; he was released in 1998.

Officials Tuesday described a chaotic "combat situation." A Webster police officer used his duty rifle to trade fire with Spengler on Monday in morning darkness after the firefighters had been fired upon before getting out of their trucks, police said.

Rounds shattered the windshield of the firetruck that two of the firefighters were in; the wounded driver crashed it into a bank trying to get away.

"Had that police officer not been there, more people would have been killed, because he immediately engaged the shooter," Pickering said of his officer.

Greece, N.Y., police officer Jon Ritter was driving behind the firetruck when he also came under fire. He was wounded by shrapnel from the bullets that struck his windshield and engine block, police said.

Ritter "tried to shelter some of the fallen firemen with his car when the other firefighters -- that we later extracted from the location with the armored personnel carrier -- had taken cover under the firetruck to try to escape further harm from the ongoing gunfire," Pickering said.

The two wounded firefighters, Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino, remained in the intensive care unit and were described as stable.

Officials said that 33 neighborhood residents had been displaced by the blaze and the investigation and that hotels had offered them places to stay.

"We all have been inundated from citizens, police agencies across the nation and really across the world, wanting to provide donations," Pickering said, getting emotional.

"On a personal note, and speaking for my law enforcement associates and all my fire associates and all my EMS associates, I want to thank the community for tremendous outpouring. It has been incredible."

matt.pearce@latimes.com

John Hoeffel in Naples, N.Y., contributed to this report.

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12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Lakers snap Christmas Day streak with win over Knicks

Lakers 100, Knicks 94 (final)

The Lakers closed out the New York Knicks on Christmas Day to win their fifth in a row, avenging a Dec. 13 loss in New York, the low point of the season during a four-game losing streak. 

The Lakers haven't dropped a game since.

With the Lakers up by three points, Pau Gasol found a lane to the basket from the high post and flushed down a dunk to seal the victory with 11.6 seconds left.  Steve Nash, in his second game back from a leg injury, scored 16 points and dished 11 assists.

The Lakers shot 48.1% from the field but it was their defense that was instrumental in the victory, holding New York to only 16 points in the fourth quarter.

The Knicks shot 42.7% from the field despite 34 from Carmelo Anthony (13-23 shooting), who exploded in the third quarter to give the Knicks a nine-point lead.  The Lakers never led by more than five points.

Kobe Bryant also scored 34 points on 14-for-24 shooting.  Metta World Peace fouled out after scoring 20.  For the second consecutive game, Pau Gasol had six assists.

Knicks center Tyson Chandler also fouled out, finishing with six points and nine rebounds.  J.R. Smith helped carry the offensive load for New York with 25 points.

The Lakers will play on Wednesday night against the Nuggets in Denver.

Knicks 78, Lakers 77 (end of third quarter)

The Lakers survived a 17-point quarter from Carmelo Anthony to close to within one point after three quarters.

Falling behind by as many as nine points after halftime, the Lakers had a chance to go up by a point but Kobe Bryant missed a pair of free throws with 2.6 seconds left in the quarter.

Anthony climbed to 27 points for the game on 11-for-20 shooting while his Knicks shot 43.8% through three.  J.R. Smith contributed 20 points off the bench.

The Lakers were led by Bryant's 26 points on 11-for-18 shooting, while getting 18 points from Metta World Peace and 14 from Steve Nash.

Some of New York's lead was earned from behind the three-point line with eight makes in 22 tries.  The Lakers shot 48.3% from the field but only five of 18 (27.8%) from three-point range.

World Peace started the second half in place of Darius Morris but Anthony had the hot hand.

Lakers 51, Knicks 49 (halftime)

For the second consecutive quarter, the Lakers closed well against the Knicks. After New York's reserves had helped push the Knicks to a six-point advantage, the Lakers rallied to take a two-point lead at halftime.

Carmelo Anthony and Metta World Peace battled through a very physical period, challenging each other in the post. Anthony finished the half with 10 points while World Peace had a game-high 16 points after coming off the Lakers' bench.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Shotgun shell lights and other similar items keep TSA agents busy

Spear guns, knives, inert grenades, stun guns and loaded 9-millimeter handguns. The holidays brings no letup in the number of real or replica weapons that Transportation Security Administration officers uncover at airport checkpoints.

But finding them is more of a challenge at this time of year with the swelling volume of bags, many filled with food and novelties.

Quiz: Test your knowledge about airport security

Take the Christmas lights made of green and red shotguns shells that were recently discovered in a carry-on bag at Newark Liberty International Airport.

"Nothing says happy holidays like Christmas lights shaped like shotgun shells," joked TSA spokesman Nico Melendez. The TSA prohibits passengers from packing ammunition, live or not, in carry-on bags.

Neither the TSA nor Airlines for America, the trade group for the nation's airlines, could guess how many more bags the average passenger carries during the holidays but the Automobile Assn. of America predicts that the total number of holiday travelers across the country will be the highest in six years.

"All year long we get crazy items that come through the security checkpoints," Melendez said. "The challenge is the number of people coming through the checkpoints and all the stuff they bring."

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12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Dueling Santa trackers are off and running

A screen grab from Google's Santa Tracker. (Google / December 24, 2012)

By Deborah Netburn

December 24, 2012, 1:11 p.m.

All year long Santa keeps an eye on you. Now it's time to turn the tables.

One day a year, you are invited to keep an eye on Santa as he whips around the world in his sleigh, delivering a dizzying number of presents to children all over the world.

If you'd like to see where Santa is at the moment, you've got choices. Google and NORAD, which used to team up for your Santa tracking pleasure, have gone their separate ways this year and created two distinct tracking options.

Google's Santa Tracker is the slicker of the two. It takes you to Santa's Dashboard, where you can see Santa's current location, his next location, the number of miles traveled, and the number of presents delivered. Santa is also adding Twitter like status updates. The most recent one as of this writing: "Rudolph's nose just turned red." 

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You can also click on the map and see where Santa has been, as noted by little present icons on the map. Click on the icon and you'll see how many presents Santa has delivered in each city. When Santa is on the move, you'll see him flying on the map in a sleigh. When he's stopped to deliver presents, you'll see him shoving presents down a chimney.

Over at the official NORAD Tracks Santa website you'll also find a running tally of how many presents Santa has delivered as well as what city he just left and what city he's currently headed toward. NORAD also offers Santa Cams that show animations of Santa flying around the world. 

Both Santa tracking services offer loads of extras. If you visit Santa's Village on Google's tracker you can send a message from  Santa to a friend or family member. And NORAD has more than 1,200 volunteers staffing a Santa hotline to answer all your Santa questions.  (877-HI-NORAD).

In the spirit of the season you might try them both out, but hurry up. The trackers shut down a few hours before Christmas morning. 

Happy tracking!

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12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hundreds of stores destroyed as raging fire guts Kabul market

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Firefighters battled through the night to contain a raging fire that swept through a market in the Afghan capital.

No injuries were reported, but the blaze destroyed hundreds of stores and millions of dollars worth of merchandise, Afghan police and firefighters said at the scene. 

Dealers at the neighboring currency exchange, the city's largest, said they evacuated cash, computer equipment and records from their shops as the flames approached during the night. But in the morning, the market was jammed with people haggling over thick stacks of notes as smoke billowed overhead.

Col. Mohammed Qasem, general director of the Kabul fire department, said he suspected an electrical short was to blame for the fire. 

Gas canisters used to heat the stores propelled the flames, along with the cloth and clothing sold by many of the vendors, Qasem said. "It made it very big in a short time."

Firefighters from the Afghan defense department and NATO forces were sent to assist. But the city's notorious traffic and the market's narrow lanes made it difficult for responders to maneuver their vehicles, Qasem said.

Abdulrahman, who like many Afghans has only one name, squatted near a fire truck with his head in his hands  as responders aimed a hose at the blackened ruins of a building still smoldering at noon Sunday, more than 12 hours after the fire broke out.

He said the building had contained three shops that he owned and a warehouse full of glassware, crockery and kitchen utensils. 

"I lost everything," he said.

Shirali Khan complained that police hadn't allowed him to remove the goods from his four clothing stores.

"They thought we were all robbers," he said.  "There's only ashes left."

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Tensions high as vote on proposed Egyptian constitution continues

Special correspondent Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.

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Egypt opposition accuses Islamists of fraud in referendum

CAIRO — Egypt's opposition on Sunday charged that fraud was committed during a referendum on the nation's Islamist-backed constitution, which preliminary results indicated had been approved by voters. The dispute augured more ill will and public confrontation between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and their opponents.

The constitution, which went before voters Saturday in a second and final round of balloting, was approved by 64%, according to an initial count, the state news agency reported.

Leaders from the National Salvation Front, or NSF, the coalition of leading nationalist, left-wing and moderate politicians, accused Islamists of systematic fraud and urged the government to not put the constitution into effect until an investigation could be carried out.

"We documented a set of irregularities that are clearly evidence of systemic violations," said Amr Hamzawy, an NSF leader and political science professor. "We would like the responsible party to investigate and report the conclusions before the final results of the referendum are announced," he added, referring to Egypt's High Elections Commission.

The NSF said it had compiled a list of 1,500 violations in the referendum's first round on Dec. 15 and said a similar number of abuses occurred Saturday. Charges include voters being turned away and judges who served as observers turning up late at voting centers where the constitution was expected to fail.

NSF leaders warned that the constitution amounted to President Mohamed Morsi's first step in a plan to build an Islamist dictatorship. "We see that our people are on the verge of a series of laws that will ravage general freedoms and will humiliate the poor in this nation," said Hamdeen Sabahi, one of the NSF's leaders and a former presidential candidate.

Sabahi indicated that the coalition would continue to back demonstrations to pressure the government, calling the NSF's supporters "a wide front for a great popular resistance in the street." Since late November, those protests have turned into violent confrontations between Morsi's supporters and the opposition.

Sabahi said the non-Islamist parties looked to elections as the place to defeat Morsi's ambitions, but added that no final decision had been made on whether to compete in parliamentary elections coming early in the new year.

"We are ready to lead all democratic battles," he said. "The Egyptian people will prove every time that they are able to democratically depose any group that imposes its authoritarianism."

In turn, Islamist political figures sounded conciliatory notes Sunday but said nothing about addressing the allegations of fraud. Morsi's office, sensitive to the accusations being railed against him, defended the draft constitution, calling it "a substantial improvement on human rights advocacy."

Anticipating passage of the document, Morsi has started naming non-Islamist parties and Christians to the Shura, the parliament's upper chamber. The body was elected in spring along with the lower house, which was later annulled by judges. The Shura remained intact, and will take on legislative powers now until the new lower assembly is elected.

Among the new 90 presidential appointments to the body were Christians and non-Islamist political parties. However, the Shura's 270 seats remain dominated by Islamists, a fact that caused observers and critics to dismiss Morsi's gestures as cosmetic.

Morsi's supporters defend the president. They say his measures, including the emergency decree that allowed him to push through the constitution, were provoked by a hidden conspiracy to sabotage the Islamists now running the country after decades of suppression under deposed President Hosni Mubarak's government and his predecessors.

The weeks of confrontation have clearly wearied Egyptians, already exhausted by two years of revolution and economic downturn. Only about 16 million of the nation's 51 million voters cast ballots in the referendum, according to preliminary figures.

Despite the acrimony, Morsi and the Islamists are still in a better position than their opponents. They have relied upon decades of grassroots work by the Muslim Brotherhood, which supports the president, and have long been seen as a defender of ordinary Egyptians against a corrupt, uncaring state.

The NSF, dominated by personalities such as Amr Moussa, the former head of the Arab League, has yet to show it can similarly mobilize people en masse. The coalition's groups, marred by infighting, have only in the last month been able to concentrate their energies, united by the battle over the constitution.

"The Islamists are able to guard their name because they are on the ground. They work with the people," said analyst Hassan Abu Taleb of Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "This is what the opposition needs to change."

ned.parker@latimes.com

Special correspondent Abdellatif reported from Cairo and Times staff writer Parker from Beirut.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

U.S. Tennis Assn. reinstates umpire who was suspended

Lois "Lolo" Goodman was reinstated last week as a professional tennis umpire in the wake of a decision by prosecutors to drop charges that she fatally bludgeoned her husband, her attorney said.

Goodman, a fixture on the U.S. Tennis Assn. circuit for a couple of decades, had been sidelined since October after her arrest in New York on suspicion of killing her husband, Alan Goodman, 80.

Last month, prosecutors decided to drop a murder charge against Goodman without revealing their reasons. The move was made before her defense attorneys submitted a pathology report disputing coroner's findings that her husband was deliberately killed and citing a heart attack as the cause of his death.

"This is a wonderful holiday gift for Lolo and her family," Kelly Gerner, one of her attorneys, said Friday after the announcement of her reinstatement. "Lolo thanks the USTA for their prompt action, and she wishes a happy holiday to her many friends and supporters."

Goodman's arrest in August made international headlines when police apprehended her in New York as she was on her way to referee qualifying matches for the U.S. Open.

Her lawyers said the USTA informed her Friday morning that they were lifting her suspension.

Although prosecutors have dropped the charges, Ed Winter, deputy chief of coroner's investigations, said Alan Goodman's April 17 death remains listed as a homicide and it remains an open police case.

Goodman, 70, said she found her husband dead at their Woodland Hills home. She told authorities that she came home and found a bloody trail up the stairs to their bedroom. She believed he had fallen, then made his way to bed. Responding officers believed her and the home was cleaned up.

But three days later, a coroner's investigator visited the mortuary to sign the death certificate and reported he found "deep penetrating blunt force trauma" on Alan Goodman's head and ears. The observations led to a homicide investigation. In a search warrant, a detective described how investigators had found blood throughout the home.

Lois Goodman's lawyers later revealed that the tennis umpire's DNA wasn't found on the alleged murder weapon, a coffee cup. She also passed a defense-arranged polygraph test conducted by a former FBI examiner, according to her lawyers.

On the day the case was dismissed, Goodman said: "I feel wonderful!"

"I want to thank my family and my attorneys, my friends. Their support has been wonderful. And I want to thank the D.A.'s office for doing the right thing. I have always maintained my innocence."

richard.winton@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Minnesota is missing its moose

Fly over northeastern Minnesota with "Sky Dan" and you'd see a moose. One time, he spotted 15 of them during an hour flight. The pilot was so confident, he even offered those on his aerial tours a money-back guarantee.

"If you didn't see a moose, you didn't pay," Dan Anderson, 49, said.

No longer. Anderson stopped providing refunds to customers in 2008. He was handing back too much money.

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The state's iconic moose population has been mysteriously declining for years, a drop-off that pushed the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources this month to propose labeling moose a species of "special concern."

"It's a classification that means we need to pay attention to this species," said Richard J. Baker, endangered species coordinator for the department.

The exact reason for the decline remains unknown, though experts have pinpointed some likely culprits, including climate change, parasites, disease, predators and nutrition.

"It could be a host of things," said Lou Cornicelli, wildlife research manager for the Department of Natural Resources.

Cornicelli said moose aren't trotting off to other states or Canada, either.

"The ones in our state are just dying," he said.

For Minnesotans, those deaths hit home.

Moose are a cultural symbol of the wilderness and carry a certain mystique. The animal graces the signs of diners, bars, lodges and more.

Each fall, the city of Grand Marais holds its Moose Madness festival on a long weekend during moose mating season. "They do go a little crazy in the fall, which is a good thing if you keep your distance," said Sally Nankivell, executive director of the Cook County Visitors Bureau.

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For three days, the town of roughly 1,350 along Lake Superior puts on a show. There are free stuffed toy moose for the children, stenciled moose tracks on the ground and a moose-themed poetry contest — both haiku and limerick. The festival has its own mascot: Murray the Moose.

Though the Minnesota moose is in trouble, experts say it's premature to label the mammal a lost cause.

"It's not a worry they are going to disappear yet. It's more, 'Let's do what we can to get them back,'" said Ron Moen, a wildlife biologist with the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

From 2005 to 2012, the moose population in northeastern Minnesota dropped 48% to an estimated 4,230 animals, according to an annual aerial survey. In northwestern Minnesota, moose have largely vanished.

"We never definitively found out" what led to the northwest drop-off, Cornicelli said.

So Minnesota has launched an effort to stop the trend from repeating itself.

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