NSA faces backlash over collecting phone data

WASHINGTON — A reporter recently asked the National Security Agency's chief a blunt question: Why can't he come up with a better example of a terrorism plot foiled through the bulk collection of U.S. phone records?

In the weeks since Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had been collecting and storing the calling histories of nearly every American, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other U.S. officials have cited only one case as having been discovered exclusively by searching those records: some San Diego men who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Although intelligence officials and the White House continue to defend the mass data collection, support has clearly eroded among the public and in Congress. A coalition of libertarians on the right and civil liberties advocates on the left came six votes short of passing an amendment in the House last week to curtail bulk collection of phone records, but no one believes that will be the last word.

Even Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders who have defended the NSA's collection of phone records since the program was disclosed, are among those who concede that changes would probably be needed.

"We will work to find additional privacy protections with this program," Rogers said during House debate over the amendment.

The shift in public opinion about the government's data collection efforts is clear. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday asked Americans whether they were more concerned that government programs to combat terrorism were going too far and endangering civil liberties or that they were not going far enough and leaving the country unprotected. For the first time since Pew began asking that question in 2004, more Americans, 47%, said their greater concern was the threat to civil liberties, compared with 35% who worried the programs don't go far enough to protect the country.

As recently as 2010, only a third of Americans said they worried the government's anti-terrorism efforts went too far.

In part, that change may reflect the passage of time and the fading of the intense emotions generated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of the shift seems attributable to Snowden's disclosures, the resulting debate and the difficulty that intelligence officials have had in convincing the public that their vast and expensive data-collection efforts are actually accomplishing much.

The government "has not done a good job justifying it," said Fred Cate, a privacy law expert and law professor at Indiana University. "I leave open the possibility that there are cases they can't talk about. It's also possible this is an entirely worthless program. Let's face it — a lot of government investments are."

If the government were to curtail the collection of telephone data or drop it entirely, the rollback would not be unprecedented. In 2011, according to Snowden's disclosures, the intelligence agencies quietly discontinued a then-secret program that collected email metadata on Americans — "to" and "from" information, not content — because it wasn't yielding much of value.

U.S. intelligence officials insist the telephone program is different. They collect and store domestic records of telephone calls, they say, so that they never repeat what happened before the Sept. 11 attacks, when an Al Qaeda terrorist was calling partners in Yemen, but the NSA didn't realize the calls were coming from San Diego.

But since Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies have gotten better at tracking terrorists abroad and keeping them from entering the U.S. The collection of phone records may no longer be essential, according to some lawmakers who have studied the subject.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of government surveillance, said last week that he had pressed the intelligence community behind the scenes about the collection of telephone records, and that he would lead an effort to reform NSA surveillance.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I don't think the intelligence community has been very definitive either with the public or with Congress about how often this program has played a role in stopping plots, and what sort of role it has played."

For example, one of the cases that intelligence officials often mention — and that Alexander cited in his reply to the question from Politico's Josh Gerstein during a recent conference in Aspen, Colo. — is the investigation into a 2009 plot to target the New York subway system. But that investigation, although it apparently made use of domestic calling records, began with a tip from a less controversial NSA surveillance program aimed at foreigners.

Outgoing FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress there had been 10 to 12 cases in which the phone data were important, but he offered none besides the one in San Diego, in which, he said, the collection had been "instrumental."

Schiff is pushing three legislative proposals. He wants judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, which holds secret proceedings to oversee the surveillance, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court's chief justice appoints sitting federal judges to the intelligence court. Almost all of its members have been Republican appointees, many with backgrounds as prosecutors or in other executive branch posts, which may incline them to favor the government, critics say.

Schiff also backs a plan pushed by some former judges of the foreign intelligence court to set up a team of lawyers who could argue before the court to represent privacy interests. The judges now consider government surveillance requests in hearings with only the lawyers representing the intelligence agencies present.

Schiff also wants to change the phone records program so that phone service providers keep the records, not the government. The NSA would query the records as needed with court approval, much as it does now. Administration officials have said that the government would have to pay the companies to store the vast amounts of data involved and that having the data held separately by each company would greatly increase the costs and complexity of the system.

"I think there will be reforms to the FISA court, and I think there will be a restructuring of this program," Schiff said.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, another date is looming: In 2015, the law that gives the government its surveillance authority will be up for renewal. For the current programs to continue, a bill would have to pass the House and Senate.

Without major changes, "there are not the votes" to keep the current data collection programs running, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) told intelligence officials at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this month.

In 2001, Sensenbrenner sponsored the Patriot Act, the law under which the Justice Department says it is acting. He believes the government has stretched the law he helped write.

Unless the intelligence agencies agree to changes, he warned, they're "going to lose it entirely."

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bloodshed rises in streets of Egypt

CAIRO — Doctors rushed over floors scattered with bandages as the dead, covered with blood-drenched sheets, were identified by relatives in a makeshift hospital. The bodies were carried toward streets filled with mourners in a nation slipping deeper into violence.

The call to prayer pierced the sky and faded as thousands of Islamists, many tending wounds, prostrated in front of the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque, site of a monthlong sit-in. Worshipers whispered of vengeance and pictures of the newly fallen fluttered in the sun.

This was Cairo on a scorching Saturday after predawn clashes in which the Health Ministry reported that at least 80 people, mostly supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been killed by police and civilian gunmen.

The ferocity of those hours spoke to an Egypt that appears to be coming undone. The deaths suggested a perilous turning point in a struggle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the country's political destiny. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The killings stoked resolve among the Brotherhood but they also illustrated the narrowing options the group faces against a military that claims a popular mandate to stem "violence and terrorism."

The army has vowed to end the demonstration at the mosque soon, which may ignite more bloodshed at a time that foreign capitals are increasingly worried about Egypt's trajectory.

"We must live in dignity or die trying to get it," said Moataz Moussa, standing near the barricades. "They call us terrorists but we are not. We have only stones against the army's weapons."

The military is seeking to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which over the last two years rose from an outlawed opposition group to Egypt's dominant political force. The campaign of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, against Islamists mirrors the harsh tactics of other former military leaders, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising.

"This is not about being a Brotherhood member or not. We just want freedom and justice," said Ahmed Wahba, a burly man whose shirt was wet with sweat. "We stood in line for hours last year to vote for a new democracy. But what good has it done us? Democracy is down the toilet. This is a bloody coup."

There are conflicting reports of what happened to Wahba's compatriots between midnight and daybreak Saturday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said security forces fired tear gas to stop Morsi supporters from blocking the 6th of October Bridge, a key Cairo thoroughfare. The police responded, he said, after Morsi's followers marched toward the bridge from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

Ibrahim did not explicitly say whether security forces fired other weapons. He said, however, that "the police have not and will not aim any firearm at the chest of any protester."

The general prosecutor's office said that Morsi supporters fired at police first. The state news agency reported that the pro-Morsi "crowd attacked security forces with shotguns, pistols and Molotov cocktails."

That account differs from the version told by Brotherhood members, wounded protesters and doctors in the field hospital near the mosque. They say 120 people were killed, many of them by live ammunition, when police and unknown gunmen, including snipers, attacked peaceful protesters in clashes that intensified through the night.

"The early injuries we saw were mostly from tear gas. Then, a little later, we treated birdshot wounds," said Dr. Esam Arafa, who volunteered at the field hospital. "But around 2 a.m. there was a terrifying escalation. We saw injuries from live bullets. Protesters were shot in the chest, head and eyes. I've seen no less than 1,000 wounded patients."

The field hospital radiated fatigue and sorrow. The wounded and the dead were ferried in by trucks, cars and motorcycles. Medical supplies were quickly unpacked; stitches were counted, birdshot plucked from skin. Women wept and men parted to make way for television cameras and corpses carried from a room that served as a morgue.

"I saw things I didn't want to see," said one man.

"The world must know this," said another.

"We are Egyptians," said a third.

By late morning, rubber gloves streaked with blood littered the floor and the stench of death began to rise.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Landmark California regulations under federal fire

WASHINGTON — California has a reputation for having some of the nation's most aggressive rules on workplace safety, consumer protection and environmental quality — regulations that force companies to make costly adjustments to the way they do business worldwide.

Now some of those companies, banking on congressional gridlock and sympathetic Republican leaders in the House, are fighting back. And officials in Sacramento worry that some of the state's landmark laws may be in danger.

At the top of their worry list is a measure with bipartisan support that would strengthen federal environmental laws on dangerous chemicals, but at the price of rolling back a pioneering California law that tries to protect consumers from the most toxic materials. State leaders are scrambling to fend off the bill, which they say is written so broadly that it also could undermine California's clean water laws and its effort to combat global warming.

"We are alarmed," said Debbie Raphael, director of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "We have programs in place that are very effective and have moved the marketplace to benefit not just California but the entire world. This … puts all that at risk."

The U.S. government has the power to block the laws of California or any other state if the statutes have an impact on interstate commerce or otherwise interfere with federal authority. But Washington has tended to do that sparingly. Democrats there typically don't have a problem with the state's liberal policies, and Republicans have preferred to avoid infringing on states' rights.

But Republicans have taken up the argument that they need to curb such regulatory trailblazing to protect the rights of other states, particularly deep-red ones that don't want their industries faced with either following California's rules or being cut off from the country's biggest market. They argue that the state's regulations have gotten more aggressive. State officials say a more conservative Republican Party now puts business interests ahead of protecting states from Washington's authority.

Beyond the proposed federal Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a wide range of California measures are under siege. Agricultural interests have persuaded much of Congress that a state law prohibiting the sale of eggs laid by hens confined to tiny cages should be invalidated. California's foie gras ban has been under attack, as has its ban on the sale of inefficient light bulbs.

A proposed rule by one federal agency threatens the state's ban on cutting fins off sharks to sell for soup. A House panel recently amended a transportation bill to shift final authority over California's planned high-speed rail line to Congress, where many Republicans complain the project infringes on the rights of landowners in its path.

A measure that would have blocked California's authority to enforce state water law protections for endangered species made it through the House last year, though it stalled in the Senate.

"It's a constant push and pull," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law. "When a state puts in regulations a business finds onerous, it turns to Congress."

The toxics legislation has caused particular alarm in California.

It was hatched in the Senate, which has usually been the chamber that has protected California against legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled House. It was co-written by the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a liberal who had strong ties to consumer groups, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), a conservative who has long championed less regulation for industry.

The two struck a compromise that would significantly strengthen the federal Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate chemicals.

Under current law, EPA authority is limited to chemicals that already have been proved to be dangerous. As a result, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals on the market has been tested by the federal government. Vitter agreed to back new authority for the EPA to screen all chemicals for safety. But in exchange, he insisted on provisions, backed by the chemical industry, that could prohibit states from adding regulations of their own.

In the spring, news of the deal was hailed as a breakthrough on Capitol Hill, where consumer activists and environmental groups had lost repeated battles to strengthen the existing law, which they considered toothless.

Then details from the fine print emerged.

California officials objected that the measure not only would prohibit the state from imposing its own rules on the manufacture and sale of chemicals, but also that the language had such broad sweep, it could invalidate several other state laws as well.

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris described the measure in an email to The Times as "a no-win that puts Californians at risk from toxic chemicals and inhibits the development of safer, cleaner products." Her office has concluded that the measure would imperil Proposition 65, which voters enacted in 1986 to limit contamination of groundwater and make businesses disclose when consumers are exposed to carcinogens.

The California Environmental Protection Agency has "identified dozens of California laws and regulations that may be at risk of preemption" under the chemicals bill, Secretary Matt Rodriquez wrote in a letter to senators. He warned that it "could jeopardize California's ability to control greenhouse gases and thereby meet the state's targets under AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006."

Vitter's office did not respond to requests for comment. Other supporters of the measure say it is not intended to unravel the state's toxics law, its global warming policies or other state laws. They say it will be amended to make that clear.

"This is a compromise we think supports national commerce and innovation and also recognizes places where a state rule is appropriate," said Anne Womack Kolton, vice president of communications at the American Chemistry Council. "It gives states the ability to preserve some of their authority."

California officials are looking to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who shares some of their concerns and heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, to take up their fight at a hearing this week.

Others in the delegation are exasperated.

"I have a state that wants to set the bar higher," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who helped write several major California regulatory laws while serving in the Assembly. "On human health, on animal cruelty, on all sorts of things. The federal government should be supporting that. But there are some industries that are on a race to the bottom."

evan.halper@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

NSA faces backlash over collecting phone data

WASHINGTON — A reporter recently asked the National Security Agency's chief a blunt question: Why can't he come up with a better example of a terrorism plot foiled through the bulk collection of U.S. phone records?

In the weeks since Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had been collecting and storing the calling histories of nearly every American, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other U.S. officials have cited only one case as having been discovered exclusively by searching those records: some San Diego men who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Although intelligence officials and the White House continue to defend the mass data collection, support has clearly eroded among the public and in Congress. A coalition of libertarians on the right and civil liberties advocates on the left came six votes short of passing an amendment in the House last week to curtail bulk collection of phone records, but no one believes that will be the last word.

Even Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders who have defended the NSA's collection of phone records since the program was disclosed, are among those who concede that changes would probably be needed.

"We will work to find additional privacy protections with this program," Rogers said during House debate over the amendment.

The shift in public opinion about the government's data collection efforts is clear. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday asked Americans whether they were more concerned that government programs to combat terrorism were going too far and endangering civil liberties or that they were not going far enough and leaving the country unprotected. For the first time since Pew began asking that question in 2004, more Americans, 47%, said their greater concern was the threat to civil liberties, compared with 35% who worried the programs don't go far enough to protect the country.

As recently as 2010, only a third of Americans said they worried the government's anti-terrorism efforts went too far.

In part, that change may reflect the passage of time and the fading of the intense emotions generated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of the shift seems attributable to Snowden's disclosures, the resulting debate and the difficulty that intelligence officials have had in convincing the public that their vast and expensive data-collection efforts are actually accomplishing much.

The government "has not done a good job justifying it," said Fred Cate, a privacy law expert and law professor at Indiana University. "I leave open the possibility that there are cases they can't talk about. It's also possible this is an entirely worthless program. Let's face it — a lot of government investments are."

If the government were to curtail the collection of telephone data or drop it entirely, the rollback would not be unprecedented. In 2011, according to Snowden's disclosures, the intelligence agencies quietly discontinued a then-secret program that collected email metadata on Americans — "to" and "from" information, not content — because it wasn't yielding much of value.

U.S. intelligence officials insist the telephone program is different. They collect and store domestic records of telephone calls, they say, so that they never repeat what happened before the Sept. 11 attacks, when an Al Qaeda terrorist was calling partners in Yemen, but the NSA didn't realize the calls were coming from San Diego.

But since Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies have gotten better at tracking terrorists abroad and keeping them from entering the U.S. The collection of phone records may no longer be essential, according to some lawmakers who have studied the subject.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of government surveillance, said last week that he had pressed the intelligence community behind the scenes about the collection of telephone records, and that he would lead an effort to reform NSA surveillance.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I don't think the intelligence community has been very definitive either with the public or with Congress about how often this program has played a role in stopping plots, and what sort of role it has played."

For example, one of the cases that intelligence officials often mention — and that Alexander cited in his reply to the question from Politico's Josh Gerstein during a recent conference in Aspen, Colo. — is the investigation into a 2009 plot to target the New York subway system. But that investigation, although it apparently made use of domestic calling records, began with a tip from a less controversial NSA surveillance program aimed at foreigners.

Outgoing FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress there had been 10 to 12 cases in which the phone data were important, but he offered none besides the one in San Diego, in which, he said, the collection had been "instrumental."

Schiff is pushing three legislative proposals. He wants judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, which holds secret proceedings to oversee the surveillance, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court's chief justice appoints sitting federal judges to the intelligence court. Almost all of its members have been Republican appointees, many with backgrounds as prosecutors or in other executive branch posts, which may incline them to favor the government, critics say.

Schiff also backs a plan pushed by some former judges of the foreign intelligence court to set up a team of lawyers who could argue before the court to represent privacy interests. The judges now consider government surveillance requests in hearings with only the lawyers representing the intelligence agencies present.

Schiff also wants to change the phone records program so that phone service providers keep the records, not the government. The NSA would query the records as needed with court approval, much as it does now. Administration officials have said that the government would have to pay the companies to store the vast amounts of data involved and that having the data held separately by each company would greatly increase the costs and complexity of the system.

"I think there will be reforms to the FISA court, and I think there will be a restructuring of this program," Schiff said.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, another date is looming: In 2015, the law that gives the government its surveillance authority will be up for renewal. For the current programs to continue, a bill would have to pass the House and Senate.

Without major changes, "there are not the votes" to keep the current data collection programs running, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) told intelligence officials at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this month.

In 2001, Sensenbrenner sponsored the Patriot Act, the law under which the Justice Department says it is acting. He believes the government has stretched the law he helped write.

Unless the intelligence agencies agree to changes, he warned, they're "going to lose it entirely."

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bloodshed rises in streets of Egypt

CAIRO — Doctors rushed over floors scattered with bandages as the dead, covered with blood-drenched sheets, were identified by relatives in a makeshift hospital. The bodies were carried toward streets filled with mourners in a nation slipping deeper into violence.

The call to prayer pierced the sky and faded as thousands of Islamists, many tending wounds, prostrated in front of the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque, site of a monthlong sit-in. Worshipers whispered of vengeance and pictures of the newly fallen fluttered in the sun.

This was Cairo on a scorching Saturday after predawn clashes in which the Health Ministry reported that at least 80 people, mostly supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been killed by police and civilian gunmen.

The ferocity of those hours spoke to an Egypt that appears to be coming undone. The deaths suggested a perilous turning point in a struggle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the country's political destiny. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The killings stoked resolve among the Brotherhood but they also illustrated the narrowing options the group faces against a military that claims a popular mandate to stem "violence and terrorism."

The army has vowed to end the demonstration at the mosque soon, which may ignite more bloodshed at a time that foreign capitals are increasingly worried about Egypt's trajectory.

"We must live in dignity or die trying to get it," said Moataz Moussa, standing near the barricades. "They call us terrorists but we are not. We have only stones against the army's weapons."

The military is seeking to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which over the last two years rose from an outlawed opposition group to Egypt's dominant political force. The campaign of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, against Islamists mirrors the harsh tactics of other former military leaders, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising.

"This is not about being a Brotherhood member or not. We just want freedom and justice," said Ahmed Wahba, a burly man whose shirt was wet with sweat. "We stood in line for hours last year to vote for a new democracy. But what good has it done us? Democracy is down the toilet. This is a bloody coup."

There are conflicting reports of what happened to Wahba's compatriots between midnight and daybreak Saturday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said security forces fired tear gas to stop Morsi supporters from blocking the 6th of October Bridge, a key Cairo thoroughfare. The police responded, he said, after Morsi's followers marched toward the bridge from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

Ibrahim did not explicitly say whether security forces fired other weapons. He said, however, that "the police have not and will not aim any firearm at the chest of any protester."

The general prosecutor's office said that Morsi supporters fired at police first. The state news agency reported that the pro-Morsi "crowd attacked security forces with shotguns, pistols and Molotov cocktails."

That account differs from the version told by Brotherhood members, wounded protesters and doctors in the field hospital near the mosque. They say 120 people were killed, many of them by live ammunition, when police and unknown gunmen, including snipers, attacked peaceful protesters in clashes that intensified through the night.

"The early injuries we saw were mostly from tear gas. Then, a little later, we treated birdshot wounds," said Dr. Esam Arafa, who volunteered at the field hospital. "But around 2 a.m. there was a terrifying escalation. We saw injuries from live bullets. Protesters were shot in the chest, head and eyes. I've seen no less than 1,000 wounded patients."

The field hospital radiated fatigue and sorrow. The wounded and the dead were ferried in by trucks, cars and motorcycles. Medical supplies were quickly unpacked; stitches were counted, birdshot plucked from skin. Women wept and men parted to make way for television cameras and corpses carried from a room that served as a morgue.

"I saw things I didn't want to see," said one man.

"The world must know this," said another.

"We are Egyptians," said a third.

By late morning, rubber gloves streaked with blood littered the floor and the stench of death began to rise.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Landmark California regulations under federal fire

WASHINGTON — California has a reputation for having some of the nation's most aggressive rules on workplace safety, consumer protection and environmental quality — regulations that force companies to make costly adjustments to the way they do business worldwide.

Now some of those companies, banking on congressional gridlock and sympathetic Republican leaders in the House, are fighting back. And officials in Sacramento worry that some of the state's landmark laws may be in danger.

At the top of their worry list is a measure with bipartisan support that would strengthen federal environmental laws on dangerous chemicals, but at the price of rolling back a pioneering California law that tries to protect consumers from the most toxic materials. State leaders are scrambling to fend off the bill, which they say is written so broadly that it also could undermine California's clean water laws and its effort to combat global warming.

"We are alarmed," said Debbie Raphael, director of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "We have programs in place that are very effective and have moved the marketplace to benefit not just California but the entire world. This … puts all that at risk."

The U.S. government has the power to block the laws of California or any other state if the statutes have an impact on interstate commerce or otherwise interfere with federal authority. But Washington has tended to do that sparingly. Democrats there typically don't have a problem with the state's liberal policies, and Republicans have preferred to avoid infringing on states' rights.

But Republicans have taken up the argument that they need to curb such regulatory trailblazing to protect the rights of other states, particularly deep-red ones that don't want their industries faced with either following California's rules or being cut off from the country's biggest market. They argue that the state's regulations have gotten more aggressive. State officials say a more conservative Republican Party now puts business interests ahead of protecting states from Washington's authority.

Beyond the proposed federal Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a wide range of California measures are under siege. Agricultural interests have persuaded much of Congress that a state law prohibiting the sale of eggs laid by hens confined to tiny cages should be invalidated. California's foie gras ban has been under attack, as has its ban on the sale of inefficient light bulbs.

A proposed rule by one federal agency threatens the state's ban on cutting fins off sharks to sell for soup. A House panel recently amended a transportation bill to shift final authority over California's planned high-speed rail line to Congress, where many Republicans complain the project infringes on the rights of landowners in its path.

A measure that would have blocked California's authority to enforce state water law protections for endangered species made it through the House last year, though it stalled in the Senate.

"It's a constant push and pull," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law. "When a state puts in regulations a business finds onerous, it turns to Congress."

The toxics legislation has caused particular alarm in California.

It was hatched in the Senate, which has usually been the chamber that has protected California against legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled House. It was co-written by the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a liberal who had strong ties to consumer groups, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), a conservative who has long championed less regulation for industry.

The two struck a compromise that would significantly strengthen the federal Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate chemicals.

Under current law, EPA authority is limited to chemicals that already have been proved to be dangerous. As a result, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals on the market has been tested by the federal government. Vitter agreed to back new authority for the EPA to screen all chemicals for safety. But in exchange, he insisted on provisions, backed by the chemical industry, that could prohibit states from adding regulations of their own.

In the spring, news of the deal was hailed as a breakthrough on Capitol Hill, where consumer activists and environmental groups had lost repeated battles to strengthen the existing law, which they considered toothless.

Then details from the fine print emerged.

California officials objected that the measure not only would prohibit the state from imposing its own rules on the manufacture and sale of chemicals, but also that the language had such broad sweep, it could invalidate several other state laws as well.

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris described the measure in an email to The Times as "a no-win that puts Californians at risk from toxic chemicals and inhibits the development of safer, cleaner products." Her office has concluded that the measure would imperil Proposition 65, which voters enacted in 1986 to limit contamination of groundwater and make businesses disclose when consumers are exposed to carcinogens.

The California Environmental Protection Agency has "identified dozens of California laws and regulations that may be at risk of preemption" under the chemicals bill, Secretary Matt Rodriquez wrote in a letter to senators. He warned that it "could jeopardize California's ability to control greenhouse gases and thereby meet the state's targets under AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006."

Vitter's office did not respond to requests for comment. Other supporters of the measure say it is not intended to unravel the state's toxics law, its global warming policies or other state laws. They say it will be amended to make that clear.

"This is a compromise we think supports national commerce and innovation and also recognizes places where a state rule is appropriate," said Anne Womack Kolton, vice president of communications at the American Chemistry Council. "It gives states the ability to preserve some of their authority."

California officials are looking to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who shares some of their concerns and heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, to take up their fight at a hearing this week.

Others in the delegation are exasperated.

"I have a state that wants to set the bar higher," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who helped write several major California regulatory laws while serving in the Assembly. "On human health, on animal cruelty, on all sorts of things. The federal government should be supporting that. But there are some industries that are on a race to the bottom."

evan.halper@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Florida gunman kills 6, then is shot dead by SWAT team

HIALEAH, Fla. — A gunman holding hostages inside a South Florida apartment complex killed six people before being shot to death by a SWAT team that stormed the building early Saturday following an hours-long standoff, police said.

Sgt. Eddie Rodriguez told The Associated Press that police got a call around 6:30 p.m. Friday that shots had been fired in a building with dozens of apartments in Hialeah, just a few miles north of Miami.

Although a crisis team was able to briefly establish communication, Rodriguez said talks eventually "just fell apart" with the gunman, who was holding two hostages on the fifth floor. Both survived when officers stormed the building, fatally shooting the gunman during an exchange of gunfire.

"They made the decision to go in there and save and rescue the hostages," he said.

The dead bodies of three women and two men were found at two apartment units inside the building, which Rodriguez said was in a "very quiet neighborhood." Another man who was walking his children into an apartment across the street also was killed. Rodriguez said it wasn't immediately clear whether the gunman took aim at him from an upper-level balcony or if he was hit by a stray bullet.

"From up there, he was able to shoot at people across the street, catching this one man who was just walking into his apartment," Rodriguez said.

The entrance to the neighborhood, which is lined with apartment buildings, remained blocked off early Saturday, including to those who live in the building where the standoff occurred.

Miriam Valdes, 70, said she lives on the fifth floor of the building — one floor above where the shooting began. She said she heard gunfire and later saw smoke entering her apartment.

She described running in fear to the unit across the hall, where she stayed holed up as officers negotiated with the gunman.

From the apartment, Valdes said she could hear about eight officers talking with the gunman.

She said she heard the officers tell him to "let these people out."

"We're going to help you," she said they told him.

She said the gunman first asked for his girlfriend and then his mother but refused to cooperate.

Rodriguez said police were still investigating the motive and identifying the gunman and victims.

"Investigators are talking with families of the victims, neighbors, people that were present when all this began," he said. "That way we can start to piece together this huge puzzle that we're working with."

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12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Afghanistan bomb hunters learning to shed risky habits

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Several weeks ago, Afghan army Capt. Mohammed Naweed came across a roadside bomb. As an engineer trained to find and remove explosives, he set about disabling the homemade device.

"It was booby-trapped with another bomb that exploded," Naweed recalled. The blast wounded him slightly in his legs.

"Next time," he said, "I'll follow the '5 and 25' rule."

That would be the rule taught by U.S. Army engineers: Check five meters around you, then 25 meters more to make sure the first bomb doesn't trigger a second one nearby.

Naweed's team is slowly learning the bomb-hunting trade here in the fertile farmlands and towering mountains of northern Afghanistan. Afghan soldiers have taken over most road-clearance duties from U.S. forces; they are now finding — or getting hit by — the roadside bombs planted here.

The bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, have been the single biggest killer of U.S. and coalition troops, responsible for about 60% of combat deaths and injuries in the 11-year-old war. Increasingly, Islamist insurgents are aiming the bombs at Afghan forces as the U.S. hands over combat responsibilities.

Over the last 15 months, nearly 3,500 Afghan soldiers and police officers have died in action, an estimated half of them because of roadside bombs, according to the ministries of defense and interior. The number of U.S. deaths over that period is about 300.

An American bomb-hunting team stationed in Kunduz, a platoon nicknamed the Predators, is essentially working itself out of a job by training Naweed's 81-man unit. It's a slow and often frustrating endeavor, the team says, but the Afghans are improving.

At first, it was "like trying to baby-sit an adult," said Spc. Uche Okoh, a U.S. Army mentor. Afghan soldiers have been known to dig at buried bombs with pickaxes, shoot them with assault rifles or just cut their wires and leave the bombs intact.

"Oh, we had lots of casualties," Naweed said. "Usually we couldn't find an IED until it exploded on us."

The Afghans have improved with U.S. training and equipment, said Sgt. Anthony Storm, who helps mentor Naweed's unit.

"Sometimes they do it the right way in training, then go back to their old ways out in the field," Storm said. "You know, just poking at the ground."

As Storm spoke, Afghan Sgt. Huseen Bafuay was drenched with sweat in a bulky, protective bomb disposal suit that made him look like a deep-sea diver. He was attempting to disable a dummy bomb buried on a dirt roadway as part of an exercise.

Another Afghan soldier had used a metal detector to locate the device, then screamed a warning. Bafuay, lying on his belly in the cumbersome suit, carefully scraped away dirt to reveal a yellow plastic jug filled with fake homemade explosives.

The Afghan called for a wheeled robot named Talon. After fiddling with a joystick and computer controls linked to the Talon, an Afghan engineer sent the robot rolling over.

Once the dummy device was disarmed, several Afghan soldiers rigged a wire-and-pulley contraption to yank it loose. They tugged and jerked furiously. Nothing. Finally Naweed walked over and calmly hoisted the bomb out of the ground.

By this time, Bafuay had removed his bomb suit helmet. His face was crimson. The helmet fan had broken.

"If the U.S. guys don't fix it, it doesn't get fixed," Naweed said, shrugging. "I'm wondering who's going to fix all these things after the Americans leave."

Col. Nicholas Katers, commander of Joint Task Force Triple Nickel, a 5,000-strong U.S. engineering unit that includes route-clearance teams, worries that poor maintenance and repair skills will cost the Afghans dearly.

The U.S. military has supplied older versions of the robot and the electronic detection and jamming system known as Symphony, along with other devices. But to Afghan troops, Katers said, the Symphony system "is just an invisible magic box." Afghan soldiers, most of whom are illiterate, often don't know whether their systems are functioning properly or at all.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

As L.A.'s Chinatown changes, some see opportunity for renewal

In its heyday, Empress Pavilion fielded an army of 100 employees that brought the restaurant to life at dawn; a crew of 20 prep cooks chopped vegetables, wrapped dumplings and crimped shumai.

When doors opened at 9 a.m., a squadron of waitresses armed with steam carts fanned out across a vast 600-seat dining room, hawking tins of black bean spare rib and har gow in three languages. The wait to get in could last two hours.

Empress Pavilion — behind on rent and struggling to find customers — closed earlier this summer, the latest blow in Chinatown's three decades of slow decline. Today the aging community has the feel of a museum. Grimy storefronts gather dust, abandoned by second- and third-generation locals and ignored by a shrinking trickle of tourists.

---

FOR THE RECORD:
Chinatown--An article in the July 27 A section about changes in L.A.'s Chinatown said that George Yu was the president of Chinatown's business improvement district; Yu is the vice president and executive director. The article also said that a new restaurant, Chego, took over a space formerly occupied by Mandarin Deli; the deli was located in an adjacent storefront.

---

But a new Chinatown is emerging — one that is less Chinese.

The neighborhood is seeing a new wave of development that is decidedly more mainstream. Developers are building more than 500 new housing units, some hoping to lure downtown types north of the 101 Freeway. A Walmart Neighborhood Market and Starbucks are slated to open this year. Dim sum palaces and gift shops are giving way to single-origin coffee, artisan pasta and pan-Asian cuisine.

A long-delayed residential and retail development broke ground in May. But its latest design has shed the Asian architectural flourishes that traditionalists say is the mark of Chinatown.

The owner of the complex that housed Empress Pavilion is hoping to lure a new dim sum restaurant, but he also hopes to bring in some Thai businesses.

Some see a model in Little Tokyo, which has remained a Japanese enclave while attracting a diverse array of businesses and visitors.

"Why shouldn't we have a multicultural Chinatown?" asked George Yu, president of Chinatown's business improvement district. "Why shouldn't we have a good cup of [Starbucks coffee]? Little Tokyo has two of them, and no one says anything about that."

::

People have been writing Chinatown's obituary for decades now.

It began in the early 1980s, when booming Chinese enclaves in the San Gabriel Valley drained Chinatown of people and business. Monterey Park was declared the new Chinatown, and since then the epicenter of Chinese American life in the Southland has moved steadily east.

In the 1990s, an influx of Southeast Asian immigrants brought some new business to Chinatown, but the area's economic trajectory remained unchanged — even after the Gold Line light-rail station opened.

Census data shows that the area's overall Asian population has been steady over the last decade, with the population of Mainland Chinese declining by just 4%.

But the feel of the neighborhood is starting to change. Bars serving craft beer and boba and snacks and restaurants are surfacing amid a sea of dilapidated gift shops and souvenir stores. Starry Kitchen, a pop-up pan-Asian restaurant, has set up shop inside the Grand Star Jazz Club. General Lee's, a century-old Chinatown restaurant closed for two decades, reopens as a bar in August with a design by the same firm responsible for Culver City's Akasha and Hatfield's in Hollywood.

And on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, the Jia Apartments, a 280-unit residential development, will open later this summer with a Starbucks and an artisan pasta restaurant on the first floor. Blossom Plaza, a $95-million project, will add 237 new units and several new storefronts when it opens in 2016.

Many of the new units are aimed at downtown Los Angeles' fastest growing demographic — young professionals. Chinatown doesn't have Spring Street's bars or the loud glamour of L.A. Live, but the neighborhood is no longer eerily silent after sunset.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

DWP's unlimited sick pay policy costs millions

Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power has paid thousands of employees a total of $35.5 million since 2010 in extra sick days under an unusual program that the utility's top executive acknowledges has been vulnerable to abuse.

DWP employees benefit from a 32-year-old policy that allows them to take paid days off well beyond the agency's 10-day-a-year cap on sick days. Last year, 10% of the department's roughly 10,000 employees took at least 10 extra days off, the data show. More than 220 took an extra 20 working days off, or about a month, according to a Times examination of data obtained under the California Public Records Act.

In fact, records and interviews show, there is no limit to the paid time off DWP employees can take when they say they're sick, and requirements to provide medical proof of their illness have been loosely enforced.

DISCUSSION: DWP's sick pay

After reviewing data compiled for The Times, DWP Executive Director Ron Nichols said this week that "there appear to be some people who are abusing [the policy]." But he stressed that the average DWP employee takes only 4.4 sick days per year, about the same as the national average.

High compensation for DWP employees — who receive about 50% more pay than other city employees, and 25% more than employees at other area utilities — emerged as a central issue in the recent mayoral campaign, after their union became the biggest contributor to the losing effort to elect Wendy Greuel.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and other officials on the city's employee relations committee are scheduled to discuss a new DWP contract Friday. The city-owned utility provides electricity and water to Los Angeles businesses and nearly 4 million residents.

Fred Pickel, the city's ratepayer advocate who analyzes DWP operations, said the department's high salaries have allowed it to attract good workers.

"You'd expect a work ethic in a group like that," he said. "Of course, there are always people who abuse."

The records show one senior accountant averaged 49 extra sick days each year from 2010 to 2012. A security guard averaged 43 extra days. A customer service representative averaged 38 extra days. That's roughly two months off at full pay, per year, for each of the three employees. It doesn't include regular sick days, paid vacation days, holidays or "personal" days.

DATABASE: Explore DWP salaries

DWP officials, noting that they were not around when the sick pay policy was adopted in 1981, said they could not find a written rationale for the unlimited extra days. Since 2010, workers have taken 103,802 extra sick days, the equivalent of 415 years.

Here's how the policy works: The first two days an employee calls in sick are subtracted from his or her allotment of sick days. But if the employee chooses, he or she can take the next eight consecutive work days off, at full pay, without further depleting the sick day supply. No doctor's note is required for those additional days, which are "on the house," said one DWP executive who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to address the media.

If the employee suffers a relapse of the same illness within 21 days of returning to work, he or she can then take an unlimited number of days off. Again, no days are subtracted from the employee's sick day supply.

Relapses are supposed to be verified with a doctor's note, said DWP spokesman Joe Ramallo.

But a department review of 150 employees who took the most extra days off found 67 — fewer than than half — "who appear to have bona fide chronic illnesses, who have doctor's notes," Nichols said.

The sick pay data provided to The Times included employees' job title, the number of extra sick days taken and the amount the employee was paid for those days. The department refused to provide the employees' names, citing a city attorney's determination that the records constitute "confidential medical information" and are therefore exempt from disclosure.

Employees across job classifications have taken extra sick days, with the most frequent use among customer service representatives, whose average pay last year was $70,839.

They took 4,632 extra days in 2012 and were paid $1.3 million for that time.

About 35% of them took no extra days, but the remainder averaged 11 extra days off.

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Impala's leap points to U.S. car rebound

Once a muscle-car icon and a symbol of U.S. automotive dominance, the Chevrolet Impala has more recently seen its image suffer. Bloated and generic, the critics said. More suited for the rental car fleets that account for most of its sales.

Consumer Reports three years ago panned its sloppy handling and second-rate fit and finish.

So it marked a stunning turnaround Thursday when the Impala secured the influential magazine's top overall rating among sedans — a distinction held by Japanese and European models for at least two decades. Posting the third-highest score ever, the Impala ranked behind only such distinguished company as the Tesla Model S and BMW 135i.

The critical acclaim is emblematic of a resurgence by U.S. automakers in sales, profits and consumer perceptions of quality and imaginative design. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. each posted second-quarter profits of $1.2 billion this week, numbers not seen since before the Great Recession and GM's bankruptcy and bailout.

Recently redesigned models such as Ford's Fusion sedan and Chrysler's Ram pickup truck are proving a hit with critics and consumers, said Jake Fisher,

director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports.

"There are no more excuses," he said. "They can make world-class cars."

Finally, the domestic automakers are focusing on exterior and interior design instead of just hitting sales targets, often with the help of fleet sales, said Alec Gutierrez, an analyst at auto information company Kelley Blue Book.

The improvements are paying off in sales and profits, Gutierrez said. The city of Detroit is in bankruptcy, but the domestic auto industry is booming.

The turnaround has come surprisingly fast. The recession nearly ruined Ford and toppled GM and Chrysler Group into bankruptcy restructurings. Chrysler is expected to report a profitable quarter next week.

Sales are robust. Through the first half of this year, the Detroit automakers have sold 3.6 million vehicles in the U.S., a 10.3% gain from the same period last year. And they have grabbed a full point of market share from the big Asian brands, according to Autodata Corp.

The Big Three are spending some of the new revenue on a hiring binge.

GM has added almost 6,000 U.S. workers in the last six months. Chrysler has added 17,000 U.S. workers since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009. This week, Ford said it will hire about 3,000 salaried workers this year, about 800 more than it had projected in February.

The restructurings at GM and Chrysler, as well as labor agreements that help Ford, are contributing to the industry's success, said John F. Hoffecker, an auto industry consultant with AlixPartners.

"Now they are in a much more level playing field with their global competitors," he said, and that's given the car companies the revenue and breathing room to develop better vehicles.

But domestic automakers still face significant challenges, said Christian Mayes, at auto analyst at financial firm Edward Jones.

"No doubt they are in a better financial position than they were before the downturn," he said, but they need to continue spending heavily on developing new models.

Their Japanese competitors have a financial edge right now because of the slide in the value of the yen, which makes the U.S. sales of those import brands more profitable. They're using that advantage to add features and offer discounts on the cars they sell overseas, a trend that will probably show up on U.S. shores, Mayes said.

Cars such as the Impala could blunt those advantages, analysts said.

The Impala proved a huge hit for Chevrolet after its introduction in 1958. By 1965, the car had shed its garish tail fins and morphed into a sleek, square icon of the muscle-car era. Chevrolet sold 1,068,614 Impalas that year, making it the bestselling car in the U.S. Nearly 1 in 10 cars sold in the U.S. that year were Impalas.

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A post-Deitch MOCA presents major challenge for next director

The house of MOCA is a real fixer-upper. And that could be a problem as the museum seeks a new director to replace Jeffrey Deitch.

Many museum experts wonder who would be willing to take Deitch's place at the helm of the troubled institution, given the museum board's track record of turmoil, MOCA's shaky finances and its sparse curatorial staff. Its 2012-13 budget was the museum's lowest in 15 years.

"I don't think anybody's gonna take the job until MOCA's situation is far clearer," says former Getty Museum Director John Walsh. "Candidates are going to be looking for a board that's well organized, has achieved its financial goal and is together on what kind of place they stand for. I trust the board will not hit the gas, but hit the brakes. Because this is a very big moment."

GRAPHIC: MOCA's ups and downs with Jeffrey Deitch

Some think that the search could be complicated by the involvement of billionaire Eli Broad, the museum board's founding chairman and life trustee and its biggest donor. He played a major role in bringing Deitch to Los Angeles three years ago.

"Whoever they get to replace Jeffrey Deitch will need to have an absolute guarantee of complete curatorial freedom to do the shows they want, when they want," says former Museum of Contemporary Art board member and art collector Dean Valentine, who currently serves on an advisory board of Los Angeles' Hammer Museum.

"Until Eli Broad comes to a recognition that he needs to stay away from the museum in anything other than a financial capacity," he says, "and until the board begins to behave responsibly and financially support the director, then a new director won't have the tools to revive this amazing institution."

Broad did not respond to a request for a comment.

MOCA announced on Wednesday that Deitch, a former New York art gallery owner, would be stepping down following a stormy tenure. Supporters say he helped MOCA revitalize its shows and try new things, while critics say he was unprepared for the administrative and fundraising duties of the job.

MOCA's search committee to find Deitch's replacement will be led by board co-chairs Maria Bell and David Johnson as well as former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, a former MOCA trustee who is now president of New York's Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

TIMELINE: MOCA in flux

Carol Weisman, a fundraising expert and president of BoardBuilders.com, says the museum's most pressing need is to raise money.

"I don't think you need someone from the arts at all," Weisman says. "If I had my choice of someone who was an arts expert versus someone not in the arts world who'd raised 100 or 200 million, I'd go with the one who brought the money. Great fundraisers listen well and can tap into what people really care about. They can learn the art part."

But an ability to raise money alone isn't enough, says former head of fundraising for the Guggenheim Museum, Charlie Brown.

"They really have to have a background in art or at least arts management. And a vision for MOCA — that's what a fundraiser would sell to a potential donor."

While there is no clear front-runner for the job at this point, art world experts said potential candidates include former MOCA senior curator Ann Goldstein. She is currently the artistic director of Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, and is a close friend of Wachs.

Former MOCA Director Richard Koshalek is another potential candidate.

"He'd know how to rebuild it," says artist John Baldessari, who resigned from MOCA's board when longtime chief curator Paul Schimmel was forced out after a rocky two-year relationship with Deitch.

PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The Times

Baldessari notes that until recently, Koshalek served as director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum.

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Death toll in Spain derailment hits 77; terrorism ruled out

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain — Spanish investigators tried to determine Thursday why a passenger train jumped the tracks and sent eight cars crashing into each other just before arriving in this northwestern shrine city on the eve of a major Christian religious festival, killing at least 77 people and injuring more than 140.

Seventy-three people were found dead at the scene of the accident and four died in hospitals, said Maria Pardo Rios, spokeswoman for the Galicia region's main court. At least 141 people were injured — some of them critically — after the eight-carriage train carrying 218 passengers derailed about an hour before sunset Wednesday night.

Authorities did not identify any possible causes of the accident on a pronounced curve just outside Santiago de Compostela, but a spokeswoman with Spain's Interior Ministry said Thursday that the possibility that the derailment was caused by a terrorist attack had been ruled out. She spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ministry policy.

It was Spain's deadliest train accident since 1972, when a train collided with a bus in southwestern Spain, killing 86 people and injuring 112. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, went to the crash scene on Thursday. Officials in the city canceled ceremonies for its annual religious festival, which attracts tens of thousands of Christians from around the world.

Rescue workers spent the night searching through smashed cars alongside the tracks, and Pardo said it was possible that the death toll could go higher. Many of the dead were taken to a makeshift morgue set up in the city's largest indoor sports arena.

A regional Galicia health official, Rocio Mosquera, told reporters at a press conference early Thursday morning that 141 passengers from the train had been treated at area hospitals, with their conditions ranging from light injuries to serious. Some were still in surgery hours after the crash.

As dawn arrived, cranes brought to the scene were used to lift the cars off the tracks and rescue workers were seen collecting passenger luggage and putting it into a truck next to the tracks.

The site itself was a scene of horror immediately after the crash. Smoke billowed from at least one car which caught fire; another broke into two parts. Residents of the urban neighborhood alongside the tracks struggled to help victims out of the toppled cars.

Rescue workers lined up bodies covered in blankets alongside the tracks and some passengers were pulled out of broken windows. Television images showed one man atop a carriage lying on its side, using a pickaxe to try to smash through a window. Residents said other rescuers used rocks.

State-owned train operator Renfe said in a statement an unspecified number of staff were also on board the train during the 8.41 p.m. crash on a section of tracks about 2.5 miles from Santiago de Compostela that came online two years ago. Spanish media said the train had two conductors aboard and that both survived.

Renfe and Adif, the state-owned company which manages tracks, signals and other railway infrastructure, were cooperating with a judge who has been appointed to investigate the accident, Renfe said.

Catholic pilgrims converge on the Santiago de Compostela annually to celebrate a festival honoring St. James, the disciple of Jesus whose remains are said to rest in a shrine. The city is the main gathering point for the faithful who make it to the end of the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that has drawn Christians since the Middle Ages.

The accident created a scene that was "Dante-esque," said Alberto Nunez Feijoo, president of the region of Galicia where Santiago de Compostela is the capital. He declared seven days of mourning to honor the victims.

Several injured passengers said they felt a strong vibration just before the cars jumped the tracks, said Xabier Martinez, a photographer who talked with them after arriving at the scene as rescue workers were removing dozens of bodies.

Passenger Ricardo Montero told the Cadena Ser radio station that "when the train reached that bend it began to flip over, many times, with some carriages ending up on top of others, leaving many people trapped below. We had to get under the carriages to get out."

Another passenger, Sergio Prego, told Cadena Ser the train "travelled very fast" just before it derailed and the cars flipped upside down, on their sides and into the air.

"I've been very lucky because I'm one of the few able to walk out," he said.

The Alvia 730 series train started from Madrid and was scheduled to end its journey at El Ferrol, about 60 miles north of Santiago de Compostela. Alvias are high-speed but do not go as fast as Spain's fastest bullet trains called AVEs.

The maximum Alvia speed is 155 mph on tracks made especially for the AVEs, and they travel at a maximum speed of 137 mph on normal-gauge rails.

Other major train crashes in Spain over the decades include a 1944 accident on a train traveling from Madrid to the Galicia region that killed 78 people. A subway crash in the southern city of Valencia killed 43 people in 2006 and was blamed on excessive speed. The Madrid train bombings carried out in 2004 killed 191 people.

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12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Late heiress' anti-immigration efforts live on

WASHINGTON — In a gilded but often lonely life, Cordelia Scaife May, heiress to one of America's most storied fortunes, had a few cherished passions.

Protecting birds was one. Keeping immigrants out was another.

An ardent environmentalist more comfortable with books and birds than with high-society galas, May believed nature was under siege from runaway population growth. Before her death in 2005, she devoted much of her wealth to rolling back the tide — backing birth control and curbing immigration, both legal and illegal.

Today, May's influence is stronger than ever. Her Pittsburgh-based Colcom Foundation has been the single-largest donor to the anti-immigration cause, providing more than $76 million over the last decade to groups that now are fighting to block immigration overhaul efforts in Congress.

PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments

In hyperpartisan Washington, most immigration opponents focus on beefing up border security and blocking any path to legal status for immigrants in the country without authorization.

May was driven by other concerns.

"Her worry in life, almost, was population control," said horticulturist George A. Griffith, a longtime friend. "I think she would stay awake at night just worrying about what would happen" to the environment from too many people.

"She loved animals almost more than people," Griffith said.

May also fretted about how immigrants might change America. She became a key backer of John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who founded a network of anti-immigration groups. In the 1980s, she paid to distribute in the United States a best-selling French novel called "The Camp of the Saints," which imagines poverty-stricken Third World immigrants overwhelming the West and destroying civilization.

May, known as "Cordy," never knew poverty. Her mother, Sarah, was a member of the Mellon family. One of the country's great financial dynasties, the family controls Mellon Bank and vast wealth in aluminum, oil and steel companies.

U.S. immigration law: Decades of debate

May's brother, Richard Mellon Scaife, a major supporter of conservative organizations and causes, also has backed anti-immigration groups. His lawyer, Yale Gutnick, says Scaife is concerned about immigration's impact on national security: "When you open the gates, who's looking at who's coming in?"

Born in 1928, May had a gloomy childhood with nurses and governesses in the family mansion, Penguin Court, outside Pittsburgh. She later said the only time she heard laughter in the home was during visits from her mother's friend Margaret Sanger, the social reformer who founded what became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

"She was the one who put what fun there was into our lives," May told Burton Hersh for his 1978 history of the Mellon family.

May became a generous supporter of Planned Parenthood, which in its early days supported population control. May kept a portrait of Sanger in her living room, and a "Stop the stork" bumper sticker on her Mercedes.

May also became a near recluse. She gave away millions of dollars annually to support educational, cultural and conservation causes with the provision that her involvement be kept secret.

PHOTOS: The debate over immigration reform

Her millions didn't bring her happiness. Like her mother and other family members, she battled alcoholism. She named her home Cold Comfort, a wry reference to "Cold Comfort Farm," a popular 1932 comic novel about a woman "of every art and grace save that of earning her own living."

And when she died, she left more than $400 million — nearly half her fortune — to the Colcom Foundation, named for the same book. The foundation's mission is to promote "sustainable" immigration that won't overwhelm the environment or the economy, according to John Rohe, Colcom's vice president for philanthropy.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Militants in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula grow stronger

CAIRO — While the Egyptian army moves to contain violent protests in Cairo and other major cities, extremist attacks on police stations and military checkpoints in the desolate Sinai Peninsula have added a perilous dimension to the country's unrest.

Fueled by weapons smuggled from Libya and widening calls for jihad, the militants have grown stronger on a harsh terrain dominated by Bedouin tribes and criminal clans.

Frequent skirmishes between the army and militant networks have killed dozens in recent weeks. The bloodshed is another pivotal test for the new military-backed government, which is struggling with political divisions, a broken economy and rising sectarianism.

Militant attacks in the Sinai's deserts and lawless scrublands spread amid the security breakdown left by the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. They have intensified since July 3, when Islamist anger deepened after the coup that overthrew President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. The instability has spurred neighboring Israel, which signed a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, to tighten its border.

Security officials fear a new wave of terrorism reminiscent of the assaults on resorts and tourist sites that killed dozens in late 1990s and early 2000s. Indications that militant plots may be radiating beyond the Sinai arose Wednesday when a bomb hidden beneath a car exploded outside a police station in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, killing one soldier and wounding 28 others.

The Brotherhood said the "attacks would stop if Morsi was reinstated," said a tribal sheik who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. "There's no Al Qaeda in Sinai or anything like that. Maybe fundamentalist ideology exists here, but it was imported to Sinai because of the security vacuum."

It is not clear, however, how much sway the Brotherhood has over extremists in the Sinai. Foreign fighters, including some reportedly from Saudi Arabia and Libya, have joined the ranks of indigenous Bedouins in a mix of interests that includes battling Israel and the West, destroying the Egyptian government and demanding jobs and other opportunities.

Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, urged Egyptians on Wednesday to hold mass rallies Friday to support a military crackdown against violence and terrorism. The move was a reaction to the chaos in the Sinai and part of the army's strategy to isolate the Brotherhood, which had been the country's most potent political force.

Clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators have killed more than 90 people nationwide in recent weeks, raising fear of factional fighting if the Brotherhood refuses to disband its sit-ins and marches.

"I did not deceive the former president," Sisi, who has been vilified by Islamists for unseating Egypt's first freely elected leader, said in a speech. "The former president was advised, directly and indirectly, either to step down or hold a referendum to see if the people want him or not."

The general's comments confirmed "that what happened was a coup against legitimacy, a coup against Islam," said Sheik Ibrahim Menei, head of the Sinai Tribal Union. "I never expected to hear what we heard today; it's an open call for war. Today, what was hidden has been revealed.... The military has bared its fangs."

Hours after Sisi's comments, violence erupted in the Sinai. Gunmen reportedly killed two soldiers and, in a separate incident, three extremists died when a car carrying explosive belts and gasoline canisters exploded in the desert outside the coastal city of El Arish.

Militants, many of them poor Bedouin tribesmen, have carried out at least 30 attacks on security forces in the region over the last three weeks. The extremists' arsenal includes Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and SAM-7 missiles. The army has sent reinforcements, and desert roads and town squares now rattle with tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Military patrols sweep across the windy landscape on highways while militants and smugglers, traveling on foot and in pickups, traverse a web of dirt paths and shifting sandy roads. Traffickers sneak drugs, weapons and African migrants past the edges of villages and the army barricades, police stations and government buildings.

Two soldiers and a policeman were killed Monday in ambushes targeting a radio station, an administrative office and a police headquarters in El Arish. Another attack that day killed a policeman outside his home.

"This escalation is new [and] has never happened with this intensity before," said Hossam Refai, a pharmacist in the northern Sinai. "There used to be long periods between such attacks, but now there's daily targeting of checkpoints and security installations."

A number of extremists in the Sinai were freed from prisons over the last two years as part of an amnesty program to correct the injustices of Mubarak's police state. Other released prisoners were accused this year of planning terrorist attacks in Cairo and other cities.

Security officials also said Hamas, the radical group in the Gaza Strip that was born out of the Muslim Brotherhood, has dispatched militants to the Sinai. The claim could not be independently verified, but the army has destroyed many tunnels leading into Gaza. Egyptian prosecutors are investigating whether Hamas was involved in a prison break in 2011 that freed Morsi and other Brotherhood members during the uprising against Mubarak.

The Sinai's troubles are rooted in poverty and years of marginalization, especially under the Mubarak government. With few opportunities, tribesmen took to smuggling, including human trafficking and shuttling weapons, cement and groceries through tunnels into Gaza. Some residents helped the terrorist cells that targeted resorts, including bombings in Sharm el Sheik that killed more than 80 people in 2005.

A crackdown on the region followed. The atmosphere further deteriorated amid the security vacuum after Mubarak's downfall. Natural gas lines supplying Israel were blown up repeatedly and a checkpoint between El Arish and the border city of Rafah was hit at least 40 times by militants in 16 months.

Police retreated and the military clumsily stepped in. In August 2012, masked gunmen attacked several military checkpoints, killing 16 border guards. The assault gave Morsi a pretext to purge the military leadership, including Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, then commander of the armed forces.

"There are many people whose interests lie in the absence of security in the Sinai," said Refai. "They do not belong to any Islamist organizations or groups, but they just don't want to see security return, so they may participate in such operations."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Hassieb is a special correspondent

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Natural gas fire continues to burn after well blowout

HOUSTON — Fire, fueled by a natural gas well blowout about 55 miles off the Louisiana coast, burned into the evening Wednesday, as emergency workers assessed how to stem the out-of-control leak and extinguish the blaze that collapsed part of the rig.

News of the Tuesday morning blowout and subsequent fire late that night evoked memories of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 that killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

This damaged well, however, is over a "small pocket" of natural gas that, if unchecked, would burn for "days, not weeks or months," said David Blackmon, a spokesman for Houston-based Walter Oil & Gas Corp. that contracted the rig.

Authorities said no one was injured and all 44 workers were safely evacuated from the rig before the fire started at 10:45 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday. The cause of the blowout had not been determined late Wednesday, authorities said.

"There is no immediate danger to humans or wildlife" related to the incident, said staff at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Along with the Coast Guard, it is the lead agency responding.

Plans were underway to move another rig to the site by Thursday afternoon so workers can drill a relief well to stop the leak, BSEE staff said.

"Until that relief well is drilled, it's going to continue burning because it's fueled by the well," BSEE staff said.

Blackmon said it was not clear how long it would take to drill a relief well but it would likely take days.

The portable 250-foot drilling rig known as a "jackup" is owned by Hercules Offshore Inc., a contractor for Walter Oil & Gas.

The U.S. Coast Guard restricted vessel traffic within 500 meters of the rig, recommending vessels stay five miles away, said Lt. j.g. Tanner Stiehl. They were also enforcing Federal Aviation Administration temporary restrictions on air travel up to 2,000 feet above the area, he said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency was closely monitoring the situation but so far had not seen signs of environmental damage.

Two firefighting ships were on site late Wednesday with another on the way, and the Coast Guard dedicated two additional ships to monitoring and enforcing the safety zone, officials said. Agencies responding to the incident set up a local command center Wednesday in Terrebonne Parish, La.

The workers "experienced a loss of control" of the well at 8:45 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, according to the BSEE. Soon after, inspectors reported a cloud of natural gas above the rig and a light sheen on the water spanning one-half mile by 50 feet.

Blackmon said the environmental impact of the leak had been minimal at this point because what was leaking was "dry natural gas" that evaporated instead of contaminating the air and water.

Federal officials flew over the area Wednesday, and the BSEE released a statement noting "there is no observed sheen on the water surface."

Some environmental groups said they were still concerned about potential contamination from condensate, or liquid released with the gas.

Wilma Subra, a chemist from New Iberia, La., and advisor to the non-profit Louisiana Environmental Action Network, said condensate contains the carcinogen benzene and other toxic chemicals. Whether condensate was released from the well and spreads "all depends on how long this continues to burn," she said.

While the incident is not likely to become a large-scale disaster, she said, "the issue is, it shows how quickly things can go bad in the Gulf."

Dave Valentine, a UC Santa Barbara professor of microbial geochemistry who studied the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf, said the impacts of a gas well blowout are of less concern than an oil spill.

"I don't think there would be major impacts," he said. "It's not oil. It's not floating to the surface and causing toxicity issues. But there may be this other level of impact and we just haven't been able to study it effectively."

Gas bubbles that reach the Gulf surface escape into the atmosphere, he said. The big question, Valentine added, is the effect of bubbles that dissolve in the seawater as they ascend from the well.

"What happens to that? Is that going to contribute toward loss of oxygen in the water as microbial communities begin to consume those gases?" he said.

A depletion of oxygen could hurt marine life and the sea floor community. A microbial bloom could have other impacts.

"There are a whole series of unknowns," Valentine said. "It's not an easy thing to study, and any effects are likely to be in the water column and transient."

Hercules officials released a statement noting that they would assess potential environmental impacts and that "our immediate focus is on stopping the flow of natural gas from the well."

"We continue to work closely not only with first responders but also BSEE and USCG officials who have been very positive about our preparedness and emergency procedures," said Jim Noe, a senior executive with Hercules. "Once things settle, we will turn to looking at potential causes."

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

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Raunchy, racist jokes at sheriff's gathering spark outrage

A gathering Wednesday attended by several hundred sheriff's deputies and staff members from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went badly awry when a comedian unleashed a stand-up routine filled with racist and sexually explicit humor, people in attendance said.

Many in the crowd at the Sheriff's Day Luncheon, estimated to be between 600 and 700 people, were dressed in their uniforms, including Sheriff Lee Baca, who thanked comedian Edwin San Juan with a plaque after the off-color performance. 

"He managed to insult every ethnic group," said one attendee, who requested that his name not be used. "There was a lot of cringing and nervous laughter.... I was sitting there thinking, 'Are you kidding me?'"

The event was hosted by a law enforcement association and was not an official Sheriff's Department event.

In a photograph posted on San Juan's Twitter and Facebook pages, Baca and William McSweeney, chief of the agency's detectives, are shown smiling with San Juan as they present him with a plaque.

Baca's spokesman, Steve Whitmore, said the performance "will be reviewed."

"If anyone was offended, that was not the intent and certainly apologies are extended," Whitmore said, adding that he wasn't at the event so he  couldn't comment on the specifics of the routine.

Whitmore said he spoke to Baca, and Baca said he "became concerned that people would complain" but decided to give the comedian the plaque anyway "to thank him for volunteering to come to the luncheon."

The sheriff "wants to remind everyone this is a comedian," Whitmore said. "No one in the department would say this."

The inscription on the award is attributed to Baca and reads: "Your ability to combine wisdom, leadership and humor serves as an inspiration to us all."

The annual lunch event, he said, is "a way for the family of the Sheriff's Department to bond…. Everything is done with humor and there is never any disrespect intended."

The routine lasted at least 30 minutes. San Juan, who described himself on his Twitter feed as Filipino, made fun of the accents of Asians, Indians and other ethnic groups, the attendee said.

Among other things, San Juan made jokes evoking stereotypes about Koreans and used the N-word in a joke in which he mocked a thick Filipino accent.

"It is perplexing that, as much as we fight racism on the department, the sheriff would embrace and seemed to condone the completely racist monologue," said a Sheriff's official who attended the lunch. "The sheriff even presented him with a small trophy of appreciation afterward."

The event in Montebello was hosted by the Peace Officers Assn. of Los Angeles County, a nonprofit group that works "to advance the interests of public safety and professional law enforcement in Los Angeles County," according to it's website. The group's executive board includes high ranking members of the Sheriff's Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies. They did not immediately have a comment on the event.

Another sheriff's official in attendance said that although "everyone was startled" by the jokes, given what was supposed to be a professional setting, the comedian was "evenhanded" and did not target a particular race.

San Juan could not be reached for comment.

ALSO:

Gay immigrant spared deportation because of bias in Philippines

State attorney general probes San Diego company's for-profit colleges

Teen who allegedly helped set off Hollywood, Crenshaw crimes arrested

Twitter: @joelrubin @RobertFaturechi

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

joel.rubin@latimes.com

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Meatball the bear to be star of Glendale's Rose Parade float

He has been feared. And loved. And worried over. And touted as a new-style ursine celebrity in the Twitter age.

Now Meatball the bear — or at least his happy-go-lucky, mechanical likeness — will be the centerpiece of a Rose Parade float sponsored by Glendale, the mountain-rimmed city he just couldn't keep his paws from throughout much of last year.

"It's going to be a head turner," said Glendale Mayor Dave Weaver, speaking of a 35-foot-long float featuring Meatball rising from a trash can, a concept approved by the Glendale City Council this week.

"People really came to care about that bear," Weaver added. "We've got to make sure the snout looks like Meatball's snout, because if not folks are going to say, 'Hey, that's not my bear!'"

At the New Year's Day parade, Meatball will be seen by roughly 700,000 attendees and 84 million television viewers worldwide — a warm-hearted, high-profile embrace by a municipality that once considered him a potentially dangerous nuisance.

The 400-pound black bear burst into the limelight in March 2012, when he broke into a refrigerator at a Glendale residence and treated himself to Costco meatballs. Also known as "Glen Bearian" or @TheGlendaleBear on Twitter, Meatball proved smarter and more persistent than your average bear. He managed to return again and again to the city's neighborhoods, foraging not just for meatballs but for tuna and oranges and other tossed-away food. He often appeared only on days when residents would put out their trash bins.

As residents were told to stay indoors for their safety, California Department of Fish and Game officials shot Meatball with sleep-inducing darts and trucked him off to a nearby forest. But somehow he found his way back to the Glendale area, forcing wardens to tranquilize him and send him packing again.

In August — his social-media-fueled popularity approaching Yogi Bear status — Meatball returned to the foothills once more, only this time he was caught in La Cañada Flintridge and shipped off to a wild animal preserve 45 miles east of San Diego.

Meatball no longer prowls Glendale, but his memory certainly lives on there. On Tuesday night the cash-strapped City Council unanimously approved spending $155,000 on the float, an increase in cost of about 50% over recent Glendale floats. City officials justified the expense because this will be the 100th Rose Parade float sponsored by the city. They also hope to raise at least half of the money from private sources.

So far, however, fundraising is far off that target: $10,000 has been pledged by a Glendale developer, but only $160 by residents.

Weaver said he was sure donations would pour in once news spread about the Meatball theme.

"The idea is already a huge success," he said. "We wanted something fun, whimsical and friendly, and that's Meatball. He's been adopted by Glendale."

Titled "Let's Be Neighbors" and standing about 18 feet tall, the float will showcase the notion that residents must live in harmony with wildlife. Surrounded by smaller animals, Meatball will take center stage, his massive head and torso rising in and out of a tall trash can.

With plans to ship him to Colorado having fallen through, Meatball currently lives in a small pen about the size of a master bedroom, said Bobbi Brink, director of the Lions, Tigers & Bears animal sanctuary near San Diego. Brink explained that the bear is kept in the cordoned-off area because of fears he might fight with another bear on the property.

Brink said construction should finish soon on a lush, 6-acre area in which Glendale's favorite bear will be able to roam freely.

kurt.streeter@latimes.com

brittany.levine@latimes.com

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Billboards urging gay black men to get HIV-tested prompt controversy

Last year in South Los Angeles, billboards overlooking Crenshaw Boulevard showed two shirtless black men standing and embracing each other on a beach. "Our Love is Worth Protecting .... We Get Tested," read the sign.

The ads, 10 in total, were developed by Jeffrey King, executive director of the Los Angeles advocacy group In the Meantime Men. The message's purpose, King said, was to promote love and HIV testing among black men who have sex with men.

After the billboards went up, however, "the immediate reaction of the community was shock," said the Rev. Eric P. Lee, president of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "It showed how we have commonly dealt with homosexuality in the community, which is 'Don't ask, don't tell,' a silence that doesn't condemn or affirm."

Safe-sex advocates say the reaction to the billboards shows how difficult it can be to tailor sexual health messages to fit some black communities in which the subject of sex, specifically non-heterosexual sex, remains taboo.

"Nobody wants to talk about the fact that our kids are having sex and a large part of them are gay and are having sex with each other," King said.

That stigma, according to HIV prevention advocates and public health officials, keeps many black people from getting tested or receiving treatment.

Although West Hollywood has the highest HIV infection rate in L.A. County, health officials said, young black men with HIV tend to live in predominantly black communities, such as South L.A.

Nationally, black Americans are disproportionately infected. They account for 14% of the U.S. population but almost half of the more than 1 million HIV cases, according to 2013 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among men of all races who have sex with men, young black men account for the highest number of new HIV infections. .

"It's true nationally, it's true locally, it's true in most metropolitan areas in the nation," said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health in Los Angeles County. "It's been a very serious problem, and we've been aware of it for years."

Public health officials are concerned that stigma is leading to less testing and treatment among various black communities, even though medical advances have greatly improved longevity when HIV is diagnosed early.

The controversial billboards in South L.A. have since been replaced by ads that feature a single word, in boldface capital letters and crossed out: "HOMOPHOBIA."

The new campaign aims "to address one of the key factors in why we're seeing high rates of HIV, especially among gay black men," King said.

Although a lack of resources remains a prominent reason for the racial disparity in HIV infections among those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or still questioning their sexuality, Fielding said the attitudes some people have toward men who have sex with men are also partly to blame. Black men who have sex with men "suffer from stigma, discrimination, from a reduced rate of acceptance for their same-sex orientation, and they also have historically had less access to healthcare," he said. And, he said, they tend not to use condoms.

Also, King said, many gay and bisexual black men in South L.A. are not getting tested for HIV because the very act might "out" them, while many straight black men are not getting tested because they don't want to be perceived as gay.

"One of the key reasons we're seeing HIV rates as high as they are is linked to homophobia in the community, which is taught from a high place, which is the church," King said.

Lee said he's more "progressive" than most clergymen in South Los Angeles."I don't believe promoting safe sex is promoting sex. It's promoting, if you decide to have sex, to do so with caution," he said.

Lee added, "I think it's the responsibility of leaders to ensure that the people they're speaking to are provided with information that keeps them healthy."

The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation is paying for the In the Meantime Men ads, as well as other billboards that seek to promote the sexual health of men who have sex with men.

Across town, an attempt to tailor the safe-sex message to a more open community has raised different concerns. In heavily gay West Hollywood, billboards overlooking Santa Monica Boulevard feature provocative images of muscled, bare-chested male torsos. The men appear to be white and Latino, and near their bodies are the words, "Be Safe. Be Sexy. Be You," a slogan coined by the West Hollywood safe-sex advocacy group Impulse.

Like the South L.A. ads, the purpose of this campaign is to promote safe sex in a neighborhood where HIV infections are high, said Jose Ramos, founder and president of Impulse.

Those public displays have elicited criticism about not only who is being portrayed in the majority of safe sex messages but also how they're portrayed.

"This does not represent us," said Gregory Victorianne, a researcher at UCLA and a member of the Black Los Angeles HIV/AIDS Coalition (BLAAC). Victorianne, who identifies himself as a "black man who has sex with men," explained: "I need to see myself up there, but nothing in a compromising position. That's not good."

Christopher Hucks-Ortiz, an evaluation specialist at the nonprofit John Wesley Community Health Institute, also said that messages promoting the sexual health of gay and bisexual men should use models who represent a spectrum of races and ethnicities.

"Men who are taller, bigger, who don't fit this lean six-pack shape, may not go any further if they can't relate to these images," said Hucks-Ortiz, a member of BLAAC who identifies as gay.

Sexual health advocates agreed that curbing HIV infection rates requires more than billboards that promote safe sex. They said more resources are needed to aid education and the implementation of safe-sex practices.

In West Hollywood, Impulse distributes condoms at nightclubs and has chapters opening up nationwide where parties are held that promote safe sex, Ramos said.

"All the people in Impulse, including myself, we really do it from a place of love for the community," he said. "Are we doing it a hundred percent correctly? Probably not. But at least we're trying."

titania.kumeh@latimes.com

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In Hermosa Beach, a sheen of divisiveness over oil's possible return

Mike Collins was raised in oil country but dreamed of living at the beach. As a young boy in Bakersfield, he accompanied his father to dusty fields dotted with derricks where he repaired the motors on oil rigs.

On his bedroom wall hung a poster of a house perched atop a cliff, overlooking the ocean waves. "Justification for higher education," his mother called it.

Now a psychologist, Collins bought his dream house four blocks from the seashore in tiny Hermosa Beach nearly five years ago. He surfs or paddleboards daily and often rides his bicycle to work.

Now, he's worried oil will follow him here.

"I know what oil smells like, I know what it looks like, what it sounds like," says Collins, whose house is 100 yards from the spot where an oil company wants to drill. "I don't want that in my backyard."

Like many in this wealthy South Bay beach town, Collins is bracing for the possibility that Hermosa Beach could be opened to oil drilling for the first time in more than 80 years. A citywide election to decide the matter, still almost a year away, is driving residents to opposite corners as they take stock of what kind of place they want their self-proclaimed "best little beach city" to be.

Hermosa Beach has faced this choice before; the oil question has been voted on four times in the town's 106-year history.

But with a multimillion-dollar legal settlement looming, the stakes in this debate are higher than ever, pitting residents who see a potential windfall for the city and its schools against those who fear long-term environmental and health consequences.

::

In the waning days of the Los Angeles oil boom, prospectors struck black gold below Torrance and Long Beach, touching off a renewed oil fever in the South Bay.

Beachgoers sunned themselves in the shadow of drilling rigs, and nearby Signal Hill became known as "Porcupine Hill" for its spiny forest of derricks.

But Hermosa Beach remained a 1.5-square-mile oasis, thanks to a 1932 vote that banned new drilling within the city.

More than 50 years later, Santa Monica-based Macpherson Oil dangled the prospect of tens of millions of dollars in royalties, and voters in then-cash-strapped Hermosa voted to lift the ban.

But Macpherson never saw that oil.

Backlash from anti-oil activists changed voters' minds in 1995 and the city halted the project, deeming it unsafe.

Source: E&B Natural Resources

Melissa Roadman

In turn, the company sued the city for breach of contract, claiming as much as $750 million in damages. The legal case dragged on for 14 years, leaving city leaders fearing it might bankrupt the town.

"We were locked in the embrace of death with Macpherson," says Hermosa Beach Mayor Kit Bobko.

In March, one month before a jury trial was scheduled to begin, the city announced it had settled the suit.

As part of the deal, E&B Natural Resources, a Bakersfield-based oil company, would buy Macpherson's stake in the deal for $30 million and limit the city's liability to $17.5 million. But there was one major caveat: E&B could again ask Hermosa voters to overturn the drilling ban. The election, which will be paid for by E&B, could happen as early as next spring.

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