Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to step down in next 12 months

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer will step down from the troubled tech giant in the next 12 months, ending the career of a man who helped usher in the modern computing age, only to watch it turn on him and threaten to devour his company.

The software company made the surprising announcement Friday after a tumultuous year in which it radically redesigned nearly all of its major products for a new computing era defined by mobile and touch-screen computing. No successor was named, a signal to analysts that Ballmer, 57, was pressured by the board to go.

"This came very sudden and wasn't of Ballmer's choosing," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy. "Any time there is an extended search announced, it means that it hasn't been planned."

Microsoft felt like an unstoppable force in the 1990s. The Windows operating system became the standard platform for desktop personal computers. But Microsoft couldn't adapt fast enough to the mobile and cloud-computing era.

The Redmond, Wash., company's influence waned. Its stock price stalled. And Ballmer emerged as a divisive figure. Although supporters cheered his push into business markets, critics tarred him for a lack of vision in consumer technology and for his inability to inspire the innovation needed to keep Microsoft as relevant as rivals Google Inc. and Apple Inc.

A large, bombastic presence, Ballmer often seemed as much Microsoft's cheerleader-in-chief as its CEO. He put all his frenetic energy into reinvigorating Microsoft this last year, determined to leave behind the kind of juggernaut he had inherited.

Instead, it appears Microsoft's board nudged him aside, a decision Ballmer accepted even as he hinted at regrets about not being allowed to finish what he started.

"This is an emotional and difficult thing for me to do," Ballmer wrote in a letter to Microsoft employees. "I take this step in the best interests of the company I love; it is the thing outside of my family and closest friends that matters to me most."

Speculation immediately turned to who will succeed Ballmer, a decision tinged with historic importance as the 38-year-old company wrestles with what qualities it wants in its third CEO. For all its stumbles, Microsoft's products still are among the most widely used in the world.

Among the names immediately mentioned by observers: Tami Reller, Microsoft's executive vice president of marketing; Tony Bates, Microsoft's executive vice president who runs business development; Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president for engineering; Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer; Kevin Johnson, former Juniper Networks CEO who came from Microsoft; and Lou Gerstner, former IBM CEO.

The committee created by Microsoft's board to find the next CEO includes co-founder and board Chairman Bill Gates, who stepped down as chief executive in 2000 and left day-to-operations completely in 2008 to pursue his interests in philanthropy.

"As a member of the succession planning committee, I'll work closely with the other members of the board to identify a great new CEO," Gates said in a statement.

Gates dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft with co-founder Paul Allen in 1975, at a time when the idea of personal computers in the home was the stuff of science fiction and the tech industry scoffed at the notion that software could be a business. Gates was later joined by his Harvard classmate, Ballmer, who brought business and marketing savvy.

Together, they formed a partnership that outmaneuvered rivals such as IBM and Steve Jobs at Apple.

By the time Ballmer became CEO, Microsoft had a seemingly invincible lead thanks to the dominance of its Windows operating system and a reputation for steamrolling rivals. With a bruising federal antitrust case winding down, Ballmer began his tenure by trying to soften Microsoft's reputation and settling feuds with Silicon Valley rivals.

Over the course of the next decade, Ballmer and Microsoft had their successes. Annual revenue has grown from $23 billion in 2000 to $77.8 billion for the 2013 fiscal year that ended in June.

"He tripled the revenue for the company in 13 years," Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler said. "That's pretty significant."

The creation of the Xbox made Microsoft a force in gaming. And the introduction of the Kinect, a motion-sensing gaming control device that became one of the fastest-selling consumer electronics devices in history, hinted at the kind of innovation the company could deliver.

But Ballmer's strongest move was to dramatically expand Microsoft's services for businesses, including its cloud-computing platform. His supporters said he never got enough credit for these initiatives.

"What Steve Ballmer achieved at Microsoft is actually amazing," entrepreneur Anil Dash said in a tweet. "It's underrated simply because consumer tech casts an irrationally big shadow."

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

L.A., conservationists reach agreement to repair Mono Lake damage

Ending decades of bitter disputes over fragile Mono Lake, Los Angeles and conservationists on Friday announced an agreement to heal the environmental damage caused by diverting the lake's eastern Sierra tributary streams into the city's World War II-era aqueduct.

The controversy over alkaline Mono Lake, which is famous for its bizarre, craggy tufa formations and breeding grounds for sea gulls and migratory birds, is one of California's longest-running environmental disputes.

The settlement resolves all of the issues among weary combatants, including the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, California Trout and the Mono Lake Committee.

It calls for construction of a $15-million adjustable gate in Grant Dam, an earthen structure 87 feet high and 700 feet long designed to impound tributary water. The goal is to release pulses of water along a seven-mile stretch of Rush Creek to mimic annual flood cycles, distributing willow seeds and promoting healthy trout populations. The settlement will not affect water levels at Mono Lake.

Roughly 12,000 acre-feet of water will be exported to Los Angeles, which will allow DWP ratepayers to make up half the cost of the improvements at Grant Dam.

The DWP Board of Commissioners on Tuesday is scheduled to vote on the settlement, which will improve the utility's image as it prepares to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the aqueduct that helped transform the city into a metropolis of nearly 4 million people and turned portions of the Owens Valley and Mono Basin into arid wastelands.

DWP general manager Ron Nichols said the agreement "accommodates the concerns of Mono Lake stakeholders in a manner that is respectful of the concerns of LADWP's water customers for reliable and affordable water while providing certainty for all parties in the future."

The settlement will not recreate historic flows, "but it will restore fisheries and riparian habitat that existed before the aqueduct was extended into Mono Basin in 1941," said Geoffrey McQuilkin, executive director of the Mono Lake Committee, a nonprofit group organized to save and protect the bowl-shaped ecosystem roughly half the size of Rhode Island. "Now, the aqueduct can operate as required to protect the ecosystem here even as it delivers water to the city."

The settlement comes about two decades after the city was ordered to reduce the amount of water it had been diverting from Rush, Lee Vining, Parker and Walker creeks.

"This is a big deal," said Mark Drew, eastern Sierra regional manager of Cal Trout. "It was incredibly arduous to reach this agreement, which speaks to the commitment of the parties involved."

The environmental damage in the region just east of Yosemite National Park and about 350 miles north of Los Angeles was apparent by the 1970s. Tributary streams dried up. The lake level had dropped more than 40 vertical feet and the water had doubled in salinity, leaving behind smelly salt flats. The increasingly salty water threatened to kill brine shrimp, a favorite food of the estimated 50,000 California gulls that breed there each year.

The sex life of gulls became a hot topic when a declining water level revealed a land bridge connecting an island rookery to the shore, allowing coyotes to pad across and feast on the birds and their nests.

Formal protests began with a lawsuit filed in Mono County Superior Court in 1979 against the DWP by residents and environmental groups led by the Mono Lake Committee. The lawsuit alleged violations of public trust and creation of a public and private nuisance by the exposing of 14,700 acres of former lake bed.

In 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a California Supreme Court ruling that environmentalists have the right to challenge the amount of water that Los Angeles imports from tributaries of Mono Lake. A decade later, the California State Water Resources Control Board ordered minimum flows restored for the diverted streams and set a minimum water level for Mono Lake while still allowing the utility to divert some water for consumption in Los Angeles.

The city's other major source of water in the region — the Owens River and a battalion of wells pumping aquifers beneath the Owens Valley — is unaffected by the Mono Lake agreement.

New stream-flow regimens are already underway, and structural modifications at Grant Dam could be completed within four years.

"We're expecting a huge leap forward in the recovery of an estimated 19 miles of stream corridors affected by this agreement," McQuilkin said. "We expect to see stream-side forests, more insects, birds and animals — and more and bigger fish."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Slain WWII veteran honored in Spokane

SPOKANE, Wash. — When Glenn Longstorff's mind goes back to that room at the hospital a few nights ago, he hurts for his friend, the man people around here knew as Shorty.

He thinks of the kid drafted to war at 18. The soldier shot in the leg on the beach at Okinawa, who never cared to say too much about it. The fixture around town — at the Sportsman Cafe & Lounge for coffee almost every morning, and at the Eagles Lodge on many nights.

Delbert Belton, 88, was in his car outside the lodge watering hole Wednesday night, waiting for his girlfriend to meet him to shoot some pool, when he was robbed and beaten. Hours later, he died at the hospital. Longstorff was at his friend's side.

"The way they beat him and how they beat him — it's absolutely terrible," said the 62-year-old railroad worker who had rented a room from Belton for five years. "Everybody's just appalled. Man's not supposed to kill man."

The killing of the World War II veteran has struck a nerve in Spokane, close to Washington's eastern edge, where a homegrown memorial has sprouted and grows outside the lodge and where locals gathered Friday for a memorial service.

Feelings of anger and confusion have spread far beyond this neighborhood of faded storefronts and modest homes as people struggle to make sense of the apparently random but stunning act of violence, which police say was perpetrated by two teenagers.

"People keep coming during the day, and laying more stuff," said Roger Chinn, 52, a janitor at the Eagles Lodge.

Authorities here said that Belton was assaulted after 8 p.m. Wednesday. Found by his girlfriend, he was bloodied but still responsive. She ran for help, screaming.

Spokane police confirmed Friday that a 16-year-old boy was taken into custody in the case. Officials have also identified a second suspect, also 16, who remains at large.

"We would encourage [the suspect] to surrender immediately," Spokane Police Chief Francis Staub said in a statement, adding that police would tirelessly hunt the young man down.

On Friday night, scores of people — some friends, others just from around the neighborhood — huddled in the breeze in the parking lot outside the lodge.

They belted out Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American" and a verse of "Amazing Grace." They also swayed along to country music blaring through speakers, because, they said, Shorty loved to dance.

Belton had worked for 30 years at an aluminum-manufacturing plant. He stayed busy in retirement, often stopping by the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic, where he'd chat with patients and joke with staff. According to Longstorff, he enjoyed fixing up old cars and then just giving them away.

It was the company of his friends that helped him cope with the death of his wife, Myrtle, about six years ago, said Barbara Belton, his daughter-in-law.

She has struggled to make sense of Belton's death. For one, he certainly didn't look like a man of means. His car was anything but flashy: a '94 Ford Contour. "He didn't dress fancy," she said. "Why these kids thought he had some money, I don't know."

At the Friday night memorial, people were invited to come stand by the American flag and say a few words about their friend. They stood under the inky sky, holding candles burning in paper cups. They talked about his hobbies, his personality and how much they'd miss him.

"That man did right, he did it for his country and he made an impact on a lot of lives," one man told the crowd. "God bless Shorty!"

rick.rojas@latimes.com

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Rojas reported from Spokane, Hamilton from Los Angeles.

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Garcetti, City Council reach deal on DWP labor contract, source says

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council have reached a deal on a four-year package of salaries and benefits with the union representing Department of Water and Power workers, said sources close to the negotiations.

Garcetti called a news conference for Thursday morning to discuss the proposed contract with the Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He did so hours after he met privately with the union's top official at a Silver Lake restaurant.

"I'm on top of the world," said Council President Herb Wesson, who is set to attend the news conference. "This was a tough process. It was a tough deal. You had to try to educate the public, which I think we did a decent job of trying to do and ... we had a mayor that wanted more. And at the end of the day, we have to give him credit for what we were able to get."

The council is scheduled to vote Friday. Even after that, the deal faces key hurdles. DWP employees still must vote to ratify the agreement, a process expected to take around two weeks. The five-member board that oversees the utility would need to vote on key elements in the pact, including a reduction in the retirement benefits of future workers at the utility.

[Update, 10:37 p.m. Aug. 21:] Garcetti offered no details on what had transpired over the past 24 hours, saying in a brief statement: "I'm pleased that we reached an agreement that pushes forward with DWP reform. I look forward to joining with the council president and the City Council to announce further details tomorrow."

Council members have been trying to lock down an agreement before a 2% pay increase goes into effect Oct. 1. That raise would be postponed for three years under the agreement.

Garcetti met Wednesday evening with IBEW Local 18 business manager Brian D'Arcy at Edendale Grill, a Silver Lake restaurant, shortly before 7:30 p.m. A Garcetti spokesman refused to discuss the meeting. Shortly after a Times reporter entered the restaurant and came into Garcetti's view, both men got up and left.

Backers of the deal contend that it will save $4 billion over 30 years, much of it in retirement savings. Garcetti said earlier this week that he was seeking additional salary concessions and changes that would allow city officials to rework costly or inefficient work rules.

ALSO:

Baca faces more challengers in re-election campaign

Final nixon tapes reveal bid to ease tensions with Soviets

Court ruling favors police officers who report on-the-job misconduct

Twitter: @davidzahniser

david.zahniser@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Obama defends cautious tack on Egypt, Syria

AUBURN, N.Y. -- In a televised interview, President Obama defended his cautious approach to situations in Egypt and Syria, citing international law and his concern about over-extending the U.S. military.

"Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region," Obama said in an interview with CNN that aired Friday morning.

Obama did say he had a shorter timeline for a decision about how to respond to alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Some members of Congress have called for the U.S. to attack the Syrian regime, perhaps by bombing its airfields, to respond to the alleged attack. U.S. officials have said they are still seeking confirmation of the allegations that Syrian government forces had used a chemical attack against rebels during recent fighting in a suburb of Damascus, the country's capital.

Asked whether the attacks had crossed the "red line" he had described a year ago, Obama said that "there are rules of international law" guiding his response.

"You know, if the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it, do we have the coalition to make it work, and, you know, those are considerations that we have to take into account," he said.

He acknowledged criticism from lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who have decried what they see as an inadequate response to the Syrian regime's attacks on its citizens.

"But what I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of, what is in our long-term national interests?" he said.

In the interview, conducted Thursday during a bus tour of New York and Pennsylvania, Obama said the same cautious view applies to his policy toward Egypt, where the military recently overthrew the elected, Islamist president. Military forces have killed hundreds of supporters of the former regime in the weeks since the overthrow.

A "full evaluation" of the U.S. relationship was underway, which could include suspending aid to the country, he said.

"The aid itself may not reverse what the interim government does. But I think what most Americans would say is that we have to be very careful about being seen as aiding and abetting actions that we think run contrary to our values and our ideals," he said.

"There's no doubt that we can't return to business as usual, given what's happened."

ALSO:

Egypt frees Mubarak as crackdown on Islamists continues

British judge allows search of devices seized from journalist's partner

Bodies exhumed east of Mexico City; could be missing group from bar

michael.memoli@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Slain WWII veteran honored in Spokane

SPOKANE, Wash. — When Glenn Longstorff's mind goes back to that room at the hospital a few nights ago, he hurts for his friend, the man people around here knew as Shorty.

He thinks of the kid drafted to war at 18. The soldier shot in the leg on the beach at Okinawa, who never cared to say too much about it. The fixture around town — at the Sportsman Cafe & Lounge for coffee almost every morning, and at the Eagles Lodge on many nights.

Delbert Belton, 88, was in his car outside the lodge watering hole Wednesday night, waiting for his girlfriend to meet him to shoot some pool, when he was robbed and beaten. Hours later, he died at the hospital. Longstorff was at his friend's side.

"The way they beat him and how they beat him — it's absolutely terrible," said the 62-year-old railroad worker who had rented a room from Belton for five years. "Everybody's just appalled. Man's not supposed to kill man."

The killing of the World War II veteran has struck a nerve in Spokane, close to Washington's eastern edge, where a homegrown memorial has sprouted and grows outside the lodge and where locals gathered Friday for a memorial service.

Feelings of anger and confusion have spread far beyond this neighborhood of faded storefronts and modest homes as people struggle to make sense of the apparently random but stunning act of violence, which police say was perpetrated by two teenagers.

"People keep coming during the day, and laying more stuff," said Roger Chinn, 52, a janitor at the Eagles Lodge.

Authorities here said that Belton was assaulted after 8 p.m. Wednesday. Found by his girlfriend, he was bloodied but still responsive. She ran for help, screaming.

Spokane police confirmed Friday that a 16-year-old boy was taken into custody in the case. Officials have also identified a second suspect, also 16, who remains at large.

"We would encourage [the suspect] to surrender immediately," Spokane Police Chief Francis Staub said in a statement, adding that police would tirelessly hunt the young man down.

On Friday night, scores of people — some friends, others just from around the neighborhood — huddled in the breeze in the parking lot outside the lodge.

They belted out Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American" and a verse of "Amazing Grace." They also swayed along to country music blaring through speakers, because, they said, Shorty loved to dance.

Belton had worked for 30 years at an aluminum-manufacturing plant. He stayed busy in retirement, often stopping by the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic, where he'd chat with patients and joke with staff. According to Longstorff, he enjoyed fixing up old cars and then just giving them away.

It was the company of his friends that helped him cope with the death of his wife, Myrtle, about six years ago, said Barbara Belton, his daughter-in-law.

She has struggled to make sense of Belton's death. For one, he certainly didn't look like a man of means. His car was anything but flashy: a '94 Ford Contour. "He didn't dress fancy," she said. "Why these kids thought he had some money, I don't know."

At the Friday night memorial, people were invited to come stand by the American flag and say a few words about their friend. They stood under the inky sky, holding candles burning in paper cups. They talked about his hobbies, his personality and how much they'd miss him.

"That man did right, he did it for his country and he made an impact on a lot of lives," one man told the crowd. "God bless Shorty!"

rick.rojas@latimes.com

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Rojas reported from Spokane, Hamilton from Los Angeles.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Garcetti, City Council reach deal on DWP labor contract, source says

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council have reached a deal on a four-year package of salaries and benefits with the union representing Department of Water and Power workers, said sources close to the negotiations.

Garcetti called a news conference for Thursday morning to discuss the proposed contract with the Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He did so hours after he met privately with the union's top official at a Silver Lake restaurant.

"I'm on top of the world," said Council President Herb Wesson, who is set to attend the news conference. "This was a tough process. It was a tough deal. You had to try to educate the public, which I think we did a decent job of trying to do and ... we had a mayor that wanted more. And at the end of the day, we have to give him credit for what we were able to get."

The council is scheduled to vote Friday. Even after that, the deal faces key hurdles. DWP employees still must vote to ratify the agreement, a process expected to take around two weeks. The five-member board that oversees the utility would need to vote on key elements in the pact, including a reduction in the retirement benefits of future workers at the utility.

[Update, 10:37 p.m. Aug. 21:] Garcetti offered no details on what had transpired over the past 24 hours, saying in a brief statement: "I'm pleased that we reached an agreement that pushes forward with DWP reform. I look forward to joining with the council president and the City Council to announce further details tomorrow."

Council members have been trying to lock down an agreement before a 2% pay increase goes into effect Oct. 1. That raise would be postponed for three years under the agreement.

Garcetti met Wednesday evening with IBEW Local 18 business manager Brian D'Arcy at Edendale Grill, a Silver Lake restaurant, shortly before 7:30 p.m. A Garcetti spokesman refused to discuss the meeting. Shortly after a Times reporter entered the restaurant and came into Garcetti's view, both men got up and left.

Backers of the deal contend that it will save $4 billion over 30 years, much of it in retirement savings. Garcetti said earlier this week that he was seeking additional salary concessions and changes that would allow city officials to rework costly or inefficient work rules.

ALSO:

Baca faces more challengers in re-election campaign

Final nixon tapes reveal bid to ease tensions with Soviets

Court ruling favors police officers who report on-the-job misconduct

Twitter: @davidzahniser

david.zahniser@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Obama defends cautious tack on Egypt, Syria

AUBURN, N.Y. -- In a televised interview, President Obama defended his cautious approach to situations in Egypt and Syria, citing international law and his concern about over-extending the U.S. military.

"Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region," Obama said in an interview with CNN that aired Friday morning.

Obama did say he had a shorter timeline for a decision about how to respond to alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Some members of Congress have called for the U.S. to attack the Syrian regime, perhaps by bombing its airfields, to respond to the alleged attack. U.S. officials have said they are still seeking confirmation of the allegations that Syrian government forces had used a chemical attack against rebels during recent fighting in a suburb of Damascus, the country's capital.

Asked whether the attacks had crossed the "red line" he had described a year ago, Obama said that "there are rules of international law" guiding his response.

"You know, if the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it, do we have the coalition to make it work, and, you know, those are considerations that we have to take into account," he said.

He acknowledged criticism from lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who have decried what they see as an inadequate response to the Syrian regime's attacks on its citizens.

"But what I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of, what is in our long-term national interests?" he said.

In the interview, conducted Thursday during a bus tour of New York and Pennsylvania, Obama said the same cautious view applies to his policy toward Egypt, where the military recently overthrew the elected, Islamist president. Military forces have killed hundreds of supporters of the former regime in the weeks since the overthrow.

A "full evaluation" of the U.S. relationship was underway, which could include suspending aid to the country, he said.

"The aid itself may not reverse what the interim government does. But I think what most Americans would say is that we have to be very careful about being seen as aiding and abetting actions that we think run contrary to our values and our ideals," he said.

"There's no doubt that we can't return to business as usual, given what's happened."

ALSO:

Egypt frees Mubarak as crackdown on Islamists continues

British judge allows search of devices seized from journalist's partner

Bodies exhumed east of Mexico City; could be missing group from bar

michael.memoli@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Slain WWII veteran honored in Spokane

SPOKANE, Wash. — When Glenn Longstorff's mind goes back to that room at the hospital a few nights ago, he hurts for his friend, the man people around here knew as Shorty.

He thinks of the kid drafted to war at 18. The soldier shot in the leg on the beach at Okinawa, who never cared to say too much about it. The fixture around town — at the Sportsman Cafe & Lounge for coffee almost every morning, and at the Eagles Lodge on many nights.

Delbert Belton, 88, was in his car outside the lodge watering hole Wednesday night, waiting for his girlfriend to meet him to shoot some pool, when he was robbed and beaten. Hours later, he died at the hospital. Longstorff was at his friend's side.

"The way they beat him and how they beat him — it's absolutely terrible," said the 62-year-old railroad worker who had rented a room from Belton for five years. "Everybody's just appalled. Man's not supposed to kill man."

The killing of the World War II veteran has struck a nerve in Spokane, close to Washington's eastern edge, where a homegrown memorial has sprouted and grows outside the lodge and where locals gathered Friday for a memorial service.

Feelings of anger and confusion have spread far beyond this neighborhood of faded storefronts and modest homes as people struggle to make sense of the apparently random but stunning act of violence, which police say was perpetrated by two teenagers.

"People keep coming during the day, and laying more stuff," said Roger Chinn, 52, a janitor at the Eagles Lodge.

Authorities here said that Belton was assaulted after 8 p.m. Wednesday. Found by his girlfriend, he was bloodied but still responsive. She ran for help, screaming.

Spokane police confirmed Friday that a 16-year-old boy was taken into custody in the case. Officials have also identified a second suspect, also 16, who remains at large.

"We would encourage [the suspect] to surrender immediately," Spokane Police Chief Francis Staub said in a statement, adding that police would tirelessly hunt the young man down.

On Friday night, scores of people — some friends, others just from around the neighborhood — huddled in the breeze in the parking lot outside the lodge.

They belted out Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American" and a verse of "Amazing Grace." They also swayed along to country music blaring through speakers, because, they said, Shorty loved to dance.

Belton had worked for 30 years at an aluminum-manufacturing plant. He stayed busy in retirement, often stopping by the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic, where he'd chat with patients and joke with staff. According to Longstorff, he enjoyed fixing up old cars and then just giving them away.

It was the company of his friends that helped him cope with the death of his wife, Myrtle, about six years ago, said Barbara Belton, his daughter-in-law.

She has struggled to make sense of Belton's death. For one, he certainly didn't look like a man of means. His car was anything but flashy: a '94 Ford Contour. "He didn't dress fancy," she said. "Why these kids thought he had some money, I don't know."

At the Friday night memorial, people were invited to come stand by the American flag and say a few words about their friend. They stood under the inky sky, holding candles burning in paper cups. They talked about his hobbies, his personality and how much they'd miss him.

"That man did right, he did it for his country and he made an impact on a lot of lives," one man told the crowd. "God bless Shorty!"

rick.rojas@latimes.com

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Rojas reported from Spokane, Hamilton from Los Angeles.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syrian rebels allege new gas attack by government

BEIRUT — In what the opposition called the worst atrocity of Syria's civil war, antigovernment activists accused the government of killing hundreds of civilians, including many women and children, in a poison-gas attack targeting pro-rebel Damascus suburbs.

The Syrian government called reports of a massacre untrue, but the scale of the alleged carnage and the graphic videos of the dead and injured that surfaced Wednesday left many officials across the globe demanding action.

If verified, such a massive gas attack could alter the international response to the war that has raged since March 2011. Last year, President Obama called the potential use of chemical weapons in Syria a "red line" that could prompt U.S. intervention.

The U.S. has provided humanitarian and nonlethal aid to the rebels but has been reluctant to get more deeply involved. Despite a declaration in June that it would start providing military assistance, rebels say they have yet to receive any such aid, nor have they been told what to expect or when they will get it.

The opposition said rockets tipped with some kind of apparent nerve agent rained down overnight on areas to the east and south of the Syrian capital, all strongholds of rebels fighting to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad.

Video uploaded onto YouTube showed rows of bodies, some arrayed on the floors of makeshift clinics. Many were children in underwear and pajamas, purported victims of a barrage that allegedly occurred about 3 a.m. Other footage showed people choking, flailing their arms uncontrollably, rolling their eyes, foaming at the mouth and exhibiting other signs of what could be the effects of chemical poisoning. Most showed no indication of wounds or bleeding.

In one clip, a distraught man cradled what was described as the corpse of his daughter, asking why it had happened.

Each side in the conflict has accused the other of using chemical weapons, and both sides deny the charges. The U.S. and its allies have said that evidence indicates the Syrian military has used small amounts of sarin, a nerve agent, on several occasions.

Experts who had been skeptical of previous claims said the new images showed more convincing signs of a chemical attack. But they raised a number of questions that could not immediately be answered. Some suggested the pictures suggested use of a low-grade agent.

The United States and other nations urged that a United Nations team that arrived in Damascus over the weekend to investigate previous charges of chemical weapons use be ordered to look into this incident as well.

The U.N. Security Council convened a two-hour emergency session. But afterward, the U.N., which long has been deeply divided on Syria, issued a statement condemning any use of chemical weapons as a "violation of international law," calling for a "thorough and prompt investigation" and renewing calls for a cease-fire in Syria.

The major U.S.-backed Syrian opposition group said more than 1,300 people were killed, while other antigovernment groups put the number in the hundreds. Such numbers would seem to represent the largest single-day death toll in a conflict that the U.N. says has already cost more than 100,000 lives.

One activist who lives near the town of Arbeen said rockets began hitting the area about 2:30 a.m. Residents who had been sleeping in their basements to protect themselves from shelling could not escape the chemicals, he said.

Another, reached by Skype in Zamalka, said he was awake when the first rocket hit his area. He and his friends, who are part of a volunteer ambulance team, rushed to the scene. Families stumbled out of their homes and into the street, still dressed in their pajamas, choking and out of breath, he said.

By early morning, drugs at three makeshift hospitals had run out, and victims were being treated with water, he said, adding that medical personnel were attempting to wash out people's eyes and mouths with soda.

"These reports are uncorroborated and we are urgently seeking more information," British Foreign Minister William Hague said in a statement in London. "But it is clear that if they are verified, it would mark a shocking escalation in the use of chemical weapons in Syria."

The official Syrian news agency called the reports untrue and designed to derail the ongoing U.N. inquiry.

A Syrian military official appeared on state television denouncing the reports as a desperate opposition attempt to make up for rebel defeats on the ground. After months in which rebels were making steady gains against the government, pro-Assad forces have held the momentum for much of this year, regaining territory around Damascus and in several other parts of the country.

Russia, a close ally of Assad, labeled the accusation a "premeditated provocation." Moscow has backed the Syrian government's contention that it is antigovernment rebels, not the military, who have previously used toxic gas. A Russian investigation indicated that rebels had produced chemical arms using a "cottage industry" approach, Moscow said.

Any expanded U.N. inquiry would require approval of the Syrian government. Some kind of safe passage would have to be arranged for U.N. inspectors to enter what are heavily contested war zones. The U.S. and other governments called on Damascus to agree to a new inquiry.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Garcetti, City Council reach deal on DWP labor contract, source says

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council have reached a deal on a four-year package of salaries and benefits with the union representing Department of Water and Power workers, said sources close to the negotiations.

Garcetti called a news conference for Thursday morning to discuss the proposed contract with the Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He did so hours after he met privately with the union's top official at a Silver Lake restaurant.

"I'm on top of the world," said Council President Herb Wesson, who is set to attend the news conference. "This was a tough process. It was a tough deal. You had to try to educate the public, which I think we did a decent job of trying to do and ... we had a mayor that wanted more. And at the end of the day, we have to give him credit for what we were able to get."

The council is scheduled to vote Friday. Even after that, the deal faces key hurdles. DWP employees still must vote to ratify the agreement, a process expected to take around two weeks. The five-member board that oversees the utility would need to vote on key elements in the pact, including a reduction in the retirement benefits of future workers at the utility.

[Update, 10:37 p.m. Aug. 21:] Garcetti offered no details on what had transpired over the past 24 hours, saying in a brief statement: "I'm pleased that we reached an agreement that pushes forward with DWP reform. I look forward to joining with the council president and the City Council to announce further details tomorrow."

Council members have been trying to lock down an agreement before a 2% pay increase goes into effect Oct. 1. That raise would be postponed for three years under the agreement.

Garcetti met Wednesday evening with IBEW Local 18 business manager Brian D'Arcy at Edendale Grill, a Silver Lake restaurant, shortly before 7:30 p.m. A Garcetti spokesman refused to discuss the meeting. Shortly after a Times reporter entered the restaurant and came into Garcetti's view, both men got up and left.

Backers of the deal contend that it will save $4 billion over 30 years, much of it in retirement savings. Garcetti said earlier this week that he was seeking additional salary concessions and changes that would allow city officials to rework costly or inefficient work rules.

ALSO:

Baca faces more challengers in re-election campaign

Final nixon tapes reveal bid to ease tensions with Soviets

Court ruling favors police officers who report on-the-job misconduct

Twitter: @davidzahniser

david.zahniser@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Obama defends cautious tack on Egypt, Syria

AUBURN, N.Y. -- In a televised interview, President Obama defended his cautious approach to situations in Egypt and Syria, citing international law and his concern about over-extending the U.S. military.

"Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region," Obama said in an interview with CNN that aired Friday morning.

Obama did say he had a shorter timeline for a decision about how to respond to alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Some members of Congress have called for the U.S. to attack the Syrian regime, perhaps by bombing its airfields, to respond to the alleged attack. U.S. officials have said they are still seeking confirmation of the allegations that Syrian government forces had used a chemical attack against rebels during recent fighting in a suburb of Damascus, the country's capital.

Asked whether the attacks had crossed the "red line" he had described a year ago, Obama said that "there are rules of international law" guiding his response.

"You know, if the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it, do we have the coalition to make it work, and, you know, those are considerations that we have to take into account," he said.

He acknowledged criticism from lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who have decried what they see as an inadequate response to the Syrian regime's attacks on its citizens.

"But what I think the American people also expect me to do as president is to think through what we do from the perspective of, what is in our long-term national interests?" he said.

In the interview, conducted Thursday during a bus tour of New York and Pennsylvania, Obama said the same cautious view applies to his policy toward Egypt, where the military recently overthrew the elected, Islamist president. Military forces have killed hundreds of supporters of the former regime in the weeks since the overthrow.

A "full evaluation" of the U.S. relationship was underway, which could include suspending aid to the country, he said.

"The aid itself may not reverse what the interim government does. But I think what most Americans would say is that we have to be very careful about being seen as aiding and abetting actions that we think run contrary to our values and our ideals," he said.

"There's no doubt that we can't return to business as usual, given what's happened."

ALSO:

Egypt frees Mubarak as crackdown on Islamists continues

British judge allows search of devices seized from journalist's partner

Bodies exhumed east of Mexico City; could be missing group from bar

michael.memoli@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syrian rebels allege new gas attack by government

BEIRUT — In what the opposition called the worst atrocity of Syria's civil war, antigovernment activists accused the government of killing hundreds of civilians, including many women and children, in a poison-gas attack targeting pro-rebel Damascus suburbs.

The Syrian government called reports of a massacre untrue, but the scale of the alleged carnage and the graphic videos of the dead and injured that surfaced Wednesday left many officials across the globe demanding action.

If verified, such a massive gas attack could alter the international response to the war that has raged since March 2011. Last year, President Obama called the potential use of chemical weapons in Syria a "red line" that could prompt U.S. intervention.

The U.S. has provided humanitarian and nonlethal aid to the rebels but has been reluctant to get more deeply involved. Despite a declaration in June that it would start providing military assistance, rebels say they have yet to receive any such aid, nor have they been told what to expect or when they will get it.

The opposition said rockets tipped with some kind of apparent nerve agent rained down overnight on areas to the east and south of the Syrian capital, all strongholds of rebels fighting to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad.

Video uploaded onto YouTube showed rows of bodies, some arrayed on the floors of makeshift clinics. Many were children in underwear and pajamas, purported victims of a barrage that allegedly occurred about 3 a.m. Other footage showed people choking, flailing their arms uncontrollably, rolling their eyes, foaming at the mouth and exhibiting other signs of what could be the effects of chemical poisoning. Most showed no indication of wounds or bleeding.

In one clip, a distraught man cradled what was described as the corpse of his daughter, asking why it had happened.

Each side in the conflict has accused the other of using chemical weapons, and both sides deny the charges. The U.S. and its allies have said that evidence indicates the Syrian military has used small amounts of sarin, a nerve agent, on several occasions.

Experts who had been skeptical of previous claims said the new images showed more convincing signs of a chemical attack. But they raised a number of questions that could not immediately be answered. Some suggested the pictures suggested use of a low-grade agent.

The United States and other nations urged that a United Nations team that arrived in Damascus over the weekend to investigate previous charges of chemical weapons use be ordered to look into this incident as well.

The U.N. Security Council convened a two-hour emergency session. But afterward, the U.N., which long has been deeply divided on Syria, issued a statement condemning any use of chemical weapons as a "violation of international law," calling for a "thorough and prompt investigation" and renewing calls for a cease-fire in Syria.

The major U.S.-backed Syrian opposition group said more than 1,300 people were killed, while other antigovernment groups put the number in the hundreds. Such numbers would seem to represent the largest single-day death toll in a conflict that the U.N. says has already cost more than 100,000 lives.

One activist who lives near the town of Arbeen said rockets began hitting the area about 2:30 a.m. Residents who had been sleeping in their basements to protect themselves from shelling could not escape the chemicals, he said.

Another, reached by Skype in Zamalka, said he was awake when the first rocket hit his area. He and his friends, who are part of a volunteer ambulance team, rushed to the scene. Families stumbled out of their homes and into the street, still dressed in their pajamas, choking and out of breath, he said.

By early morning, drugs at three makeshift hospitals had run out, and victims were being treated with water, he said, adding that medical personnel were attempting to wash out people's eyes and mouths with soda.

"These reports are uncorroborated and we are urgently seeking more information," British Foreign Minister William Hague said in a statement in London. "But it is clear that if they are verified, it would mark a shocking escalation in the use of chemical weapons in Syria."

The official Syrian news agency called the reports untrue and designed to derail the ongoing U.N. inquiry.

A Syrian military official appeared on state television denouncing the reports as a desperate opposition attempt to make up for rebel defeats on the ground. After months in which rebels were making steady gains against the government, pro-Assad forces have held the momentum for much of this year, regaining territory around Damascus and in several other parts of the country.

Russia, a close ally of Assad, labeled the accusation a "premeditated provocation." Moscow has backed the Syrian government's contention that it is antigovernment rebels, not the military, who have previously used toxic gas. A Russian investigation indicated that rebels had produced chemical arms using a "cottage industry" approach, Moscow said.

Any expanded U.N. inquiry would require approval of the Syrian government. Some kind of safe passage would have to be arranged for U.N. inspectors to enter what are heavily contested war zones. The U.S. and other governments called on Damascus to agree to a new inquiry.

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bradley Manning gets 35-year sentence in WikiLeaks case

FT. MEADE, Md. — Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the junior intelligence analyst who came to signify a new era of massive security breaches in the Internet age, was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for leaking a vast trove of military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks. He could be eligible for release in seven years.

So ended a high-profile case that sparked a heated debate about whether the Obama administration is prosecuting whistle-blowers rather than protecting them, a dispute fueled by a flood of recent disclosures documenting the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and Internet data.

In his crisp Army dress uniform and wire-rim glasses, Manning stood rigidly at attention and showed no emotion as the judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, read the sentence in a brief hearing.

"We'll keep fighting for you, Bradley!" half a dozen supporters shouted as guards whisked the 25-year-old soldier from the courtroom. "You're our hero!"

Manning, who said he leaked the documents to protest U.S. foreign policy, had faced up to 90 years in prison. The far lighter sentence appeared to be a rebuke to the government. Prosecutors had urged Lind to imprison him for at least 60 years for orchestrating the largest unauthorized disclosure of classified material in U.S. history and to serve as a warning to others.

It also appeared to be a relief for Manning, who last week apologized in court for having "hurt the United States" and nervously asked the judge for a chance to someday rebuild his life. The sentence enthused many of his supporters, who have contributed $1.4 million for his defense and pledged more to support his legal appeals.

Lind did not explain the sentence. She also demoted Manning to private, took away his Army pay and ordered him dishonorably discharged. He will receive a credit of 1,294 days of confinement so far, including 112 days for the harsh treatment he received at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.

His lawyers said that with good behavior and the time served, he could apply for parole in less than seven years, although his release that soon is far from assured.

After the hearing, Manning's lead defense attorney, David Coombs, told reporters that the defense team met briefly in a holding area with Manning after he was sentenced. Coombs said some of the lawyers were in tears.

But Manning appeared hopeful, he said, and comforted them.

"He said, 'It's OK. It's all right. Don't worry about it,'" Coombs said. "'It's going to be OK. I'm going to be OK. I'm going to get through this.'"

Coombs said he planned to file a petition next week to seek a commutation of Manning's sentence or a pardon from the White House.

In a statement that Manning wrote to accompany the petition, he said he decided to divulge government secrets "out of love for my country." Manning also compares post-Sept. 11 abuses in the United States to other historical incidents, such as the Trail of Tears forced removal of the Cherokee people in the 1830s, the Supreme Court's Dred Scott case decision in 1857 that African Americans had no standing to sue in U.S. courts, and the forced internment of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

Asked about a possible pardon, a White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, said any appeal for clemency by Manning or his lawyers would be considered "like any other application."

Supporters vowed to rally outside the White House to protest the sentence and to call for a presidential pardon. Other rallies on Manning's behalf were planned as far away as Los Angeles.

Manning is expected to serve his term at the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas.

Prosecutors, led by Army Maj. Ashden Fein, declined to comment Wednesday.

Manning was a 22-year-old junior intelligence analyst at a forward operating base outside Baghdad in early 2010 when he began to illegally copy military field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, detainee assessments from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and an enormous cache of diplomatic cables from classified computer accounts. He transmitted more than 700,000 documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

Documents later posted on the Internet by WikiLeaks identified informants who had helped the U.S. military, potentially putting their lives at risk. The leaks also revealed the often negative way U.S. diplomats view America's foreign allies, embarrassing the Obama administration.

Manning chose to be tried and sentenced by a military judge, not a jury. Last month, Lind convicted Manning of 20 of 22 charges, including six counts of espionage. But she acquitted him of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which might have sent him to prison for life.

During a pretrial hearing in February, Manning read a lengthy statement in court. He said he grew angry and disillusioned when he read the secret files, and came to believe that U.S. officials were untruthful in their claims about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other foreign affairs.

"I began to become depressed with the situation we had become mired in year after year," he said.

But last week, he read an apology to the judge, saying there was no excuse for his behavior. "I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States," he said.

His lawyers said he also wrestled with a "gender identity disorder" and struggled with psychological and emotional problems that should have barred his deployment to a war zone, especially as an intelligence analyst. At one point, he emailed his superior officer a photo that showed him wearing a blond wig and lipstick.

Manning's advocates and detractors both compared him to Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked highly classified documents that revealed the government's collection of telephone and Internet data at home and abroad.

Snowden, who is wanted on suspicion of espionage and other charges, has been granted temporary asylum in Russia. But President Obama and senior members of Congress have conceded that public unease about the flood of disclosures of long-secret surveillance systems has increased the need to improve oversight to curb potential abuses.

richard.serrano@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Garcetti, City Council reach deal on DWP labor contract, source says

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council have reached a deal on a four-year package of salaries and benefits with the union representing Department of Water and Power workers, said sources close to the negotiations.

Garcetti called a news conference for Thursday morning to discuss the proposed contract with the Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He did so hours after he met privately with the union's top official at a Silver Lake restaurant.

"I'm on top of the world," said Council President Herb Wesson, who is set to attend the news conference. "This was a tough process. It was a tough deal. You had to try to educate the public, which I think we did a decent job of trying to do and ... we had a mayor that wanted more. And at the end of the day, we have to give him credit for what we were able to get."

The council is scheduled to vote Friday. Even after that, the deal faces key hurdles. DWP employees still must vote to ratify the agreement, a process expected to take around two weeks. The five-member board that oversees the utility would need to vote on key elements in the pact, including a reduction in the retirement benefits of future workers at the utility.

[Update, 10:37 p.m. Aug. 21:] Garcetti offered no details on what had transpired over the past 24 hours, saying in a brief statement: "I'm pleased that we reached an agreement that pushes forward with DWP reform. I look forward to joining with the council president and the City Council to announce further details tomorrow."

Council members have been trying to lock down an agreement before a 2% pay increase goes into effect Oct. 1. That raise would be postponed for three years under the agreement.

Garcetti met Wednesday evening with IBEW Local 18 business manager Brian D'Arcy at Edendale Grill, a Silver Lake restaurant, shortly before 7:30 p.m. A Garcetti spokesman refused to discuss the meeting. Shortly after a Times reporter entered the restaurant and came into Garcetti's view, both men got up and left.

Backers of the deal contend that it will save $4 billion over 30 years, much of it in retirement savings. Garcetti said earlier this week that he was seeking additional salary concessions and changes that would allow city officials to rework costly or inefficient work rules.

ALSO:

Baca faces more challengers in re-election campaign

Final nixon tapes reveal bid to ease tensions with Soviets

Court ruling favors police officers who report on-the-job misconduct

Twitter: @davidzahniser

david.zahniser@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

L.A. wins more contract concessions from DWP union

A day after Mayor Eric Garcetti appealed to the public to help him secure changes to a proposed Department of Water and Power labor agreement, city negotiators said they had won additional cost-cutting concessions from the utility's main employee union.

Under the latest proposed terms of a four-year labor pact, a pay hike of up to 4% in October 2016 would be reduced to about 2%, City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, a high-level budget analyst, wrote in a confidential memo to the City Council.

After discussing the proposal behind closed doors, Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson said Tuesday that Garcetti and the council are "really, really, really close" to reaching agreement on the contract.

"The council is optimistic that there will be a partnership with the mayor," he said. "You can feel it on the hair on the back of your neck."

Garcetti said last week that he would not sign an earlier version of the proposed agreement, even though it included three consecutive years of zero raises and reduced pension benefits for future DWP employees. Compensation at the city-owned utility became a major campaign issue in this year's mayoral race when the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and its affiliates spent $2 million to defeat Garcetti.

On Monday, Garcetti sought to ramp up pressure for more concessions by launching an online petition asking Angelenos to support his efforts to secure new language allowing elected officials to seek changes to costly or inefficient work rules.

The newly revised labor agreement would reduce entry-level pay for 34 categories of DWP employees, or about 870 employees or 11% of the utility's workers, according to Santana's memo.

The proposal also would give the mayor and council more power to re-examine agreements affecting DWP bonuses, overtime and work rules, according to the memo. Garcetti has taken aim at those agreements, which can cost ratepayers millions annually, particularly one that requires DWP workers to be offered overtime pay when outside contractors are hired.

Wesson and Garcetti both sought the latest changes, which were supported in recent days by the chief negotiator for the DWP union, the memo said.

Garcetti spokesman Yusef Robb would not say if the mayor would support the revised deal, but noted that "important progress" had been made. Wesson said negotiations had seen "movement" in the last 48 hours and talks were continuing.

"Did the council want to take a vote? Yes," he said. "But there's still things that you need to iron out. And that's what we're doing now."

Councilman Paul Koretz, who previously signaled his support for the salary proposal, said he expected Garcetti to find common ground with the council. "I thought even the original deal was incredibly positive for the city,'' he said. "I've been pleasantly surprised that it's been slightly improved as negotiations go along."

Garcetti told a room full of neighborhood activists at City Hall on Monday that he was not satisfied that enough progress had been made on work rules, the size of the 2016 raise and employee contributions toward health insurance costs. On Tuesday, he sent out an email blast to supporters laying out his case for additional contract changes.

"You elected me mayor to reform DWP, and just six weeks after taking office, your vote is making a difference," Garcetti said in the email. "Right now, there is a new DWP contract proposal on the table and I want to make sure it delivers real reform to save money for you."

The latest salary reductions would save $15.4 million over four years, according to Santana's memo. Overall, the proposal is projected to save $4 billion over 30 years, chiefly from reduced pension outlays, according to the council's policy advisors.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

catherine.saillant@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

L.A. pushed to review quake-vulnerable apartment buildings

Seismic experts and engineers have long warned that a certain type of wood-framed building is particularly vulnerable to collapse during a major earthquake, because the first story cannot support the weight of the upper stories.

During Southern California's last destructive temblor in 1994, about 200 of these buildings were seriously damaged or destroyed, including the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, where 16 people died.

Nearly two decades after the Northridge quake, a Los Angeles councilman is calling on the city to consider an inventory of thousands of these so-called soft-story buildings — many of them apartments — that dot the region. This first-of-its-kind list would apply to buildings in Los Angeles built before 1978 with at least two stories and at least five units.

Councilman Tom LaBonge's proposal marks the first significant seismic safety effort in Los Angeles in years. It comes four months after San Francisco passed a landmark law forcing owners to strengthen about 3,000 soft-story apartment buildings. City officials there estimated the retrofits — which involve strengthening the bottom floor — will cost $60,000 to $130,000 per building.

After the Northridge quake, L.A. city building officials talked about identifying other soft-story buildings and requiring owners to retrofit them. But the proposal died.

LaBonge described his plan as a first step in assessing the seismic safety issues and figuring out how many such buildings there are.

"I had it investigated internally in my office and said, 'OK, let's look at this,'" he said. "And the truth of the matter is, we should be very cognizant that there will be another earthquake. Because this is earthquake country."

Among the most common soft-story buildings are apartments and condos with ground-floor parking under residential units. In these structures, the bottom level is supported by skinny, fragile columns that can be crushed or shoved aside during shaking of the heavier upper floors.

At the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, the top stories pancaked onto the first story, which contained both apartments and parking. All 16 people who died were on the first floor.

Adding a strong structural frame to the bottom floor and installing sturdy walls can keep the ground floor upright during a quake.

Soft-story residential buildings are considered one of the three most vulnerable building types in a major earthquake, said Lucy Jones, seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. The others are made of bricks or concrete.

"Getting rid of softer stories will save a lot of lives," said Jones.

The engineer who suggested the inventory idea to LaBonge was David Lee, who works for a mechanical engineering firm, Taylor Devices, that makes shock absorbers to protect buildings during earthquakes. Lee said it has been difficult to get L.A. officials interested in the subject of soft-story building safety but that San Francisco's actions offered a new opportunity to raise the issue.

In 1996 — two years after the Northridge earthquake — the City Council rejected mandatory retrofits for soft-story buildings, opting instead for a voluntary program.

San Francisco, by contrast, has taken more aggressive action. During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, numerous soft-story buildings in the city's Marina district failed, their bottom floors crushed by the floors above.

Under San Francisco's law, property owners would be able to pass on the costs of the seismic strengthening to their tenants — even those under rent control — and would be able to recoup the costs over 20 years.

The city is working with local banks to ensure availability of loans.

In Los Angeles, efforts to require retrofitting for soft-story buildings will likely face opposition from apartment owners — at least if there's no plan for financial help.

Jim Clarke, chief executive officer of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, said he doesn't mind the creation of a list of soft-story buildings — but forcing retrofits would hurt property owners if they can't afford to do them and are unable to pass on the costs to their tenants.

"Forty-three percent of our members are senior citizens," Clarke said. "A big hit like that would be devastating."

Beverly Kenworthy, executive director of the Los Angeles division of the California Apartment Assn., said the city should help property owners pay for any required fixes.

"Some of these mandatory laws can create a hardship," she said, with many properties owned by couples who "don't have access to a lot of capital."

"We don't think it's a bad idea — there just needs to be a type of funding mechanism ... to help property owners pay for it," she added.

LaBonge's proposal calls on city officials to figure out how to identify potentially dangerous soft-story residential buildings across the city. Councilman Jose Huizar, who seconded LaBonge's motion, said through a spokesman that he hopes his City Council planning committee will discuss the idea soon.

ron.lin@latimes.com

rosanna.xia@latimes.com

doug.smith@latimes.com

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Syria rebels say scores dead in poison-gas attack

BEIRUT -- Syrian opposition activists Wednesday accused the government of killing scores of civilians, including women and children,  in a poison-gas assault on rebel strongholds outside Damascus.

The official Syrian news agency called the reports "untrue" and designed to derail a United Nations inquiry into charges of chemical weapons in the conflict.

Opposition activists say the number of dead may be in the hundreds.

There was no independent confirmation of the allegations.

The fresh allegations come as a U.N. inspection team is in Syria conducting a long-delayed investigation into charges of chemical weapons use there. Each side has accused the other of deploying chemical weapons in the more than two-year conflict.

The Syrian war has featured numerous allegations of massacres by both sides. A lack of access for journalists and human rights investigators has hampered independent investigations. Human rights groups say both sides have committed extra-judicial killings during the bloody conflict.

In its statement, the official Syrian news agency called the allegations of a chemical weapons attack "completely baseless," and said the aim of the reports "is to distract the U.N. chemical weapons investigation commission away from its mission."

Pro-opposition activists said the alleged chemical weapons attacks occurred early Wednesday in the so-called Ghouta region, an opposition bastion outside Damascus, the capital. The Syrian military has been methodically pursuing an offensive aimed at driving rebels away from the sprawling Ghouta zone and other areas near Damascus.

Images posted online by opposition activists purported to show  bodies of victims from the chemical attack, including women and children. The images could not be independently verified.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based pro-opposition group, said the government's use of "poisonous gases" had caused "dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries." The group called on the U.N. inspection team in Syria "to head directly to these devastated areas in order to verify and investigate these reports ... as well as to immediately provide the badly needed aid and medical treatment to the people in these areas."

Ake Sellstrom, the Swedish scientist who heads the U.N. inspection team in Syria, told Swedish media that he had seen only the television images of the alleged attacks.

"But the high number of wounded and dead they are speaking about sounds suspicious," Sellstrom told Swedish news agency TT, via telephone from Damascus. "It sounds like something one should take a look at."

The U.N. has said its inquiry is limited to three alleged instances of chemical attack. Whether the team's mandate could be expanded to include the latest allegations was not immediately clear.

On Wednesday, in a separate incident, the Syrian government alleged that its forces had uncovered a "mass grave" of civilians shot and stabbed  by "terrorists" -- the government's term for rebels -- in northwestern Latakia province, where battles have been raging between rebels and the military.  There was no independent confirmation of the allegation.

ALSO:

Japan nuclear plant leaks 300 tons of highly radioactive water

Britain defends detaining the partner of Edward Snowden journalist

Obama administration says aid to Egypt is under review, not on hold

Special correspondent Lava Selo contributed to this report. Also contributing were Times staff writer Raja Abdulrahim in Cairo and special correspondent Alexandra Sandels in Stockholm.

 

12.18 | 0 komentar | Read More

Vigilantes emerge as menacing force in Egypt as mosque siege ends

CAIRO — The siege at a Cairo mosque Saturday highlighted the specter of Egypt spiraling into civil strife and factional bloodshed among the army, Islamists and bands of vigilantes who are emerging as a dangerous third force in the nation's turmoil.

That troubling prospect was evident even as imams from Egypt's top religious institution late in the day succeeded in ending the standoff at Al Fatih mosque, where hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and anti-military protesters had hunkered as mobs cursed them from the streets amid the rattle of automatic weapons fire.

Clerics from Al Azhar — Sunni Islam's most revered university, although distrusted by the Brotherhood — hurried through tear gas Saturday and entered the mosque in Ramses Square. Shortly after nightfall, the Interior Ministry announced the standoff was over as the last of the protesters, some of whom were arrested, exited under police protection.

Brotherhood supporters had taken cover inside the building during deadly clashes a day earlier. They turned the mosque into a makeshift field hospital and refused to leave, fearing attacks by security forces and vigilantes. Egyptian news media reported that police fired at the minaret Saturday after gunmen shot at them.

"The government seeks reconciliation, but not with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who have defiled the law," said interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi. His comments came as police arrested more than 1,000 Islamists, including Mohammed Zawahiri, a radical cleric and brother of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri.

The government also indicated it was moving to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, which until a coup last month that toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was a powerful political voice. Security forces, which killed about 600 Brotherhood supporters and anti-military protesters Wednesday, now appear intent on crushing the Islamist organization.

Egypt's Health Ministry also announced that 173 protesters and 57 policemen had been killed since early Friday. One of those reported dead was the son of Brotherhood supreme leader Mohammed Badie.

The scene at Al Fatih mosque was a sign that vigilante groups, some known as popular committees, were rising in neighborhoods to support the army against the Brotherhood. Their presence reveals how perilous Egypt has become at a time when the military is casting Islamists as terrorists in a public relations war over the country's future.

The government-sanctioned popular committees appeared Friday in Cairo, setting up barricades and guarding neighborhoods with knives and clubs. They are reminiscent of the armed men and boys who roamed the streets in the security breakdown during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. The formation of the latest committees was called for by Rebel, a youth movement that has backed the army's takeover of the country.

For much of the day, security forces did not prevent mobs from massing around the mosque or from beating Brotherhood followers as they exited the building and were hurried toward police trucks. Those in the crowd, mostly young men, brimmed with rage, many of them shaped by an us-against-them nationalism perpetuated by the military in recent weeks.

It was unclear, though, whether the new government would be able to control the mobs as Egypt becomes more fragmented and bitter over a disastrous economy as well as political divisions. There is danger of increasing conflicts between vigilantes and militias attached to the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, including extremists, such as the militants in the Sinai Peninsula.

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be," said Hamdi Abdelgelil, who stood in the courtyard of the mosque as men with sticks pummeled a man attempting to leave. "Beat him, beat him," they chanted as the man retreated back inside, running up stairs that were speckled with blood.

"This is not Egypt. Where is the security?" said Abdelgelil, shaking his head. "These people [the army] are supposed to be our masters, but we look like barbarians."

"This is the Brotherhood's fault," men around him yelled.

Taunts and epithets echoed between frequent bursts of police gunfire that pocked the minaret. Muhammad Ahmad, a photographer who had been at the mosque all day, said he heard only one shot fired from the minaret. But police took aim and people cheered.

"You want to destroy the country," an old man yelled to those inside the mosque.

Security forces seemed unwilling or unable to disperse the crowd, which at times attempted to snatch Brotherhood supporters leaving the mosque. Police were attacked on several occasions as they escorted those inside the building to trucks. Security forces fired into the air throughout the day, but the mob was not scared off.

Those in the crowd brandished poor men's weapons: sticks, chains, a coat hanger. The men filled the mosque's courtyard and spilled out into Ramses Square, where they mingled with boys and women who sat on curbs and medians as if watching a parade. Shopkeepers shuttered their windows, and smoke drifted from a warren of alleys, blowing past soldiers and barbed wire.

"The people want the execution of the Brotherhood," said one man. Some people emerged from the mosque already injured, but the crowds did not relent. "Good, good, let them be beaten to death," someone said as a bandaged man struggled to walk through the mob.

Three women who had left the mosque in the morning were placed in a military armored vehicle. When they were later escorted into a minibus, men surrounded the vehicle. A few in the crowd tried to hit them. The crowd began rocking the bus, and the women urged the driver to leave quickly.

"Sisi, Sisi, Sisi," the mob chanted throughout the day, holding up pictures of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, and a hero to millions of Egyptians. Sisi and Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim ordered the crackdown Wednesday against two massive sit-ins organized by the Brotherhood.

"I want to give Sisi and Mohamed Ibrahim and the whole military permission to kill all of them," said Sayid Shindi Ali, a businessman who complained that he hadn't worked for more than a week because of the unrest. "The entire Egyptian people will give them the permission to kill them. They are destroying the country."

A man beside him began to agree. Then another anti-military protester was brought out of the mosque, and the man yelled: "Bring him here, bring him here."

The protester, his shirt ripped open, his glasses askew, winced under a constant barrage of fists.

"Get off me, get off me," he pleaded.

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ingy Hassieb contributed to this report.

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

California discourages needy from signing up for food stamps

WASHINGTON — It was not surprising that Texas held out.

For years, Texas was among a handful of states that required every resident seeking help with grocery bills to first be fingerprinted, an exercise typically associated with criminals.

Even though Republican Gov. Rick Perry ultimately got rid of the policy, Texas — always seeking to whittle down "big government" — remains one of the most effective states at keeping its poor out of the giant federal food stamp program.

But it is not No. 1. That distinction belongs to California.

Liberal California discourages eligible people from signing up for food stamps at rates conservative activists elsewhere envy. Only about half of the Californians who qualify for help get it.

That stands in contrast to other states, including some deeply Republican ones, that enroll 80% to 90% of those with incomes low enough to qualify.

That public policy paradox — one of the country's most liberal states is the stingiest on one of the nation's biggest benefit programs — has several causes, some intentional, some not. It also has two clear consequences: Millions of Californians don't get help, and the state leaves hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money on the table.

The federal government pays for almost all of the food stamp program, which provides cash aid to about 46 million Americans at a cost of $74.6 billion this year. States administer the program.

In Washington, those costs have generated a furious debate that will heat up again next month when Congress returns from its summer recess.

While the federal government pays the bill, states get an economic boost from more people with money to spend on groceries.

Cash for food is so close to free money for states that several, such as Florida, with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a conservative GOP governor, pay contractors to scour the landscape for people to enroll in the program.

"It is impossible to get states to do conservative types of reform to this program," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has tried and failed to get GOP-controlled states to enact tougher enrollment standards.

"The things they could do, they don't," he said. "It would bring them political controversy and no financial gain for their state. It is like asking them to jump into a buzz saw and to bring their governor along."

Not so in California, where onerous paperwork requirements, inhospitable county benefits offices and confusing online applications often prevail. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest study reflects the participation rate in 2010, agency enrollment figures released since then leave California stuck in last place.

In California, sometimes even those who qualify get rejected, as understaffed agencies prove unable to properly process applications.

Edlyn Countee had no idea she was eligible for food stamps until a friend who volunteered at a food bank brought it up. The 61-year-old from Oakland applied. She was rejected. "They said I made too much money," she said. "I figured, 'There goes that.'"

The friend insisted that there had been a mistake and that Countee should keep at it. The advice was solid, but it took an attorney from Bay Area Legal Aid calling social services officials, and Countee filling out an affidavit, before she got her $101 per month.

In Washington, the debate over food stamps has pitted Republicans, concerned about how much the program has grown, against Democrats who defend it. But that partisan divide does not truly reflect the reality of food stamp use back in lawmakers' districts.

Much of the program's growth involves the deep recession that started in 2008. But a big part stems from states that have actively tried to boost enrollment.

California has been slow to follow, as 36-year-old Sarah Palmer, a single mother from the East Bay city of Albany, discovered when the state threatened to cut her off unless she could produce receipts every few months detailing her child-care costs.

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Death toll in Philippines ferry sinking hits 34

CEBU, Philippines — Divers plucked two more bodies from a sunken passenger ferry Sunday and scrambled to plug an oil leak in the wreckage. The ferry's collision with a cargo ship near the central Philippine port of Cebu has left 34 dead and more than 80 missing.

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III said 751 passengers and crewmen of the MV Thomas Aquinas have been rescued after the inter-island ferry was in a collision late Friday with the MV Sulpicio Express Siete then rapidly sank off the Cebu pier.

Stunned passengers were forced to jump in the dark into the water after the captain ordered the doomed ferry abandoned.

Coast guard, navy and fishing vessels, backed by helicopters, scoured the choppy seas off Talisay city in Cebu, about 350 miles south of Manila, Sunday but found no sign of any more survivors. Divers, however, retrieved the bodies of a man and a woman in the ferry, which sank in waters about 100 feet deep.

"We're still on a rescue mission," Davide told reporters. "We have not given up on them."

Relatives flocked to a ticketing office of ferry owner 2GO Group Inc. and pasted pictures of their missing loved ones. Others, like Richard Ortiz, waited quietly and stared blankly at the vast sea from the Talisay pier, where coast guard and navy rescuers have encamped.

"I just want to see my parents," said Ortiz, who clutched a picture of his father and mother. "This is so difficult."

Amid initial confusion over the number of ferry passengers and the missing, Cebu coast guard chief Commodore William Melad said authorities reported that there were 870 people on board the ferry, including 754 passengers and 116 crewmen. The more than 30 crewmen of the MV Sulpicio Express Siete cargo ship, which had a huge gaping hole in its bow, were all safe, officials said.

Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Abaya said Saturday there were foreigners among the ferry passengers and all were fine, except for a New Zealand citizen who was brought to a hospital.

Coast guard deputy chief Rear Adm. Luis Tuason said some of the missing could still be trapped in the sunken ferry, which has been leaking oil.

In a statement, 2GO said the ferry "was reportedly hit" by the cargo vessel "resulting in major damage that led to its sinking." An investigation will begin after the rescue operation, the coast guard said.

Abaya said the cargo vessel, which was leaving the Cebu pier, smashed into the right side near the rear of the ferry, which was coming in from Nasipit in Agusan del Sur province in the southern Philippines and making a short stop in Cebu before proceeding to Manila.

Outbound and incoming ships are assigned separate routes in the narrow passage leading to the busy Cebu pier and an investigation would determine if one of the vessels strayed into the wrong route and caused the accident, which happened in relatively calm weather, coast guard officials said.

"There was probably a non-observance of rules," Melad told a news conference in Cebu on Sunday, suggesting human error may have been a factor in the accident. He stressed, however, only an investigation that would start after the search and rescue mission would show what really happened.

One of the survivors, Jenalyn Labanos, 31, said the ferry quickly tilted to its side after the impact and sank about 20 minutes later.

She said the crash threw her and two companions to the floor of a ship restaurant followed by the lights going out.

"People panicked and the crew later handed out life vests and used their flashlights to guide us out of the ship but they could not control the passengers because the ship was already tilting," said Labanos, who was bruised as she grabbed a rope on the side of the vessel before jumping into the water.

Survivors said many of the passengers were asleep at the time of the accident.

Rolando Manliguis was watching a live band when "suddenly I heard what sounded like a blast. … The singer was thrown in front of me." He said he rushed to wake up his wife and their two children as the water rose. As the ferry rapidly tilted to its side, he said they roped down the side of the vessel into the sea and were put on a life raft.

Accidents at sea are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats and weak enforcement of safety regulations.

In 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker in the Philippines, killing more than 4,341 people in the world's worst peacetime maritime disaster.

ALSO:

25 bodies found in two Mexican states

Leader of Mexico's Gulf drug cartel captured

Egyptian clerics seek an end to mosque siege

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Vigilantes emerge as menacing force in Egypt as mosque siege ends

CAIRO — The siege at a Cairo mosque Saturday highlighted the specter of Egypt spiraling into civil strife and factional bloodshed among the army, Islamists and bands of vigilantes who are emerging as a dangerous third force in the nation's turmoil.

That troubling prospect was evident even as imams from Egypt's top religious institution late in the day succeeded in ending the standoff at Al Fatih mosque, where hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and anti-military protesters had hunkered as mobs cursed them from the streets amid the rattle of automatic weapons fire.

Clerics from Al Azhar — Sunni Islam's most revered university, although distrusted by the Brotherhood — hurried through tear gas Saturday and entered the mosque in Ramses Square. Shortly after nightfall, the Interior Ministry announced the standoff was over as the last of the protesters, some of whom were arrested, exited under police protection.

Brotherhood supporters had taken cover inside the building during deadly clashes a day earlier. They turned the mosque into a makeshift field hospital and refused to leave, fearing attacks by security forces and vigilantes. Egyptian news media reported that police fired at the minaret Saturday after gunmen shot at them.

"The government seeks reconciliation, but not with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who have defiled the law," said interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi. His comments came as police arrested more than 1,000 Islamists, including Mohammed Zawahiri, a radical cleric and brother of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri.

The government also indicated it was moving to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, which until a coup last month that toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was a powerful political voice. Security forces, which killed about 600 Brotherhood supporters and anti-military protesters Wednesday, now appear intent on crushing the Islamist organization.

Egypt's Health Ministry also announced that 173 protesters and 57 policemen had been killed since early Friday. One of those reported dead was the son of Brotherhood supreme leader Mohammed Badie.

The scene at Al Fatih mosque was a sign that vigilante groups, some known as popular committees, were rising in neighborhoods to support the army against the Brotherhood. Their presence reveals how perilous Egypt has become at a time when the military is casting Islamists as terrorists in a public relations war over the country's future.

The government-sanctioned popular committees appeared Friday in Cairo, setting up barricades and guarding neighborhoods with knives and clubs. They are reminiscent of the armed men and boys who roamed the streets in the security breakdown during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. The formation of the latest committees was called for by Rebel, a youth movement that has backed the army's takeover of the country.

For much of the day, security forces did not prevent mobs from massing around the mosque or from beating Brotherhood followers as they exited the building and were hurried toward police trucks. Those in the crowd, mostly young men, brimmed with rage, many of them shaped by an us-against-them nationalism perpetuated by the military in recent weeks.

It was unclear, though, whether the new government would be able to control the mobs as Egypt becomes more fragmented and bitter over a disastrous economy as well as political divisions. There is danger of increasing conflicts between vigilantes and militias attached to the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, including extremists, such as the militants in the Sinai Peninsula.

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be," said Hamdi Abdelgelil, who stood in the courtyard of the mosque as men with sticks pummeled a man attempting to leave. "Beat him, beat him," they chanted as the man retreated back inside, running up stairs that were speckled with blood.

"This is not Egypt. Where is the security?" said Abdelgelil, shaking his head. "These people [the army] are supposed to be our masters, but we look like barbarians."

"This is the Brotherhood's fault," men around him yelled.

Taunts and epithets echoed between frequent bursts of police gunfire that pocked the minaret. Muhammad Ahmad, a photographer who had been at the mosque all day, said he heard only one shot fired from the minaret. But police took aim and people cheered.

"You want to destroy the country," an old man yelled to those inside the mosque.

Security forces seemed unwilling or unable to disperse the crowd, which at times attempted to snatch Brotherhood supporters leaving the mosque. Police were attacked on several occasions as they escorted those inside the building to trucks. Security forces fired into the air throughout the day, but the mob was not scared off.

Those in the crowd brandished poor men's weapons: sticks, chains, a coat hanger. The men filled the mosque's courtyard and spilled out into Ramses Square, where they mingled with boys and women who sat on curbs and medians as if watching a parade. Shopkeepers shuttered their windows, and smoke drifted from a warren of alleys, blowing past soldiers and barbed wire.

"The people want the execution of the Brotherhood," said one man. Some people emerged from the mosque already injured, but the crowds did not relent. "Good, good, let them be beaten to death," someone said as a bandaged man struggled to walk through the mob.

Three women who had left the mosque in the morning were placed in a military armored vehicle. When they were later escorted into a minibus, men surrounded the vehicle. A few in the crowd tried to hit them. The crowd began rocking the bus, and the women urged the driver to leave quickly.

"Sisi, Sisi, Sisi," the mob chanted throughout the day, holding up pictures of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, and a hero to millions of Egyptians. Sisi and Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim ordered the crackdown Wednesday against two massive sit-ins organized by the Brotherhood.

"I want to give Sisi and Mohamed Ibrahim and the whole military permission to kill all of them," said Sayid Shindi Ali, a businessman who complained that he hadn't worked for more than a week because of the unrest. "The entire Egyptian people will give them the permission to kill them. They are destroying the country."

A man beside him began to agree. Then another anti-military protester was brought out of the mosque, and the man yelled: "Bring him here, bring him here."

The protester, his shirt ripped open, his glasses askew, winced under a constant barrage of fists.

"Get off me, get off me," he pleaded.

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ingy Hassieb contributed to this report.

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

California discourages needy from signing up for food stamps

WASHINGTON — It was not surprising that Texas held out.

For years, Texas was among a handful of states that required every resident seeking help with grocery bills to first be fingerprinted, an exercise typically associated with criminals.

Even though Republican Gov. Rick Perry ultimately got rid of the policy, Texas — always seeking to whittle down "big government" — remains one of the most effective states at keeping its poor out of the giant federal food stamp program.

But it is not No. 1. That distinction belongs to California.

Liberal California discourages eligible people from signing up for food stamps at rates conservative activists elsewhere envy. Only about half of the Californians who qualify for help get it.

That stands in contrast to other states, including some deeply Republican ones, that enroll 80% to 90% of those with incomes low enough to qualify.

That public policy paradox — one of the country's most liberal states is the stingiest on one of the nation's biggest benefit programs — has several causes, some intentional, some not. It also has two clear consequences: Millions of Californians don't get help, and the state leaves hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money on the table.

The federal government pays for almost all of the food stamp program, which provides cash aid to about 46 million Americans at a cost of $74.6 billion this year. States administer the program.

In Washington, those costs have generated a furious debate that will heat up again next month when Congress returns from its summer recess.

While the federal government pays the bill, states get an economic boost from more people with money to spend on groceries.

Cash for food is so close to free money for states that several, such as Florida, with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a conservative GOP governor, pay contractors to scour the landscape for people to enroll in the program.

"It is impossible to get states to do conservative types of reform to this program," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has tried and failed to get GOP-controlled states to enact tougher enrollment standards.

"The things they could do, they don't," he said. "It would bring them political controversy and no financial gain for their state. It is like asking them to jump into a buzz saw and to bring their governor along."

Not so in California, where onerous paperwork requirements, inhospitable county benefits offices and confusing online applications often prevail. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest study reflects the participation rate in 2010, agency enrollment figures released since then leave California stuck in last place.

In California, sometimes even those who qualify get rejected, as understaffed agencies prove unable to properly process applications.

Edlyn Countee had no idea she was eligible for food stamps until a friend who volunteered at a food bank brought it up. The 61-year-old from Oakland applied. She was rejected. "They said I made too much money," she said. "I figured, 'There goes that.'"

The friend insisted that there had been a mistake and that Countee should keep at it. The advice was solid, but it took an attorney from Bay Area Legal Aid calling social services officials, and Countee filling out an affidavit, before she got her $101 per month.

In Washington, the debate over food stamps has pitted Republicans, concerned about how much the program has grown, against Democrats who defend it. But that partisan divide does not truly reflect the reality of food stamp use back in lawmakers' districts.

Much of the program's growth involves the deep recession that started in 2008. But a big part stems from states that have actively tried to boost enrollment.

California has been slow to follow, as 36-year-old Sarah Palmer, a single mother from the East Bay city of Albany, discovered when the state threatened to cut her off unless she could produce receipts every few months detailing her child-care costs.

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More