Cairo mosque still surrounded; police fire tear gas inside

CAIRO -- The siege of a mosque in Ramses Square, where more than 1,000 protesters have been holed up since Friday night, continued Saturday morning even after police broke down the front door and fired tear gas inside.

Overnight, one woman in her 30s died after she suffocated from the tear gas, said Dr. Ibrahim Al Yamani, who is in charge of documenting the casualties inside.

Those injured and killed in Friday's bloody protest against Egypt's military rule had been taken to Fatih mosque. Around midnight, those inside said the military and police had surrounded the mosque, which includes women, children and many injured, Al Yamani said. More than 60 people were killed in the square when police fired birdshot and live ammunition at the demonstrators.

The protest was also in response to Wednesday's crackdown, in which more than 600 people were slain when security forces dispersed two encampments supporting ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Security forces stormed the mosque Saturday morning and entered the front hall as the protesters barricaded themselves into the rear prayer room, he said.

The demands of the police have not changed since Friday night: women and children will be allowed to evacuate, but all men will be arrested.

"The solution is for supporting rallies to descend on the square and ensure a safe exit for us from these thugs and police," Al Yamani said. "Otherwise we expect to be arrested and abused."

About 10 prisoner vans were parked outside the mosque, he said.

State media continues to report that there were armed men from the Muslim Brotherhood inside the mosque.

On Thursday night, police surrounded another house of worship, the Iman mosque, which had been turned into a makeshift morgue for those killed in Rabaa al Adawiya square the previous day, and fired tear gas before storming it, according to news reports.

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com

Twitter: @RajaAbdulrahim

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Baby theft in China: Parents devastated by an obstetrician's arrest

FUPING, CHINA — Dong Genlao, a 24-year-old new father, was giddy over the birth of his child, a robust 8-pounder, until the obstetrician beckoned him into the hallway and lowered her voice.

The newborn had a serious genital deformity and could never lead a normal life, she explained.

"He is not completely male, but not female. It will bring shame on the family," whispered the doctor, Zhang Shuxia, a trusted family friend whom they affectionately called "Auntie." "Don't worry," Dong recalled Zhang telling him. "Auntie can help you."

She advised that Dong and his mother give up the baby, euphemistically, to let him be euthanized, a fate common in China for disabled newborns.

In fact, Chinese police believe that Zhang tricked Dong into abandoning the baby so she could sell it. The 55-year-old obstetrician at Fuping County Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital was arrested last month and charged Aug. 9 with trafficking newborns as far back as 2006, when Dong's baby was born.

As many as 55 possible baby thefts from the hospital are under investigation, with Zhang a principal suspect in half of them, according to police statements.

Child trafficking is a huge problem in rural China, where babies are sometimes snatched from their parents' arms and sold to couples unable to conceive or who desperately want a boy. In December, the Public Security Ministry said it had rescued 54,000 children since April 2009, when a nationwide campaign against trafficking began.

Zhang's arrest has devastated families in villages near Fuping, a county of 800,000 in northern China's Shaanxi province, famous for its apple orchards. The doctor, who grew up nearby, has delivered many babies in the area, as did her mother, also an obstetrician.

Her method, authorities and victims say, was cruel and effective: convincing families that their babies were dead or dying, or afflicted with incurable diseases or congenital deformities. In rural China, a lack of support and restrictions on family size can make people reluctant to raise a child with disabilities.

Police say the doctor's victims were often friends and neighbors, forced to make heart-wrenching decisions about whether their babies should live or die, thus becoming complicit in their purported deaths. Zhang, the families say, even charged them a fee of about $10 to dispose of the corpses.

Zhang is believed to have frequently preyed on the fears of the grandparents, who in the Chinese countryside are desperate for healthy grandchildren to carry on the family line. The mothers were frequently left out of the loop.

The doctor was detained after one young couple, whose son was born July 16, contacted police.

They said they had been told by Zhang that their baby had hepatitis B and syphilis transmitted through the mother. The husband and wife initially accused each other of infidelity, then went to another doctor, who examined them and found them free of the diseases.

Police last week raided a home 300 miles away in adjacent Henan province where a family is believed to have purchased the baby from traffickers for nearly $10,000. Zhang's cut was reported to be $3,500, according to police reports in the official press. The baby was reunited with his parents.

Police have also recovered twin girls born at the hospital in May, saying they were sold, separately, at slightly lower prices — girls being the less favored gender in China.

Dong, a polite man, sounds more incredulous than angry when speaking about Zhang.

His family knew the doctor through her younger sister, who lived a block away. Zhang would give free prenatal exams for villagers who didn't want to travel to the county seat 25 miles away. Dong's family liked her so much they would take a gift of steamed bread when they had their checkups.

"She seemed like a very warm person. Tall, strong, smart, but down to earth," he said. "We absolutely trusted her and she tricked us."

Five people have been arrested on suspicion of being accomplices to Zhang, and families think others may have been involved. Zhang was well-connected in local government: Her husband is a recently retired county official and the couple's son works in the county's legal affairs department.

The maternity hospital, which opened in 1996, has a staff of 120 doctors and treats 20,000 patients a year, according to its website.

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Court rules California bypassed requirements for bullet-train process

A Sacramento Superior Court judge delivered a major rebuke to the California bullet train project Friday, ruling that the state failed to comply with requirements on funding and environmental reviews imposed by voters.

In a closely watched case, Judge Michael P. Kenny stopped short of immediately shutting down the project or ruling that the Legislature made illegal appropriations. But he scheduled a future hearing on how the violations of state law can be remedied.

The ruling threatens to further delay the $68-billion project that has lagged behind schedule before ground has been broken. The decision could ultimately force the state to devise a new plan that conforms to strict financial and environmental protections included in a $9-billion ballot measure approved in 2008.

"It destroys the state's timetable for the project," said former state Sen. Quentin Kopp, an early architect of the system who recently turned against it. "This ruling destroys the representations of the high-speed-rail authority."

Kenny ruled that the state failed to identify where it would get all of the money required to complete an initial $31-billion operating segment between Merced and the San Fernando Valley. The state has also failed to obtain environmental clearances for the entire segment, the judge found.

In addition to $9 billion from state bonds, the rail agency has $3.2 billion in federal funds, leaving it about $19 billion short. It has not completed any of the four massive environmental reviews that would be necessary to build the line along that route, as required by the 2008 ballot measure, Proposition 1A.

The measure "required the Authority to identify sources of funds that were more than merely theoretically possible, but instead were reasonably expected to be actually available when needed," Kenny said in his 15-page ruling. The state's business plan identifies only potential funding, without commitments, agreements or authorizations, he said.

The ruling came in the first phase of the case. Additional alleged state law violations will be litigated in subsequent portions of the lawsuit.

Hanford resident Aaron Fukuda, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the decision was a vindication for Central Valley farmers, businesses and residents who have waged a battle against the project.

"Our legislators would not listen to us," he said. "The rail authority would not listen to us. But Judge Kenny listened to us and said the state abused its authority."

The California High-Speed Rail Authority vowed to stay on course. "Today's ruling is that the legislative appropriation for high-speed rail … remains valid, and our work on the project continues," said Dan Richard, the agency's chairman. "We take our commitment to Proposition 1A seriously and continue to work towards developing a high-speed rail project that benefits all Californians."

The state had planned to start building a 130-mile segment of the system between Madera and Bakersfield last year. But high-speed trains would not operate along that stretch until much later, assuming money would be available to finish the section.

The plan "demonstrates that the funding plan failed to comply with the statute, because it simply did not identify funds available for the completion of the entire" first operating segment, Kenny ruled.

Kenny said he was not prepared to invalidate state appropriations made for the project, because the lawsuit did not attack that aspect of the project, and it is not clear whether he could legally overrule the state Legislature. If environmental clearances must be obtained for the longer, 290-mile segment to Southern California, that work could take years.

The judge said more hearings would be needed to devise a remedy for the shortcomings of the state plan. The case was filed by Kings County officials, along with Fukuda and John Tos, an almond grower.

Michael Brady, the attorney who bought the case, called the ruling a victory, adding he'd expected the judge to order additional hearings on a remedy.

"The high-speed-rail-authority went way out on a limb, and now that limb has broken off," said Stuart Flashman, Brady's co-counsel in the suit. "They are in a real bind now."

Conservative opponents of the project, who have vowed to stop any additional federal funding, applauded the ruling.

"Today's ruling reaffirms what Californians have known all along about California high-speed rail.... We can't afford this boondoggle that relies on a fundamentally flawed business model," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield).

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

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Costly perk forces DWP to shell out extra if it gives work to outside contractors

It's no secret Los Angeles Department of Water and Power employees are paid well. But a little-known clause in their union contract ensures they can work extra hours and collect even higher wages when private contractors are hired to help them get the job done.

The so-called "outsourcing bonus" traces back to a single sentence inserted into the city-owned utility's labor contract nearly two decades ago. Intended partly to discourage use of private companies with lower labor costs, the contract provision requires DWP managers to offer overtime to any employee who could have performed tasks assigned to a contractor — such as engineering, construction or clerical work.

The requirement is one of several obscure work rules that newly elected Mayor Eric Garcetti is pushing to reexamine as part of a new DWP labor agreement, and to fulfill a campaign pledge to reform the agency that provides power and electricity to millions of Los Angeles homes and businesses.

No other city union contract has a similar overtime provision, according to the city's top budget analyst. And eliminating the bonus could save up to $20 million over the life of a four-year labor pact now being considered by city leaders, DWP executives told The Times this week.

Last month, The Times reported that a separate decades-old provision, included in the DWP's disability plan, required the agency to pay employees unlimited, extra sick days. That program cost ratepayers $35.5 million since 2010. DWP officials could find no medical justification for more than half of the employees who took more than a month of extra sick days."These policies make no sense and are another reason why we must reform" the agency, Garcetti told The Times. Late Thursday, he said he would not sign the proposed DWP labor contract because it limits reforms to "the department's costly and inefficient work rules."

DWP officials downplayed the financial effects of the overtime bonus, saying there is always plenty of work for their employees to do. "We believe this requirement isn't causing a lot of overtime that wouldn't need to be incurred anyway," said Philip Leiber, the DWP's chief financial officer.

But Marick F. Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, and a nationally recognized expert on labor management relations, said he had not heard of a union contract that included such bonuses.

In the private sector, he added, "when you talk about outsourcing, you're talking about ripping the whole job out from underneath you. You may get to stick around for a while to train the person that replaces you, that's the best it gets."

A consultant hired last year by the City Council to review proposed DWP rate hikes flagged the overtime mandate as a serious obstacle to controlling expenses at the department.

The requirement prevents the agency "from outsourcing effectively by essentially increasing the cost of doing so ... and depriving management of an effective tool that can be used to promote efficiency," concluded the report by Los Angeles-based PA Consulting.

DWP employee compensation emerged as a central issue in the mayoral campaign earlier this year after the utility's largest union spent millions in support of Garcetti's chief opponent Wendy Greuel, becoming her biggest financial backer.

Controversy around the agency and its compensation policies has continued since Garcetti's victory, as city leaders debate a new four-year labor agreement. Garcetti has said more concessions are needed on work rules, and pension and healthcare costs.

Brian D'Arcy, the leader of the DWP union, did not respond to requests for comment.

Several council members have expressed support for the proposed labor agreement now on the table. City analysts say it would save $500 million over the next four years, and several billion dollars in the coming decades. City Council President Herb Wesson convened a public hearing on the new contract beginning Friday morning.

In the background of the debate are DWP rate increases, which totaled 11% over the last two years for electricity. More increases, partly to pay for cleaner energy projects also are being discussed.

The utility's nearly 10,000 employees averaged more than $100,000 in salary, overtime and other payments last year and made roughly 50% more than other city workers, a Times review found. A city study last year concluded DWP workers make roughly 25% more than employees at comparable utilities.

On Thursday, City Controller Ron Galperin released a new study showing 58% of the utility's employees made in excess of $50,000 during the first six months of 2013,compared to 33% percent of employees at the police and fire departments. In addition to the outsourcing bonus, Galperin found 616 categories of extra compensation in DWP pay records that can boost base salaries, including hazard pay, meal reimbursements and a bonus for working in inclement weather.

Use of overtime has increased at the agency, according to DWP General Manager Ron Nichols, because workers are replacing aging infrastructure and completing projects needed to meet regulatory requirements. The agency also has been slow to replace approximately 500 employees who retire each year, Nichols said.

"Paying [overtime] is often less expensive than hiring new full-time staff," he said. "The department is simply unable to hire quickly enough to get the staff we need.''

Under the outsourcing bonus program, employees who do the type of work performed by hired contractors must be offered at least 10% additional hours, as overtime, for as long as the outside contractors are on the job. In most cases DWP employees get 150% of their regular salary, but can collect 200% if the overtime falls on a Sunday or a holiday.

Agency officials said accurate numbers on the cost of the policy to ratepayers are not available. That's partly because most agency records don't distinguish between overtime worked in the normal course of business and overtime offered to employees as a result of the outsourcing bonus policy.

The DWP's estimate of up to $20 million in potential savings was "based on a review of overtime expenditures over the last few years," Assistant Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso told The Times in an email. It's not clear what, if any, additional operational savings might be realized if the disincentive to use outside workers was removed.

One element of the proposed new DWP labor contract would reduce the outsourcing bonus from 10% to 5% for a limited number of DWP employees, such as clerks and their supervisors — about 1,600 in all. That change could save an estimated $3 million over four years, according to the DWP's Leiber. Though records on the overall financial effects of the overtime bonus program weren't available, a Times public records request turned up logs for a few smaller DWP units with names of employees who accepted the extra hours last year.

Some of those employees were among the DWP's biggest overtime earners in 2012, records show, although it wasn't clear how much of their extra pay was a result of the outsourcing policy.

One welder with a base pay of $99,619 collected an additional $91,614 in overtime, DWP payroll records show. With $4,494 in un-itemized "other" payments, his total pay for the year was $195,729. Another welder received $87,626 in overtime pay, on top of his $94,812 base pay. Neither could be reached for comment.

jack.dolan@latimes.com

Times staff writer Catherine Saillant contributed to this report.

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Rockefeller impostor gets 27-to-life for San Marino man's murder

A German-born fabulist who masqueraded as a member of the Rockefeller family was sentenced Thursday to 27-years-to-life in prison for killing his San Marino landlady's son in 1985.

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, acting in his own defense, addressed the court before sentencing and blamed the slaying of 27-year-old John Sohus on the man's wife, Linda.

"I want to assert my innocence," said Gerhartsreiter, wearing a blue jail jumpsuit with his hands cuffed in front of him. "I firmly believe that the victim's wife killed the victim, but, be that as it may … I did not commit the crime."

Gerhartsreiter, 52, was convicted in April of murdering Sohus with a blunt object. Sohus' body was found in 1994, buried three feet deep behind a guesthouse where Gerhartsreiter had been living on the Lorain Road property, where the couple lived with John's mother in the main house.

Gerhartsreiter left San Marino — where he was known as British aristocrat Christopher Chichester — shortly after the couple's disappearance in 1985.

He reemerged on the East Coast, pretending to be television and film producer Christopher Crowe before convincing some on Wall Street that he was a bond trader. He eventually began saying he was Clark Rockefeller, a scion of the wealthy family. He gained entry to exclusive social clubs and fooled many, including his Harvard-educated wife.

Linda Sohus, who disappeared at age 29, has never been found.

In an emotional speech before the judge's sentence, John Sohus' half sister, Ellen Sohus, addressed Gerhartsreiter directly.

"Why did you kill my brother?" she asked. "What happened to Linda? I believe Linda is dead and that you are responsible for her death."

She said that after John's body was discovered, she and John's father would ask her often, "Why John? He was the kindest person I have ever known."

Ellen Sohus said that in recent years she has seen photos of Gerhartsreiter and his young daughter in which they appeared to have been happy.

"It is sad that he will not be able to watch her grow up," she said. "It is sad that she will not have her father with her during life's most precious moments."

At that, Gerhartsreiter, seated at the defense table, nodded his head solemnly.

During the trial, Gerhartsreiter's team of Boston attorneys argued that Linda Sohus could have been the killer — a notion several jurors said they quickly rejected.

Gerhartsreiter dismissed his attorneys after his conviction and represented himself during his sentencing hearing, despite the judge's warnings that doing so would be difficult. Gerhartsreiter said he had taken a debate class more than 30 years ago and hoped to draw from experience while preparing for the hearing.

Gerhartsreiter filed a lengthy motion requesting a new trial. He said he believed the evidence presented during his more than three-week trial did not support the guilty verdict. He also said he thought the prosecution improperly argued that he killed Linda Sohus. Gerhartsreiter was not charged with killing her.

Gerhartsreiter asked to read his motion aloud because his handwriting is "not always perfectly clear" and because there was "public interest in the motion ... and it would also save time for the media if I get to present it orally." The courtroom was crowded with reporters and television cameras.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli refused to let him read the motion and denied him a new trial.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Habib Balian, who prosecuted the case, said he was "pleased, after all these years, to bring justice and closure to Ellen and her family." Balian has not offered any possible motive for the killing.

Sue Coffman, Linda Sohus' best friend, said she left the courtroom with a sense of relief.

"It's over for me," she said. "He can appeal all he wants to. He can be as famous as he wants."

She shook her head and whispered the number of years since the Sohuses' disappearance: "28 years."

Coffman hugged Ellen Sohus after the sentencing. They each took a deep breath and smiled.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

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57 face charges over drug smuggling via big-rig axles

Federal prosecutors Thursday unveiled indictments and charges against 57 people who authorities said smuggled massive quantities of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine from Mexico to the Los Angeles area using PVC piping concealed in the axles of big rigs.

A federal Southern California drug task force arrested 18 of the alleged traffickers. The others remain fugitives, including Mexico-based Miguel Angel Molinero-Castro, characterized by prosecutors as the boss of the Molinero organization. The cases involve the Molinero organization and two other connected smuggling groups.

Authorities said the network would smuggle large quantities of drugs over the border into Nogales, Ariz., in tractors pulling legitimate cargo trailers from Mexico. According to the charges, the big rigs would eventually make their way to the yards operated by the Mexican-based organization in South Gate and Wilmington, where the wholesale drug dealers would then distribute the drug-filled PVC pipes with other vehicles.

Molinero is described as a prominent member of a "Mexican criminal organization," but authorities refused to be more specific, citing ongoing operations.

Prosecutors and investigators say the case illustrates how large-scale drug operations south of the border have exploited the international transportation business to deliver narcotics into large U.S. cities. Authorities said the operation was a huge business that funneled an enormous amount of drugs into the region.

"The allegations here describe a wide-ranging conspiracy to exploit aspects of our nation's trucking and transportation system and funnel enormous amounts of dangerous narcotics into this country," said Andre Birotte Jr., U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.

During the course of the investigation, which began in early 2011, authorities seized more than 2,400 pounds of methamphetamine, 30 kilograms of cocaine, 16 kilos of white heroin, 20 kilos of brown heroin and more than $1.2 million in cash from suspected narcotics transactions. Investigators, however, readily admit they also retrieved numerous empty PVC pipes that once contained drugs.

Investigators said that given large number of trucks that come across the border and the relative ease of concealing items in truck axles, such payloads are hard to find.

"The criminal networks targeted in this case exploited one of the nation's busiest transportation corridors to mask the movement of staggering amounts of contraband," said Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations. "The volume of methamphetamine being smuggled … is virtually unprecedented."

Drug Enforcement Administration officials said the organization was a drug wholesaler. They said they found evidence that once in the L.A. region, some of the meth would be made into crystal meth, multiplying its potential profits.

Anthony Williams, DEA special agent in charge in Los Angeles, said the drugs had a combined street value in the tens of millions of dollars.

Molinero and 37 others are charged with conspiracy, distribution and possession with intent to traffic drugs by operating the enterprise. An additional eight defendants in an associated group were indicted by a grand jury with conspiracy to distribute narcotics, maintaining drug-involved premises, possession to distribute controlled substances and distribution of methamphetamine. A second indictment accuses another associated group of trafficking heroin.

Federal agents tracked the suspects' coded telephone conversations as the network allegedly smuggled the pipes of illegal drugs, according to court records. The organization operated truck yards in South Gate and Wilmington. Investigators watched as one suspect wiped truck grease off of the PVC pipes.

Narcotics detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department say they saw the men loading and unloading PVC pipes into trucks and cars and delivered them to an apartment complex in Downey. According to court records, investigators observed the use of a Toyota Camry to transport meth hidden in 30 PVC pipes to a Sylmar home.

Stacks of filled pipes were also recovered in Long Beach, Bakersfield, Riverside, Santa Ana and Hacienda Heights, according to an affidavit by Homeland Security Special Agent Alex Nguyen.

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Death toll from Egypt violence rises to 525

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities on Thursday significantly raised the death toll from clashes the previous day between police and supporters of the ousted Islamist president, saying more than 500 people died and laying bare the extent of the violence that swept much of the country and prompted the government to declare a nationwide state of emergency and a nighttime curfew.

The death toll, which stood at 525, according to the latest Health Ministry figures, makes Wednesday by far the deadliest day since the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime ruler and autocrat Hosni Mubarak — a grim milestone that does not bode well for the future of a nation roiled in turmoil and divisions for the past 2 1/2  years.

Health Ministry spokesman Khaled el-Khateeb put the number of the injured on Wednesday at 3,717.

Near the site of one of the smashed encampments of ousted President Mohammed Morsi's supporters in the eastern Nasr City suburb, an Associated Press reporter on Thursday saw dozens of blood soaked bodies stored inside a mosque. The bodies were wrapped in sheets and still unclaimed by families.

Relatives at the scene were uncovering the faces in an attempt to identify their loved ones. Many complained that authorities were preventing them from obtaining permits to bury them.

El-Khateeb said 202 of the 525 were killed in the Nasr City protest camp, but it was not immediately clear whether the bodies at the mosque were included in that figure.

Wednesday's violence started with riot police raiding and clearing out the two camps, sparking clashes there and elsewhere in the Egyptian capital and other cities.

Cairo, a city of some 18 million people, was uncharacteristically quiet Thursday, with only a fraction of its usually hectic traffic and many stores and government offices shuttered. Many people hunkered down at home for fear of more violence. Banks and the stock market were closed.

The latest events in Egypt drew widespread condemnation from the Muslim world and the West, including the United States, Egypt's main foreign backer for over 30 years.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei resigned later Wednesday as Egypt's interim vice president in protest — a blow to the new leadership's credibility with the pro-reform movement.

Interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said in a televised address to the nation that it was a "difficult day" and that he regretted the bloodshed but offered no apologies for moving against Morsi's supporters, saying they were given ample warnings to leave and he had tried foreign mediation efforts.

The leaders of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood called it a "massacre." Several prominent Brotherhood figures were detained as police swept through the two sit-in sites, scores of other Islamists were taken into custody, and the future of the once-banned movement was uncertain.

Backed by helicopters, police fired tear gas and used armored bulldozers to plow into the barricades at the two protest camps on opposite ends of Cairo. Morsi's supporters had been camped out since before he was ousted by a July 3 coup that followed days of mass protests by millions of Egyptians demanding that he step down.

The smaller camp — near Cairo University in Giza — was cleared of protesters relatively quickly, but it took about 12 hours for police to take control of the main sit-in site near the Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque in Nasr City that has served as the epicenter of the pro-Morsi campaign and had drawn chanting throngs of men, women and children only days earlier.

After the police moved on the camps, street battles broke out in Cairo and other cities across Egypt. Government buildings and police stations were attacked, roads were blocked, and Christian churches were torched, Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said.

At one point, protesters trapped a police Humvee on an overpass near the Nasr City camp and pushed it off, according to images posted on social networking sites that showed an injured policeman on the ground below, near a pool of blood and the overturned vehicle.

Three journalists were among the dead: Mick Deane, 61, a cameraman for British broadcaster Sky News; Habiba Ahmed Abd Elaziz, 26, a reporter for the Gulf News, a state-backed newspaper in the United Arab Emirates; and Ahmed Abdel Gawad, who wrote for Egypt's state-run newspaper Al Akhbar. Deane and Elaziz were shot to death, their employers said, while the Egyptian Press Syndicate, a journalists' union, said it had no information on how Gawad was killed.

The turmoil was the latest chapter in a bitter standoff between Morsi's supporters and the interim leadership that took over the Arab world's most populous country. The military ousted Morsi after millions of Egyptians massed in the streets at the end of June to call for him to step down, accusing him of giving the Brotherhood undue influence and failing to implement vital reforms or bolster the ailing economy.

Morsi has been held at an undisclosed location since July 3. Other Brotherhood leaders have been charged with inciting violence or conspiring in the killing of protesters.

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Peter Zumthor's LACMA plan worries Page Museum at La Brea tar pits

The design for the central building in a reimagined Los Angeles County Museum of Art was inspired by the adjacent La Brea tar pits. Seen from above, the structure's flowing lines resemble a splatter of tar.

But scientists doing the work of recovering fossils from the oozing asphalt aren't sure they like Swiss architect Peter Zumthor's homage. They fear the massive construction required to replace four of LACMA's existing buildings with Zumthor's structure could upset the science at the tar pits, an active paleontological research site with a rich deposit of Pleistocene-era fossils that draws visitors from around the world.

John Harris, chief curator of the Natural History Museum's Page Museum, adjacent to LACMA, says Zumthor's plan so far doesn't address how to protect the tar pits.

VIDEO: LACMA proposes new building

Although groundbreaking would be years off, plans and models for the overhaul are already on display at LACMA's Resnick Pavilion.

"If I understand correctly, this would all be under an overhang," Harris says, gesturing toward the four tar pits closest to the museum's 1960s-era Hammer building. "It would block off the light, the rain, and that affects the vegetation."

"The example of how current vegetation and small animals get trapped [in tar] is how we demonstrate to people how this incredible wealth of fossils got here in the first place," he adds. "It would go from something that's totally natural to something artificial."

Jane Pisano, director of the Natural History Museum, has questions about the Zumthor building's effect on a different area of the tar pits.

The models show that the larger, so-called lake pit to the east of the museum would be shadowed by the cantilevered roof — "subsuming it under LACMA," says Pisano, who has been unable to get a map that would show a true overlay of the building on the current site. "It would completely change your perspective on the lake pit — and that's an iconic symbol of the tar pits."

PHOTOS: A fresh perspective on LACMA's 'old' buildings

LACMA Director Michael Govan says the models in the exhibition are not unlike sketches, far from final designs.

"Even I know it cantilevers too far," Govan says of the overhangs. "But all of that would get worked out over the next five years. There's no intention to impinge on the tar pits in a negative way. The building is emerging as a sort of celebration of the tar pits; it's meant to magnify the extraordinary natural feature of the site."

The La Brea tar pits and the Page Museum, which displays more than 1 million Ice Age fossils, have a vaunted reputation among natural historians. "I don't think there's a parallel to it anywhere in the world in terms of [fossil] abundance," says Kirk Johnson, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

In 1986, construction of LACMA's Japanese Pavilion inadvertently unearthed invertebrate fossils.

In 2006, when the museum built an underground parking garage, 16 fossil deposits were found — bones of bison, horses, camels, saber-toothed cats and a baby mastodon, among others, as well as the museum's famed mammoth skeleton, nicknamed Zed.

PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The Times

That discovery was fortuitous for the Page. The fossils, embedded in giant chunks of earth, were collected into 23 huge crates — what's now called "Project 23" — and are the main focus of science being done at the Page. The excavation was paid for by LACMA, which hired the archaeological and paleontological mitigation firm ArchaeoPaleo Resource Management to oversee the salvaging of the fossils and coordinate with the Page.

During construction, however, Zed the mammoth's skull was accidentally damaged by a bulldozer. Harris wants to make sure similar damage doesn't happen to fossils that might be unearthed during future construction.

The Page, he points out, is working closely with L.A. County's Metropolitan Transit Authority on the Purple Line subway extension. With the help of an outside cultural resources management company hired by the MTA, and consultation with the Page, the transit agency plans to start test drilling as early as next month on the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Ogden Drive to explore the underground landscape — not only gas conditions and earth pressure, but the potential for fossil discovery — says Scott McConnell, director of MTA construction management on the new subway.

"The MTA has plans, several years in the making, about mitigating the fossils they're almost bound to encounter," says Harris, the Page curator. "We don't have enough detailed information right now about the Zumthor project, and that's concerning."

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Death toll in Egypt crackdown hits 525

CAIRO -- The death toll in the violence that has engulfed Egypt climbed to 525 Thursday as the nation awoke to scenes of charred streets, battered cars, funerals and deepening divisions between Islamists and the largely secular military-backed government.

The Health Ministry reported that the dead, mostly supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, included at least 43 police officers. More than 3,700 people were wounded in clashes that ignited Wednesday when security forces broke up two sit-ins by protesters loyal to Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood claims at least 2,000 people were killed in street battles that swept the country. Many of the deaths occurred when riot police firing tear gas and automatic weapons stormed the 6-week-old Islamist rally outside the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque in Cairo.

The violence stunned world leaders, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded Thursday that the U.N. Security Council move to condemn what he characterized as a massacre by Egyptian soldiers and security forces.

"I am calling on Western countries. You remained silent in Gaza, you remained silent in Syria. ... You are still silent on Egypt. So how come you talk about democracy, freedom, global values and human rights?" he told a news conference.

The Brotherhood has vowed that its followers would continue protesting until Morsi, toppled in a coup last month, is reinstated. The group's spokesman, Gehad Haddad, posted on his Twitter account: "We will always be nonviolent and peaceful. We remain strong, defiant and resolved. We will push forward until we bring down this military coup."

The attacks on the protest camps devastated the Brotherhood, relegating it to the fringes of the nation's politics. That prospect has raised fears that Brotherhood followers and hard-line Salafi Islamists may go underground to plot militant attacks on government and tourism targets, similar to the bombings and assaults that killed hundreds in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Terrorism has been on the rise in the Sinai Peninsula for months. In a foreshadowing of widening civil strife and sectarianism, more than a dozen Christian Coptic churches and monasteries were attacked Wednesday. Islamists have blamed the minority Christian population of siding with the military.

Interim Prime Minister Hazem Beblawi defended the crackdown, saying, "We found that matters had reached a point that no self-respecting state could accept."

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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

 

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Immigration reform creates odd political alliances

WASHINGTON — When television ads aired in South Carolina this spring attacking Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham for supporting immigration reform, a GOP group came to his aid. So did the other team.

"We came up with the money," said Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America's Voice, a Washington-based group with close ties to the Obama White House. "We were just frustrated that nobody was doing anything, and Graham was under attack. We said, 'Fine, we will put money in.'"

Sharry's group, knowing an ad sponsored by a left-leaning advocacy group could hurt Graham, donated $60,000 to Republicans for Immigration Reform, a super PAC started by President George W. Bush's former Commerce secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, and GOP fundraiser Charlie Spies.

An unprecedented collection of political bedfellows has coalesced this year on the reform side of the immigration debate: liberal Latino organizations and Republican operatives, the Chamber of Commerce and labor unions, faith groups and high-tech companies. And as with the Sharry contribution, some left-leaning groups are financing Republican pro-immigration groups.

The result is a flood of money for advertising, lobbying and field organizing aimed at convincing Republicans in Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, authorize more temporary work visas and increase security on the border with Mexico.

During the first half of the year, reform backers outspent opponents in advertising by more than 3 to 1: $2.4 million to $700,000, according to Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group. They also hired a battalion of lobbyists. In the second quarter, 527 businesses, advocacy groups and others reported lobbying on immigration, up from 389 in the first three months of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some of that spending is about to show up in targeted campaigns in House districts. Advocates are trying to keep up the pressure when members are home during the five-week August recess — or "Action August," as President Obama called it last month. But the biggest spending is likely to come this fall, when the House is expected to take up a series of immigration bills.

"We will see a significant ramp-up of activities in August and September," said Tom Snyder, who runs the campaign effort for the labor giant AFL-CIO. Some Republican House members have already started to soften their opposition to reform, he said, especially in districts with tens of thousands of union members. "What you are seeing is not an avalanche but a stream starting to trickle in our direction."

The last time Congress took up the issue, in 2007, anti-immigration groups mounted a fierce grass-roots campaign and succeeded in defining the bill as "amnesty" for lawbreakers. This time, advocates have launched a preemptive strike.

"I've heard it said, it could be lost in August but not won in August," said Spies, a lawyer who formed Republicans for Immigration Reform to provide "political cover."

The AFL-CIO has spent $418,998 to run ads in at least six states and plans to spend more than $1 million in August and September targeting 40 Republicans in the House. The Service Employees International Union started a $200,000 radio campaign aimed at Republican congressmen in 10 districts with growing Latino populations, including four Californians: Jeff Denham (Atwater), Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Santa Clarita), Gary G. Miller (Diamond Bar) and David Valadao (Hanford).

Two moderate Republican organizations also have participated. The American Action Network spent $182,085 on television ads, and Americans for a Conservative Direction spent $105,251 for ads in six states, according to Kantar Media.

FWD.us, an advocacy group founded by Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and funded by top tech executives, announced plans last week to spend more than $500,000 on ads featuring a young Chicago man who wants to become a Marine but can't because he came to the country illegally as a 7-month-old.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes boosting immigration levels, said his side was badly outgunned. The tide of corporate money has moved the debate away from the promise of the poem on the Statue of Liberty to welcome the tired, the poor and the freedom-seekers, he said.

"Now, it's give us your industrial and farm workers who are low-wage and poorly educated, or give us the technical talent from somebody else's economy," Stein said.

The immigration debate has drawn attention, and money, from a vast array of businesses: notably the tech industry, which wants more H-1B visas for highly trained foreign workers, but also other industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor, including agriculture and hotels. Since March, companies and trade groups signed up 76 more lobbying firms, according to the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Microsoft Corp. has been among the most active. In addition to its in-house lobbying operation, the company has paid lobbyists from 15 firms this year to press the case on Capitol Hill.

Fred Humphries, vice president for government affairs, said Microsoft supported reform efforts that would increase high-tech visas because U.S. colleges do not graduate enough computer scientists. "In the U.S. today, Microsoft has approximately 3,500 research and engineering jobs we can't fill," he said.

The business lobby's influence on Republican lawmakers was on vivid display this spring. In March, Utah's Republican senators, Orrin G. Hatch and Mike Lee, urged the Senate to slow down on immigration reform. That didn't sit well at the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce, where many members had been agitating to increase high-tech visas. At a news conference, the chamber's president threatened to mount a recall of Hatch and Lee.

Hatch soon changed course. He became a key player in the talks that led the Senate to approve a bipartisan bill authorizing up to 180,000 high-tech visas — nearly triple the current number.

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