Judge allows access to emails about Arizona immigration law

TUCSON — A federal judge has given opponents of Arizona's sweeping anti-illegal-immigration law access to emails, letters and memos between supporters of SB 1070 and legislators to see whether there are racial overtones in the messages.

In December, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix rejected arguments made by two of the law's supporters, who maintained that communications sent to lawmakers who created and supported SB 1070 were confidential.

Challengers to SB 1070 called Bolton's ruling a victory because their lawsuit was based partly on allegations that legislators meant to discriminate against Latinos and other people of color. If so, the challengers argue, the law could violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

This is just the latest twist in an ongoing dispute on the surviving and most divisive provision of Arizona's immigration enforcement law, considered the toughest state law against illegal immigration in the country. Both inside and outside Arizona, the measure generated scorn as well as praise, with some states using it as a model for their own immigration laws.

Bolton's ruling covers more than just the communications about SB 1070. Challengers also want to see emails, letters and memos related to the creation of earlier immigration measures. She did not set a deadline for turning over the emails.

In late December, the attorneys for two anti-illegal-immigration groups, the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Immigration Reform Law Institute, filed a motion for the decision's reconsideration, which will probably bring the issue back before the same judge. The judge's order applies to emails from the two groups to legislators, as well as replies.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and chairman of the board at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, criticized the decision, calling it an "invidious fishing expedition."

"It's broad and vastly intrusive and interferes with our 1st Amendment liberties to interact with public officials," Stein said.

Bolton rejected such arguments.

In the Dec. 11 ruling, she said there was nothing in the "law that protects from public view communications with public officials in their official capacity about a matter of public concern. Indeed, Arizona law makes all such communications available to the public under its freedom of information law."

SB 1070, which Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law in 2010, contained several measures intended to give local law enforcement more power to detain people who were in the country illegally.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of SB 1070 but allowed the most controversial portion to take effect: Arizona can compel law enforcement officials in most circumstances to check the status of someone they stop for lawful reasons if they suspect the person is in the country illegally.

Immigrant rights activists filed suit and have been battling in court since to have the provision blocked, claiming that the Arizona Legislature intended to discriminate against Latinos and other minorities.

Victor Viramontes, senior legal counsel with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the law's opponents subpoenaed communications that specifically mention certain words, including "day laborer," "alien," "Hispanic," "Mexican" and "wetback."

"We'll be looking for any kind of explicit derogatory depictions of Latinos," Viramontes said. "Anything with racial overtones with regards to Latinos or Mexicans and any kind of communication that suggests the true reason this law was passed, to target and discriminate against Latinos."

cindy.carcamo@latimes.com

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Monday's TV Highlights: 'Ten Years on Mars' on Nat Geo

Exploration of the red planet reaches a significant milestone on "Ten Years on Mars" on Nat Geo. (NASA / AP / August 2, 2012)

By Ed Stockly

January 5, 2014, 8:00 p.m.

Customized TV Listings are available here: www.latimes.com/tvtimes

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Jan. 5 - 11, 2014 in PDF format

This week's TV Movies  

---

SERIES

The Bachelor Former bachelor Sean Lowe gives new bachelor, Juan Pablo, advice in the season premiere. 8 p.m. ABC

Hostages In the two-hour season finale, Ellen (Toni Collette) prepares to operate on the president (James Naughton) while Duncan (Dylan McDermott) learns about Sandrine's (Sandrine Holt) betrayal and resolves to use it to his advantage. Tate Donovan, Quinn Shepherd and Mateus Ward also star. 9 p.m. CBS

Rachael vs. Guy Celebrity Cook-Off Florence Henderson, Penn Jillette, Tiffany, Chris Kattan, Judy Gold, Vanilla Ice, Jake Pavelka and Herschel Walker arrive in New York City for Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri to select their teams and begin the competition with a medieval feast. 9 p.m. Food

Major Crimes The squad works to track down a serial killer before he strikes again in the first of a two-part story. 9 p.m. TNT

Castle Castle and Beckett (Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic)suspect a serial arsonist of murder and Jenny goes into labor in this new episode. 10 p.m. ABC

Mystery Diners In the new episode the owner of a vegan restaurant in San Francisco called Source, asks for help when he hears rumors that customers are being served meat. 10 p.m. Food

SPECIALS

Ten Years on Mars This new special marks the 10 year anniversary of rovers Spirit and Opportunity landing and operating on Mars the planet Mars. 7 p.m. Nat Geo

TALK SHOWS

CBS This Morning Alison Levine. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS

Today Marine One; Allison Williams; John Rizzo; Carey Mulligan; Craig Koketsu. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC

Good Morning America (N) 7 a.m. KABC

Good Day L.A. Drea de Matteo ("Free Ride"); Naomie Harris; Seamus Dever and Juliana Dever ("Castle"). (N) 7 a.m. KTTV

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'Life-threatening' cold settles over Midwest

The coldest weather in two decades began to settle over the Midwest on Sunday, prompting officials to warn of "life-threatening" temperatures that sent thermometers plunging and Americans scurrying indoors.

Schools canceled Monday classes because of the subzero cold, with parts of Minnesota expecting overnight lows of 30 below zero. That didn't count the wind chill, which makes the cold even more dangerous. The National Weather Service said in a statement that wind chills in some places could reach minus 65 — temperatures at which exposed skin will get frostbitten within 10 minutes.

"Right now, in the Twin Cities, in Minneapolis, it's 11 below zero, and it's pretty windy out there — the wind chill is 31 below zero," National Weather Service meteorologist Shawn DeVinny said Sunday night. He added, "And we're pretty much the warmest spot around" in Minnesota.

Wind chill warnings were in effect from Montana to Appalachia.

Farther south, overnight temperatures were expected to reach minus 7 in Kansas City, Mo.; minus 10 in Des Moines; minus 8 in Chicago; minus 5 in Indianapolis; and minus 4 in St. Louis.

In Lansing, Mich., the overnight low was expected to hit a comparatively balmy 6 degrees. But state employees were told to stay home Monday because of the cold.

The ultrafrigid weather was blamed on a "polar vortex" that brought a mass of icy air down to the U.S. from its usual place over northern Canada.

"We're comparing this to a cold outbreak that happened in 1996," DeVinny said.

That didn't deter some football fans. In Green Bay, Wis., where the Packers faced the San Francisco 49ers in an NFL playoff game, fans braved temperatures so cold that beer froze, leading some tailgaters to hold their beverages over their grills to keep the drinks liquid.

Temperature at kickoff was 5 degrees — a far cry from the infamous "Ice Bowl" of 1967, when it was minus 13. But unlike that classic game, in which the Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys, the home team fell to the 49ers on Sunday, 23-20.

Cold wasn't the only concern across the region.

Much of Indiana was under a blizzard warning Sunday evening as a storm front swept along the Ohio River. Some areas received up to a foot of snow — including St. Louis.

Treacherous weather also imperiled air travel.

In New York, a Delta flight with 35 people on board skidded off an icy runway after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport. No injuries were reported, but officials closed the airport for about two hours.

A few hours later, a private jet crashed on landing in Aspen, Colo., amid windy conditions, killing the co-pilot and injuring the other two pilots, one seriously. No passengers were aboard.

Dispatch audio showed the pilots grappling with strong gusts before the Aspen crash, with a pilot reporting winds exceeding 30 mph near the winter resort's airport.

matt.pearce@latimes.com

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Extensive salvage logging proposed for Rim fire area

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing an extensive salvage operation to log dead trees on about 46 square miles of timberland charred in last year's massive Rim fire in the Sierra Nevada.

The project would be one of the largest federal salvage efforts in California in years. If approved, it could yield more lumber than the combined annual output of all the national forests in the state.

But it is already triggering a fight by some environmentalists who argue that the post-fire logging would destroy valuable habitat for rare birds and other species that thrive in blackened forests.

The Rim, ignited by a hunter's illegal campfire in mid-August, was the biggest wildfire to hit the Sierra in more than a century of record keeping. It burned for more than two months, spreading over 154,430 acres of chaparral and timberland in the Stanislaus National Forest, about 24,000 acres of private land and roughly 77,000 acres in neighboring Yosemite National Park.

Most of the park acreage falls within the boundaries of federally designated wilderness areas. Other than cutting burned trees that pose a hazard along roads, the National Park Service is not doing any salvage logging, a Yosemite spokesman said.

The Forest Service, which is guided by a multiuse mandate to produce timber as well provide recreation and fish and wildlife habitat, has different ideas.

Forest managers want to offer salvage sales on nearly 30,000 of the roughly 103,000 acres of Stanislaus timberland burned in the fire. They also propose to construct 22 miles of temporary roads and six miles of new, permanent roads to serve the salvage operations, as well as rebuild hundreds of miles of forest roads damaged in the blaze.

"It seems like a reasonable and effective strategy to respond to the issues," said Joe Sherlock, regional silviculturist for the Forest Service.

The Stanislaus has launched an environmental review of the proposal and is asking the Forest Service chief in Washington to designate an "emergency situation" that would allow salvage to begin immediately after approval without going through an administrative appeal process. The project would still be subject to legal challenges under federal environmental law.

Even with emergency status, the project would not begin until August, according to documents.

By that time, said Steven Brink, vice president for public resources at the California Forestry Assn., about 40% of the timber will have decayed too much to be commercially valuable. But he estimates that would still leave 270 million board feet to harvest — enough to keep two local saw mills busy for two years.

John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, a regional conservation group, said he did not object to expedited review of the proposal nor to much of the logging. "If we're going to have a project, let's at least get the wood when it has value," he said.

But Buckley expressed several concerns. He opposes plans to build permanent new roads in the burn area, including a segment that would punch into a wild portion of the Clavey River canyon that Buckley said harbors one of the last surviving blocks of low-elevation, old-growth trees in the Stanislaus.

He worried that logging 1,300 steep acres using a cable system — in which logs are suspended from cables and hauled to roads — would accelerate erosion. And he questioned whether the Forest Service would leave enough large, dead trees that birds and other wildlife use for nesting and foraging.

"It just doesn't make sense to debate salvage logging in sensitive areas or to build controversial new roads when there are hundreds of millions of board feet of salvage trees that can be logged on noncontroversial sites," Buckley said.

Other conservationists oppose any salvage timber sales on the Rim landscape.

"This is about the money. It's not about recovery of the ecosystem," argued Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute. "The ecosystem doesn't need intervention for that. The fire itself was ecological restoration."

The Muir project is one of several groups that have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the California-Oregon population of the black-backed woodpecker under the Endangered Species Act. The woodpecker, virtually invisible to predators on a blackened tree, is an expert at drilling for the beetles that feast on standing, fire-killed trees, called snags.

Federal fire suppression policies and salvage logging have diminished the bird's habitat, reducing its population in Oregon and California to about 1,000 pairs, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which joined the listing petition.

Unfortunately for the woodpecker, it favors the same dense stands of bigger snags that loggers like.

Justin Augustine, senior attorney for the center, said 65% of the areas proposed for salvage operations in the Stanislaus overlap with black-backed woodpecker habitat. "That's off-the-charts bad in terms of not leaving enough snags," he said.

Sherlock said the Forest Service hasn't made a final determination of how much snag habitat to leave in place.

Although the salvage proposal doesn't include replanting proposals, the agency would probably replant most logged areas.

Sherlock said foresters would take into account climate change and the uphill movement of species in selecting planting elevations. They would also try to mimic more natural planting patterns than the regimented rows of pines typical of traditional plantations.

The Rim fire burned about 25,000 to 30,000 acres of existing plantations established after previous wildfires in the Stanislaus. Forest officials doubt any salvage logging will be conducted in those areas because the trees aren't big enough.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

mes.com">bettina.boxall@latimes.com

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

Extensive salvage logging proposed for Rim fire area

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing an extensive salvage operation to log dead trees on about 46 square miles of timberland charred in last year's massive Rim fire in the Sierra Nevada.

The project would be one of the largest federal salvage efforts in California in years. If approved, it could yield more lumber than the combined annual output of all the national forests in the state.

But it is already triggering a fight by some environmentalists who argue that the post-fire logging would destroy valuable habitat for rare birds and other species that thrive in blackened forests.

The Rim, ignited by a hunter's illegal campfire in mid-August, was the biggest wildfire to hit the Sierra in more than a century of record keeping. It burned for more than two months, spreading over 154,430 acres of chaparral and timberland in the Stanislaus National Forest, about 24,000 acres of private land and roughly 77,000 acres in neighboring Yosemite National Park.

Most of the park acreage falls within the boundaries of federally designated wilderness areas. Other than cutting burned trees that pose a hazard along roads, the National Park Service is not doing any salvage logging, a Yosemite spokesman said.

The Forest Service, which is guided by a multiuse mandate to produce timber as well provide recreation and fish and wildlife habitat, has different ideas.

Forest managers want to offer salvage sales on nearly 30,000 of the roughly 103,000 acres of Stanislaus timberland burned in the fire. They also propose to construct 22 miles of temporary roads and six miles of new, permanent roads to serve the salvage operations, as well as rebuild hundreds of miles of forest roads damaged in the blaze.

"It seems like a reasonable and effective strategy to respond to the issues," said Joe Sherlock, regional silviculturist for the Forest Service.

The Stanislaus has launched an environmental review of the proposal and is asking the Forest Service chief in Washington to designate an "emergency situation" that would allow salvage to begin immediately after approval without going through an administrative appeal process. The project would still be subject to legal challenges under federal environmental law.

Even with emergency status, the project would not begin until August, according to documents.

By that time, said Steven Brink, vice president for public resources at the California Forestry Assn., about 40% of the timber will have decayed too much to be commercially valuable. But he estimates that would still leave 270 million board feet to harvest — enough to keep two local saw mills busy for two years.

John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center, a regional conservation group, said he did not object to expedited review of the proposal nor to much of the logging. "If we're going to have a project, let's at least get the wood when it has value," he said.

But Buckley expressed several concerns. He opposes plans to build permanent new roads in the burn area, including a segment that would punch into a wild portion of the Clavey River canyon that Buckley said harbors one of the last surviving blocks of low-elevation, old-growth trees in the Stanislaus.

He worried that logging 1,300 steep acres using a cable system — in which logs are suspended from cables and hauled to roads — would accelerate erosion. And he questioned whether the Forest Service would leave enough large, dead trees that birds and other wildlife use for nesting and foraging.

"It just doesn't make sense to debate salvage logging in sensitive areas or to build controversial new roads when there are hundreds of millions of board feet of salvage trees that can be logged on noncontroversial sites," Buckley said.

Other conservationists oppose any salvage timber sales on the Rim landscape.

"This is about the money. It's not about recovery of the ecosystem," argued Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute. "The ecosystem doesn't need intervention for that. The fire itself was ecological restoration."

The Muir project is one of several groups that have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the California-Oregon population of the black-backed woodpecker under the Endangered Species Act. The woodpecker, virtually invisible to predators on a blackened tree, is an expert at drilling for the beetles that feast on standing, fire-killed trees, called snags.

Federal fire suppression policies and salvage logging have diminished the bird's habitat, reducing its population in Oregon and California to about 1,000 pairs, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which joined the listing petition.

Unfortunately for the woodpecker, it favors the same dense stands of bigger snags that loggers like.

Justin Augustine, senior attorney for the center, said 65% of the areas proposed for salvage operations in the Stanislaus overlap with black-backed woodpecker habitat. "That's off-the-charts bad in terms of not leaving enough snags," he said.

Sherlock said the Forest Service hasn't made a final determination of how much snag habitat to leave in place.

Although the salvage proposal doesn't include replanting proposals, the agency would probably replant most logged areas.

Sherlock said foresters would take into account climate change and the uphill movement of species in selecting planting elevations. They would also try to mimic more natural planting patterns than the regimented rows of pines typical of traditional plantations.

The Rim fire burned about 25,000 to 30,000 acres of existing plantations established after previous wildfires in the Stanislaus. Forest officials doubt any salvage logging will be conducted in those areas because the trees aren't big enough.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

mes.com">bettina.boxall@latimes.com

12.19 | 0 komentar | Read More

BCS title game: Jimbo Fisher has Florida St. back at Bobby Bowden level

In December 2006, Bobby Bowden blew off an interview with a Los Angeles reporter who was in Tallahassee, Fla., to preview Florida State's upcoming Emerald Bowl game with UCLA.

The reporter was me.

Bowden had no time to explain as he rushed out of Doak Campbell Stadium on his way to a waiting plane.

He said he'd give me all the time I wanted if I could stay an extra day (and he graciously did), but this was a pressing issue concerning the future of the program.

Neither of us could have imagined that trip would lead to Florida State playing Auburn on Monday night in the last Bowl Championship Series title game.

It was, pardon the pun, a Seminole moment.

Bowden left that day in hot pursuit of Jimbo Fisher, then the offensive coordinator at Louisiana State.

Fisher joined the staff the next month and was named Bowden's successor in waiting.

The transition was messier than it should have been, as Florida State forced Bowden out a year before he wanted to go, but it all worked out in the Rose Bowl end zone.

Fisher took over for Bowden in 2010 and led Florida State on a steady climb back to the top.

Seasons of 10-4, 9-4 and 12-2 preceded this year's 13-0 romp to the Rose Bowl.

Florida State is back in the BCS title game for the first time since 2000, when a 13-2 loss to Oklahoma foreshadowed the decline of the Bowden dynasty.

It feels like old times again, when Bowden's teams ran roughshod through a watered-down Atlantic Coast Conference to win national titles in 1993 and 1999.

Fisher has answered the question so many of us asked: "What happens to FSU after Bowden is gone?"

Could the school's stunning football success be sustained, or was it all a one-man Bowden band?

Florida State was an ink blot in 1976, a former women's college that went 1-10 and 3-8 under Darrell Mudra in the two seasons before Bowden arrived.

Bowden, in 34 seasons, produced unprecedented results with only heartbreaking losses to Miami preventing Florida State from winning four, or five, national titles.

His most impressive accomplishment was leading Florida State to 14 straight top-five finishes in the final Associated Press poll.

Fisher has answered the question: Florida State IS a program, not a man.

Fisher is not Bowden, though, but an amalgam of all his experiences in 22 years as an assistant coach. He was lucky enough to work five years under Nick Saban at LSU and three years under Bowden.

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Obama plans intelligence surveillance reforms, aides say

WASHINGTON — President Obama is preparing a package of intelligence reforms that will probably put a public advocate for the first time in the secret court that approves surveillance practices and remove a controversial telephone records database from direct government control, aides said.

With plans to unveil the changes days before the State of the Union address on Jan. 28, key presidential advisors are looking skeptically at a separate proposal to require a federal judge to approve each use of a "national security letter" except in emergencies, however.

Law enforcement officials issue the letters, a little-known form of administrative subpoena that doesn't require a warrant, to secretly compel disclosure of otherwise private customer records by Internet providers, financial institutions, telephone and credit companies, and other services and organizations.

The FBI has issued more than 123,000 such letters for people in or from the U.S. since 2004, federal records show, including more than 15,000 in 2012, the last year for which data are available.

Obama has not made his own position clear, but the proposal to require judicial review each time the government seeks third-party records has sparked the most push-back from national security officials, including the FBI and some top White House advisors.

"There is concern that this proposal makes it more cumbersome to investigate a terrorist than it does a criminal," said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Last March, a federal judge ruled the program unconstitutional and ordered the FBI to stop issuing the letters because they contain a gag order that bars recipients from revealing the document's existence or its demands. Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California stayed her order pending government appeal.

Adding judicial review to the national security letters was among the 46 recommendations of a presidential task force that examined U.S. surveillance programs after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's torrent of leaks on domestic and foreign surveillance operations.

Obama, who vowed to study the panel's report during his two-week holiday in Hawaii, plans to meet with his national security team and outside experts to finalize his reforms after he returns to Washington on Sunday. Aides said he wants to boost public confidence that he is protecting Americans' privacy while safeguarding national security.

Obama already has put several of the panel's proposals in the "likely" category, aides said. They include creating a position for an independent lawyer to argue for privacy rights and civil liberties before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The court, which was created in 1978 and meets in secret, only hears from government lawyers seeking permission for additional surveillance — not from opponents. Records show the court grants nearly all of the government's requests.

The White House favors changing the procedure to ensure "that the government's position is challenged by an adversary," according to an administration official.

The chief justice of the Supreme Court appoints the 11 federal judges on the secret court. It's unclear whether Obama has embraced the panel's recommendation to let other Supreme Court judges also play a role, or other proposed changes to the court.

Obama apparently supports shifting the NSA's bulk collection and storage of domestic telephone calling records to private hands, a change he first signaled at a news conference the day he left for Hawaii. For Americans, the secret archiving of numbers and other data from virtually every U.S. phone call is arguably the most controversial of the surveillance operations revealed by Snowden.

Obama's top advisors are not considering stopping the program, as some critics insist, because they are convinced the data may be crucial in counter-terrorism investigations.

Instead, his advisors are trying to hash out how to ensure that telephone companies or other third-party groups will hold the data but make it available to the NSA or another agency when a judge orders it.

The secret surveillance court has approved the NSA program 36 times in the last seven years, most recently on Friday.

But in a clear sign of impending change, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said in a statement announcing the declassified order that U.S. intelligence agencies were "open to modifications to this program that would provide additional privacy and civil liberty protections while still maintaining its operational benefits."

Exactly how that will work remains unclear. The presidential task force didn't suggest who should hold that vast cache of data or where, and telecommunications companies are wary of taking on the responsibility and acting as a surrogate government archive of trillions of calling records.

The data collection has infuriated some members of Congress. On Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent a pointed letter to NSA Director Keith Alexander demanding to know whether the NSA had monitored phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials.

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Kings' Jonathan Quick could play Saturday against Vancouver

Goaltender Jonathan Quick, who was nominated to the U.S. Olympic hockey team this week, is close to returning to the Kings' lineup for the first time since he strained a groin muscle Nov. 12.

Quick is scheduled to take part in the pregame skate Saturday and if all goes well, he will be activated off long-term injured reserve. To open a roster spot and salary-cap space, the Kings would send goalie Martin Jones to Manchester (N.H.) of the American Hockey League.

Jones and Chicago goalie Antti Raanta were honored Friday as the NHL's co-rookies of the month in December. Jones was 8-2-0 with a 1.29 goals-against average, a .955 save percentage and three shutouts in 10 games. Jones and Ben Scrivens had filled in admirably for Quick, but both have faltered, one thread in the team's five-game losing streak.

"I'm feeling good. I think the next step is get some game action," Quick said Friday after practicing in El Segundo. "It's up to coaches, trainers to decide when they want me to take that step."

Snow-related travel problems canceled plans for Quick to play two games for Manchester this weekend. He said he's pain-free and ready for NHL competition.

"I think this past week, this trip was really good for me," he said of joining the Kings on their recent four-game trip. "Practicing with the team, I got a lot of work in."

Brown struggling

Winger Dustin Brown, also named to Team USA, played 13 minutes 4 seconds Thursday at St. Louis, a season low except for the Dec. 19 game in which he was ejected for kneeing San Jose forward Tomas Hertl.

He has only seven goals and no power-play points since Oct. 24.

"I can be a whole lot better," he said. "If I can pick my game and elevate my game — and I'm sure there's other guys in here that feel the same way — our team is going to get better. For me it's just about getting my game back."

Coach Darryl Sutter said he doesn't doubt Brown's effort but acknowledged the winger hasn't produced on the power play.

"Brownie's game has been a struggle for him from Day 1, right from last spring," Sutter said. "He's not playing as assertive of a game along the wall and going to the net, for sure."

Sutter also said he joked with players Friday that when they were winning, everyone asked if they'd ever lose. Now, they're being asked if they'll ever win. "I said, 'Tell them we're going to win every game for the rest of our careers,'" he said.

He would be more concerned, he said, "if it was an older group or guys that you knew weren't dialed in or sort of playing a practice round, but that's not the case. We have guys that haven't been scoring goals, which means we've been getting basically zero secondary scoring, which is hard. There's a fine line. Then your goaltending has to be great. It can't be just average."

KINGS VS. VANCOUVER

When: 7.

On the air: TV: Fox Sports West; Radio: 1150.

Etc.: The Kings have beaten the Canucks twice this season, 5-1 at home Nov. 9 and 3-2 in overtime at Vancouver on Nov. 25. Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo said he has recovered from the lower-body injury he sustained Dec. 22. He's sure to be on Canada's Olympic roster when the team is announced Tuesday.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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Jury in wrongful death trial was confused, Jackson attorneys say

A Los Angeles judge heard arguments Friday over her tentative ruling this week denying Katherine Jackson's request for a new trial against entertainment giant AEG Live in the death of her son, Michael Jackson.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos took the case under submission following the morning hearing, which came three months after jurors decided AEG was not responsible for Jackson's death.

Palazuelos issued her tentative 44-page ruling Thursday. When the judge makes her final decision, the parties will have 30 days to file an appeal.

In their civil case, Katherine Jackson and her grandchildren claimed AEG negligently hired and controlled Conrad Murray, the doctor convicted of giving the pop superstar a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol in 2009. Jurors agreed that AEG Live hired Murray, but they rejected the second question on the verdict form that asked whether Murray was unfit or incompetent, ending deliberations.

The jurors had to answer yes to five questions on the form to find AEG liable in Jackson's death.

The Jackson family filed a motion seeking a new suit last month, after four of the jurors gave sworn statements saying they found the verdict form confusing.

"I believed that Mrs. Jackson had proven her case against AEG Live. Despite this fact, I had no way of voting in favor of the plaintiffs because of the way the verdict form was worded," one juror said in a declaration filed with the motion.

Attorneys representing the Jacksons focused much of their arguments Friday on that verdict form, saying it limited jurors from fully considering the evidence at hand. Rather, they said, the second question only allowed jurors to focus on Murray's competence and expectations when he was hired — not whether they changed after the fact.

Attorney Deborah Chang called it a "major, major problem" that "cut us off at the knees."

AEG's attorney Jessica Stebbins Bina kept her arguments brief, saying there was no need for a new trial. It was the Jackson team, she argued, who including the language of the disputed question in drafts of the verdict form and jury instructions.

Chang said there was no way to improve the question, arguing it should have been ignored because the case overall was "too complicated and too strange" for the verdict form used.

Both sides — along with the judge — acknowledged the difficulty of the trial, which stretched nearly six months. They made multiple references to the often-heated back-and-forth, with Chang calling the case a "fight to the bitter, bitter end."

"There will never be another case like this again," Chang said. "Maybe part of the reason why is there will never be someone like Michael Jackson and Dr. Murray, and the whole situation with AEG Live."

kate.mather@latimes.com

Times staff writer Jeff Gottlieb contributed to this report.

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North Dakota blast prompts review of oil train safety

A federal safety alert Thursday warned that crude oil flowing out of new fields in North Dakota may be more flammable than expected, a caution that comes several days after a train carrying about 3.5 million gallons of the same oil crashed in the state and set off a massive explosion.

The accident on the BNSF Railway, the fourth such explosion in North America involving crude oil trains, has fed mounting concerns over public safety as the rail industry sharply increases the use of rail to transport surging crude production in North Dakota, Texas and Colorado.

Following the latest derailment and crash, which forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents from the town of Casselton, the National Transportation Safety Board has launched the nation's first broad examination of the safety of moving petroleum by rail.

Trains carrying oil have multiplied across the country as environmental concerns and political maneuvering have delayed approval of a major new pipeline to transport oil to Gulf Coast refineries. The issue may be most crucial for cities in the West, which were often founded and developed by railroads so that main lines go directly through the centers of today's urban areas.

Crude oil shipments by rail have shot up 25-fold in the last several years as producers rush oil from newly developing shale fields to market. California alone has seen a fourfold increase over the last year, with current shipments of about 200,000 barrels a month.

Refinery operators this summer unveiled a plan to build a rail loading facility in San Luis Obispo County, which could send 100-car oil trains through the densely populated portions of Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

The exponential growth and several accidents in the last half year, including one in Quebec that killed 47 residents in July, has prompted the NTSB to examine potential safety hazards, said Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB board member who is one of those overseeing the investigation. Sumwalt said that the agency should have started the review after a similar crash in Alabama in November, but that it was now focused on finding ways to reduce risks.

"It has certainly raised our attention and we want to make sure that people living in communities surrounded by railroad traffic are safe," he said.

Former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said a comprehensive review of national policy on carrying crude was long overdue.

"It appears this is going to be in our nation's communities for the next decade," Hall said. "With this kind of transportation of hazardous material, there are a whole lot of issues that come to mind, not the least of which is terrorism. You are creating a movable bomb from community to community."

The string of rail accidents raises issues similar to those that came out of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, which prompted the National Research Council to conduct a broad public policy review, said USC safety expert Najmedin Meshkati. Such a review should have started "on the day after the Quebec accident," he said.

The safety alert issued Thursday by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration warned that oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale fields "may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude." The agency said it would conduct new testing to determine the gas content, corrosivity, toxicity and flammability of the Bakken crude. The agency, which also regulates tank car safety, said it issued the alert to remind railroads that they are required to properly label the crude, based on three levels of volatility. The North Dakota shipment was already listed as the most volatile.

In the accident this week near Casselton, on a cloudy day with the temperature below zero, an eastbound train with 105 tank cars full of crude from the Bakken oil fields slammed into a westbound grain train that had derailed less than a minute earlier.

The grain train derailed while it was crossing over a switch at 28 mph. Sumwalt said investigators had found a broken axle from the grain train, though they were trying to determine whether it caused the accident.

A single car from the grain train ended up on the eastbound tracks and was struck by the oil train traveling about 42 mph. The two locomotives pulling the oil train were destroyed.

The accident occurred about a mile west of the town, which has a population of about 2,500.

Elsewhere in the country, "you have rail going through densely populated areas, and that is inherently risky," said Brigham McCown, former chief of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

"The oil is going to get to market any way it can. I favor pipelines. They are buried, out of the way, safer and cheaper," he said.

Pipeline construction, however, has been sharply opposed by environmental groups. The proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada that would serve the Bakken fields has been tied up in a lengthy review by the U.S. State Department. Environmental activists believe that by blocking the pipeline they can restrict the development of the tar-sands oil fields in Alberta.

Sumwalt said the NTSB would be searching for ways to improve safety, but one of the most obvious possibilities would be for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to adopt an earlier NTSB recommendation for more resilient tank cars. The safety administration began considering strengthening its rules after the deadly accident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The accident this week did not result in any deaths or injuries, but it has heightened awareness of the danger.

Bill Keppen, a former Burlington Northern safety expert who is now an independent consultant, said one of the most important things for the federal government to address is human error, which accounts for about 44% of rail accidents. Keppen said he would expect the railroad industry to strongly oppose any attempt to reduce speeds of trains carrying hazardous materials. Railroads are free to set their own speed limits.

"Velocity is directly proportional to earnings and profits," Keppen said. "A small change in speed can translate to millions of dollars of profit a year."

Railroads do not currently have special requirements for training crews carrying hazardous materials, including crude oil.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

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