Singer Mindy McCready dies in apparent suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Perhaps there was one heartbreak too many for Mindy McCready.

The former country star apparently took her own life on Sunday at her home in Heber Springs, Ark. Authorities say McCready died of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot to the head and an autopsy is planned. She was 37, and left behind two young sons.

McCready had attempted suicide at least three times since 2005, as she struggled to cope amid a series of tumultuous public events that marked much of her adult life.

Speaking to The Associated Press in 2010, McCready smiled wryly while talking about the string of issues she'd dealt with over the last half-decade.

"It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time," she said of her life. "I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that's really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality."

This time it seems the whirlwind overwhelmed McCready.

Her death comes a month after that of David Wilson, her longtime boyfriend and the father of her youngest son. He is believed to have shot himself on the same porch of the home they shared in Heber Springs, a small vacation community of large lakefront houses about 65 miles north of Little Rock. His death also was investigated as a suicide.

It was the most difficult moment in a life full of them. McCready issued a statement last month lamenting his death. And she called him her soul mate and a caregiver to her sons in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

"I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I'll have," she said, according to a transcript of the interview.

Like so many times before, McCready showed a little toughness in the midst of a personal storm, again endearing herself to her fans. But as usual, the brave face for the camera hid a much more complicated internal struggle that surfaced publicly time and again over the last 10 years.

This time, along with her remembrances of finding Wilson as he lay dying, she also answered questions about whether they'd argued earlier that evening about an affair and if she'd shot him.

"Oh, my God," the "Today" transcript reads. "No. Oh, my God. No. He was my life. We were each other's life."

It's unclear what circumstances led to McCready taking her own life, but it appears she was struggling again with twin issues that have persisted for years — substance abuse and the custody of her children. She checked into court-ordered rehab and gave her children up to foster care earlier this month after her father asked a judge to intervene, saying she'd stopped taking care of herself and her sons and was abusing alcohol and prescription drugs.

It's not clear where her sons, 6-year-old Zander and infant Zayne, were Sunday.

A deputy stationed outside McCready's home Sunday night referred questions to the Cleburne County sheriff, who was unavailable. Yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the front yard and a dark-colored pickup truck sat in the driveway.

News of McCready's death spread quickly Sunday night on Twitter, with major country stars paying their respects to the onetime Nashville darling.

"Too much tragedy to overcome. R.I.P Mindy McCready," wrote Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks.

And Carrie Underwood added: "I grew up listening to Mindy McCready...so sad for her family tonight. Many prayers are going out to them... ."

On Monday, neighbors who never met McCready but knew well of her very public struggles expressed grief.

Jim Jones, 58, said police had already blocked off McCready's house Sunday evening when he and his wife pulled up to their weekend home down the street. People knew McCready lived in town, but many homeowners live only part-time in Heber Springs, particularly in the warmer months for the boating, fishing and golfing.

"I never met anybody. That's the thing about up here. So many of them are summer lake houses that you don't know your neighbors."

Melinda Gayle McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994 still in her teens with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records. She had a few memorable moments professionally, scoring her first No. 1 hit almost immediately.

"Guys Do It All the Time," a self-assured dig at male chauvinism, endeared her to female fans in 1996. She also scored a hit with "Ten Thousand Angels," and her album of that title sold 2 million copies.

Beyond that, though, she's mostly remembered for a string of dramatic moments as she spent the next 15 years chasing another huge hit. Her problems included a custody battle with her mother over one of her sons, arrests, overdoses and discord in her love life.

She made headlines in April 2008 when she claimed a longtime relationship with baseball great Roger Clemens. Published reports at the time said she met the pitcher at a Florida karaoke bar when she was 15 and he was 28 and married. Clemens has denied the relationship.

On Monday, Clemens handed a written statement to reporters at the Houston Astros spring training facility in Kissimmee, Fla., where he is serving as a special instructor for the team.

"Yes, that is sad news. I had heard over time that she was trying to get peace and direction in her life. The few times that I had met her and her manager/agent they were extremely nice."

A decade earlier she was engaged to actor Dean Cain, but the two never married.

She also had a turbulent relationship with Billy McKnight, a country singer who is the father of her oldest son. McKnight was arrested in 2005 on charges of attempted murder after authorities say he beat and choked her.

During this period she also pleaded guilty to obtaining the painkiller OxyContin fraudulently at a pharmacy and got probation. She violated the probation with a drunken driving arrest in May 2005, a few days before McKnight was arrested. And in July 2007, she was arrested in her hometown of Fort Myers, Fla., on misdemeanor charges of scratching her mother, Gayle Inge, on the face during a scuffle and resisting sheriff's deputies.

Less than a year later, McCready was arrested and charged with violating her probation by falsifying her community service records relating to the 2004 drug charge. A month later, she entered an extended care facility for undisclosed treatment, and followed that with a 60-day jail sentence. Inge took custody of Zander.

There were at least three suicide attempts between July 2005 and December 2008.

She tried to get help in an unusual way, joining the cast of "Celebrity Rehab 3" with Dr. Drew Pinsky. McCready came off as a sympathetic figure during the show's run. Pinsky called her an "angel" and in an interview in 2010 said it appeared McCready was doing "rather well."

Pinsky helped treat McCready for love addiction on the show and said he'd referred her to professionals who could continue to help her afterward.

"A love addict basically is somebody that really didn't have a good model for intimacy in their childhood, often times traumatized in one way or another, thereby intimacy becomes a risk place, becomes an intolerable place," Pinsky said. "And so what they tend to do is attach themselves to idealized, bigger than life, unavailable others, specifically go after some public figure that's married or go after some rock star who is himself a sex addict and not interested in a relationship, and then idealize that person and actively pursue them to the point of obsession."

McCready suffered a seizure in one of the show's scarier moments. Tests showed she has suffered brain damage, something she attributed to her abusive relationship with McKnight.

McCready is the fifth celebrity to pass away since appearing on Pinsky's show and the third from Season 3. Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr and "Real World" participant Joey Kovar both died of overdoses.

In the months after her stint, McCready said she found some peace, telling The Associated Press in early 2010 that she hoped to get her career restarted, write a book about her experiences and begin production on a reality show with her brothers. She'd just met Wilson and talked openly about their relationship, although the producer and musician declined to speak on the record.

With a publicist, reporters, cameras, makeup artists and musicians swirling around her during a press day for her last album, "I'm Still Here," McCready fended off questions about a sex tape and said she and Wilson started out as friends.

"And I've never had a relationship like that before where we started completely as friends," she said. "It turned into friends really caring about each other and then it turned into love and I've never had that happen before."

At the time, Pinsky thought the relationship was on the right track: "She's an easy person to like and to care about and we hope she does well," Pinsky said. "So far so good as far as I can tell."

McCready said her main goal in 2010 was to pull her family back together: "I would like my son back with me and for my brothers and I and he to be able to go and do this (TV reality show), and I think after that I will be a pretty happy girl."

The new album debuted at No. 71 and failed to gain radio airplay. McCready's plans never materialized and she soon was in legal trouble again, this time fighting for custody.

McCready took her older son from her mother, the boy's legal guardian, in late 2011. She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears. Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a home without permission and took the boy into custody.

She and Wilson had their son in April 2012.

___

Music Writer Chris Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. Baseball Writer Noah Trister, in Kissimmee, Fla., and Associated Press writer Tamara Lush in Tampa, Fla., contributed to this report.

Read More..

Well: Certain Television Fare Can Help Ease Aggression in Young Children, Study Finds

Experts have long known that children imitate many of the deeds — good and bad — that they see on television. But it has rarely been shown that changing a young child’s viewing habits at home can lead to improved behavior.

In a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers reported the results of a program designed to limit the exposure of preschool children to violence-laden videos and television shows and increase their time with educational programming that encourages empathy. They found that the experiment reduced the children’s aggression toward others, compared with a group of children who were allowed to watch whatever they wanted.

“Here we have an experiment that proposes a potential solution,” said Dr. Thomas N. Robinson, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford, who was not involved in the study. “Giving this intervention — exposing kids to less adult television, less aggression on television and more prosocial television — will have an effect on behavior.”

While the research showed “a small to moderate effect” on the preschoolers’ behavior, he added, the broader public health impact could be “very meaningful.”

The new study was a randomized trial, rare in research on the effects of media on children. The researchers, at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and the University of Washington, divided 565 parents of children ages 3 to 5 into two groups. Both were told to track their children’s media consumption in a diary that the researchers assessed for violent, didactic and prosocial content, which they defined as showing empathy, helping others and resolving disputes without violence.

The control group was given advice only on better dietary habits for children. The second group of parents were sent program guides highlighting positive shows for young children. They also received newsletters encouraging parents to watch television with their children and ask questions during the shows about the best ways to deal with conflict. The parents also received monthly phone calls from the researchers, who helped them set television-watching goals for their preschoolers.

The researchers surveyed the parents at six months and again after a year about their children’s social behavior. After six months, parents in the group receiving advice about television-watching said their children were somewhat less aggressive with others, compared with those in the control group. The children who watched less violent shows also scored higher on measures of social competence, a difference that persisted after one year.

Low-income boys showed the most improvement, though the researchers could not say why. Total viewing time did not differ between the two groups.

“The take-home message for parents is it’s not just about turning off the TV; it’s about changing the channel,” said Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, the lead author of the study and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington.

“We want our children to behave better,” Dr. Christakis said, “and changing their media diet is a good way to do that.”

Until she began participating in Dr. Christakis’s trial, Nancy Jensen, a writer in Seattle, had never heard of shows like Nickelodeon’s “Wonder Pets!,” featuring cooperative team players, and NBC’s “My Friend Rabbit,” with its themes of loyalty and friendship.

At the time, her daughter Elizabeth, then 3, liked“King of the Hill,”a cartoon comedy geared toward adults that features beer and gossip. In hindsight, she said, the show was “hilariously funny, but completely inappropriate for a 3-year-old.”

These days, she consults Common Sense Media, a nonprofit advocacy group in San Francisco, to make sure that the shows her daughter watches have some prosocial benefit. Elizabeth, now 6, was “not necessarily an aggressive kid,” Ms. Jensen said. Still, the girl’s teacher recently commended her as very considerate, and Ms. Jensen believes a better television diet is an important reason.

The new study has limitations, experts noted. Data on both the children’s television habits and their behavior was reported by their parents, who may not be objective. And the study focused only on media content in the home, although some preschool-aged children are exposed to programming elsewhere.

Children watch a mix of “prosocial but also antisocial media,” said Marie-Louise Mares, an associate professor of communications at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “Merely being exposed to prosocial media doesn’t mean that kids take it that way.”

Even educational programming with messages of empathy can be misunderstood by preschoolers, with negative consequences. A study published online in November in The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology found that preschoolers shown educational media were more likely to engage in certain forms of interpersonal aggression over time.

Preschoolers observe relationship conflict early in a television episode but do not always connect it to the moral lesson or resolution at the end, said Jamie M. Ostrov, the lead author of the November study and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Buffalo.

Preschoolers watch an estimated 4.1 hours of television and other screen time daily, according to a 2011 study. Dr. Ostrov advised parents to watch television with their young children and to speak up during the relationship conflicts that are depicted. Citing one example, Dr. Ostrov counseled parents to ask children, “What could we do differently here?” to make it clear that yelling at a sibling is not acceptable.

He also urged parents to stick with age-appropriate programming. A 3-year-old might misunderstand the sibling strife in the PBS show“Arthur,” he said, or stop paying attention before it is resolved.

Read More..

Elizabeth Warren's first grilling of regulators is a YouTube hit

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a darling of liberals who has been mentioned as a potential 2016 presidential contender, had kept a deliberately low profile since her election in November.

In less than five minutes last week, however, the new Massachusetts senator announced her presence in the nation's capital and showed she plans to be a thorn in the side of the big financial institutions.

At her first hearing as a member of the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, Warren chastised banking regulators for not trying to put more executives from big banks in jail for their roles in the financial crisis.

The exchange, in which Warren criticized the push to settle cases against big banks instead of pushing for convictions, has become a hit on YouTube. Four videos of the exchange have drawn a total of more than 1 million viewers as of Monday.

"I'm really concerned that too big to fail has become too big for trial," she told the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission and top officials from other agencies.

Warren very easily could have been on the other side of the dais last week as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But she ran for Congress after Senate Republicans made clear they would block her appointment to head the agency she conceived and then helped launch as an Obama administration aide.

Tradition-bound Senate veterans do not take well to newcomers seeking a big  spotlight. So Warren laid low after her election victory over Republican incumbent Scott Brown in the nation's most expensive Senate race.

She secured a spot on the banking committee and largely stayed out of the spotlight. On Thursday, she patiently waited to question regulators at the end of a hearing on Wall Street reform.

When she got her turn, she didn't waste any of her limited time on the clock.

Warren pressed regulators with the same pointed but measured questions that helped launch her career in Washington as head of the watchdog panel for the $700-billion bailout fund.

"Now, I know there have been some landmark settlements," Warren said. "But we face some very special issues with big financial institutions. If they can break the law and drag in billions in profits and then turn around and settle, paying out of those profits, they don't have much incentive to follow the law.

"So the question I really want to ask is about how tough you are," she continued. "About how much leverage you really have in these settlements. And what I'd like to know is, tell me a little bit about the last few times you've taken the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street all the way to a trial."

The question drew some applause from the audience in the hearing room. And the seven regulators did not seem eager to answer.

When none of them initially volunteered, Warren asked, "Anybody?"

She called on Thomas Curry, head of the OCC, who said the agency did not have to bring banks to trial because it could use consent orders to achieve its goal. Warren then pressed SEC Chairwoman Elisse Walter, who said she'd have to get back to the senator with specific information.

"Anyone else want to tell me about the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial?" Warren said. 

With her time running low, Warren finished up with a shot at the nation's largest banks. She asked if the reason the stocks of many Wall Street banks was trading below book value was because investors question if the firms were "adequately transparent and adequately managed."

She told reporters on Thursday she would continue pushing regulators to keep a close eye on the big banks.

"What this hearing was about was to make clear to the regulators that we expect them to use all of their tools in regulating Wall Street," she told reporters.

Warren's staff posted the exchange on YouTube, as did some other people. One video was titled, "Elizabeth Warren Smacks Down Wall Street Bankers," while another touted the clip as "Warren embarrasses banking regulators."

Read More..

Hollywood directs its star power toward a campaign closer to home

A stylish crowd waited beneath a flashing marquee outside the Fonda Theatre. "Appearing tonight!" the sign read. "Eric Garcetti 4 Mayor."

In a city where political campaigns are typically waged at neighborhood meetings, not Hollywood concert halls, last week's star-studded fundraiser for Garcetti highlighted the entertainment industry's outsized role in this year's mayoral race. Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel started the show with a stand-up routine and musician Moby got the crowd of several hundred dancing. Actress Amy Smart urged everyone to tweet about the campaign, and actor Will Ferrell beamed in via video to pledge that if Garcetti is elected, every resident in the city will receive free waffles.

Hollywood is taking to City Hall politics like never before, veterans say, with power players such as Steven Spielberg leading a major fundraising effort and celebrities such as Salma Hayek weighing in via YouTube. A Times analysis of city Ethics Commission records found that actors, producers, directors and others in the industry have donated more than $746,000 directly to candidates, with some $462,000 going to Garcetti and $226,000 to City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Several of Greuel's big-name celebrity supporters, including Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson and Zooey Deschanel, recently hosted a fundraiser for her at an exclusive club on the Sunset Strip. She is getting extra help from Spielberg and his former partners at DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, who have given at least $150,000 and are raising more for an independent group funding a TV ad blitz on her behalf.

The burst of support is coming from an industry often maligned for paying little attention to local politics.

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is often photographed at red carpet events and former Mayor Tom Bradley was famously close to actor Gregory Peck, serious Hollywood money and star power has tended to remain tantalizingly out of reach for local politicians. "It's no secret that the entertainment industry has never really focused on the city that houses it," said Steve Soboroff, who ran for mayor and lost in 2001.

Political consultant Garry South, who has worked on mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns, recalled having to pay celebrities to appear at fundraisers in the past. Hollywood has long embraced candidates in presidential and congressional elections, South said, in part because they have more influence over causes favored by celebrities.

"The mayor of L.A. is not going to get us out of Afghanistan. The mayor of L.A. is not going to determine whether or not gay marriage is legal," South said. "The local issues are just not as sexy."

But this year, if you're a part of the Hollywood establishment, chances are you've gotten invitations to fundraisers for Greuel, Garcetti or both.

The difference this time is that both candidates have worked to cultivate deep Hollywood connections, observers say. Garcetti has represented Hollywood for 12 years, overseeing a development boom and presiding over ceremonies to add stars — Kimmel recently got one — on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Greuel is a former executive at DreamWorks, where she worked with the moguls who founded the studio. She has also served for 10 years on the board of the California Film Commission.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry and entertainment attorney Kevin James have reaped far less financial support from the industry, records show, although each claims a share of celebrity endorsements. Dick Van Dyke sponsored a fundraiser for Perry and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black has given to James.

Agent Feroz Taj, who attended Garcetti's Moby concert, said a flurry of activity around the race, involving friends and colleagues, piqued his interest. He said he's never been involved in a political campaign, but now when he receives invites to Greuel events, he says he is supporting Garcetti.

Industry insiders have been buzzing about a letter they say is being circulated by an advisor to Spielberg and Katzenberg, urging people to give $15,000 to an independent group supporting Greuel. The DreamWorks founders have made a difference for Greuel in previous elections. In 2002, financial support from the studio executives and their allies helped her squeak out a victory in one of the closest City Council races in history.

This time around, billionaire media mogul Haim Saban is getting involved, providing his Beverly Hills estate for a Greuel fundraiser featuring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Greuel has also received contributions from Tom Hanks and actresses Mariska Hargitay and Eva Longoria, neither of whom have given to a local political campaign before, according to records.

Garcetti, on the other hand, has picked up contributions from former Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, as well as newcomers to local politics Jake Gyllenhaal and Hayek, who once traveled with Garcetti on a global warming awareness mission to the South Pole. The actress released a video endorsing Garcetti and thanking him for helping her find her wallet in the snow.

Campaign consultant Sean Clegg linked the industry's burgeoning interest in mayoral politics to President Obama's election, which he said had "a catalyzing effect on Hollywood." Indeed, many Greuel and Garcetti supporters were Obama backers. Hayek hosted a fundraiser for Obama and Longoria served as a co-chair of his reelection campaign.

Clegg is a consultant for Working Californians, an independent campaign committee that hopes to raise and spend at least $2 million supporting Greuel, with donations from Spielberg and others in Hollywood, as well as the union representing Department of Water and Power employees.

Generally, Clegg argued, Hollywood money is different than the special-interest funding campaigns collect. "Money is coming out of the entertainment industry more on belief and less on the transactional considerations," he said.

But Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said Hollywood's new interest in local elections may be tied to growing concerns about film production being lured elsewhere by tax incentives.

Garcetti and Greuel have both pledged to reverse job losses tied to runaway television and film production, with Garcetti touting a recent proposal to eliminate roughly $231,000 in annual city fees charged for pilot episodes of new TV shows. The number of pilots shot locally has dropped 30% in recent years, but city budget analysts say the tax break would have a minimal effect because city fees represent only a small portion of production costs.

On the council, both candidates voted to eliminate filming fees at most city facilities. Greuel tells audiences she has an insider's perspective on the industry's needs and says she will create an "entertainment cabinet" to help it thrive. "I have sat with studio heads," she said in a recent interview. "They want a city . . . that is a champion for film industry jobs in Los Angeles."

Greuel may have Garcetti beat on experience in the studio front office, but he is the only candidate with his own page on IMDb.com — a closely watched industry website that tracks individuals' film and television credits.

The councilman, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, has made several television appearances, including one for the cable police drama "The Closer." He played the mayor of Los Angeles.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

Read More..

TV show with Pistorius' dead girlfriend airs

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Reeva Steenkamp's last wish for her family before she was shot dead at boyfriend Oscar Pistorius' home was for them to watch her in a reality TV show that went on air in South Africa on Saturday night, two days after her killing.

Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, told The Associated Press that the model and law graduate was "proud of being in the show" and reminded them in their last conversation to make sure that they watched it.

The South African Broadcasting Corp. aired the "Tropika Island of Treasure" program, showing the late Steenkamp — the victim of a Valentine's Day shooting at the home of Pistorius, the Olympic star and double-amputee athlete. She is laughing and smiling, and blowing a kiss toward the camera in Jamaica when it was filmed last year.

South Africans also saw her swimming in the ocean and watching people jump off a cliff and into the sea, shaking her head as they leaped.

SABC said it was dedicated to Steenkamp and displayed the words "Reeva Steenkamp 19 August 1983 - 14 February 2013" between images of a rose and a candle in a short tribute before the show aired. She was also seen blowing the kiss as she sat on a Jamaican beach and her name again appeared on screen with the years of her birth and death.

The country was rocked Thursday when news broke of Steenkamp's shooting death at the upscale house of the star athlete. Pistorius was arrested and charged with her murder and remains in custody in a police station. His family has strongly denied prosecutors' claims that he murdered her.

Steenkamp's family said earlier Saturday that it had not been contacted by either the SABC — South Africa's national broadcaster — or the show's producers for permission to air it, but were not opposed to it because Reeva wanted everyone to see it.

"Her last words to us personally were that she wants us to watch it," Sharon Steenkamp said, hours before the program was shown.

SABC aired the reality show on its main channel, which prominently featured Steenkamp.

The show's executive producer, Samantha Moon, said going ahead with the show "is what she would have wanted."

Steenkamp, a 29-year-old blonde model who graduated from law school, died after suffering four gunshot wounds, police said. Officers recovered a 9-mm pistol from Pistorius' house and quickly charged the Olympian with murder for Steenkamp's killing.

Pistorius will appear in court Tuesday for a bail hearing, something police have said they oppose. Prosecutors also say they will pursue upgraded charges of premeditated murder against him, which means the disabled icon and double-amputee runner could face a life sentence.

Steenkamp was known in South Africa for appearing in commercials and as a bikini-clad model in men's magazines.

Pistorius and Steenkamp met Nov. 4 at the Kyalami race track, which sits between Pretoria and Johannesburg and has been used for Grand Prix and Formula 1 races, said Justin Divaris, a mutual friend.

Divaris said his own girlfriend was a close friend to Steenkamp. Pistorius and Steenkamp immediately hit it off and decided in the spur of the moment to attend a sports award ceremony together the same night, Divaris said. At the time, Pistorius had been dating another woman and his personal life was constant fodder for gossip pages.

Later, however, problems may have started, as police have said there were previous domestic altercations at Pretorius' home in a gated community near South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

A Steenkamp family spokesman said late Friday that relatives still faced a long struggle to come to terms with her killing.

"I can't see the family getting over this shortly," said Reeva's uncle, Mike Steenkamp. "It's going to be a long, long-term reconciliation with a lot of things and issues."

Family members plan for a memorial service Tuesday for the model in Port Elizabeth, her hometown on South Africa's southern coast. Pistorius has a court appearance scheduled in Pretoria on the same day for his lawyers to argue that he can be released on bail.

Portions released earlier Saturday of the reality show, sponsored by a milk fruit drink, feature Steenkamp laughing and smiling on the beaches of Jamaica. Another portion shows her swimming with two dolphins, which tap her on the cheek with their snouts.

"I think the way that you go out, not just your journey in life, but the way that you go out and the way you make your exit is so important," Steenkamp says in the video. "You either made an impact in a positive or a negative way, but just maintain integrity and maintain class and just remain true to yourself.

"I'm going to miss you all so much and I love you very, very much."

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this report.

___

Gerald Imray can be reached at http://twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP

Read More..

Cuomo Bucks Tide With Bill to Lift Abortion Limits

ALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.

Mr. Cuomo, seeking to deliver on a promise he made in his recent State of the State address, would rewrite a law that currently allows abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. The law is not enforced, because it is superseded by federal court rulings that allow late-term abortions to protect a woman’s health, even if her life is not in jeopardy. But abortion rights advocates say the existence of the more restrictive state law has a chilling effect on some doctors and prompts some women to leave the state for late-term abortions.

Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, would also clarify that licensed health care practitioners, and not only physicians, can perform abortions. It would remove abortion from the state’s penal law and regulate it through the state’s public health law.

Abortion rights advocates have welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s plan, which he outlined in general terms as part of a broader package of women’s rights initiatives in his State of the State address in January. But the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups are dismayed; opponents have labeled the legislation the Abortion Expansion Act.

The prospects for Mr. Cuomo’s effort are uncertain. The State Assembly is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights; the Senate is more difficult to predict because this year it is controlled by a coalition of Republicans who have tended to oppose new abortion rights laws and breakaway Democrats who support abortion rights.

New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before it was legalized nationally by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Mr. Cuomo’s proposal would update the state law so that it could stand alone if the broader federal standard set by Roe were to be undone.

“Why are we doing this? The Supreme Court could change,” said a senior Cuomo administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the governor had not formally introduced his proposal.

But opponents of abortion rights, already upset at the high rate of abortions in New York State, worry that rewriting the abortion law would encourage an even greater number of abortions. For example, they suggest that the provision to allow abortions late in a woman’s pregnancy for health reasons could be used as a loophole to allow unchecked late-term abortions.

“I am hard pressed to think of a piece of legislation that is less needed or more harmful than this one,” the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, wrote in a letter to Mr. Cuomo last month. Referring to Albany lawmakers in a subsequent column, he added, “It’s as though, in their minds, our state motto, ‘Excelsior’ (‘Ever Upward’), applies to the abortion rate.”

National abortion rights groups have sought for years to persuade state legislatures to adopt laws guaranteeing abortion rights as a backup to Roe. But they have had limited success: Only seven states have such measures in place, including California, Connecticut and Maryland; the most recent state to adopt such a law is Hawaii, which did so in 2006.

“Pretty much all of the energy, all of the momentum, has been to restrict abortion, which makes what could potentially happen in New York so interesting,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “There’s no other state that’s even contemplating this right now.”

In most statehouses, the push by lawmakers has been in the opposite direction. The past two years has seen more provisions adopted at the state level to restrict abortion rights than in any two-year period in decades, according to the Guttmacher Institute; last year, 19 states adopted 43 new provisions restricting abortion access, while not a single significant measure was adopted to expand access to abortion or to comprehensive sex education.

“It’s an extraordinary moment in terms of the degree to which there is government interference in a woman’s ability to make these basic health care decisions,” said Andrea Miller, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “For New York to be able to send a signal, a hopeful sign, a sense of the turning of the tide, we think is really important.”

Abortion rights advocates say that even though the Roe decision supersedes state law, some doctors are hesitant to perform late-term abortions when a woman’s health is at risk because the criminal statutes remain on the books.

“Doctors and hospitals shouldn’t be reading criminal laws to determine what types of health services they can offer and provide to their patients,” said M. Tracey Brooks, the president of Family Planning Advocates of New York State.

For Mr. Cuomo, the debate over passing a new abortion law presents an opportunity to appeal to women as well as to liberals, who have sought action in Albany without success since Eliot Spitzer made a similar proposal when he was governor. But it also poses a challenge to the coalition of Republicans and a few Democrats that controls the State Senate, the chamber that has in the past stood as the primary obstacle to passing abortion legislation in the capital.

The governor has said that his Reproductive Health Act would be one plank of a 10-part Women’s Equality Act that also would include equal pay and anti-discrimination provisions. Conservative groups, still stinging from the willingness of Republican lawmakers to go along with Mr. Cuomo’s push to legalize same-sex marriage in 2011, are mobilizing against the proposal. Seven thousand New Yorkers who oppose the measure have sent messages to Mr. Cuomo and legislators via the Web site of the New York State Catholic Conference.

A number of anti-abortion groups have also formed a coalition called New Yorkers for Life, which is seeking to rally opposition to the governor’s proposal using social media.

“If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Is there enough abortion in New York?’ no one in their right mind would say we need more abortion,” said the Rev. Jason J. McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which is part of the coalition.

Members of both parties say that the issue of reproductive rights was a significant one in November’s legislative elections. Democrats, who were bolstered by an independent expenditure campaign by NARAL, credit their victories in several key Senate races in part to their pledge to fight for legislation similar to what Mr. Cuomo is planning to propose.

Republicans, who make up most of the coalition that controls the Senate, have generally opposed new abortion rights measures. Speaking with reporters recently, the leader of the Republicans, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, strenuously objected to rewriting the state’s abortion laws, especially in a manner similar to what the governor is seeking.

“You could have an abortion up until the day the child would be born, and I think that’s just wrong,” Mr. Skelos said. He suggested that the entire debate was unnecessary, noting that abortion is legal in New York State and saying that is “not going to be changed.”

The Senate Democratic leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers, who is the sponsor of a bill that is similar to the legislation the governor is drafting, said she was optimistic that an abortion measure would reach the Senate floor this year.

“New York State’s abortion laws were passed in 1970 in a bipartisan fashion,” she said. “It would be a sad commentary that over 40 years later we could not manage to do the same thing.”

Read More..

A secret agent reveals her secrets of success

The prospect of a business book written by a former CIA officer fills one with dread at the inevitable 007 anecdotes and labored corporate parallels.

But "Work Like a Spy: Business Tips From a Former CIA Officer," published by Portfolio, turns out to be rather different. There are no gadgets, few cloaks and fewer daggers: Instead it is a bracingly realistic book about people at work. It is short. It is sharp. Better still, it is sensible.

It is also about spying, though only enough to lend a sprinkle of glamour and danger. The book jacket photo shows author J.C. Carleson, an undercover agent for eight years, looking like a real-life Carrie from "Homeland" — without the blond hair and the bipolar disorder.

Yet her stories from the field are as much blunder as conspiracy. The book opens with the heroine as a young case officer in an armed convoy in Iraq. It is 2003 and she is going to inspect a plant that the U.S. is convinced makes biological weapons. They disarm the guards and terrify everyone — only to discover it is a salt factory.

"Salt. (Insert your own expletive of choice here.) Salt!" she writes.

Carleson assures us that not all CIA work is suitable for general adoption: The threatening, lying, trapping, cheating, misleading and detaining that go with the territory should not be tried in the office.

But the spy can teach the general manager about human nature. Spies are simply better at observing people because they have spent more time practicing and because the stakes are too high to screw it up.

By comparison, the rest of us are pretty hopeless, only we don't know it. Reluctantly, I have started to reappraise my own view of myself as a brilliant judge of character and admit that such a belief is a liability.

I've just tried the following exercise: Pick a stranger and try to guess their education, profession, religion, income bracket, marital status and hobbies. Disaster: I was wrong on every score.

Because we cling to this idea that our gut instincts are reliable, we make a lot of avoidable mistakes. We make bad hiring decisions. We talk vaguely about wanting passion and creativity rather than setting to work corroborating resumes and seeking out references. Employers should make a short, precise list of the traits a job requires and hire to fill it. It is all obvious. Yet it takes a spy to point it out.

Less obvious but no less valuable is her tip for job candidates: Get the interviewer to do most of the talking and then hang on their every word. Since hardly anyone can resist talking about themselves to a rapt audience, a job offer is almost bound to follow.

To the public speaker and the salesman, Carleson has further good advice: Never rely on a script and never learn what you are going to say by heart. When you do this you use a different tone of voice, go on to autopilot and all trust is lost in an instant. Carleson is right. I have done this, but never again.

I also liked the observation about newly minted CIA officers (for which read new Harvard MBAs and so on) who emerge from the yearlong training process all swagger and irritating charm. This doesn't wash in the agency, any more than it does elsewhere. More seasoned colleagues slap them down. "Don't try to case officer me," they say.

Not everything from the book can be copied. The CIA keeps its best staff by doing sensible things such as moving people around, giving them interesting work and letting lone wolves be lone wolves.

Yet the perks of being an undercover agent also involve wearing disguises, learning how to crash cars and jump out of aircraft — all of which are big pluses, but not terribly transferable.

The main lesson from "Work Like a Spy" is that we are much more likely to get what we want if we watch other people carefully. It helps to identify the other person's weaknesses, and for this there are some common denominators: "… ego, money, ego, ego … ego, ego, ego."

Lucy Kellaway is a columnist for the Financial Times of London, in which this review first appeared.

Read More..

Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election.

Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal.

In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count.

In an interview, he emphasized that the underlying thrust is to develop an evaluation that improves the teaching corps and that data is part of the effort.

"The public has been demanding a better evaluation system for at least a decade. And teachers have repeatedly said to me what they need is a balanced way forward to help them get better and help them be accountable," Deasy said. "We do this for students every day. Now it's time to do this for teachers."

Deasy also reiterated that test scores would not be a "primary or controlling" factor in an evaluation, in keeping with the language of an agreement reached in December between L.A. Unified and its teachers union. Classroom observations and other factors also are part of the evaluation process.

But United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher expressed immediate concern about Deasy's move. During negotiations, he said, the superintendent had proposed allotting 30% to test scores but the union rejected the plan. Deasy then pulled the idea off the table, which allowed the two sides to come to an agreement, Fletcher said. Teachers approved the pact last month.

"To see this percentage now being floated again is unacceptable," the union said in a statement.

Fletcher described the pact as allowing flexibility for principals, in collaboration with teachers, first to set individual goals and then to look at various measures to determine student achievement and overall teacher performance.

"The superintendent doesn't get to sign binding agreements and then pretend they're not binding," Fletcher said.

When Deasy settled on 30%, his decision was in line with research findings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has examined teacher quality issues across the country. Some experts have challenged that work.

The test score component would include a rating for the school based on an analysis of all students' standardized test scores. Those "value-added" formulas, known within L.A. Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, can be used to rate a school or a teacher's effectiveness by comparing students' test scores with past performance. The method takes into account such factors as family income and ethnicity.

After an aggressive push by the Obama administration, individual value-added ratings for teachers have been added to reviews in many districts. They make up 40% of evaluations in Washington, D.C., 35% in Tennessee and 30% in Chicago.

But Los Angeles will use a different approach. The district will rely on raw test scores. A teacher's evaluation also may incorporate pass rates on the high school exit exam and graduation, attendance and suspension data.

Deasy's action was met Friday with reactions ranging from guarded to enthusiastic approval within a coalition of outside groups that have pushed for a new evaluation system. This coalition also has sought to counter union influence.

Elise Buik, chief executive of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said weighing test scores 30% "is a reasonable number that everyone can be happy with."

The union and the district were under pressure to include student test data in evaluations after L.A. County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled last year that the system was violating state law by not using test scores in teacher performance reviews.

A lawsuit to enforce the law was brought by parents in Los Angeles, with support from the Sacramento-based EdVoice advocacy organization.

If the "actual progress" of students is taken into account under Deasy's plan, "it's a historic day for LAUSD," said Bill Lucia, the group's chief executive.

All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the upcoming March 5 election. The campaign for three school board seats has turned substantially into a contest between candidates who strongly back Deasy's policies and those more sympathetic toward the teachers union. Deasy supporters praise the superintendent for measures they say will improve the quality of teaching. The union has faulted Deasy for limiting job protections and said he has imposed unwise or unproven reforms.

In the upcoming election, the union and pro-Deasy forces are matched head to head in District 4, with several employee unions behind incumbent Steve Zimmer and a coalition of donors behind challenger Kate Anderson.

Anderson had high praise for Deasy's directive, saying it struck the right balance and that teachers and students would benefit.

Zimmer said that although he understands that principals need guidance, "I worry about anything that would cause resistance or delay in going forward. I hope this use of a percentage won't disrupt what had been a collaborative process."

howard.blume@latimes.com

Read More..

Judge sets May trial date for Kardashian divorce

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kim Kardashian has a due date for her baby and now a trial date for her divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries.

A judge on Friday set a May 6 trial for the reality TV star who wants to end her marriage before July, when her child with Kanye West is due.

Kardashian filed for divorce on Oct. 31, 2011, after she and Humphries had been married just 72 days. Their lavish, star-studded nuptials were recorded and broadcast by E! Entertainment Television.

The trial is expected to last three to five days and could reveal details about Kardashian's reality show empire, which includes "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and several spinoffs.

Two judges determined Friday that Humphries' lawyers had adequate time to prepare for the trial.

Humphries wants the marriage annulled based on his claim that Kardashian only married him for the sake of her show.

She denies that allegation and says the case should be resolved through what would be her second divorce.

Humphries' attorney Marshall Waller asked for a delay until basketball season is over.

But Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon refused, saying firefighters, police officers, truck drivers and others have to miss work for trials, and Humphries must do the same if necessary.

Waller filed paperwork Thursday to withdraw from the case but didn't mention that development in court and refused to answer any questions about the document on Friday.

Waller said he was still hoping to obtain and review 13,000 hours of footage from Kardashian's reality shows to try to prove the fraud claim but noted he does not yet have an agreement to receive the footage.

Kardashian's lawyer said her client was ready for trial.

"Let's get this case dispensed with," attorney Laura Wasser said.

Humphries has provided a deposition in the case, as have West and Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

Read More..

Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.

A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”

Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.

Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.

The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”

While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.

“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”

Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.

“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”

Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.

“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”

For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.

“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”

“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.

That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.

Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.

Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.

“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”

Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.

As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.

“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”

She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.

“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”

Read More..