USC's dreadful performance is perfect way to conclude imperfect season

EL PASO — A football season that once swaggered through the warmth of a No. 1 ranking has curled up and expired in a cold, remote desert, buffeted by a chilled and foreboding wind.

The kid coach is bundled in a black hoodie and wearing sunglasses. He is standing 10 yards from most of his team. He is hunched over a play card, huddled into himself, alone.

The kid quarterback is battered by the wind, perplexed by the defense and wandering the sidelines looking for comfort or instruction. He receives neither and wanders alone.

The athletic director who has said he is "150%" behind this mess is on speed dial, but he cannot be reached for comment, which could mean nothing or everything. In offering his unwavering and unconditional support of the most underachieving team in college football history, he, too, could be alone.

Happy New Year's Eve, USC football fans. Are you ready for the mother of all hangovers?

Playing a losing team from a weakened conference in a secondary bowl game Monday, the Trojans did worse than simply lose. They didn't even show up.

In a 21-7 loss to Georgia Tech, Coach Lane Kiffin was distant, quarterback Max Wittek was despairing, the defense was battered for nearly 300 rushing yards, and even their scarf-swaddled fans finally had enough. In the final minutes of the game, Trojans fans rained boos down upon Georgia Tech for having the nerve to call timeout and extend their agony.

This wasn't just one bad game; this was the end of a season filled with bad games, the last milepost in arguably the most unsightly journey ever taken by a football team in NCAA history.

The Trojans went from No. 1 in the country to out of the rankings entirely, the first time this has happened in 48 years. The Trojans went from talk of an undefeated season to six losses, including five in the last six games. The Trojans went from Hollywood to El Paso to a tiny Sun Bowl conference room in which Kiffin tried to explain it all.

"A very surprising day," he said. "Obviously, it starts with the head coach."

Many believe this should be the end of the head coach. Even though Athletic Director Pat Haden assured me on Nov. 17 that Kiffin was returning next season and that he was "150%" behind the coach, many think he could and should change his mind.

Since that statement — oddly coming on the day of the loss to UCLA — the Trojans suffered through questionable play-calling in a loss to Notre Dame and then experienced an awful week here. Georgia Tech walked out of a Sun Bowl banquet because the Trojans showed up late, two Trojans tweeted nasty things about the city of El Paso, and even a giant Trojans thank-you ad purchased for the back page of the sports section of the El Paso Times couldn't fully make amends.

Although USC claimed bowl officials knew about its late banquet arrival, and although USC players aren't the first kids to tweet dumb things, there are no easy explanations about what happened in the week's culminating event. How on earth does a Trojans team supposedly loaded with NFL prospects gain only 205 total yards against a Georgia Tech team that gave up 510 yards to Middle Tennessee State? Or have only two more first downs than punts? Or commit three turnovers, giving them 34 for the season, the most ever for a team with a winning record?

"We had two great weeks of practice. ... I thought our guys were really into it," said Kiffin, shaking his head, showing again the apparent fraying in his connection with his team.

Kiffin later said he was huddled under the hoodie because he didn't want to wear a ski cap. He also said he was wearing sunglasses to hide a tiny bandage, which he said was covering a scrape caused by some horsing around with linebacker Hayes Pullard.

"C'mon, you know that how I looked is not the reason we lost this game," he said.

But all of it contributed to the perception of a coach who is not a strong leader, which is another reason Haden could ultimately change his mind and make a change. This lack of leadership spread to his players, even quarterback Matt Barkley, who began the season as a Heisman Trophy favorite and ended it as a no-show.

Yes, Barkley's season ended when he suffered a sprained shoulder against UCLA. But where was the quarterback on the sidelines Monday when Wittek could have used his counsel? Where was any veteran to support the redshirt freshman when he was clearly lost while completing 14 of 37 passes for 107 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions? And where were the veterans at the start of the fourth quarter, with the Trojans still trailing by only a touchdown, when USC trudged down the field while the Yellow Jackets bounced and danced in unified excitement?

"I never saw this coming," said senior defensive end Wes Horton. "With the talent and coaches we had, I thought we'd have a much better record."

Statements like that, and games like this, are all damning to Kiffin's cause. But remember, the two things that Haden said he liked about Kiffin are still true. Haden said he loves Kiffin's commitment to academics, and two Trojans were sent home from El Paso for academic reasons. Haden also said he loves Kiffin's recruiting, and the Trojans are still scheduled to have one of the nation's top hauls.

"We'll sign the No. 1 class in the country and go back to work," Kiffin said.

For now, that is true, and I wouldn't be surprised if it remained true. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Haden suddenly changes his mind and changes everything. By now, all shock has been drained from college football's most stunning team, its season ending Monday in the chilliest and most desperate of climes, with an embarrassing loss that was no surprise to anybody.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

twitter.com/billplaschke

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DiDonato a luminous Mary Stuart at Met

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera may have pretty much turned opening night over to the glamorous Anna Netrebko, but New Year's Eve belongs to a very different diva — Joyce DiDonato.

Last year the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano headlined a starry lineup in the baroque pastiche "The Enchanted Island." On Monday night she brought a gala audience to its feet with a luminous performance in the title role of Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda."

Never before performed at the Met, this second opera in the composer's so-called "Three Queens" trilogy portrays the lethal conflict between Mary, deposed queen of Scotland, and Queen Elizabeth I of England.

From the moment she makes her entrance in the second scene, singing of her joy in strolling outside her prison in Fotheringay Castle, DiDonato rivets attention. She imbues every syllable with a concentrated eloquence that makes her compact voice seem larger than it is. She displays seemingly effortless command of coloratura embellishments throughout a wide vocal range. And she is equally impressive in fiery outbursts and in hushed, long-held phrases — like the ones she spun out as she sang through the chorus in the final scene.

The opera's dramatic heart is a confrontation between the two queens that never took place in history but that figures in the Friedrich Schiller play on which the libretto is based. Mary at first abases herself in hope of winning a pardon; then, as Elizabeth hurls insults, her pride reasserts itself and she seals her doom by denouncing her rival as "figlia impura di Bolena" ("impure daughter of Ann Boleyn") and "vil bastarda" ("vile bastard").

DiDonato was impressive in this scene when she sang the role for the first time last spring in Houston, but her performance Monday night was even better — more confident and more filled with vocal and dramatic shadings. There was a wonderful touch when, after she had spent her fury, she allowed herself a beatific smile, as if to convey: "There! I said it and I'm glad!"

Of course, it takes two to stage a confrontation, and DiDonato's partner at the Met is Elza van den Heever, a South African soprano making her debut. She has a voice that's impressive in many respects, with a large and vibrant upper register. But she tended to fade out in the lower part of her range, where much of Elizabeth's music lies.

More damagingly, she was victimized by a quirk of David McVicar's production that has Elizabeth lurching awkwardly about the stage for much of the evening, as if thrown off balance by John Macfarlane's elaborate period costumes. Perhaps this bizarre gait is intended to contrast with Mary's immaculate poise, but it mainly proves distracting.

The opening scene in Elizabeth's palace is garishly staged, with what look like red rafters hanging down from the ceiling and gratuitous acrobats in devil costumes, but once past this, matters improve. For the scene outside Fotheringay, Macfarlane fills the stage with spindly trees barren of leaves and provides a painted backdrop that evokes a cloudy landscape. The final tableau is also striking: Mary, shorn of her long hair and wearing a simple red dress, climbs a staircase with her back to the audience to meet her executioner and the chopping block.

Though the two queens dominate the opera, there are some other characters, and they are all in extremely good hands. Having the elegant tenor Matthew Polenzani take on the thankless role of the ineffectual Leicester is luxury casting indeed. Bass Matthew Rose is warmly sympathetic as Mary's confessor, Talbot; baritone Joshua Hopkins sings with robust tone as her nemesis, Cecil; and mezzo Maria Zifchak lends her customary strong support as Mary's attendant, Anna.

Maurizio Benini conducts a lithe and lively performance of the score, even if he can't quite disguise the fact that the second half of the opera is decidedly anti-climactic.

There are seven more performances, including a matinee on Saturday, Jan. 19, that will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters around the world.

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Employers Must Offer Family Health Care, Affordable or Not, Administration Says

WASHINGTON — In a long-awaited interpretation of the new health care law, the Obama administration said Monday that employers must offer health insurance to employees and their children, but will not be subject to any penalties if family coverage is unaffordable to workers.

The requirement for employers to provide health benefits to employees is a cornerstone of the new law, but the new rules proposed by the Internal Revenue Service said that employers’ obligation was to provide affordable insurance to cover their full-time employees. The rules offer no guarantee of affordable insurance for a worker’s children or spouse. To avoid a possible tax penalty, the government said, employers with 50 or more full-time employees must offer affordable coverage to those employees. But, it said, the meaning of “affordable” depends entirely on the cost of individual coverage for the employee, what the worker would pay for “self-only coverage.”

The new rules, to be published in the Federal Register, create a strong incentive for employers to put money into insurance for their employees rather than dependents. It is unclear whether the spouse and children of an employee will be able to obtain federal subsidies to help them buy coverage — separate from the employee — through insurance exchanges being established in every state. The administration explicitly reserved judgment on that question, which could affect millions of people in families with low and moderate incomes.

Many employers provide family coverage to full-time employees, but many do not. Family coverage is much more expensive, and the employee’s share of the premium is typically much larger.

In 2012, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance averaged $5,615 a year for single coverage and $15,745 for family coverage. The employee’s share of the premium averaged $951 for individual coverage and more than four times as much, $4,316, for family coverage.

Starting in 2014, most Americans will be required to have health insurance. Low- and middle-income people can get tax credits to help pay their premiums, unless they have access to affordable coverage from an employer.

In its proposal, the Internal Revenue Service said, “Coverage for an employee under an employer-sponsored plan is affordable if the employee’s required contribution for self-only coverage does not exceed 9.5 percent of the employee’s household income.”

The rules, though labeled a proposal, are more significant than most proposed regulations. The Internal Revenue Service said employers could rely on them in making plans for 2014.

In writing the law, members of Congress often conjured up a picture of employees working year-round at full-time jobs. But in drafting the rules, the I.R.S. wrestled with the complex reality of part-time, seasonal and temporary workers.

In addition, the administration expressed concern that some employers might try to evade the new requirements by firing and rehiring employees, manipulating their work hours or using temporary staffing agencies. The rules include several provisions to prevent such abuse.

The law says an employer with 50 or more full-time employees may be subject to a tax penalty if it fails to offer coverage to “its full-time employees (and their dependents).”

Employers asked for guidance, and the Obama administration provided it, saying that a dependent is an employee’s child under the age of 26.

“Dependent does not include the spouse of an employee,” the proposed rules say.

Thus, employers must offer coverage to children of an employee, but do not have to make it affordable. And they do not have to offer coverage at all to the spouse of an employee.

The administration said that the rules — which apply to private businesses, nonprofit organizations and state and local government agencies — would require changes at many work sites.

“A number of employers currently offer coverage only to their employees, and not to dependents,” the I.R.S. said. “For these employers, expanding their health plans to add dependent coverage will require substantial revisions to their plans.”

In view of this challenge, the agency said it would grant a one-time reprieve to employers who fail to offer coverage to dependents of full-time employees, provided they take steps in 2014 to come into compliance. Under the rules, employers must offer coverage to employees in 2014 and must offer coverage to dependents as well, starting in 2015.

The new rules apply to employers that have at least 50 full-time employees or an equivalent combination of full-time and part-time employees. A full-time employee is a person employed on average at least 30 hours a week. And 100 half-time employees are considered equivalent to 50 full-time employees.

Thus, the government said, an employer will be subject to the new requirement if it has 40 full-time employees working 30 hours a week and 20 half-time employees working 15 hours a week.

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California regulators seek to police out-of-state pharmacies

SACRAMENTO — State regulators are responding to a deadly nationwide meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated drugs by seeking new power to inspect out-of-state pharmacies that sell special-order prescription drugs in California.

In September, the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., sent three shipments of contaminated injectable steroid solutions to 76 healthcare facilities and pain-control clinics in 23 states, including four in California.

These customized drugs, which were injected into patients' spines and joints, caused 39 deaths among 620 reported cases of fungal meningitis and other infections, according to a Dec. 17 report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The steroids were recalled by the now-bankrupt firm before they caused any deaths or illnesses in California. But that fortunate outcome hasn't kept the California Board of Pharmacy from being more aggressive about policing sometimes poorly regulated pharmacies that produce and ship large volumes of these medications, known as compounded drugs.

At issue is whether these outfits ought to be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA regulates large drug manufacturers, but its legal authority to oversee the compounding pharmacies has been disputed in the courts. As a result, states are moving to play a bigger role in ensuring the safety of their products.

In one such case in 2012, the now-defunct Franck's Compounding Pharmacy in Ocala, Fla., shipped supposedly sterile products for injecting into the eye that caused infections in 17 California surgery patients.

The state pharmacy board, which oversees and licenses nearly 7,000 drugstores in California, plans to sponsor a bill in the Legislature this year that would give state agents the authority to make unannounced on-site inspections of out-of-state pharmacies that the board licenses to ship sterile medicines, such as injectable steroids, eyedrops and inhaled aerosol drugs, to healthcare providers here.

The California initiative is getting preliminary support from two industry trade groups, the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board and the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacies. The FDA also is supportive of the thrust of the proposed legislation, said Virginia Herold, the state pharmacy board's executive director.

"We're being proactive for the public health because we don't want another incident," she said. "We want to make sure that if the product is coming into California, it meets the requirements of California law."

Increasing amounts of these compounded drugs are flowing into the state. The Board of Pharmacy told a congressional committee in December that it licensed 86 out-of-state compounding pharmacies to make sterile medications for use in California in fiscal year 2011-12, compared with just 17 in 2003-04 and none in 2002-03.

But keeping track of out-of-state, large-volume pharmacies isn't easy, Herold conceded, because both state and federal laws are ambiguous about who is responsible for regulating different types of compounded drugs.

The advantage of traditional compounding, federal and state health officials agree, is that it enables pharmacies to offer prescriptions in individualized formats. That includes producing such drugs as creams, powders or solutions to direct relief to specific parts of the body or supplying drugs as a liquid to make it easier for people who can't swallow pills, for example.

Any state-licensed pharmacist can make these drugs with a doctor's prescription, if the pharmacy also has a state license. In most cases, regulation and inspections are the legal province of state pharmacy boards, not the FDA.

But over the last decade, the definition of what is a compounding pharmacy has been blurred. Some pharmacies have begun manufacturing large volumes of drugs — such as sterile, injectable steroids used to temporarily ease back pain — that are shipped in bulk to hospitals and outpatient surgical centers.

"FDA's ability to take action against compounding … that exceeds the bounds of traditional pharmacy compounding and poses risks to patients has been hampered by gaps and ambiguities in the law, which have led to legal challenges to FDA's authority to inspect pharmacies and take appropriate enforcement actions," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in congressional testimony Nov. 14.

The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations was probing the New England Compounding Center-related deaths.

As part of Hamburg's effort to boost enforcement and protect patients, she met in December with representatives from the boards of pharmacies in all 50 states.

California supports federal and state efforts to figure out a way to avoid more contamination-related illnesses from these drugs, said Amy Gutierrez, a California Board of Pharmacy member and chief pharmacy officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

"The problem is really the other states" that might have different or weaker standards or less enforcement resources than California, she said.

"What we're looking for is holding the out-of-state pharmacies that compound sterile products to the same standards as our own state-licensed pharmacies."

marc.lifsher@latimes.com

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Congress edges closer to 'fiscal cliff' deal but can't close it

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill inched toward a compromise to avert part of the so-called fiscal cliff but remained unable to close a deal as each side struggled with internal tensions as well as the remaining gap between them.

Lawmakers have been trying to beat a deadline of midnight Monday, when tax rates are scheduled to go up for the vast majority of Americans. But they could continue chasing a deal for days — even until the new Congress is sworn in at noon Thursday. After that, the political dynamics could shift with the entrance of new members.

If Congress fails to act, the combination of new taxes and sharp cuts in defense spending and domestic programs, which also would take effect with the new year, could tip the economy back into recession, economists have warned.

On Sunday, talks hit a standstill early in the day after Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky proposed slowing Social Security cost-of-living increases as part of the spending package. Democrats rejected the idea, and many Republicans quickly disavowed it.

In response to a request from McConnell, the Obama administration assigned Vice President Joe Biden to broker further negotiations.

"I'm willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "The sticking point appears to be a willingness, an interest, or courage to close the deal."

Biden and McConnell talked by phone throughout the afternoon as the two sides appeared to close in on a potential compromise.

Republicans have said they are willing to raise taxes on wealthier households while stopping the tax increases for most Americans. The two sides have not agreed on an income threshold for the tax increases. Republicans suggested starting about $550,000 in taxable income for couples and $450,000 for single households. The most recent offer from Democrats had set the tax level slightly lower, about $450,000 for couples and $360,000 for singles.

But Republicans were also seeking to preserve inheritance taxes at the current rate of 35%, while Democrats have sought to raise them. Republicans want to keep the automatic spending cuts in place for now, while Democrats suggest easing them. Democrats also want to continue long-term unemployment benefits as part of the year-end package.

Other sticking points remain over adjustments to the rates Medicare pays doctors and fixing the tax code to protect middle-income Americans from the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to prevent tax avoidance by the wealthy. Both provisions involve laws that are not indexed for inflation and have required annual adjustments by Congress.

The closer the two sides edged toward compromise Sunday, the more divisions within their ranks became apparent.

Republican senators, worried they would be blamed for harming seniors, openly revolted once the McConnell proposal to trim Social Security benefits became public.

After a closed-door meeting, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) articulated the public relations challenge the proposal posed his party: "What [Democrats] are saying now is, 'Republicans want to preserve tax breaks for rich people and give up seniors' Social Security.' It should be off the table. And I think most Republicans believe it should be off the table."

"I'm not a fan," said retiring Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). "I don't think it should be part of it, and I think there are others who shared that view."

Democrats rejected the proposal. An aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "was taken aback and disappointed" by the idea. "We feel we are further apart than we were 24 hours ago."

Adjusting the cost of living for recipients of government benefits, including Social Security, had been offered by President Obama in talks with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) when they were negotiating a broader deficit reduction deal. But Democrats have rejected including the idea in the more limited package now under discussion.

At the same time, some Democrats worried that Biden, who has closed several deals before with McConnell, might be too eager to compromise compared with Reid. White House officials have been more worried than many congressional Democrats about the potential economic damage that the tax cuts and spending reductions could cause.

Obama made clear the line of attack that the White House would use against Republican leaders if Congress could not find a resolution.

"They have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers," Obama said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," which was recorded Saturday.

"If they can't do a comprehensive package of smart deficit reductions, let's at minimum make sure that people's taxes don't go up and that 2 million people don't lose their unemployment insurance."

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14 Solutions to Your New Year’s Midnight Kiss

Find a Baby

There’s got to be one crawling around somewhere. What’s cuter than kissing a baby’s fat cheek? Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Here’s a Depressing Look at Man’s Impact on Earth]

Do you find yourself in a panic every New Year’s Eve because everyone’s counting down and Billy Crystal has yet to explain all of the reasons why he’s madly in love with you?

No? Oh okay — me neither.

[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]

But the final holiday of the year can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. We want to end and begin each year with a bang — this often means the perfect outfit, an amazing soiree and the midnight kiss that will sweep you off your feet.

Instead of starting 2013 in a state of panic, then promising to be better later, enjoy New Year’s Eve and stop worrying about a silly superstition. We’ve come up with a couple solutions to the big smooch at the end of the night.

Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Kanye West, Kim Kardashian expecting 1st child

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — The Kardashian clan is getting bigger: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are expecting their first child.

The rapper announced at a concert Sunday night that his girlfriend is pregnant. He told the crowd of more than 5,000 at the Ovation Hall at the Revel Resort in song form: "Now you having my baby."

The crowd roared.

Kourtney Kardahsian and Kris Jenner also tweeted about baby news.

West also told concertgoers to congratulate his "baby mom" and that this was the "most amazing thing."

Representatives for West and Kardashian didn't immediately respond to emails about the pregnancy.

The rapper and reality TV star went public in March. Kardashian married NBA player Kris Humphries in August 2011 and their divorce is not finalized.

___

AP Writer Bianca Roach contributed to this report.

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Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Revolutionary in the Study of the Brain, Dies at 103

Fabio Campana/European Pressphoto Agency

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini in 2007. She discovered chemical tools the body uses to direct cell growth and build nerve networks.

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning neurologist who discovered critical chemical tools that the body uses to direct cell growth and build nerve networks, opening the way for the study of how those processes can go wrong in diseases like dementia and cancer, died on Sunday at her home in Rome. She was 103.

Her death was announced by Mayor Gianni Alemanno of Rome.

“I don’t use these words easily, but her work revolutionized the study of neural development, from how we think about it to how we intervene,” said Dr. Gerald D. Fishbach, a neuroscientist and professor emeritus at Columbia.

Scientists had virtually no idea how embryo cells built a latticework of intricate connections to other cells when Dr. Levi-Montalcini began studying chicken embryos in the bedroom of her house in Turin, Italy, during World War II. After years of obsessive study, much of it at Washington University in St. Louis with Dr. Viktor Hamburger, she found a protein that, when released by cells, attracted nerve growth from nearby developing cells.

In the early 1950s, she and Dr. Stanley Cohen, a biochemist also at Washington University, isolated and described the chemical, known as nerve growth factor — and in the process altered the study of cell growth and development. Scientists soon realized that the protein gave them a new way to study and understand disorders of neural growth, like cancer, or of degeneration, like Alzheimer’s disease, and to potentially develop therapies.

In the years after the discovery, Dr. Levi-Montalcini, Dr. Cohen and others described a large family of such growth-promoting agents, each of which worked to regulate the growth of specific cells. One, called epidermal growth factor and discovered by Dr. Cohen, plays a central role in breast cancer; in part by studying its behavior, scientists developed drugs to combat the abnormal growth.

In 1986, Dr. Levi-Montalcini and Dr. Cohen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work.

Dr. Cohen, now an emeritus professor at Vanderbilt University, said Dr. Levi-Montalcini possessed a rare combination of intuition and passion, as well as biological knowledge. “She had this feeling for what was happening biologically,” he said. “She was an intuitive observer, and she saw that something was making these nerve connections grow and was determined to find out what it was.”

One of four children, Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin on April 22, 1909, to Adamo Levi, an engineer, and Adele Montalcini, a painter, both Italian Jews who traced their roots to the Roman Empire. In keeping with the Victorian customs of the time, Mr. Levi discouraged his three daughters from entering college, fearing that it would interfere with their lives as wives and mothers.

It was not a future that Rita wanted. She had decided to become a doctor and told her father so. “He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation,” she wrote in her autobiography, “In Praise of Imperfection” (1988). He also agreed to support her.

She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Turin medical school in 1936. Two years later, Mussolini issued a manifesto barring non-Aryan Italians from having professional careers. She began her research anyway, setting up a small laboratory in her home to study chick embryos, inspired by the work of Dr. Hamburger, a prominent researcher in St. Louis who also worked with the embryos.

During World War II, the family fled Turin for the countryside, and in 1943 the invasion by Germany forced them to Florence. The family returned at the close of the war, in 1945, and Dr. Hamburger soon invited Dr. Levi-Montalcini to work for a year in his lab at Washington University.

She stayed on, becoming an associate professor in 1956 and a full professor in 1958. In 1962, she helped establish the Institute of Cell Biology in Rome and became its first director. She retired from Washington University in 1977, becoming a guest professor and splitting her time between Rome and St. Louis.

Italy honored her in 2001 by making her a senator for life.

An elegant presence, confident and passionate, she was a sought-after speaker until late in life. “At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20,” she said in 2009.

She never married and had no children. In addition to her autobiography, she was the author or co-author of dozens of research studies and received numerous professional awards, including the National Medal of Science.

“It is imperfection — not perfection — that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain,” Dr. Levi-Montalcini wrote in her autobiography, “and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 30, 2012

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the year Mussolini issued a manifesto barring non-Aryan Italians from having professional careers. It was 1938, not 1936.

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Tribune Co. set to exit bankruptcy protection

Tribune Co. is expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection Monday with a new board of directors composed largely of entertainment-industry veterans.

Exiting bankruptcy would mark a milestone for Tribune, the parent of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper and television properties.

Tribune sought Bankruptcy Court protection in December 2008 after a leveraged buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell saddled the company with $12.9 billion in debt just as advertising revenue was collapsing. It is one of the longest bankruptcy cases in U.S. corporate history.

Tribune will emerge as a slimmed-down entity with a more stable financial base. But the media conglomerate will still be buffeted by the larger forces pounding the newspaper industry, specifically uncertainty over whether papers can generate sufficient revenue from digital operations.

"Tribune is far stronger than it was when we began the Chapter 11 process four years ago and, given the budget planning we've done, the company is well-positioned for success in 2013," Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune's chief executive, wrote in a note to employees Sunday night.

Tribune's new board of directors is expected to be made up of a who's who of Hollywood players. Most have no hands-on experience running newspapers and television stations, which are Tribune's biggest assets.

Five of the seven members have ties to the entertainment and media industries, including Hartenstein and Peter Liguori, a former News Corp. executive who is expected to succeed Hartenstein as Tribune CEO in the next few weeks.

Also expected to be named to the board are Peter Murphy, previously a longtime executive at Walt Disney Co.; Ross Levinsohn, former head of global media at Yahoo Inc.; and Craig A. Jacobson, a veteran entertainment attorney.

The board will be rounded out by Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree Capital Management, the Los Angeles investment firm that owns about 23% of the new Tribune; and Kenneth Liang, an Oaktree managing director.

Tribune owns 23 local television stations, eight daily newspapers and Internet and other media properties.

Those holdings include KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Tribune, and national cable station WGN-TV. Tribune also holds slightly less than one-third of the Food Network cable channel and about a 25% stake in the CareerBuilder website.

Liguori is also a former Discovery Communications senior executive whose resume is in programming and marketing. He headed both the FX cable network and Fox Broadcasting at News Corp. At Discovery he served as chief operating officer of the cable programming giant.

Murphy spent almost two decades at Disney, rising to the position of chief strategist. He founded private investment firm Wentworth Capital Management. He has close ties to Angelo, Gordon & Co., an investment firm that will own roughly 9% of the new Tribune Co.

Levinsohn is a former head of global media at Yahoo. He also served briefly as its interim CEO before Google Inc.'s Marissa Mayer being tapped for that job. Levinsohn also is a former News Corp. executive who headed its interactive unit.

Jacobson, an attorney at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush & Kaller is one of Hollywood's more prominent deal-makers. His clients have included several high-profile executives and performers such as Ryan Seacrest.

Tribune remained profitable throughout the bankruptcy, building cash reserves of more than $2.5 billion as of Nov. 18, according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing this month. Creditors are expected to immediately take nearly $3 billion in cash out of the new company, some of it coming from a new $1.1-billion loan that was approved as part of the bankruptcy.

The value of Tribune's newspaper properties has sunk to $623 million, a fraction of their value a few years earlier, according to an estimate filed in Bankruptcy Court in April.

A key question still to be answered is what Tribune will do with its newspapers. Some analysts believe the company will seek to sell the slower-growing newspapers to focus on TV holdings.

As for the Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has expressed interest, according to people familiar with the matter.

Aaron Kushner, owner of the Orange County Register, and Doug Manchester, the San Diego real estate developer who last year bought the local Union Tribune newspaper, also have shown interest.

Austin Beutner, the former venture capitalist and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, told The Times in October that he has reached out to civic-minded investors who would consider acquiring the paper.

walter.hamilton@latimes.com

joe.flint@latimes.com

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Officials warn holiday revelers against firing weapons

By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2012, 8:59 p.m.

Los Angeles officials are warning that anyone discharging a firearm into the air to celebrate the new year not only risks killing someone but could also face a lengthy prison sentence.

"Firing into the air weapons in celebration puts innocent lives at risk," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said last week. "Nothing ruins the holiday season like an errant bullet coming down and killing an innocent."

Villaraigosa said the misuse of firearms is on everyone's mind in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that left six adults and 20 children dead. The mayor vowed that authorities will pursue criminal charges for anyone caught in possession of a weapon in public.

For more than a decade, city and county leaders have tried to quell celebratory gunfire.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said a bullet discharged into the air falls at a rate of 300 to 700 mph, depending on the weapon — "easily enough to crack the human skull."

"Please celebrate New Year's with your family, not in [Sheriff] Lee Baca's jail or my jail," Beck said, pledging to capture anyone firing a weapon. "Firing a gun in the air isn't only dangerous and a crime but socially unacceptable."

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said that anyone caught firing a weapon — even if they don't hit someone — will face a felony charge and a fine of up to $10,000 and a possible three-year sentence. A conviction would be considered a strike offense and the suspect would lose the right to own a firearm.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said that in some county areas, special equipment has been deployed to spot shots within seconds and track their locations.

"The madness of gun violence has to stop," he said. "This is a matter of physics. What goes up must come down."

richard.winton@latimes.com

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McCartney, 'God particle' scientist get honors

LONDON (AP) — Stella McCartney, who designed the uniforms worn by Britain's record-smashing Olympic team, and Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the so-called "God particle," are among the hundreds being honored by Queen Elizabeth II this New Year.

The list is particularly heavy with Britain's Olympic heroes, but it also includes "Star Wars" actor Ewan McGregor, eccentric English singer Kate Bush, Roald Dahl illustrator Quentin Blake, and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the royal aide who helped organize the watched-around-the-world wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

McCartney was honored with the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, in part for her work creating the skintight, red-white-and-blue uniforms worn by British athletes as they grabbed 65 medals during the 2012 games hosted by London. McCartney is the designer daughter of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his first wife Linda, and she has moved to make the family name almost as synonymous with fashion as it is with music, setting up a successful business and a critically-acclaimed label.

Higgs' achievements, which made him a Companion of Honor, touch on the nature and the origins of the universe. The 83-year-old researcher's work in theoretical physics sought to explain what gives things weight. He said it was while walking through the Scottish mountains that he hit upon the concept of what would later become known as the Higgs boson, an elusive subatomic particle that gives objects mass and combines with gravity to give them weight.

For decades, the existence of such a particle remained just a theory, but earlier this year scientists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said they'd found compelling evidence that the Higgs boson was out there. Or in there. Or whatever.

All of Britain's gold medalists from this year's games were on the list, with cyclist Bradley Wiggins and sailor Ben Ainslie honored with knighthoods.

Sebastian Coe, who masterminded the games as chairman of the London organizing committee, was made a Companion of Honor — a prestigious title also awarded to Higgs. But Ken Livingstone, London's former mayor, said Saturday he turned down a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, recognizing his services to the Olympics because he doesn't believe politicians should get the queen's honors.

Honors lists typically include a sprinkling of star power, and this year was no different. Ewan McGregor, who came to public attention through his role as the heroin-addled anti-hero of British drug drama "Trainspotting," was awarded an OBE. The 41-year-old actor is also known for his turn as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" prequels.

"Babooshka" singer Kate Bush said she was delighted to be made a CBE for a musical career which has resulted in a string of quirky hits including "Wuthering Heights," ''Cloudbusting," and "Man With The Child In His Eyes."

Other art world honorees included artist Tracey Emin and Quentin Blake, whose spiky, exuberant illustrations are best known through the work of his collaborator Roald Dahl.

Politicians, policemen, and spies got honors too. Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe was awarded a knighthood; former British foreign minister Margaret Beckett was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife Cherie was made a CBE for her charity work. MI5 chief Jonathan Evans was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Bath.

Also honored was the man credited with helping pull off the wedding of the decade: Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, principal private secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (as Prince William and his wife are formally known) was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order.

Britain's honors are bestowed twice a year by the monarch, at New Year's and on her official birthday in June. Although the queen does pick out some lesser honors herself, the vast majority of recipients are selected by government committees from nominations made by officials and members of the public.

In descending order, the honors are knighthoods, CBE, OBE, and MBE — Member of the Order of the British Empire. Knights are addressed as "sir" or "dame." Recipients of the other honors, such as the Order of the Companions of Honor given to Higgs and Coe or the Royal Victorian Order personally picked out by the queen, receive no title but can put the letters after their names.

The New Year's honors carried the usual batch of courtiers — even the royal household's switchboard operator got a medal — as well as senior civil servants, soldiers, charity executives, successful entrepreneurs, established academics, volunteers, and community workers. Some of the more eclectic honors included the OBE handed to card game columnist Andrew Michael Robson "for services to the game of bridge," and the OBE given to river conservationist Andrew Douglas-Home "for services to fishing."

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Individual mandate in healthcare was year's top consumer story

This was the year of the healthcare mandate. No other consumer story of 2012 comes close.

In a split decision, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. casting the deciding vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the cornerstone of President Obama's healthcare reform law, the most sweeping overhaul of our dysfunctional medical system in decades.

The so-called individual mandate requires that most people have health insurance. It's the trade-off for the insurance industry's agreement to stop denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions and to stop charging higher rates if you get sick.

It's also the trade-off for insurers to remove limits on how much treatment they'll cover annually or over your lifetime.

"It's a huge deal," said Lee Goldberg, vice president of health policy for the National Academy of Social Insurance, a Washington think tank. "Without the mandate, you're much more likely to have spiraling healthcare costs and an unsustainable market for coverage."

Critics of the mandate, and there are plenty of them, say it represents a government takeover of healthcare, a socializing of medicine. The government, they say, can't make you buy something you don't want.

But that's not how the mandate works. No one's forcing you to buy insurance. No one's forcing you to be covered.

However, there will be a tax penalty if you decide that you want to take your chances. And there's a very good reason for this: Taking your chances is foolish.

Unless you're Superman, you're going to need healthcare at some point in your life. That's just a fact.

"No one's going to throw you in jail if you don't have insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions. "But if you ever have an accident and have to use the [emergency room], that tax penalty will help to defray the cost that will be covered by those who do have insurance."

Beginning in 2014, the penalty for going uninsured will be no more than $285 per family or 1% of income, whichever is greater. The cap rises to $975 or 2% of income a year later, and then up to $2,085 per family or 2.5% of income by 2016.

Quiz: How much do you know about business news in 2012?

Opponents of healthcare reform conveniently ignore the basic economics of the insurance business. Insurers aren't service providers. They're risk managers. They examine the risk they face by covering a group or individual and price their policies accordingly.

The larger the risk pool, obviously, the cheaper the coverage. That's because the risk to health insurers goes down if younger and healthier people are included in the mix. The result: more affordable coverage for everyone.

Taken to its logical extreme, the most effective and efficient health insurance system for the United States would be something like a Medicare-for-all approach in which the risk pool comprises everybody in the country — young and old, healthy and sick.

In fact, we're already well down that road. Federal and state programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and veterans' assistance accounted for about 45% of total U.S. healthcare spending in 2010, according to a recent study by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

The amount of public money spent on healthcare should serve as a wake-up call to all those who think the world would end if the U.S. followed Britain, France, Canada and other developed countries in enacting a national health insurance system.

For the U.S., it would simply be an expansion of a system that already exists but is hobbled by the inefficiency of denying Medicare and other programs access to healthier members of the population, thus saddling taxpayers with a disproportionately large number of higher-risk people.

The individual mandate won't radically change things. The healthcare insurance system will remain divided between a public sector that focuses primarily on aging and sick people and a private sector that, for purely financial reasons, provides increasingly less access to affordable coverage.

Average premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 62% from 2003 to 2011 to $15,022 a year, according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund.

Health insurance costs far outpaced people's incomes in all states during that time, the report found, with workers' average share of premiums for family plans soaring 74% and deductibles more than doubling, while the median household income rose only about 10%.

Still, the mandate is a big step toward remedying the system's economic irrationality. By extending coverage to about 30 million of the 50 million people who now lack insurance, the mandate will place medical care within reach of many who previously may have sought treatment only in emergencies.

As a result, national wellness will improve and, presumably, healthcare costs will go down, or at least will be better controlled as fewer people put off medical attention until an easily treated ailment becomes an expensive catastrophe.

"The mandate is the key to making this all work," said Devon Herrick, a healthcare economist at the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Otherwise people would just wait until they got sick before buying insurance and premiums would skyrocket."

There's still much to be done. The reform law's insurance exchanges are a work in progress, and it's unclear at this point how much coverage will be offered and how much it will cost.

But the Supreme Court has kept the ball rolling by maintaining the mandate as part of the equation. It was a decision that will change all our lives, probably for the better, and move us closer to a system under which all people can obtain affordable healthcare.

David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. he also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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Jean Harris dies at 89; killer of 'Scarsdale Diet' doctor

Jean Harris, the onetime headmistress of an elite girls' school whose trial in the fatal 1980 shooting of the celebrity diet doctor who jilted her generated front-page headlines and national debates about whether she was a feminist martyr or vengeful murderer, has died. She was 89.

Harris, who spent nearly 12 years in prison for the shooting death of her longtime boyfriend, "Scarsdale Diet" doctor Herman "Hy" Tarnower, died Sunday at an assisted-living facility in New Haven, Conn., of complications related to old age, her son James said.

Convicted in 1981 of second-degree murder, Harris, who had at least two heart attacks in prison, was granted clemency on her 15 years-to-life sentence on Dec. 29, 1992, by then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who cited her health and advancing age.

"I honestly thought I would die in prison," Harris said after her release.

Harris, then 68, took up residence in a New Hampshire cabin overlooking Vermont's Green Mountains, where she walked her dog, wrote and raised money for a program to help children of inmates at New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Center, where she was imprisoned after her Feb. 28, 1981, conviction.

The March 10, 1980, shooting of Tarnower — which she claimed throughout her life was her own suicide gone awry — was one of the most sensational crimes of its era.

It riveted the nation, not only because of its titillating combination of sex and violence. It raised what many experts said were important sociological issues, with some feminists rallying to Harris as a symbol of society's disregard for the plight of older women and others arguing that her case had nothing at all to do with feminism.

Women's movement icon Betty Friedan dismissed Harris as a "pathetic masochist" for staying with a man who mistreated her. But author Shana Alexander, who wrote a book on the case, described Harris as the "psychological victim of a domineering person."

Whether morality play or soap opera, the case inspired two TV movies: "The People vs. Jean Harris" (1981), in which Harris was portrayed by Ellen Burstyn, and "Mrs. Harris" (2005), which starred Annette Bening.

In 1980, Harris was the 56-year-old headmistress of the fancy, private Madeira School overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, Va. Tarnower was a 69-year-old cardiologist and best-selling author of a book on a high-protein, low-fat diet that he developed for heart patients at his medical center in well-to-do Scarsdale, N.Y.

When they met in 1966, they were so taken with each other that Tarnower — a lifelong bachelor — gave Harris a 4-carat diamond engagement ring. He quickly changed his mind, telling her that he couldn't stop seeing other women.

Harris agreed to this condition, and through the years became what she wryly described as "the broad-he-brought" to dinner parties. By 1980 the 14-year relationship was on the skids as Harris became embittered watching Tarnower, in the wake of the Scarsdale diet book, growing ever more rich and famous.

The last straw for Harris: Tarnower was "wavering" about whether to invite her or a younger woman, Lynne Tryforos, to a dinner honoring him.

After one particularly harrowing week at the school when she expelled four seniors, Harris decided on suicide. She wrote notes to her grown sons, put her papers in order, packed a .32-caliber handgun in her purse and drove five hours from Virginia to Tarnower's six-acre estate in Purchase, N.Y.

She later testified that she wanted to see her lover one last time before killing herself at the estate's duck pond. But her plans went awry after she let herself into his home, found Tarnower asleep and spotted a negligee and hair rollers in a bathroom — evidence that her rival, 38-year-old Tryforos, had recently stayed over.

Harris threw the hair rollers at a window, breaking it, and also broke a cosmetic mirror. The ruckus woke Tarnower, who struck her, Harris said. She said that she challenged him to "hit me again, Hy, make it hard enough to kill," but he withdrew. Feeling the revolver in her pocketbook, she pulled out the gun and said to him, "Never mind, I'll do it myself."

But, she testified, when she raised the gun to her temple, he grabbed the weapon, which went off and wounded him in the hand, giving her time to grab the gun again; she later testified that she thought she had time to kill herself.

In the ensuing struggle, Tarnower was struck by bullets three more times — in the chest, arm and back. A fifth bullet also was fired. Harris maintained throughout her life that Tarnower was trying to prevent her from killing herself.

The call to the White Plains police was made at 10:56 p.m. by the doctor's housekeeper, who lived on the estate. The March 12 four-column headline in the New York Times read " 'Scarsdale Diet' Doctor Is Slain; Headmistress Is Charged."

The highly publicized 64-day trial that followed included 92 witnesses — most disastrously, Harris herself.

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It’s Easy to Save Videos From Facebook Poke Permanently

Apps like Snapchat and Facebook Poke let users send short messages, photos or videos that automatically self-destruct after a few seconds. However, it’s actually very easy for a recipient to save some of those messages permanently — and without the sender knowing.

Both apps will alert the sender if the recipient takes a screengrab of whatever was sent, of course, but by connecting your phone to a PC or Mac, the messages can be secretly offloaded without the sender knowing — a possibility first reported by BuzzFeed. For an iPhone, all you’ll need is a third-party file manager like iExplorer.

[More from Mashable: Facebook in 2013: More Growing Pains Ahead]

For Poke, only videos can be permanently stored in this manner, and only videos that you haven’t already viewed. But it’s very easy. Once you’ve installed your file manager, connect your iPhone and you should see a list of your apps. Select the Poke folder, then navigate to Library>Caches>FBStore>315_14_>MediaCache. There you should see every Poke video that you haven’t yet watched. (See screencap below.)

[More from Mashable: NYC Releases App to Tell You When the Next Subway Is Coming]

From there, all you need to do is drag and drop the files to any other folder on your computer to copy and store them. After that, you can open the file in Poke, let it self-destruct, and the sender will be none the wiser.

Although permanent storage only works for videos in Poke, performing similar steps for Snapchat will let you save both videos and photos.

While it’s a bit surprising that it’s so easy to save messages that are ostensibly deleted permanently, it may be a stretch to characterize this file caching as a “vulnerability” of the apps, which are generally intended for casual use. Facebook‘s official statement on the matter appears to take this stance:

“Poke is a fun and easy way to communicate with your friends and is not designed to be a secure messaging system. While Pokes disappear after they are read, there are still ways that people can potentially save them. For example, you could take a screenshot of a photo, in which case the sender is notified. People could also take a photo of a photo you sent them, or a video of a video, with another camera. Because of this, people should think about what they are sending and share responsibly.”

What do you think of the potential for someone to save a Facebook Poke or Snapchat message? Let us know in the comments.

Top image courtesy of iStockphoto, JimmyAnderson

Facebook Poke: Startup Screen

Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

___

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

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Memphis Aims to Be a Friendlier Place for Cyclists

Lance Murphey for The New York Times

The Shelby Farms Greenline, which replaced a Memphis rail line.

MEMPHIS — John Jordan, a 64-year-old condo appraiser here, has been pedaling his cruiser bicycle around town nearly every day, tooling about at lunchtime or zipping to downtown appointments.

“It’s my cholesterol-lowering device,” said Mr. Jordan, clad in a leather vest and wearing a bright white beard. “The problem is, the city needs to educate motorists to not run over” the bicyclists.

Bike-friendly behavior has never come naturally to Memphis, which has long been among the country’s most perilous places for cyclists. In recent years, though, riders have taken to the streets like never before, spurred by a mayor who has worked to change the way residents think about commuting.

Mayor A. C. Wharton Jr., elected in 2009, assumed office a year after Bicycling magazine named Memphis one of the worst cities in America for cyclists, not the first time the city had received such a biking dishonor. But Mr. Wharton spied an opportunity.

In 2008, Memphis had a mile and a half of bike lanes. There are now about 50 miles of dedicated lanes, and about 160 miles when trails and shared roads are included. The bulk of the nearly $1 million investment came from stimulus money and other federal sources, and Shelby County, which includes Memphis, was recently awarded an additional $4.7 million for bike projects.

In June, federal officials awarded Memphis $15 million to turn part of the steel truss Harahan Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River, into a bike and pedestrian crossing. Scheduled to open in about two years, the $30 million project will link downtown Memphis with West Memphis, Ark.

“We need to make biking part of our DNA,” Mr. Wharton said. “I’m trying to build a city for the people who will be running it 5, 10, 15 years from now. And in a region known to some for rigid thinking, the receptivity has been remarkable.”

City planners are using bike lanes as an economic development tool, setting the stage for new stores and enhanced urban vibrancy, said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bike-pedestrian coordinator, a position the mayor created.

“The cycling advocates have been vocal the past 10 years, but nothing ever happened,” Mr. Wagenschutz said. “It took a change of political will to catalyze the movement.”

Memphis, with a population of 650,000, is often cited among the unhealthiest, most crime-ridden and most auto-centric cities in the country. Investments in bicycling are being viewed here as a way to promote healthy habits, community bonds and greater environmental stewardship.

But as city leaders struggle with a sprawling landscape — Memphis covers about the same amount of land as Dallas, yet has half the population — their persistence has run up against another bedeviling factor: merchants and others who are disgruntled about the lanes.

A clash between merchants and bike advocates flared last year after the mayor announced new bike lanes on Madison Avenue, a commercial artery, that would remove two traffic lanes. Many merchants, like Eric Vernon, who runs the Bar-B-Q Shop, feared that removing car lanes would hurt businesses and cause parking confusion. Mr. Vernon said that sales had not fallen significantly since the bike lanes were installed, but that he thought merchants were left out of the process.

On McLean Boulevard, a narrow residential strip where roadside parking was replaced by bike paths, homeowners cried foul. The city reached a compromise with residents in which parking was outlawed during the day but permitted at night, when fewer cyclists were out. Mr. Wagenschutz called the nocturnal arrangement a “Cinderella lane.”

Some residents, however, were not mollified. “I’m not against bike lanes, but we’re isolated because there’s no place to park,” said Carey Potter, 53, a longtime resident who started a petition to reinstate full-time parking.

The changes have been panned by some members of the City Council. Councilman Jim Strickland went as far as to say that the bike signs that dot the streets add “to the blight of our city.”

Tensions aside, the mayor’s office says that the potential economic ripple effect of bike lanes is proof that they are a sound investment.

A study in 2011 by the University of Massachusetts found that building bike lanes created more jobs — about 11 per $1 million spent — than any other type of road project. Several bike shops here have expanded to accommodate new cyclists, including Midtown Bike Company, which recently moved to a location three times the size of its former one. “The new lanes have been great for business,” said the manager, Daniel Duckworth.

Wanda Rushing, a professor at the University of Memphis and an expert on urban change in the South, said bike improvements were of a piece with a development model sweeping the region: bolstering transportation infrastructure and population density in the inner city.

“Memphis is not alone in acknowledging that sprawl is not sustainable,” Dr. Rushing said. “Economic necessity is a pretty good melding substance.”

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The middle class languishes as the super-rich thrive

The good news for the U.S. economy as we enter 2013 is that the election's over. The bad news is that the election's over.

What's good about it is that both parties in Washington can shed their preoccupation with the campaign theatrics that dominated our long national voyage from pre-primary jockeying through election day.

Yet the most dispiriting thing about the campaign's end is that the economic challenges facing the majority of Americans remain unaddressed. As these words are being written, the end-of-year deficit debate in Washington remains largely unresolved.

UC Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong observed last week that we're not heading toward the fiscal cliff so much as waiting for the "austerity bomb" to detonate. The lighted fuse on that bomb, he computed, has already cut likely growth in real gross domestic product for 2013 to 2.5% from 3%.

The policy positions on both sides presage smaller government, which is not the right prescription for an economy still struggling to recover. There will be lower federal spending at a time when the government participation in the economy is still crucial; there will be less take-home pay for the middle class and the working class, who pump almost everything they have into the marketplace.

The disagreement in Washington is no longer whether to cut, but where and by how much; and whether the seemingly inevitable end of the payroll tax holiday for working men and women will be balanced by continuation of their reduced income tax rates.

Notwithstanding the election results, the course of negotiations in Washington suggests that in 2013, the Americans taking it on the chin will be people defined by Mitt Romney as the 47% who refuse to "take personal responsibility … for their lives," but who are defined by more thoughtful observers of the American masses as seniors, veterans, disabled persons and the unemployed or underemployed. The progressive principles defended by President Obama on the stump, such as the sanctity of benefits promised the elderly and infirm, will be put on the table as bargaining chips to purchase modestly higher tax rates for the wealthy.

Meanwhile, the corporate CEOs who are marching on Washington under the banner of "fixthedebt.org," a product of the think tank network of Wall Street billionaire Peter G. Peterson, will continue to insist that the deficit be cut by almost any means, except raising tax rates on themselves. (Among the suggestions from fixthedebt's parent organization for a "downpayment" on tax reform: "eliminating preferences for corporate jets and second homes." Talk about shared sacrifice!)

One year ago, I wrote in this very space that candidates on both sides of the partisan divide were poised to make the economic plight of the middle class the "centerpiece of their campaigns in the coming year."

That prediction proved true. The middle-class economy was the "centerpiece." And it got the same attention from the candidates as the floral decoration at a banquet table does from the guests, who praise its elegance then grumble that it blocks their reach for the butter dish. The terms "middle class" and "middle income" were uttered by Obama or candidate Romney 63 times in their three debates, and by Vice President Joe Biden and his GOP challenger Paul Ryan an additional 33 times in theirs.

Yet the election has yielded no sign of a remedy for the middle-class malady. The sickness is made up in equal parts of snail's-pace job growth in the private sector; wholesale cutbacks of teaching jobs and other middle-class positions in the public sector; growing income inequality that narrows the economic base for all; a continuing overhang of excessive mortgage debt for homeowners; and a sharp deterioration in retirement security.

If anything, the end-of-year deficit debate points toward the exacerbation of every one of those factors.

It's proper to point out (for the umpteenth time) that spreading the fruits of economic growth as broadly as possible is an indispensable fuel for more economic growth. Concentrating wealth in a small segment of the population undermines growth; that's one reason the U.S. economy weakened markedly through the 1920s and why overall income growth in the present day has been lagging while corporate profits are soaring.

Those contradictory conditions can't persist together for long. But as the Congressional Budget Office reported last year, average after-tax household income for the top 1% of Americans nearly tripled from 1979 to 2007, while income for the middle 60% in the income range grew only 40%. Consequently, the share of income collected by the top 20% of Americans rose to nearly 60% from 50% in that period, while the share of every other income group fell.

The 2008 recession moderated that trend somewhat, but it has resumed since then with a vengeance. In 2009 and 2010, according to studies by Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley, the average real income per family rose 2.3% — but that of the top 1% grew 11.6%. That means that 93% of the income gains in the post-recession period went to the top 1%.

What policies are on the horizon in Washington or our 50 statehouses to reverse this trend, corrosive as it is to the social fabric and the economy at large?

Assistance for state and local governments to avert further layoffs? That would be seen in Congress as excessive spending and a path to the "fiscal cliff." Aggressive protection of employees' collective-bargaining rights to preserve middle-class incomes in the labor pool? Ask Republicans in Michigan, who exploited a solid lame-duck legislative majority to ram through a state anti-union measure in the session's final days.

Obama spoke out against the Michigan legislation before its passage, but his administration has not exactly been a beacon for workers' rights at the federal level.

Even more disturbing is Obama's apparent willingness to place retiree security on the bargaining table over the federal deficit. His last pre-Christmas offer to the GOP included a dismaying proposal to tie annual Social Security cost-of-living increases to an inflation measure known as the "chained CPI."

This index consistently runs lower than the conventional CPI by an average of about three-tenths of a percentage point per year. That means that by the time the average retiree would reach age 85, his or her benefit would be lower by about $1,000 than it would be under the current CPI; by 95, the shortfall would be nearly $1,400. In other words, it's a change that hits the neediest and the oldest retirees most severely.

Yet this stealth benefit cut may well be implemented this year without a commensurate increase in revenue for Social Security, say by an increase in the cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax that funds the program, which will be $113,700 this year.

Have any of the parties so concerned about the Social Security benefits of America's seniors put forth proposals to shore up the other pillars of retirement income — employer-funded pensions and personal savings — eaten away by corporate policies and the slipshod regulation of investment markets that led to the 2008 crash? (Don't everyone answer at once.)

The lesson that 2012 bears for 2013 is that as the "fiscal cliff" facing the middle class has drawn ever closer, the solutions proposed have become ever more irrelevant to the problems at hand and more protective of the economic segment that needs the least protection.

One year ago, there was reason for hope that such fundamental disconnects between problem and solution would at least be aired in a presidential campaign. Today, there's reason for despair that they'll even be recognized by the people in whom we entrust our economic future.

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, read past columns at latimes.com/hiltzik, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

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Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf dies at 78

Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who presided over the swift and devastating 1991 military assault on Iraq that transformed the Middle East and reminded America what it was like to win a war, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 78.

The former four-star general, whose burly image towering in camouflage fatigues above his troops came to define both Operation Desert Storm and the nation's renewed sense of military pride, had been living in relatively quiet retirement in Tampa, Fla., eschewing the political battles that continued to broil over a part of the world he had left as a conqueror.

"We've lost an American original," the White House said in a statement. "Gen. Schwarzkopf stood tall for the country and Army he loved. Our prayers are with the Schwarzkopf family, who tonight can know that his legacy will endure in a nation that is more secure because of his patriotic service."

Former President George H.W. Bush, hospitalized himself with an illness in Texas, called Schwarzkopf "a true American patriot and one of the great military leaders of his generation."

Schwarzkopf, often called "Stormin' Norman" for his legendary temper, was best known for commanding a 765,000-strong force of allied international troops that drove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait six months after they'd overrun the tiny Gulf oil sheikdom, terrorized its citizens and taken over its oil fields.

It was an operation fraught with peril: Iraq had the fourth-largest Army in the world; it was equipped with a large arsenal of Soviet-supplied weaponry; it had dispatched its elite Republican Guard forces into key defensive positions; and the Iraqi president warned he had fortified the borders with moats of oil that could be set afire and turned into deathtraps for any U.S. forces that dared to venture across.

But Schwarzkopf, with an eerie degree of prescience, had rehearsed a battle with Iraq only days before the country's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and began putting it into place, convincing the leadership in Washington that the war could be won with a combination of forceful American air power and an overwhelming array of troops on the ground.

In the end, after weeks of pounding by American bombers and missiles, the ground war was over in just 100 hours, with U.S. battle casualties limited to 147 dead and 467 wounded.

On the decision of then-President Bush and Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Schwarzkopf agreed to end the war short of demolishing the Republican Guard and taking down Saddam Hussein — a decision that would dog him for the rest of his life, especially as the U.S. went to war once again against Iraq in 2003.

To the end, Schwarzkopf insisted he had accepted the decision as the right one, even if he had not embraced it with enthusiasm — continuing to inflict carnage on retreating Iraqi forces for another day would have done little to upset the balance of power in the region and might have risked more American casualties, he said.

Likewise, he rejected criticism that the halt in combat had pulled the rug from underneath nascent rebellions by Iraqi Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north, leaving them vulnerable and exposed to slaughter once U.S. forces went home.

The Kurds had been battling the Iraqi regime for years, and would continue to do so, he said. "Yes, we are disappointed that that has happened. But it does not affect the accomplishment of our mission one way or another," he said at a news conference after the war.

The 6-foot, 3-inch general came home to a hero's welcome, appearing at a ticker-tape parade up Broadway, the Pegasus Parade at the Kentucky Derby in Louisville and an unusual joint session of Congress, where he received a standing ovation. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II awarded him a knighthood.

"In the defeat of Saddam's forces, he vanquished the scars on the American psyche over Vietnam," said Frank Wuco, a former senior naval intelligence officer who helped draft battle plans during Desert Storm. "He showed the Americans, primarily the American military, what victory felt like again."

In a 1992 autobiography written with Peter Petre, Schwarzkopf downplayed the notion of personal valor and resurrected something he'd said earlier to journalist Barbara Walters: "It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle."

Schwarzkopf was born Aug. 22, 1934, in Trenton, N.J. By graduating from the West Point military academy in 1956, he followed in the footsteps of his father, a general who served in both world wars and went on to found the New Jersey State Police, which investigated the kidnapping of the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh.

Schwarzkopf went on to earn a master's degree in engineering from USC and taught missile engineering at West Point before volunteering in 1966 to serve in Vietnam — a conflict he called a "cesspool," in which he said military commanders were more interested in promoting their careers than in winning the war.

But Schwarzkopf went on to earn kudos from his own troops, at one point landing by helicopter in a minefield to rescue men trapped there. He was wounded twice and won three Silver Stars for bravery.

He commanded ground troops in the invasion of Grenada in 1983 and in 1988 took over U.S. Central Command, overseeing a staff of 700 at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa. There, he quickly discarded the old playbooks that said the Soviet Union was the biggest threat to American interests in the Middle East. He turned his sights instead on Iraq.

Headquartered in the Saudi capital of Riyadh during the buildup to Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf had a double-barreled shotgun in the corner, and in his spare living quarters, a Bible and an edition of World War II German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's "Infantry Attack."

He often said he wished for more patience but sometimes bristled at the notion he had a bad temper.

"An awful lot has been written about my temper. But I would defy anyone to go back over the years and tell me anyone whose career I've ruined, anyone whom I've driven out of the service, anyone I've fired from a job," he said. "I don't do that. I get angry at a principle, not a person."

He is survived by his wife, Brenda; two daughters, Cynthia and Jessica; a son, Christian; a grandson; and sisters Ruth Barenbaum and Sally Schwarzkopf.

kim.murphy@latimes.com

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