Kutcher takes on tech idol Steve Jobs in ‘jOBS’

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Ashton Kutcher says playing Steve Jobs on screen “was honestly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever tried to do in my life.”

The 34-year-old actor helped premiere the biopic “jOBS” Friday, which was the closing-night film at the Sundance Film Festival.

Kutcher plays the Apple Inc. founder from the company’s humble origins in the 1970s until the launch of the first iPod in 2001. A digital entrepreneur himself, Kutcher said he considers Jobs a personal hero.

“He’s a guy who failed and got back on the horse,” Kutcher said. “I think we can all sort of relate to that at some point in life.”

Kutcher even embodied the Jobs character as he pursued his own high-tech interests off-screen.

“What was nice was when I was preparing for the character, I could still work on product development for technology companies, and I would sort of stay in character, in the mode of the character,” he said. “But I didn’t feel like I was compromising the work on the film by working on technology stuff because it was pretty much in the same field.”

But playing the real-life tech icon who died in 2011 still felt risky, he said, because “he’s fresh in our minds.”

“It was kind of like throwing myself into this gauntlet of, I know, massive amounts of criticism because somebody’s going to go ‘well, it wasn’t exactly…,’” Kutcher said.

While the filmmakers say they tried to be as historically accurate as possible, there was also a disclaimer at the very end of the credits that said portions of the film might not be completely accurate.

Still, realism was always the focus for Kutcher, who watched “hundreds of hours of footage,” listened to Jobs’ past speeches and interviewed several of his friends to prepare for the role.

The actor even adopted the entrepreneur’s “fruitarian diet,” which he said “can lead to some serious issues.”

“I ended up in the hospital two days before we started shooting the movie,” he said. “I was like doubled over in pain, and my pancreas levels were completely out of whack, which was completely terrifying, considering everything.”

Jobs died of complications from pancreatic cancer.

Still, Kutcher was up to the challenge of playing Jobs, in part because of his admiration for the man who created the Macintosh computer and the iPod.

“I admire this man so much and what he’s done. I admire the way he built things,” Kutcher said. “This guy created a tool that we use every day in our life, and he believed in it when nobody else did.”

The film also shows Jobs’ less appealing side, withholding stock options from some of the company’s original employees and denying child support to the mother of his eldest child.

Kutcher still found the man inspiring. Jobs had a singular focus, Kutcher said, and felt like anyone could change the world.

“I don’t know if there’s ever been an entrepreneur who’s had more compassion and care for his consumer than Steve Jobs,” Kutcher said. “He wanted to put something in your hand that you could use and you could use it easily… and he really cared about that.”

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Kutcher takes on tech idol Steve Jobs in ‘jOBS’
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/kutcher-takes-on-tech-idol-steve-jobs-in-jobs/
Link To Post : Kutcher takes on tech idol Steve Jobs in ‘jOBS’
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Religious Groups and Employers Battle Contraception Mandate

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

President Obama, with his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, offering a compromise on the contraception mandate last year.

In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom and health care access that appears headed to the Supreme Court.

In recent months, federal courts have seen dozens of lawsuits brought not only by religious institutions like Catholic dioceses but also by private employers ranging from a pizza mogul to produce transporters who say the government is forcing them to violate core tenets of their faith. Some have been turned away by judges convinced that access to contraception is a vital health need and a compelling state interest. Others have been told that their beliefs appear to outweigh any state interest and that they may hold off complying with the law until their cases have been judged. New suits are filed nearly weekly.

“This is highly likely to end up at the Supreme Court,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the country’s top scholars on church-state conflicts. “There are so many cases, and we are already getting strong disagreements among the circuit courts.”

President Obama’s health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, was the most fought-over piece of legislation in his first term and was the focus of a highly contentious Supreme Court decision last year that found it to be constitutional.

But a provision requiring the full coverage of contraception remains a matter of fierce controversy. The law says that companies must fully cover all “contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures” approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including “morning-after pills” and intrauterine devices whose effects some contend are akin to abortion.

As applied by the Health and Human Services Department, the law offers an exemption for “religious employers,” meaning those who meet a four-part test: that their purpose is to inculcate religious values, that they primarily employ and serve people who share their religious tenets, and that they are nonprofit groups under federal tax law.

But many institutions, including religious schools and colleges, do not meet those criteria because they employ and teach members of other religions and have a broader purpose than inculcating religious values.

“We represent a Catholic college founded by Benedictine monks,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has brought a number of the cases to court. “They don’t qualify as a house of worship and don’t turn away people in hiring or as students because they are not Catholic.”

In that case, involving Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, a federal appeals court panel in Washington told the college last month that it could hold off on complying with the law while the federal government works on a promised exemption for religiously-affiliated institutions. The court told the government that it wanted an update by mid-February.

Defenders of the provision say employers may not be permitted to impose their views on employees, especially when something so central as health care is concerned.

“Ninety-nine percent of women use contraceptives at some time in their lives,” said Judy Waxman, a vice president of the National Women’s Law Center, which filed a brief supporting the government in one of the cases. “There is a strong and legitimate government interest because it affects the health of women and babies.”

She added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Contraception was declared by the C.D.C. to be one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”

Officials at the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department declined to comment, saying the cases were pending.

A compromise for religious institutions may be worked out. The government hopes that by placing the burden on insurance companies rather than on the organizations, the objections will be overcome. Even more challenging cases involve private companies run by people who reject all or many forms of contraception.

The Alliance Defending Freedom — like Becket, a conservative group — has brought a case on behalf of Hercules Industries, a company in Denver that makes sheet metal products. It was granted an injunction by a judge in Colorado who said the religious values of the family owners were infringed by the law.

“Two-thirds of the cases have had injunctions against Obamacare, and most are headed to courts of appeals,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the alliance. “It is clear that a substantial number of these cases will vindicate religious freedom over Obamacare. But it seems likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the dispute.”

The timing of these cases remains in flux. Half a dozen will probably be argued by this summer, perhaps in time for inclusion on the Supreme Court’s docket next term. So far, two- and three-judge panels on four federal appeals courts have weighed in, granting some injunctions while denying others.

One of the biggest cases involves Hobby Lobby, which started as a picture framing shop in an Oklahoma City garage with $600 and is now one of the country’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states.

David Green, the company’s founder, is an evangelical Christian who says he runs his company on biblical principles, including closing on Sunday so employees can be with their families, paying nearly double the minimum wage and providing employees with comprehensive health insurance.

Mr. Green does not object to covering contraception but considers morning-after pills to be abortion-inducing and therefore wrong.

“Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Mr. Green said in a statement. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit last month turned down his family’s request for a preliminary injunction, but the company has found a legal way to delay compliance for some months.

Read More..

7 Die in Fire At Factory In Bangladesh

A.M. Ahad/Associated Press

Firefighters and volunteers worked to extinguish the fire at a small garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday.

DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the latest blow to Bangladesh’s garment industry, seven workers died Saturday after a fire swept through a factory here not long after seamstresses had returned from a lunch break. Workers said supervisors had locked one of the factory exits, forcing some people to jump out of windows to save their lives.

Abir Abdullah/European Pressphoto Agency

Relatives mourned beside the bodies of workers killed in the fire at a hospital in Dhaka.

Reuters

People sifted through the wreckage at the Smart Fashions factory.

The fatal fire comes roughly two months after the blaze at the Tazreen Fashions factory left 112 workers dead and focused global attention on unsafe conditions in Bangladesh’s garment industry. Tazreen Fashions, located just outside Dhaka, the capital, had been making clothing for some of the world’s biggest brands and retailers, including Walmart.

In the aftermath of the Tazreen Fashions fire, political and industrial leaders in Bangladesh pledged to quickly improve fire safety and even conducted high-profile, nationwide inspections of many of the country’s 5,000 clothing factories. And global brands promised they would not buy clothes from unsafe factories.

But Saturday’s fire in a densely populated section of Dhaka is a grim reminder that the problems remain. The blaze erupted about 2 p.m. at Smart Garment Export, a small factory that employed about 300 people, most of them young women who were making sweaters and jackets. All seven of the dead workers were women.

Masudur Rahman Akand, a supervisor in the fire department, said the factory’s workers were returning from lunch when the blaze erupted in a storage area. The factory was located on the second floor of a building, above a bakery, and it lacked proper exits and fire prevention equipment, Mr. Akand said.

“We did not find fire extinguishers,” he said. “We did not find any safety measures.”

With smoke filling the factory floor, workers apparently panicked. Mr. Akand said the seven workers who died either suffocated or were trampled by people trying to escape.

Eight other workers were hospitalized with injuries. Some of them told rescuers that many people could not quickly escape because one of the exits was blocked by a locked steel gate. Witnesses said people began jumping out of windows before the gate was unlocked.

Azizul Hoque, a police supervisor, said the investigation was continuing. “We do not know the reason or the source or the origin of the fire,” he said.

It was unclear whether the Smart Garment factory was making clothing for international brands or retailers. Dhaka’s industrial areas are filled with factories, large and small, that produce clothing for much of the Western world.

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi.

Read More..

St. John's in court fight over failed nurse recruitment effort

Short of hospital nurses in recent years, St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica hired a recruiter in England and flew one of its top executives to London to interview job candidates.

The recruiter's firm, Stateside Nursing, found 105 nurses and the hospital paid the company nearly $700,000 in recruiting fees and for providing "acculturation services" to help the foreigners adjust to life in Southern California.

Despite all those payments, none of the nurses ever arrived in Santa Monica.

Now the hospital is pursuing a court fight over this costly failure, saying it was the victim of fraud, bribery and unfair business practices. But the legal battle may also yield unflattering details about the inner workings of one of the area's best-known hospitals, which recently saw a high-profile management shake-up.

In the case headed to trial next month, St. John's accuses the recruiter, Lisa Taylor, of paying about $128,000 in bribes to Victor Melendez, the hospital's former vice president of human resources. The hospital is suing the pair in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Both Melendez, through his lawyer, and Taylor deny the allegations, and they say the payments to Melendez were not bribes. He was paid for previous recruiting work unrelated to the hospital contracts, they said. Taylor says changes in U.S. immigration rules prevented the nurses from coming to work.

There's no indication that this nurse-recruitment saga prompted the recent dismissals of St. John's former chief executive, Lou Lazatin, and her chief operating officer, Eleanor Ramirez, by the hospital's owner, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System in Denver. In November, the Catholic nonprofit escorted Lazatin and Ramirez off the hospital premises one morning and fired 15 of the hospital's 17 board members by email.

Taylor wants the two former executives to testify in this case and explain their departure. "We want to know why they aren't there anymore," she said. "It goes to their credibility." Neither Lazatin nor Ramirez could be reached for comment.

Michael Slubowski, chief executive of the Sisters of Charity, has declined to comment on the specific reasons for the St. John's dismissals, and he said the hospital "doesn't publicly discuss legal matters."

There have been discussions in recent months about selling the 266-bed hospital, which has tended to celebrities and politicians over the years. St. John's reported a loss of $13 million for 2011, the latest state data show, and patient revenue slipped 8% to $891 million.

The nursing shortage at St. John's was a common problem for many hospitals across California.

In 2006, Melendez, the hospital's newly hired human resources executive, set out to remedy that problem. He recommended three recruiting firms to the hospital, including Taylor's Stateside Nursing, according to his lawyer, Vincent S. Ammirato. In a contract that year, St. John's agreed to pay Stateside an $8,000 recruitment fee for each nurse it found.

The hospital sent Melendez to London, where he and Taylor interviewed dozens of nurses and 52 of them accepted job offers, according to the hospital's lawsuit. Stateside billed Saint John's for about $200,000 in initial fees.

Stateside then offered to provide "acculturation services" for the 52 nurses at $2,000 per nurse to help them acclimate to life in the U.S. because many were originally from the Philippines, India and other countries. In court filings, the hospital contends that Melendez didn't have the authority to approve those additional expenses because they weren't included in the contract. Rather, the hospital said, those payments were just a way for Taylor to pocket extra money for the alleged bribes.

By August 2007, even though no nurses had arrived, St. John's agreed to pay Stateside even more. The hospital boosted Stateside's recruitment fee to $13,000 per nurse from $8,000 earlier.

The hospital says Melendez wasn't authorized to sign the new contract. Ammirato, Melendez's lawyer, said that his client did not act alone and that Melendez's boss, the former chief operating officer, was involved in negotiating Stateside's agreements and approving its invoices.

In mid-2007, Melendez left St. John's for another job, so the hospital sent other human resource officials to London to interview nurses. Stateside found 53 more nurses and it billed for additional fees. Overall, according to court documents, the hospital paid Stateside $669,550 in upfront fees in 2007 and 2008.

St. John's said it became suspicious later in 2008 when Stateside's director of sales sent a letter to the hospital alleging that the recruitment firm was overcharging St. John's and paying bribes to Melendez. Based on this tip, St. John's sought to recoup its money and subpoenaed Melendez's bank records.

Stateside wired Melendez $51,843 in February 2007 and sent him an additional $51,943 the next month, according to the hospital's lawsuit. Those wire transfers took place shortly after Melendez authorized two payments of $52,000 apiece to Stateside. Later in 2007, Taylor wrote him another check, for $25,000. Taylor and Melendez don't dispute those payments.

In October 2010, an arbitrator found that Stateside engaged in "unlawful and fraudulent business practices" by paying Melendez to gain improper advantages in its contracts. The arbitrator awarded the hospital $1 million in damages, interest and legal fees.

Stateside went through liquidation in England, Taylor said, and she couldn't defend herself at the arbitration hearing. The hospital hasn't collected any portion of the arbitration award since her company shut down.

Taylor said she had satisfied her obligations by finding the nurses and getting them licensed to work at St. John's. The U.S. had adopted a policy in 2006 that made it more difficult for some foreign nurses to obtain work visas. St. John's said in its suit that Taylor misrepresented that she could handle those immigration issues.

"We got the nurses as far as we could get them when the U.S. government ran out of visa numbers," said Taylor, 47, who now lives in Colorado. "I'm looking forward to telling my story at trial."

chad.terhune@latimes.com

Read More..

Spanish newspaper sorry for “false photo” of Venezuela’s Chavez

MADRID/CARACAS (Reuters) – Spain‘s influential El Pais newspaper apologized on Thursday for splashing a “false photo” of Venezuela‘s cancer-stricken leader Hugo Chavez on its front page, prompting a furious response from the government in Caracas, which vowed to take legal action.

Within minutes of posting the image online as a global exclusive, El Pais said it had discovered from social media that the photo was not of Chavez. It removed it from its website and withdrew its print edition.

Venezuela’s government said the publication of the photo – which showed the head of a man lying down with a breathing tube in his mouth – was “grotesque,” while Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez, a close ally of Chavez, called it vile.

“El Pais apologizes to its readers for the damage caused. The newspaper has opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of what happened and the errors that were committed in the verification of the photo,” the paper said.

Chavez, 58, is fighting to recover in Cuba after undergoing his fourth cancer operation in just 18 months. He has not spoken or appeared in public for six weeks, fuelling speculation about how serious his condition is.

El Pais, one of the world’s biggest Spanish-language publications and an institution both in Spain and in Latin America, said it received the grainy image from the agency Gtres Online, which it said represents 60 other agencies in Spain.

In a statement, El Pais said the newspaper was told it had been taken seven days earlier by a Cuban nurse who was part of Chavez’s medical team, and was then sent to the nurse’s sister, who lives in Spain.

“The agency has acknowledged it was deceived by those who provided the material and will take legal action,” El Pais said.

The photo was on the newspaper’s website for half an hour and also appeared in early editions of the print version that were then pulled from newsstands and replaced with a new edition with a different front page.

In Venezuela, anxious Chavez supporters and opponents alike are waiting for any new picture, video or audio message from the socialist leader, who is famed for filling the airwaves with long-winded speeches, jokes and withering jabs at his foes.

NO SIGHT OF CHAVEZ

Officials say his condition is improving after he suffered multiple complications, including unexpected bleeding and a severe respiratory problem following the December 11 surgery.

But, in contrast to Chavez’s previous visits to Havana, officials have not published any evidence of his condition. In 2011, with great fanfare, they broadcast video footage of him reading a newspaper, walking in a garden, and chatting with his friend and mentor, Cuba’s ex-leader Fidel Castro.

In the absence of such proof this time, many Venezuelans are questioning the terse official bulletins and suspect Chavez’s extraordinary 14 years in power could be coming to an end.

The president has never said exactly what type of cancer he has, only that the initial tumor found in mid-2011 was in his pelvic area and was the size of a baseball.

Venezuelan opposition leaders have long accused the government of secrecy over his illness, while supporters accuse “bourgeois” local and foreign media of being in league with the opposition to spread rumors he is at death’s door.

The handling of information relating to Chavez’s health has become as contentious as the man himself, and his administration’s updates have been confusing and contradictory.

The government says it has never been more transparent. It described El Pais’s publication of the picture – a screengrab from an unrelated 2008 video – as part of efforts by far-right political forces to attack Chavez’s self-styled revolution.

It said it would take appropriate legal action, and that the newspaper’s apology to its readers was not enough.

“Neither their disgusting photos nor their systematic campaigns will stop the president’s advance,” Information Minister Ernesto Villegas told a news conference in Caracas.

“Would El Pais publish a similar photo of a European leader? Of its director? Sensationalism is valid if the victim is a revolutionary ‘sudaca’,” he added, using a pejorative term that is sometimes used in Spain to refer to Latin Americans.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

(This story was refiled to correct the spelling of Venezuela in the headline)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Spanish newspaper sorry for “false photo” of Venezuela’s Chavez
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/spanish-newspaper-sorry-for-false-photo-of-venezuelas-chavez/
Link To Post : Spanish newspaper sorry for “false photo” of Venezuela’s Chavez
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Brooke Shields signs up for a hitch on Lifetime’s “Army Wives”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Brooke Shields has signed up for the Air Force – or at least the Air Force as it’s portrayed on “Army Wives.”

“Pretty Baby” star Shields will join the cast of the Lifetime series for its seventh season, the network said Thursday.

Shields will play Katherine “Kat” Young, a brash, brilliant Air Force colonel and crack C-17 pilot who clashes with Gen. Michael Holden (Brian McNamara) shortly after arriving at Joint Base Marshall Bring.

But after Young and Holden’s Air Force-Army rivalry gets underway, Holden discovers that Young has a tragic past — and more in common with him than he first thought.

The ABC Studios-produced “Army Wives” returns for its seventh season March 10 at 9 p.m. with a drastically revamped cast. In addition to Shields, singer/actress Ashanti, Torrey DeVitto of “Pretty Little Liars,” Bring It On” alum Elle McLemore and singer Jesse McCartney have joined the cast. Meanwhile, Kim Delaney has departed the series, and former series regular Sally Pressman will only appear “in several episodes” of the new 13-episode season.

“We’re all very excited about season seven, in which a new tribe emerges from the shadow of tragedy,” executive producer Jeff Melvoin said of the upcoming season on Wednesday.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Brooke Shields signs up for a hitch on Lifetime’s “Army Wives”
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/brooke-shields-signs-up-for-a-hitch-on-lifetimes-army-wives/
Link To Post : Brooke Shields signs up for a hitch on Lifetime’s “Army Wives”
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Pro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday.

WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday for the annual March for Life rally, which culminated in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building.

On a gray morning when the temperature was well below freezing, the crowd pressed in close against the stage to hear more than a dozen speakers, who included Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who recently introduced legislation to withhold financing from Planned Parenthood, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston; and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania and Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Santorum spoke of his wife’s decision not to have an abortion after they learned that their child — their daughter Bella, now 4 — had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18.

“We all know that death is never better, never better,” Mr. Santorum said. “Bella is better for us, and we are better because of Bella.”

Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said that the march was both somber and hopeful.

“We’ve lost 55 million Americans to abortion,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re starting to win. We’re winning in the court of public opinion, we’re winning in the states with legislation.”

Though the main event officially started at noon, the day began much earlier for the participants, with groups in matching scarves engaged in excited chatter on the subway and gaggles of schoolchildren wearing name tags around their necks. Arriving on the Mall, attendees were greeted with free signs (“Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Personhood for Everyone”) and a man barking into a megaphone, “Ireland is on the brink of legalizing abortion, which is not good.”

The march came two months after the 2012 campaign season, in which social issues like abortion largely took a back seat to the focus on the economy. But the issue did come up in Congressional races in which Republican candidates made controversial statements about rape or abortion. In Indiana, Richard E. Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the Senate, said in a debate that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were something that “God intended,” and in Illinois, Representative Joe Walsh said in a debate that abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother because of “advances in science and technology.” Both men lost, hurt by a backlash from female voters.

Recent polls show that while a majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned entirely, many favor some restrictions. In a Gallup poll released this week, 52 percent of those surveyed said that abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances, while 28 percent said they should be legal under all circumstances, and 18 percent said they should be illegal under all circumstances. In a Pew poll this month, 63 percent of respondents said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned completely, and 29 percent said they did — views largely consistent with surveys taken over the past two decades.

“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”

“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.

The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”

Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.

Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America started a new Web site, and on Tuesday, its president, Cecile Richards, released a statement supporting abortion rights.

“Planned Parenthood understands that abortion is a deeply personal and often complex decision for a woman to consider, if and when she needs it,” she said. “A woman should have accurate information about all of her options around her pregnancy. To protect her health and the health of her family, a woman must have access to safe, legal abortion without interference from politicians, as protected by the Supreme Court for the last 40 years.”

Read More..

Johnson & Johnson Hid Flaw in Artificial Hip, Documents Show

Johnson & Johnson executives knew years before they recalled a troubled artificial hip in 2010 that it had a critical design flaw, but the company concealed that information from physicians and patients, according to internal company documents disclosed Friday during a trial over the device’s failure.

The medical device giant had received complaints from doctors about the device, the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R., even as it started marketing a version of it in 2005 in the United States. The A.S.R.’s flaw caused it to shed large quantities of metallic debris after implant and the model failed an internal 2007 test in which engineers compared its performance to another company hip implant, the documents show.

Still, executives of the company’s DePuy Orthaepedics unit kept selling the A.S.R. even as it was being abandoned by an increasing number of surgeons who were working as consultants to the company. DePuy executives discussed ways of fixing the defect but apparently never did so, the records suggest.

The documents were introduced Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court by plaintiffs’ lawyers during opening arguments in the first A.S.R.-related lawsuit to go to trial. The company faces more than 10,000 lawsuits in the United States in connection with the device. An estimated 93,000 patients worldwide received an A.S.R., about one-third of them in the United States.

For their part, DePuy executives insisted before the A.S.R.’s recall in mid-2010 that the implant was working well despite years of complaints from doctors that it was failing early. In late 2009, the company announced plans to phase out the model but said it was doing so because of slowing sales, not safety concerns.

In opening arguments, a lawyer for DePuy, Alexander Calfo, reiterated those positions, telling jurors that DePuy had acted ethically throughout the entire A.S.R. episode.

“The evidence will show that DePuy acted as an extremely responsible manufacturer,” Mr. Calfo said.

But a lawyer for Loren Kransky, the plaintiff in the case, painted a far different picture of DePuy’s behavior for jurors in his opening arguments.

The lawyer, Michael Kelly, also introduced a number of internal records which suggested that the concern of company executives for profits might have exceeded their worries about patients. For example, Mr. Kelly said, DePuy officials never told doctors that the A.S.R. had failed an internal performance test against another company hip.

“They did not report the data to American doctors,” said Mr. Kelly. “They changed the test and tested it against other things until they found one it could beat.”

The A.S.R. represents one of the biggest medical device failures in recent decades. According to DePuy’s internal estimates, it will fail within five years in about 40 percent of patients who got one. That figure is eight times the failure rate of most orthopedic implants.

The A.S.R. belonged to a once-popular class of hip implants introduced about a decade ago as a way of trying to address problems associated with hips made from traditional materials like metal and plastic. But surgeons have largely abandoned them because their components can grind together, releasing metallic debris that damages a patient’s tissue and bone.

The A.S.R. was sold in two versions, one used in an alternative hip replacement called resurfacing and one used in standard hip replacement. Only the version used in standard replacements was sold in the United States.

In 2003, DePuy began selling the resurfacing version of the A.S.R. outside the United States in an effort to catch up with a competing device known as the Birmingham hip. But by 2005, some doctors began telling DePuy that the A.S.R. was failing quickly after implant and company consultants soon stopped using it, records show.

The problem, internal DePuy records indicate, was the design of the cup component that fit into a patient’s hip socket. The cup, which was used in both the resurfacing and standard versions of the A.S.R., had an inside groove against which a surgeon pressed a tool in order to implant the component.

Read More..

787 Dreamliner's safety systems failed, NTSB says

After investigating a fire that broke out on Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner passenger jet, the National Transportation Safety Board said that backup protections in the aircraft's lithium-ion batteries and electronics systems failed.

But the safety agency hasn't reached a conclusion on the cause of the fire that occurred in Boston on Jan. 7 and partly led to last week's grounding of Dreamliners worldwide that remains in effect.

Speaking to reporters Thursday from Washington, NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said the agency hadn't determined what happened, but she added that the redundant safety systems installed by Boeing did not work.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded the jet Jan. 16 after an emergency landing by All Nippon Airways in Japan because of a second fire believed to involve the plane's onboard lithium-ion batteries. Shortly after the FAA's decision, countries around the world prohibited the new plane from flying.

"These events should not happen," said the safety board's chairwoman. "As far as design of the aircraft, there are multiple systems to protect against a battery event like this. Those systems did not work as intended."

The decision on whether 787s should continue to be grounded in the U.S. belongs to the FAA. The independent safety board is responsible for collecting forensic evidence and conducting tests to determine what happened.

There is no timeline to when tests will be completed, but Hersman said the agency has "all hands on deck" looking into the problem. Investigators around the world are disassembling and scanning the batteries.

In its search for the exact cause of the fires, the NTSB has said it is looking for possible contaminants or manufacturing defects. The agency is also working with officials from Boeing, the FAA and the Navy, as well as investigators in France and Japan.

Japan, where the second fire occurred, is also where Boeing's lithium-ion batteries are made by Kyoto-based GS Yuasa Corp. The Japan Transport Safety Board, the country's version of the FAA, is heading up the investigation into All Nippon's emergency landing and reported fire.

So far, the NTSB's investigators in the Boston fire have found that overheating was caused by short circuits and "thermal runaway," a chain reaction in which heat spreads rapidly from cell to cell, Hersman said. "The significance of these events cannot be understated."

Boeing said in a statement that it is working with its airline customers and the regulatory agencies to get the matter resolved but that it is not permitted to comment directly on the ongoing investigations.

"The company has formed teams consisting of hundreds of engineering and technical experts who are working around the clock with the sole focus of resolving the issue and returning the 787 fleet to flight status," Boeing said. "The safety of passengers and crew members who fly aboard Boeing airplanes is our highest priority."

The 787's battery systems were called into question on Jan. 7 when a smoldering fire was discovered on the underbelly of the plane operated by Japan Airlines after the 183 passengers and 11 crew members had deplaned at the gate.

In the second incident, which involved All Nippon Airways, smoke was seen swirling from the right side of the cockpit after an emergency landing related to the plane's electrical systems. All 137 passengers and crew members were evacuated from the aircraft and slid down the 787's emergency slides. Video of the event was captured by an onboard passenger and has been broadcast worldwide.

No one has been reported hurt or injured. But the recent events have become a public relations nightmare for the Chicago company, which has long heralded the Dreamliner as a representation of 21st century air travel.

Boeing has taken 848 orders for 787s from airlines and aircraft leasing firms around the world. Depending on the version ordered, the price ranges from $206.8 million to $243.6 million per jet.

The company has delivered 50 787s to eight airlines worldwide. Six are owned by Chicago-based United Airlines — the only U.S. carrier that currently has 787s in its fleet.

In an earnings conference call on Thursday, United Continental Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Smisek defended the plane.

"History teaches us that all new aircraft types have issues, and the 787 is no different," Smisek said. "We continue to have confidence in the aircraft and in Boeing's ability to fix the issues, just as they have done on every other new aircraft model they've produced."

In trading Thursday, Boeing's stock closed up more than 1%, or $1.03, to 75.32. But the stock fell in after-hours trading, at one point dropping 30 cents, or 0.4%, to $75.02.

Problems are expected with any new plane — especially one as complicated and sophisticated as the 787. But the last time the FAA grounded a large commercial jet out of safety concerns was almost 34 years ago after a DC-10 crashed at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, killing all 271 aboard.

The 787, a twin-aisle aircraft that can seat 210 to 290 passengers, is the first large commercial jet with more than half its structure made of composite materials (carbon fibers meshed together with epoxy) rather than aluminum sheets. It's also the first large commercial aircraft that extensively uses electrically powered systems involving lithium-ion batteries.

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Read More..

Nintendo Reaches into Wii U Grab Bag, Pulls Out Some Vague, Some Fascinating Promises

It’s been a ho-hum 2013 for Nintendo’s Wii U so far: some carry-over posturing about scads of “launch window” titles, but less than a handful of games with bankable release dates. When I checked the hopper for January, February and March, I counted four, maybe five Wii U titles with firm dates, all of them least a month or two off.

That’s not how you move systems, and Nintendo ran damage control Wednesday morning by trotting out company president Satoru Iwata in a broad-ranging (and reaching) “Wii U Direct” video effort to soothe jittery system owners and would-be buyers still waiting for slam dunks. Call it Nintendo circling its wagons…or maybe just an “if you squint you can make it out on the horizon” wagon-train parade.

(MORE: Mostly Piano, Not Pretender: Yamaha’s AvantGrand N2 a Year Later)

“In past Nintendo dialogues, we have focused more on games releasing in the near future, but it’s still early in 2013, so I’d like to change the format a little bit,” said Iwata before launching into a sneak preview of what Nintendo has cooking.

For starters, Iwata says the Wii U will see at least two major system updates this year: one in the spring, another during the summer. Arguably the most important of these involves a desperately needed fix for the crazy-long time it takes to launch apps or reload the Wii U Menu — a process that can take up to 30 seconds. Imagine if each time you backed out of an iOS app it took half a minute to bring up iOS’s icon overlay. That’d be insane, and it’s a shame quality control didn’t view load times as prohibitive enough to remedy before the launch in November. Thank goodness Nintendo’s working to put things right.

Iwata also mentioned finally debuting the long-awaited Wii U Virtual Console – Nintendo’s vehicle to sell old-school NES and Super NES games – just after the spring system update. The Virtual Console’s been missing in action since the Wii U launched, despite its longstanding availability on the original Wii. That, according to Iwata, is because Wii U Virtual Console games are poised to offer features their Wii counterparts didn’t, like being able to save backups of your game progress, the option to play away from the TV on the Wii U GamePad, access to Miiverse communities for these older games and support for additional platforms like the Game Boy Advance (never released on the Wii Virtual Console).

If you’ve already purchased the Wii Virtual Console version of a game, it sounds like you’ll have to pay again, though Nintendo says you’ll get “special pricing”: regularly priced games will run $ 5 to $ 6 (NES) or $ 8 to $ 9 (SNES), with those prices dropping to $ 1 and $ 1.50, respectively, if you bought the game for Wii Virtual Console. It’s better than no discount, I suppose, and Nintendo can probably justify the nominal buck to buck-and-a-half for research and development on the Wii U Virtual Console’s extras (it’s certainly taking the company long enough to pull everything together).

If you’d rather not wait for spring, Nintendo’s running a beta dubbed “Wii U Virtual Console Trial Campaign”: Between January and July, Nintendo will release a classic title every 30 days for $ 0.30 a pop (Nintendo’s tied the pricing and release timeframes in with the original Famicom‘s 30th anniversary in Japan, coming up this July). After July, the prices of the discounted titles will bounce back to normal, but you’ll be able to buy them at the reduced price if you participated in the beta. The games list is none too shabby, either: Balloon Fight, F-Zero, Punch-Out!!, Kirby’s Adventure, Super Metroid, Yoshi and Donkey Kong.

Wii U Virtual Console sounds like a clever little diversion for Nintendo wonks, but let’s not forget how fuzzy these games look nowadays on resolution-locked flat-screens. It’s not that I want high-res versions — these things are what they are at their native pixel counts — but you wouldn’t lay wax paper over a Monet, would you?

(MORE: A Helpful Reminder That Rumors Are Not Facts)

Let’s cut to the chase: Nintendo fans want to know where the next Zelda game is, what comes after Super Mario Galaxy 2, when they’ll be able to sample the Wii U’s take on Mario Kart, what’s up with the next Super Smash Bros. game and so forth.

Iwata confirmed that Nintendo won’t offer new games in January or February and apologized for this, but said “Nintendo takes seriously its responsibility to offer a steady stream of new titles in the very early days of a new platform to establish a good lineup of software.” Why the delay? Because, says Iwata, “We firmly believe we have to offer quality experiences when we release new titles.” No argument there.

What’s coming between spring and summer? Iwata identified several titles: Game & Wario, Wii Fit U, Pikmin 3, LEGO City Undercover and The Wonderful 101. But don’t get too excited: These were originally slated to hit by March.

We also caught another glimpse of Bayonetta 2 (as well as the female protagonist’s backside), heard a bit about Super Smash Bros. U and why it’ll probably be a while before we see it (screens at E3), and then Iwata talked about, well, a bunch of stuff we already knew was in the offing: a new unnamed Super Mario game by the team that developed the Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D Land platformers, a new Mario Kart racer (both set to be playable at E3) and a new Wii Party game (Iwata showed video of someone shaking a Wii U GamePad to roll dice as well as two players using a GamePad like a mini-foosball table).

More intriguing were the two unannounced new games, like one from the developers behind Kirby’s Epic Yarn starring Yoshi (a kind of sequel to Yoshi’s Story for the Nintendo 64) or — wait for it JRPG wonks — a Shin Megami Tensei / Fire Emblem crossover from Atlus.

Last but not least, Iwata revealed the company’s plans for Zelda on the Wii U. The really good news: Nintendo says it’s planning to “rethink the conventions of Zelda,” tinkering with tenets like dungeon linearity and solo play. The merely good news: Nintendo’s remastering Zelda: The Wind Waker in HD for the system and tweaking the gameplay. The bad-good news: You’ll probably have to wait a long time for the new Zelda, but you’ll get The Wind Waker HD by “this fall.”

But the best news of all, from where I’m sitting: Taking a page from Apple, Iwata closed by invoking “one more important topic”: a new Wii U game from Monolith Soft, the company responsible for Xenoblade Chronicles, the best roleplaying game on any game system released in…well, when was Final Fantasy XII released? Has it been seven years already?

All told, a mixed performance from Nintendo, but here’s the thing: However vague much of the information in Iwata’s presentation was, I love the dignified, spare, wonderfully thorough way Nintendo’s chosen to address its audience lately. By contrast, I feel like a need to shower after watching most Microsoft/Sony pressers.

MORE: Sony Xperia Tablet Z Aims for ‘World’s Thinnest’ Crown

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..