Suspect in brazen rape on L.A. bus arrested

The woman boarded the 217 Metro bus in Culver City at about 5 p.m., on her way home from her special education school. The 18-year-old with the mental capacity of a 10-year-old had only recently been allowed to start taking the trip on her own.

A stranger boarded behind her.

He followed her to the back of the bus, authorities said, and without warning began raping her.

The attack lasted for 10 minutes Wednesday afternoon as the bus traveled south through Baldwin Hills, making two stops as the rape continued, authorities said. There were several people on the bus when the two boarded, but some exited during the attack, possibly unaware of what was happening at the back of the bus.

The assailant only ended the attack as the bus was reaching its final stop, where he left the bus, authorities said.

The brazen crime reverberated around the sprawling Metro system Friday. Portions of the rape were captured on a surveillance camera and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials arrested a suspect, Kerry Trotter, Friday morning just hours after releasing still photos of the alleged attacker.

Authorities said Trotter, 20, is a parolee and a transient who had previously been investigated on suspicion of sexual assault.

"It was a crime of opportunity," said sheriff's Sgt. Dan Scott. "Unfortunately, [the victim] was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He followed her onto the bus and assaulted her."

Metro officials were quick to note that sexual assaults and other violent crimes are relatively rare on its network of buses and rail lines. Three rapes have been reported this year on a system that recorded millions of commuter trips.

But despite the numbers, passengers said Friday that the rape left them uneasy. In a region where getting around is usually about being in a car alone, bus commuters say mass transit exposes them to all kind of people and situations, both good and bad.

Faydra Caldwell, 23, said every time she rides the bus she instinctively notes what other passengers are wearing in case she might have to report them to the police. It's a habit she has developed since her phone was snatched by another bus rider.

"You don't know what people are capable of doing," said Caldwell, a student at West L.A. College.

Another rider, John Wilson, said that a few months ago he had to shove a man off the bus because the man was patting a woman's head and making sexual remarks. No one else intervened.

"The bus driver was really angry at me," said the 54-year-old church executive. "He said, 'Don't take the law into your own hand.' I said, well, you weren't doing anything and the passengers sure as hell weren't."

In this week's incident, both the suspect and the victim got onto the bus at about 5 p.m. at the corner of La Cienega and Jefferson boulevards, near the new Expo Line rail station.

Sheriff's officials said they doubt the bus driver or the passengers on the bus knew what was happening. Scott said detectives believe Trotter was riding buses looking for potential victims.

"He immediately went to her and began the assault," Scott said. "…The suspect had his back to the front of the bus. People generally think of a rape as some kind of attack where someone's thrown down. Its not always the case."

"The victim did not scream," he added. "The victim told our detective that she was shocked, and didn't know what to do, and was in fear of her safety and her life."

Detectives are seeking riders on the bus, including one passenger they believe may have witnessed the incident, though they can't be sure. He "did not jump up and scream rape or that someone was being assaulted," Scott said.

Trotter has a history of run-ins with the law, according to records. Last year, he was convicted of drug possession. In April, he was convicted of grand theft and sentenced to a year in jail, but did not serve his full sentence. In June he was arrested again, and in September admitted to violating probation. He was released from jail Sept. 28. On Oct. 15 he was arrested again by Redondo Beach police and served 10 days in jail. Records did not include specifics on that offense.

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25 Best Horror Films of All Time (NSFW)

When it comes to horror movies, opinions are like ax holes: Nearly everybody's got one.

So Wired.com went straight to the experts for this frightful film roundup. Since 1979, horror magazine Fangoria has waltzed on the bleeding edge of the genre, dedicating itself to coverage and criticism of gore, splatter and exploitation films and the people that make them.

Just in time for Halloween, we asked four of Fangoria's savants of slash — Editor-in-Chief Chris Alexander, Managing Editor Michael Gingold, Director of Marketing Bekah McKendry and Contributing Editor Sam Zimmerman — to spill their guts on the top 25 horror films of all time.

(NSFW alert: Some photos in this gallery are not safe for work.)

Above:

Freaks (1932)

Chris Alexander: Disturbing one-of-a-kind creeper that also effectively killed director Tod Browning's career.

Michael Gingold: Let's see someone try to remake this one today.

Bekah McKendry: One of the first cinematic examples of the antihero, and a concept that was way ahead of its time. Plus, the dinner scene reminds me of most Fango staff meetings!

Sam Zimmerman: Aside from the generally disturbing qualities this film has throughout, the sheer out-of-controlness of the end reveal makes my life better.

Blowback: What’s Your Favorite Horror Flick?

Reveal your most horrifying cinematic memories in the comments below.

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Madonna fan guilty in NYC resisting arrest trial

NEW YORK (AP) — A former firefighter with a crush on Madonna has been convicted of resisting arrest outside her former New York City apartment building as he spray-painted poster boards with love notes.

A jury delivered its verdict Friday in Robert Linhart‘s trial. He could face up to a year in jail.

Defense lawyer Lawrence LaBrew tells the New York Post (http://bit.ly/ZgI4jl) that Linhart will appeal.

Linhart was arrested in September 2010. Police say he parked his SUV outside the singer’s Manhattan apartment, laid out a tarp and wrote out such messages as “Madonna, I need you.”

Jurors told the Post they felt it was fine for Linhart to express himself to the Material Girl. But they said they believed police testimony that he resisted arrest by flailing his arms.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age Blog: The Emotional Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

Let’s talk about the emotional aftermath of the storm that left tens of thousands of older people on the East Coast without power, bunkered down in their homes, chilled to the bone and out of touch with the outside world.

Let’s name the feelings they may have experienced. Fear. Despair. Hopelessness. Anxiety. Panic.

Linda Leest and her staff at Services Now for Adult Persons in Queens heard this in the voices of the older people they had been calling every day, people who were homebound and at risk because of medical conditions that compromise their physical functioning.

“They’re afraid of being alone,” she said in a telephone interview a few days after the storm. “They’re worried that if anything happens to them, no one is going to know. They feel that they’ve lost their connection with the world.”

What do we know about how older adults fare, emotionally, in a disaster like that devastating storm, which destroyed homes and businesses and isolated older adults in darkened apartment buildings, walk-ups and houses?

Most do well — emotional resilience is an underappreciated characteristic of older age — but those who are dependent on others, with pre-existing physical and mental disabilities, are especially vulnerable.

Most will recover from the disorienting sense that their world has been turned upside down within a few weeks or months. But some will be thrown into a tailspin and will require professional help. The sooner that help is received, the more likely it is to prevent a significant deterioration in their health.

The best overview comes from a November 2008 position paper from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry that reviewed the effects of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. After Katrina, “the elderly had the highest mortality rates, health decline and suicide rates of any subgroup,” that document notes. “High rates of psychosomatic problems were seen, with worsening health problems and increased mortality and disability.”

This is an important point: Emotional trauma in older adults often is hard to detect, and looks different from what occurs in younger people. Instead of acknowledging anxiety or depression, for instance, older people may complain of having a headache, a bad stomachache or some other physical ailment.

“This age group doesn’t generally feel comfortable talking about their feelings; likely, they’ll mask those emotions or minimize what they’re experiencing,” said Dr. Mark Nathanson, a geriatric psychiatrist at Columbia University Medical Center.

Signs that caregivers should watch out for include greater-than-usual confusion in an older relative, a decline in overall functioning and a disregard for “self care such as bathing, eating, dressing properly and taking medication,” Dr. Nathanson said.

As an example, he mentioned his father-in-law, who had “been sitting in a cold house for days and decided to stop taking his water pill because he felt it was just too much trouble.” Being distraught or distracted and forgetting or neglecting to take pills for chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease can have immediate harmful effects.

Especially at risk of emotional disturbances are older adults who are frail and advanced in age, those who have cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s disease, those with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or major depression, and those with chronic medical conditions or otherwise in poor physical health, according to the geriatric psychiatry association’s position paper.

A common thread in all of the above is the depletion of physical and emotional reserves, which impairs an older person’s ability to adapt to adverse circumstances.

“In geriatrics, we have this idea of the ‘geriatric cascade’ that refers to how a seemingly minor thing can set in motion a functional, cognitive and psychological downward spiral” in vulnerable older adults, said Dr. Mark Lachs, chief of the division of geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Well, the storm was a major thing — a very large disequilibrating event — and its impact is an enormous concern.”

Of special concern are older people who may be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia who are living alone. For this group, the maintenance of ordinary routines and the sense of a dependable structure in their lives is particularly important, and “a situation like Sandy, which causes so much disruption, can be a tipping point,” Dr. Lachs said.

Also of concern are older people who may have experienced trauma in the past, and who may suffer a reignition of post-traumatic stress symptoms because of the disaster.

Most painful of all, for many older adults, is the sense of profound isolation that can descend on those without working phones, electricity or relatives who can come by to help.

“That isolation, I can’t tell you how disorienting that can be,” said Bobbie Sackman, director of public policy for the Council of Senior Centers and Services of New York City. “They’re scared, but they won’t tell you because they’re too proud and ashamed to ask for help.”

The best remedy, in the short run, is the human touch.

“Now is the time for people to reach out to their neighbors in high-rises or in areas where seniors are clustered, to knock on doors and ask people how they are doing,” said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Don’t make it a one-time thing; let the older person know you’ll call or come by again, and set up a specific time so “there’s something for them to look forward to,” Dr. Kennedy said. So-called naturally occurring retirement communities with large concentrations of older people should be organizing from within to contact residents who may not be connected with social services and find out how they’re doing, he recommended.

In conversations with older adults, offer reassurance and ask open-ended questions like “Are you low on pills?” or “Can I run out and get you something?” rather than trying to get them to open up, experts recommended. Focusing on problem-solving can make people feel that their lives are being put back in order and provide comfort.

Although short-term psychotherapy has positive outcomes for older adults who’ve undergone a disaster, it’s often hard to convince a senior to seek out mental health services because of the perceived stigma associated with psychological conditions. Don’t let that deter you: Keep trying to connect them with services that can be of help.

Be mindful of worrisome signs like unusual listlessness, apathy, unresponsiveness, agitation or confusion. These may signal that an older adult has developed delirium, which can be extremely dangerous if not addressed quickly, Dr. Nathanson said. If you suspect that’s the case, call 911 or make sure you take the person to the nearest hospital emergency room.

This is a safe place to talk about all kinds of issues affecting older adults. Would you be willing to share what kinds of mental health issues you or family members are dealing with since the storm so readers can learn from one another?

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L.A. housing authority rife with fiscal mismanagement, audit finds

Los Angeles' housing authority, which runs on about $1 billion a year in taxpayer funds, is plagued by bad financial management that causes "questionable practices and poor decisions," according to an audit released Thursday by City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Greuel launched the audit last year amid an outcry over hefty taxpayer-funded restaurant tabs for agency officials and a $1-million-plus payout for the authority's fired executive director. The agency is responsible for sheltering about 75,000 of the city's neediest households.

A previous audit found instances of questionable spending by some agency officials, including double and triple billing for some travel and meal expenses. This audit, which looked at the agency's fiscal operations, did not uncover wrongdoing. But it did find that despite the authority's hefty budget and history of scandal going back decades, agency officials have done little to make sure money is properly managed.

Financial oversight was so lax, the audit found, that the agency's board of commissioners did not receive any financial statements or budget status reports during much of 2011 or the early part of 2012, except for one oral report last spring and one annual financial report that was presented nine months after the year had ended. A proposed budget presented to the board for 2012 was not balanced and contained contradictory statements.

"All of this suggests an agency that is out of control," said Greuel, a candidate for mayor. "The city cannot afford to continue spending its housing dollars irresponsibly."

One tenant advocate, Larry Gross, executive director of the L.A. Coalition for Economic Survival, said the lack of financial information given to the board and public was baffling.

"Whoever was on that board was clearly asleep at the wheel," he said. Many of the board members have been replaced in recent years.

Housing authority officials said they agreed with many of the audit's conclusions and will use the findings to guide reforms. Under recently hired Chief Executive Doug Guthrie, officials said they have already instituted a number of new practices, including financial training for all board members, stepped up financial reporting to the board and public, and the arrival of a new chief financial officer with expanded powers.

"We asked for this audit, we paid for the audit and we worked closely with the city controller's office" as the audit was underway, Guthrie said. "There's a lot of good stuff in the audit that helps us."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa released a statement expressing support for Guthrie, who was hired last spring after the previous executive director, Rudolf Montiel, was fired and then paid $1.2 million to settle allegations that he was let go in retaliation for reporting improper spending by board members. Montiel had earlier drawn the ire of city leaders when his agency tried to evict nine tenants who protested the agency's policies outside his home.

"The housing authority has worked diligently to win back the trust of the people," Villaraigosa said.

But some City Council members expressed anger at the latest audit findings.

"There's a lot of problems over there, and obviously, the problems haven't gone away," said Councilman Dennis Zine, a candidate for controller. "Maybe it's time for the grand jury to investigate."

Zine also said he would like the City Council to have more authority over the agency. Under a hybrid governing structure, the mayor appoints the authority's seven board members, but the council lacks the ability to review spending decisions, a power it has over many other city departments.

The audit also found that the agency's list of assets contained at least $100 million worth of property that had been disposed of or no longer had much value, such as refrigerators and stoves that had been purchased in the 1970s. No inventory of its fixed assets had been performed in at least seven years.

In addition, the agency did not always follow its own rules when it came to awarding contracts to vendors, in one case allowing someone to sit on a bid selection panel after he had declared a conflict of interest.

jessica.garrison@latimes.com

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Mr. Bond's Carbon-Fiber Tuxedo

James Bond is nothing if not consistent — shot, drowned, pushed out of an airplane with no parachute, he always comes back. And he’s always wearing an impeccable tux. That’s what makes an icon. And that rule to consistently deliver the goods — and to look good doing it — is one followed not only by Mr. Bond, but also by one of his favorite automakers.

Aston Martin has remained consistent for most of its 99-year history, producing sharply designed, poshly appointed and distinctly British sports cars for the luxury market. The company has stuck to the formula with its new range-topping Vanquish.

But consistency can be a double-edged sword. Just as you can throw out a Bond film title and your average Joe may struggle to tell you which actor portrayed 007 in that particular flick, show anyone (aside from Aston enthusiasts) a contemporary Aston Martin and they won’t be able to tell you whether it’s a Vantage, Virage, or DBS. That holds true for the new Vanquish — it’s essentially the same tuxedo with some new bits underneath.

Because Aston does bespoke like Chevy does floor mats, there will likely be a completely naked carbon fiber Vanquish available.

It is a damn good-looking thing though, building subtly on the shape of the Vanquish that debuted in 2001. While similarly sized, the new Vanquish looks leaner, its lines sharper and more tapered amidships. It also borrows cues from Aston’s recent One-77 supercar (out of production after just 77 were built) including the tighter waistline, elongated side strakes, and LED light blade rear clusters. There are hints of carbon fiber, too, visible on the front splitter, side skirts, door mirrors and rear diffuser.

Every body panel on the new Vanquish is constructed from carbon fiber, a choice Aston made because of its high strength-to-weight ratio and reduction in mass (though Ferrari would disagree). Fewer individual body panels are required and the panel gap on the C-pillar joint is no longer present. A new rear Aero Duct (fancy spoiler) is fashioned via an innovative method of laying-up carbon fiber.

Because Aston does bespoke like Chevy does floor mats, there will likely be a completely naked carbon-fiber Vanquish available. (Aston already has a “cutaway” Vanquish display model in exposed carbon.)

Beneath the carbon cloak sits an evolution of Aston’s decade-old VH platform. Aston insists VH — “vertical horizontal” — is a methodology rather than an architecture, so we’ll just call it the re-engineered DBS chassis. The lightweight bonded aluminum structure incorporates a tub with carbon-fiber components. Compared to the outgoing DBS, according to Aston, the weight is down, 75 percent of the parts are new, and rigidity is up 25 percent.

The engine is a considerably re-engineered 6.0-liter V12 (Bond requires 12 cylinders). The block has been revised, there are new heads with dual variable valve timing, an uprated fuel pump, enlarged throttle bodies and an improved “big wing” intake manifold, to cite a few changes. Peak power is 565 hp at 6,750 rpm, and peak torque is 457 pound-feet at 5,500 rpm. With a curb weight around 3,834 pounds, Aston reports the Vanquish can attain 60 mph in 4.0 seconds on the way to a 183 mph top speed.

It feels that fast, especially on the narrow “B” roads (about 1.5 lanes) of the English midlands where I drove it. These are some of the most gritty, undulating, curvy roads in the U.K., and Aston develops its cars on them. The Vanquish’s three-mode (Normal, Sport, Track) suspension handles them with aplomb, combining admirable compliance with excellent body control. The stiff chassis provides the foundation for front and rear double wishbones with coil springs and adjustable shocks. Cocktails all ’round for the Adaptive Damping System engineers who’ve done a bang-up job.

The steering is similarly well-sorted, giving little up to that of the new Porsche 911 I got into following the Vanquish launch. Aston’s rear-mid mounted, six-speed Touchtronic 2 automatic/sequential manual gearbox does the business well and more smoothly than competitors’ double-clutch transmissions. That said, it was flummoxed twice whilst puttering through quaint English villages.

The Vanquish isn’t really a track car, but it’s quite capable of outrunning the bad guys. Your fairer driving companions will approve of the fine-scented cockpit materials like Bridge of Weir Luxmil leather and Alcantara, all hand-stitched. Even the headliner looks tailored.

If there’s one area where the Vanquish falls flat, it’s in ergonomics and infotainment. Familiar elements from the glass key/starter module to the gear-selection buttons remain, though the center stack is a bit different. The speedometer and tach dials are attractive but difficult to read, hence a new digital speedo display. Suspension mode and cruise control buttons on the steering wheel look like afterthoughts. Aston trumpets the center information screen’s haptic feedback, but it’s still too small and saddled by lackluster navigation and menu logic.

The standard Bang & Olufsen sound system wasn’t quite tuned up on the early production cars I drove. Aston says final adjustments on the audio system is ongoing. Tire noise on the funky roads was an unexpected issue. Space wasn’t, though, the Vanquish enjoying more occupant space than the DBS. Back seats are optional, but most suitable for those bound and gagged. Rear and rear three-quarter visibility isn’t great, but the exhaust note is.

The Vanquish breaks little new styling ground — but then, Daniel Craig could probably throw on Sean Connery’s old tuxedo and look just right. That’s a good thing. Class doesn’t go out of style, and neither will the Vanquish. Carbon fiber? That’s another question.

WIRED Sexy shape. Highly composed driving dynamics and near 600 horsepower. Hand-finished interior smells like Ralph Lauren’s saddle cabinet.

TIRED Occasional hitches in the auto-trans at low speed. Standard paddle-shifters should be longer. The optional squared-off steering wheel feels awkward when cruising. As nice as the shape is, there’s just something too familiar about it.

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Ex-oilman named new leader of world’s Anglicans

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain named a former oil executive as the new Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans on Friday as the church struggles to overcome a painful rift over the issues of female bishops and same-sex marriage.

Welby, 56, who has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for little more than a year, will replace incumbent Rowan Williams who steps down in December.

The long-awaited appointment, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron‘s office in a statement, follows weeks of intense speculation that a row over whether to choose a reformer or a safe pair of hands had stalled the nomination process.

For Welby, the move capped a meteoric rise up the Church of England hierarchy since quitting the business world and being ordained in 1992.

The bespectacled father-of-five is seen as more conservative than the liberal Williams and is widely reported to be against gay marriage but in favor of the ordination of women bishops.

(Writing by Maria Golovnina Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Sweet Potato and Apple Kugel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I’ve looked at a number of sweet potato kugel recipes, and experimented with this one a few times until I was satisfied with it. The trick is to bake the kugel long enough so that the sweet potato softens properly without the top drying out and browning too much. I cover the kugel during the first 45 minutes of baking to prevent this. After you uncover it, it’s important to baste the top every 5 to 10 minutes with melted butter.

 

4 eggs

Salt to taste

2 large sweet potatoes (1 3/4 to 2 pounds total), peeled and grated

2 slightly tart apples, like Gala or Braeburn, peeled, cored and grated

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon mild honey or agave nectar

3 to 4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, as needed

 

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 2-quart baking dish.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs with salt to taste (I suggest about 1/2 teaspoon). Add the grated sweet potatoes and the apples. Pour the lime juice over the grated apples and sweet potatoes, then stir everything together. Combine the honey and 2 tablespoons of the melted butter and stir together, then toss with the sweet potato mixture and combine well.

3. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish. Cover the dish tightly with foil and place in the oven. Bake 45 minutes. Remove the foil and brush the top of the kugel with melted butter. Return to the oven and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes or longer, brushing every 5 minutes with butter. The kugel is ready when the edges are browned, the top is browned in spots and the mixture is set. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: 8 servings.

Advance preparation: You can make this a day ahead and reheat in a medium oven.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 187 calories; 7 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 104 milligrams cholesterol; 28 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 91 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 5 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Debt Ceiling Complicates a Tax Shift

WASHINGTON — Come January, should Congress fail to act, the United States will face more than immense tax increases and spending cuts. It will also run out of room to finance its large running deficits.

The Treasury Department expects the country to hit its debt ceiling, a legal limit on the amount the government is allowed to borrow, close to the end of the year. That would give Congress only a matter of weeks to raise the ceiling, now about $16.4 trillion, before sending financial markets into a panic.

Congressional leaders have made clear that the debt ceiling will be part of the intense negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff, with many members unwilling to raise the ceiling without a broader deal. That has raised financial analysts’ worries of a financial market panic over the ceiling in addition to the slow bleed of the tax increases and spending cuts.

Congressional action is required to raise the debt limit. The Treasury can jostle payments for a few months. But expenses will eventually overwhelm revenue, putting the administration in the position of choosing which bills to pay. It might stop paying soldiers, for instance, or sending Social Security payments.

In 2011, Congressional Republicans would not raise the debt ceiling without a broader agreement to cut the country’s deficit and set it on a better fiscal path. The impasse over finding spending cuts and tax increases to do that led to the creation of the spending cuts on Jan. 1, the same time the Bush-era tax cuts were set to expire.

The threat that the country might not pay all its bills caused a slump in financial markets and led in August 2011 to the first downgrade of the nation’s credit rating. It left broader economic scars, too. Many economists contend it hurt economic growth and jobs.

A July report by the Government Accountability Office found that the delay in raising the debt limit increased the country’s borrowing costs by about $1.3 billion in the 2011 fiscal year. “However, this does not account for the multiyear effects on increased costs for Treasury securities that will remain outstanding after fiscal year 2011,” the report noted, adding that the debt-limit fight diverted Treasury’s time and resources from other priorities.

This year, Congress will have time to negotiate a broader debt deal before needing to raise the ceiling, even if negotiations spill into January. But the ceiling will be a card in the complex political game that the White House, Senate Democrats and Congressional Republicans are playing.

Much as Democrats see President Obama’s veto threat over an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the highest earners as leverage over Republicans, some Republicans see the need to raise the debt ceiling as leverage over the White House, Republican aides said.

Even if the stakes do not get that high, both parties view lifting the debt ceiling as part of the fiscal-cliff negotiations, and they do not expect Congress to raise it outside of a broader deal.

“Resolving the issues surrounding the fiscal cliff, especially the replacement of the sequester, and the next debt limit increase (likely necessary in February) will require that the president get serious about real entitlement reform,” Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said in a letter to conservatives this week, as printed on The Hill Web site.

That has Democrats warning Republicans not to risk the country’s credit rating and broader financial stability again.

“They tried it before: ‘We’re going to shut down the government. We’re not going to raise the debt limit,’ ” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, told reporters this week. “They want to go through that again? Fine, but we’re not going to be held subject to something that was done as a matter of fact in all previous administrations.”

Economists have warned that the political posturing over the debt ceiling has enormously dangerous economic consequences — even more so than last year, given the threat of huge tax increases and spending cuts hitting households at the same time.

On Wall Street, analysts have tended to use terms like “apocalypse” and “global catastrophe” to describe what might happen should Congress not lift the ceiling.

This week, Fitch, the credit rating agency, threatened a downgrade to the nation’s credit rating if Congress cannot find a timely resolution.

“Failure to reach even a temporary arrangement to prevent the full range of tax increases and spending cuts implied by the fiscal cliff and a repeat of the August 2011 debt ceiling episode would mean that the general election had not resolved the political gridlock in Washington and likely result in a sovereign rating downgrade by Fitch,” analysts at the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

HSBC analysts this week warned clients of “echoes of 2011” in the uncertainty and market volatility the ceiling might cause.

And economists at the International Monetary Fund cautioned that the unstable situation in the United States might have international ripple effects.

“For now, a lack of political agreement keeps uncertainty about the fiscal road map unresolved,” the fund said in a global risk assessment. “Although bond yields remain low, when contentious political decisions — such as raising the debt ceiling — have come due in the past, uncertainty about the outcome led to unfavorable market reactions.”

But other analysts said they would be surprised if the debate over the ceiling became the debacle it did last year. Many Congressional aides said neither side had any interest in causing market panic for political gain.

“Markets are now starting to become the disciplinarians,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. “C.E.O.’s are finally stepping up to the plate and saying, ‘Excuse me, we can’t do this.’ And that puts political donations and jobs on the line.”

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Blue reign in Sacramento: Democrats dominate California voting

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown and his fellow Democrats are on the cusp of a coveted supermajority in both the Assembly and Senate, giving them the rare power to raise taxes without any Republican support.

No single party has held such a supermajority in Sacramento since 1933.

To cement the dual two-thirds majorities when the Legislature gets down to business next year, Democrats must hold onto one of two Senate seats to be vacated and a few Assembly seats won in tight races. The Senate seats will be filled in special elections expected in March.

The supermajorities would mark a dramatic shift in Sacramento's balance of power, where GOP legislators have aggressively used their ability to block state budget plans and prevent revenue increases to scale back the scope of state government.

Coupled with the approval of Brown's tax plan, Proposition 30, the Democrats now have not only the power but also the money to break free of the deficit that has paralyzed state government for years.

The pressure on Democrats to restore funding for the many services slashed to balance the budget in recent years will be intense.

Already, activists are pressing lawmakers to pump new money into such programs as college scholarships, dental care for the needy and, of course, public schools.

But the first move Brown and legislative leaders made Wednesday was to reassure voters that they would show restraint.

They promised there would be no frenzy of tax hikes.

"Voters have trusted the elected representatives, maybe even trusted me to some extent, and now we've got to meet that trust," Brown said at a Wednesday news conference in the Capitol. "We've got to make sure over the next few years that we pay our bills, we invest in the right programs, but we don't go on any spending binges."

Still, lawmakers can appear to hold the line on revenue generation without actually doing so.

Supermajorities allow lawmakers to impose new fees to pay for infrastructure and other programs that are not technically defined as taxes.

And the same Democrats who are talking tough about fiscal responsibility this week have for years been touting the programs they want to restore or start once the opportunity is there. In addition to raising revenue, they would also be empowered to bring constitutional changes and other measures to voters without any GOP signoff — and to override gubernatorial vetoes.

Given a supermajority, "We're going to use it," Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Wednesday.

"It will be an awesome responsibility," Steinberg said. "But it's very exciting.''

Steinberg briefed the media on his desire to overhaul the tax code.

The result, he acknowledged, could be more money for the state budget.

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles), who vowed there would be no additional tax increases next year, laid out goals that could trigger more government spending, such as helping students pay for college.

The success Tuesday of Brown's Proposition 30, which raises billions of dollars through temporary income-tax increases on high earners and a quarter-cent surcharge on sales, gives lawmakers breathing room they have not had in years.

With one election, a deficit that has rendered Sacramento dysfunctional and threatened to ravage public schools has been largely wiped out.

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In Bounties They Trust, But Does Paying for Security Bugs Make a Safer Web?

The night before the end of Google’s Pwnium contest at the CanSecWest security conference this year in Vancouver, a tall teen dressed in khaki shorts, tube socks and sneakers was hunkered down on a hallway bench at the Sheraton hotel hacking away at his laptop.

With a $60,000 cash prize on the line, the teen, who goes by the hacker handle “Pinkie Pie,” was working hard to get his exploit for the Chrome browser stabilized before the close of the competition.

The only other contestant, a Russian university student named Sergey Glazunov, had already made off with one $60,000 prize for a zero-day exploit that attacked 10 different bugs.

Finally, with just hours to go before the end of the three-day competition, Pinkie Pie achieved his goal and dropped his exploit, a beauty of a hack that ripped through six zero-day vulnerabilities in Chrome and slipped out of the browser’s security sandbox.

Google called both hacks “works of art,” and within 24 hours of receiving each submission, had patched all of the bugs that they exploited. Within days, the company had also added new defensive measures to Chrome to ward off future similar attacks.

Google’s Pwnium contest is a new addition to its year-round bug bounty programs, launched in 2010, that are aimed at encouraging independent security researchers to find and report security vulnerabilities in Google’s Chrome browser and web properties, and to get paid for doing so.

Vendor bounty programs like Google’s have been around since 2004, when the Mozilla Foundation launched the first modern pay-for-bugs plan for its Firefox browser.* In addition to Google and Mozilla, Facebook and PayPal have also launched bug bounty programs, and even the crafts site Etsy got into the game recently with a program that pays not only for new bugs, but also retroactively for previously reported bugs, to thank researchers who contributed to the site’s security before the bounty program began.

The Mozilla Foundation has paid out more than $750,000 since launching its bounty program; Google has paid out more than $1.2 million.

But some of the biggest vendors, who might be expected to have bounty programs, don’t. Microsoft, Adobe and Apple are just three software makers who have been criticized for not paying independent researchers for bugs they have found, even though the companies benefit greatly from the free work done by those who uncover and disclose security vulnerabilities.

Microsoft says its new BlueHat security program, which pays $50,000 and $250,000 to security pros who can devise defensive measures for specific kinds of attacks, is better than paying for bugs.

“I don’t think that filing and rewarding point issues is a long-term strategy to protect customers,” Microsoft security chief Mike Reavey said recently.

All of which begs the question: Eight years down the line, have bug bounty programs made browsers and web services more secure? And is there any way to really test that proposition?

*Netscape actually launched the first bounty program in 1995, but the idea never really caught on beyond Netscape at the time.

There’s no scientific method for determining if software is more secure than it used to be. And there’s no way to know how much a bounty program has improved the security of a particular software program, as opposed to other measures undertaken by software makers. Security isn’t just about patching bugs; it’s also about adding defensive measures — such as browser sandboxes — to mitigate entire classes of bugs. The combination of these two make software more secure.

But everyone interviewed for this story says the anecdotal evidence strongly supports the conclusion that bounty programs have indeed improved the security of software. And more than this, the programs have yielded other security benefits that go far beyond the individual bugs they’ve helped fix.

In the most obvious sense, bounty programs make software more secure simply by the fact that they reduce the number of security holes hackers can attack.

“There’s a finite number of bugs in these products, so every time you can knock out a bunch of them, you’re in a better place,” says top security researcher Charlie Miller, who’s responsible for finding a number of high-profile vulnerabilities in Apple’s iPhone and other products.

But one of the biggest indications that bounty programs have improved security is the decreasing number of bug reports that come in, according to Google.

“It’s a hard measurement to take, but we’re seeing a fairly sustained drop-off in the number of incoming reports we’re receiving for the Chromium program,” says Chris Evans, information security engineer at Google who leads the company’s Chromium vulnerability rewards program as well as its new Pwnium contest, launched this year.

Google has its own internal fuzzing program to uncover security vulnerabilities, and the rate at which that team is finding bugs has dropped, too, Evans says. Google recently asked some of its best outside bug hunters why bug reports had declined and was told it was just “harder to find” vulnerabilities these days. Harder-to-find bugs for researchers also means harder-to-find bugs for hackers.

Bounty programs also improve security by encouraging researchers to disclose bugs responsibly — that is, passing the information to vendors first, so that they can release a patch to customers before the information is publicly disclosed. And they help mend the fractious relationship that has long existed between researchers and vendors.

In 2009, Miller and fellow security researchers Alex Sotirov and Dino Dai Zovi launched a “No More Free Bugs” campaign to protest freeloading vendors who weren’t willing to pay for the valuable service bug hunters provided and to call attention to the fact that researchers often got punished by vendors for trying to do a good deed.

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How South Korea’s Dark Oscar Entry ‘Pieta’ Cut Out Producers, Investors

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – By his 15th film, Kim Ki-duk, the director of South Korea‘s Best Foreign Picture Oscar entry “Pieta,” was sick of money shaping his cinematic vision.

The director, who told an audience at the Landmark Theatre that he tries in his movies to ruthlessly dissect society with all its nuances and complexities, said he didn’t want Hollywood-type producers and investors telling him how to fashion his films.

“It’s very formulaic. Film dramas, action movies – the structure is very simple, in the end, good prevails over evil,” Kim told TheWrap‘s Steve Pond at the kickoff of TheWrap’s Foreign Screening Series Monday night. “I consciously have tried to get out of the major system. … Once I had money, after that I used my own money.

“I don’t want to have producers or investors tell me what to do,” he added. “I want to maintain the same autonomy.”

“Pieta” follows a local money lender‘s thuggish enforcer, whose life changes when a woman arrives claiming to be his mother. Notorious in his impoverished neighborhood for crippling shop-owners who are unable to pay back their debt and interest on time, Lee Kang-do soon loses his hard exterior as he experiences maternal coddling for the first time.

Before the projector started rolling, Pond – at Kim’s behest – warned the audience that the first 20 minutes would contain violence that may be difficult to stomach. Indeed, it was easy to see how Kim’s producers might try to dilute the disturbing images and scenes he shoots.

The film, Kim told the audience through a translator, cost $ 100,000 to make. It earned $ 1 million in Korea alone.

“I’m going to distribute half of that to my staff members,” he said. “And half will go to the next film.”

Kim, who began his career as a screenwriter and studied art for three years in Paris, sees himself as an everyman director, more interested in cinema than profits.

“Pieta” reflects the changing culture of his native land and the economic woes the global recession brought on Korea’s poor. In the film, high-rises sprout from one side of the city – the sort of neighborhood parodied in Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video – the other is still congested with trash and small shacks.

He explained that in Korea’s capital of Seoul, Gangnam means “south of the river.” North of it, where the working-class lives, is Gang-buk.

“That’s where working-class, people like me, regular people, live,” he said. “There are two lifestyles and classes.”

Kim said his next movie will similarly critique 21st century life – with its speedy pace and rapid international trading – which he described as “cannibalistic.”

“My next film is again my question about, what is modern society?” he said. “I believe that modern society is some sort of cannibalistic society. Through money, money forms this huge structure.”

He said his future movies, like the past 18 he has made, will likely feature strong female characters, too.

“Korean women suffered a lot. It’s a long history of suffering,” Kim said. “Korean women are known for having very, very intense energy and warm motherly love. However their status and their images are not really intact. They’ve been harmed; they’ve been abused a lot.”

“Pieta” certainly doesn’t pull punches – the film features a rape scene, and numerous women are left weeping over their sons or husbands when Kang-do shatters their bodies.

“The images you see in my films, they make you uncomfortable, they’re violent, but that’s the reality,” he said.

But those images, he said, will almost certainly make his movie a longshot to land an Oscar nomination, something no Korean film has ever done. “If you look at the films that win, they are the ones that make you feel good,” he said. “My films are not like that.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Cabbage, Onion and Millet Kugel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Light, nutty millet combines beautifully with the sweet, tender cabbage and onions in this kugel. I wouldn’t hesitate to serve this as a main dish.

 

1/2 medium head cabbage (1 1/2 pounds), cored and cut in thin strips

Salt to taste

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

Freshly ground pepper

1 cup low-fat cottage cheese

2 eggs

2 cups cooked millet

 

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a 2-quart baking dish. Toss the cabbage with salt to taste and let it sit for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until it begins to soften, about 3 minutes, then add a generous pinch of salt and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is soft and beginning to color, about 10 minutes. Add the cabbage, turn the heat to medium, and cook, stirring often, until the cabbage is quite tender and fragrant, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the dill, taste and adjust salt, and add pepper to taste. Transfer to a large bowl.

3. In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, purée the cottage cheese until smooth. Add the eggs and process until the mixture is smooth. Add salt (I suggest about 1/2 teaspoon) and pepper and mix together. Scrape into the bowl with the cabbage. Add the millet and stir everything together. Scrape into the oiled baking dish. Drizzle the remaining oil over the top and place in the oven.

4. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the sides are nicely browned and the top is beginning to color. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into squares or wedges.

Yield: 6 servings.

Advance preparation: The cooked millet will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days and freezes well. The kugel will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator. Reheat in a medium oven.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 195 calories; 7 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 64 milligrams cholesterol; 23 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 148 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 10 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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DealBook: On Wall Street, Time to Mend Fences With Obama

Del Frisco’s, an expensive steakhouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Boston harbor, was a festive scene on Tuesday evening. The hedge fund billionaires Steven A. Cohen, Paul Singer and Daniel Loeb were among the titans of finance there dining among the gray velvet banquettes before heading several blocks away to what they hoped would be a victory party for their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

The next morning was a cold, sobering one for these executives.

Few industries have made such a one-sided bet as Wall Street did in opposing President Obama and supporting his Republican rival. The top five sources of contributions to Mr. Romney, a former top private equity executive, were big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Wealthy financiers — led by hedge fund investors — were the biggest group of givers to the main “super PAC” backing Mr. Romney, providing almost $33 million, and gave generously to outside groups in races around the country.

On Wednesday, Mr. Loeb, who had supported Mr. Obama in 2008, was sanguine. “You win some, you lose some,” he said in an interview. “We can all disagree. I have friends and we have spirited discussions. Sure, I am not getting invited to the White House anytime soon, but as citizens of the country we are all friendly.”

Wall Street, however, now has to come to terms with an administration it has vilified. What Washington does next will be critically important for the industry, as regulatory agencies work to put their final stamp on financial regulations and as tax increases and spending cuts are set to take effect in the new year unless a deal to avert them is reached. To not have a friend in the White House at this time is one thing, but to have an enemy is quite another.

“Wall Street is now going to have to figure out how to make this relationship work,” said Glenn Schorr, an analyst who follows the big banks for the investment bank Nomura. “It’s not impossible, but it’s not the starting point they had hoped for.”

Traditionally, the financial industry has tended to support Republican candidates, but, being pragmatic about power, has also donated to Democrats. That script got a rewrite in 2008, when many on Wall Street supported Mr. Obama as an intelligent leader for a country reeling from the financial crisis. Goldman employees were the leading source of campaign donations for Mr. Obama, who reaped far more contributions — roughly $16 million — from Wall Street than did his opponent, John McCain.

The love affair between Wall Street and Mr. Obama soured soon after he took office and championed an overhaul in financial regulations that became the Dodd-Frank Act.

Some financial executives complained that in meetings with the president, they found him uninterested and disengaged, while others on Wall Street never forgave Mr. Obama for calling them “fat cats.”

The disillusionment with the president spawned reams of critical commentary from Wall Street executives.

“So long as our leaders tell us that we must trust them to regulate and redistribute our way back to prosperity, we will not break out of this economic quagmire,” Mr. Loeb wrote in one letter to his investors.

The rhetoric at times became extreme, like the time Steven A. Schwarzman, co-founder of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, compared a tax proposal to “when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” (Mr. Schwarzman later apologized for the remark.)

Mr. Loeb was not alone in switching allegiances in the recent presidential race. Hedge fund executives like Leon Cooperman who had supported Mr. Obama in 2008 were big backers of Mr. Romney in 2012. And Wall Street chieftains like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, who have publicly been Democrats in the past, kept a low profile during this election. But their firms’ employees gave money to Mr. Romney in waves.

Starting over with the Obama White House will not be easy. One senior Wall Street lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity said Wall Street “made a bad mistake” in pushing so hard for Mr. Romney. “They are going to pay a price,” he said. “It will soften over time, but there will be a price.”

Mr. Obama is not without supporters on Wall Street. Prominent executives like Hamilton James of Blackstone, and Robert Wolf, a former top banker at UBS, were in Chicago on Tuesday night, celebrating with the president.

“What we learned is the people on Wall Street have one vote just like everyone else,” Mr. Wolf said. Still, while the support Wall Street gave Mr. Romney is undeniable, Mr. Wolf said, “Mr. Obama wants a healthy private sector, and that includes Wall Street.

“If you look at fiscal reform, infrastructure, immigration and education, they are all bipartisan issues and are more aligned than some people make it seem.”

Reshma Saujani, a former hedge fund lawyer who was among Mr. Obama’s top bundlers this year and is planning to run for city office next year, agreed.

“Most people in the financial services sector are social liberals who support gay marriage and believe in a woman’s right to choose, so I think many of them will swing back to Democrats in the future,” she said.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 8, 2012

An earlier version of this article misidentified Reshma Saujani as a male.

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Voters' reactions mixed on raft of ballot measures

SACRAMENTO — Proposals to ease the state's three-strikes sentencing law and stiffen penalties for human trafficking — part of a group of measures that would reshape the justice system — held comfortable leads in voting returns early Wednesday.

A measure to abolish the death penalty was trailing badly, however, and Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to raise taxes and prevent deep cuts to public education was leading, though narrowly.

In other contests, voters were opposing an initiative to label genetically engineered foods and leaning against one to curb organized labor's clout in state politics.

Californians were rejecting by a wide margin a measure to raise income taxes to boost school spending, while favoring another to eliminate a corporate tax break to help balance Sacramento's books. Voters seemed opposed to efforts to retool the way California crafts budgets and change state law to create a new car insurance discount. A referendum that would uphold newly drawn state Senate districts appeared headed for victory.

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FOR THE RECORD:
This article on Nov. 7 said that more than $500,000 was expected to have been spent in California this election. The correct figure is more than $500 million. —

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More than $500,000 was expected to have been spent in California this election, most of it in initiative fights.

The election gave voters their first opportunity to weigh in on the death penalty since they reaffirmed capital punishment in 1978. Overturning one or both of the state's most iconic and controversial tough-on-crime sentencing laws would mark a significant reversal for Californians, who overwhelmingly approved the three-strikes law nearly two decades ago.

"This historic victory overturns the long-held conventional wisdom that it's impossible to fix our most extreme and unjust crime laws — and hopefully inspires future efforts," said Dan Newman, a spokesman for the three-strikes measure, Proposition 36.

Brown had pitched Proposition 30, his $6 billion-a-year tax hike on sales and high-income earners as the linchpin of his plan to restore fiscal sanity to Sacramento — the central promise of his gubernatorial campaign. He said he was confident his campaign had overcome his well-funded opposition.

The criminal justice measures were among the most controversial on the ballot.

Proponents of Proposition 34 created the measure to replace capital punishment with life in prison without parole, a change they said could save the state as much as $130 million a year by effectively eliminating capital trials, reducing appeals and cutting the cost of special housing. The measure would require convicted killers to work while in prison, direct their earnings to their victims and earmark $100 million for police to solve murders and rapes.

Opponents, primarily law enforcement and victims' groups, countered that any savings could be consumed by healthcare costs for lifetime inmates.

Backers of Proposition 36 urged Californians to change the three-strikes sentencing law so offenders whose third strikes were relatively minor, such as shoplifting or drug possession, could no longer be given 25 years to life in prison. Inmates doing that kind of time for non-serious offenses could ask for a sentence reduction.

Opponents noted that current law already allows prosecutors and judges to spare a third-striker the maximum sentence.

Backers of a third justice-related measure, Proposition 35, promoted increased punishment for sex trafficking of a minor, from a maximum eight-year sentence to up to life in prison. The proposal would also increase the fine, from a cap of $100,000 to a maximum of $1.5 million.

The governor had been flogging his tax measure, Proposition 30, for months. His plan included a quarter-cent state sales tax increase for four years, plus seven years of higher income taxes — elevated one to three percentage points — on those making more than $250,000 annually.

Opponents cast the measure as a Sacramento power grab, arguing in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign that Brown was misleading voters by saying all the new revenue would go to schools. In fact, some of it could be used for other government programs.

Millionaire civil-rights lawyer Molly Munger bankrolled Proposition 38, to increase income taxes for most Californians to raise funds primarily for schools and early childhood education. Tom Steyer, a Bay Area investor, funded Proposition 39, his bid to end a controversial corporate tax break and use the money — about $1 billion a year — to help balance the budget and pay for a new green-energy program.

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SparkTruck's Surprise Lesson: Using Design Skills to Build Kids' Character

When Eugene Korsunskiy and seven of his fellow students from Stanford University’s d.school set out to tour the nation in a brightly painted truck full of laser cutters and rapid prototyping machines, they thought they were bringing a chance to play with high-tech maker tools to school kids who hadn’t had one yet.

And they were: SparkTruck, the educational make-mobile, made 73 stops this summer, treating 2,679 elementary and middle school students to hands-on workshops covering the basics of electrical engineering and digital fabrication, and giving a chance to make cool stuff in the process, like small robotic creatures and laser-cut rubber stamps.

But as the summer progressed, the SparkTruck team learned an unlikely lesson. The most rewarding part of the trip wasn’t introducing the kids to new technologies. Instead it was something far more basic: watching them struggle with design problems.

Only one of the SparkTruck team had training in education. But when the group planned its workshops, Korsunskiy explained, they knew they wanted to emphasize the same skills and processes they’d learned in design school. “Somewhere in each activity, we wanted the kids to get stuck, physically or mentally,” he said.

The point wasn’t to torture children, but to force them to work through an open-ended problem on their own.

Some teachers were skeptical. “One teacher told us, ‘My students are so conditioned to thinking that I’ll give them the right answers,’” Korsunskiy said. She didn’t think the group’s approach, which Korsunskiy summarized as “giving [kids] the space but not giving them the answers,” would work.

Sure enough, the SparkTruck team noticed kids’ resistance. Presented with a design problem, students would get stuck — and as the teacher predicted, they would come to the facilitators and ask, ‘How do I do this?’ They would beg, plead, and get frustrated. The SparkTruck team would withhold answers, instead asking a kid with, for example, no idea how to keep her robot from falling over, ‘How do you think it cold be done?’

Eventually, the hard-nosed approach paid off. “After an interaction like that, you see a gear shift in [a kid's] head,” said Korsunskiy. “Once you make it clear that you’re not there to provide the answer, they completely rise to the challenge.”

Unwittingly, the team had stumbled into a big problem — and a gathering cultural debate. According to social scientists (and the journalists who popularize their work), American children are said to be weenies, much more helpless and less resourceful than their age-matched peers in other countries. In educational settings, American kids are worryingly lacking in the faculty known as “grit,” the one that allows people to power through difficult problems, absorbing and learning from setbacks rather than giving up.

The point isn’t that young Americans are destined to be this way, but that somehow, amid all our prosperity, we’ve stopped giving kids the conditions they need to become self-sufficient.

Could hands-on, design-inspired education help? Korsunskiy and his team think so. Design lessons, Korsunisky noted, are based around creative problem-solving. They’re not about memorizing right answers but about developing critical thinking skills, learning to work through problems in a repeated process of brainstorming, testing solutions, and going back to the drawing board. In short, this kind of education builds the very skills of perseverance and intellectual independence that parents, teachers, and social critics say that American children have in short supply.

For Korsunskiy, watching students hit a wall — and then figure out a way over (or around) it — was the most rewarding part of the SparkTruck experience.

Students of today aren’t necessarily going to need to know how to operate, say, a CNC router, he noted. But if this generation is to succeed, it will absolutely need to know “how to approach hairy, multi-variate problems without freaking out” — he name-checked climate change and the obesity epidemic — i.e., to be able to leverage the skills and mindset that a shop-class environment can instill.

As the summer went on, the SparkTruck team shifted focus, beginning to feel more like emissaries for that problem-solving mindset and design process, rather than for the bright, shiny machines in the back.

Which isn’t to say that the machines aren’t helpful for grabbing the attention of students — and educators too.

“When we say we have laser cutters and 3-D printers on board, that makes it way more exciting to principals and teachers,” Korsunskiy said. “We sneak the thing about creativity in the back door.”

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TV networks to staff: watch what you tweet on Election Day

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. television networks face a new challenge in covering this year’s excruciatingly close presidential election: prevent closely guarded exit poll results from leaking onto Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.

The major TV news networks agreed to shield early exit poll data suggesting who is leading in a state until the state’s polls close. That means no tweeting exit polls, posting on Facebook, or re-tweeting figures reported by others.

“We will not either project or characterize a race until all the polls are scheduled to have closed in that state,” said Sheldon Gawiser, director of elections for NBC News.

Election officials worry that leaks could discourage people from voting if they think the race in their state is already decided, depressing the vote count and distorting the results. In 1985, Congress extracted a promise from the major TV networks to refrain from using exit polls to project a winner in a particular state, or to characterize who is leading, while voting continues in that area.

The closeness of this year’s election between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney has focused attention on key battleground states – such as Ohio, Virginia and Florida – and what their exit polls might signal about who will win the White House.

It has resurrected memories of the disputed 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore – some media outlets projected a Gore victory in Florida while polls in the western part of the state remained open. The networks later pulled back, leaving doubt about who won and leading to a month of recounts and court battles.

If early results become public, “it can be a real problem,” said Jeff Berkowitz, a Republican strategist who runs Berkowitz Public Affairs. “For somebody who’s got seven things on their list to do that day, and if they’re already being told the election is over, are they really going to prioritize voting over the other six?”

Exit poll data is collected by New Jersey-based Edison Media Research on behalf of the National Election Pool, a consortium of Walt Disney Co’s ABC, News Corp’s Fox, Time Warner Inc’s CNN, Comcast Corp’s NBC, CBS Corp’s CBS and the Associated Press. The media companies use the findings to help them call results in each state, and to inform post-election analysis.

Reuters is not a member of the consortium and collects exit data with market research firm Ipsos. The news organization will not share any exit data before polls close, a Thomson Reuters Corp spokeswoman said.

Smaller news outlets and Internet blogs are not bound by the commitment made by members of the National Election Pool, and could post any exit poll numbers they get their hands on.

In 2004, for example, The Drudge Report posted early results that favored John Kerry. U.S. stocks dipped, and Kerry eventually lost the race, highlighting that early and incomplete results can prove wrong. A representative for The Drudge Report could not immediately be reached by e-mail.

There is no evidence that exit poll results influence voters, but the rise of social media means any leaked data could spread like wildfire.

After leaks in past elections, the big TV networks have taken steps to keep a tighter lid on information. While some findings previously were available as early as 1 p.m. Eastern time, news staff are not to be given an initial look until 5 p.m. – still two hours before the earliest poll closings.

Following a template used in the last three elections, six analysts – one from each news organization in the National Election Pool – will be locked in a “quarantine room” from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday with no phone or e-mail access, Gawiser said. They will conduct preliminary analysis of the data before it is released to staff at the news outlets.

“They cannot talk to us. We don’t know anything about it. We can’t see any of these data until five o’clock,” Gawiser said.

These kinds of restrictions helped keep exit data under wraps in 2008, when Obama defeated John McCain. The race also was not as close as in the two previous elections, or indeed this year’s vote, reducing demand for early information.

This year, the tight race and prevalence of social media increases the risk that data will spread quickly if it leaks, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

“If that were to happen today, with Internet penetration and the speed of social media, that (data) would be known pretty widely,” he said.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Editing by Ronald Grover and Steve Orlofsky)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Sweet Millet Kugel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Millet, a light, fluffy gluten-free grain that is a good source of magnesium, manganese and phosphorus, lends itself beautifully to both sweet and savory kugels. In fact, this kugel turned me into a millet convert.

 

2/3 cup millet

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cups water

Salt to taste

1 cup cottage cheese

3 eggs

1/4 cup low-fat milk

1/4 cup mild honey or agave nectar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 cup (3 ounces) diced dried apricots

1/2 cup (3 ounces) raisins (or omit and use all apricots)

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

 

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter or oil over medium-high heat in a heavy 2- or 3-quart saucepan. Meanwhile, bring the water to a simmer in another saucepan or in the microwave. Add the millet to the heavy saucepan and toast, stirring, until it begins to smell fragrant and toasty, about 5 minutes. Add the boiling water and salt to taste, and bring back to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer 25 to 30 minutes, until the liquid in the saucepan has evaporated and the grains are fluffy. Transfer to a large bowl.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 2-quart baking dish. In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, blend the cottage cheese until smooth. Add the milk, eggs, vanilla and nutmeg and blend until smooth. Scrape into the bowl with the millet.

3. Stir together the millet and cottage cheese mixture. Stir in the apricots, raisins and lemon zest. Scrape into the prepared baking dish. Cut the remaining butter into small pieces and dot the top of the kugel with them. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, until the kugel is set and beginning to color on the top.

4. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes (longer if possible) before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Advance preparation: This will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator. It’s best if you warm it up, either in a low oven or in the microwave.

Nutritional information per serving (6 servings): 306 calories; 8 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 105 milligrams cholesterol; 50 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 149 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 12 grams protein

Nutritional information per serving (8 servings): 229 calories; 6 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 79 milligrams cholesterol; 37 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams dietary fiber; 112 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 9 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Mothers from Central America search for missing kin in Mexico

SALTILLO, Mexico — The mothers knock on the doors of flophouses and morgues. They sift through pictures of prisoners and the dead. Clutching pictures of their own, some from long ago, they ask the same questions, over and over.

Have you seen him? Does she look familiar?

Occasionally, there is a reported sighting. More often, it's another shake of the head, a "Sorry, no." And with that, weariness stooping their shoulders and worry sagging their faces, they board their bus and move on to another town.

By last weekend, these mothers, wives and sisters of missing Central American migrants had already crossed some of Mexico's most dangerous territory in their two-bus caravan.

Following a route often used by migrants northward along the Gulf Coast to the U.S., they had entered the country in the south through Tabasco state. They traveled through Veracruz and Tamaulipas, sites recently of horrific massacres of Central Americans and others, stopping along the way to ask and search — against all the odds wishing for a happy ending.

By the time they finish what has become an annual mission organized by several migrant rights and church groups, they will have traveled to 23 cities and towns in 14 states in 19 days. A total of nearly 3,000 miles.

Aboard the buses, with the lived-in feel of ordered chaos, the women pass the time dozing, chatting, occasionally watching a movie.

Despite their pain, or perhaps because of it, they find friendship. The Nicaraguans share stories of their experiences during their country's civil war, telling of relatives killed or forced into armies; the Hondurans recount tales of their nation's utter, violent poverty that fuels one of the world's highest homicide rates and drives their children to seek lives elsewhere.

Emotions soar and fall. The women joke and tease one another and laugh. Then, suddenly, one remembers the son she is missing and breaks into sobs and another moves to her side to comfort her.

Another nine hours through hot, dusty cactus fields brought them here to Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila state, where the top leader of the notorious Zetas paramilitary cartel was slain by government forces last month. By all accounts, it is the Zetas who most routinely and viciously prey on the migrants, thousands of whom have gone missing in recent years — kidnapped, killed, pressed into involuntary labor by drug traffickers, or simply lost to poverty and desperation.

Dilma Pilar Escobar last heard from her daughter, Olga, in January 2010. Olga had taken off from their home in Progreso, Honduras, leaving behind five children, with the plan of reaching the United States. Like so many others, her idea was to earn a little money, make things a little easier for her mother and her children.

Now Escobar is raising her grandchildren, listening to their questions every night about when their mother might come home. She is running out of answers.

"I've looked in hospitals, in morgues," said Escobar, 55. "We see so much about what's happening in Mexico on TV. It puts a lot in your head."

Escobar was inspired to make the trip in part by a local radio program that attempts to help families with missing relatives.

"It gave me the push to come here," said the woman with dark, unsmiling eyes, grasping an 8-by-10 photo of Olga that hangs from her neck on a green cord.

In each city or town, the mothers stage a public event to make their presence known. A Mass. A march. Here in Saltillo, they converged on the downtown Plaza de Armas, the pale-blue-and-white that adorns all Central American flags fluttering in the breeze ahead of the slow march of mothers. They hung their photos of loved ones on clotheslines at the center of the square.

The women — about 40 on this year's caravan — sleep on cots in churches or in "migrant houses," shelters set up by a number of communities, where they also receive donated meals.

"We are facing a humanitarian tragedy," Tomas Gonzalez, a Franciscan friar who runs a shelter in Tabasco, told the women. "Mexico has become a cemetery for migrants."

In August 2010, 72 migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and a handful of other countries were slain execution-style, hands tied behind backs, shot once in the head, in Tamaulipas state, which borders Texas. Among the youngest was 15-year-old Yedmi Victoria Castro of El Salvador. The Zetas were presumed responsible. Dozens more bodies were found in the same region in the months that followed.

Not a week goes by, it seems, without fresh reports of hidden graves and unidentified dead. But the Mexican government has been slow to recognize the epidemic of missing persons, only this year moving to toughen legislation and expand the collection of DNA samples and other data.

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Simon Cowell Stamps His Sound on Sony's Top End

The concept of “personal music” has become so embedded in modern culture that we no longer even entertain the idea of not pocketing our music and piping it directly into our brains.

For those of us minted prior to the iPod age, the Sony brand is synonymous with creating and laying that foundation with its Walkman line of portable players. Clearly, much has changed since the early ’80s, and Sony has been leapfrogged by many competitors in portable music. But that doesn’t mean the big “S” doesn’t know a good thing when it hears it. That’s why the company has teamed up with British mega-producer and singing-show lightning rod Simon Cowell to develop the MDR-X10, a premium on-the-ear headphone.

The industrial design of these “X Factor” headphones, all matte and polished silver polycarbonate, is thoughtful and aesthetically pleasing. However, the ear pads on the X10 are rather deceiving — they’re not hollowed out like most bigger cans on the market. Instead, they’re flat, but when placed over your head, the cushy memory foam envelopes your ear without significantly altering the sound-channeling shape of the ear’s cartilage. This design creates an excellent acoustic seal that markedly diminishes the incursion of outside ambient sound. Another pleasing design element is the removable, single-sided flat cable that comes in two flavors — one is a plain straight cable with a mini phone jack, and the other is an iGadget-friendly cable with an in-line mic/remote assembly.

The X10s are tuned to accentuate the predominant sounds in popular music. And straight out of the box, the proprietary 50-millimeter driver pumps the bass and treble just the way you’d expect. That initial listen demonstrated to me how headphones with boosted bass often overshadow the subtleties of the midrange elements.

However, to get the truest impression of a speaker’s sound, whether it’s inside a headphone or a big wooden enclosure, they need to be “burned in” for 100 hours or so. It’s a simple process: Just connect them to your audio source, turn the music up to about six on the dial, and walk away for four days.

That’s exactly what I did. When I returned to Cowell’s cans, they were greatly improved. The midrange frequencies in the soundstage were much more defined. The bass and treble were still holding court, but the mids were definitely clearer and made space for themselves in my ears. The post-burn-in sound was deep, rich, full and well defined — much more balanced overall, and closer to what I’d expect from a set of headphones that costs $300.

Simon Cowell’s personality on television is definitely polarizing, but his success at discovering and launching musical talent is well documented. Sony’s development partnership with the notoriously nit-picky producer has actually served this product well.

Andrew Sivori, Sony’s VP of personal audio, tells me Cowell was involved in the development of the headphone’s sound signature throughout the entire process.

“He gave fantastic feedback,” Sivori says. “He listens for a living, and he’s been incredibly successful at it.”

It looks like Sony and Cowell may have another hit on their hands. The X10s are comfortable, they kick out some great sound, and they look great doing it.

WIRED Ear pads are plush and comfy. Deep, rich, dynamic sound. Comes with two replaceable flat cords and a 1/4-inch plug for an audiophile sound system. They fold up for portability. High-quality protective case.

TIRED Price is steep. Headband could use a little more padding at the top of the head. Tough to simultaneously wear glasses.

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Aerosmith puts on Boston street concert on Memory Lane

BOSTON (Reuters) – Thousands of music fans clogged a Boston street on Monday to hear Grammy award-winning rock band Aerosmith perform a free concert in front of the apartment building where the musicians began their career four decades ago.

The band blared out hits including “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” from the back of a specially converted tractor-trailer while area residents hung out windows, sat on balconies and stood on rooftops to hear the noontime concert.

“It feels like the world stood still for this. It feels like it was yesterday,” lead singer Steven Tyler told Reuters in an interview after the concert.

The band played to mark the release of its 15th studio album, “Music from Another Dimension,” due out on Tuesday.

Aerosmith’s five members signed a plaque that Boston plans to mount outside the apartment building in the Allston neighborhood where they lived in the early days of a career that has brought them four Grammy awards and more than 20 Top 40 hits.

“That used to be my bedroom,” lead guitarist Joe Perry yelled to a woman looking out a second-story window.

The crowd of thousands included teenagers holding signs declaring that they had skipped school to see the show, celebrities such as New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and fans whose history with the band went back to its 1970 founding.

“I always loved Aerosmith. They were one of the first rock bands I got into growing up in Brazil,” said Michelle Fernandes, 43, waiting for the concert to start.

When she moved to the United States in 2003, Fernandes was surprised to learn that she was working in an office down the street from where her favorite band got its start, Fernandes said.

“How cool is that?” she said.

The band has always kept up its ties to a city that is home to hundreds of thousands of college students.

“When there’s groups of young people like there are in colleges towns like this, there’s a lot of passion,” Tyler said. “We love that.”

While the band relished the chance to see its old neighborhood, Perry declined to go into the apartment, where the band wrote songs including “Movin’ Out.”

“I didn’t want to go into it to see what it looked like today because I like the memory of what it was when we were there,” Perry told Reuters. “I didn’t want to see it all polished and spiffed up.”

On Thursday Aerosmith resumes its tour with a show in Oklahoma City.

(Reporting By Scott Malone; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Bill Trott)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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