Meet the Dancing Otter That Helped Obama Win the Presidency

It would happen a couple of times each month at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago. Ben Hagen would giggle and then send out a web link to his coworkers, the geeks who ran the technology operation for the Obama reelection campaign.

Soon, the sound of Kenny Loggins’ inspirational 1979 hit “This Is It” would fill the office, and the dancing Otter would pop up on machine after machine. It was Hagan’s way of telling the team he’d found another bug in their web code.

The geeks who built Obama’s internet infrastructure sat side-by-side, in a long row in the campaign’s Chicago headquarters, and sometimes, you could hear Kenny Loggins echo down the line. “The laughing would kind of work its way down the row and you’d see people’s screens light up with dancing otters and the sound progressing down the row,” Hagen says. “It was a pretty gratifying experience.”

It was gratifying because Hagan — a security engineer with the campaign — was helping to lock down Obama’s websites, securing them from a common web programming error called a cross-site scripting bug. The otter was the campaign’s version of the RickRoll — an annoying internet joke — but it also carried a message. In essence, Hagan was publicly shaming people into writing better code.

“I think public embarrassment is a very important part of security,” Hagan said last week, at a conference in Las Vegas dedicated to Amazon’s cloud services. “Once you find a problem, embarrass the person who made it and then help them understand how to fix it.”

It’s an unusual method, but it seems to work — and it’s indicative of the campaign’s overall approach to technology. Traditionally, political campaigns are far from the cutting edge of tech, but Obama 2012 was different. The team operated very much like a Silicon Valley startup. They grew quickly, building an enormous code base using many of the popular open-source tools that underpin companies such as Google and Facebook and Twitter, and they built it atop Amazon’s cloud platform, unafraid to put their code on third-party servers.

Hagan chose the Kenny Loggins music because “This is it” was a popular sound sample in the team’s Campfire chat software, and he chose the dancing otter because, well, he just liked it. We laugh every time we see it. But make no mistake: it aimed to solve a serious problem for the campaign. Hagen was plugging security holes that could allow hackers to post anything they wanted on one of the campaign’s websites, which were used by tens of millions of Obama supporters.

Whenever he’d find a cross-site scripting flaw on a website being tested on the campaign’s staging network, he’d exploit the flaw and insert the otter. It was slightly humiliating to the web programmers, but they enjoyed it too. “You can only describe the otter dance as erotic,” said Scott VanDenPlas, the tech team’s development and operations lead, speaking last week at the same conference.

The move to AWS was equally unusual. VanDenPlas called it a first for a presidential campaign. “All of us came from a traditional ops world,” he said. “It was a little bit of a gamble in that we didn’t have the full experience at the time. We just kind of trusted that we would hire very smart people that would figure it out.”

It all worked out pretty well. While the Republican’s get-out-the-vote system bugged out on election night, the Obama campaign nailed it on the tech side. And thanks to Kenny Loggins and the dancing otter, they had more than a little fun too.

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Kutcher’s Steve Jobs, Gordon-Levitt among Sundance premieres

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ashton Kutcher‘s turn as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s directorial debut about a modern day Don Juan are leading a slew of star-studded premieres unveiled Monday for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Kutcher stars in “Jobs,” a biographical look at the career rise of Jobs from wayward hippie to charismatic inventor and entrepreneur, which Sundance said Monday will officially close the indie film festival backed by Robert Redford that runs January 17 to January 27.

The premiere lineup also features Gordon-Levitt directing, writing and starring in “Don Jon’s Addiction,” about a self-centered porn-addict attempting to reform his ways opposite Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore and Tony Danza.

Behind-the-scenes tales of pornography will also be explored in British director Michael Winterbottom‘s “The Look of Love,” starring Steve Coogan and based on British adult magazine publisher and entrepreneur Paul Raymond.

“Lovelace,” starring Amanda Seyfried and James Franco, tells the story of porn star Linda Lovelace famed for the film “Deep Throat.”

Sundance, the top U.S. film festival for independent cinema held in Park City, Utah, unveiled the premieres section – which typically feature more established directors – after it announced its competition films last week.

Adding to the premieres list is “Before Midnight,” director Richard Linklater’s third film collaborating with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy after “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset,” in which the audience encounters their characters nine years later in Greece.

New Zealand director Jane Campion will screen her new six-hour epic, “Top Of The Lake,” a haunting mystery about a pregnant 12-year-old girl who disappears, with Holly Hunter.

Other big-name actors in the lineup include Steve Carell and Toni Collette in “The Way, Way Back,” Naomi Watts and Robin Wright in “Two Mothers”, Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen in “Very Good Girls,” and Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood in “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.”

Australian actresses Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Jacki Weaver star in psychological thriller “Stoker,” which marks South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut.

WIKILEAKS, POLITICS LEAD DOCUMENTARIES

Among documentaries premiering at Sundance in January is Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney’s insight on WikiLeaks, the power of the Internet and the beginning of an information war in “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”

Author and documentarian Sebastian Junger chronicles the life of late photojournalist Tim Hetherington in “Which Way Is The Front Line From Here?” after Hetherington’s death in Libya in 2011. The photojournalist had collaborated with Junger on the 2010 Oscar-nominated film “Restrepo” about the Afghanistan war.

“The World According to Dick Cheney” promises to examine the former vice president while “Anita” profiles how Anita Hill’s allegations in 1991 of sexual harassment against then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas brought sexual politics into the national consciousness for the next two decades.

“Linsanity” offers a portrait of basketballer Jeremy Lin and “Running From Crazy” follows actress Mariel Hemingway, granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, and her insights into her family’s mental illness and suicide.

“Pandora’s Promise” looks at a growing number of environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists changing their minds after decades of opposition to support nuclear power.

Continuing the rise of music documentaries in the last several years, Foo Fighters’ musician Dave Grohl looks at the history of Sound City studios in California, where Grohl’s former band Nirvana had recorded their classic 1991 album “Nevermind.”

Veteran Los Angeles rock band The Eagles will also showcase their past in “The History of the Eagles Part 1.”

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age Blog: On the Alert for Fraud

Unlike some forms of elder abuse, financial exploitation leaves no visible scars. It is under-reported and hard to prosecute. Adding to the tangled dynamics, the abuser is frequently a family member, increasing the victim’s humiliation and denial.

Better by far to try to prevent financial abuse before it wipes out an older person’s assets and hopes for a secure retirement. Though this has proved easier in theory than in practice — most authorities believe financial exploitation and abuse is actually increasing — vigilance represents a crucial first step.

The National Center on Elder Abuse and the Eldercare Locator (the federal service that helps older adults and caregivers find local programs and agencies) have just published “Protect Your Pocketbook,” a brief consumer guide for families and their older relatives. It maps out risk factors, warning signals and prevention strategies and tells where to turn for help.

You can download it from the Web  or order it online through the Eldercare Locator Web site. Or you can call the Locator at 1-800-677-1116 and ask to have a copy mailed to you.

Holidays, when so many adult children head “home,” tend to spur campaigns of this sort: attempts to integrate potentially painful conversations and questions with feasts and gifts.

I have always wondered about the timing of these discussions — first the pies, then the questions about unexplained bank withdrawals and credit card bills? But it is true that our elders can sound dandy during weekly phone calls, then surprise us with their frailty and their struggles when we are there in person to witness them.

Financial abuse, which I have written about before (see scam prevention advice here, along with a sad story), is only part of the picture, but it is a vital issue.

Apart from the advice in the brochure, we would appreciate hearing from readers who have tackled this problem and can tell us what has worked and what hasn’t.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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San Diego mayor leaves office with his legacy intact

SAN DIEGO — On his last full day as mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders did something Sunday that took him back four decades.

He rode with a police officer assigned to the 2 p.m. to midnight shift patrolling downtown. In the mid-1970s, fresh out of San Diego State, Sanders was a rookie officer assigned to that same beat.

"I came in in a police car, I'm going out in a police car," Sanders, 62, had said with a laugh last week as he stood outside one of his signature achievements of his seven years as mayor: a new central library under construction.

A Republican in a city where Democrats hold a voter-registration edge and control the City Council, Sanders, who rose from beat cop to chief in his 26 years at the Police Department, has governed through relentless attempts at consensus and a deceptively low-key style that leans on sharing credit whenever possible.

Ask about the library project and Sanders says, "The library commission wouldn't take no for an answer."

Ask about his role in calming civic nerves during the 2007 wildfire that raged for days and destroyed hundreds of homes — a mayoral effort that led the local newspaper to compare him favorably to Rudy Giuliani after 9/11 — and Sanders mentions the help provided by two county supervisors.

Ask about his management style and he says he prefers to hire good people and then stay out of their way, but some who have worked with him point out that he watches even tiny details of important efforts.

Outside San Diego, Sanders may be remembered best for breaking with the GOP to endorse same-sex marriage, explaining that his daughter, a lesbian, should be free to marry someone she loves. He then campaigned against Proposition 8 and later went to Washington to join other — mostly Democratic — mayors to lobby Congress to repeal a law that defines marriage as between a man and woman.

In San Diego, his legacy includes guiding the city back from the precipice of its worst financial debacle in history through a series of politically controversial cutbacks in city services and then hard bargaining with labor unions that led to a salary freeze, reduction in health benefits for retirees, increased payments by employees to the pension fund and the end to guaranteed-benefit pensions for new hires.

Although the city's financial future, like that of other cities, remains uncertain, San Diego appears to be ahead of other cities, including Los Angeles, in dealing with the common problem of spiraling pension deficits.

"He did steady the local ship of state," said Steve Erie, political science professor at UC San Diego. "Whether he actually turned it around is another question."

Sanders lists the new library, the planned expansion of the waterfront convention center and the plan to remodel the core of Balboa Park as among his proudest achievements. All three faced opposition; the convention center and park plans are being fought in court.

"This isn't a hard city to govern," he said, "but it's very hard to get consensus."

One of his disappointments is the failure to put together a project to build a new stadium for the San Diego Chargers and keep the NFL franchise from leaving the city.

The Chargers issue, in which the public wants the team to remain in San Diego but does not want to spend public money for a stadium, will now be left to Sanders' successor, Bob Filner, 70, a Democrat who left a safe seat in Congress to run to replace the termed-out Sanders. Filner will be sworn into office Monday.

Although he was reelected easily in 2008, voters in 2010 turned down his request for a half-cent boost in the sales tax, which Sanders said was desperately needed to avoid additional cuts in city services. "We gave voters the opportunity," he said.

In style, Filner and Sanders are opposites: Filner is confrontational; Sanders usually isn't. Sanders appears without ego; Filner is different.

"I tell Bob that he's the most obnoxious individual I've met and that's what I like about him," Sanders said.

Lest anyone think of him as a rhetorical milquetoast, it bears remembering that, during the 2008 reelection campaign, he turned to an opponent and directed a two-word obscenity at him.

Sanders was an anomaly as a politician when he was elected in 2005 to replace Dick Murphy, who resigned amid criticism over the pension deficit. Sanders had never before run for public office, although he was a well-known public figure after six years as the highly regarded police chief.

As chief, he expanded the city's "community oriented policing" style that emphasized close collaboration between the police and neighborhood groups.

Retiring from the city in 1999, he served as chief executive of the local United Way and as president of the local Red Cross chapter — arriving when both organizations were beset by personnel turmoil and financial problems.

Sanders and his wife, Rana Sampson, will soon depart for a long-delayed vacation to Italy. Sampson retired Friday as vice president for development and marketing for the San Diego Center for Children, which provides educational and mental health services for at-risk youth.

Upon the couple's return to San Diego, Sanders will become president and chief executive of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

But first was that final shift as a beat cop downtown, asking people what help they need and providing a reassuring presence that says San Diego is a good place to live.

"Best job I ever had," Sanders said.

tony.perry@latimes.com

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Winter Is Coming — What's In Your 'Go-Bag?'

A go-bag is a duffle bag, backpack or very well-stocked purse that’s pre-packed with the basic necessities for a particular activity. Snowboarding, surfing, childbirth, zombie apocalypse, DEA raid — whatever the activity, you can be prepared to hit the road at a moment’s notice if you keep a well-stocked satchel at the ready.

Skiing and snowboarding are perfect examples of activities that call for a well-stocked go-bag. You can study all the weather reports on the web and still not know exactly when you’ll wake up to hear your favorite mountain has been freshly blanketed in a layer of soft, virgin powder.

My go-bag has the usual Gore-Tex winter clothing. In addition to jackets, pants and skin-tight base layers, I’ve added ibuprofen to help stave off sore muscles. (Insert standard check with your doctor before taking any medicine disclaimer.) I also pack extra socks in case I step in a puddle in the parking lot before putting my boots on. If I think of it before I jet out the door, I’ll toss in a banana to eat in the lot — it provides a quick dose of potassium to keep the horrors of a leg cramp from ruining a run.

Your pack may vary, but get it ready. Your friends don’t have time to wait for you gather your gear when they’re sitting outside your house at 4 a.m., engine running, eager to make first chair at the mountain.

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Letterman, Hoffman, Zeppelin honored by Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — David Letterman‘s “stupid human tricks” and Top 10 lists vaulted into the ranks of cultural acclaim Sunday night as the late-night comedian received this year’s Kennedy Center Honors with rock band Led Zeppelin, an actor, a ballerina and a bluesman.

Stars from New York, Hollywood and the music world joined President Barack Obama at the White House on Sunday night to salute the honorees, whose ranks also include actor Dustin Hoffman, Chicago bluesman Buddy Guy and ballerina Natalia Makarova.

The honors are the nation’s highest award for those who influenced American culture through the arts. The recipients were later saluted by fellow performers at the Kennedy Center Opera House in a show to be broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS.

Obama drew laughs from his guests when he described the honorees as “some extraordinary people who have no business being on the same stage together.”

Noting that Guy made his first guitar strings using the wire from a window screen, he quipped, “That worked until his parents started wondering how all the mosquitoes were getting in.”

The president thanked the members of Led Zeppelin for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of “hotel rooms trashed and mayhem all around.”

Obama noted Letterman’s humble beginnings as an Indianapolis weatherman who once reported the city was being pelted by hail ‘the size of canned hams.’”

“It’s one of the highlights of his career,” he said.

All kidding aside, Obama described all of the honorees as artists who “inspired us to see things in a new way, to hear things differently, to discover something within us or to appreciate how much beauty there is in the world.”

“It’s that unique power that makes the arts so important,” he added.

Later on the red carpet, Letterman said he was thrilled by the recognition and to visit Obama at the White House.

“It supersedes everything, honestly,” he said. “I haven’t won that many awards.”

During the show, comedian Tina Fey said she grew up watching her mom laugh at Letterman as he brought on “an endless parade of weirdos.”

“Who was this Dave Letterman guy?” Fey said. “Was he a brilliant, subtle passive-aggressive parody of a talk show host? Or just some Midwestern goon who was a little bit off? Time has proven that there’s just really no way of knowing.”

Alec Baldwin offered a Top 10 reasons Letterman was winning the award, including the fact that he didn’t leave late night for a six-month stint in primetime — a not-so-subtle dig at rival Jay Leno.

Jimmy Kimmel, who will soon compete head-to-head with Letterman on ABC, said he fell in love with Letterman early in life and even had a “Late Night” cake on his 16th birthday.

“To me it wasn’t just a TV show,” Kimmel said. “It was the reason I would fail to make love to a live woman for many, many years.”

For Buddy Guy, singers Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Chapman and others got most of the crowd on its feet singing Guy’s signature “Sweet Home Chicago.”

Morgan Freeman hailed Guy as a pioneer who helped bridge soul and rock and roll.

“When you hear the blues, you really don’t think of it as black or white or yellow or purple or blue,” Freeman said. “Buddy Guy, your blue brought us together.”

Robert De Niro saluted Hoffman, saying he had changed acting, never took any shortcuts and was brave enough to be a perfectionist.

“Before Dustin burst on the scene, it was pretty much OK for movie stars to show up, read their lines and, if the director insisted, act a little,” De Niro said. “But then Dustin came along — and he just had to get everything right.”

By the end of the night, the Foo Fighters, Kid Rock and Lenny Kravitz got the crowd moving to some of Zeppelin’s hits at the Kennedy Center.

Jack Black declared Zeppelin the “greatest rock and roll band of all time.”

“That’s right. Better than the Beatles. Better than the Stones. Even better than Tenacious D,” he said. “And that’s not opinion — that’s fact.”

For the finale, Heart’s Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson sang “Stairway to Heaven,” accompanied by a full choir and Jason Bonham, son of the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.

Zeppelin front man Robert Plant and his bandmates John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page seemed moved by the show.

Meryl Streep first introduced the honorees Saturday as they received the award medallions during a formal dinner at the U.S. State Department hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton said ballerina Makarova “risked everything to have the freedom to dance the way she wanted to dance” when she defected from the Soviet Union in 1970.

Makarova made her debut with the American Ballet Theatre and later was the first exiled artist to return to the Soviet Union before its fall to dance with the Kirov Ballet.

Clinton also took special note of Letterman, saying he must be wondering what he’s doing in a crowd of talented artists and musicians.

“Dave and I have a history,” she said. “I have been a guest on his show several times, and if you include references to my pant suits, I’m on at least once a week.”

___

Follow Brett Zongker on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Study Bolsters Link Between Routine Hits to Head and Long-Term Brain Disease

The growing evidence of a link between head trauma and long-term, degenerative brain disease was amplified in an extensive study of athletes, military veterans and others who absorbed repeated hits to the head, according to new findings published in the scientific journal Brain.

The study, which included brain samples taken posthumously from 85 people who had histories of repeated mild traumatic brain injury, added to the mounting body of research revealing the possible consequences of routine hits to the head in sports like football and hockey. The possibility that such mild head trauma could result in long-term cognitive impairment has come to vex sports officials, team doctors, athletes and parents in recent years.

Of the group of 85 people, 80 percent (68 men) — nearly all of whom played sports — showed evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a degenerative and incurable disease whose symptoms can include memory loss, depression and dementia.

Among the group found to have C.T.E., 50 were football players, including 33 who played in the N.F.L. Among them were stars like Dave Duerson, Cookie Gilchrist and John Mackey. Many of the players were linemen and running backs, positions that tend to have more contact with opponents.

Six high school football players, nine college football players, seven pro boxers and four N.H.L. players, including Derek Boogaard, the former hockey enforcer who died from an accidental overdose of alcohol and painkillers, also showed signs of C.T.E. The study also included 21 veterans, most of whom were also athletes, who showed signs of C.T.E.

The study was conducted by investigators at the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, in collaboration with the Sports Legacy Institute. It took four years to complete, included subjects 17 to 98 years old, and more than doubled the number of documented cases of C.T.E. The investigators also created a four-tiered system to classify degrees of C.T.E., hoping it would help doctors treat patients.

The volume of cases in the study “allows us to see the disease at all stages of severity and how it starts and spreads in the brain, which gives us an idea of the mechanism of the injury,” said Ann McKee, the main author of the study, who is a professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University School of Medicine and works at the V.A. Boston.

Those categorized as having Stage 1 of the disease had headaches and loss of attention and concentration, while those with Stage 2 also had depression, explosive behavior and short-term memory loss. Those with Stage 3 of C.T.E., including Duerson, a former All-Pro defensive back for the Chicago Bears who killed himself last year, had cognitive impairment and trouble with executive functions like planning and organizing. Those with Stage 4 had dementia, difficulty finding words and aggression.

Despite the breadth of the findings, the study, like others before it, did not prove definitively that head injuries sustained on the field caused C.T.E. To do that, doctors would need to identify the disease in living patients by using imaging equipment, blood tests or other techniques. Researchers have not been able to determine why some athletes who performed in the same conditions did not develop C.T.E.

The study also did not demonstrate what percentage of professional football players were likely to develop C.T.E. To do that, investigators would need to study the brains of players who do not develop C.T.E., and those are difficult to acquire because families of former players who do not exhibit symptoms are less likely to donate their brains to science.

“It’s a gambler’s game to try to predict what percentage of the population has this,” said Chris Nowinski, a co-author of the study and a co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University School of Medicine. “Many of the families donated the brains of their loved ones because they were symptomatic. Still, this is probably more widespread than we think.”

Researchers expected the details in the study to dispel doubts about the likelihood that many years of head trauma can lead to C.T.E. The growing connections between head trauma and contact sports, though, have led some nervous parents and coaches to assume that any concussion could lead to long-term impairment. Some doctors say that oversimplifies matters. Rather, the total amount of head trauma, including smaller subconcussive hits, as well as how they were treated, must be considered when evaluating whether an athlete is more at risk of developing a disease like C.T.E.

“All concussions are not created equal,” said Robert Cantu, a co-author of the study and a co-director of the encephalopathy center. “Parents have become paranoid about concussions and connecting the dots with C.T.E., and that’s wrong. The dots are really about total head trauma.”

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DealBook: Delta Air Lines Ponders Stake in Virgin Atlantic Airways

Delta Air Lines is in talks to buy Singapore Airlines’ 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic Airways, in an effort to bolster its international operations, particularly flights between New York and London, a person briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

Talks are continuing but a deal will not be announced soon, this person said. Singapore Airlines confirmed that it was in discussions about a potential sale of its Virgin stake, but provided no further details.

A transaction would be the latest in a round of mergers that has reshaped the airline industry, as companies in the United States and Europe have looked to consolidation to restore profitability.

With oil prices remaining stubbornly high and the economic outlook uncertain, many airlines have continued to struggle. That may precipitate even more takeovers, analysts say.

A deal would also be Delta’s most significant strategic move since its merger with Northwest Airlines, which made it the biggest American carrier until the union of United Airlines and Continental Airlines last year.

It would provide more access to London’s Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest, and expand Delta’s North Atlantic business.

It would also bolster its partnership with Air France KLM, Europe’s biggest airline. Both companies are part of the Sky Team global alliance, and also run a joint business in the North Atlantic market, sharing flights, revenues and costs.

“Delta has shown time and time again that it is extremely opportunistic,” said Brett Snyder, an airline expert. “If it sees a good opportunity, nothing is off the table.”

If it proceeded, a transaction would directly challenge the Oneworld global alliance, whose biggest members are American Airlines and British Airways. The two airlines have an international joint venture. Virgin does not belong to any of the three major airline alliances — Star, Oneworld and Sky Team — depriving it of the ability to coordinate flights and cut costs, which has helped many of its competitors. Star’s major carriers are United, US Airways and Lufthansa. The deal would also give Virgin a strong partner as it struggles to compete against rivals with deeper pockets. Founded by Richard Branson in 1984, the company has long embraced an image of fun travel and cheaper fares.

But that has not helped the airline’s financial condition of late. Virgin lost £80 million, or $128 million, in the year that ended in February, compared with a profit of £18.5 million in the previous year.

The company has been under pressure from the likes of British Airways, whose corporate parent, IAG, bought BMI British Midlands earlier this year. Virgin fought against that deal, arguing that it would give British Airways too much of a presence at Heathrow. But the takeover was completed, after IAG complied with a European Commission order to give back 14 slots at the airport.

The deal may also pave the way for an eventual change of control of Virgin. The company’s chief executive, Steve Ridgway, told The Financial Times in an interview in January that Mr. Branson was prepared to sell some of his 51 percent controlling stake in the airline.

“For Virgin, it’s an exit strategy in an environment where they are being marginalized by alliances on the Atlantic,” said Robert W. Mann, an airline analyst based in Port Washington, N.Y.

A Delta spokeswoman declined to comment. A representative for Virgin was not immediately available for comment.

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A father's long battle for his daughters

Luis Ernesto Rodriguez eyed the metal door as he waited for his little girls. Now 6 and 5 years old, they were his only children, inseparable, with thick black hair and mischievous smiles that reminded people of little mermaids.

More than two years had passed since he had last seen them. What would they be like now? Would they recognize him? He had shed 20 pounds during the long journey north.

The door opened and his girls bounded into the tiny room. They shouted and laughed the same way they did when he used to carry one in each arm on the way to day care.

PHOTOS: The case of Luis Ernesto Rodriguez

But their smiles melted away when they saw the thick wall of Plexiglas between them and their father, clothed in an orange jumpsuit worn by detainees at an immigration detention center in California's Imperial Valley. There would be no hugs, no kisses.

The girls pressed their palms to the barrier. Rodriguez did the same. His older daughter showed him how to shape a heart with her hands. Rodriguez did the same.

"Be patient," Rodriguez said. "I promise I'll be with you again."

::

Rodriguez last caressed his daughters in the predawn darkness of their cluttered apartment in South Los Angeles. The girls were asleep under the pink sheets of their shared bed when he kissed them and then rushed out to seek day laborer work at the Home Depot store on Slauson Avenue.

FULL COVERAGE: Without a country

It was there, on that morning in November 2008, where police converged on Rodriguez, weapons drawn, and arrested him on suspicion of armed robbery. A short man with a bristly mustache, Rodriguez, then 39, fit the description of a man who had swiped three gold rings from a woman.

It was an apparent case of mistaken identity. No charges were filed, but Rodriguez wasn't going back to his girls.

An immigrant from El Salvador with a troubled past, he had a deportation order dating to 1991. He spent the next two months in jails.

The girls ended up with their maternal grandmother, who was destitute and suffered from memory lapses, so social workers took them away. They joined the thousands of children nationwide who are under custody of child protection agencies after their parents have been placed in deportation proceedings or deported. An estimated 5,000 such children are in foster care, about 1,000 of them in Los Angeles County, according to juvenile court attorneys and the Applied Research Center, a nonprofit racial justice think tank.

Many follow their deported mothers and fathers, if the parents can convince U.S. agencies that they can provide a stable life in their home countries. In such cases, social workers from Los Angeles escort the children to parents at joyous airport reunions, usually in Mexico and El Salvador.

But sometimes parents fail. Their children either languish in foster care or they're adopted by American couples. Some never see their biological parents again.

::

In January 2009, Rodriguez was placed on a flight to El Salvador, a nation he had fled as a teen, when it was rife with war.

He had hours to agonize over his girls' fate. "Being away from them was tearing me apart," he recalled.

Rodriguez had been through such a separation before. In 2007, social workers had taken his daughters from Rodriguez's dirty, near-empty apartment in South Los Angeles. Rodriguez and his wife, Blanca, were cocaine users.

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Geek Culture's 26 Most Awesome Female Ass-Kickers

Angelina Jolie extends her reputation as filmdom’s most compelling ass-kicker, Female Division, when Salt opens Friday. Midway through a summer freighted with testosterone, Jolie’s lithe Agent Salt is a potent reminder of the power of feminine fighters.

A minority presence in sci-fi and action realms even in 2010, women warriors remain the exception to the guy-centric rule in film, TV, videogames and comic books. But that’s changing, according to Action Flick Chick blogger Katrina Hill, who moderates the "Where Are the Action Chicks?" panel Friday at San Diego’s Comic-Con International.

"Compare the original Predator to this summer’s Predators," she said in an e-mail interview with Wired.com. "The original film was a complete boy’s club, with the only woman in the movie being a hostage. Today, Predators has a kick-ass chick mixed in as an equal amongst these other badass men. So there are steps being taken in the right direction. It just takes time."

The rise of the female fighter will be addressed at no fewer than three other female-dominated panels at this year’s Comic-Con (Thursday’s “Divas and Golden Lassoes: The LGBT Obsession with Super Heroines” and Friday’s “Girls Gone Genre: Movies, TV, Comics, Web” and “Women Who Kick Ass: A New Generation of Heroines,” which features Fringe’s Anna Torv and V’s Elizabeth Mitchell.)

Here’s a look at 26 sexy-fierce female ass-kickers who’ve relied on biceps and brains to periodically kick-start geek culture.

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