Petraeus resignation as CIA chief brings sudden halt to career

General David Petraeus is stepping down as CIA Director, citing an extra-marital affair.CNN reports the FBI had a tip that he was involved with his biographer Paula Broadwell and investigated to determine whether it posed a security risk. ...

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China derides U.S. "Cold War mentality" towards telecoms firm Huawei

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States is exhibiting a "Cold War mentality" with its fears that Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei poses a security risk because of its ties to the Communist Party, China's commerce minister said on Saturday. The U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee warned last month that Beijing could use equipment made by Huawei,...

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Nationals bring back manager Johnson for 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Nationals are bringing back Davey Johnson for one more season as their manager.Johnson will move into a role as a consultant to the club in 2014. The Nationals announced the arrangement Saturday.At 70 years old, Johnson will be the oldest manager in the majors in 2013.Last season, he led the Nationals to their first NL East title and a majors-high 98 wins. Washington...

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“Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence will not diet for role

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “The Hunger Games” star Jennifer Lawrence will not be dieting for a role any time soon.Lawrence, 22, who plays the famished Katniss Everdeen in the life-or-death thriller series, told Elle magazine in an interview to be published on November 13 that dropping a few pounds will not be part of her script. “I’m...

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Malaria vaccine a letdown for infants

LONDON (AP) — An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half — though that is still far below the...

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War photography exhibit debuts in Houston museum

HOUSTON (AP) — It was a moment Nina Berman did not expect to capture when she entered an Illinois wedding studio in 2006. She knew Tyler Ziegel had been horribly injured, his face mutilated beyond recognition by a suicide bombing in the Iraq War. She knew he was marrying his pretty high school sweetheart, perfect in a white, voluminous dress.It was their expressions that were surprising."People don't...

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Retailers plan earlier start to Black Friday

Cierra Hobson is a die-hard Black Friday shopper.Every year she queues in front of one of her favorite stores, where she waits,...

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Cook County OKs budget with $1-a-pack cigarette tax hike

A budget that includes higher or new taxes on cigarettes, gambling and guns is expected to sail through the Cook County Commission Friday. ...

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds. Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions...

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Steelers, WR Sanders fined for faking injury

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Malaria vaccine a letdown for infants

LONDON (AP) — An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.

That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half — though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.

Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, described the vaccine's protection levels as "unacceptably low." She was not linked to the study.

Scientists have been working for decades to develop a malaria vaccine, a complicated endeavor since the disease is caused by five different species of parasites. There has never been an effective vaccine against a parasite. Worldwide, there are several dozen malaria vaccine candidates being researched.

In 2006, a group of experts led by the World Health Organization said a malaria vaccine should cut the risk of severe disease and death by at least half and should last longer than one year. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people every year, mostly young children and pregnant women in Africa. Without a vaccine, officials have focused on distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying homes with pesticides and ensuring access to good medicines.

In the new study, scientists found babies who got three doses of the vaccine had about 30 percent fewer cases of malaria than those who didn't get immunized. The research included more than 6,500 infants in Africa. Experts also found the vaccine reduced the amount of severe malaria by about 26 percent, up to 14 months after the babies were immunized.

Scientists said they needed to analyze the data further to understand why the vaccine may be working differently in different regions. For example, babies born in areas with high levels of malaria might inherit some antibodies from their mothers which could interfere with any vaccination.

"Maybe we should be thinking of a first-generation vaccine that is targeted only for certain children," said Dr. Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, one of the study investigators.

Results were presented at a conference in South Africa on Friday and released online by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is scheduled to continue until 2014 and is being paid for by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.

"The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later," said Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is developing a competing malaria vaccine. He noted the study showed the Glaxo vaccine lost its potency after several months. Hill said the vaccine might be a hard sell, compared to other vaccines like those for meningitis and pneumococcal disease — which are both effective and cheap.

"If it turns out to have a clear 30 percent efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale," said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who also sits on a WHO advisory board.

Eleanor Riley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine might be useful if used together with other strategies, like bed nets. She was involved in an earlier study of the vaccine and had hoped for better results. "We're all a bit frustrated that it has proven so hard to make a malaria vaccine," she said. "The question is how much money are the funders willing to keep throwing at it."

Glaxo first developed the vaccine in 1987 and has invested $300 million in it so far.

WHO said it couldn't comment on the incomplete results and would wait until the trial was finished before drawing any conclusions.

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He called it, and now Silver's a pop-culture star

NEW YORK (AP) — The other night, Nate Silver got a little taste of what things are going to be like for him, post-Election 2012.

The 34-year-old statistician, unabashed numbers geek, author and creator of the much-read FiveThirtyEight blog at The New York Times had gone out for a drink with friends on Manhattan's Lower East Side. But he couldn't stay incognito; Immediately, he says, people sitting at the bar recognized him.

He was surprised, but probably shouldn't have been. After all, for 24 hours, ever since his election forecasts had proved uncannily successful — he correctly predicted the presidential winner in all 50 states, and almost all the Senate races — he'd been hailed as the election's "other winner," who'd silenced doubters and proven the value of a cool-headed, math-based approach.

That very night, he'd appeared on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" for the second time in three weeks. "Don't you want to stand up and say, 'I am Nate Silver, bow down to me!!'" Stewart roared, as the bespectacled Silver sat and chuckled. His name was trending on Twitter and he was the subject of a satirical Twitter hashtag, "Drunk Nate Silver." The Hollywood Reporter said he'd "made statistics sexy again." Many called his story a real-life "Revenge of the Nerds" tale.

And oh, his new book had soared to No. 2 on Amazon, after he linked to it on Twitter an hour after the first network call for President Barack Obama. ("This is probably a good time to link to my book," he'd tweeted at 12:13 a.m. — the closest he came to gloating.)

Even so, Silver says he wasn't quite prepared for that incident in the bar.

"It's odd," he said Thursday in a telephone interview from his Brooklyn home. "Is this going to happen every day, as opposed to once a month? I still have to get accustomed to this."

Silver, who uses computer models that he runs on a beat-up laptop at home, is quick to acknowledge the accomplishments of others using similar methods. "It's a little strange to become a kind of symbol of a whole type of analysis," he said. And he noted that similar work was being done with, for example, weather, all the time. "You have to give those forecasters way more credit," he said. "Their forecasts have real life-and-death consequences"

In politics, too, others have used similar computer models to predict races. What Silver has done, though, is not only arrive at a formula that uses aggregated polls and other weighted factors to achieve his predictions, but to write about them in an accessible and engaging way.

His father, political science professor Brian Silver, attributes his son's success to a two-pronged drive: "He's driven by a need to get the answers to a problem, but he also is very concerned with the narrative, with telling the story," said the elder Silver, who teaches at Michigan State University.

The father recalls his son at 2 years old, already revealing himself as a prodigy with numbers — his mother asked him to count to three, and he went to 20. By four, he understood negative numbers, and could multiply in his head.

Needless to say he was a math whiz, but he also was a debating champion, winning competitions in high school. "On the debate team, it was OK to be a geek," Brian Silver explained. Nate then went off to the University of Chicago, where he earned a degree in economics.

A few years in consulting followed. It bored him, but it was during those years that Silver turned his love of baseball into a sophisticated forecasting system of player performance. That became his new career; he sold the system to Baseball Prospectus, and wrote a weekly column there on baseball research.

In 2007, Silver started writing about politics — at first under a pseudonym, "Poblano." He quickly gained an audience for his forecasts during the presidential primaries. In March of 2008, he began his FiveThirtyEight blog, and a few months later revealed his name.

"People had been thinking Poblano was a major pollster," said his father. "He was just a kid with a B.A. in economics."

With his success in the 2008 race — he got every state right except for Indiana — Silver was already a big name. In 2009 he was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. In 2010, he licensed his blog to The New York Times.

But the 2012 election brought a new level of pressure. While Democrats flocked to his blog and took daily solace in his consistent prediction that Obama would win — though not by a lot — commentators on the right were critical, and he was accused of weighting his forecasts too heavily toward Democrats.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, called him a "joke." Silver responded by betting him that Obama would win, a bet that Scarborough didn't take him up on and that was later criticized by the Times ombudsman. (That bet was the poker player in him, Silver says now; he spent a couple years playing serious online poker.)

Much more disturbing, said Silver, were what he called the homophobic comments that some resorted to on the Web. "That was a little shocking," he said. Added his father: "It got very personal."

But Silver says he always felt confident in his projections. "I didn't see any particular reason for the polls to be off the mark," he said. "Republicans said Democrats were oversampled, but without much justification. I felt pretty confident personally." Silver predicted 90.9 percent certainty that Obama would win, and forecast him getting 313 electoral college votes; he has 303 without Florida, which is still counting and could take him to 332.

On Election Day itself, Silver felt nervous, but only because there was nothing left to do. Once the early results started coming in, he relaxed. And then, of course, came vindication. "You know who won the election tonight? Nate Silver," said Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Even Bret Baier on Fox gave credit on air to Silver. On "The Daily Show," Stewart basically credited Silver with saving the reputation of arithmetic — and more. "Like, gravity would have been up for grabs," Stewart quipped, if Silver had been wrong.

There have been some gripes that Silver doesn't reveal his actual formula. "He has very carefully explained how he does things," his father answers. "But he's not giving away his code. He shouldn't be expected to do that."

Nate Silver does say, however, that in the future, "Maybe we'll have to be clearer." He also voices concern that precise forecasting could have the frightening effect of influencing voter behavior — something that obviously doesn't happen in areas like weather. "You don't want to influence the same system you are trying to forecast," he said.

Silver also says he doesn't necessarily expect the same results forever. "I know we're going to have some misses sooner or later," he said, adding that an incorrect forecast on the Senate race in North Dakota is "proof that we can be wrong — and polls can be wrong." Others have pointed out that Silver's forecasting is, of course, only as good as the polls he is using, since he's not a pollster himself.

For now, though, he's trying to enjoy it all as much as he can.

"When you get into statistical analysis, you don't really expect to achieve fame," he observed wryly. "Or to become an Internet meme. Or be parodied by The Onion — or be the subject of a cartoon in The New Yorker. I guess I'm kind of an outlier there."

What's ahead for Silver? Turns out, forecasting his own future feels much more difficult than forecasting an election.

"It can be a fulltime job, figuring out what your job is going to be," he quipped.

For now, he has a second book to write, part of a two-book deal. And FiveThirtyEight is set to remain at the Times until mid-2013. After that, he doesn't know yet, though he noted, with understatement: "I know I'll have more opportunities now." But he added: "I'm sure there will be a FiveThirtyEight forecast in 2016."

For now, he prefers to look at life, and life choices, as a poker player, since he loves the game.

"You get steely nerves playing poker," he said. "It's part skill and part luck. You hope you win enough bets to make a living on, right?"

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Sandy to raise U.S. used-car prices

The estimated 250,000 cars flooded by Superstorm Sandy on the East Coast will drive up used-car prices, even as far away as California.

The supply shortage comes on the heels of an already tightened used-car market in the wake of the recession, when new car sales dried up. Some experts say prices could rise $700 to $1,000 on the typical used car in the short term. Although those effects will be felt most acutely near the flood zone, the increasingly digital and national market for used cars will spread the price shocks widely.

The flood of Sandy-damaged cars further poses the risk that many will wind up in the hands of unscrupulous dealers peddling to unwitting consumers. The vehicles pose both financial and health risks.

"Cars that have been submerged in saltwater, and contaminated by bacteria and various toxins, will soon start to appear all over the country, even in states far from the center of the storm," said Rosemary Shahan, president of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety.

Shahan said there were cases of Nissan vehicles flooded by Hurricane Katrina auctioned as "new" as far away as California after that storm.

She urged shoppers to look for signs of flood damage, including engines that hesitate or run roughly, musty interior smells or signs of silt residue or premature rust.

Buyers should also run the vehicle information number through the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System at vehiclehistory.gov. Insurers, salvage pools, auctions and junkyards in all 50 states are required to report all total-loss vehicles to this federal database within 30 days, Shahan said.

For new vehicles or those still within the factory warranty period, shoppers who suspect flood damage should call the manufacturer to ask if they will honor the warranty, which is typically nullified for flooded cars. If the vehicle was registered as a flood vehicle, the manufacturer won't honor the warranty, and the buyer will know there is a problem.

Although properly restored and titled salvage or flooded vehicles can be an "economical option," consumers should understand what they are getting.

"There is always a chance that there will be problems down the road with corrosion or malfunctions in the electrical systems," said Bob Passmore, senior director at the Property Casualty Insurers Assn. of America.

Rising prices caused by the storm might be one reason why consumers would turn to such cheaper options or fall victim to an attractively priced vehicle with hidden flood damage.

Prices are already comparatively high for late-model used cars, according to industry analysts. That's because of the low number of new cars sold in 2009 and 2010, which also slowed the flow of trade-ins into the used-car market. Leases, a major source of used cars, nearly disappeared.

Now the flood of Sandy-damaged cars is putting more pressure on the tight supply of late-model cars. Prices will go up at least 0.5% to 1.5% in December, said Jonathan Banks, an analyst with the National Automobile Dealers Assn. The dealer group said that amounts to a little more than $50 to $175 for the average used vehicle.

Auto information company Edmunds.com has a much higher estimate, saying that used-car prices will climb $700 to $1,000 "in the short term."

The price hikes will be highest on the East Coast but felt nationally, Banks said.

"We have seen a trend for dealers, regardless of where they are located, buying inventory online, and that means that geography is not as important as in the past," he said. "It used to be that dealers would buy cars from a physical auction near their dealership."

Pulling such a huge number of vehicles out of the U.S. fleet will have an effect at the national level, Banks said.

The problem is compounded by at least tens of thousands of new cars that were destroyed both at dealerships and storage yards in parts of New York and New Jersey hit hardest by the storm.

"Many dealers lost a significant amount of inventory. One Honda dealer told me he lost 600 new units," Banks said.

Fisker Automotive Inc., the Anaheim maker of $100,000 plug-in hybrid sports cars, said it lost 338 vehicles, with a retail value of nearly $34 million, at a port storage facility in New Jersey. Toyota Motor Corp. has said it might have lost as many as 4,500 new Toyota, Scion and Lexus vehicles to flooding and storm damage. American Honda Motor Co. said that more than 3,000 new vehicles at its dealers and storage yards suffered flood damage.

All this is going to create problems for consumers in the storm region who need to replace their rides quickly.

"Prices could really shoot up for consumers buying cars right away, because they will run into a severe inventory shortage," Banks said.

The dealers group believes that some replacement buying will start this month but will pick up in December and run through February. Banks expects that about 30% of buyers will purchase new cars and the remainder will choose used cars.

The buying, however, should provide a boost for the economy, said Edmunds.com Chief Economist Lacey Plache.

"Even if 100,000 damaged vehicles are replaced by the end of the year, it could boost auto sales 3% to 4% for the quarter," Plache said. "That has a positive effect on the economy overall."

jerry.hirsch@latimes.com

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Guilty: Dad who posted photo of daughter bound, gagged

A father who posted a Facebook photo of his 22-month-old daughter bound and gagged with tape was found guilty today of charges of aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery.

Judge Lawrence Flood had acquitted Andre Curry of unlawful restraint after a trial late last month, but today he found Curry guilty of the two battery counts, saying in a brief ruling that by placing tape over the girl's mouth, he had obstructed her breathing for his own enjoyment.

"To use a child...as a toy or a prop in an odd attempt at humor is conduct of an insulting or provoking nature," Flood said.

Curry, dressed in a sweater and tie, kept his head down and his hands behind his back as the judge spoke. His lawyers have said it was a stupid prank by the 22-year-old father. His photo became an Internet sensation last December.

He faces up to 7 years in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 29, but he has never before been in trouble and could be placed on probation. He remains free on bond pending sentencing.

Curry’s attorney, Sam Adam Jr., said his client was “devastated” by the felony conviction. The domestic battery law was not intended to punish a loving parent who makes a mistake but causes no injuries, Adam said.

“This is for people who beat their wives. This is for people who beat their kids,” Adam said. “That is not this case.”

Adam said prosecutors should have focused less on winning a conviction and more on doing what’s best for the child, who now has a father who will find it difficult to maintain a job and support her financially.

“How is he going to provide for this child as a convicted felon?” Adam said. “Do you know what it’s like to be a black man in America with a felony in your background? Who’s going to hire him? How is he going to make a living?

“Yes, this was stupid. Yes he put it on Facebook. Yes he made some silly remarks. But that’s not felony action,” Adam said. “That’s not what the legislature intended and we’re going to have to take it up (on) appeal.”

Curry told police he was playing with his daughter one night at their South Side home and used blue painter’s tape to bind her ankles and wrists and cover her mouth. He then snapped a photo and uploaded it on his Facebook page.

Across the top of the photo were the words: "This is wut happens wen my baby hits me back," according to prosecutors and police reports. The message was followed with a winking emoticon.
 
Family members have said that Curry is playful and the photograph was meant to be a joke.

But the image went viral on the Internet, prompting a flood of calls to police and state child-welfare authorities from Curry’s friends on Facebook and others who had seen it.

jmeisner@tribune.com

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.

Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more per investor.

It puts the firm on the same footing as more established corporate venture funds such as Intel's Intel Capital, which typically invests $300-$500 million a year.

"It puts a lot more wood behind the arrow if we need it," said Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures.

Part of the rationale behind the increase is that Google Ventures is a relatively young firm, founded in 2009. Some of the companies it backed two or three years ago are now at later stages, potentially requiring larger cash infusions to grow further.

Google Ventures has taken an eclectic approach, investing in a broad spectrum of companies ranging from medicine to clean power to coupon companies.

Every year, it typically funds 40-50 "seed-stage" deals where it invests $250,000 or less in a company, and perhaps around 15 deals where it invests up to $10 million, Maris said. It aims to complete one or two deals annually in the $20-$50 million range, Maris said.

LACKING SUPERSTARS

Some of its investments include Nest, a smart-thermostat company; Foundation Medicine, which applies genomic analysis to cancer care; Relay Rides, a carsharing service; and smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks. Last year, its portfolio company HomeAway raised $216 million in an initial public offering.

Still, Google Ventures lacks superstar companies such as microblogging service Twitter or online bulletin-board company Pinterest. The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals.

Soon it could have even more cash to play around with. "Larry has repeatedly asked me: 'What do you think you could do with a billion a year?'" said Maris, referring to Google chief executive Larry Page.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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NHL, union hold labor talks a 3rd straight day

NEW YORK (AP) — The NHL and the players' association returned to the bargaining table Thursday, the third straight day the sides have met in an effort to end the lockout.

The work stoppage reached its 54th day, and this week is considered critical for the hockey season to be saved. The lockout is threatening to force the second cancellation of an NHL season in seven years.

Even if an agreement is reached soon, it isn't clear if any of this season's games that have been called off through Nov. 30 can be rescheduled. The NHL, however, has said a full 82-game season won't be played.

Owners and players already have bargained for about 13 hours over two days this week at an undisclosed site in New York. Little information about the talks has been disclosed by either side.

Thursday afternoon's discussions marked the fourth time in six days that face-to-face negotiations have taken place after both sides rejected proposals Oct. 18. The lockout, which began Sept. 16 after the collective bargaining agreement expired, has forced the cancellation of 327 regular-season games, including the New Year's Day Winter Classic in Michigan.

A second consecutive day of marathon negotiations took place Wednesday, when the sides spent more than five hours discussing the most contentious issues. Coupled with the more than seven hours they spent negotiating Tuesday, owners and players have been together about 13 hours.

"We do not intend to comment on the substance or subject matter," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said the parties met to "discuss many of the key issues," but did not elaborate.

Those issues include revenue sharing between teams and the "make-whole" provision, which involves the payment of player contracts that are already in effect. There is still much to be done to work out the differences to reach a deal that will allow the already delayed and shortened season to begin.

Along with a handful of team owners, eight players attended Wednesday's talks, five fewer than Tuesday. Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and others left New York to try to avoid the impending snowstorm that hit the area, the union said.

In October, the players' association responded to an NHL offer with three of its own, but all of those were quickly dismissed by the league. That led to nearly three weeks without face-to-face discussions, although the parties kept in regular contact by phone.

Both sides have made proposals that included a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenues. The NHL has moved toward the players' side in the "make-whole" provision and whose share of the economic pie that money will come from.

Other core economic issues — mainly the split of hockey-related revenue — along with contract lengths, arbitration and free agency also must be agreed upon.

The union accepted a salary cap in the previous labor pact, which wasn't reached until after the entire 2004-05 season was canceled because of a lockout. The union doesn't want to absorb the majority of concessions this time after the NHL had record revenue that exceeded $3 billion last season.

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Look who’s talking! Kirstie Alley calls Travolta “greatest love”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Kirstie Alley described on Wednesday how she fell in love more than 20 years ago with John Travolta, and rejected widespread Hollywood speculation that the “Grease” star is secretly gay.

Alley, former star of the 1980s TV comedy “Cheers,” told ABC television journalist Barbara Walters that she fell for both Travolta and actor Patrick Swayze in the 1980s, although their romances never got physical.

Alley, 61, said she was attracted to Travolta while the pair were making the 1989 movie “Look Who’s Talking,” calling him “the greatest love of my life.”

“Believe me, it took everything I had inside, outside, whatever, to not run off and marry John and be with John for the rest of my life,” Alley told Walters in an interview broadcast on breakfast TV show “Good Morning America.”

Asked by Walters to comment on persistent rumors about Travolta’s sexuality, she said: “I know John with all my heart and soul. He’s not gay.”

Alley added: “I think in some weird way, in Hollywood, if someone gets big enough and famous enough, and they’re not out doing drugs and they’re not womanizing, what do you say about them?”

Travolta was single at the time, but Alley was on her second marriage, so she never pursued her feelings, she explained.

Travolta later married actress Kelly Preston, his wife for the past 20 years. But the actor was the target of two lawsuits earlier this year, which were quickly dropped, from two male masseurs who claimed Travolta made unwanted sexual advances.

Alley, who talks more about her love life in her new book, “The Art of Men,” said she fell for Swayze while they were filming the 1985 Civil War TV miniseries “North and South.”

“We did fall in love. I was more willing to break up my marriage and I wasn’t willing to break up his marriage,” Alley said, explaining why the relationship failed to go further.

Swayze, best known for his lead role in “Dirty Dancing,” died of pancreatic cancer in 2009 at the age of 57. He was married to dancer Lisa Niemi from 1975 until his death.

Alley has been married twice. Her second marriage, to actor Parker Stevenson, ended in 1997.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; editing by Matthew Lewis)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Obama's health care overhaul turns into a sprint

WASHINGTON (AP) — The long slog has turned into a sprint. President Barack Obama's health care law survived the Supreme Court and the election; now the uninsured can sign up for coverage in about 11 months.

"We are out of the political gamesmanship and into the reality," said Sandy Praeger, Kansas' Republican insurance commissioner. Next week, states have to say if they're committed to building the framework for delivering health insurance to millions.

Not all hurdles have been cleared.

Republican governors who derided "Obamacare" have to decide whether it's better for their states to now help carry it out. The administration could stumble carrying out the complex legislation, or get tripped up if budget talks with Congress lead to scaling back the plan.

"We are still going to be struggling through the politics, and there are important policy hurdles and logistical challenges," said Andrew Hyman of the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, helping states carry out the law. "But we are on a very positive trajectory."

Instead of being dismantled by a Republican president and Congress, Obama's law is now on track to take its place alongside Medicare and Medicaid. The action starts right away.

A week from Friday, states must notify Washington if they'll be setting up new health insurance markets, called exchanges, in which millions of households and small businesses will shop for private coverage. The Health and Human Services Department will run the exchanges in states that aren't ready or willing.

Open enrollment for exchange plans is scheduled to start Oct. 1, 2013, and coverage will be effective Jan. 1, 2014.

In all, more than 30 million uninsured people are expected to gain coverage under the law. About half will get private insurance through the exchanges, with most receiving government help to pay premiums.

The rest, mainly low-income adults without children at home, will be covered through an expansion of Medicaid. While the federal government will pay virtually all the additional Medicaid costs, the Supreme Court gave states the leeway to opt out of the expansion. That adds to the uncertainty over how the law will be carried out.

A steadying force within the administration is likely to be HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The former Kansas governor has said she wants to stay until the law is fully enacted. "I can't imagine walking out the door in the middle of that," she told The Kansas City Star during the Democratic convention. Her office declined to comment.

Governors will be the main counterparts to Sebelius, and Republicans are leading more than half the states.

Some, like Rick Perry of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, have drawn a line against helping carry out Obama's law. In other states, voters have endorsed a hard stance. Missouri voters passed a ballot measure Tuesday that would prohibit establishment of a health insurance exchange unless the Legislature approves. State-level challenges to the federal law will continue to percolate.

Other GOP governors have been on the fence, awaiting the outcome of the election. All eyes will be on pragmatists like Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bob McDonnell of Virginia, whose states have done considerable planning to set up exchanges.

"Republican governors are at the center of the health care universe right now," said Michael Ramlet, health policy director at the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. "They do not have a uniform position across the board."

GOP governors are pressing Sebelius on whether the administration will approve partial, less costly Medicaid expansions, making it more attractive to cash-pressed states.

On health insurance exchanges, some governors whose states aren't ready are considering the administration's fallback offer to run the new markets through a partnership.

"The real question for Republican governors is: 'Are you going to let the feds come into your state?'" Ramlet said. "The question for the Obama administration is whether they are going to have more flexibility."

Major regulations are due shortly covering such issues as exchange operations, benefits and protections for people with pre-existing health problems. That could signal the administration's willingness to compromise.

A recent check by The Associated Press found 17 states and the District of Columbia on track to setting up their own exchanges, while nine have decided not to do so. The federal government could end up running the show in half or more of the states.

The states on track include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.

Definitely not setting up exchanges are Alaska, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin. Missouri and others are likely to join the list.

As far as Medicaid, 11 states and the District of Columbia have indicated they will expand their programs, while six have said they will not. That leaves more than 30 undecided.

The states definitely expanding Medicaid include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington. Those declining include Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans say if a budget deal is going to include tax increases, it must also come with cuts to the health care law, or money-saving delays in its implementation.

While major changes can't be ruled out, they don't seem very likely to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who is close to the administration.

"I think Democrats are increasingly emboldened about the health care act," Daschle said. "The president won re-election partly by defending it. There is a new dynamic around the health care effort."

Republican attempts to amend the law will continue, he said, but outright repeal is no longer a possibility, adding: "Budgetary issues will continue to be a big question mark."

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Man pleads no contest in 'Bling Ring' case

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who had been accused of burglarizing Paris Hilton's home pleaded no contest on Thursday to receiving jewelry stolen from the house during a rash of break-ins by a group dubbed the "Bling Ring."

Roy Lopez Jr. was then sentenced to serve three years of supervised probation.

Lopez, 30, was initially charged with felony residential burglary and conspiring with other members of the ring that targeted the swank, Hollywood Hills homes of stars such as Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom and others.

Hilton's home was burglarized in December 2008, and police were able to return some of her property.

The burglary charge and other counts against Lopez were dropped. Deputy District Attorney Christine Kee said Hilton has opted not to receive restitution in the case.

Much of the estimated $3 million in high-end jewelry, clothes and art that was taken from the celebrities has never been recovered.

"We're pleased that the district attorney was able to work with us on this case and allow Roy to get his life back on track," defense attorney David Diamond said after the hearing.

Evidence in the case supported his contention that Lopez had never been in Hilton's residence, Diamond said.

Several other defendants, including the alleged ringleaders, have taken plea deals to end their cases. The remaining defendant, Courtney Leigh Ames, returns to court on Dec. 14.

Diana Tamayo, who pleaded no contest to burglarizing Lohan's home, might still be required to pay restitution in the case. Lohan has indicated she may seek restitution against Tamayo, but the actress was not available to be in court on Thursday, Kee said.

The case hit a snag recently after it was revealed that the lead police investigator was paid to consult and appear in an upcoming Sofia Coppola film based on the case.

Los Angeles Police Officer Brett Goodkin failed to disclose the work to his superiors and prosecutors ahead of time.

Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler has called Goodkin's actions "stupid and a gift to defense attorneys," but not enough to warrant dismissal of any charges.

Fidler referenced the issue by telling Lopez, "You got a break because of what's happened in this case."

___

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

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McDonald's sales drop, first time since 2003

McDonald's Corp. reported its first decline in monthly U.S. same store sales in nine years Thursday, as the chain began to suffer problems plaguing the rest of the fast food industry for several years.

Sales at restaurants open more than a year declined 2.2 percent. Same store sales also declined in Europe, 2.2 percent, and the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region, 2.4 percent.

The chain cited lower demand and greater competition for the lower sales. While hamburger competitors Burger King and Wendy’s were walloped by the onset of the recession, both  have changed hands in recent years and launched new menu items that better compete with McDonald’s including expanded breakfast offerings, improved coffee options and more innovative salads.

"Though October's sales results reflect the pervasive challenges of today's global marketplace, I am confident that our strategies and the adjustments we are making in response to the current business headwinds will build sales momentum and drive sustained, profitable growth," McDonald's CEO Don Thompson said. 

Although the decline is historic for the world's largest restaurant chain, which has been on a roll since the beginning of its historic turnaround in 2003, it was not unexpected. Analysts have been tempering expectations and downgrading the stock for months.

To rev up sales, McDonald's has been working to emphasize value in markets around the world.

In the U.S., for example, McDonald's is stepping up advertising for its Dollar Menu after its attempt to market an "Extra Value Menu" for slightly higher prices fell flat. But the company said Thursday that the efforts were offset by "modest consumer demand" and competition.

In particular, McDonald's is facing stiffer competition from longtime rivals Burger King and Wendy's, which are both in the midst of reviving their brands with new ad campaigns and improved menus. Taco Bell, owned by Yum Brands Inc., is also enjoying growth with the help of new offerings such as it Doritos Locos Tacos and higher-end Cantina Bell bowls and burritos.

Stock slipped 0.99 percent in pre-market trades, to $86 in early trading. McDonald's hit an all-time high of $101.74 in February.

Baird analyst David Tarantino maintained an outperform rating on McDonald's, saying in a research note that, "We are cautiously optimistic that better trends can emerge as McDonald's gets past a wall of challenging comparisons in upcoming months."

Tarrantino added that though results "could remain soft" through early 2013, "we see opportunity for better performance to emerge in 2013 as a whole," because of emphasis on value offerings, lower ingredient costs, and reduced currency impact.

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

- Reuters contributed to this report

MCD Net Income Quarterly data by YCharts

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Obama wins but 'fiscal cliff' looms

President Barack Obama faces a new urgent task now that he has a second term, working with a status-quo Congress to address an impending financial crisis that economists say could send the country back into recession.

"You made your voice heard," Obama said in his acceptance speech, signaling that he believes the bulk of the country is behind his policies. It's a sticking point for House Republicans, sure to balk at that.

The same voters who gave Obama four more years in office also elected a divided Congress, sticking with the dynamic that has made it so hard for the president to advance his agenda. Democrats retained control of the Senate; Republicans kept their House majority.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke of a dual mandate. "If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs," he said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had a more harsh assessment.

"The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," McConnell said. "They have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together" with a balanced Congress.

Obama's more narrow victory was nothing like the jubilant celebration in 2008, when his hope-and-change election as the nation's first black president captivated the world. This time, Obama ground it out with a stay-the-course pitch that essentially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Congress will be more accommodating than in the past.

Even his victory party was more subdued. His campaign said Wednesday that 20,000 people came to hear his speech in downtown Chicago, compared with 200,000 four years ago.

The most pressing challenges immediately ahead for the 44th president are all too familiar: an economy still baby-stepping its way toward full health; 23 million people out of work or in search of better jobs; civil war in Syria; a menacing standoff over Iran's nuclear program.

Sharp differences with Republicans in Congress on taxes, spending, deficit reduction, immigration and more await. While Republicans control the House, Democrats have at least 53 votes in the Senate and Republicans 45. One newly elected independent isn't saying which party he'll side with, and North Dakota's race was not yet called.

Obama's list of promises to keep includes many holdovers he was unable to deliver on in his first term, such as rolling back tax cuts for upper-income people, overhauling immigration policy and reducing federal deficits. Six in 10 voters said in exit polls that taxes should be increased, and nearly half of voters said taxes should be increased on incomes over $250,000, as Obama has called for.

"It's very clear from the exit polling that a majority of Americans recognize that we need to share responsibility for reducing the deficit," Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told CNN. "That means asking higher-income earners to contribute more to reducing the deficit."

But Sara Taylor Fagen, who served as political director in President George W. Bush's second term, warned the current White House to pay heed to the closely divided electorate, a lesson her party learned after 2004. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Obama had 50 percent to 48 percent for Romney.

"It'll be interesting if the Obama team misinterprets the size of their victory," Fagen said. "I think if you look back at history, we pushed Social Security and the Congress wasn't ready for that and wasn't going to do it. And had President Bush gone after immigration, we may be sitting in a very different position as a party."

Obama predicted in the waning days of the campaign that his victory would motivate Republicans to make a deal on immigration policy next year to make up for having "so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community."

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour agreed that a lesson of 2012 is for his Republican Party to change the party's approach on immigration.

"Republicans say, 'We don't want to reward people for breaking the law,'" Barbour told CBS. "The way we need to look at it is, how are we going to grow the American economy and where does our immigration policy fit into that?"

Even before Obama gets to his second inaugural on Jan. 20, he must deal with the threatened "fiscal cliff." A combination of automatic tax increases and steep across-the-board spending cuts are set to take effect in January if Washington doesn't quickly reach a budget deal. Experts have warned that the economy could tip back into recession without an agreement.

The top Democrat in Congress called Wednesday for a quick solution to Washington's "fiscal cliff" in an upcoming post-election session of Congress.

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Apple shares slide to five-month low, competition grows

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