Stan Musial dies at 92; Cardinals' Hall of Fame hitter

To generations of baseball fans, he was simply "Stan the Man."

Stan Musial, a legendary slugger for the St. Louis Cardinals who came to embody one of the sport's most successful franchises, died Saturday. He was 92.

Musial, who had Alzheimer's disease, died at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue, the Cardinals announced.

During his 22 seasons, all with the Cardinals, Musial won seven National League batting titles and three most valuable player awards. A career .331 hitter, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969, becoming only the fourth player chosen in his first year of eligibility.

"Stan Musial was the greatest player in Cardinals history and one of the best players in the history of baseball," William DeWitt Jr., the Cardinals' chairman, said Saturday in a statement.

Musial's nickname was inspired by Brooklyn Dodger fans who marveled at his mastery of the Dodgers at Ebbets Field and complained, "Here comes the man again."

Don Newcombe, a star pitcher for the Dodgers, told Sports Illustrated in 2010: "I could have rolled the ball up there against Musial, and he would have pulled out a golf club and hit it out."

Stanley Frank Musial was born Nov. 21, 1920, in Donora, Pa., to Lukasz and Mary Lancos Musial, the fifth of their six children.

In high school, Musial was a two-sport star. He could have played college basketball on scholarship but signed with the Cardinals as a pitcher in 1938.

He was so wild in Williamson, W.Va., the lowest level of the Cardinals' minor league system, that his manager suggested he be released. But another player's injury gave him a chance to play outfield, and he saved his career by hitting .352. The next season in Daytona Beach, Fla., Musial hurt his left shoulder diving for a ball in center field, ending his pitching career.

"My arm never did get better," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2002. "I couldn't throw hard from then on. But it never bothered my hitting."

In 1941, he reached the majors despite starting the season on a lowly minor league team in Springfield, Mo. He hit .426 in 12 games late in the season for St. Louis, and the Cardinals finished second to the Dodgers. Musial had a remarkable season, hitting a combined .364 after jumping through the St. Louis minor league system. "Facing oblivion in the spring, he reached stardom," according to the 2001 book "Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man."

With Musial in the lineup beginning in 1942, the Cardinals reached the World Series in three consecutive seasons, winning in 1942 and 1944.

"The '42 Cardinal club was the best I was with. If the war hadn't come along, I feel we could have won maybe six or seven pennants in a row," St. Louis outfielder Terry Moore said in the 1994 book "Stan the Man Musial: Born to Be a Ballplayer."

In 1943, Musial won his first batting title and MVP award when the Cardinals lost the series to the New York Yankees.

Musial said he "memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve and slider. Then I'd pick up the speed and rotation of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it approached the plate."

Leo Durocher, who faced Musial as a player and manager, once said the only way to pitch him was "under the plate."

Musial's signature feature was a distinct batting stance that Chicago White Sox pitcher Ted Lyons once said made him look like "a kid peeking around the corner to see if the cops are coming." Former St. Louis Manager Whitey Herzog had told Musial, "I tried to have your stance and I was in the minors for eight years."

After spending 1945 in the Navy, Musial again led the Cardinals to the World Series in 1946, when they defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games. Musial and Red Sox star Ted Williams struggled in the series, each hitting only .222. It was Musial's last World Series.

His best season may have been 1948, when he was named the league's most valuable player for the third time. Healthy after having appendicitis in 1947, Musial led the league in almost every offensive category, including his .376 batting average and 131 runs batted in. He just missed winning the triple crown with 39 home runs, one short of the league lead.

He hit five home runs during a doubleheader in 1954 and reached a career milestone in 1958 with his 3,000th hit.

Musial retired after the 1963 season and spent a year as the Cardinals' general manager. He remained a celebrity in St. Louis, running Stan Musial & Biggie's Restaurant, which he opened in 1949.

At baseball's 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis, Musial received a standing ovation when he was driven onto the field before the game. He handed a ball to President Obama, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

When Musial received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2011, Obama noted that "his brilliance could come in blinding bursts" and said he "remains to this day an icon, untarnished … a gentleman you'd want your kids to emulate."

Musial's wife of 72 years, Lillian, died in May. He is survived by their son, Richard; daughters, Gerry Ashley, Janet Schwarze and Jean Edmonds; 11 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

"He had greatness and warmth and affection and appreciation," sportscaster Bob Costas, whose career started in St. Louis, told Scripps Howard News Service in 2003. "But there wasn't a specific thing for people to hang their hat on — other than those who really followed him and saw him play.... All he was was incredibly good for an incredibly long time and an unbelievably nice guy."

Thursby is a former Times staff writer.

news.obits@latimes.com

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Timeline: Kim Dotcom’s year, from Megaupload to Mega

AUCKLAND (Reuters) – Here are the milestones in the past year for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. Dotcom plans to launch on January 20 a new online file storage system, known as Mega.

January 20, 2012 – Seventy armed New Zealand police raid Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s mansion outside Auckland, acting on a request from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Dotcom and his colleagues Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk are served extradition and search warrants, arrested, and taken into custody. As operators of the website, they are charged with online piracy, fraud and money laundering, and their computers and files are seized. Megaupload is closed down. The raid occurs on the same day U.S. lawmakers axe anti-piracy legislation following heavy public opposition.

February 22 – Dotcom is released on bail, but his movements are restricted and he is prohibited from leaving New Zealand. His bail conditions are eventually relaxed to allow him free movement within the country, while the millionaire is given some access to his frozen funds to pay his legal team and living costs.

June 28 – A New Zealand court rules that search warrants used by local police to raid the Dotcom mansion were illegal, and moves by the FBI to copy data from Dotcom’s computers to take offshore were also unlawful. The court’s action is seen by many as weakening the extradition case against Megaupload.

August 16 – U.S. efforts to extradite Dotcom are dealt another blow as a New Zealand court rules that prosecutors must show evidence to support charges of internet piracy and copyright breaches. The judge in the case says withholding evidence from Dotcom would give Washington a significant advantage in the extradition hearing. She also rules that the document used to order his extradition was illegal.

September 27 – New Zealand’s Prime Minister admits that the country’s spy agency illegally carried out surveillance on Dotcom, a resident of the country, despite a law which prohibits monitoring citizens and residents.

October 10 – A U.S. federal judge rules that the U.S. government’s criminal case against Megaupload will proceed, while leaving open the option of dismissing the case at a later date on grounds including the possibility that delays in proceedings have denied Megaupload to its right to due process.

January 20, 2013 – Dotcom is due to launch his new cyberlocker, Mega.co.nz, whose encryption system is designed to offer water-tight privacy protection of user files. The launch comes as Dotcom and his colleagues await their extradition hearing, which has been delayed until August.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu)

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Eagles talk about new Showtime documentary

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The Eagles picked the producer of their new Showtime documentary "The History of the Eagles" — but they insist that's about all the control they had in the making of it.

"It's really not a film that represents our point of view so much," Glen Frey said Saturday as the quartet spoke at the Sundance Film Festival hours before the film's premiere.

The film was directed by Alison Ellwood and produced by Alex Gibney, whose other documentaries include the Academy Award-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room."

"The History of the Eagles" will be shown in two parts on Showtime Feb. 15-16. It includes 40-year-old footage that was in the band's archives, as well as recent interviews with the band.

Henley said he was interested in someone making a documentary about the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers but was unimpressed with recent music documentaries. So, he asked to see the work of Oscar-winning documentary filmmakers and was led to Gibney.

From there, he worked to convince Gibney that he should tell the band's story, and they had "zero" influence on its outcome.

"We have a good story to tell and I think he's a great storyteller," Frey said, adding that Gibney told him, "We're going to make a movie, and we're going to tell the truth."

Don Henley said the band hasn't even seen the final cut yet. "I hope we like it," he joked.

Frey said what surprised him most about the film, and seeing the old footage, was "how much fun we had."

That may surprise people who are familiar with the band's well-documented discord, including their acrimonious breakup in 1982 (they got back together in 1994).

"Most of the things that have been written about this band have focused on conflict — the journalism of conflict," Henley said. "It sells papers and magazines, but one thing that Glen said that people will see in this documentary is that we had a lot of fun. Some of it's not on film, and that's good."

"The bitter fighting that the media loved to talk about really didn't take place. We argued a lot, we discussed stuff a lot, and that tension had a lot of to do with the creative process," Walsh said. "We didn't hate each other; we didn't have fist fights, none of that."

Walsh, Henley, Frey and Timothy Schmit were expected to attend the premiere later Saturday.

Frey said the band might eventually make new music together. Their last album together was 2007's "Long Road Out of Eden."

"I think what we realized is how good we are together and how things have changed, and it would be a shame if we didn't try to find a way to create some more new music," Frey said. "People really like to hear us sing, we really do well, we still perform at a very high level, so for me, it would be great."

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's global entertainment and lifestyles editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi .

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richter’s house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Downtown L.A.'s edgy arts district is neighborhood in transition

When Gideon Kotzer set out to open a discount electronics store in the mid-1990s, he deliberately chose an old warehouse in the cultural middle of nowhere — the arts district of downtown Los Angeles, which charitably could be called sketchy.

Crazy Gideon's on Traction Avenue became an island of commerce in an area that saw little other retail activity beyond illegal drug sales. The store's remoteness in an otherwise unwelcoming warren of aging brick and concrete industrial buildings was central to Kotzer's business strategy.

"He bought that space with the mind-set that if people would drive to a desolate, faraway neighborhood, they wouldn't want to leave empty-handed," his son Daniel Kotzer said.

PHOTOS: A neighborhood in transition

Crazy Gideon's has closed, and its formerly shabby space in the 1917 structure is expected to open to the public again this year as an expansive brew pub serving house-made beer with meals. The upgrade is emblematic of changes going on throughout the arts district.

The neighborhood along the Los Angeles River east of downtown's Civic Center is drawing favorable comparisons to New York's meatpacking district, where trendy shops, restaurants, hotels and offices have taken over many industrial buildings that were strictly blue collar for decades.

The transformation has such momentum that some of the neighborhood's biggest supporters expect that it will be difficult to find artists in the arts district in another decade as gentrification drives up rents and pushes low-paid artists to cheaper locales.

But for now, the arts district is in a sweet spot of transition for many. Vegetable wholesalers and furniture makers share streets with top-flight restaurants and front-line technology and entertainment firms. Its walls sport elaborate murals — and foreboding razor wire.

"There are very rough patches," said architect Scott Johnson, who lives in a condominium on Industrial Street. "It's muscular. It's complicated. It's interesting."

Part of the appeal for Johnson, who lived in the meatpacking district in the late 1970s, is the roughness most suburbanites would find off-putting. He calls it "authenticity" in a time when "we're getting bombarded with fake stuff."

The spine of the arts district is Mateo Street, a truck-laden thoroughfare named after early landowner Matthew "Don Mateo" Keller. The district evolved from agricultural uses including Mateo's winery in the mid-1800s to being the city's industrial heart in the early 20th century.

One of the most ambitious private developments of that era was Union Terminal Annex, which was connected by rail to the city's seaport and was the second-largest wholesale terminal in the world. Two of the four large remaining buildings are occupied by clothing manufacturer American Apparel Inc., and the owners are improving and divvying up long-vacant remaining space for other business tenants including the makers of Splendid and Ella Moss apparel.

The advanced age of the neighborhood's buildings worked against the district in recent decades as businesses moved to more modern, efficient industrial properties elsewhere in the region. Those that remained often barricaded themselves behind tall gates and barbed wire as the area gained a reputation for crime and homelessness.

"There were drug addicts and prostitutes on the corner when we started," said restaurateur Yassmin Sarmadi, who began working on French bistro Church & State seven years ago. "Now limousines pull up on a regular basis."

Sarmadi opened her bistro in the former West Coast headquarters of National Biscuit Co., a seven-story factory built in 1925 that was renovated and converted to condos in 2006. She was attracted to the historic nature of the building, she said, and the fact that it was remote from the elite restaurant enclaves of the Westside.

"It was far more exciting for me to be in a place that wasn't already 'there,' so to speak," Sarmadi said.

She lives in the arts district and enjoys the company of artists who are neighbors, but knows that the march of prosperity will make it hard for some of them to stay. It may take 10 more years to become as affluent as once-lowly Venice, Sarmadi said, but gentrification will come.

"I think it's inevitable," she said. "It brings a tear to my eye, but it's also progress."

Guiding change is Tyler Stonebraker, who helps young businesses such as film and television production company Skunk set up shop in old warehouses and factories.

Stonebraker's real estate firm Creative Space caters to creative companies that consider nontraditional offices essential to their identities and part of their appeal to desirable workers in the millennial generation.

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Obama loyalists are now Organizing for Action

WASHINGTON — Underscoring its potential to become a political heavyweight, a new advocacy group launched Friday to push President Obama's second-term agenda will be guided by his most-trusted strategists and have access to his reelection campaign's most-prized assets, including its intricately detailed voter databases.

In an email to supporters with the subject line "Say you're in," Obama vowed that the group, Organizing for Action, would be "an unparalleled force in American politics."

"It will work to turn our shared values into legislative action — and it'll empower the next generation of leaders in our movement," the president wrote.

Jim Messina, who managed Obama's 2012 campaign, will be chairman of the board, and longtime Obama advisor David Axelrod will serve as a consultant. David Plouffe, Obama's top political advisor, will also have a role when he leaves the White House, a move expected to happen soon.

"If we can take the enthusiasm and passion that people showed throughout the campaign and channel it into the work ahead of us, we will be unstoppable," Messina wrote in an email to campaign donors.

To accomplish that, however, the organization must avoid the fate of a previous effort Obama officials made in 2009 to transform his first presidential campaign into a permanent advocacy force. That project, the similarly named Organizing for America, was criticized by many Democrats for failing to effectively harness the president's grass-roots supporters.

The new group, unlike its predecessor, will be independent of the Democratic National Committee. It is being run by Jon Carson, who most recently directed the White House Office of Public Engagement. Based in Chicago and Washington, the organization's board is stocked with veteran Obama aides Robert Gibbs, Stephanie Cutter, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, Erik Smith and Julianna Smoot, as well as technology entrepreneur Frank White, a top campaign fundraiser.

Set up as an tax-exempt advocacy group, Organizing for Action will have freer rein to operate, as well as the ability to deploy the sophisticated databases and software developed for Obama's reelection campaign. The campaign will lease those valuable assets to the advocacy group, retaining control for the foreseeable future.

The arrangement gives Obama allies supervision over the campaign's voter files, technology and email lists, which are coveted by other Democratic candidates and interest groups. The campaign has not yet made any decisions about who else will get access to them.

The decision about how — and if — the campaign's infrastructure will be shared is one of the most pressing questions being raised in Democratic circles in the wake of the group's launch.

"We've never had a presidential campaign that created and retained the kind of information that the Obama 2012 campaign built," said Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, who served as a top Obama campaign official in 2008. "So it's going to take more than a few weeks to figure this new environment out and how it should apply to future elections."

Those assets could give other candidates a strong edge, and party strategists warn of a backlash if the Obama campaign does not share its resources. But deciding who would get to use them could be tricky — particularly in the fight for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, which could see Vice President Joe Biden competing against Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The current arrangement raises many questions, including whether the campaign will have the funds for the costly project of keeping the files current. "They are a hot commodity right now, but these lists quickly become like stinky cheese," said Steve Rosenthal, a veteran Democratic organizer. "If you don't keep updating them, they have pretty limited value."

Officials said Friday that Organizing for Action, which was set up under the tax code's section 501(c)4 as a nonprofit social welfare organization, will accept unlimited individual and corporate donations but not contributions from lobbyists, similar to the self-imposed rules governing the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

The organization plans to disclose its donors, as the inaugural committee does, even though tax-exempt advocacy groups are not required to do so. But it remains to be seen how frequently Organizing for Action will share that information and whether it will reveal the amount of the donations.

matea.gold@latimes.com

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Twitter co-founders move Obvious Corp into spacious new digs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the co-founders of Twitter, have leased three sprawling floors in a historic downtown San Francisco tower for their low-profile start-up incubator, The Obvious Corporation.

Obvious said Friday it leased 75,000 square feet at the busy 760 Market Street location – known as the Phelan Building – in one of the city’s larger commercial real estate deals in recent months.

The downtown space will be able to hold roughly 500 employees and signals ambitions at Obvious, which was re-constituted when Williams and Stone both left Twitter in 2011.

The incubator, with no more than two dozen employees, has mostly stayed out of the press except when it unveiled two new blogging platforms called Medium and Branch last September.

Although still thinly staffed, Obvious’s new space is larger than start-up Pinterest’s recently inked lease in the city.

“We need the right space from which to grow the Medium team and position Obvious to focus on bringing our new ideas to life,” Obvious CEO Williams said in a statement Friday about the new lease.

The company will occupy the seventh, eighth and ninth floors of the triangular building, which wraps around a central courtyard, said Jenny Haeg, a real estate agent who has brokered leases for Square Inc, Dropbox, Airbnb and other large tech startups.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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J.J. Abrams to produce Lance Armstrong biopic

LOS ANGELES (AP) — He's already gotten the Oprah treatment. Now Lance Armstrong is headed for the silver screen.

Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams' production company, Bad Robot, are planning a biopic about the disgraced cyclist, a studio spokeswoman said Friday.

They've secured the rights to New York Times reporter Juliet Macur's upcoming book "Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong," due out in June. Macur covered the seven-time Tour de France winner for over a decade.

No director, writer, star or start date have been set.

Armstrong is in the midst of a two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he admits to using performance-enhancing drugs to reach his historic victories, something he'd defiantly denied for years. The International Olympic Committee stripped him of his 2000 bronze medal this week.

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Well: A Great Grain Adventure

This week, the Recipes for Health columnist Martha Rose Shulman asks readers to go beyond wild rice and get adventurous with their grains. She offers new recipes with some unusual grains you may not have ever cooked or eaten. Her recipes this week include:

Millet: Millet can be used in bird seed and animal feed, but the grain is enjoying a renaissance in the United States right now as a great source of gluten-free nutrition. It can be used in savory or sweet foods and, depending on how it’s cooked, can be crunchy or creamy. To avoid mushy millet, Ms. Shulman advises cooking no more than 2/3 cup at a time. Toast the seeds in a little oil first and take care not to stir the millet once you have added the water so you will get a fluffy result.

Triticale: This hearty, toothsome grain is a hybrid made from wheat and rye. It is a good source of phosphorus and a very good source of magnesium. It has a chewy texture and earthy flavor, similar to wheatberries.

Farro: Farro has a nutty flavor and a chewy texture, and holds up well in cooking because it doesn’t get mushy. When using farro in a salad, cook it until you see that the grains have begun to splay so they won’t be too chewy and can absorb the dressing properly.

Buckwheat: Buckwheat isn’t related to wheat and is actually a great gluten-free alternative. Ms. Shulman uses buckwheat soba noodles to add a nutty flavor and wholesomeness to her Skillet Soba Salad.

Here are five new ways to cook with grains.

Skillet Brown Rice, Barley or Triticale Salad With Mushrooms and Endive: Triticale is a hybrid grain made from wheat and rye, but any hearty grain would work in this salad.

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Skillet Beet and Farro Salad: This hearty winter salad can be a meal or a side dish, and warming it in the skillet makes it particularly comforting.

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Warm Millet, Carrot and Kale Salad With Curry-Scented Dressing: Millet can be tricky to cook, but if you are careful, you will be rewarded with a fluffy and delicious salad.

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Skillet Wild Rice, Walnut and Broccoli Salad: Broccoli flowers catch the nutty, lemony dressing in this winter salad.

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Skillet Soba, Baked Tofu and Green Bean Salad With Spicy Dressing: The nutty flavor of buckwheat soba noodles makes for a delicious salad.

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Robert L. Citron caused 'great hardship' but also some good

Eighteen years after Orange County crashed into the largest municipal bankruptcy, with a $1.6-billion trading loss, the collapse remains the leading example of foolhardy investments, Wall Street greed and lazy government supervision.

That is an enduring legacy of Robert L. Citron, the soft-spoken but high-rolling former treasurer who died this week at age 87. His legacy, though, also includes the state Legislature's subsequent overhaul of investment rules, which were tightened to prevent budget-strapped local governments from ever becoming so reckless again.

Indeed, it was other pressures — soaring pension obligations, diving revenues, higher unemployment and a glut of foreclosures — that sank San Bernardino, Stockton and other cities into recent bankruptcies.

Jefferson County, Ala., became the largest municipal failure two years ago, with $4.2 billion in losses. But no local government has yet overshadowed the Orange County debacle in sheer shock value.

"Everybody comes back to Orange County because it's one of the wealthiest counties in the country, the surprising amount of debt and the types of investments that Bob Citron made," said Mark Baldassare, a former UC Irvine urban planning expert who wrote a book on the bankruptcy.

Had Citron's speculations in complex securities not imploded, more cities, schools and local agencies would have taken similar risks to plug budget gaps that seemed only to increase over the years, Baldassare and other observers said.

"Did a great big disaster happening early help avoid an outcome of multiple bankruptcies that together would have been bigger? That's not hard to imagine," banker Christopher Varelas, whom the county hired as a financial advisor after the bankruptcy, said Friday.

Without the example of Orange County, there probably would have been a robust market offering complex, higher-yielding securities to California cities and schools, Varelas said.

"It's hard to believe Wall Street could have stayed away from such a large market. And it's hard to believe municipalities could have resisted the temptation to find a quick fix for their budget problem," he said.

Citron offered just such a quick fix to Orange County during the deep recession of the early 1990s when aerospace jobs evaporated and home prices cratered.

Originally elected tax collector, Citron, who had no formal financial training, became treasurer as well when the United States' fifth-most-populous county consolidated operations. He was elected seven times.

In the years before the collapse, he was bringing in an extra $160 million a year by what proved to be sheer wagers on low interest rates, magnified by heavy borrowing that converted $7.8 billion in local government funds into a $20-billion investment portfolio.

After huge losses were disclosed in late 1994, Orange County blamed its former financial and legal partners for the debacle. It ultimately won $900 million in settlements, about half from Merrill, Lynch & Co., which concocted many of the complicated securities that fell apart. One called an inverse Swiss floater incorporated two bets: one that the Swiss franc would decline in value, the other that interest rates would stay low.

The county had to take on $1 billion in new debt largely to repay 200 cities, school districts and public agencies that invested in Citron's county funds.

Orange County refinanced the debt at a lower rate in 2005, keeping its annual payment at about $90 million but allowing a projected payoff in 2015 or 2016 instead of 2027, said John M.W. Moorlach, who replaced Citron as county treasurer and is on the county's Board of Supervisors.

Repayment has forced the county to budget conservatively, ignoring or postponing projects in such areas as flood control and mental health, Moorlach said. When the debt is retired, he hopes the funds can be redirected to paying down Orange County's unfunded pension liabilities, which top $5 billion.

Back when the money from Citron was rolling in, making belt-tightening unimportant, few had raised questions about its source.

"I don't know how in the hell he does it, but he makes us all look good," Thomas F. Riley, a former Board of Supervisors chairman, famously said.

Citron's bets paid off so well in the early 1990s that he and his assistant Matthew Raabe skimmed off $89 million due to cities, schools and agencies to put in the county's coffers for discretionary use.

Both later were convicted of fraud. Citron was sentenced to a year of clerical duty in the jails during the day and spent nights at home; Raabe's conviction was overturned on appeal.

William J. Popejoy, the financial executive brought in as county chief executive after the meltdown, says the lesson for other governments is to speak up when something looks too good to be true.

"A lot of people in the county government and at the cities and especially the special districts knew there was a huge amount of money coming in. But no one asked the question; they didn't want to stop the golden flow of funds coming from Citron," Popejoy said. "And somebody should have."

Actually, someone had — Moorlach.

Although had lost his bid in 1994 to unseat Citron as treasurer, Moorlach had predicted a financial disaster a year earlier and tried to make it a campaign issue. Citron dismissed the talk as political posturing and was reelected.

Popejoy and other officials proposed raising taxes to help right the county's finances, but voters refused. The county froze hiring, laid off thousands of workers and cut spending on social programs.

"It caused great hardship, and that is part of the legacy Bob Citron left as well," Popejoy said. "To my knowledge, however, he never did so for personal gain."

Citron's defense attorney David W. Wiechert said Citron, however misguided, "was an incredibly loyal and caring individual" who believed himself to be acting in the county's best interests.

Forgiveness is in order, Wiechert said, "especially now, when we have seen that even the brightest minds on Wall Street could bring the world's economy to an apocalyptic precipice."

scott.reckard@latimes.com

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White House launches campaign for support of gun control measures

WASHINGTON — A day after President Obama announced a wide-ranging series of gun-control initiatives, the administration kicked off its campaign to create public support and pressure lawmakers to pass the most comprehensive legislation since the mid-1990s.

"We're going to take this fight to the halls of Congress. We're going to take it beyond that," Vice President Joe Biden told the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday. "We're going to take it to the American people. We're going to go around the country making our case, and we're going to let the voice of the American people be heard."

The administration will use Obama's fearsome campaign infrastructure to try to galvanize supporters around an issue that faces a protracted fight on Capitol Hill. To do so, the administration will pit its own grass-roots network against gun-rights groups, such as the National Rifle Assn.

"If you think we've suffered too much pain to allow this to continue, put down the paper, turn off the computer, and get your members of Congress on record," Obama wrote in an opinion piece in the Connecticut Post. "Ask them why getting an A-grade from the gun lobby is more important than giving parents some peace of mind when they drop their child off for first grade."

The newspaper is based in Bridgeport, near Newtown, the site of last month's school shooting that left 20 children and six staff members dead and set off calls for new gun laws.

The mobilization efforts by the president's campaign committee began in earnest Thursday, with campaign manager Jim Messina emailing supporters an online petition and urging them to "stand with the president."

Biden, in his speech to the mayors, acknowledged that there may not be "absolute unanimity" on how to mitigate gun violence, but emphasized consensus.

"Everyone acknowledges we have to do something.... I hope we all agree that mass shootings like the ones that we witnessed in Newtown 34 days ago cannot continue to be tolerated," he said.

Biden outlined many of the initiatives announced by Obama on Wednesday, including administrative actions to improve federal research on gun-related violence and to direct the attorney general to reevaluate the categories of people who should be prohibited from owning a gun. And he made a forceful pitch for the policies that must pass Congress, including a universal background-check system for every gun sale and a ban on high-capacity magazines.

"High-capacity magazines don't have a practical sporting purpose or hunting purpose. As one hunter told me, if you got 12 rounds, it means you've already missed the deer 11 times," Biden said. "You should pack the sucker in at that point."

But Biden spent much less time speaking about an assault weapons ban, which will face stiff opposition in Congress. He also contended that the gun industry would exploit any loopholes in a new law to continue to manufacture the weapons.

"I know as well as anyone, having written the first assault weapons ban, that the industry will do whatever it can to get around it, and they'll figure out a way," the vice president said. "But I also know we have to try."

Chris Koos, the mayor of Normal, Ill., said a "surprising" number of his constituents have voiced support for an assault weapons ban. "I thought there'd be some push-back," Koos said, in his city of 52,000 people in a rural region. But he said Vietnam veterans have been particularly outspoken in their support for a ban, having used similar firearms in combat.

"They know what they are for," Koos said.

But Betsy Price, mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, said most residents of her city were opposed to bans on assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.

"Good, outstanding citizens really want to keep their guns," she said.

But Price praised the president's efforts to improve mental health treatment and record-keeping, especially the executive action informing healthcare providers that they are not prevented from sharing relevant information about people who are prohibited from owning guns for mental health reasons.

Biden took pains to assert that the White House respected the 2nd Amendment.

Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle said that message may resonate in his state. "Nebraska is certainly a very, very conservative state. A red state, solid. But when you start polling people, particularly my constituents, you start seeing there is a public concern about the gun violence," he said.

"That's what the vice president is trying to do," Suttle said. "He's saying, 'Hey, the 2nd Amendment is your right. It's our right. Let's move on to the other aspects.'"

Dick Moore, the mayor of Elkhart, Ind., said Biden's choice for his first day on the stump was a savvy one. "He just sent a whole bunch of emissaries back home with what he said," Moore said. "Whether you're for or you're against, you get the word around the country pretty fast this way."

melanie.mason@latimes.com

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Ex-Red Sox pitcher Schilling puts bloody sock up for auction after video game company collapse

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling — whose video game company underwent a spectacular collapse into bankruptcy last year — is selling the blood-stained sock he wore during the 2004 World Series.

Chris Ivy, director of sports for Texas-based Heritage Auctions, says online bidding begins around Feb. 4. Live bidding will take place Feb. 23.

The sock previously had been on loan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It has been at Heritage’s Dallas headquarters for several weeks and will be displayed at the auction house’s Manhattan office before it is sold, according to Ivy.

He said the sock is expected to fetch at least $ 100,000, though he described that as a conservative estimate.

“I do expect the bidding to be very spirited,” Ivy said.

Schilling’s company, 38 Studios, was lured to Providence, R.I., from Massachusetts with a $ 75 million loan guarantee in 2010. In May, it laid off all its employees and it filed for bankruptcy in June. The state is now likely responsible for some $ 100 million related to the deal, including interest.

Schilling also had personally guaranteed loans to the company and listed the sock as bank collateral in a September filing with the Massachusetts secretary of state’s office.

Messages left for his publicist were not immediately returned.

The bloody sock is one of two that sent Schilling into the annals of baseball lore in 2004.

The other was from Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, when Schilling pitched against the New York Yankees with an injured ankle. That sock is said to have been discarded in the trash at Yankees Stadium.

The one being sold is from the second game of the World Series, which the Red Sox won that year for the first time in 86 years.

Schilling has said he invested as much as $ 50 million in 38 Studios and has lost all his baseball earnings. He told WEEI-AM in Boston last year that possibly having to sell the sock was part of “having to pay for your mistakes.”

“I’m obligated to try and make amends and, unfortunately, this is one of the byproducts of that,” he told the station.

Brad Horn, a spokesman for the hall of fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., said the loaned sock was returned in December under the terms of the hall’s agreement with Schilling. The hall had had it since 2004.

The Feb. 23 live bidding will be held at the Fletcher-Sinclair mansion in New York City, now home to the Ukrainian Institute of America. The auction will feature other “five- and six-figure items,” including a jersey and cap worn by New York Yankees great Lou Gehrig, Ivy said.

Heritage last May auctioned off the so-called “Bill Buckner ball,” which rolled through the legs of the Red Sox first baseman in the 1986 World Series. Ivy said that item, like Schilling’s sock, was listed at the time as being expected to bring in “$ 100,000-plus,” but it was sold to an anonymous bidder for $ 418,000.

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Robert Wagner not interviewed in new Wood inquiry

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Wagner has declined to be interviewed by detectives in a renewed inquiry into the drowning death of his wife Natalie Wood three decades ago, an investigator said Thursday.

Wagner was interviewed by authorities soon after Wood's drowning in 1981, but the actor is the only person who was on the yacht the night Wood died who has not spoken to detectives as part of the latest inquiry, despite repeated requests and attempts, sheriff's Lt. John Corina said.

Blair Berk, an attorney for Wagner and his family, said the actor had cooperated with authorities since his wife died.

Detectives began re-investigating the case in November 2011. Since then investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, but Wagner has refused and Corina said the actor's representatives have not given any reason for his silence.

The detective's remarks provided new insight into the case that has remained one of Hollywood's enduring mysteries. Earlier this week, coroner's officials released an updated autopsy report that had been under a security hold. It detailed why Wood's death had been reclassified from an accidental drowning to a drowning caused by "undetermined factors."

"Mr. Wagner has fully cooperated over the last 30 years in the investigation of the accidental drowning of his wife in 1981," Berk said in a prepared statement. "Mr. Wagner has been interviewed on multiple occasions by the Los Angeles sheriff's department and answered every single question asked of him by detectives during those interviews."

After 30 years, Berk said, neither Wagner nor his daughters have any new information to add. She said the latest investigation was prompted by people seeking to exploit and sensationalize the 30th anniversary of the death.

The renewed inquiry came after the yacht's captain Dennis Davern told "48 Hours" and the "Today" show that he heard Wagner and Wood arguing the night of her disappearance and believed Wagner was to blame for her death.

Authorities have not identified any suspects in the case.

Wood, 43, was on a yacht with Wagner, Christopher Walken and the boat captain on Thanksgiving weekend of 1981 before she somehow ended up in the water.

Corina said Walken gave a prepared statement and spoke to detectives for an hour.

Detectives have also interviewed other actors who knew both Wagner and Wood to learn more about their relationship.

Corina said detectives have tried at least 10 times to interview Wagner but have been refused. He said some of the refusals have come from the actor's attorney, and that detectives at one point traveled to Colorado to try to speak with Wagner but were unsuccessful.

Corina said the latest inquiry had turned up new evidence.

"Most of the people we've talked to were never talked to 30 years ago," he said. "We've got a lot of new information."

Asked if the information might lead to criminal charges, Corina said that would be up to prosecutors if they are presented a case.

"All we can do is collect the facts," he said. "We're still trying to collect all the facts."

Corina said new people have emerged with information each time the case is in the news. Detectives would like to interview other people who haven't agreed to talk, he said.

Coroner's officials released an update autopsy report on Monday that detailed the reasons Wood's death certificate was changed last year from a drowning death to "drowning and other undetermined factors."

The updated report states the change was made in part because investigators couldn't rule out that some of the bruises and marks on Wood's body happened before she went into the water.

"Since there are unanswered questions and limited additional evidence available for evaluation, it is opined by this medical examiner that the manner of death should be left as undetermined," Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran wrote in the report completed in June.

Officials also considered that Wood wasn't wearing a life jacket, had no history of suicide attempts and didn't leave a note as reasons to amend the death certificate.

Wood was famous for roles in films such as "West Side Story" and "Rebel Without a Cause" and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht have contributed to the mystery of her death. Wood, Wagner and Walken had all been drinking heavily in the hours before the actress disappeared.

Wagner wrote in a 2008 memoir that he and Walken argued that night. He wrote that Walken went to bed and he stayed up for a while, but when he went to bed, he noticed that his wife and a dinghy that had been attached to the yacht were missing.

"Nobody knows," he wrote. "There are only two possibilities; either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened."

___

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

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Personal Health: That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work

When people fall in love and decide to marry, the expectation is nearly always that love and marriage and the happiness they bring will last; as the vows say, till death do us part. Only the most cynical among us would think, walking down the aisle, that if things don’t work out, “We can always split.”

But the divorce rate in the United States is half the marriage rate, and that does not bode well for this cherished institution.

While some divorces are clearly justified by physical or emotional abuse, intolerable infidelity, addictive behavior or irreconcilable incompatibility, experts say many severed marriages seem to have just withered and died from a lack of effort to keep the embers of love alive.

---

Jane Brody speaks about love and marriage.

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I say “embers” because the flame of love — the feelings that prompt people to forget all their troubles and fly down the street with wings on their feet — does not last very long, and cannot if lovers are ever to get anything done. The passion ignited by a new love inevitably cools and must mature into the caring, compassion and companionship that can sustain a long-lasting relationship.

Studies by Richard E. Lucas and colleagues at Michigan State University have shown that the happiness boost that occurs with marriage lasts only about two years, after which people revert to their former levels of happiness — or unhappiness.

Infatuation and passion have even shorter life spans, and must evolve into “companionate love, composed more of deep affection, connection and liking,” according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside.

In her new book, “The Myths of Happiness,” Dr. Lyubomirsky describes a slew of research-tested actions and words that can do wonders to keep love alive.

She points out that the natural human tendency to become “habituated” to positive circumstances — to get so used to things that make us feel good that they no longer do — can be the death knell of marital happiness. Psychologists call it “hedonic adaptation”: things that thrill us tend to be short-lived.

So Dr. Lyubomirsky’s first suggestion is to adopt measures to avert, or at least slow down, the habituation that can lead to boredom and marital dissatisfaction. While her methods may seem obvious, many married couples forget to put them into practice.

Building Companionship

Steps to slow, prevent or counteract hedonic adaptation and rescue a so-so marriage should be taken long before the union is in trouble, Dr. Lyubomirsky urges. Her recommended strategies include making time to be together and talk, truly listening to each other, and expressing admiration and affection.

Dr. Lyubomirsky emphasizes “the importance of appreciation”: count your blessings and resist taking a spouse for granted. Routinely remind yourself and your partner of what you appreciate about the person and the marriage.

Also important is variety, which is innately stimulating and rewarding and “critical if we want to stave off adaptation,” the psychologist writes. Mix things up, be spontaneous, change how you do things with your partner to keep your relationship “fresh, meaningful and positive.”

Novelty is a powerful aphrodisiac that can also enhance the pleasures of marital sex. But Dr. Lyubomirsky admits that “science has uncovered precious little about how to sustain passionate love.” She likens its decline to growing up or growing old, “simply part of being human.”

Variety goes hand in hand with another tip: surprise. With time, partners tend to get to know each other all too well, and they can fall into routines that become stultifying. Shake it up. Try new activities, new places, new friends. Learn new skills together.

Although I’ve been a “water bug” my whole life, my husband could swim only as far as he could hold his breath. We were able to enjoy the water together when we both learned to kayak.

“A pat on the back, a squeeze of the hand, a hug, an arm around the shoulder — the science of touch suggests that it can save a so-so marriage,” Dr. Lyubomirsky writes. “Introducing more (nonsexual) touching and affection on a daily basis will go a long way in rekindling the warmth and tenderness.”

She suggests “increasing the amount of physical contact in your relationship by a set amount each week” within the comfort level of the spouses’ personalities, backgrounds and openness to nonsexual touch.

Positive Energy

A long-married friend recently told me that her husband said he missed being touched and hugged. And she wondered what the two of them would talk about when they became empty-nesters. Now is the time, dear friend, to work on a more mutually rewarding relationship if you want your marriage to last.

Support your partner’s values, goals and dreams, and greet his or her good news with interest and delight. My husband’s passion lay in writing for the musical theater. When his day job moved to a different city, I suggested that rather than looking for a new one, he pursue his dream. It never became monetarily rewarding, but his vocation fulfilled him and thrilled me. He left a legacy of marvelous lyrics for more than a dozen shows.

Even a marriage that has been marred by negative, angry or hurtful remarks can often be rescued by filling the home with words and actions that elicit positive emotions, psychology research has shown.

According to studies by Barbara L. Fredrickson, a social psychologist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a flourishing relationship needs three times as many positive emotions as negative ones. In her forthcoming book, “Love 2.0,” Dr. Fredrickson says that cultivating positive energy everyday “motivates us to reach out for a hug more often or share and inspiring or silly idea or image.”

Dr. Lyubomirsky reports that happily married couples average five positive verbal and emotional expressions toward one another for every negative expression, but “very unhappy couples display ratios of less than one to one.”

To help get your relationship on a happier track, the psychologist suggests keeping a diary of positive and negative events that occur between you and your partner, and striving to increase the ratio of positive to negative.

She suggests asking yourself each morning, “What can I do for five minutes today to make my partner’s life better?” The simplest acts, like sharing an amusing event, smiling, or being playful, can enhance marital happiness.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 18, 2013

The Personal Health column on Tuesday, about making marriages last, misspelled the given name of a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies happiness. She is Sonja Lyubomirsky, not Sonya.

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Herbalife says fourth-quarter profit will exceed expectations

Herbalife Ltd. forecast that fourth-quarter earnings will come in higher than expected but said expenses could rise as the nutritional supplement distributor ramps up its fight with activist hedge-fund manager William Ackman.

The Los Angeles company said Thursday it also plans to buy back shares, a sign that management believes the stock is undervalued. It's a much-needed boost for a company that's been mired in a battle with an investor who says the company is on its way downhill.

"Herbalife is a financially strong and successful company, having created significant opportunities for distributors and positively impact the lives and health of our consumers over our history," company Chief Executive Michael Johnson said in a statement.

Herbalife said it expected fourth-quarter earnings of $1.02 to $1.05 a share, higher than Wall Street's expectation of $1.01 a share. Sales for the fourth quarter are expected to rise 19.9%, the company said, and its taxes will be lower than projected. The company plans to begin repurchasing shares Tuesday.

The company also said it expected expenses to be temporarily higher "because of recent events."

Herbalife has been battling allegations by Ackman, who said in a December presentation that the company is a glorified pyramid scheme. He's sold short about 20 million shares of the stock, expecting the company to tank. Herbalife is also reportedly being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A week ago in Manhattan, Johnson and other Herbalife executives rebutted Ackman's points one by one, proving, they said, that Herbalife has a stable business model and is not scamming anyone. Shares of the company, which had been slumping, began rising again after Johnson's presentation.

Ackman foe Carl Icahn stepped into the controversy this week, taking a stake in Herbalife, according to reports. Icahn could not be reached for comment.

Investors showed mixed reaction to Herbalife's preliminary earnings Thursday. The stock initially shot up in morning trading but leveled off in the afternoon and closed down $1.54, or 3.4%, at $43.52.

Herbalife will release its final fourth quarter results Feb. 19.

Analysts such as Timothy Ramey, of D.A. Davidson & Co., say they're optimistic about the company's future. Ramey also adjusted his expectations of the company's earnings.

In 2013, earnings will be $4.85 a share, up from his previous estimate of $4.55, he said in a note. He also adjusted his forecast for 2012 earnings to $4.05 a share from $4.03.

Ramey said he expects Herbalife stock to thrive once it emerges from the current controversy, which he expects will happen in 2013. In five years, the stock could hit $180, he said.

"There has never been a period of greater scrutiny for Herbalife," he wrote.

alana.semuels@latimes.com

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State agency says U.S. removed wildlife habitat without permit

A state regulatory agency Wednesday said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to obtain a required permit before it removed 43 acres of wildlife habitat in the Sepulveda Basin and filled in a pond used by migrating waterfowl.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board has directed the Army Corps to provide information by Feb. 11 about its decision to eliminate woodlands and potentially foul the Los Angeles River with sediment. Sepulveda Basin is an engineered flood control zone for the river.

"The corps did not notify us before it proceeded to destroy wetlands, and that is a great concern to us," said Maria Mehranian, chairwoman of the water quality control board. "The federal Clean Water Act requires anyone working in wetlands to obtain a permit from us. They failed to do so."

The board will determine later whether enforcement actions are needed to prevent such unauthorized activities in the future, the agency said in a letter to the corps.

Col. Mark Toy, head of the corps' Los Angeles District, was unavailable for comment. But corps spokesman Jay Field said, "We are working with the Regional Water Quality Control Board to provide information we believe will address any concerns."

Separately, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorities are looking into possible violations of endangered species protections in the Sepulveda Basin.

On Dec. 10, corps crews cut down the swath of basin greenery just west of Interstate 405 and south of Burbank Boulevard, destroying what had been a lush urban refuge for kingsnakes, bobcats and white pelicans.

The area existed for three decades as a designated wildlife preserve. In 2010 it was reclassified as a corps "vegetation management area" and given a new five-year mission of replacing trees and shrubs with native grasses as part of an effort to improve access for corps staffers, increase public safety and discourage crime.

The management plan has been temporarily halted, pending the outcome of ongoing discussions with the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society and the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Areas Steering Committee.

Toy has spent much of the last two weeks meeting privately with critics of the project including the Audubon Society, Sierra Club and state Sens. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

On Tuesday, San Fernando Valley Audubon Society President Dave Weeshoff and Conservation Chairman Kris Ohlenkamp asked corps officials in the Pentagon to revoke the 2010 plan and replace it with a new project designed to "return the area to a diverse native habitat that supports wildlife and fulfills the public's need for a natural outdoor experience in the middle of the city."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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Commentary: Background Checks? Yes, but Leave Video Games Alone

COMMENTARY | I have mixed feelings toward the White House‘s gun violence response. I agree that background checks should be required before people are allowed to buy a firearm and that an assault weapon ban should be reinstated into law. While limiting the number of bullets in a weapon’s magazine will decrease the number of deaths in a mass shooting, the public does not need high-capacity magazines. Therefore any weapon using high-capacity magazines should be banned from public use, not just capping the magazines to 10 bullets.

But violent video games and other media images and scenes real-life violence? These media do not kill people. The shooters kill the people. Those who are mentally unstable may not understand that violent video games are not real life and should not be duplicated in real life. As long as gamers understand the difference between video games and real life, that shouldn’t be touched.

– Edmond, Okla.

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Obama calls for research on media in gun violence

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood and the video game industry received scant attention Wednesday when President Barack Obama unveiled sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

The White House pressed most forcefully for a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

No connection was suggested between bloody entertainment fictions and real-life violence. Instead, the White House is calling on research on the effect of media and video games on gun violence.

Among the 23 executive measures signed Wednesday by Obama is a directive to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scientific agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. The order specifically cited "investigating the relationship between video games, media images and violence."

The measure meant that media would not be exempt from conversations about violence, but it also suggested the White House would not make Hollywood, television networks and video game makers a central part of the discussion. It's a relative footnote in the White House's broad, multi-point plan, and Obama did not mention violence in entertainment in his remarks Wednesday.

The White House plan did mention media, but suggested that any effort would be related to ratings systems or technology: "The entertainment and video game industries have a responsibility to give parents tools and choices about the movies and programs their children watch and the games their children play."

The administration is calling on Congress to provide $10 million for the CDC research.

The CDC has been barred by Congress to use funds to "advocate or promote gun control," but the White House order claims that "research on gun violence is not advocacy" and that providing information to Americans on the issue is "critical public health research."

Since 26 were killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook in December, some have called for changes in the entertainment industry, which regularly churns out first-person shooter video games, grisly primetime dramas and casually violent blockbusters.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the National Association of Broadcasters, National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the Independent Film & Television Alliance responded to Wednesday's proposal in a joint statement:

"We support the president's goal of reducing gun violence in this country. It is a complex problem, and as we have said, we stand ready to be a part of the conversation and welcome further academic examination and consideration on these issues as the president has proposed."

After the Newtown massacre, Wayne Pierre, vice-president of the National Rifle Association, attacked the entertainment industry, calling it "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people." He cited a number of video games and films, most of them many years old, like the movies "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers," and the video games "Mortal Kombat" and "Grand Theft Auto."

President Obama's adviser, David Axelrod, had tweeted that he's in favor of gun control, "but shouldn't we also question marketing murder as a game?"

Others have countered that the same video games and movies are played and watched around the world, but that the tragedies of gun violence are for other reasons endemic to the U.S.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents video game publishers, referenced that argument Wednesday in a statement that embraced Obama's proposal.

"The same entertainment is enjoyed across all cultures and nations, but tragic levels of gun violence remain unique to our country," said the ESA. "Scientific research an international and domestic crime data point toward the same conclusion: Entertainment does not cause violent behavior in the real world."

Several R-rated films released after Newton have been swept into the debate. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor and action film star, recently told USA Today in discussing his new shoot-em-up film "The Last Stand": "It's entertainment. People know the difference."

Quentin Tarantino, whose new film "Django Unchained" is a cartoonish, bloody spaghetti western set in the slavery-era South, has often grown testy when questioned about movie violence and real-life violence. Speaking to NPR, Tarantino said it was disrespectful to the memory of the victims to talk about movies: "I don't think one has to do with the other."

In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. The decision claimed that video games, like other media, are protected by the First Amendment. In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer claimed previous studies showed the link between violence and video games, concluding "the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children."

In the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government can't regulate depictions of violence, which he said were age-old, anyway: "Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed."

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AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang contributed to this report from Los Angeles

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Some With Autism Diagnosis Can Recover, Study Finds

Doctors have long believed that disabling autistic disorders last a lifetime, but a new study has found that some children who exhibit signature symptoms of the disorder recover completely.

The study, posted online on Wednesday by the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, is the largest to date of such extraordinary cases and is likely to alter the way that scientists and parents think and talk about autism, experts said.

Researchers on Wednesday cautioned against false hope. The findings suggest that the so-called autism spectrum contains a small but significant group who make big improvements in behavioral therapy for unknown, perhaps biological reasons, but that most children show much smaller gains. Doctors have no way to predict which children will do well.

Researchers have long known that between 1 and 20 percent of children given an autism diagnosis no longer qualify for one a few years or more later. They have suspected that in most cases the diagnosis was mistaken; the rate of autism diagnosis has ballooned over the past two decades, and some research suggests that it has been loosely applied.

The new study should put some of that skepticism to rest.

“This is the first solid science to address this question of possible recovery, and I think it has big implications,” said Sally Ozonoff of the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the research. “I know many of us as would rather have had our tooth pulled than use the word ‘recover,’ it was so unscientific. Now we can use it, though I think we need to stress that it’s rare.”

She and other experts said the findings strongly supported the value of early diagnosis and treatment.

In the study, a team led by Deborah Fein of the University of Connecticut at Storrs recruited 34 people who had been diagnosed before the age of 5 and no longer had any symptoms. They ranged in age from 8 to 21 years old and early in their development were in the higher-than-average range of the autism spectrum. The team conducted extensive testing of its own, including interviews with parents in some cases, to gauge current social and communication skills.

The debate over whether recovery is possible has simmered for decades and peaked in 1987, when the pioneering autism researcher O. Ivar Lovaas reported that 47 percent of children with the diagnosis showed full recovery after undergoing a therapy he had devised. This therapy, a behavioral approach in which increments of learned skills garner small rewards, is the basis for the most effective approach used today; still, many were skeptical and questioned his definition of recovery.

Dr. Fein and her team used standardized, widely used measures and found no differences between the group of 34 formerly diagnosed people and a group of 34 matched control subjects who had never had a diagnosis.

“They no longer qualified for the diagnosis,” said Dr. Fein, whose co-authors include researchers from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario; Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; the Institute of Living in Hartford; and the Child Mind Institute in New York. “I want to stress to parents that it’s a minority of kids who are able to do this, and no one should think they somehow missed the boat if they don’t get this outcome.”

On measures of social and communication skills, the recovered group scored significantly better than 44 peers who had a diagnosis of high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

Dr. Fein emphasized the importance of behavioral therapy. “These people did not just grow out of their autism,” she said. “I have been treating children for 40 years and never seen improvements like this unless therapists and parents put in years of work.”

The team plans further research to learn more about those who are able to recover. No one knows which ingredients or therapies are most effective, if any, or if there are patterns of behavior or biological markers that predict such success.

“Some children who do well become quite independent as adults but have significant anxiety and depression and are sometimes suicidal,” said Dr. Fred Volkmar, the director of the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine. There are no studies of this group, he said.

That, because of the new study, is about to change.

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FAA grounds entire fleet of Boeing 787s

Federal officials say they are temporarily grounding Boeing's 787 Dreamliners until the risk of possible battery fires is addressed.

Federal regulators have grounded all U.S. Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jets, a potentially devastating setback for the company's troubled new flagship airliner.

The move Wednesday by the Federal Aviation Administration left airlines reeling, seeking ways to accommodate delayed passengers. Boeing Co. stock fell on the news in after-hours trading.

The order came Wednesday after a 787 operated by a Japanese carrier, All Nippon Airways, made an emergency landing in southwestern Japan. The crew reported an unusual smell in the cabin, and indicators in the cockpit told pilots there was a problem related to an onboard lithium-ion battery.

FAA statement on Boeing 787 grounding 

Such batteries were also involved in a fire last week aboard a parked 787 in Boston operated by Japan Airlines.

The Japanese carriers — which own 24 of the 50 Dreamliners flying today — decided to remove all of their 787s from service indefinitely out of safety concerns. That move led to the FAA's extraordinary grounding order.

The plane is assembled at Boeing's Everett, Wash., factory, but the bulk of the large components arrive from suppliers around the world pre-assembled. There are about 50 suppliers in California alone.

"This is clearly a black eye and hiccup for Boeing," said Richard Phillips, managing director at Janes Capital Partners, an Irvine-based aerospace and defense investment bank. "It's clearly related to the batteries.... It could mean significant reengineering work that … could take a long time."

Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney said in a statement that the company is working with the FAA to "find answers as quickly as possible."

"The company is working around the clock with its customers and the various regulatory and investigative authorities," he said. "We are confident the 787 is safe, and we stand behind its overall integrity."

The FAA's decision came less than a week after U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA chief Michael Huerta deemed the plane safe to fly. The 787 has experienced a series of mishaps including a fuel leak and the Boston fire. However, the FAA had allowed the planes to continue to operate while it launched an unusual and sweeping evaluation of the way Boeing designs, manufactures and assembles the aircraft.

At issue is the Dreamliner's electrical systems and power-distribution panels, which involves pervasive use of lithium-ion batteries, which have been involved in fires and can also be found in cellphones and electric automobiles. The Dreamliner is the first large commercial aircraft to use the technology on such a large scale.

In a statement, the FAA said that the grounding order is aimed to "address a potential battery fire risk in the 787 and require operators to temporarily cease operations. Before further flight, operators of U.S.-registered Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration that the batteries are safe."

The FAA order is expected to be followed by carriers worldwide.

Boeing's use of lithium-ion batteries, made by Kyoto, Japan-based GS Yuasa Corp., were called into question when a smoldering fire was discovered last week on the underbelly of a Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines after the 173 passengers and 11 crew members had deplaned at the gate.

In the latest incident involving All Nippon Airways, smoke was seen swirling from the right side of the cockpit. All 137 passengers and crew were evacuated from the aircraft and slid down the Dreamliner's emergency slides. Video of the event was captured by an onboard passenger and has been broadcast worldwide.

The FAA has been aware of the flammability of lithium-ion batteries for years. Still when the agency was certifying the Dreamliner for flight operation, it issued special conditions for lithium-ion battery installations on the Dreamliner because regulations don't cover this technology.

"At present, there is limited experience with use of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries in applications involving commercial aviation. However, other users of this technology, ranging from wireless telephone manufacturing to the electric vehicle industry, have noted safety problems with lithium ion batteries. These problems include overcharging, over-discharging, and flammability of cell components," the FAA wrote at the time.

The FAA has issued scathing assessments of lithium-ion batteries for starting fires.

In October 2011, the FAA issued an airworthiness directive to owners of Cessna Aircraft Co.'s Model 525C airplanes that required them to swap out the lithium-ion batteries with other batteries.

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December home prices jump 19.6% in Southern California

Southern California¿s housing market ended last year with sharp home-price gains and the highest sales for a December in three years.

Southern California's housing market ended the year with sharp gains, rounding out the first solid year of sustained improvement after nearly five years of real estate malaise — and helping set up further improvement in 2013.

The region's median home price registered a sizable 19.6% pop in December compared with the same month last year to hit $323,000, real estate firm DataQuick reported Tuesday. A record level of cash buyers flooded into the market and more move-up homes sold last month.

While Southland housing is on the mend, the steep increase in the region's median price last month probably reflects a variety of factors, such as the mix of what sold in December, and the run-up may not continue at that brisk pace, experts said. The median is the point at which half the homes in the region sold for more and half for less.

"There is no possible way that number can be sustained nor should anybody look at that as a long-term trend," said Stuart Gabriel, director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA. "We haven't shifted from bust back to bubble, and nobody should think we have, and nor likely will we."

When compared with the prior month, the median was essentially flat, up only 0.6%. San Bernardino and Riverside counties posted the strongest year-over-year increases, up 20.0% and 19.1%, respectively, indicating that the once hard-hit Inland Empire is now probably in recovery.

The median is heavily influenced by the types of homes selling, and some of last month's pricier sales may have been driven by fears of increased tax burdens on the wealthy, as Washington wrangled with the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.

A rise in prices will mean more homeowners who had been underwater — owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, a condition also known as negative equity — can now put their properties on the market. That would help ease the region's inventory squeeze, which is another major factor driving up prices.

Last year was the first year of solid improvement since housing crashed in 2007. The strong performance last month indicates that 2013 will continue to bring home price gains, analysts said.

"Our forecast over the next 12 months is for equally strong appreciation," Zillow.com chief economist Stan Humphries said. "Even though we have got a lot of homes still in negative equity in Southern California, the tight inventory is definitely creating some price appreciation."

An estimated total of 20,274 new and previously owned homes and condominiums sold throughout the six-county region in December. That was a 5.1% increase from November and up 5.3% from December 2011. Last month's tally was the highest for a December since 2009.

The 2012 housing rebound came after foreclosures declined, housing inventory plummeted, mortgage interest rates hit record lows and demand from investors surged last year.

In addition, the overhang of the last housing bust resulted in some unexpected benefits.

For instance, the high number of underwater borrowers actually served as a boost to the market rather than being a drag, as people kept their homes off the market, decreasing inventory.

"The lock-out phenomenon, combined with the rise in investors converting foreclosures into rentals, led to a lack of for-sale inventory," CoreLogic economist Sam Khater wrote in a research note. "With home prices rising in 2012 and 2013, tight for-sale inventory will begin to ease."

Nationally, CoreLogic reported that home prices were on a sharp upward trajectory in November, with almost all states posting gains that month. The firm's home price index report, also released Tuesday, showed that home prices nationwide increased 7.4% year-over-year.

"Consistent price increases throughout 2012 have started the process of lifting households out of negative equity, which will support home sales and refinancing volumes," Paul Diggle, an economist for Capital Economics, wrote in an emailed analysis. "Lower levels of negative equity is good news for housing market activity and sets up a virtuous circle of rising activity leading to rising prices and pushing negative equity down further."

In California, buyers can anticipate a tight market in the near term. A supply of only about 2 1/2 months' worth of single-family homes for sale was available statewide at the end of December, the California Assn. of Realtors reported Tuesday. A supply of six or seven months is considered healthy by most economists.

Supply from distressed sales, particularly from foreclosed homes, will remain limited as those homes are being quickly snapped up by investors while the number of troubled borrowers entering foreclosure continues to decline. The number of notices of default — the first step in the formal foreclosure process — fell 14.5% in December from November and dropped 39.8% from December 2011, according to foreclosure tracker ForeclosureRadar.com.

The decline in foreclosures has been aided by an increase in short sales, as The Times recently reported, as well as other loan aid for borrowers. The drop in foreclosures should continue to help lift prices.

"For 2013, we largely expect more of the same," Sean O'Toole, chief executive of ForeclosureRadar, wrote in a blog post this week. "Demand will remain strong thanks to Federal Reserve-manipulated low interest rates and affordability. Housing supply will remain constrained, largely due to government foreclosure intervention. As a result, prices will rise, though likely at a slower pace."

The increase in the median home price in Southern California reflects market dynamics as fewer sales are logged in cheaper neighborhoods and pricier places take off.

Throughout Southern California, sales of mid-to-higher-cost markets rose in December, DataQuick reported. Sales of homes between $300,000 and $800,000, the typical move-up range, jumped 31.4% year-over-year. Sales of homes above $500,000 soared 40.0% year-over-year, while sales of homes of more than $800,000 were up 36.3%.

Meanwhile, cheaper neighborhoods posted weak sales. Most notably, the number of homes throughout the region that sold below $200,000 dropped 28.1% while those below $300,000 fell 18.2%.

Sales of foreclosed homes made up just 14.8% of the market last month, down from 15.4% the month before and 32.4% in December 2011. That compares with a high of 56.7% of the market in February 2009.

Cash buyers and investors are playing a big part in snapping up home inventory. Cash buyers bought up 33.8% of all resale homes last month, while absentee buyers purchased 29.1% of Southland homes in December, DataQuick said.

alejandro.lazo@latimes.com

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