Adele to make post-baby debut at Golden Globes

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Adele is coming to the Golden Globes.

The executive producer of the show says the 24-year-old Grammy-winning pop star is set to make her first post-baby appearance at Sunday's ceremony, where she is nominated for original song for the James Bond theme "Skyfall."

Adele welcomed her first child, with boyfriend Simon Konecki, in October. The singer has kept a low profile since announcing her pregnancy in June after sweeping the Grammy Awards last February with six wins.

Her single, "Skyfall," will compete at the Golden Globes with Taylor Swift's song from "The Hunger Games," Jon Bon Jovi's number from "Stand Up Guys," Keith Urban's track from "Act of Valor," and "Suddenly" from "Les Miserables."

The Globes will be presented Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

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Americans Under 50 Fare Poorly on Health Measures, New Report Says

Younger Americans die earlier and live in poorer health than their counterparts in other developed countries, with far higher rates of death from guns, car accidents and drug addiction, according to a new analysis of health and longevity in the United States.

Researchers have known for some time that the United States fares poorly in comparison with other rich countries, a trend established in the 1980s. But most studies have focused on older ages, when the majority of people die.

The findings were stark. Deaths before age 50 accounted for about two-thirds of the difference in life expectancy between males in the United States and their counterparts in 16 other developed countries, and about one-third of the difference for females. The countries in the analysis included Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Germany and Spain.

The 378-page study by a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council is the first to systematically compare death rates and health measures for people of all ages, including American youths. It went further than other studies in documenting the full range of causes of death, from diseases to accidents to violence. It was based on a broad review of mortality and health studies and statistics.

The panel called the pattern of higher rates of disease and shorter lives “the U.S. health disadvantage,” and said it was responsible for dragging the country to the bottom in terms of life expectancy over the past 30 years. American men ranked last in life expectancy among the 17 countries in the study, and American women ranked second to last.

“Something fundamental is going wrong,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, who led the panel. “This is not the product of a particular administration or political party. Something at the core is causing the U.S. to slip behind these other high-income countries. And it’s getting worse.”

Car accidents, gun violence and drug overdoses were major contributors to years of life lost by Americans before age 50.

The rate of firearm homicides was 20 times higher in the United States than in the other countries, according to the report, which cited a 2011 study of 23 countries. And though suicide rates were lower in the United States, firearm suicide rates were six times higher.

Sixty-nine percent of all American homicide deaths in 2007 involved firearms, compared with an average of 26 percent in other countries, the study said. “The bottom line is that we are not preventing damaging health behaviors,” said Samuel Preston, a demographer and sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was on the panel. “You can blame that on public health officials, or on the health care system. No one understands where responsibility lies.”

Panelists were surprised at just how consistently Americans ended up at the bottom of the rankings. The United States had the second-highest death rate from the most common form of heart disease, the kind that causes heart attacks, and the second-highest death rate from lung disease, a legacy of high smoking rates in past decades. American adults also have the highest diabetes rates.

Youths fared no better. The United States has the highest infant mortality rate among these countries, and its young people have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy and deaths from car crashes. Americans lose more years of life before age 50 to alcohol and drug abuse than people in any of the other countries.

Americans also had the lowest probability over all of surviving to the age of 50. The report’s second chapter details health indicators for youths where the United States ranks near or at the bottom. There are so many that the list takes up four pages. Chronic diseases, including heart disease, also played a role for people under 50.

“We expected to see some bad news and some good news,” Dr. Woolf said. “But the U.S. ranked near and at the bottom in almost every heath indicator. That stunned us.”

There were bright spots. Death rates from cancers that can be detected with tests, like breast cancer, were lower in the United States. Adults had better control over their cholesterol and high blood pressure. And the very oldest Americans — above 75 — tended to outlive their counterparts.

The panel sought to explain the poor performance. It noted the United States has a highly fragmented health care system, with limited primary care resources and a large uninsured population. It has the highest rates of poverty among the countries studied.

Education also played a role. Americans who have not graduated from high school die from diabetes at three times the rate of those with some college, Dr. Woolf said. In the other countries, more generous social safety nets buffer families from the health consequences of poverty, the report said.

Still, even the people most likely to be healthy, like college-educated Americans and those with high incomes, fare worse on many health indicators.

The report also explored less conventional explanations. Could cultural factors like individualism and dislike of government interference play a role? Americans are less likely to wear seat belts and more likely to ride motorcycles without helmets.    

The United States is a bigger, more heterogeneous society with greater levels of economic inequality, and comparing its health outcomes to those in countries like Sweden or France may seem lopsided. But the panelists point out that this country spends more on health care than any other in the survey. And as recently as the 1950s, Americans scored better in life expectancy and disease than many of the other countries in the current study.

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Wealthy car collectors, auction firms to gather in Arizona

If $8 million sounds like too much for a 1960 Ferrari, perhaps a 1958 model in the range of $5.5 million to $7 million better suits your budget.

Such are the choices the world's wealthiest car collectors will face this month in Arizona. Every year, buyers, sellers and car nuts descend on Scottsdale and Phoenix for one of the largest gatherings of car auctions in the country.

"This is it. This is the big one," McKeel Hagerty says of the week of auctions. Hagerty is founder and chief executive of Hagerty Insurance Agency, which insures and tracks sale prices of classic cars. "It is a bucket list item for any car guy at some point in your life."

Thousands of vehicles will be auctioned by companies including Gooding & Co. of Santa Monica, RM Auctions, Bonhams, Barrett-Jackson and Russo & Steele. The models offered range from a 1926 Cadillac to a 2012 Shelby GT500 Super Snake, with prices from the low $20,000s to the high seven figures. Auctions run Jan. 15-20.

Barrett-Jackson says around 270,000 people attended its 2012 Arizona event over the course of a week, and the company expects to top that number this year.

Antique car buffs now consider the Arizona event on par with the Monterey car week held every August in California. Although the Monterey week offers an amalgam of events including heritage racing, car auctions and the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, Arizona is strictly auctions.

"Everybody there is very much in the mood to buy and sell," David Gooding, president and chief executive of Gooding & Co., said of Scottsdale. "At Pebble, there's just so much going on that people sometimes are a little less focused. Everybody tends to get a little stressed out and tired."

The pair of rare Ferraris, offered by rival auction houses, probably will compete for bragging rights that go with the top-dollar sale.

Gooding & Co., which has a five-year streak of selling the priciest car, is bringing a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider. The long-wheelbase convertible is one of only 50 built and features a 3.0-liter V-12 that makes at least 250 horsepower. The car has been certified by Ferrari as a matching-numbers example and has been shown at elite car shows including Pebble Beach. Matching-numbers cars are those that still have original components such as the engine with identification numbers that match those on other parts of the vehicle.

"There's nothing you can fault on this car; it's as nice as it can be," David Gooding said of the midnight blue California Spider.

His company estimates that the car will bring $5.5 million to $7 million if it sells.

Challenging the Spider for the top sale will be another rare Ferrari sold by RM Auctions, a 1960 250 GT SWB Berlinetta "Competizione." Only 74 of the roughly 170 short-wheelbase 250 GT cars were made in this lighter, street-legal racing version with a V-12 engine that makes close to 300 horsepower.

Since many were raced — and crashed — few match this copy's provenance. It's had just four owners, and its crash-free and original-engine status make it a rare "no stories" car. These models are also balanced and welcoming cars to drive, a trait not shared by all race-spec Ferraris of the era.

"It's one of the holy grails for Ferrari collecting, because they look nice, they perform well, and yet they're kind of tame," Hagerty said. He estimates the car could sell for $6 million to $10 million.

Old Ferraris in general have been fetching ever-increasing prices, according to Hagerty Insurance, which tracks the average price of Ferraris sold and reports a 59% increase in the last 36 months. In part, the surge is driven by the fact that ownership grants the buyer entry to the world's most exclusive driving events, including road rallies and other Concours car shows.

"There are events around the world that you don't get invited to unless you have one of these," Hagerty says. "You don't get to be the guest of somebody who goes. You either own it or you're not going."

The week of auctions traces its roots back to 1971, when Tom Barrett and Russ Jackson hosted their first auction of around 80 cars in Scottsdale. The pair soon after formed Barrett-Jackson, a classic-car auction company that today is among the world's largest. By 1997, the Speed Channel was covering the weeklong Barrett-Jackson auction live.

By 2001, after years of increased foot traffic to the weeklong event, other auction companies had started hosting similar sales nearby with the hopes of attracting buyers interested in a wider range of vehicles than the American muscle cars Barrett-Jackson was known for selling.

"It's the great example of if you put one gas station on a corner, then slowly all four corners have a gas station — and they all seem to do well," Hagerty said of the growth.

The event's rising popularity, due in no small part to television coverage, has benefited every car fan, said Jackson's son Craig, the chairman and CEO of Barrett-Jackson. "I think it's had a role in expanding the car hobby in general," he said. "It's brought thousands of new people in."

Although Italian exotics steal the limelight, a majority of the week's sales are cars with more reasonable prices, from $20,000 to $100,000. More common offerings will include American classics such as 1957 Chevys, Corvettes and Ford Mustangs.

Even if you don't intend to buy, the auctions can still be fun to watch.

"There are a lot of cars that are kind of affordable. It's fun to go to those things, because you're sort of afraid you're going to start waving your hand around at the least convenient moment," Hagerty said. "And of course that's exactly what the auction companies want you to do."

david.undercoffler@latimes.com

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U.S. Supreme Court hands L.A. County a victory in water lawsuit

Los Angeles County got a reprieve in an ongoing dispute over who is responsible for pollution from storm water when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ruling won by environmentalists.

However, the court's 9-0 decision Tuesday did not deal with the larger question of how to regulate storm water and urban runoff flowing into the region's waterways.

Gary Hildebrand, assistant deputy director of the county's Department of Public Works, said the court's decision "validates the approach the flood control district has been taking to deal with water management."

The ruling allows the district to move forward with updated storm water regulations that the regional water board put in place in November, he said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper — now Los Angeles Waterkeeper — sued the flood control district in 2008 alleging that it had violated its storm water permit. The lawsuit cited high pollution readings at monitoring stations in the county's rivers.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the county was liable for pollution in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers, and referred to the water flowing from the "concrete channels" into the natural part of the lower river as discharges of pollutants.

The Supreme Court said the 9th Circuit's opinion rested on a mistaken premise and reversed it. The water flowing from one "concrete" section of the river to another section cannot be deemed a "discharge" of pollutants, the court said. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said "no pollutants are 'added' to a water body when water is merely transferred between different portions of that body."

Steve Fleischli, water program director and senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council, said the question that the court decided was never in dispute between the parties. He called the ruling a "temporary setback" in efforts to hold the county accountable.

"It doesn't close the door on our enforcement efforts against the county, and it doesn't limit the county's obligation to comply with the Clean Water Act," he said.

County officials have also argued that the flood control district is not primarily to blame for the pollution in the rivers, because there are dozens of cities discharging polluted runoff upstream from the monitoring sites. With only one monitoring station in each river, it is difficult to find the original source of the pollution.

The Supreme Court did not weigh in on that point, but when the case was argued last month, the justices commented that the county needs a better means of monitoring storm water runoff.

In her opinion, Ginsburg noted that the renewed storm water permit put in place by the Los Angeles regional water board will include monitoring the water quality at "discharge points" where storm drains flow into the rivers, which will provide more localized data.

Hildebrand said the ruling will not have an impact on a parcel fee the county is pursuing to raise about $290 million a year for projects that would help clean up storm water pollution. A hearing on that proposal is set for Jan. 15, and the Board of Supervisors may vote then to place the proposed fee on the ballot.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

david.savage@latimes.com

Sewell reported from Los Angeles and Savage from Washington, D.C.

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AP Exclusive: Richardson pressing NKorean test ban

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Wednesday that his delegation is pressing North Korea to put a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests and to allow more cell phones and an open Internet for its citizens.

Richardson told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang that the group is also asking for fair and humane treatment for an American citizen detained in North Korea.

“The citizens of the DPRK (North Korea) will be better off with more cell phones and an active Internet. Those are the three messages we’ve given to a variety of foreign policy officials, scientists” and government officials, Richardson said.

He is accompanied by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google Ideas think tank Director Jared Cohen on what Richardson has called a private, humanitarian trip. Schmidt, who is the highest-profile U.S. business executive to visit North Korea since leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago, has not spoken publicly about the reasons behind the journey to North Korea.

The high-profile visit comes just weeks after North Korea launched a long-range rocket to send a satellite into space. Washington has condemned the launch as a banned test of missile technology.

Schmidt, who oversaw Google‘s expansion into a global Internet giant, speaks frequently about the importance of providing people around the world with Internet access and technology. Google now has offices in more than 40 countries, including all three of North Korea’s neighbors: Russia, South Korea and China, another country criticized for systematic Internet censorship.

He and Cohen have collaborated on a book about the Internet’s role in shaping society called “The New Digital Age” that comes out in April.

Using science and technology to build North Korea’s beleaguered economy was the highlight of a New Year’s Day speech by leader Kim Jong Un.

New red banners promoting slogans drawn from Kim’s speech line Pyongyang’s snowy streets, and North Koreans are still cramming to study the lengthy speech. It was the first time in 19 years for North Koreans to hear their leader give a New Year’s Day speech. During the rule of late leader Kim Jong Il, state policy was distributed through North Korea’s three main newspapers.

___

Follow AP’s bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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Ned Wertimer, doorman on 'Jeffersons,' dies at 89

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ned Wertimer, who played Ralph the Doorman on all 11 seasons of the CBS sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died.

Wertimer's manager Brad Lemack said Tuesday that the 89-year-old actor died at a Los Angeles-area nursing home on Jan. 2, following a November fall at his home in Burbank.

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., and a Navy pilot during World War II, Wertimer had one-off roles on dozens of TV shows from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, including "Car 54 Where Are You?" and "Mary Tyler Moore."

But he was best known by far as Ralph Hart, the uniformed, mustachioed doorman at the luxury apartment building on "The Jeffersons," the "All In the Family" spinoff that ran from 1975 to 1985.

The show's star, Sherman Hemsley, died July 24.

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Gaps Seen in Therapy for Suicidal Teenagers

Most adolescents who plan or attempt suicide have already received at least some mental health treatment, raising questions about the effectiveness of current approaches to helping troubled youths, according to the largest in-depth analysis to date of suicidal behaviors in American teenagers.

The study, in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found that 55 percent of suicidal teenagers had received some therapy before they thought about suicide, planned it or tried to kill themselves, contradicting the widely held belief that suicide is due in part to a lack of access to treatment.

The findings, based on interviews with a nationwide sample of more than 6,000 teenagers and at least one parent of each, linked suicidal behavior to complex combinations of mood disorders like depression and behavior problems like attention-deficit and eating disorders, as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

The study found that about one in eight teenagers had persistent suicidal thoughts at some point, and that about a third of those who had suicidal thoughts had made an attempt, usually within a year of having the idea.

Previous studies have had similar findings, based on smaller, regional samples. But the new study is the first to suggest, in a large nationwide sample, that access to treatment does not make a big difference.

The study suggests that effective treatment for severely suicidal teenagers must address not just mood disorders, but also behavior problems that can lead to impulsive acts, experts said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,386 people between the ages of 13 and 18 committed suicide in 2010, the latest year for which numbers are available.

“I think one of the take-aways here is that treatment for depression may be necessary but not sufficient to prevent kids from attempting suicide,” said Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study. “We simply do not have empirically validated treatments for recurrent suicidal behavior.”

The report said nothing about whether the therapies given were state of the art or carefully done, said Matt Nock, a professor of psychology at Harvard and the lead author, and it is possible that some of the treatments prevented suicide attempts. “But it’s telling us we’ve got a long way to go to do this right,” Dr. Nock said. His co-authors included Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard and researchers from Boston University and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Margaret McConnell, a consultant in Alexandria, Va., said her daughter Alice, who killed herself in 2006 at the age of 17, was getting treatment at the time. “I think there might have been some carelessness in the way the treatment was done,” Ms. McConnell said, “and I was trusting a 17-year-old to manage her own medication. We found out after we lost her that she wasn’t taking it regularly.”

In the study, researchers surveyed 6,483 adolescents from the ages of 13 to 18 and found that 9 percent of male teenagers and 15 percent of female teenagers experienced some stretch of having persistent suicidal thoughts. Among girls, 5 percent made suicide plans and 6 percent made at least one attempt (some were unplanned).

Among boys, 3 percent made plans and 2 percent carried out attempts, which tended to be more lethal than girls’ attempts.

(Suicidal thinking or behavior was virtually unheard-of before age 10.)

Over all, about one-third of teenagers with persistent suicidal thoughts went on to make an attempt to take their own lives.

Almost all of the suicidal adolescents in the study qualified for some psychiatric diagnosis, whether depression, phobias or generalized anxiety disorder. Those with an added behavior problem — attention-deficit disorder, substance abuse, explosive anger — were more likely to act on thoughts of self-harm, the study found.

Doctors have tested a range of therapies to prevent or reduce recurrent suicidal behaviors, with mixed success. Medications can ease depression, but in some cases they can increase suicidal thinking. Talk therapy can contain some behavior problems, but not all.

One approach, called dialectical behavior therapy, has proved effective in reducing hospitalizations and suicide attempts in, among others, people with borderline personality disorder, who are highly prone to self-harm.

But suicidal teenagers who have a mixture of mood and behavior issues are difficult to reach. In one 2011 study, researchers at George Mason University reduced suicide attempts, hospitalizations, drinking and drug use among suicidal adolescent substance abusers. The study found that a combination of intensive treatments — talk therapy for mood problems, family-based therapy for behavior issues and patient-led reduction in drug use — was more effective than regular therapies.

“But that’s just one study, and it’s small,” said Dr. Brent of the University of Pittsburgh. “We can treat components of the overall problem, but that’s about all.”

Ms. McConnell said that her daughter’s depression had seemed mild and that there was no warning that she would take her life. “I think therapy does help a lot of people, if it’s handled right,” she said.

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Short sales in California surpass sales of foreclosed homes

When housing prices first went off the cliff, most mortgage lenders refused to cut deals with homeowners, choosing instead to repossess homes on a grand scale.

Five years and billions of dollars in losses later, many banks can't cut those deals fast enough, writing off large chunks of mortgage debt and even paying homeowners to move out.

In recent months, short sales — in which banks allow homeowners to sell for less than they owe — have surpassed sales of foreclosed homes in California for the first time since the start of the housing crash in 2007, according to real estate research firm DataQuick. The transactions now represent about a quarter of the market, a surge driven by rising home prices, government crackdowns on foreclosures and banks' increasing capacity to process the deals.

Lenders have revamped short sale departments, streamlining paperwork, creating new software systems and enlisting newly formed companies as liaisons with borrowers. Some institutions are even paying homeowners sizable sums to move, similar to "cash for keys" arrangements used as an alternative to eviction in foreclosures. Bank of America pays up to $30,000 in relocation assistance for certain successful short sales. JPMorgan Chase will pay up to $35,000. Wells Fargo offers similar aid, though it declined to specify an amount.

When William Morrison asked Bank of America to approve a short sale on his Seal Beach condo, the lender obliged in October — letting him sell for about $192,000 and forgiving an additional $98,000 he owed on his mortgage, according to public records. The bank threw in enough relocation assistance to cover one month's rent and the deposit on a new place.

"They gave me $3,000," Morrison said. "And that is exactly what it cost me to secure a little studio apartment in Seal Beach, pretty close to the old place."

The surge in short sales stems in part from last year's national mortgage settlement with the nation's five largest banks. To avoid going to court over foreclosure improprieties, the banks agreed to certain levels of debt forgiveness for underwater homeowners. Short sales count toward those commitments.

But the trend also marks a triumph of economic common sense. Short sales have long been less costly to banks than foreclosures. Homeowners often remain in a property until a new buyer is found, which helps banks avoid maintenance costs and keeps out squatters and vandals. Moreover, many buyers of foreclosures expect a discount, whereas banks aim to get market value for short sales.

"In general, short sales produce less of a loss than if the property goes through foreclosure," Wells Fargo spokesman Gary Kishner said. "In addition, the property is usually conveyed in better condition, which ultimately benefits the neighborhood."

On hold for months

At the height of the housing crisis, short sales seemed like a misnomer: neither short nor resulting in a sale. Homeowners waited months for a bank response to a short sale offer — often a rejection — even as banks deployed robo-signing factories to rubber-stamp foreclosures by the thousands. Properties with multiple loans proved particularly difficult to short-sell because each lender had to agree to take write-downs. Frustrated buyers moved on.

But banks now embrace the transactions, if only as a necessary evil. Ben Salem, a real estate agent for Rodeo Realty who specializes in distressed properties, has seen much of his business shift to short sales this year.

"You are seeing a lot of people from the foreclosure departments going over to short sale departments," Salem said. "What is happening is a good thing."

Since the crisis, major investors, including banks and government-sponsored mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have eased their rules to make short sales easier. New government programs offer more incentives to borrowers and banks, prompting lenders to work with buyers to market properties instead of waiting for offers to arrive.

Kimberly Dawson, a short sale specialist with Bank of America, said banks have simply become more adept at the transactions, which were rare before the housing bust. When a homeowner agrees to one of the bank's proactive short sales, the bank typically makes a decision on an offer in five to 10 days, she said. And with home prices rising and inventory tight, banks can more easily approve a sale.

"What we are looking for is market value. It is obviously the best thing for our investors and the community," Dawson said.

Forgiving debt, repairing credit

The incentives for short sales are more than just economic. Banks face a slew of new regulations after revelations of improper foreclosures based on forged or faulty paperwork. Avoiding foreclosure also means avoiding the legal hassle and expense of home repossessions.

"If you go through a short sale and a homeowner signs off on it, there is no downstream worry of litigation," said Sean O'Toole, founder of ForeclosureRadar.

Short sales have also become more beneficial for consumers. Banks now typically approve short sales that include deficiency waivers, meaning debt is forgiven. These kinds of short sales are less harmful to credit scores, according to Fair Isaac Corp., which developed the nation's most widely used credit-scoring formula.

For homeowners with hardships, such as job loss or illness, agreeing to a short sale means a waiting period of two years before the possibility of getting a new home loan backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, compared with three years for a foreclosure. A homeowner without such circumstances can also get a new loan two years after a short sale with a 20% down payment, compared with seven years for a foreclosure.

Leonard Roth hopes to use those two years to repair his finances so he can buy another house. He's working with his bank to short-sell his home in Redlands because he can no longer handle the monthly payment, which doubled to $2,800 after five years because of a variable rate.

"Two years," he said, "should give me enough time to save."

alejandro.lazo@latimes.com

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A Grand Central Market makeover? It could work

At 9 a.m. sharp, the man in the blue blazer swung a brass bell over his head, a rite that dates back to the Grand Central Market's opening day in 1917. A minute later, nearly every swivel chair at the China Cafe counter was filled, mostly by older men hunched over bowls of wonton soup.

"It's not a fancy place," said Concepcion Orellano, 57. "People come here because they are poor."

Owner Rinco Cheung, an experienced restaurateur and Hong Kong native, confided he didn't know what chop suey was until he took over China Cafe from his wife's cousin last year.

"It's very old-style," Cheung said, pointing out the menu boards overhead, which list several "egg fo yeung" dishes the owner also didn't recognize. "They love it like that," he added.

Which is precisely the problem. I too love the Grand Central Market: its Beaux Arts touches, the flowing script of the neon signs at each stall, the weird store names — "Jones Grain Mill" — the exposed pipes and pendant light fixtures.

And I'm a fan of the back-in-the-day comfort food and retro prices in the cavernous food hall between Broadway and Hill streets. On Friday, (small) avocados were on sale at one of the produce stands seven for $1, and Jose's Ice Cream Corner had cones for $1.50. The market, with its mix of Mexican, Chinese, Japanese and Middle Eastern food, is one of the last holdouts of the $5-or-less lunch plate in downtown Los Angeles.

But landmarks cannot live on nostalgia alone. And even the most militant preservationist has to see it's time to shake up the venerable food emporium. Downtown's population has exploded, but the Grand Central Market clearly is failing to bring in many of its new, upscale urbanistas. Last week, I saw more vacant space than I can remember at any point in the last decade.

Alarms went off after The Times reported on the planned makeover by Adele Yellin, president of the development company started by her late husband, Ira. The news bounced around the blogosphere, drawing complaints about a loss of authenticity. Times staff writer Joseph Serna denounced the gentrification of the "people's market."

The minds behind the chichi Ferry Building, a foodie mecca in San Francisco, are involved; a consultant told Times reporter Betty Hallock his "fantasy" is a pocket cafe or sushi bar under the stairs.

The consternation seems somewhat misplaced. The basement's tenants now are a passport photo place and one of those ubiquitous 99-cent-style discount stores; I doubt they'll be missed much.

But our history of slash-and-burn urban renewal does not give comfort. It brings to mind the Vietnam War tag line: We had to destroy the village to save it.

Bunker Hill was flattened. Nothing was preserved of the magnificent Ambassador Hotel when Los Angeles Unified converted it to a public school. Instead, the district built kitschy facsimiles of the hotel's Paul R. Williams-designed coffee shop and Cocoanut Grove nightclub. The once-glamorous Brown Derby icon sits atop a strip mall in Koreatown, robbed of any history or meaning.

I talked to Yellin and her developer, Rick Moses, and I believe they are sincere about maintaining the character of the market. After all, her late husband kept his promise not to make the place "Westside cute" during an earlier overhaul in the 1990s. The changes thus far are modest: the sawdust was removed, and the floors, pipes and ceiling are being scrubbed and polished.

"Yes, we want to clean it up, but we don't want to change the feel of it," Moses told me.

But how about also committing to structuring rents so that at least some portion of the market's offerings remain affordable?

It's only fair. The public has a sizable stake in the Grand Central Market. Local agencies financed $44 million in bonds for Ira Yellin's renovation of the historic market and the Homer Laughlin Building above it. The market today still owes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the now-defunct L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency $32 million, Moses said.

People come downtown not simply for its historic charm, but because it's a beautiful mess — a hodgepodge of what came before, what's hot now, grit, glitz and authenticity.

Retired computer systems engineer Daniel Kerr took the train in from San Clemente to visit the China Cafe on Friday for the wonton soup but also to take in the action.

"I like city life," he said. "There's so much to see and to do. it's just interesting." Being on a fixed income, he'll probably have to cut back on the China Cafe if a meal there goes up to $10 or more, he said.

"I think it's so cool here," said Adrian Aguilar, 25, an El Monte native who recently moved into a loft downtown. "I love sushi, but this is just like straight from the streets of L.A."

Aguilar, tattooed and dressed head to toe in black, said he had musician friends coming in from New York and was "all excited to bring them to places like this."

Moses and Yellin say there is no intention to purge existing tenants, just to fill the holes. As a sign of good faith, they recently signed Las Morelianas, of pig snout taco fame, to a new lease.

Cheung kept the old menu and employees when he took over the China Cafe. This, along with his beer license, the only one in the market, undoubtedly helped him hang on to old customers. He has high hopes the new style can blend with the old. "Why not mix it all together?" he said.

What a concept: a real mixed-used project.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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Intel bets big on thin PCs and phones at Las Vegas show

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Top chipmaker Intel Corp on Monday announced shipments of a new low-power chip and showed off next-generation ultra thin laptops and convertible tablets in its latest bid to prove that the struggling PC industry still has a bright future.

At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas , Intel said new energy-efficient processors for tablets and laptops are available now, and it outlined features like voice recognition and drastically improved battery life on future PCs.

“Absolutely all-day battery life where you just don’t have to bring your power brick at all anymore,” Kirk Skaugen, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC Client Group, said of laptops built with the company’s upcoming Haswell processor.

While macroeconomic troubles have weighed on sales for several quarters, the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones is seen as an existential threat to the PC industry.

Anxious to breathe new life into PCs and prove a recent slump in sales is not permanent, Intel and PC manufactures in Las Vegas this week will display a range of ultra thin laptops, dubbed Ultrabooks, and hybrid devices that convert into tablets.

On a stage flanked by dozens of tablets and laptops with rotatable and detachable screens, Skaugen said Intel’s newly available chip based on its current Ivy Bridge architecture sips just 7 watts of energy, more efficient than a previously planned 10 watts of power.

NO-EXCUSES PHONE

The Santa Clara, California-based company has long been king of the PC chip market, particularly through its historic “Wintel” alliance with Microsoft Corp, which led to breathtakingly high profit margins and an 80 percent market share.

But it has struggled to adapt its powerful PC processors for battery-powered smartphones and tablets, a fast-growing market led by Qualcomm Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, ARM Holdings Plc and others.

Mike Bell, who co-heads Intel’s mobile and wireless business, introduced a new processor platform, code named Lexington, targeted at low-priced smartphones in emerging markets like Latin America and Asia.

“It’s designed to be a no-excuses multimedia phone,” he said.

Acer, Safaricom and Lava have already agreed to use the new chips in future phones, Bell said.

A handful of manufacturers and telecom carriers in Europe and Asia have already launched smartphones using Intel’s Medfield processors this year. Google’s Motorola Mobility in September launched the Razr i in Europe and Latin America as the first handset of a multi-device agreement between the two groups.

But Intel is fighting an uphill battle in a market where chips made using technology from ARM Holdings have become ubiquitous. Intel also has yet to release a chip for 4G telephone networks, keeping it out of the running for major smartphone design wins in the United States.

Sales of smartphone processors soared 58 percent in the third quarter, but Intel had just 0.2 percent of that market, according to a recent report from Strategy Analytics.

By comparison, worldwide PC shipments fell 8.6 percent in the third quarter, according to IDC.

Intel said 3D cameras would be integrated in future Ultrabooks to allow consumers to use gestures and facial recognition to control their devices. Upcoming Ultrabooks will also include voice interaction, Skaugen said.

“We’re basically going to give the PC the same human senses we’ve all had,” he said.

Intel and other tech companies are increasingly looking for ways to let PCs and other devices use cameras, GPS chips, microphones and other kinds of sensors to predict their users’ needs.

“It’s this combination of computer devices doing things before you ask them to do it, in that they’re smart enough to know based on their sensors,” said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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