California police probe stunts that shut down freeways

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The California Highway Patrol is investigating two apparently unrelated stunts that jammed freeways over the weekend, including one involving hundreds of motorcyclists celebrating a marriage proposal that inconvenienced motorists east of Los Angeles.

Both events created a flurry of viral Internet videos, fueling concerns about a repeat performance by copycats.

On Interstate 10 east of Los Angeles on Sunday, up to 300 bikers stopped traffic so that one of them could propose to his girlfriend, said Officer Vince Ramirez, a Los Angeles-area spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

Video that surfaced online of the stunt showed some bikers creating a wall of smoke by spinning their tires against the concrete. In the middle of the gathering, pink smoke could be seen wafting into the air.

As they exited the freeway, several bikers were later ticketed for reckless riding unrelated to their possible role in the freeway shutdown, Ramirez said.

He said officers were working with the Los Angeles County District Attorney‘s office to prepare additional charges against some of the bikers.

The stunt did not cause any injuries or collisions, he said.

In Oakland on Saturday, traffic ground to a halt on Interstate 880 near the city’s sports coliseum, as several sports cars did doughnuts, spinning around and filling the air with tire smoke, officials said. Stunned motorists exited their cars and watched.

Several motorists caught in the sudden traffic jam were frightened or angry, according to recordings of calls to authorities released on Tuesday.

“I can’t believe this – I have three kids in the car,” one caller told an Oakland-area dispatcher. “It scares the hell out of me.”

Authorities have not found or identified any of the drivers, said California Highway Patrol Sergeant Diana McDermott.

California Highway Patrol officers said they feared the weekend events’ popularity on social media websites could start a dangerous trend. So far, such stunts have been rare, they said.

“That’s why the investigation is expanding,” Ramirez said.

“If there are any criminal charges that can be filed as a result of this incident, they will be filed,” he said.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis, Tom Brown and Eric Walsh)

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The Most Dramatic Bachelor Style News ... Ever

Stylewatch
Style News Now

01/28/2013 at 04:00 PM ET

Tommaso Boddi/Wireimage

Bachelors come and go, but one constant remains: the show’s unflappable host Chris Harrison and his reliably dapper wardrobe. And since we’re always excited to see what he’ll wear next on the show, it didn’t surprise us to learn that people constantly ask him where he gets his outfits.

What did surprise us? The fact that Harrison is launching his own clothing line — a fact he shared with us exclusively when he visited the PEOPLE offices last week.

“I think there’s a huge market there for guys like me, who aren’t going to be wearing the ridiculous Ed Hardy stuff — we’re too old for that garbage — but at the same time, we don’t want to look like a slouch,” he says. “I like dressing up, but at the same time, I want to go pick up my kids from school and not look like a goofball.”

He plans to channel that passion for stylish, relatable clothing into the Chris Harrison Collection by Da Vinci, a partnership with his designer pal Christopher Wicks, whom Harrison calls “a genius.”

It’s a logical next step for the man who calls himself “a clothes hound — as much as you can be for a straight guy.” Harrison says he takes a lot of pride in the Bachelor wardrobe he puts together with the show’s stylist Cary Fetman, particularly noting his affinity for ties, vests and watches. “People come up to me saying, ‘Dude, I like what you wear, I like what you’re doing,’” he says of his style, “so I’m like, ‘Hey, let’s do our own [line].’”

Excited to add a little Bachelor magic into your guy’s wardrobe? Harrison says that he’ll be wearing his own designs in the next season of The Bachelorette (no premiere date yet, but likely later this year), so tune in and keep your eyes out for the first glimpse at The Harrison Collection. Tell us: Are you looking forward to Harrison’s new clothing line?

–Alex Apatoff

GET MORE BACHELOR STYLE SCOOP HERE!

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Study says leafy greens top food poisoning source

NEW YORK (AP) — A big government study has fingered leafy greens like lettuce and spinach as the leading source of food poisoning, a perhaps uncomfortable conclusion for health officials who want us to eat our vegetables.

"Most meals are safe," said Dr. Patricia Griffin, a government researcher and one of the study's authors who said the finding shouldn't discourage people from eating produce. Experts repeated often-heard advice: Be sure to wash those foods or cook them thoroughly.

While more people may have gotten sick from plants, more died from contaminated poultry, the study also found. The results were released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans — or 48 million people— gets sick from food poisoning. That includes 128,000 hospitalization and 3,000 deaths, according to previous CDC estimates.

The new report is the most comprehensive CDC has produced on the sources of food poisoning, covering the years 1998 through 2008. It reflects the agency's growing sophistication at monitoring illnesses and finding their source.

What jumped out at the researchers was the role fruits and vegetables played in food poisonings, said Griffin, who heads the CDC office that handles foodborne infection surveillance and analysis.

About 1 in 5 illnesses were linked to leafy green vegetables — more than any other type of food. And nearly half of all food poisonings were attributed to produce in general, when illnesses from other fruits and vegetables were added in.

It's been kind of a tough month for vegetables. A controversy erupted when Taco Bell started airing a TV ad for its variety 12-pack of tacos, with a voiceover saying that bringing a vegetable tray to a football party is "like punting on fourth-and-1." It said that people secretly hate guests who bring vegetables to parties.

The fast-food chain on Monday announced it was pulling the commercial after receiving complaints that it discouraged people from eating vegetables.

Without actually saying so, the CDC report suggests that the Food and Drug Administration should devote more staff time and other resources to inspection of fruits and vegetables, said Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety.

Earlier this month, the FDA released a proposed new rule for produce safety that would set new hygiene standards for farm workers and for trying to reduce contact with animal waste and dirty water.

Meanwhile, CDC officials emphasized that their report should not be seen as discouraging people from eating vegetables.

Many of the vegetable-related illnesses come from norovirus, which is often spread by cooks and food handlers. So contamination sometimes has more to do with the kitchen or restaurant it came from then the food itself, Griffin noted.

Also, while vegetable-related illnesses were more common, they were not the most dangerous. The largest proportion of foodborne illness deaths — about 1 in 5 — were due to poultry. That was partly because three big outbreaks more than 10 years ago linked to turkey deli meat.

But it was close. CDC estimated 277 poultry-related deaths in 1998-2008, compared to 236 vegetable-related deaths.

Fruits and nuts were credited with 96 additional deaths, making 334 total deaths for produce of all types. The CDC estimated 417 deaths from all kinds of meat and poultry, another 140 from dairy and 71 from eggs.

Red meat was once seen as one of the leading sources of food poisoning, partly because of a deadly outbreak of E. coli associated with hamburger. But Griffin and Doyle said there have been significant safety improvements in beef handling. In the study, beef was the source of fewer than 4 percent of food-related deaths and fewer than 7 percent of illnesses.

____

Online:

CDC journal: http://www.cdc.gov/eid/

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Defensive stocks extend rally as caution sets in

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Tuesday, led by defensive sectors, in a sign the cash piles moving into the market recently are being put to use by cautious investors to pick up more gains.

The S&P 500 is on track to post its best monthly performance since October 2011 as investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record.

Among rising defensive shares, which are companies relatively immune to economic swings, were drugmaker Pfizer, up 1.2 percent to $27.16 and AT&T , 1.5 percent higher to $34.64.

The S&P hovered near 1,500, and market technicians say the benchmark is at a turning point which will determine if the index will keep moving higher or find it difficult to break through, resulting in a move lower in the near term.

"Cyclicals were moving very nicely, now you see balance with some of the defensives. Many managers use that as an internal hedge in equity portfolios," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

She said the market is cautious ahead of Wednesday's statement following the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting. In addition, defensive stocks would hold up better if Friday's payrolls report surprises on the downside.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 57.42 points or 0.41 percent, to 13,939.35, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 4.88 points or 0.33 percent, to 1,505.06 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 3.24 points or 0.1 percent, to 3,151.06.

The top performing sectors on the S&P 500 were healthcare <.spxhc> and telecom services <.splrcl>, both up more than 1 percent.

The equity gains have largely come on a strong start to earnings season, though results were mixed on Tuesday with Pfizer rising but Ford Motor Co dropping after its report.

Both companies reported profits that topped expectations, but Ford also forecast a wider loss in its European segment. Shares dropped 3.6 percent to $13.32 as one of the biggest percentage losers on the S&P 500.

Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 174 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 68.4 percent have been above analyst expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

The Nasdaq was pressured by disappointing outlooks from Seagate Technology and BMC Software . Seagate shares lost 8.3 percent to $34.30 and BMC fell 8.5 percent to $40.70.

Software maker VMware Inc lost 20 percent to $78.26 also after a cautious 2013 outlook.

Amazon was the biggest drag on the Nasdaq with a 2 percent drop to $270.57 before its results, expected after the closing bell.

U.S. home prices rose in November to rack up their best yearly gain since the housing crisis began, a further sign that the sector is on the mend, but consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in more than a year in the wake of higher taxes for many Americans.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Ukrainian General Given Life Sentence in Killing of Journalist

Sergey Dolzhenko/European Pressphoto Agency

Gen. Oleksei Pukach listened to his sentence from the defendant's cage during a court session of the Pechersk district court on charges of murder of the journalist Georgy Gongadze in Kiev, Ukraine, on Tuesday.

MOSCOW — A Ukrainian court sentenced a former security official to life in prison on Tuesday for the death of Georgy Gongadze, a journalist whose mysterious death in 2000 provoked an international outcry and helped set off protests against the president at the time, Leonid D. Kuchma.

The former security official, Gen. Oleksei Pukach, who once headed a surveillance department for Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, testified that he had not intended to kill Mr. Gongadze, but strangled him with a belt accidentally in the course of an interrogation. He is the highest-ranking official to be convicted in Mr. Gongadze’s death.

Mr. Gongadze went missing in September 2000 and his body was found two months later, beheaded, in a forest 75 miles from Kiev, the capital. He had infuriated the president, Mr. Kuchma, with muckraking publications in Ukrainskaya Pravda, an Internet newspaper he had founded.

Suspicions of official involvement grew with the release of covert recordings made by one of Mr. Kuchma’s bodyguards, in which the a man who sounded like the president spoke of Mr. Gongadze, telling a subordinate to “throw him out, give him to the Chechens.”

The killing came to epitomize the role that crime had come to play in Ukrainian politics and provoked a wave of demonstrations that some describe as the first manifestation of the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Three former police officers who stood trial over Mr. Gongadze’s death said that he had climbed into what he believed to be a taxi and was taken to a location outside Kiev, where he was beaten and strangled, doused with gasoline and burned.

General Pukach said he had been trying to force Mr. Gongadze to confess to espionage, something Mr. Gongadze refused to do, though he did admit accepting $400,000 from Western diplomats for passing on information.

Volodymyr Shilov, a prosecutor, said that General Pukach had testified that he was carrying out an order, but would not say what the order was or who issued it, according to the Interfax news agency. But just before guards took him away on Tuesday, General Pukach gave a revealing response to journalists who asked him to comment on the verdict, telling them to direct their questions to Mr. Kuchma and his chief of staff, Volodymyr Lytvyn.

“Ask Kuchma and Lytvyn, they’ll tell you everything,” he said, shaking his finger angrily, according to television coverage of the trial. “I told everything during the investigation and trial. So ask Lytvyn and Kuchma about their motives and intentions.”

The trial was mostly closed to journalists, who were allowed to be present only for the verdict and sentencing. But a lawyer representing Mr. Gongadze’s widow complained that the investigation and trial were flawed and inconsistent, overlooking evidence that General Pukach had intended to kill Mr. Gongadze.

“He spoke clearly about receiving an order to kill burn and bury him, and he was prepared for this,” said the lawyer, Valentyna Telychenko, in comments broadcast on television. “He brought a shovel and a canister of gasoline, meaning his actions were directed toward murder, and nothing else.”

General Pukach testified that he had been ordered to conduct surveillance by Ukraine’s interior minister — a man who was found dead in 2005, hours before he was to be questioned by prosecutors in the matter. Officials called it a suicide, though Ukrainian news agencies said he had suffered two gunshot wounds.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 29, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated, on first reference, the year of Georgy Gongadze’s death. It was in 2000, not 2002.

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China may consider ending its decade-long ban on video game consoles

Shares of Sony (SNE) and Nintendo (NTDOY) surged on Monday following a report from China’s official newspaper that claimed the country is considering the lift of a decade-long ban on video game consoles. An unnamed source told the China Daily newspaper that the Ministry of Culture is “reviewing the policy,” and has conducted surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of lifting the ban. An official at the ministry’s cultural market department denied the report in a statement to Reuters, however, claiming it “is not considering lifting the ban.”

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 debuts on Wednesday – strap in for a wild ride]

China banned the sale of video game consoles in 2000 to safeguard children’s mental and physical development. In order for the ban to be lifted, the seven different ministries who issued the ruling must all agree to reverse it.

[More from BGR: Apple releases iOS 6.1 to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users]

Shares of Sony’s stock were up more than 8% in Tokyo on Monday, while Nintendo gained 3.5% on a weaker Nikkei index.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Barbara Walters Has Chicken Pox

TV Watch

01/28/2013 at 12:40 PM EST

Barbara Walters

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While much of Hollywood is suffering from the flu, Barbara Walters has come down with the chicken pox.

The View host was hospitalized after injuring her head in a fall during inauguration festivities. She was transferred to a New York hospital late last week and remains there with her new infection.

"You all know that she fell and cut her head 10 days ago, and then was running a temperature, but it turns out it is all the result of a delayed childhood," her co-host Whoopi Goldberg explained on the air Monday.

"Barbara has the chicken pox. She'd never had it as a child," she continued. "So now she's been told to rest, she's not allowed any visitors, and we're telling you, Barbara, no scratching."

In a statement last week, Walters, 83, thanked her fans and "all the people who have called, written and been concerned about me."
– Charlotte Triggs

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Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

The first soldier to survive after losing all four limbs in the Iraq war has received a double-arm transplant in Baltimore.

His father says Brendan Marrocco (muh-ROCK-oh) had the operation on Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Marrocco is 26 and lives in New York City. He was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009.

He also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

It is the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States. The military is sponsoring operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in the wars.

Surgeons plan to discuss the transplant Tuesday.

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S&P 500 dips after rally, but Apple lifts Nasdaq

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Standard & Poor's 500 edged lower on Monday as a four-week rally stalled, while a rebound in Apple shares helped buoy the Nasdaq.

Caterpillar shares helped cap losses in the Dow industrials after the heavy equipment maker's outlook eased investors' fears about an economic slowdown in China. Caterpillar's shares rose 2.1 percent to $97.61.

The S&P 500 is coming off a streak of eight sessions of gains, the longest in eight years. On Friday, the major U.S. stock indexes closed a fourth straight week of gains with the S&P 500 ending the session above 1,500 for the first time in more than five years.

The rally has left the market vulnerable to a short-term pullback of up to 3 percent in the S&P 500 as bullish sentiment continues to rise, according to Richard Ross, Auerbach Grayson's global technical strategist.

"Still," Ross said, "we have a lot of momentum and nice seasonality, and technicals support the long-term bull market."

Data on Monday pointed to growing economic momentum as companies sensed improved consumer demand.

Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 150 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 67.3 percent have beaten analysts' expectations. Since 1994, 62 percent of companies have topped expectations, while the average over the past four quarters stands at 65 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 4.34 points, or 0.03 percent, to 13,900.32.. The S&P 500 <.spx> shed 0.19 of a point, or 0.01 percent, to 1,502.77. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 11.40 points, or 0.36 percent, to 3,161.11.

Bargain hunters lifted Apple after the tech giant's stock dropped 14.4 percent in the previous two sessions. With Apple's stock up 2.8 percent at $452, the iPad and iPhone maker regained the title as the largest U.S. company by market capitalization as Exxon Mobil fell 0.9 percent to $90.90 and slipped back to second place.

"I think there is more downside in Apple if you did get a broad market pullback," Auerbach Grayson's Ross said.

"I'd be patient unless you're a trader. It might not be the most attractive entry point."

U.S. durable goods orders jumped 4.6 percent in December, a pace that far outstripped expectations for a rise of 1.8 percent. Pending home sales unexpectedly dropped 4.3 percent. Analysts were looking for an increase of 0.3 percent.

Equities have gained support from a recent agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power. On Monday, Fitch Ratings said that agreement removed the near-term risk to the country's 'AAA' rating.

Hess Corp shares shot up 5.7 percent to $62.27 after the company said it would exit its refining business, freeing up to $1 billion of capital. Separately, hedge fund Elliott Associates is looking for approval to buy about $800 million more in Hess stock.

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc said a late-stage trial of its experimental kidney disease drug met the main study goal, and its shares soared nearly 60 percent to $5.45.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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India Ink: At Literature Festival, Yearning for Bollywood Past

Nostalgia for classic Bollywood cinema reigned at the Jaipur Literature Festival, which celebrated 100 years of Indian cinema with several sessions featuring veteran actors and writers, who offered critiques of contemporary Indian film-making.

In the session titled “Bollywood and National Narrative,” Javed Akhtar, the Indian poet and lyricist who scripted several popular Hindi films in the 1970s and ’80s, said that India is a nation of great “movie buffs,” noting that perhaps it was the only country where temples dedicated to movie stars exist.

“If you watch cinema carefully, it tells you a lot about the last 60 to 70 years in India,” Mr. Akhtar, 68, said.

The influence of society on filmmaking was so ingrained that drawing a list of a villain’s character over the years gives a sense of the socioeconomic history of the country, he said. In the 1940s, the villain was the zamindar, or landlord, who exploited the oppressed farmers, he noted. But today, he said, there is no such clear-cut character in society because the line between the heroes and the villains has become blurred.

Pointing to a generational shift in the art of storytelling in Bollywood, Mr. Akhtar argued that nowadays the screenplay is driven by a formulaic method that is aimed at a young, affluent audience who wants to have a good time at the theater and is not willing to engage with serious subjects.

“There is no shortage of stories, but an average producer wants a brand new story that has come before,” he said.

Wistfully, he commented that with the exception of a handful of films, the young generation of filmmakers had “left literature, poetry, art and aesthetics behind.”

But he also said he was hopeful that the next 10 years would usher in an era of more depth in film-making.

In another session on Bollywood, titled “Sex and Sensibility: Women in Cinema,” Shabana Azmi, the veteran Bollywood actress, along with Prasoon Joshi, lyricist, writer and poet, discussed the role of cinema in creating gender perceptions.

Ms. Azmi, who has also worked as a social activist on several issues including women’s rights, argued that Hindi cinema has created an ideal of womanhood based on mythological constructs taken from epics like as the Ramayana. While the character of the vamp was created to satisfy men’s sexual appetites, the ideal woman was docile, submissive and had no sexuality, she said.

“The movies are setting the wrong kinds of role models for young girls,” she said.

Mr. Joshi said it was time that “we realize we are not only mirroring society we are shaping it. People are emulating cinema in their daily lives.”

In a fiery debate among the panelists, a consensus was reached that it was ultimately those involved in the business of film-making who were responsible for perpetuating the stereotypes.

“We are all culpable,” Ms. Azmi said.

The younger generation of writers may have been criticized by some veterans for the lack of sensibility in their work, but even they seemed to agree that some of the more recent films did not have a moral compass.

“The line between the hero and the antihero is blurring, and that is very dangerous,” said Mr. Joshi, who is 41. “The antihero is becoming cool. Crime can’t become cool.”

During a session on screenwriting, Jaideep Sahni, a screenwriter and lyricist who has some notable films to his credit, including “Kholsa Ka Ghosla” and “Chake De India” warned against having too much nostalgia for the past. He grew up watching films in the 1980s and the 1990s, and “they had bad scripts,” he said.

“There was a tyranny of listening to the same thing again and again,” he said.

He said a certain kind of popular, commercial entertainment was being considered the “be all and end all” but is having a negative impact on cinema.

However, the screenwriter, who is in his 40s, defended young screenwriters and lyricists like him, saying that they watched old films and listened to old Bollywood music but made films about the present times.

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