Athletes cash in on California's workers' comp

SACRAMENTO — In his seven-year career with the Denver Broncos, running back Terrell Davis, a former Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, dazzled fans with his speed and elusiveness.

At the end of his rookie year in 1995, he signed a $6.8-million, five-year contract. Off the field he endorsed Campbell's soup. And when he hung up his cleats, he reported for the National Football League Network and appeared in movies and TV shows.

So it may surprise Californians to find out that in 2011, Davis got a $199,000 injury settlement from a California workers' compensation court for injuries related to football. This came despite the fact Davis was employed by a Colorado team and played just nine times in California during an 88-game career, according to the NFL.

Davis was compensated for the lifelong effects of multiple injuries to the head, arms, trunk, legs and general body, according to California workers' compensation records.

He is not alone.

Over the last three decades, California's workers' compensation system has awarded millions of dollars in benefits for job-related injuries to thousands of professional athletes. The vast majority worked for out-of-state teams; some played as little as one game in the Golden State.

All states allow professional athletes to claim workers' compensation payments for specific job-related injuries — such as a busted knee, torn tendon or ruptured spinal disc — that happened within their borders. But California is one of the few that provides additional payments for the cumulative effect of injuries that occur over years of playing.

A growing roster of athletes are using this provision in California law to claim benefits. Since the early 1980s, an estimated $747 million has been paid out to about 4,500 players, according to an August study commissioned by major professional sports leagues. California taxpayers are not on the hook for these payments. Workers' compensation is an employer-funded program.

Now a major battle is brewing in Sacramento to make out-of-state players ineligible for these benefits, which are paid by the leagues and their insurers. They have hired consultants and lobbyists and expect to unveil legislation next week that would halt the practice.

"The system is completely out of whack right now," said Jeff Gewirtz, vice president of the Brooklyn Nets — formerly the New Jersey Nets — of the National Basketball Assn.

Major retired stars who scored six-figure California workers' compensation benefits include Moses Malone, a three-time NBA most valuable player with the Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers and other teams. He was awarded $155,000. Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin, formerly with the Dallas Cowboys, received $249,000. The benefits usually are calculated as lump-sum payments but sometimes are accompanied by open-ended agreements to provide lifetime medical services.

Players, their lawyers and their unions plan to mount a political offensive to protect these payouts.

Although the monster salaries of players such as Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning make headlines, few players bring in that kind of money. Most have very short careers. And some, particularly football players, end up with costly, debilitating injuries that haunt them for a lifetime but aren't sufficiently covered by league disability benefits.

Retired pros increasingly are turning to California, not only because of its cumulative benefits but also because there's a longer window to file a claim. The statute of limitations in some states expires in as little as a year or two.

"California is a last resort for a lot of these guys because they've already been cut off in the other states," said Mel Owens, a former Los Angeles Rams linebacker-turned-workers' compensation lawyer who has represented a number of ex-players.

To understand how it works, consider the career of Ernie Conwell. A former tight end for the St. Louis Rams and New Orleans Saints, he was paid $1.6 million for his last season in 2006.

Conwell said that during his 11-year career, he underwent about 18 surgeries, including 11 knee operations. Now 40, he works for the NFL players union and lives in Nashville.

Hobbled by injuries, he filed for workers' compensation in Louisiana and got $181,000 in benefits to cover his last, career-ending knee surgery in 2006, according to the Saints. The team said it also provided $195,000 in injury-related benefits as part of a collective-bargaining agreement with the players union.

But such workers' compensation benefits paid by Louisiana cover only specific injuries. So, to deal with what he expects to be the costs of ongoing health problems that he said affect his arms, legs, muscles, bones and head, Conwell filed for compensation in California and won.

Even though he played only about 20 times in the state over his professional career, he received a $160,000 award from a California workers' compensation judge plus future medical benefits, according to his lawyer. The Saints are appealing the judgment.

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That Syncing Feeling

“Smart, or stylish?” That’s the question facing casual watch aficionados looking for a new, high-tech addition to their collection.

On one hand (er, wrist), you’ve got the Pebble and other smartwatch upstarts, which come with built-in smartphone connectivity, customizable screens, and burgeoning developer communities eager to feed their app ecosystems. They also, by and large, look like uninspired pieces of mass-produced Chinese plastic, and that’s because they are.

On the “stylish” end of the spectrum is … not much. Except this: Citizen’s Eco-Drive Proximity.

The Citizen learns the current time from your phone, and the watch’s hands spin around to the correct positions.

By all outward appearances, the Proximity looks like any another chronograph in a sea of handsome mechanical watches. It has all the features you’d expect, including a 24-hour dial, day and date, perpetual calendar and second time zone. But housed within its slightly oversized 46mm case is a Bluetooth 4.0 radio, so it’s capable of passing data over the new low-energy connectivity standard appearing in newer smartphones, including the iPhone 5 and 4S. And for now, the Promixity is only compatible with those Apple devices.

Initial pairing is relatively easy. After downloading Citizen’s notably low-rent iOS app, you can link the watch to your phone with a few turns and clicks on the crown.

The gee-whiz feature is the automatic time sync that takes place whenever you land in a different time zone. Once connected, the Citizen learns the current time from your phone, and the watch’s hands spin around to the correct positions — a welcome bit of easy magic, considering the initial setup is a tedious finger dance.

The watch can also notify you of incoming communications. Once you’ve configured the mail client (it only supports IMAP accounts), you’ll get notified whenever you get a new e-mail — there’s a slight vibration and the second hand sweeps over to the “mail” tab at the 10-o’clock position. If a phone call comes in, the second hand moves to the 11-o’clock marker. If the Bluetooth connection gets lost because the watch or phone is outside the 30-foot range, you get another vibration and the second hand moves to the “LL” indicator. And really, that’s the extent of the functionality around notifications.

But notable in its absence is the notification I’d like the most: text message alerts. And it’s not something Citizen will soon be rectifying because the dials and hardware aren’t upgradable.

I also experienced frequent connection losses, particularly when attending a press conference with scads of Mi-Fis and tethered smartphones around me. This caused dozens of jarring vibrations both on my wrist and in my pocket, followed by a raft of push notifications on my phone informing me of the issue. Reconnecting is easy (and generally happens automatically), but the lack of stability in certain environments matched with the limited capabilities of the notifications had me forgetting to reconnect and not even worrying about it later on.

But actually, I’m OK with that. I still like the fact that it never needs charging. Even though there aren’t any solar cells visible on the dial, the watch does have them. They’re hidden away beneath the dial, and yet they still work perfectly. And even when its flagship connectivity features aren’t behaving, it’s still a damn handsome watch. It feels solid, and it looks good at the office, out to dinner, or on the weekend — something very few other “smart” watches on the market can claim.

However, those things can be said of almost all of Citizen’s EcoDrive watches. The big distinguishing feature here is the Bluetooth syncing and notifications, and they just don’t work that well.

WIRED A smart watch you won’t be embarrassed to wear. Charges using light. Combines classic styling with cutting-edge connectivity. Subtle notifications keep you informed without dominating your attention.

TIRED Loses Bluetooth connection with disturbing frequency. Limited notification abilities. No text message alerts. Janky iPhone app.

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

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Many States Say Cuts Would Burden Fragile Recovery

States are increasingly alarmed that they could become collateral damage in Washington’s latest fiscal battle, fearing that the impasse could saddle them with across-the-board spending cuts that threaten to slow their fragile recoveries or thrust them back into recession.

Some states, like Maryland and Virginia, are vulnerable because their economies are heavily dependent on federal workers, federal contracts and military spending, which will face steep reductions if Congress allows the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, to begin next Friday. Others, including Illinois and South Dakota, are at risk because of their reliance on the types of federal grants that are scheduled to be cut. And many states simply fear that a heavy dose of federal austerity could weaken their economies, costing them jobs and much-needed tax revenue.

So as state officials begin to draw up their budgets for next year, some say that the biggest risk they see is not the weak housing market or the troubled European economy but the federal government. While the threat of big federal cuts to states has become something of a semiannual occurrence in recent years, state officials said in interviews that they fear that this time the federal government might not be crying wolf — and their hopes are dimming that a deal will be struck in Washington in time to avert the cuts.

The impact would be widespread as the cuts ripple across the nation over the next year.

Texas expects to see its education aid slashed hundreds of millions of dollars, which could force local school districts to fire teachers, if the cuts are not averted. Michigan officials say they are in no position to replace the lost federal dollars with state dollars, but worry about cuts to federal programs like the one that helps people heat their homes. Maryland is bracing not only for a blow to its economy, which depends on federal workers and contractors and the many private businesses that support them, but also for cuts in federal aid for schools, Head Start programs, a nutrition program for pregnant women, mothers and children, and job training programs, among others.

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, a Republican, warned in a letter to President Obama on Monday that the automatic spending cuts would have a “potentially devastating impact” and could force Virginia and other states into a recession, noting that the planned cuts to military spending would be especially damaging to areas like Hampton Roads that have a big Navy presence. And he noted that the whole idea of the proposed cuts was that they were supposed to be so unpalatable that they would force officials in Washington to come up with a compromise.

“As we all know, the defense, and other, cuts in the sequester were designed to be a hammer, not a real policy,” Mr. McDonnell wrote. “Unfortunately, inaction by you and Congress now leaves states and localities to adjust to the looming threat of this haphazard idea.”

The looming cuts come just as many states feel they are turning the corner after the prolonged slump caused by the recession. Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, a Democrat, said he was moving to increase the state’s cash reserves and rainy day funds as a hedge against federal cuts.

“I’d rather be spending those dollars on things that improve our business climate, that accelerate our recovery, that get more people back to work, or on needed infrastructure — transportation, roads, bridges and the like,” he said, adding that Maryland has eliminated 5,600 positions in recent years and that its government was smaller, on a per capita basis, than it had been in four decades. “But I can’t do that. I can’t responsibly do that as long as I have this hara-kiri Congress threatening to drive a long knife through our recovery.”

Federal spending on salaries, wages and procurement makes up close to 20 percent of the economies of Maryland and Virginia, according to an analysis by the Pew Center on the States.

But states are in a delicate position. While they fear the impact of the automatic cuts, they also fear that any deal to avert them might be even worse for their bottom lines. That is because many of the planned cuts would go to military spending and not just domestic programs, and some of the most important federal programs for states, including Medicaid and federal highway funds, would be exempt from the cuts.

States will see a reduction of $5.8 billion this year in the federal grant programs subject to the automatic cuts, according to an analysis by Federal Funds Information for States, a group created by the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures that tracks the impact of federal actions on states. California, New York and Texas stand to lose the most money from the automatic cuts, and Puerto Rico, which is already facing serious fiscal distress, is threatened with the loss of more than $126 million in federal grant money, the analysis found.

Even with the automatic cuts, the analysis found, states are still expected to get more federal aid over all this year than they did last year, because of growth in some of the biggest programs that are exempt from the cuts, including Medicaid.

But the cuts still pose a real risk to states, officials said. State budget officials from around the country held a conference call last week to discuss the threatened cuts. “In almost every case the folks at the state level, the budget offices, are pretty much telling the agencies and departments that they’re not going to backfill — they’re not going to make up for the budget cuts,” said Scott D. Pattison, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, which arranged the call. “They don’t have enough state funds to make up for federal cuts.”

The cuts would not hit all states equally, the Pew Center on the States found. While the federal grants subject to the cuts make up more than 10 percent of South Dakota’s revenue, it found, they make up less than 5 percent of Delaware’s revenue.

Many state officials find themselves frustrated year after year by the uncertainty of what they can expect from Washington, which provides states with roughly a third of their revenues. There were threats of cuts when Congress balked at raising the debt limit in 2011, when a so-called super-committee tried and failed to reach a budget deal, and late last year when the nation faced the “fiscal cliff.”

John E. Nixon, the director of Michigan’s budget office, said that all the uncertainty made the state’s planning more difficult. “If it’s going to happen,” he said, “at some point we need to rip off the Band-Aid.”

Fernanda Santos contributed reporting.

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Gunfire and deadly crash rattle the Las Vegas Strip

LAS VEGAS — A spectacular predawn crash on the Strip — triggered when bullets fired from a black Range Rover peppered a Maserati — hit this resort city right between the eyes. In the end, three people were dead and a major intersection under lockdown during a three-state manhunt for the shooters, leaving even casino veterans used to the extraordinary scratching their heads.

The mayhem was sparked, witnesses told police, by a quarrel early Thursday at a hotel valet stand.

The two vehicles left the Aria resort hotel and were heading north on Las Vegas Boulevard at 4:20 a.m., an hour when the casino marquees shine brightly but the gambling thoroughfare is largely empty. At Harmon Avenue, occupants inside the Range Rover opened fire on the Maserati, police said.

The silver-gray sports car, which was struck several times, sped into the intersection at Flamingo Road, ramming a Yellow cab. The taxi exploded, killing the driver and a passenger. Four other vehicles in the intersection were also involved in the crash and explosion, but officers offered no details.

"Omg Omg Omg that car just blew up!" one witness tweeted shortly after the crash, posting a photo of the wreckage. "God Bless their Souls! Omg!"

The driver of the Maserati died later at a hospital, police said. A passenger in the vehicle received minor injuries and was being interviewed by investigators. At least three others were also injured.

Police in Nevada, California, Arizona and Utah were on alert for the distinctive black Range Rover SUV, described as having dark-tinted windows, black rims and out-of-state paper dealer plates.

"We are going to pursue these individuals and prosecute them," Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said at an afternoon news conference. "This act was totally unacceptable. It's not just tragic but unnecessary — the level of violence we see here in Las Vegas and across America."

Authorities had not publicly identified the dead. But a Las Vegas television station late Thursday identified the taxi driver as Michael Boldon, 62, who the station said had recently moved here from Michigan to care for his 93-year-old mother.

The victim's son, who drives a limousine, told Fox News 5 that he last talked with his father after 3 a.m., and later called his cellphone shortly after the crash to warn him to avoid the Strip. But there was no answer.

The station also identified the driver of the Maserati as Ken Cherry, a rap artist from Oakland who also is known as "Kenny Clutch." The station quoted family members identifying Cherry as the driver. An Internet video of a Cherry song called "Stay Schemin" shows two men in a vehicle on the Strip.

Police had more questions than answers.

"It began with a dispute at a nearby hotel and spilled onto the streets," said Capt. Chris Jones of the Las Vegas Police Robbery and Homicide Division.

The morning's events threw the Strip into disarray all day. The gambling boulevard's busiest and best-known intersection was cordoned off by yellow police tape until nightfall, keeping traffic and curious pedestrians away from the carnage. Even skywalks were blocked off.

While slot machines beeped and card games continued inside casinos around the accident scene — including the Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Paris Las Vegas — hotel bell captains were fielding questions from tourists who had awakened to news of the crash and the Strip shutdown. The alleys and side streets between nearby hotels were clogged with pedestrians who inched along on narrow sidewalks, past delivery doors, many making their own paths between the landscaped bushes and palm trees.

Even casino industry workers were thrown into turmoil. Hotel maids and dealers who finished their midnight shifts after dawn were left without bus service home. "I'm stranded," said Tiruselam Kefyalew, 25, a maid. "What a day to leave my cellphone at home."

Limousine drivers who normally prowl the city's gambling core improvised detours. Some said the police blockade would cost them $500 or more in lost business and tips.

"Most people understand, but you have your complainers," said Jim DeSanto, a limo driver who waited for fares outside Bally's casino. "Those people will complain, even when everything is perfect."

Well after noon, guests peered out nearby hotel windows and others leaned into the street to glimpse the crime scene.

"Hey, honey, it must have happened right here," one man told his wife as they left Caesars around noon. The tourist, who would only say that he had arrived from Tampa, Fla., the previous evening, had looked out his hotel window at 4:30 to see a vehicle in flames.

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Biggest Ever NBA Data Trove Will Settle Your Next Bar Bet

Say you’re Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. You’re on the road, in the last five minutes of a close game, facing a key decision: Who do you want shooting the ball? Conventional wisdom says get the ball to LeBron James. But data gleaned from a trove released online by the NBA shows that Chris Bosh is a better bet.

In a clutch situation — when leading or trailing by five, in the last five minutes of a road game — Bosh has been nearly perfect this season, making 10 of 11 attempts. That isn’t to say James is a slouch — the man has made 18 of 39 shots in the same situation. But it’s clear who’s better when the pressure’s on. And it’s exactly the type of insights coaches and fans can glean from the deepest set of stats the league has ever released.

More on Sports Data Tracking:

NBA.com/Stats is an amazing treasure chest fans can use to settle a bar bet or analyze their favorite basketball team’s most effective lineup with a few clicks of the mouse. It began as a password-protected tool for journalists and league personnel. But after a design makeover and the addition of a powerful database from SAP, it was ready for a public debut during All-Star Weekend. The league began by digitizing the box score of every NBA game ever played, so it’s as easy to find details on Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962 as it is to find last week’s Lakers’ score.

Such information will no doubt be a huge hit with fans who still debate whether the 1992 Chicago Bulls were better than the 1996 Chicago Bulls. But it also will be a powerful tool that scouts and coaches can use to evaluate players and make tactical decisions. In addition to Bosh’s sharpshooting prowess in tight road games, the site reveals that the Houston Rockets’ James Harden has nearly 100 more fast-break points than anyone else in the league, and his inside-outside skills make him the only player so far this season to score 200 baskets from inside five feet and 50-plus baskets from 25 to 29 feet away.

The filters and splits in the tool let you take deep dives into the data and come up with some esoteric results. Want to know who led all rookies in the 2002-03 season in three-point percentage? Boston’s J.R. Bremer, an undrafted free agent from St. Bonaventure, hit 35.3 percent of his three-pointers. After two seasons in the NBA, Bremer went on to a long career in the European pro leagues.

Inside the site, you’ll will find shooting charts for each player, showing both where they like to shoot from and where they’re most successful. (Not always the same thing.) Other statistical breakdowns for players and team include performances per possession, in the clutch, team performance when a particular player is in the game and on the bench, and each team’s best combination of players over the past seasons.

It’s all built on SAP’s HANA database, chosen for its speed and flexibility in handling queries. Capable of handling even larger data sets than all NBA stats from the past 67 years, HANA’s strength lies in providing quick responses to a nearly unlimited combination of stats. League officials estimated that if the site were built with flat files to accommodate all the potential permutations of data, they’d need 4.5 quadrillion pages to hold them.

“The NBA has had all of this data, but there really wasn’t a technology out there that was going to allow them to get it out there in a way that could scale,” said Steve Peck, senior vp of global strategic initiatives at SAP. “Our in-memory database lets people go in there in real time and come up with a new idea.”

Updated stats will be available about 15 minutes after each game and any page can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

While there’s plenty to appeal to stat heads, the NBA has built in a few learning tools that open the door to more casual fans. The home page lists the league’s top five scorers, but also spotlights and explains a deeper stat known as true shooting percentage (TS%): a percentage that takes in account the value of free throws, regular two-point baskets, and three-point shots.

Ken Catanella, the director of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons, said the site’s features could help team officials evaluate players and help coaches with tactical decisions. For example, a chart of shots taken this season by Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce confirms that his favorite spot on the court is the right elbow, where the free-throw line and lane marker come together. Heading into the All-Star break, Pierce was shooting 45.4% (50 of 110) from that area. If you force him a step or two back, however, Pierce’s shooting percentage drops to 29.7% (25 of 84).

“We’d look at a team’s or player’s tendencies: What’s their comfort zone and how can we get them out of their comfort zone?” Catanella said. “If somebody’s used to going to their sweet spot to score, you might want to consider putting them in a different spot they don’t feel so comfortable in.”

Other sites, including Basketball-Reference.com, HoopData.com, and 82games.com, have had these comprehensive stats available for some time, but Steve Hellmuth, the NBA’s executive vice president for operations and technology, believes NBA.com/stats has the edge with better tools for fans to analyze what’s happening on the court.

“I was talking with someone the other day who said he expects coaching staffs to hear a lot from NBA fans after this,” said Hellmuth, who added that video will soon be added to the site so fans can see the game action behind the numbers. “This is a whole new category for fans to see what is going on on the court.”

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DealBook: In Dell’s Waning Cash Flows, Signs of Concern

The proposed Dell buyout may be motivated more by fear than greed.

Dell’s founder, Michael S. Dell, and the investment firm Silver Lake are offering to take the company private in a $24.4 billion deal. One interpretation of the offer is that savvy investors, using cheap loans, see a nice opportunity to unlock the value from a company that has fallen out of favor with stock investors. The fact that large shareholders are opposed to the deal, thinking it is priced too low, supports the idea that Dell is a diamond in the rough.

But there is an opposite interpretation: The buyout is a last-ditch effort to revive the company. To some, taking Dell private is what’s necessary to implement the sort of bold measures that could prevent the steady decline of a company that has been left behind in many of its markets. And like many acts of desperation, the risks are high that going private will fail.

This viewpoint starts with Dell’s cash flows. How much actual money a company makes each quarter is always an important metric. It’s especially critical at firms that go private in leveraged buyout deals. Once private, Dell would have a lot more debt – and it would need divert more cash to service it.

Going private may allow the company to slash costs, which preserves cash. But management may also feel liberated to spend more on initiatives it feels enthusiastic about, which would use up cash initially. In a botched buyout, management’s plans fail to produce results and a dangerous cash crunch occurs.

And there are some signs that Dell’s cash flows are weakening going into the deal.

The cash flow metric that matters is called free cash flow, which takes the money generated by Dell’s operations and then subtracts what the company spends on capital expenditures. Through the end of its latest fiscal year, which ended in February, Dell’s free cash flows were $2.77 billion. That is well below the $4.85 billion reported in the prior fiscal year. And the recent cash flows may have gotten a boost from financial moves that might be hard to repeat. In the most recent quarter, Dell generated a lot of cash from taking longer to pay its suppliers.

It’s easy to paint a grim picture from these numbers. A privately held Dell might have an extra $700 million to $1 billion of extra interest a year, which could in theory take annual free cash flows below $2 billion. That provides little margin for safety if Dell’s operations run into serious trouble, even if the company does decide to dip into its large pool of overseas cash.

But there are some reasons to believe this analysis is overly pessimistic.

First, the cash flow numbers probably don’t fully factor in how much cash can be generated by Dell’s recent acquisitions. Just as a couple of items helped bolster cash flows in recent quarters, others used up a lot cash, and may not do so in the future. For instance, Dell had a $450 million cash drain in the last fiscal year just from the “deferred income taxes” line. That could be the result of a one-off action rather than a recurring trend.

With all its acquisitions contributing, optimists might contend that Dell can produce $3.5 billion of free cash flow a year. If investors paid seven times that, the company would be valued at the $24 billion, which is where it is valued today on the stock market. Other shareholders think Dell is worth a lot more than $24 billion, and has the cash flows to justify it.

But right now, Dell’s cash flows are weakening. And if they continue to wane, Mr. Dell may soon have a tough job ahead of him. He may already know that — looking at those cash flows.

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Bulgari shows off Liz Taylor's gems

It isn't easy sometimes to be an ordinary person in Los Angeles, so near to and yet so far from the city's glamorous events.

You hear about the grand Oscar parties, but you will never be invited. The award ceremony may be taking place minutes from where you live, but you watch it at home, on TV, in your sweat pants — and you might as well be in Dubuque.

Rodeo Drive too can make you feel like a scrap on the cutting room floor. As you stroll the wide and immaculate sidewalks of Beverly Hills' iconic shopping street, you pass by boutiques you'd feel self-conscious walking into. In the windows are baubles and trinkets you could never in three lifetimes afford.

Which is why it is rather nice to be invited to make a private appointment at the house of Bulgari, the fine Italian jeweler that opened its doors in 1884.

Elizabeth Taylor loved Bulgari jewels. Richard Burton, whose torrid affair with her began during the filming of "Cleopatra" in Rome, accompanied her often to the flagship shop on the Via Condotti. He liked to joke that the name Bulgari was all the Italian she knew.

So it is fitting that starting Oscar week, the jeweler is celebrating the Oscar-winning star with an exhibit of eight of her most treasured Bulgari pieces.

They are heavy on diamonds and emeralds — of rare size, gleam and value.

And Bulgari knows their value well.

After Taylor's death, it reacquired some of the gems at a Christie's auction. One piece, an emerald-and-diamond brooch that also can be worn as a pendant, sold for $6,578,500 — breaking records both for sales price of an emerald and for emerald price per carat ($280,000).

That brooch, whose centerpiece is an octagonal step-cut emerald weighing 23.44 carats, was Burton's engagement present to Taylor. He followed it upon their marriage (his second, her fifth) with a matching necklace whose 16 Colombian emeralds weigh in at 60.5 carats. Bulgari bought the necklace back too, for $6,130,500.

They are in the exhibit, along with Burton's engagement ring to Taylor and a delicate brooch — given to her by husband No. 4, Eddie Fisher — whose emerald and diamond flowers were set en tremblant so that they gently fluttered as Taylor moved.

The jewels are not for sale.

On Tuesday night, actress Julianne Moore wore the Burton necklace, with pendant attached, at a gala for Bulgari's top clients. At the dinner hour, guests were escorted along a lavender-colored carpet to a nearby rooftop that had been transformed into a Roman terrace.

Those honored guests, of course, got private viewings of Taylor's jewels.

But so did Amanda Perry, a healer from West Hollywood who arrived the next morning for one of the first appointments available to the public.

Someone had emailed news of the collection to the 35-year-old Taylor fan. She walked in off the street Tuesday, when the exhibit was open only to press — and Sabina Pelli, Bulgari's glamorous executive vice president, fresh from Rome, was taking sips of San Pellegrino brought to her on a silver tray between back-to-back interviews that started at 5 a.m.

The camera crews were long gone when Perry came back Wednesday. She had the exhibit, and handsome sales associate Timothy Morzenti of Milan, entirely to herself.

In a black suit, still wearing on his left hand the black glove he dons to handle fine jewels, Morzenti whisked Perry off via a private elevator to the exhibit on the second floor. The jewels stood in vitrines mounted high off the ground. Behind them were photos and a slide show of Taylor, bejeweled.

"Which piece would you like to see first?" Morzenti asked her as a security guard stood by. "I personally love the emerald ring."

Then he proceeded at leisure to explain Bulgari-signature sugar-loaf cuts and trombino ring settings, while tossing in occasional Taylor stories.

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Paradise Backdrops Turn Prison Walls Into Fantasy Escapes

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Rapper Ja Rule set to leave NY prison in gun case

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Platinum-selling rapper Ja Rule was set to leave an upstate prison on Thursday after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession but head straight into federal custody in a tax case.

The rapper, who had been in protective custody at the Mid-State Correctional Facility because of his celebrity, has some time remaining on a 28-month sentence for tax evasion, correction officials said. His sentences were expected to run concurrently.

Ja Rule may have less than six months left and may be eligible for a halfway house, defense attorney Stacey Richman said. An order to pay $ 1.1 million in back taxes is one of the main reasons he wants to get back to work, she said.

“Many people are looking forward to experiencing his talent again,” Richman said.

Ja Rule scored a Grammy Award nomination in 2002 for the best rap album with “Pain is Love.” He also has appeared in movies, including “The Fast and the Furious” in 2001 and “Scary Movie 3″ in 2003.

Ja Rule, who went to the prison in Marcy in June 2011, is getting out at his earliest release date, state correction spokeswoman Linda Foglia said. He had two misbehavior reports for unauthorized phone calls in February 2012 and had work assignments on lawn and grounds crews and participated in education programs, she said.

In the gun case, New York City police said they found a loaded .40-caliber semiautomatic gun in a rear door of Ja Rule’s $ 250,000 luxury car after it was stopped for speeding, and he pleaded guilty in 2010.

He admitted in March 2011 in federal court that he failed to pay taxes on more than $ 3 million he earned between 2004 and 2006 while he lived in Saddle River, N.J.

“I in no way attempted to deceive the government or do anything illegal,” he told the judge. “I was a young man who made a lot of money — I’m getting a little choked up — I didn’t know how to deal with these finances, and I didn’t have people to guide me, so I made mistakes.”

Richman said the 36-year-old rapper, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, is looking forward to his daughter’s graduation.

“He’s a devoted father,” she said.

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In Reversal, Florida to Take Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion

MIAMI — Gov. Rick Scott of Florida reversed himself on Wednesday and announced that he would expand his state’s Medicaid program to cover the poor, becoming the latest — and, perhaps, most prominent — Republican critic of President Obama’s health care law to decide to put it into effect.

It was an about-face for Mr. Scott, a former businessman who entered politics as a critic of Mr. Obama’s health care proposals. Florida was one of the states that sued to try to block the law. After the Supreme Court ruled last year that though the law was constitutional, states could choose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover the poor, Mr. Scott said that Florida would not expand its programs.

Mr. Scott said Wednesday that he now supported a three-year expansion of Medicaid, through the period that the federal government has agreed to pay the full cost of the expansion, and before some of the costs are shifted to the states.

“While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost, I cannot in good conscience deny Floridians that needed access to health care,” Mr. Scott said at a news conference. “We will support a three-year expansion of the Medicaid program under the new health care law as long as the federal government meets their commitment to pay 100 percent of the cost during that time.”

He said there were “no perfect options” when it came to the Medicaid expansion. “To be clear: our options are either having Floridians pay to fund this program in other states while denying health care to our citizens,” he said, “or using federal funding to help some of the poorest in our state with the Medicaid program as we explore other health care reforms.”

Mr. Scott said the state would not create its own insurance exchange to comply with another provision of the law.

His reversal sent ripples through the nation, especially given the change in tone and substance since the summer, when he said he would not create an exchange or expand Medicaid.

“Floridians are interested in jobs and economic growth, a quality education for their children, and keeping the cost of living low,” Mr. Scott said in a statement at the time. “Neither of these major provisions in Obamacare will achieve those goals, and since Florida is legally allowed to opt out, that’s the right decision for our citizens.”

Mr. Scott now joins the Republican governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio, who have decided to join the Medicaid expansion. Some, like Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, were also staunch opponents of Mr. Obama’s overall health care law.

Shortly before his announcement, the governor received word from the federal government that it planned to grant Florida the final waiver needed to privatize Medicaid, a process the state initially undertook as a pilot project. Mr. Scott, who is running for re-election next year, has heavily lobbied for the waiver, arguing that Florida could not expand Medicaid without it.

Mr. Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion is significant, but is far from the last word. The program requires approval from Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature, which has been averse to expanding Medicaid under the health care law. The Legislature’s two top Republican leaders said that before making a decision they would consider recommendations from a select committee, which has been asked to review the state’s options.

“The Florida Legislature will make the ultimate decision,” Will Weatherford, the state House speaker, said. “I am personally skeptical that this inflexible law will improve the quality of health care in our state and ensure our long-term financial stability.”

Medicaid, which covers three million people in Florida, costs the state $21 billion a year. The expansion would extend coverage to one million more people.

Mr. Scott’s reversal is sure to anger his original conservative supporters.

The governor “was elected because of his principled conservative leadership against Obamacare’s overreach,” said Slade O’Brien, state director for Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative advocacy organization. “Hopefully our legislative leaders will not follow in Governor Scott’s footsteps, and will reject expansion.”

During his announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Scott said his mother’s recent death and her lifetime struggle to raise five children “with very little money” played a role in his decision.

“Losing someone so close to you puts everything in a new perspective, especially the big decisions,” he said.

Michael Cooper contributed reporting from New York.

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DealBook: Linn Energy to Buy Berry Petroleum for $2.5 Billion

Deal-making in the oil patch continued on Thursday, as Linn Energy agreed to buy the Berry Petroleum Company for about $2.5 billion, expanding its presence in oil-rich shale formations.

Under the terms of the deal, an affiliate of Linn, LinnCo L.L.C., will issue 1.25 million new common shares for each Berry share. That amounts to $46.24 a share, a premium of roughly 20 percent to Berry’s closing price on Wednesday.

LinnCo will then transfer Berry’s assets to Linn in exchange for additional ownership units in its sibling, which is structured as a master limited partnership. Including the assumption of debt, the deal is valued at $4.3 billion.

By purchasing Berry, Linn will significantly bolster its oil production and increase its holdings in California and the Permian Basin in western Texas. The company estimates that its newest acquisition will increase its proven reserves by 34 percent and its production capabilities by 30 percent. And Berry’s reserves are estimated to be about 75 percent oil and liquids, considered to be significantly more valuable than natural gas, given current prices.

Linn cited the growth promised by the deal in announcing an increase in its quarterly distributions to unit holders, to 77 cents a unit from 72.5 cents.

“Berry’s assets are an excellent fit for Linn, and we believe this transaction generates significant accretion to our distributable cash flow per unit,” Mark E. Ellis, Linn’s chief executive, said in a statement. “We have great respect for what the Berry management team has accomplished and consider the Berry employees to be an important part of this transaction.”

To help defray the tax consequences LinnCo will take on in the deal, Linn will pay its affiliate $6 million a year through 2015.

LinnCo was advised by Citigroup, while a conflicts committee of its board was advised by Evercore Partners and the law firm Locke Lord. A conflicts committee of Linn’s board was advised by Greenhill & Company and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Latham & Watkins served as legal counsel to both Linn and LinnCo. Berry was advised by Credit Suisse and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

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At least 16 hurt in blast and fire at Kansas City restaurant

At least 16 people were hurt and a popular wine bar was destroyed by an apparent natural gas explosion and ensuing fire at an upscale shopping district in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday evening.

Residents reported smelling natural gas and seeing utility crews in the area before the conflagration. A strong scent of gas hung in the air afterward.

“Early indications are that a contractor doing underground work struck a natural gas line, but the investigation continues,” Missouri Gas Energy, a natural-gas provider, said in a statement.

The Kansas City Fire Department said the incident was under investigation. “It does seem to be an accident,” Fire Chief Paul Berardi said during a late-night news briefing.

JJ's Restaurant and wine bar, just off Country Club Plaza, had apparently been partially evacuated before the blast occurred about 6 p.m.

"This was happy hour at the restaurant. There were patrons in the restaurant," Berardi said.

No fatalities were reported, but officials brought in cadaver dogs to check the rubble. The Kansas City Star reported that one JJ's employee was missing.

The fire raged for two hours, with thick smoke visible for miles. Victims streamed to hospitals; at least four people were in critical condition.

Initially, police said a car had hit a gas main, but officials later discounted that explanation.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene. 

"I was sitting in my living room folding laundry, and felt in my chest -- and heard -- an explosion," said Jamie Lawless, who lives about two blocks from JJ's. "I started freaking out, and I was looking around, and then I saw other people walking outside. You could see giant black smoke billowing up from the plaza area, and nobody really knew what it was."

Sally McVey, who lives across the street from JJ's, said the fire "was growing exponentially, incredibly quickly. It was not like a fire I’ve seen before, where it takes a long time to spread.”

A crowd gathered to watch firefighters battle the blaze. At an apartment building on JJ's block, a woman on a top-floor balcony called down to onlookers.  "'Is my building on fire?' and everybody says, 'Yes, come down!' " McVey said. "She’s like, 'Oh my gosh,' and a lot of people come out of that building with their computers and dogs. She did too.”

JJ's owner, Jimmy Frantze, was out of town, said Kansas City Mayor Sly James, who used to be a fixture at the restaurant. The business, which boasted a selection of 1,800 bottles, had been on the site for 28 years.

“It was 28 years of a great restaurant, and then it has to end like this,” Frantze told the Kansas City Star while driving back from Oklahoma. “I want to make sure to check on my employees to make sure they are all right.”

Kansas City Police Department's bomb squad and officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were expected to investigate the accident after the search dogs finished looking for victims, Berardi said.

 matt.pearce@latimes.com

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Secret Lives of Wild Animals Captured by 1 Million Camera-Trap Images

Thanks to motion-triggered digital camera traps, scientists have a powerful tool for studying reclusive animals in remote, inaccessible areas -- and also for generating animated .gifs of gorillas scratching their stomachs.

Okay, perpetually looping scratching gorillas aren't the point of camera-trap research. But they're a very fun byproduct, along with up-close-and-personal photographs of animals glimpsed in unguarded moments.

The jaguar above, filmed in Peru's Manu National Park, represents the 1 millionth image gathered by camera traps belonging to the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network. Managed by Conservation International, the network has deployed camera traps across 16 sites in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

At each site, the traps collect up to 60,000 images every year, a data deluge that's led to new statistical methods for turning aggregated photos into rigorous assessments of regional species health and biodiversity trends, or what they call an early-warning system for nature. The researchers hope camera traps will provide near-real-time feedback of changes that would otherwise take years or decades to quantify.

On the following pages, Wired takes a tour of our favorite photos and animations from the project.

Above:

Manu National Park, Peru.

All images courtesy of the TEAM Network

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A Minute With: Billy Crystal, former host of the Academy Awards

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Few people have more experience hosting the Academy Awards than actor Billy Crystal, who was the master of ceremonies for the movie industry’s highest honors for the ninth time last year.

As “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane prepares to host the Oscars for the first time on Sunday, Crystal, 64, spoke to Reuters about his own experiences and offered some tips.

Q: What is the secret to being a good Oscar host?

A: “Anytime I’ve been asked by new hosts – Chris Rock called me, Jon Stewart called me – I always say the same thing: ‘Whatever your approach, the world is a rough room. And it’s a big room. Not everybody is going to like what you have to say. But when you’re up there, look like you want to be there. You’re the captain of show business that night. That’s your job.’”

Q: Is there a particular way to handle the audience?

A: “You’ve got the first five rows of people who are all nominated actors. They are really nervous. The women are in uncomfortable dresses. The men aren’t used to wearing tuxedos. For most of them, it’s the end of a really long awards season. The lights are bright, it’s usually really cold in there and there are cameras running everything to get reaction shots. So make them feel relaxed. And you have to be funny.”

Q: In those conditions, that sounds like a pretty tall order.

A: “It’s a really difficult job because it goes against everything you want to do as a performer and I always found that hard. As a performer who loves his job on stage, I don’t really like to see the audience, I like to feel them. So I try to encourage (new hosts) to understand that it’s not going to be what they’re used to.”

Q: Do you have a favorite year of all the ones you hosted?

A: “Definitely my first one (in 1990) because it was the first and it went really, really well. Then the one I almost didn’t do (in 1992) because I had pneumonia. I had a 104 temperature and was so sick. I came out as Hannibal Lecter in a mask and was wheeled out on a gurney and went out into the audience and talked to Anthony Hopkins. It was the year Jack Palance won for ‘City Slickers‘ and did the one-arm push-ups. That set me up for an evening of just running jokes about him.”

Q: Any mishaps that you recall needing to step in and save?

A: “At the (1992 ceremony) I introduced Hal Roach from the stage. It was his 100th birthday. He wasn’t supposed to speak, only wave. But he started speaking, holding himself up by the seat in front of him. You could barely hear him. It went on and on. You could feel people getting restless. Lines were racing through my head and I thought, ‘How do you get out of this?’”

Q: And how did you?

A: “I hit on a line and just looked at the audience and said: ‘It’s only fitting, he got his start in silent films!’ It got a big cheer. For me, I could look at that one little moment and say, ‘I was okay then. I was a good comedian that night.’”

Q: Did hosting the Oscars ever get old for you?

A: “If it ever gets old hat, you shouldn’t do it. The nervous part for me was when we had a good show, trying to top it the next year. It was putting that self-imposed pressure on myself. We were fortunate enough to have some good shows and some not as good as others.”

Q: Do you have one particular moment that will always stay with you?

A: “I came up with this idea of putting me in the nominated films. The last piece was ‘The English Patient‘ where I’m walking in the desert. David Letterman had a rough time (when he hosted the Oscars in 1995), so I said, ‘What if Letterman is in the plane and he’s coming after me because I’m hosting?’ So we did that and I thought, ‘What if I come through the screen?’ So they built a screen and I ran on film and then popped right through the screen and suddenly I was live (at the theater).”

Q: So was that your favorite moment?

A: “Here’s my singular favorite moment: My mother was in the audience that night. It was the only time she saw me host the Oscars in person. When I popped through the screen, she and I made eye contact. We just looked at each other … so that was the greatest moment.”

Q: Would you host again if asked?

A: “Today with social media, everybody who can press ‘send’ is a critic. There’s a lot of good ones, but the mean ones are really mean. If you have a thin skin for that it makes it hard … For me if the show is good, it’s expected. If it’s a bit off, you get creamed. And I don’t feel like getting creamed anymore.”

(Editing by Jill Serjeant, Patricia Reaney and Stacey Joyce)

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The New Old Age Blog: The Reluctant Caregiver

Now and then, I refer to the people that caregivers tend to as “loved ones.” And whenever I do, a woman in Southern California tells me, I set her teeth on edge.

She visits her mother-in-law, runs errands, helps with the paperwork — all tasks she has shouldered with a grim sense of duty.  She doesn’t have much affection for this increasingly frail 90something or enjoy her company; her efforts bring no emotional reward. Her husband, an only child, feels nearly as detached. His mother wasn’t abusive, a completely different scenario, but they were never very close.

Ms. A., as I’ll call her because her mother-in-law reads The Times on her computer, feels miserable about this. “She says she appreciates us, she’s counting on us. She thanks us,” Ms. A. said of her non-loved one. “It makes me feel worse, because I feel guilty.”

She has performed many services for her mother-in-law, who lives in a retirement community, “but I really didn’t want to. I know how grudging it was.”

Call her the Reluctant Caregiver. She and her husband didn’t invite his parents to follow them to the small city where they settled to take jobs. The elders did anyway, and as long as they stayed healthy and active, both couples maintained their own lives. Now that her mother-in-law is widowed and needy, Ms. A feels trapped.

Ashamed, too. She knows lots of adult children work much harder at caregiving yet see it as a privilege. For her, it is mere drudgery. “I don’t feel there’s anybody I can say that to,” she told me — except a friend in Phoenix and, anonymously, to us.

The friend, therapist Randy Weiss, has served as both a reluctant caregiver to her mother, who died very recently at 86, and a willing caregiver to her childless aunt, living in an assisted living dementia unit at 82. Spending time with each of them made Ms. Weiss conscious of the distinction.

Her visits involved many of the same activities, “but it feels very different,” she said. “I feel the appreciation from my aunt, even if she’s much less able to verbalize it.” A cherished confidante since adolescence, her aunt breaks into smiles when Ms. Weiss arrives and exclaims over every small gift, even a doughnut. She worked in the music industry for decades and, despite her memory loss, happily sings along with the jazz CDs Ms. Weiss brings.

Because she had no such connection with her mother, whom Ms. Weiss described as distant and critical, “it’s harder to do what I have to do,” she said. (We spoke before her mother’s death.) “One is an obligation I fulfill out of duty. One is done with love.”

Unlike her friend Ms. A, “I don’t feel guilty that I don’t feel warmly towards my mother,” Ms. Weiss said. “I’ve made my peace.”

Let’s acknowledge that at times almost every caregiver knows exhaustion, anger and resentment.  But to me, reluctant caregivers probably deserve more credit than most. They are not getting any of the good stuff back, no warmth or laughter, little tenderness, sometimes not even gratitude.

Yet they are doing this tough work anyway, usually because no one else can or will. Maybe an early death or a divorce means that the person who would ordinarily have provided care can’t. Or maybe the reluctant caregiver is simply the one who can’t walk away.

“It’s important to acknowledge that every relationship doesn’t come from ‘The Cosby Show,’” said Barbara Moscowitz when I called to ask her about reluctance. Ms. Moscowitz, a senior geriatric social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital, has heard many such tales from caregivers in her clinical practice and support groups.

“We need to allow people to be reluctant,” she said. “It means they’re dutiful; they’re responsible. Those are admirable qualities.”

Yet, she recognizes, “they feel oppressed by the platitudes. ‘Your mother is so lucky to have you!’” Such praise just makes people like Ms. A. squirm.

Ms. Moscowitz also worries about reluctant caregivers, and urges them to find support groups where they can say the supposedly unsay-able, and to sign up early for community services — hotlines, senior centers, day programs, meals on wheels — that can help lighten the load.

“Caregiving only goes one way – it gets harder, more complex,” she said. “Support groups and community resources are like having a first aid kit. It’s going to feel like even more of a burden, and you need to be armed.”

I wonder, too, if reluctant caregivers have a romanticized view of what the task is like for everyone else. Elder care can be a wonderful experience, satisfying and meaningful, but guilt and resentment are also standard parts of the job description, at least occasionally.

For a reluctant caregiver, “the satisfaction is, you haven’t turned your back,” Ms. Moscowitz said. “You can take pride in that.”

---

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

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Bits Blog: Marissa Mayer Puts Her Stamp on Yahoo.com

8:39 a.m. | Updated On Wednesday, Yahoo introduced a fresh new home page with Marissa Mayer’s stamp all over it.

Yahoo’s home page has long been a sort of sad reflection of the company. A jazzed-up Craigslist of sorts, the site was often cluttered with low-quality ads and irrelevant content and in no way reflected the fact that Yahoo is one of the most visited sites on the Web. With more than 700 million monthly visitors, Yahoo is still a leading source of information for sports, finance and entertainment.

Ms. Mayer took the reins as Yahoo’s chief executive last July. Before that she was a long-time executive at Google, where she was widely credited with the simple look of the Google search page. Now she seeks to apply that same, clean aesthetic to one of the most chaotic sites on the Web.

In an interview Tuesday, Ms. Mayer said she wanted to make Yahoo’s site “fresh and dynamic and add an element of surprise and serendipity.”

Gone are the low-quality ads. She has added an infinite, Twitter-like news feed and a stream of content recommended by users’ Facebook friends. Instead of trying to jam every Yahoo feature onto the site, the new design gives special prominence to Yahoo’s most popular Web properties: Yahoo’s e-mail and news service, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, its movie listing site and OMG, its popular entertainment site.

Users can now easily share content they see on the home page via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook with one click. They also have limited ability to customize the site to their liking. They can turn off home page features like horoscopes, stock quotes and sports stats. Ms. Mayer pointed out that the more items users switch on and off, the smarter the Yahoo algorithm gets and the more relevant content Yahoo will serve up.

Yahoo’s redesigned home page is the third major aesthetic improvement Ms. Mayer has introduced since joining the company. In December, she redesigned Yahoo’s e-mail service and its once-popular photo-sharing service Flickr.

In the interview, Ms. Mayer said these would be the “first of many releases” and she would turn her focus to a dozen or more Yahoo products. Her next priority for the home page, she said, will be adding content sources. In December, Yahoo signed three deals, with CBS Television, NBC Sports and ABC News. In each case, the media companies will work with Yahoo to promote each other’s content and produce original video content for the Web.

“We’re introducing a new way to welcome people to Yahoo,” Ms. Mayer said.

But it’s more than aesthetics. Ms. Mayer is betting that the renewed focus on Yahoo’s products will turn around the company’s ailing display ad revenue. Yahoo, once the biggest seller of display ads in the United States, went from a leading 15.5 percent share of all digital ad revenues in the United States in 2009, to an 8.4 percent share last year, even as total digital ad spending grew, according to eMarketer. Meanwhile, its competitor, Google, increased its share to 41 percent.

Last month, she told analysts, “More personalized content and increased product innovation will be key to getting us back to the path for display revenue growth.”

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Obama ramps up pressure on GOP to avert budget cuts

WASHINGTON -- With less than two weeks before across-the-board spending cuts begin taking effect, President Obama is cranking up pressure on congressional Republicans to agree to a Democratic plan that would temporarily block the deep reductions.

Obama is scheduled to speak Tuesday on the need to prevent the cuts, known in Washington as a sequester, appearing at a White House event with first responders -- people whose jobs might be lost if the federal government slashes budgets as scheduled on March 1, according to a White House official.

The president plans to endorse a Democratic plan that would replace the across-the-board cuts with more targeted reductions, as well as new taxes on some people making more than $1 million.

"The president will challenge Republicans to make a very simple choice: do they protect investments in education, health care and national defense or do they continue to prioritize and protect tax loopholes that benefit the very few at the expense of middle and working class Americans?" said the official, who would not be named discussing the plans.

Obama's event will be the latest step in his public campaign to cast his Republican opponents as standing in the way of  "balanced" deficit reduction, an effort he has pursued since the election and which he  highlighted in his State of the Union speech last week.

The president says he wants to curb government spending, but any deal must include new tax revenue from changes to the tax code and protect entitlements.

GOP leaders also say they want to avert the blunt spending cuts -- which were enacted as part of a 2011 budget deal as a way to force a compromise.

Nonpartisan experts say the cuts would eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs and slow the recovery.

But Republicans argue that new taxes should not be included in the alternative. House Speaker John Boehner, (R-Ohio) said last week the cuts were likely to hit unless lawmakers agreed on a long-term plan that dramatically cuts government spending and eliminates the deficit over the next decade.

A Boehner spokesman said it was time for the Senate to find an alternative.

"We agree the sequester is a bad way to cut spending. That's why we've twice passed a plan to replace it with common sense cuts and reforms that don't threaten our security, safety, and economy," said spokesman Brendan Buck. "A solution now requires the Senate -- controlled by the president's party -- to finally pass a plan of their own."

Senate Republicans are expected propose their own temporary alternative, which would curb the growth of the federal workforce.

The White House is continuing with the strategy that has yielded success in the past -- using the president's megaphone and a popular proposal to pressure Congress on deadline. That tactic successfully forced Republicans to agree to raise income taxes on top earners as part of last month's fiscal cliff deal. That deal also delayed the sequester for two months.

The Democrats are proposing another 10 month delay, replacing half the cuts with the so-called Buffett Rule, a requirement that those who have adjusted gross incomes above $1 million pay a minimum 30% tax rate.

The rule, an early staple in Obama's reelection campaign, is named for billionaire Warren Buffett, who has said that tax loopholes and deductions allow him to pay a lower effective tax rate than his secretary.

The Democratic proposal includes $55 billion in new revenue, along with cuts to farm subsidies and a smaller hit to defense spending than is scheduled.

[For the Record, 5:22 a.m. PST  Feb. 19: This post has been updated to include a statement from Boehner's spokesman.]

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Republicans successfully block vote on vote on Hagel nomination

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White House pushes back on GOP criticism of draft immigration bill

Kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Twitter: @khennessey

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Watch a Robot Interview <em>Portlandia'</em>s Fred Armisen

Here at Wired we don’t fear losing our jobs to robots – in fact, we advocate for it.

So when Fred Armisen stopped by the Wired office after the SF Sketchfest tribute to his Peabody Award-winning show Portlandia, we decided to let our robot Rob-EE do the talking. Armisen and Rob-EE even had a heart-to-android-heart. Rob-EE also managed to get some dirt about Armisen’s thoughts on the end of 30 Rock, working on both Portlandia and Saturday Night Live, and the very-prescient subject of a robot’s right to comedy.

“Hopefully there will be a day when all comedy is all robots,” Armisen says. “There should be comedians who perform only for robots – I’m saying human comedians that only perform for robots.”

Find out what else happened when Rob-EE sat down with Armisen in the video above. Portlandia airs Fridays at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central on IFC.

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National Briefing | South: Abortion Curbs Clear Senate in Arkansas

The State Senate voted 25 to 7 on Monday to ban most abortions 20 weeks into a pregnancy. The measure goes back to the House to consider an amendment that added exceptions for rape and incest. The legislation is based on the belief that fetuses can feel pain 20 weeks into a pregnancy, and is similar to bans in several other states. Opponents say it would require mothers to deliver babies with fatal conditions. Gov. Mike Beebe has said he has constitutional concerns about the proposal but has not said whether he will veto it.

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European Parliament Approves Plan to Bolster Carbon Trading

LONDON — In a move to bolster the floundering European market for carbon offsets, the environmental committee of the European Parliament voted Tuesday to allow the European Commission to reduce the numbers of carbon permits that it auctions in the next three years.

Prices of carbon allowances, which permit companies to emit greenhouse gases, plunged below €3, or about $4, per ton last month, compared to around €30 per ton in 2008 and about €9 per ton a year ago.

Many analysts think that setting a hefty price on carbon will prove the most efficient way to reduce emissions. The European system is the world’s flagship program and its struggles could have negative implications for other countries that are considering similar efforts, including the United States.

The vote Tuesday, by an unexpectedly decisive 38 to 25 with two abstentions, is “a lifeline for the carbon market and for emissions trading as a policy tool for curbing emissions,” said Stig Schjoelset, head of carbon analysis at Reuters Point Carbon, a market research firm in Oslo. Mr. Schoelset added that if the vote had gone the other way, the system would have been “more or less dead.”

Although this vote is only a first step, politicians and analysts said it might allow the European Union program to begin recovering credibility with markets as a means to curb emissions.

“It is important that we get this right, and the sooner we get it right the better,” the E.U. climate action commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, said during an interview Monday.

Prices for carbon allowances on the Emissions Trading System, the world’s premier cap and trade program, fell to as low as €2.8 per metric ton last month. After the vote Tuesday prices were about €4.5 per ton, after closing at €5.13 per ton on Monday.

The proposal approved Tuesday would take 900 million carbon credits that were scheduled to be auctioned over 2013 to 2015 and “backload” them to 2019 and 2020 in order to put a floor under prices. It is estimated that there is now a surplus of 2 billion credits, so this move will not soak up all of the carbon allowance glut.

The changes will need to be approved later by the full Parliament and member states.

“It is really the first step in a long, long process,” said Kass Burchett, an analyst at IHS, an energy research firm.

The European Trading System was set up by the European Union to provide a signal to polluters like utilities and heavy manufacturers that they needed to reduce carbon emissions. Companies are either allocated or required to buy at auction enough credits to offset their annual emissions. The trouble is that with Europe’s dismal economy dampening industrial activity and energy use, there is now a huge surplus of allowances, or credits, depressing their price.

Industrialists and analysts say that single-digit prices do not provide the intended incentive for companies to switch to cleaner fuels and energy-efficient technology. Mr. Schoelset said that to encourage switching from coal to natural gas, a price of €30 to €40 per ton is needed, while an even higher level of perhaps €60 to €150 per ton is required for utilities to invest in expensive carbon–reducing technologies like carbon capture and storage.

“The vote signals the intention of the European Parliament to begin the process of restoring the most cost-effective approach to meeting Europe’s energy needs and reducing emissions over time,” David Hone, chief climate change adviser to the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, said in a statement. “It will not immediately restore the system to good health, but it is a start.”

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