Disneyland to close Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for overhaul

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has been operating since 1979 and portrays a runaway train that speeds through a barren Old West landscape. (Jay L. Clendenin, Los Angeles Times / February 4, 2011)

By Hugo Martín, Los Angeles Times

December 13, 2012, 5:20 p.m.

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is closing Jan. 7 to get new tracks, vehicles and paint.

It will be the third major overhaul of a major Disneyland ride in as many years.

The railroad in the Frontierland section of the Anaheim park has been operating since 1979 and portrays a runaway train that speeds through a barren Old West landscape.

The ride is expected to reopen in fall 2013.

Disneyland completed a similar overhaul of its Matterhorn Bobsleds ride this year that also included new paint, tracks and vehicles.

Matterhorn's new vehicles have received mixed reviews. The old vehicles crammed two riders per car, with one sitting in the lap of the other. The new cars offer each rider an individual seat, but the seats are cramped and provide little cushioning.

Splash Mountain, the flume ride in Disneyland's Critter Country, underwent a similar makeover in 2011.

A spokeswoman for the park said Big Thunder Mountain will get new trains, but they will probably resemble the existing trains, with no major changes to the seats.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

Comments are filtered for language and registration is required. The Times makes no guarantee of comments' factual accuracy. Readers may report inappropriate comments by clicking the Report Abuse link next to a comment. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.

';
shareDiv.innerHTML = templateHTML;

/* append the new div to the end of the document, which is hidden already with CSS */
document.body.appendChild(shareDiv);

/* Store the div in both a regular JavaScript variable and as a jQuery object so we can reference them faster later */
var shareTip = document.getElementById('shareTip'),
$shareTip = $('#shareTip');

/* This extends our settings object with any user-defined settings passed to the function and returns the jQuery object shareTip
was called on */
return this.each(function() {
if (options) {
$.extend(settings, options);
}

/* This is a hack to make sure the shareTip always fades back to 100% opacity */
var checkOpacity = function (){
if ( $shareTip.css('opacity') !== 1 ){
$shareTip.css({'opacity': 1});
}
};

/* Function that replaces the HTML in the shareTip with the template we defined at the top */
/* It will wipe/reset the links on the social media buttons each time the function is called */
var removeLinks = function (){
shareTip.innerHTML = templateHTML;
};

/* This is the function that makes the links for the Tweet / Share functionality */

var makeURLS = function (link, message){
/* Here we construct the Tweet URL using an array, with values passed to the function */
var tweetConstruct = [
'http://twitter.com/share?url=', link, '&text=', message, '&via=', settings.twitter_account
],
/* Then join the array into one chunk of HTML */
tweetURL = tweetConstruct.join(''),

/* Same story for Facebook */
fbConstruct = [
'http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=', link, '&src=sp'
],

fbURL = fbConstruct.join(''),

newHTML = [
''
],
shareHTML = newHTML.join('');
/* Load in our new HTML */
shareTip.innerHTML = shareHTML;
};

/* Since the shareTip will automatically fade out when the user mouses out of an element */
/* we have to specifically tell the shareTip we want it to stay put when the user mouses over it */
/* This effectively gives the user a 500 ms (or whatever) window to mouse */
/* from the element to the shareTip to prevent it from popping out */
$shareTip.hover(function(){
$shareTip.stop(true, true);
$shareTip.show();
checkOpacity();
}, function(){
$(this).fadeOut(settings.speed);
});

/* This function handles the hover action */
$(this).hover(function(){
/* remove the old links, so someone doesn't accidentally click on them */
removeLinks();

/* If there's already an animation running on the shareTip, stop it */
$shareTip.stop(true, true);

var eso = $(this),
message,
/* Store the width and height of the shareTip and the offset of the element for our calculations */
height = eso.height(),
width = eso.width(),
offset = eso.offset(),
link;


link = eso.children('a').attr('href');
message = escape( eso.find('img').attr('alt') ) || eso.attr(settings.message_attr);

if (link.search('http://') === -1){
link = 'http://www.latimes.com' + link;
}
link = encodeURIComponent(link);

/* If it's at the top of the page, the shareTip will pop under the element */
if (offset.top

Read More..

Jenni Rivera jet linked to troubled company and executive

So far, this much is clear: Jenni Rivera, one of the most celebrated artists in the Latin world, died when her private jet went into a dive. The plane plummeted nose-first, 28,000 feet in 30 seconds, leaving its wreckage — and the remains of Rivera and six others — splayed across the side of the mountain like a wash of pebbles.

The investigation at the remote Mexican crash site is now in full swing, and authorities have not said whether they suspect maintenance problems or pilot error. But scrutiny has fallen on the plane and its pilots, one of whom was 78 years old. Interviews and documents have link the jet to a troubled company — and an executive who was once imprisoned for faking the safety records of planes he bought from the Mexican government and sold to private pilots in the United States.

According to federal aviation records, the Learjet 25 carrying Rivera from a performance in Monterrey, Mexico, was built in 1969 and was owned by a Las Vegas company called Starwood Management LLC.

A Starwood executive, Christian E. Esquino Nunez, was accused of conspiring with associates in the 1990s and 2000s to falsify records documenting the history of planes they bought and sold — tail numbers, inspection stamps and logbooks. Esquino's "fraudulent business practices ... put the flying public at risk," federal authorities argued in documents obtained by The Times.

"We had a forewarning that this is what he is," Timothy D. Coughlin, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, said. "Essentially they would manufacture the records ... that would indicate that maintenance was up to date. They would create them out of whole cloth." Once Esquino brought the planes across the border for sale, "it was open season," Coughlin said.

Coughlin prosecuted the case against Esquino in 2005, resulting in a guilty plea that sent Esquino to a federal prison in Lompoc, Calif., for two years.

After his release from prison, Esquino was deported from Southern California to his native Mexico, where he lives today.

For 20 years, Esquino has been embroiled in a briar of legal allegations, many involving airplanes — a bankruptcy and a restraining order, criminal indictments and civil judgments, cocaine-distribution charges, even a role in an alleged conspiracy to airlift relatives of the late Moammar Kadafi out of Libya.

On Wednesday, Esquino told The Times by telephone from Mexico City that the flight was not a charter as authorities have said. Rather, Rivera was in the final stages of buying the plane from Starwood for $250,000; the flight was offered as a free "demo."

Esquino, 50, described himself as Starwood's operations manager, and said he understood why his past would place him under scrutiny in the wake of the accident.

"Obviously my past — there is a story to it," he said. "It's unavoidable that they are going to look at my past.... I think it's fair to bring it up right now and question it."

However, he said, the jet was perfectly maintained. He said the only conceivable explanation for the crash was that pilot Miguel Perez Soto suffered a heart attack or was incapacitated in some way, and that a younger co-pilot, Alejandro Torres, was unable to save the plane. (Authorities stressed that they have not determined a cause of the crash or whether the plane had any problems.)

"We're all grieving," Esquino said. "I'm definitely very sorry that this happened."

Esquino said it was not a mistake to put a 78-year-old pilot at the helm of the flight. Perez had a valid license to fly in Mexico, authorities said Wednesday, but U.S. aviation sources said that in the United States, Perez was licensed to fly only under conditions that didn't require the use of instruments and was not allowed to carry passengers for hire.

Esquino said he had known and trusted Perez for 30 years. "I couldn't think of anyone more qualified," he said.

Rivera, 43, a famed Mexican American performer, mother of five and master of a growing international business empire, was killed Sunday when the private jet carrying her and four members of her entourage crashed near Iturbide, Mexico.

Rivera had sold 20 million albums, lived in a massive estate in Encino, was preparing to make her American network television debut and was at the height of her career.

The same plane, according to U.S. aviation records, sustained "substantial" damage in 2005 when a fuel imbalance left one wing tip weighing as much as 300 pounds more than the other. The unnamed pilot, despite having logged more than 7,000 hours in the air, lost control while landing in Amarillo, Texas, and struck a runway distance marker. No one was injured.

Esquino called that accident "minor" and said the plane had flown without issue for 1,000 hours since then.

Starwood formed in March 2007, two months after Esquino was released from prison. He probably knew, federal officials said Wednesday, that he would be unable to receive a license to buy and sell U.S.-registered aircraft following the federal charges and his deportation. Nevada employment records list Esquino's sister-in-law, Norma Gonzalez, as the sole corporate officer of Starwood. But according to allegations contained in court documents, it was Esquino — who has operated at times under the name Eduardo "Ed" Nunez — who was actually running the show.

Read More..

‘Dishonored’ tops a diverse year in video games

The video game universe in 2012 is a study in extremes.

At one end, you have the old guard striving to produce mass-appeal blockbusters. At the other end, you have a thriving community of independent game developers scrambling to find an audience for their idiosyncratic visions. Can’t we all just get along?

Turns out, we can. For while some industry leaders are worried (and not without cause) about “disruptive” trends — social-media games, free-to-play models, the switch from disc-based media to digital delivery — video games are blossoming creatively. This fall, during the height of the pre-holiday game release calendar, I found myself bouncing among games as diverse as the bombastic “Halo 4,” the artsy “The Unfinished Swan” and the quick-hit trivia game “SongPop.”

Some of my favorite games this year have benefited from both sides working together. The smaller studios get exposure on huge platforms like Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. The big publishers seem more willing to invite a little quirkiness into their big-budget behemoths. Gamers win.

1. “Dishonored” (Bethesda Softworks, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): Arkane Studios’ revenge drama combined a witty plot, crisp gameplay and an uncommonly distinctive milieu, setting a supernaturally gifted assassin loose in a gloriously decadent, steampunk-influenced city.

2. “Mass Effect 3″ (Electronic Arts, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC): No 2012 game was more ambitious than BioWare’s sweeping space opera. Yes, the ending was a little bumpy, but the fearless Commander Shepard’s last journey across the cosmos provided dozens of thrilling moments.

3. “The Walking Dead” (Telltale Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, iOS): This moving adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comics dodged the predictable zombie bloodbath in favor of a finely tuned character study of two survivors: Lee, an escaped convict, and Clementine, the 8-year-old girl he’s committed to protect.

4. “Journey” (Thatgamecompany, for the PlayStation 3): A nameless figure trudges across a desert toward a glowing light. Simple enough, but gorgeous visuals, haunting music and the need to communicate, wordlessly, with companions you meet along the way translate into something that’s almost profound.

5. “Borderlands 2″ (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): Gearbox Software’s gleeful mash-up of first-person shooting, role-playing and loot-collecting conventions gets bigger and badder, but what stuck with me most were the often hilarious encounters with the damaged citizens of the godforsaken planet Pandora.

6. “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): A strategy classic returns, as the forces of Earth fight back against an extraterrestrial invasion. It’s a battle of wits rather than reflexes, a stimulating change of pace from the typical alien gorefest.

7. “Fez” (Polytron, for the Xbox 360): A two-dimensional dude named Gomez finds his world has suddenly burst into a third dimension in this gem from indie developer Phil Fish. As Gomez explores, the world of “Fez” continually deepens, opening up mysteries that only the most dedicated players will be able to solve.

8. “Spec Ops: The Line” (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): This harrowing tale from German studio Yager Development transplants “Apocalypse Now” to a war-torn Dubai. It’s a bracing critique, not just of war but of the rah-rah jingoism of contemporary military shooters.

9. “Assassin’s Creed III” (Ubisoft, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC): A centuries-old conspiracy takes root in Colonial America in this beautifully realized, refreshingly irreverent installment of Ubisoft’s alternate history franchise.

10. “ZombiU” (Ubisoft, for the Wii U): The best launch game for Nintendo’s new console turns the Wii U’s GamePad into an effective tool for finding and hunting down the undead.

Runners-up: “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” ”Darksiders II,” ”Dust: An Elysian Tail,” ”Far Cry 3,” ”Halo 4,” ”Mark of the Ninja,” ”Need for Speed: Most Wanted,” ”Paper Mario: Sticker Star,” ”Papo & Yo,” ”The Unfinished Swan.”

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Music royalty rocks NYC in Sandy benefit concert

NEW YORK (AP) — New Jersey shore hero Bruce Springsteen opened a benefit concert for victims of Superstorm Sandy on Wednesday by making a plea that what made his boyhood home special not be forgotten when it is rebuilt.

Music royalty from the Rolling Stones to Kanye West, including several artists with direct ties to the New York metropolitan area, gathered at Madison Square Garden for a concert being televised, streamed online and aired on radio all over the world.

Springsteen and his E Street Band began the show with a roar, singing "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "Wrecking Ball." He addressed the rebuilding process before his song "My City of Ruins." He noted that the song was written about the hard times suffered by Asbury Park, N.J., before a renaissance over the past decade.

He lauded the Jersey shore as an inclusive area, where the rich and the poor can find a place.

"I pray that that characteristic remains along the Jersey shore because that's what makes it special," Springsteen said.

He mixed "My City of Ruins" with part of Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" before bringing neighbor Jon Bon Jovi out to sing "Born to Run" with him.

Comic Billy Crystal got an immediate laugh by taking a shot at a Long Island lighting company that drew criticism for the slow pace of power restoration after the storm hit the area on Oct. 29.

Roger Waters played a set of Pink Floyd's spacey rock, joined by Eddie Vedder for "Comfortably Numb." Waters stuck to the music and left the fundraising to others.

"Can't chat," he said, "because we only have 30 minutes."

The sold-out "12-12-12" concert was being shown on 37 television stations in the United States and more than 200 others worldwide. It was to be streamed on 30 websites, including YouTube and Yahoo, and played on radio stations. Theaters, including 27 in the New York region and dozens more elsewhere, were showing it live. More than 2 billion people were expected to have access to the performance.

Proceeds from the show will be distributed through the Robin Hood Foundation. More than $30 million was raised through ticket sales alone.

The powerful storm left parts of New York City underwater and left millions of people in several states without heat or electricity for weeks. It's blamed for at least 125 deaths, including 104 in New York and New Jersey, and it destroyed or damaged 305,000 housing units in New York alone.

Other concert performers were to include Long Islander Billy Joel ("New York State of Mind") and New Yorker Alicia Keys ("Empire State of Mind"). Even Liverpool's Paul McCartney has a New York office, Hamptons home and a wife, Nancy Shevell, who spent a decade on the board of the agency that runs New York's public transit system.

The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger said he wasn't in New York for the storm but his apartment was flooded with 2 feet of water.

"Imagine you hadn't known it was coming," he said in an interview. "It would have been pretty dire. I think it's good to do events to support people in the area where you're very familiar with. I mean, I've been coming here for a long time."

Other artists expected to perform included Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, Chris Martin and The Who.

It's a lineup heavily weighted toward classic rock, which has the type of fans able to afford a show for which ticket prices ranged from $150 to $2,500. Even with those prices, people with tickets have been offering them for more on broker sites such as StubHub, an attempt at profiteering that producers fumed was "despicable."

The concert came a day after the death of sitar master Ravi Shankar, a performer at the 1971 "Concert for Bangladesh" considered the grandfather of music benefits. That also was in Madison Square Garden.

___

AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in New York contributed to this report.

Read More..

Eli Lilly to Conduct Additional Study of Alzheimer’s Drug

The drug maker Eli Lilly & Company said on Wednesday that it planned an additional study of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that failed to improve the condition of people with the disease, saying that it remained hopeful about the drug’s prospects.

The newest study is expected to get under way in the third quarter of 2013 and will focus on patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease. Lilly released results of two clinical trials in August that showed the drug, called solanezumab, did not significantly improve either the cognition or the daily functioning of people with mild and moderate forms of the disease. But despite that failure, the results also gave some reason for hope: when patients with mild Alzheimer’s were separated out, the drug was shown to significantly slow their decline in cognition.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said it decided not to pursue approval of the drug based on existing study results after it met with officials from the Food and Drug Administration. A Lilly executive said, however, that the company was still optimistic.

“We remain encouraged and excited by the solanezumab data,” David Ricks, a senior vice president at Lilly and president of Lilly Bio-Medicines, said in the statement. “We are committed to working with the F.D.A. and other regulatory authorities to bring solanezumab to the millions of patients and caregivers suffering from this devastating disease who urgently need this potential treatment.”

The Lilly drug is the second Alzheimer’s treatment to fail in clinical trials this year. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson stopped development of a similar treatment, bapineuzumab, after it, too, was not shown to work. Both drugs target beta amyloid, a protein in the brain that is found in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Lilly shares closed at $49, down 3.2 percent.

Read More..

Snow-making at ski resorts goes high tech

Mother Nature has been a fickle manager of snowfall lately, sending an avalanche of powder to ski resorts across the country two years ago, followed by the least amount of snowfall in decades last winter.

A scattering of storms has already swept through the West this winter, but it's too early to tell if this season will be a snowy success or another dry disappointment.

But ski resort managers are losing less sleep over erratic weather conditions after making a flurry of investments over the last few years in ultra-efficient, computerized snow-making equipment.

Once powered by diesel air compressors and monitored by workers on snowmobiles, today's snow-making systems rely on computers, fiber-optic cables and low-energy fans that can be controlled by smartphone or programmed to automatically make snow when conditions are prime.

The good news for powder hounds is that the frozen spray generated by modern snow-making equipment is so close to real snow that even veteran skiers can't tell the difference.

"If I'm going down a run, I can't tell you if I just skied on natural or man-made snow," said Bruce Lee, a Redondo Beach resident who has been skiing for 30 years in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Utah, Colorado and California. "I'll bet no one can tell the difference."

Video chat: Tahoe ski resorts get a makeover

Investments in snow making have been especially crucial in California, where snowfall has always been particularly unreliable. The state is home to 29 resorts that generate an estimated $1.3 billion in spending a year.

Last year's ultra-dry season only reinforced the value of artificial snow-making systems. The 2011-12 season marked the lowest national average snowfall in 20 years, forcing half of the nation's resorts to either open late or close early.

The National Resources Defense Council estimates that ski resorts lost $1 billion in revenue because of meager snowfall over the last decade.

Resort operators that had already invested heavily -n snow-making equipment said man-made snow helped them avoid a complete bust.

"For us, the reaction to last year was 'Thank God we've done what we did in the past,'" said Pete Sonntag, general manager at Lake Tahoe's Heavenly ski resort, where 155 snow-making machines can cover 65% of the resort's skiable terrain.

Heavenly's snow-making system — the largest on the West Coast — can be controlled from a desktop computer at a pump house on the mountain or a smartphone carried by Barrett Burghard, the resort's senior manager for snow surfaces.

"I'm not going to lie and say we can make snow as good as Mother Nature," Burghard said as he glanced at a computer screen to check the water levels in the resort's storage tanks. "But it's close."

The best man-made snow, he said, is light and can be pressed into a snowball without oozing water.

He has another, very unscientific method for testing his machine-spewed snow: He tosses it against his arm to see how it bounces off his sleeve. "There's an art to making snow," Burghard said.

In the past, snow-making was a labor-intensive task that involved teams of workers taking temperature and humidity readings throughout the night.

If the conditions were right for snow-making, workers would ride snowmobiles up the mountains to switch on snow guns, which were often powered by diesel air compressors and connected to high-pressure air and water hoses bordering ski runs.

But temperatures at different spots on a mountain can vary by several degrees, making it difficult for resort operators to gauge when and where to activate the snow guns.

Modern snow-making guns use less energy than older systems, relying on a combination of portable compressors and energy-efficient fans.

Read More..

North Korea launches its second rocket this year

This image shared by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows the announced zones where stages of the North Korean rocket are expected to splash down. (Union of Concerned Scientists / December 10, 2012)

By Emily Alpert

December 11, 2012, 5:24 p.m.

North Korea launched a rocket Wednesday morning, according to South Korean media and the Associated Press. The launch marks the second such mission this year, after a failed attempt that embarrassed the regime in April.

The rocket was fired at 9:51 a.m., according to the Yonhap news agency in South Korea. 

Though North Korea describes the effort as a peaceful satellite launch, the technology used to send a satellite into orbit or launch a missile carrying a warhead is essentially the same, raising fears that a successful mission could be a stride toward putting the United States in North Korea's sights. The U.S., South Korea and other nations condemned the planned launch as a brazen provocation when it was first announced.

The April launch ended in less than two minutes. The rocket broke into pieces shortly after liftoff, a black eye for the country as it marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of founder Kim Il Sung. Earlier attempts to launch a satellite also failed, according to Western officials.

North Korea experts say the latest undertaking is a bid to regain face after the April effort and an attempt to bolster the leadership of Kim Jong Un, who took power late last year.

The country announced at the beginning of the month that its scientists had analyzed the errors behind the April failure, but some analysts were skeptical that it had had enough time to fix the problems.

ALSO:

U.S. blacklists Syrian rebel group for Al Qaeda ties

Egypt's political fault lines shaken by rival protests in Cairo

Mali again in turmoil after soldiers force prime minister to resign

Comments are filtered for language and registration is required. The Times makes no guarantee of comments' factual accuracy. Readers may report inappropriate comments by clicking the Report Abuse link next to a comment. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.

';
shareDiv.innerHTML = templateHTML;

/* append the new div to the end of the document, which is hidden already with CSS */
document.body.appendChild(shareDiv);

/* Store the div in both a regular JavaScript variable and as a jQuery object so we can reference them faster later */
var shareTip = document.getElementById('shareTip'),
$shareTip = $('#shareTip');

/* This extends our settings object with any user-defined settings passed to the function and returns the jQuery object shareTip
was called on */
return this.each(function() {
if (options) {
$.extend(settings, options);
}

/* This is a hack to make sure the shareTip always fades back to 100% opacity */
var checkOpacity = function (){
if ( $shareTip.css('opacity') !== 1 ){
$shareTip.css({'opacity': 1});
}
};

/* Function that replaces the HTML in the shareTip with the template we defined at the top */
/* It will wipe/reset the links on the social media buttons each time the function is called */
var removeLinks = function (){
shareTip.innerHTML = templateHTML;
};

/* This is the function that makes the links for the Tweet / Share functionality */

var makeURLS = function (link, message){
/* Here we construct the Tweet URL using an array, with values passed to the function */
var tweetConstruct = [
'http://twitter.com/share?url=', link, '&text=', message, '&via=', settings.twitter_account
],
/* Then join the array into one chunk of HTML */
tweetURL = tweetConstruct.join(''),

/* Same story for Facebook */
fbConstruct = [
'http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=', link, '&src=sp'
],

fbURL = fbConstruct.join(''),

newHTML = [
''
],
shareHTML = newHTML.join('');
/* Load in our new HTML */
shareTip.innerHTML = shareHTML;
};

/* Since the shareTip will automatically fade out when the user mouses out of an element */
/* we have to specifically tell the shareTip we want it to stay put when the user mouses over it */
/* This effectively gives the user a 500 ms (or whatever) window to mouse */
/* from the element to the shareTip to prevent it from popping out */
$shareTip.hover(function(){
$shareTip.stop(true, true);
$shareTip.show();
checkOpacity();
}, function(){
$(this).fadeOut(settings.speed);
});

/* This function handles the hover action */
$(this).hover(function(){
/* remove the old links, so someone doesn't accidentally click on them */
removeLinks();

/* If there's already an animation running on the shareTip, stop it */
$shareTip.stop(true, true);

var eso = $(this),
message,
/* Store the width and height of the shareTip and the offset of the element for our calculations */
height = eso.height(),
width = eso.width(),
offset = eso.offset(),
link;


link = eso.children('a').attr('href');
message = escape( eso.find('img').attr('alt') ) || eso.attr(settings.message_attr);

if (link.search('http://') === -1){
link = 'http://www.latimes.com' + link;
}
link = encodeURIComponent(link);

/* If it's at the top of the page, the shareTip will pop under the element */
if (offset.top

Read More..

California PUC Finalizing Free Cell Phone Service for the Poor

As noted by KGO, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) intends to approve a free lifeline cell phone plan that benefits California‘s poor and homeless residents. Funding for initial setup will come from the federal government.

What are the initial details of the plan?

Qualifying Californians pay an initial $ 20 fee to sign up for a monthly cell coverage plan. It offers 250 free minutes as well as 250 free text messages. From then on, the minutes and message count refill every month as long as the participant qualifies for the program. Assured Wireless — the name of the plan devised by Virgin Mobile, KERN Radio notes — has proposed this coverage to the CPUC.

Unlike the landline lifeline service, which only reduces a phone bill, this cell phone service is actually free of charge for participants. The company notes that plan participants can pay extra for international calling and for the purchase of additional minutes. The phone is free and network service is provided by Sprint. It is not known at this time if paying cell phone service customers will be charged a surcharge or fee to fund the program.

Who benefits from the free cell phone service?

The Coalition on Homelessness notes that those living on the streets will see an immediate benefit. “It’s so huge if you’re living outside you can dial 9-1-1 in the middle of the night; if you need to get in touch with your loved ones, you have a phone, if you’re trying to get in touch with a potential employer,” the Coalition on Homelessness’ Jennifer Friedenbach explained. Low-income wage earners, too, benefit since they no longer have to take money from other budget line items to afford a cell phone.

What is the wage income maximum for a qualifying program participant?

Participants cannot earn more than about $ 15,000 per year to qualify for the free cell phone program.

Is this type of program new?

This is not a new program. There are already 36 states that offer cell phone lifeline programs. The California PUC has thus far been unwilling to approve the program for the State of California.

Why does California need free cell phone service in the first place?

Although the State of California does participate in the federal lifeline landline service via local phone service providers, the number of landlines in service has decreased by 43 percent since 2000. On the flipside, the number of cell phones in use has increased by 123 percent.

What do critics say?

As noted by KERN, there is a question of taxpayer and cell phone customer cost. In other states, Sprint contributes to the program. It then has the option of charging its paying customers a fee that funds the program.

What do proponents say?

As noted by 4-Traders, Assurance Wireless has crunched the numbers for the entire nation and purports, “If all 28.5 million adults eligible for Lifeline Assistance were to take advantage of the program and earn at the same rate and level as [the study] sample, it would result in $ 3.7 billion in fresh income for the poor and near poor.”

What happens next?

As noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, the CPUC has already approved the Golden State’s participation in the program. It now needs to work out the details of Assurance Wireless’ promotional programs to advertise the free cell phone service. Program finalization is tentatively set for two weeks from now.

Sylvia Cochran is a Los Angeles area resident with a firm finger on the pulse of California politics. Talk radio junkie, community volunteer and politically independent, she scrutinizes the good and the bad from both sides of the political aisle.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

LA prosecutors seek to violate Lohan's probation

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles prosecutors on Tuesday asked a judge to revoke Lindsay Lohan's probation and schedule a hearing that could lead to the actress' return to jail.

The filing came one day before Lohan is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on three misdemeanor charges filed last month related to a June car crash.

Lohan will not need to be present for Wednesday's arraignment on charges she lied to Santa Monica police, was driving recklessly and obstructed an officer from performing duties related to the crash investigation. She remains on probation for a 2011 necklace theft case and could be sentenced to 245 days in jail if a judge determines her conduct was a probation violation.

Her attorney Shawn Holley did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

City attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan said any probation violation proceedings are likely to be heard after the Santa Monica case. Prosecutors allege Lohan lied about being a passenger in her Porsche when it crashed on Pacific Coast Highway on the way to a film shoot.

The "Liz and Dick" star was released from supervised probation in March after completing several months of court appearances and morgue cleanup duty.

Lohan has yet to be booked on the new charges and a judge on Wednesday will likely set bail and the terms of her release.

Read More..

Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

At William H. Ziegler Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia, students are getting acquainted with vegetables and healthy snacks.

PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”

Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.

Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.

But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”

Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.

Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.

“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”

Read More..