Hagel's Defense nomination OKd by Senate Armed Services Committee

WASHINGTON — After a contentious debate, the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday narrowly approved former Sen. Chuck Hagel to be secretary of Defense, moving the fight over President Obama's controversial Cabinet choice to the full Senate.

Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, won the 26-member panel's endorsement with only Democratic votes. All 11 Republicans present voted against his nomination; one GOP senator was absent.

The full Senate will begin considering Hagel's nomination Wednesday, with a final vote possible by week's end. Several GOP senators have threatened to delay the vote, but the White House appears confident it has enough votes to prevail. Hagel, who would replace Leon E. Panetta, already has scheduled his first foreign trip as secretary for Feb. 20.

The two-hour hearing grew heated after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) complained that Hagel did not report the source of $200,000 in income, saying it may have come "directly from North Korea." Cruz acknowledged that he had "no evidence" to support that charge.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman, countered that Hagel had complied with all the committee's financial disclosure requirements, including for foreign sources of income. He chided Cruz, the panel's most junior Republican, for offering "innuendo" without evidence.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) reacted more strongly, calling Cruz's remarks "out of line."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former close friend of Hagel who has been sharply critical of the nominee's views on Iraq, defended him. Like McCain, Hagel served in combat in the Vietnam War, and he was wounded twice in battle.

"Sen. Hagel is an honorable man. He served his country and no one on this committee should impugn his integrity," McCain said.

The tense exchange brought to the surface concerns of several members that the Armed Services Committee, which traditionally has operated in a more bipartisan fashion than other congressional panels, was losing that spirit.

Other Republican criticism focused on issues that emerged before and during Hagel's Jan. 31 confirmation hearing, including his past statements on Iran and Israel, and concerns that he will oversee a significant reduction in Pentagon spending.

Members also cited Hagel's widely panned performance at his confirmation hearing, at which he appeared tentative and unsure at times. McCain called it the worst of any Defense nominee he'd seen.

Even a supporter, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), said she wished he had appeared "feistier."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Hagel's chief critics, said: "The next secretary of Defense is going to have to deal with a world on fire. I just believe that the testimony of Sen. Hagel was not reassuring."

Several Republicans have vowed to delay or derail a final Senate vote on Hagel.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) has said he would insist that Hagel overcome a filibuster, which would require the support of 60 senators to end debate and move to a final up-or-down vote.

Graham has threatened to hold Hagel's nomination until the White House answers specific questions about Obama's actions on Sept. 11, 2012, when armed militants stormed a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and killed four Americans.

Other Republican senators who say they will vote against Hagel also say that they oppose a filibuster.

The White House believes all 53 Democratic senators and the two independents who caucus with the party will support Hagel's confirmation. Two Republicans — Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Mike Johanns of Nebraska — also have said they would vote yes.

michael.memoli@latimes.com

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Alec Baldwin, wife expecting a baby this summer

NEW YORK (AP) — Alec Baldwin and his wife are expecting their first child together.

Publicist Matthew Hiltzik confirmed Tuesday that Hilaria Baldwin is due late this summer.

Alec Baldwin already is the father of a 17-year-old daughter, Ireland, from his previous marriage to actress Kim Basinger (BAY'-sing-ur). Hilaria Baldwin is a special correspondent for the TV show "Extra." The couple wed last June after a three-month engagement.

Alec Baldwin recently won a SAG Award for best actor in a TV series for the NBC comedy "30 Rock," which concluded its seven-year run two weeks ago.

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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

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Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.

A transcript of this interview can be found here.

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Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

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Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry tries to woo California businesses

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is on a hunting trip in California. And the prey is Golden State businesses — and jobs.

Perry kicked off his in-your-face campaign to woo companies to the Lone Star State this month with radio ads declaring that "building a business in California is next to impossible." Now the governor is on a whirlwind trip through the state courting companies in person.

"You fish where the fish are," Perry said Tuesday during an interview in Beverly Hills, his slow drawl emphasizing each point. "You're at a tipping point in California from the standpoint of high-wealth innovators. Many are looking for somewhere else to go, and we'd like them to consider Texas."

Perry's not the only one who has come knocking.

The Arizona Commerce Authority recently opened offices in California staffed with employees to pitch businesses full-time. Nevada has hired recruiters as well. And Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said last year that he was making calls to California companies looking to move.

Although interstate job poaching is nothing new, many states and cities have gotten downright aggressive about recruiting California businesses ready to bolt with promises of low taxes, loose regulations and a hard stance on organized labor. They're betting that myriad new policies will push more corporations to look for a new home.

California voters in November approved Proposition 30, which hiked income taxes for the state's wealthiest residents and nudged up the sales tax. They also voted yes on closing a corporate tax loophole for out-of-state businesses. And California's cap-and-trade program requires businesses to pay for emitting carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases above a certain threshold.

Gov. Jerry Brown has publicly dismissed both Perry and the idea of firms fleeing California. In a statement, his Office of Business and Economic Development noted that 257,000 private-sector jobs were added last year and that firms such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Amazon.com Inc. were expanding in the state.

"No state has ever poached their way to long-term prosperity," the statement said. "This is something so many governors have done before and with the same ineffective results."

Successful or not, poaching "does seem to have surged in the last few years," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a group that tracks government subsidies. "More public officials want to appear aggressive on the economy."

But are California companies really susceptible to the siren call to flee?

Many economists say companies griping over higher taxes or new regulations is nothing new, but relatively few of California's lost jobs can be blamed on businesses moving out of state.

From 1992 to 2006, for example, only 2% of job losses in the Golden State were because of firm relocations, according to a study from the Public Policy Institute of California. Fewer than 1% of the state's jobs leave annually, and that has remained consistent through times of boom or bust.

"It's a tiny percentage of the economy overall," said Jed Kolko, coauthor of the study. "But when a business does actually move, it does get a lot of attention and the public debate about businesses moving is very visible."

After 15 years of being based in Northern California, trash and recycling firm Waste Connections Inc. moved its headquarters to Texas last year. Chief Executive Ron Mittelstaedt said the board also considered Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. But he said one thing was clear: California's high taxes, pricey real estate and budget shortfalls meant that it was imperative to move.

"The overall cost of living and working in California just became too burdensome relative to other options out there," Mittelstaedt said, pointing to the company's top three rivals, which are headquartered in the low-tax states of Florida, Arizona and Texas.

"We didn't make the decision to save dollars and cents, though," he added. "We did it so over time we could retain and recruit the best level talent at a lower price point. Over time we believe it will save several million [dollars] a year."

Such tales don't surprise Joseph Vranich, a business relocation specialist from Irvine. Vranich scoffs at economists who insist that few companies are exiting California, and points out the extreme difficulty of tracking all businesses that flow in and out of the state. He said the number of local firms seeking his advice for relocation has doubled since November.

"The number of calls is literally unprecedented," Vranich said.

The Greater Phoenix Economic Council has already flown out four CEOs from the Golden State this year who were interested in seeing what the region had to offer for companies.

Implemented after the November elections, the tours are a big departure from the council's normal strategy of pitching businesses on expanding in Arizona rather than leaving California altogether, spokeswoman Melissa DeLaney said

"Prop. 30 was the turning point," she said. "It's kind of changed how we are marketing ourselves to California. We used to go with a softer approach, positioning Arizona as a partner. But if companies are leaving, which they definitely are, we want to show them Arizona has a great value."

As for Perry, the governor makes no apologies for making the big sell to California. On Tuesday, he rattled off a list of companies — Apple Inc. and EBay Inc. among them — that recently announced expansions in Texas.

"I'm not going to apologize when a major business or a small business says, 'We are going to relocate from California to Texas,'" he said. "I didn't hear anyone from the Giants apologizing for winning the World Series. And I don't think the 49ers would have apologized for winning the Super Bowl."

Perry sees it all as healthy competition. And it's a game Californians are welcome to try down south.

"Come to Texas and try to lure companies — you're welcome to do it," he said. "But you better come with a good story."

shan.li@latimes.com

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Dorner could face death penalty as criminal charges filed

As a massive manhunt for Christopher Jordan Dorner continued Monday afternoon, prosecutors with the Riverside County district attorney’s office filed murder and attempted murder charges against the ex-cop suspected of killing three people, including a Riverside police officer.

Dist. Atty. Paul Zellerbach said Dorner has been charged with one count of murder, with special circumstance allegations in the killing of a peace officer and the discharge of a firearm from a vehicle, in the death of Riverside police Officer Michael Crain, 34, a married father who served two tours in Kuwait as a rifleman in the U.S. Marines.

The special circumstances allegation makes Dorner eligible for the death penalty.

The former police officer also faces three additional counts of attempted murder of a peace officer for allegedly shooting and critically injuring Crain's partner and firing at two Los Angeles police officers who were in Corona to provide protection to one of Dorner's alleged targets. One of the LAPD officers was grazed on the head by a bullet.

The surviving officer, whose name has not been released, was "in a lot of pain" and will probably need several surgeries, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz told reporters Monday. It was not yet known if he will be able to return to duty, Diaz said.

Shortly after the press conference, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered all city flags to be flown at half-staff effective Monday afternoon to honor Crain, a spokesman said.

Funeral services for Crain are scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Grove Community Church in Riverside. The flags will remain at half-staff until  after the services.

Meanwhile, the full-court-press search continued, though beyond several false sightings there has been little success so far in the hunt.

Investigators have received at least 700 tips about the fugitive ex-officer, and police are continuing to dangle a $1-million reward in the hope that someone will step forward.

There have been no confirmed sightings of Dorner since the manhunt began last Wednesday, and the last known evidence pointing to his whereabouts was his burning pickup truck discovered Thursday on a forest road in Big Bear, officials said.

Hundreds of investigators are continuing to follow up on potential leads, Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Andy Neiman said at a media briefing in downtown Los Angeles. The tips are being prioritized based on the information they contain.

Neiman also stressed that the ongoing search at Big Bear, although scaled back, remains a "critical piece of the investigation," saying authorities would remain on the mountain "until we've looked in every nook and cranny."

Neiman said he does not know how much the multiagency manhunt has cost thus far but described it as a "substantial cost to the city and taxpayers."

Investigators have also been in contact with Dorner's family, Neiman said, and are hopeful that a huge reward announced Sunday would lead to Dorner's arrest. His mother and sister cooperated with Irvine police on Friday when they searched the La Palma residence believed to be his last known address.

Authorities also continued to keep an eye on border crossings and airfields.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry said they are monitoring all southbound lanes into Mexico, creating hours-long delays during peak crossing times.  Agents were also stationed at all pedestrian crossings into Tijuana, said Angelica De Cima, a customs  spokeswoman.

Mexican authorities have also bolstered security at the ports of entry and notified local, state and federal police to be on the lookout for Dorner, though there's no evidence he has crossed the border.

The Transportation Security Administration is also urging pilots and aircraft operators to be alert and to watch for stolen planes or suspicious passengers. The TSA said Dorner received flight training in the military, but the level of his expertise was unclear.

An Arcadia church school connected to Dorner's LAPD training officer canceled classes Monday as a precaution, officials said, while Big Bear schools reopened after the search there was scaled back.

The shootings attributed to Dorner began Feb. 3 with the deaths of Monica Quan, a Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, a USC public safety officer.The two had recently become engaged and were sitting in a car in Irvine when they were shot numerous times in the head.

Quan was the daughter of a retired LAPD captain whom Dorner apparently accused online of not representing him fairly at a hearing that led to his firing. In what police said was his posting to Facebook, Dorner allegedly threatened the retired captain and others he blamed for his termination.

Members of the USC community have also set up a memorial in front of the public safety department on campus that will stay in place until Lawrence is buried. Those who knew Lawrence recall him as a young law enforcement officer with a bright future.

More that 50 LAPD families remained under police guard Monday.

"Our commitment is to finding Mr. Dorner and making this city safe again," LAPD’s Neiman said.

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'Identity Thief' grabs $34.6M to debut at No. 1

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy's "Identity Thief" has made off with the weekend box-office title with a $34.6 million debut.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Identity Thief," Universal, $34,551,025, 3,141 locations, $11,000 average, $34,551,025, one week.

2. "Warm Bodies," Lionsgate, $11,356,090, 3,009 locations, $3,774 average, $36,481,172, two weeks.

3. "Side Effects," Open Road Films, $9,303,145, 2,605 locations, $3,571 average, $9,303,145, one week.

4. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $6,425,271, 2,809 locations, $2,287 average, $89,519,510, 13 weeks.

5. "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," Paramount, $5,753,165, 3,285 locations, $1,751 average, $43,836,018, three weeks.

6. "Mama," Universal, $4,229,665, 2,677 locations, $1,580 average, $63,951,810, four weeks.

7. "Zero Dark Thirty," Sony, $4,006,860, 2,562 locations, $1,564 average, $83,567,450, eight weeks.

8. "Argo," Warner Bros., $2,375,344, 1,405 locations, $1,691 average, $123,608,957, 18 weeks.

9. "Django Unchained," Weinstein Co., $2,303,495, 1,502 locations, $1,534 average, $154,516,627, seven weeks.

10. "Bullet to the Head," Warner Bros., $2,078,192, 2,404 locations, $864 average, $8,269,214, two weeks.

11. "Top Gun" in 3-D, Paramount, $1,965,737, 300 locations, $6,552 average, $1,965,737, one week.

12. "Lincoln," Disney, $1,873,537, 1,517 locations, $1,235 average, $173,621,006, 14 weeks.

13. "Parker," FilmDistrict, $1,867,411, 2,004 locations, $932 average, $15,848,064, three weeks.

14. "Life of Pi," Fox, $1,745,744, 924 locations, $1,889 average, $108,530,249, 12 weeks.

15. "Les Miserables," Universal, $1,555,550, 1,447 locations, $1,075 average, $143,983,705, seven weeks.

16. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," Warner Bros., $1,468,374, 1,001 locations, $1,467 average, $298,333,426, nine weeks.

17. "Parental Guidance," Fox, $1,071,766, 1,219 locations, $879 average, $74,344,256, seven weeks.

18. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $1,065,817, 757 locations, $1,408 average, $184,414,532, 15 weeks.

19. "The Impossible," Summit, $957,594, 739 locations, $1,296 average, $16,668,338, eight weeks.

20. "Quartet," Weinstein Co., $940,930, 244 locations, $3,856 average, $5,000,417, five weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Health Testing on Mice Is Found Misleading in Some Cases

Evan McGlinn for The New York Times

Dr. H. Shaw Warren is one of the authors of a new study that questions the use of laboratory mice as models for all human diseases.

For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers — sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years and billions of dollars have been wasted following false leads, they say.

The study’s findings do not mean that mice are useless models for all human diseases. But, its authors said, they do raise troubling questions about diseases like the ones in the study that involve the immune system, including cancer and heart disease.

“Our article raises at least the possibility that a parallel situation may be present,” said Dr. H. Shaw Warren, a sepsis researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lead author of the new study.

The paper, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, helps explain why every one of nearly 150 drugs tested at a huge expense in patients with sepsis has failed. The drug tests all were based on studies in mice. And mice, it turns out, can have something that looks like sepsis in humans, but is very different from the condition in humans.

Medical experts not associated with the study said that the findings should change the course of research worldwide for a deadly and frustrating condition. Sepsis, a potentially deadly reaction that occurs as the body tries to fight an infection, afflicts 750,000 patients a year in the United States, kills one-fourth to one-half of them, and costs the nation $17 billion a year. It is the leading cause of death in intensive-care units.

“This is a game changer,” said Dr. Mitchell Fink, a sepsis expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, of the new study.

“It’s amazing,” said Dr. Richard Wenzel, a former chairman at the department of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. “They are absolutely right on.”

Potentially deadly immune responses occur when a person’s immune system overreacts to what it perceives as danger signals, including toxic molecules from bacteria, viruses, fungi, or proteins released from cells damaged by trauma or burns, said Dr. Clifford S. Deutschman, who directs sepsis research at the University of Pennsylvania and was not part of the study.

The ramped-up immune system releases its own proteins in such overwhelming amounts that capillaries begin to leak. The leak becomes excessive, and serum seeps out of the tiny blood vessels. Blood pressure falls, and vital organs do not get enough blood. Despite efforts, doctors and nurses in an intensive-care unit or an emergency room may be unable to keep up with the leaks, stop the infection or halt the tissue damage. Vital organs eventually fail.

The new study, which took 10 years and involved 39 researchers from across the country, began by studying white blood cells from hundreds of patients with severe burns, trauma or sepsis to see what genes were being used by white blood cells when responding to these danger signals.

The researchers found some interesting patterns and accumulated a large, rigorously collected data set that should help move the field forward, said Ronald W. Davis, a genomics expert at Stanford University and a lead author of the new paper. Some patterns seemed to predict who would survive and who would end up in intensive care, clinging to life and, often, dying.

The group had tried to publish its findings in several papers. One objection, Dr. Davis said, was that the researchers had not shown the same gene response had happened in mice.

“They were so used to doing mouse studies that they thought that was how you validate things,” he said. “They are so ingrained in trying to cure mice that they forget we are trying to cure humans.”

“That started us thinking,” he continued. “Is it the same in the mouse or not?”

The group decided to look, expecting to find some similarities. But when the data were analyzed, there were none at all.

“We were kind of blown away,” Dr. Davis said.

The drug failures became clear. For example, often in mice, a gene would be used, while in humans, the comparable gene would be suppressed. A drug that worked in mice by disabling that gene could make the response even more deadly in humans.

Even more surprising, Dr. Warren said, was that different conditions in mice — burns, trauma, sepsis — did not fit the same pattern. Each condition used different groups of genes. In humans, though, similar genes were used in all three conditions. That means, Dr. Warren said, that if researchers can find a drug that works for one of those conditions in people, it might work for all three.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 11, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the position of Dr. Richard Wenzel. He is a former chairman of the department of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is not currently the chairman.

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Phone rate hikes have landline customers ready to cut the cord

Joseph Aguon believes in preparing for the worst. So even though he makes most of his calls using a cellphone, he maintains a landline at his home in the Fairfax neighborhood — just in case an earthquake or storm knocked out wireless service.

But Aguon, 61, is finally ready to cut the cord, not because he's less mindful of potential disasters, but because AT&T keeps jacking up his rates.

I've heard from dozens of AT&T customers in recent weeks about big jumps in their bills for basic landlines and measured phone service, which provides customers with a fixed number of local calls each month.

Welcome to the exciting world of deregulation, where state officials allow phone companies to do as they please in hopes of encouraging a more competitive marketplace.

In Aguon's case, he paid about $20 for his landline in 2011. Last year, the cost rose 15% to $23. Now he's learned his monthly bill has climbed an additional 26% to $29.

That's a 45% rate hike in just two years. And did Aguon's service improve appreciably during that time?

"Not at all," he told me. "It's a landline. You call people. People call you. It's a landline."

Like Aguon, Peter Nardi, 65, maintains a landline at his Los Feliz home just to be on the safe side. His measured service plan cost $12 a month in 2011. It now runs $18.

"That's a 50% increase," Nardi said. "So I called AT&T to complain."

What did the company say?

"They apologized but said there was nothing they could do."

In fact, AT&T can do whatever it wants.

Since 2011, the California Public Utilities Commission has allowed phone companies to raise — or lower — basic phone rates whenever they choose, rather than seek approval from regulators. Since then, costs have steadily gone up.

Jarryd Gonzales, a Verizon spokesman, said the company raised its monthly rate $1.90 for basic phone service to $20.91 in 2010. He said the rate will climb again, to $22, next month.

"They're doing it because they can do it," said Bill Nusbaum, managing attorney for the Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco advocacy group. "The PUC has turned its back on the market."

That's not how AT&T would characterize things. Lane Kasselman, a company spokesman, defended the latest price hikes by saying they "reflect changes in the marketplace."

He said there's more competition for new wireless services such as phones you can plug into any outlet and access your home number. "Prices are going down for the products that people are moving to," Kasselman said.

Perhaps. But that doesn't justify higher prices for the products that people have had for decades. A 50% rate hike in just two years?

"That's not the right way to look at it," Kasselman replied. "You have to look at it from 1994. Our rates were frozen for 14 years."

Um, no. AT&T's and Verizon's rates were regulated for 14 years, meaning that state officials had to approve any price increases. If phone companies could make a reasonable case for why they needed to increase prices, they could do it.

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Ambitious makeover planned for old housing project

Denise Penegar puts a little extra effort into the teenage girls, the ones who've dropped out of high school to care for their firstborns.

Don't be afraid, the outreach worker tells them. Come down to the housing project's community center, get your GED and some job skills. Change your life.

"I was one of those girls," said Penegar, now 51 and still living in Jordan Downs, the Watts housing project where she was born.

Sometimes, she imagines how different her life might have been if someone had knocked on her door when she was 17, caring for her first baby. What would it have meant just to have "someone who is here who can help pick me up"?

Penegar is on the front lines of a bold social experiment underway at Jordan Downs, a project notorious to outsiders for its poverty, blight and violence but seen by many longtime residents, for all its problems, as a close-knit community worth preserving.

In the last year, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles has begun an effort to transform Jordan that could cost more than $600 million. The plan is to turn the complex of 700 aging units into a mixed-income community of up to 1,400 apartments and condominiums, with shops and restaurants and fancy touches such as native plant gardens. The city hopes to draw in hundreds of more-affluent residents willing to pay market rate to live side by side with the city's poorest.

Spurred by changes in federal funding and policy, such "mixed use" developments have sprung up in place of infamous housing projects all over the country. But experts say Jordan is taking an approach that has not been tried on this scale.

Typically, public housing residents are moved out ahead of the bulldozers, scattered to search for new shelter. In Los Angeles, the housing authority has promised that any of the 2,300 Jordan residents "in good standing" can stay in their old units until the day they move into new ones. The project is to be built in phases, beginning with units on 21 acres of adjacent land purchased by the authority in 2008 for $31 million.

To ease the transition, the city has dispatched "community coaches" like Penegar, along with teachers, social workers, therapists — even police officers whose charge is not to make arrests but to coach youth football and triathlon teams.

In essence, officials intend to raze the buildings, not the community — and radically change its character.

It will be an enormous challenge, with success likely to be measured in tiny increments.

Only 47% of adults at Jordan reported any wages to the housing authority last year. As in many urban projects, poverty and social ills have multiplied through the generations, leaving some residents unfamiliar with opportunities and expectations beyond the neighborhood. Some rarely leave the area.

Before inviting in new neighbors with expectations of safety and comfort, the housing authority has begun flooding Jordan Downs with social services. Many of the programs are focused on women, because more than 60% of Jordan Downs' tenants live in households headed by single mothers. But men are targeted too — for job training and lessons in parenting, for instance.

By December, 10 months into the effort, more than 450 families had been surveyed by intake workers and 280 signed up for intensive services.

"Most people would say it's ambitious, but I think it's essential," said Kathryn Icenhower, executive director of Shields for Families, the South Los Angeles nonprofit that is running many of the new programs under a more than $1-million annual contract with the housing authority.

It is unknown, however, how effective the social services will be, how easy it will be to draw in wealthier residents and how many millions of dollars the federal government — a major source of funding — will provide.

Already, the housing authority has picked a development team — the for-profit Michaels Organization and the nonprofit Bridge Housing, both with respectable track records in other cities. But with financing still uncertain, it is unclear exactly how many units will be built or how much various occupants would pay.

Ultimately, a working family could pay hundreds of dollars more in rent than unemployed tenants next door for a nearly identical unit. Officials say they do not expect Watts to draw the same kind of high-income residents as the former Cabrini Green project in Chicago, which sat on prime real estate near downtown. But Jordan is in a convenient location, near the intersection of the 105 and 110 Freeways; and in a high-rent city like Los Angeles, even the steepest rates at Jordan are likely to seem a bargain.

Despite the onslaught of social services and some palpable changes — including a 53% plunge in the violent crime rate at Jordan last year — financial risks abound.

Later this spring, the authority plans to put in an application for $30 million from the federal government's Choice Neighborhoods Program as seed money. Without it, the project could be delayed.

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Taylor Swift opens Grammy Awards as Mad Hatter

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A guy riding a tricycle with a flame-thrower attached and a company of mime clowns helped Taylor Swift open the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

Swift dressed as the Mad Hatter in white top hat, tails, shorts and tall boots during the surreal version of her hummable hit "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."

The singer pretended to talk to the offending boyfriend on the phone: "I'm busy opening the Grammys and we're never getting back together."

It was the first of a number of blockbuster performances expected during the live telecast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Her performance was quickly followed by Ed Sheeran and Elton John teaming up to sing Sheeran's nominated hit "The A Team."

The Black Keys singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach took the early lead during the pre-telecast show, picking up three trophies and assisting with a fourth. Auerbach won producer of the year alone and best rock song for "Lonely Boy" and rock album for "El Camino" with his bandmate Patrick Carney, joining electronic dance music innovator Skrillex atop the early leaderboard. He was also producer for another winner, Dr. John.

A slew of artists sit one back going into the main awards show at the Staples Center, including Kanye West and Jay-Z, Gotye, former best new artist winner Esperanza Spalding, jazz man Chick Corea and Christian singer-songwriter Matt Redman.

Most of the attention has been on Frank Ocean going into the awards, but his fellow lead nominees got an early lead on the R&B singer during the pre-telecast show.

West and Jay-Z won best rap song and best rap performance for the song "... in Paris" from their "Watch the Throne" collaboration and lost a third for short form video for "No Church in The Wild," which featured Ocean. Ocean will be up for five awards later in the evening.

Other early winners included Rihanna, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Mumford & Sons, one of six top nominees with six nods apiece. Ocean is up for the major awards best new artist, album of the year and record of the year.

The Grammy pre-telecast awards show at the Nokia Theatre had 70 trophies up for grabs, including rock, pop, rap and country categories.

Skrillex won best dance recording for "Bangarang," featuring Sirah, best dance/electronica album for "Bangarang" and best remixed recording.

"Let's keep making music," he said. "... We're a big family. We're a big community. We support music and forward-thinking ideas here."

Gotye won best alternative album for "Making Mirrors" and best pop/duo performance for "Somebody That I Used To Know," featuring Kimbra.

Spalding had one of the most touching moments of the pre-telecast awards show, taking the stage with her longtime jazz teacher Thara Memory for their win in the best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocalist category. She also won for best jazz vocal album for her "Radio Music Society."

Corea, who competed against himself in two categories, won best improvised jazz solo for "Hot House" with Gary Burton and best instrumental composition for "Mozart Goes Dancing."

And Redman won best gospel/contemporary Christian music performance and best contemporary Christian music song (in a tie) for "10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)."

Other early winners included Rihanna, who won short form music video for "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris, and Swift won the Grammy for best song written for visual media for "Safe & Sound," her collaboration with The Civil Wars on "The Hunger Games" soundtrack. It was Swift's seventh Grammy and the third for Joy Williams and John Paul White of The Civil Wars.

"I think it's appropriate that Taylor thanks us because we've been carrying her for a while and it's getting really tiring," White joked.

Beyonce won for best traditional R&B performance, Mumford & Sons took their first Grammy, winning along with Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for their long form video documentary "Big Easy Express."

Celebrities rolled down the red carpet in the early afternoon, showing a fair amount of skin despite CBS's mandate that stars dress appropriately with butts, breasts and other sensitive areas covered adequately.

"I think it's just, you know, we should always stay classy and dress according to the event that's being held," Ashanti said on the red carpet. "So I don't think people should be limited so much and told what you can and cannot do. But, you know, you do have to have a certain class and prestige about yourself."

Celebrities also felt an increased Los Angeles Police Department presence in light of a manhunt involving an alleged cop killer. Police were everywhere, including atop the hotel across from the Staples Center.

Ocean might be riding a wave toward some of the night's biggest honors. He is still up for five awards going into the night along with fellow top nominee fun.

"It feels cool," Ocean said on the red carpet. "It's really bright, a lot of beautiful ladies walking around being fancy. I have to perform tonight so the wheels are constantly spinning. You can't really just sit in your seat and take it all in."

All the night's major awards are still to come. Jack White's "Blunderbuss" competes with fun.'s "Some Nights," Ocean's "channel ORANGE," Mumford's "Babel" and The Keys' "El Camino" for the night's top award, album of the year.

Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know," featuring Kimbra, Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" join the fun., Ocean and Black Keys entries in record of the year.

Fun. and Clarkson also are nominated for song of the year along with Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Miguel's "Adorn."

And rounding out the major categories, fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes, Hunter Hayes and The Lumineers are up for best new artist.

Fun. and Ocean will take the stage. Others scheduled to perform include Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Clarkson, White and Juanes.

There will be no shortage of mashups the Grammys have become famous for, either. Elton John, Mavis Staples, Mumford, Brittany Howard, T Bone Burnett and Zac Brown are saluting the late Levon Helm, who won the Americana Grammy last year a few months before his death. The Keys will join Dr. John and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on stage. Sting, Rihanna and Bruno Mars will perform together. Other team-ups include Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley, and Alicia Keys and Maroon 5.

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AP writers Nekesa Mumbi Moody and Beth Harris in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Online:

http://grammy.com

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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