New whooping cough strain in US raises questions

NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.

Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.

"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.

An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.

The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.

In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.

The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.

In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.

"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.

The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.

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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org

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Glendale, district settle ACLU suit over campus raid

The ACLU of Southern California announced Wednesday that it had reached settlements with the city of Glendale and the Glendale Unified School District on behalf of eight Latino students who alleged that officials engaged in racial profiling and illegal searches during a 2010 incident at Hoover High School.

On Sept. 24, 2010, more than 50 Latino students were allegedly detained by Glendale and Los Angeles police officers who questioned them about possible gang affiliations. The students were also allegedly forced to pose for mock police mug shots.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in 2011, the ACLU alleged that officials targeted Latino students because of their race and that there was no evidence students were violating laws at the time they were questioned.

According to the settlement agreements, the city agreed to pay $50,000 to the ACLU of Southern California Client Trust Fund, and Glendale Unified and its defendants agreed to pay $50,000 to the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

Claims against the Los Angeles County Probation Department and the Los Angeles Police Department are still pending "for their involvement in planning and executing the roundup," according to the ACLU.

"Unlike most cities, police departments or school districts, Glendale did not try to sweep this under the rug," said Bert Voorhees, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs with the ACLU.

David Sapp — an attorney for the ACLU of Southern California — also commended the school district and city of Glendale for "using this incident as an opportunity to review their current practices and adopt new policies that will ensure that students' rights are protected on campus."

Under the agreement, Glendale Unified and the city's Police Department revised their policies regarding future police activities on school grounds.

The school board in November approved district-wide policy changes that require school officials to notify the parents of students who are questioned on campus by police.

The Glendale Police Department has updated training for officers, department spokesman Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

"The no-racial-profiling policy has always been in effect," Lorenz said in an email. "We have taken steps so as to not have these types of 'allegations' occur in the future."

Glendale Unified and police officials also agreed to verify that information collected during the interrogations has been destroyed.

For her part, Ashley Flores — who was 16 years old and an A student when she was rounded up with other students for the detainment — said in a statement Wednesday that she was "happy that what happened to us won't happen to anyone else."

"I've never been in trouble and it was confusing, terrifying and humiliating," she added.

kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

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Tsunami Fear After Quake Off Solomons

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Residents of islands from the South Pacific to Australia were alerted to the possibility of a damaging tsunami on Wednesday after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake off the Solomon Islands, according to scientists and news reports from the area, but the warnings were called off a few hours later.

Edmal Palmer, the chief reporter of the Solomon Star newspaper in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, said in a telephone interview that reports from Lata, the capital of the Temotu province, were sketchy but indicated that the wave apparently had struck three villages.

“We have heard that a wave 103 centimeters high” — nearly three and a half feet — “has hit Lata, swamping the town, and five people are still missing at the moment,” Mr. Palmer said.

Lata, where the quake struck, is in Temotu Province, where the population is around 30,000. It is a three-hour flight from the Solomons’ capital, Honiara, which was not damaged by the earthquake or tsunami.

Mr. Palmer said Honiara residents were not concerned by the tsunami: “Most of us are getting ready for tonight’s UB40 concert.”

“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on its Web site. The earthquake struck around 11 a.m. local time in the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the Solomon chain. There were conflicting reports as to the depth of the quake.

The center said the tsunami warning was limited to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna.

A lesser alert, a tsunami watch, was declared for American Samoa, Australia, Guam, the Northern Marianas, New Zealand and eastern Indonesia.

The earthquake was not only powerful but also “shallow,” giving it significant potential to do damage, said Barry Hirshorn, a geophysicist with the National Weather Service in Hawaii. Moreover, it was a thrust earthquake, he said, meaning that the sea floor moved up or down, not sideways, contributing to the potential for a dangerous tsunami.

But after the earthquake, as scientists watched to see how far a tsunami might spread, there were few early indications of a major threat beyond the immediate area, Mr. Hirshorn said. A water rise of about three feet had been observed close to the quake, he said, still high enough to be potentially damaging but probably not big enough to threaten distant shores.

In New Zealand, thousands of people were at the beach, swimming in the sea on a glorious summer afternoon on Waitangi Day, a national holiday — quite oblivious to the potential for a tsunami. Tsunami sirens were set off late in the afternoon there, and people in coastal areas were being told to stay off beaches and out of the sea, rivers and estuaries.

The New Zealand Herald reported Wednesday afternoon on its Web site that tsunami sirens in Suva, the capital of Fiji, had been warning people to stay inside or go to higher ground.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site Wednesday that the Solomon Islands’ National Disaster Management Office had advised those living in low-lying areas, especially on Makira and Malaita, to move to higher ground.

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Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Is No Reason to Speed Divorce, says Kris Humphries

By Mike Fleeman

02/05/2013 at 09:20 PM EST

Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian

Seth Browarnik/StarTraks

Kim Kardashian's baby is not even born yet and already is being drawn into mama's divorce.

Kardashian, carrying boyfriend Kanye West's child, has bristled at what she sees as stall tactics by estranged husband Kris Humphries to close the legal books on their 72-day marriage.

But Humphries's lawyer Marshall W. Waller writes that "what is really going on here is that an 'urgency' in the form of an apparently unplanned pregnancy" is being used by Kardashian as "an opportunity to gain a litigation advantage (to) prematurely set this matter for trial."

He adds parenthetically that the pregnancy is "something (Humphries) had nothing to do with."

Waller explains his reasoning for calling the pregnancy as unplanned: "Indeed, why would (she) plan to get pregnant in the midst of divorce proceedings?"

Kardashian, herself, recently addressed the timing.

"God brings you things at a time when you least expect it," she said last month. "I'm such a planner and this was just meant to be. What am I going to? Wait years to get a divorce? I'd love one. It's a process."

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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L.A. airports panel approves moving runway closer to homes

Despite a fresh round of objections from neighborhood groups, airport commissioners Tuesday endorsed a controversial plan to push Los Angeles International Airport's northern runway closer to nearby homes for safety and efficiency reasons.

The action is part of a larger modernization effort designed to keep one of the nation's busiest aviation centers — and an economic engine for the region — competitive in an era of larger jetliners and airport upgrades in major cities, such as San Francisco.

"This is a reasonable and fair compromise," said Michael Lawson, president of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, who cited a need to improve runway safety. "I don't want to be on a commission that made the wrong decision."

Airport commissioners voted 6 to 1 to approve the final environmental impact statement and conceptual plans for the latest round of proposed improvements to the nation's third busiest airport, including the runway separation project.

Commissioner Valeria Velasco, who lives in Playa del Rey a few houses away from LAX, voted against the plan because of the runway proposal, noting that she otherwise supports the airport's modernization.

On the list of proposals are terminal additions, upgrades to existing passenger facilities and a transportation center, as well as new parking areas and a consolidated car rental facility in nearby Manchester Square. Also planned are links to a light rail station at Aviation and Century boulevards and a people mover around the terminal area.

Individual board approvals are still needed for all the projects, the total cost of which is estimated at $4.76 billion. Though officials want to finish construction by 2025, it is unclear if or when all the proposals would be built.

The most controversial project is the 260-foot separation of the two northern runways to make room for a taxiway between them. Commissioners selected it as the preferred alternative out of nine options that have been under evaluation.

Proponents say the runway plan would increase safety and make it easier for the airport to manage the largest commercial jets, such as the giant Airbus A380, which now requires special handling when it arrives at LAX. They say that six earlier safety studies backed the plan, and that runway separations have generally been supported by pilots and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Because the proposal is confined to LAX property, airport officials say that no homes or businesses will be condemned and that measures will be taken to reduce environmental effects.

"I am very glad that we have gotten through a major milestone, but we have many milestones to go," said Gina Marie Lindsey, the executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, the operator of LAX.

Velasco and opponents in communities surrounding the airport contend that the project will increase noise, air pollution and traffic congestion in adjacent neighborhoods, further degrading their quality of life.

They assert that less harmful options are available and that the project would not substantially improve airport operations. Critics cite the latest safety study from NASA-Ames, which concluded that the northern runway complex is already extremely safe and that little would be gained from the $750-million separation.

The opponents also note that aviation industry demand for the wide-winged A380 is shrinking. And they say the airport's own environmental analysis concluded that the proposal would not improve efficiency as much as an alternative to upgrade just the northern taxiways.

Denny Schneider, director of the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, said his organization would consider challenging the board's decision in court.

"I'm disappointed that misinformation trumps the facts," Schneider said. "I guess we will have to continue the fight to gain sanity in what we spend in this city and to protect the region from the problems that could arise when they try to implement this unworkable plan."

dan.weikel@latimes.com

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Gas Buildup and Spark Blamed in Pemex Blast

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s attorney general said Monday that a buildup of gas ignited by a spark from a faulty electrical system had caused the explosion at the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, which killed at least 37 people last week.

Jesús Murillo Karam, the attorney general, said a team of investigators from Mexico, Spain, the United States and Britain had found no evidence of explosives. He noted that there were no burn marks like those usually produced by explosives, nor were there signs of a crater, nor did investigators find any bomb-making materials in the office building where the blast occurred Thursday, just behind the company’s Pemex tower.

“We found no residue of any kind of explosive device,” Mr. Murillo said. He added that it had been a “diffuse” explosion, causing damage consistent with an accumulation of gas. The pressure pushed several floors of the building up, he said, and then they fell, collapsing on dozens of workers, including two more found dead this weekend buried in the rubble.

His explanation, delivered at a news conference late Monday, brought to a close several days of speculation. The government had been heavily criticized for not sharing enough information about the cause even as experts warned that investigations of this kind often take several days to figure out.

There are still some unanswered questions. Mr. Murillo said officials had yet to discover the source of the gas, which had built up in the basement of the building. Investigators believe it was methane that leaked from several ducts and tunnels underneath or connected to the building, he said. Why they leaked, who failed to notice (Pemex is responsible for inspecting its own buildings) and what exactly caused the gas to explode have not been clearly determined.

Mr. Murillo said that while there appeared to be no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, criminal charges were still a possibility.

When the blast occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the 52-story tower, about 4 p.m. Thursday, windows shattered, the ground shook and thousands of panicked employees fled.

At the time, company officials said there was significant damage to the first floor and mezzanine of the building, and witnesses said they saw rescue workers helping trapped employees who had been pinned under falling debris, while others dragged out the injured and the dead.

The future of Pemex is a subject of debate. The national institution has been plagued by declining production, theft and an abysmal safety record that includes a major pipeline explosion almost every year. A pipeline blast in September killed 30 workers.

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Jillian Michaels: My Son Phoenix Is 'Fiery' Like Me

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/04/2013 at 03:00 PM ET

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Jillian Michaels‘ son Phoenix is already taking after his mama — just not the right one!

Although The Biggest Loser trainer expected her baby boy to inherit her partner’s laidback approach to life — Heidi Rhoades delivered their son in May — the 8-month-old’s budding personality is the polar opposite.

“He wants to walk and he gets really pissed about it when he can’t. He gets frustrated,” Michaels, 38, told PEOPLE at the recent TCAs.

“He’s a fiery little sucker, he’s just like me. I’m like, ‘You were supposed to be like Heidi!’ But he’s not. It’s not good, not good.”

Admitting she is “terrified for when he’s a teenager,” Michaels has good reason to be: Recently she spotted her son — who is “crawling aggressively” — putting his electrician skills to the test in the family room.

“He’s into everything, which is kind of a nightmare to be totally honest,” she says. “We have an outlet in the floor in the living room and I caught him eating the outlet on the floor … I was like, ‘Mother of God!’”

Phoenix’s big sister Lukensia, 3, has also been busy keeping her mamas on their toes. “Lu just had her first ski trip and she had a little crush on her teacher, Ollie,” Michaels shares.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re letting our baby go!’ The second day we took her she ran right to him — loves Ollie.”

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Accused ex-priest remained in L.A. Unified despite red flags

An ex-priest accused of molestation remained employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District for more than a decade despite several warning flags about his background, according to interviews and records.

Joseph Pina admitted in internal church documents to a sexual relationship with a minor and to repeated "boundary issues" with women throughout his career in the clergy. An internal 1993 psychological evaluation by the L.A. Archdiocese concluded that Pina "remains a serious risk for acting out."

Nine years later, L.A. Unified hired him as a community outreach coordinator for its $19.5-billion school-construction effort. In that position, Pina came in frequent contact with families at community events but did not work directly with children in schools.

No allegations of impropriety have emerged during Pina's employment with L.A. Unified. But L.A. schools chief John Deasy said the district has severed ties with Pina, adding that the district should have never hired him given his background.

A church spokesman said Monday that it did warn the school district in the form of a questionnaire that L.A. Unified sent to the archdiocese in August 2001.

"In response to the question: 'Should the Los Angeles Unified School District consider anything else regarding this candidate's employment suitability?', the archdiocese checked the box 'yes,' adding that we would 'not recommend him for a position in the schools,' " Tod Tamberg, director of media relations, said in a statement.

"In response to the next question on the form, 'Would you hire this person again?' the archdiocese checked the box 'no,' " Tamberg said.

"There is no indication in our files of any follow-up from LAUSD once the form was returned to the LAUSD," he said in the statement.

Deasy said the district was researching any past contact with the archdiocese as part of a larger investigation into how Pina was hired.

The district could find no record of the questionnaire, Deasy said. At that time, the facilities division handled its own hiring, to insulate the building program from potential political influence over billions of dollars in contracts.

The church waited years to report Pina's alleged sexual misconduct to police. And Deasy questioned why the church wouldn't do more to warn school officials about molestation allegations.

"Why wouldn't someone pick up the phone and notify us if there was something as egregious as is now being alleged?" he said.

But there were other red flags that were not acted on.

The allegations against Pina were included in two front-page Times stories about the priest scandal in 2002 and 2006.

A district internal review has determined that a staffer noticed Pina's name in published accounts, Deasy said. The employee passed the information to senior officials in the facilities division, Deasy said.

The employee recalled that officials decided to take no action because Pina had not been convicted of a crime, according to Deasy.

In 2002, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigated alleged abuse of a girl by Pina that occurred between 1977 and 1980, starting when she was 14. The case was eventually dropped because the crime predated the year established by law for pursuing older priest-abuse cases. The alleged victim "provides a detailed and graphic account of events," Sgt. Dan Scott, of the special victims unit, said as he read through the file.

Pina refused to talk to investigators. Scott said the file does not note whether investigators contacted the school district about their findings.

Pina could not be reached for comment Monday by The Times.

Church records released last week recount how Pina was attracted to a victim, an eighth-grade girl, when he saw her in a Snow White costume.

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