Creating the illusion of snow becomes big business for MagicSnow

On a recent Sunday morning in Los Angeles, Adam Williams and his crew set up their blowers outside a house in Hancock Park and blanketed the yard in 20 tons of snow.

Using 15-pound blocks of crushed ice, it took Williams and his crew about 2 1/2 hours to cover the front lawn and build half a dozen snowmen in a commercial for the cable channel FearNet. In the ad, a little girl cheerfully entombs someone who appears to be her father inside one of the snowmen.

To create the effect, producers of the commercial turned to MagicSnow Systems, a 10-year-old Los Angeles company. MagicSnow is best known for its twice daily snow show at the Grove shopping center that runs through New Year's Eve, but the rest of the time it specializes in manufacturing snow effects for commercial shoots, music videos, concerts and shows at malls, Hollywood premieres, and even cruise ships.

PHOTOS: Hollywood backlot moments

"When I first moved out here, I missed a lot of things about the holidays, including the snow," said Williams, founder and president of MagicSnow. "What we're doing is filling the void by providing the experience of snow in a warm-weather climate. It's not a hard concept to sell."

Williams, raised in a small town outside of Cleveland, moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as a magician, performing at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. During a lull in work, he began to think of ways he could expand his act by creating the illusion of something that was a novelty in Los Angeles — snow.

"I never set out to start a special effects business,'' said Williams, 35. "My goal was to become a world-famous magician. I realized when I moved out here that that wasn't a realistic goal for me, but that didn't mean I had to give up my dream of creating illusions. I still feel like I'm a magician."

Williams initially used confetti to create the snow illusion, but that proved too messy to clean up. The type of simulated "snow" used in the film industry collects on the ground. Williams needed a snow-like substance that could be used in crowds, would vanish quickly and not leave a residue.

He and a chemist friend spent weeks experimenting with various ingredients in his kitchen, shooting samples into his yard from his back porch to test the mixture. Eventually, he developed his proprietary formula made of water and a foam substance. MagicSnow also makes real snow, which was used in the FearNet ad.

Williams launched his company in 2002 and got his first big break when he pitched his idea of putting on a Christmas magic show with falling snow to Rick Caruso, developer of the newly opened Grove in the Fairfax district.

GRAPHIC: Faces to watch in 2013

"Rick said he was more interested in the snow than the magic," said Williams. "He said, 'I'd love to have you come in and create this snowfall illusion,' so I jumped at the opportunity."

The fake snow, blown from rooftops and choreographed to Christmas music and the Grove's nightly fountain show, was a hit with shoppers, prompting Caruso to add MagicSnow shows to his other shopping mall, the Americana at Brand in Glendale.

"Adam and his team have the exceptional ability to transform spaces with their customized snowfall experiences, making our nightly holiday snow shows magical," said Paul Kurzawa, chief operating officer of Caruso Affiliated. With the exposure from the Grove, Williams' company expanded rapidly, installing snow-making systems in 55 shopping centers across the country operated by General Growth Properties. MagicSnow also made snow for the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in New York and for numerous live television shows, concerts and movie premieres, including the 2003 premiere of "Elf" at the Grove.

More recently he has expanded into the television business, doing commercials for Land Rover and FearNet.

"It just snowballed," Williams said.

MagicSnow, which also sells and installs snow-making equipment, will generate about $3 million a year in revenue in 2012, up about 25% over the prior year, he said.

His company has gone global, installing snow-making systems for clients in Indonesia, Germany, Brazil and Mexico, where his equipment is used at a shopping center in the Polanco area of Mexico City — a deal that started after the son of the shopping center developer saw the snow show at the Grove and told his father about it.

MagicSnow's corporate clients include Princess Cruises and toy maker Mattel Inc., which recently recruited Williams and his team to create a winter wonderland theme for underprivileged children at the company's El Segundo headquarters.

Using more than 375 tons of snow supplied by MagicSnow, the volunteers and children built nearly 1,300 snowmen in an hour.

An adjudicator from Guinness World Records chronicled the work but disqualified about 20 snowmen. The reason: Their arms fell off, they didn't have a carrot nose or they were simply too short, Williams said.

"Unfortunately, we fell just short of a world record," he said.

richard.verrier@latimes.com

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Anxious New Yorkers grapple with second subway death in a month

NEW YORK — As police continued searching Friday for a woman who witnesses say sent a man to his death by pushing him into an oncoming subway train in Queens, anxious New Yorkers spoke with a mix of shock, horror and nonchalance as they grappled with the second such death in a month along the city's massive transit system.

Police identified the victim in Thursday night's incident as Sunando Sen, a 46-year-old Queens resident and native of India who worked at a printing business.

Police said the woman — described as a heavyset Latina and approximately 5 feet 5 — fled after the pushing. Surveillance video recorded shortly after the incident shows a heavyset woman running through an intersection near the station platform. A $12,000 reward is being offered and police have released a sketch of the suspect.

At the above-ground station where the main died, in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, police officers were stationed inside the entrance, while some riders said they kept closer to the walls than usual as trains rolled into the station early Friday afternoon.

Maria Roquete, 55, promptly took a seat on a wooden bench as she waited for her train.

"Even if this station is empty, I have to sit down," said Roquete, who moved to New York from Brazil 13 years ago. "I'm scared."

Other commuters questioned whether enough was being done to ensure safety on the subway. One rider suggested police should have more cameras or officers on the platforms.

Thursday's death occurred just after 8 p.m., when a woman, who witnesses said appeared to be mumbling to herself, suddenly pushed a man from behind as he waited for the No. 7 elevated train to arrive at the station, police said.

"Witnesses said she was walking back and forth on the platform, talking to herself, before taking a seat alone on a wooden bench near the north end of the platform," Paul J. Browne, the NYPD's deputy commissioner, said in a statement. "When the train pulled into the station, the suspect rose from the bench and pushed the man, who was standing with his back to her, onto the tracks into the path of the train. The victim appeared not to notice her, according to witnesses."

For some, Thursday's death on the tracks served to underscore such urban dangers, especially with a transit system that carries 5.3 million riders daily.

On Dec. 3, Ki-Suck Han was crushed by an oncoming train at a subway station in Midtown Manhattan. Han, 58, had been on his way to the South Korean Consulate to renew his passport when, witnesses said, he began arguing with a man who had been harassing people on the platform.

The man, later identified as 30-year-old Naeem Davis, is accused of pushing Han onto the tracks. Han's final moments were captured by a nearby photographer, whose picture ran on the front page of the New York Post. Publication of the photo launched a media controversy over whether the photographer should have tried to help. Davis, who is homeless, has been charged with murder,

Despite the nearly back-to-back subway deaths, Pete Martinez recalled how he used to "subway surf" on top of cars while growing up in the Bronx. He shrugged off Thursday's homicide as "everyday life in the city."

Martinez, 51, said he even witnessed a woman die on subway tracks two years ago. "Every time you leave home you're taking a chance," he said, leaning against a stairway railing as he waited for an uptown train at New York's Penn Station in Manhattan.

Others' nerves were more frayed.

"It's horrible," Elena Rodriguez, a 46-year-old accountant, said as she waited for a downtown express train on the Upper West Side. "We're feeling so insecure now to be in the subway."

Rodriguez said that one of her clients, a yoga instructor, took a cab to work Friday because of Thursday's death. And the fact that a similar death happened less than four weeks ago is making her question whether she wants to stay in New York.

"Now with this, I'm thinking twice," the Upper East Side resident said. "Do I want to risk my life living in New York? No."

Although the two December deaths have left some riders frightened, such pushing incidents are considered rare in the 24-hour subway system.

In separate incidents earlier this year, two people were pushed onto tracks, and both survived. In a third incident, a man died after falling onto tracks during a fight with another commuter. The man was struck by a train and killed.

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Makers of $99 Android-Powered Game Console Ship First 1,200 ‘Ouyas’

Like Nintendo’s Wii U game console, the Ouya (that’s “OOH-yuh”) has an unusual name and even more unusual hardware. The console is roughly the size of a Rubik’s cube, and is powered by Android, Google‘s open-source operating system that’s normally found on smartphones and tablets.

Ouya’s makers, who are preparing the console for its commercial launch, encourage interested gamers to pop the case open and use it in electronics projects … or even to write their own games for it. Especially if they’re among the 1,200 who are about to receive their own clear plastic Ouya developer consoles.

Not exactly a finished product

The limited-edition consoles, which have been shipped out to developers already, are not designed for playing games on. They don’t even come with any.

Rather, the point of these consoles is so that interested Android developers can write games for the Ouya, which will then be released to gamers when the console launches to the public. Fans who pledged at least $ 1,337 to Ouya’s record-breaking Kickstarter project will get one, and while they’re not quite suited for playing games on — “we know the D-pad and triggers on the controller still need work,” Ouya’s makers say — the clear plastic developer consoles serve as a preview of what the finished product will look like, and a reminder of Ouya’s “openness.”

You keep using that word …

In the food and drug industries, terms like “organic” and “all-natural” are regulated so that only products which meet the criteria can have them on their labels. In the tech world, however, anyone can claim that their product is “open,” for whatever definition of “open” they like.

The term was popularized by the world’s rapid adoption of open-source software, like Android itself, where you’re legally entitled to a copy of the programming code and can normally use it in your own projects (like Ouya’s makers did). But when tech companies say that something is “open,” they don’t necessarily mean that the code or the hardware schematics use an open-source license.

How Ouya is “open”

Ouya’s makers have released their ODK, or developer kit, under the same open-source license as Android itself. This allows aspiring game developers to practice their skills even without a developer console, and to improve the kit however they want. The hardware itself is currently a “closed” design, however, despite the clear plastic case. The makers have expressed enthusiasm for the idea of hardware hackers using it in projects, and have said, “We’ll even publish the hardware design if people want it,” but so far they haven’t done so.

What about the games?

The most relevant aspect of “openness” to normal gamers is that Ouya’s makers say “any developer can publish a game.” This model is unusual for the console world, where only select studios are allowed to publish their wares on (for instance) the PlayStation Network, but is more familiar to fans of the anything-goes Google Play store for Android. Several big-name Android developers — including console game titan Square-Enix — have already signed up to have their wares on the Ouya.

Preordered Ouya game consoles (the normal ones, not the developer edition) will ship in April. They will cost $ 99 once sales are opened to the general public.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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Individual mandate in healthcare was year's top consumer story

This was the year of the healthcare mandate. No other consumer story of 2012 comes close.

In a split decision, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. casting the deciding vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the cornerstone of President Obama's healthcare reform law, the most sweeping overhaul of our dysfunctional medical system in decades.

The so-called individual mandate requires that most people have health insurance. It's the trade-off for the insurance industry's agreement to stop denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions and to stop charging higher rates if you get sick.

It's also the trade-off for insurers to remove limits on how much treatment they'll cover annually or over your lifetime.

"It's a huge deal," said Lee Goldberg, vice president of health policy for the National Academy of Social Insurance, a Washington think tank. "Without the mandate, you're much more likely to have spiraling healthcare costs and an unsustainable market for coverage."

Critics of the mandate, and there are plenty of them, say it represents a government takeover of healthcare, a socializing of medicine. The government, they say, can't make you buy something you don't want.

But that's not how the mandate works. No one's forcing you to buy insurance. No one's forcing you to be covered.

However, there will be a tax penalty if you decide that you want to take your chances. And there's a very good reason for this: Taking your chances is foolish.

Unless you're Superman, you're going to need healthcare at some point in your life. That's just a fact.

"No one's going to throw you in jail if you don't have insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions. "But if you ever have an accident and have to use the [emergency room], that tax penalty will help to defray the cost that will be covered by those who do have insurance."

Beginning in 2014, the penalty for going uninsured will be no more than $285 per family or 1% of income, whichever is greater. The cap rises to $975 or 2% of income a year later, and then up to $2,085 per family or 2.5% of income by 2016.

Opponents of healthcare reform conveniently ignore the basic economics of the insurance business. Insurers aren't service providers. They're risk managers. They examine the risk they face by covering a group or individual and price their policies accordingly.

The larger the risk pool, obviously, the cheaper the coverage. That's because the risk to health insurers goes down if younger and healthier people are included in the mix. The result: more affordable coverage for everyone.

Taken to its logical extreme, the most effective and efficient health insurance system for the United States would be something like a Medicare-for-all approach in which the risk pool comprises everybody in the country — young and old, healthy and sick.

In fact, we're already well down that road. Federal and state programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and veterans' assistance accounted for about 45% of total U.S. healthcare spending in 2010, according to a recent study by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

The amount of public money spent on healthcare should serve as a wake-up call to all those who think the world would end if the U.S. followed Britain, France, Canada and other developed countries in enacting a national health insurance system.

For the U.S., it would simply be an expansion of a system that already exists but is hobbled by the inefficiency of denying Medicare and other programs access to healthier members of the population, thus saddling taxpayers with a disproportionately large number of higher-risk people.

The individual mandate won't radically change things. The healthcare insurance system will remain divided between a public sector that focuses primarily on aging and sick people and a private sector that, for purely financial reasons, provides increasingly less access to affordable coverage.

Average premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 62% from 2003 to 2011 to $15,022 a year, according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund.

Health insurance costs far outpaced people's incomes in all states during that time, the report found, with workers' average share of premiums for family plans soaring 74% and deductibles more than doubling, while the median household income rose only about 10%.

Still, the mandate is a big step toward remedying the system's economic irrationality. By extending coverage to about 30 million of the 50 million people who now lack insurance, the mandate will place medical care within reach of many who previously may have sought treatment only in emergencies.

As a result, national wellness will improve and, presumably, healthcare costs will go down, or at least will be better controlled as fewer people put off medical attention until an easily treated ailment becomes an expensive catastrophe.

"The mandate is the key to making this all work," said Devon Herrick, a healthcare economist at the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Otherwise people would just wait until they got sick before buying insurance and premiums would skyrocket."

There's still much to be done. The reform law's insurance exchanges are a work in progress, and it's unclear at this point how much coverage will be offered and how much it will cost.

But the Supreme Court has kept the ball rolling by maintaining the mandate as part of the equation. It was a decision that will change all our lives, probably for the better, and move us closer to a system under which all people can obtain affordable healthcare.

David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. he also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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L.A. gun buyback program breaks a record

A one-day gun buyback event in Los Angeles on Wednesday gathered 2,037 firearms, including 75 assault weapons and two rocket launchers, officials said. The total was nearly 400 more weapons than were collected in a similar buyback earlier this year.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the collection at two locations was so successful that the city ran out of money for supermarket gift cards and got a private donation through the city controller to bolster the pot.

The gun buyback was moved up from its usual Mother's Day date in response to the massacre Dec. 14 that claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 students, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"As you can see to my right and left, these weren't just guns that weren't functioning anymore," Villaraigosa said at a news conference Thursday morning. "These were serious guns — semiautomatic weapons, guns that have no place on the streets of Los Angeles or any other city."

The mayor described the event as a success, but acknowledged that there were still many guns on the streets.

Hundreds lined up in cars to get Ralphs gift cards in exchange for different types of guns. Villaraigosa said the LAPD collected 901 handguns, 698 rifles, 363 shotguns and 75 assault weapons. The weapons will be melted down.

He said that nearly three-quarters of those turning in the weapons said in an informal survey that they felt safer with the weapons off the street.

"Perhaps the most honest testament to the success of yesterday's program can be seen in the 166 weapons that were surrendered for nothing," Villaraigosa said.

Police Chief Charlie Beck said it was the most successful gun buyback event since the city began the program.

"Those are weapons of war, weapons of death," Beck said, motioning to a selection of military-style weapons on a display table. "These are not hunting guns. These are not target guns. These are made to put high-velocity, extremely deadly, long-range rounds down-range as quickly as possible, and they have no place in our great city."

Beck acknowledged that the weapons would not be checked for connections to crimes before being melted down. He said the sheer number would make that difficult, and he does not want to deter people from turning in firearms.

Villaraigosa again Thursday called for a national assault weapons ban and for strengthening the California assault weapons law to close loopholes.

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Police offer ‘virtual ridealongs’ via Twitter

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.

But a new social media approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and Canada — one that is far less dangerous for citizens but, police say, just as informative.

With virtual ridealongs on Twitter, or tweetalongs, curious citizens just need a computer or smartphone for a glimpse into law enforcement officers‘ daily routines.

Tweetalongs typically are scheduled for a set number of hours, with an officer — or a designated tweeter like the department’s public information officer — posting regular updates to Twitter about what they see and do while on duty. The tweets, which also include photos and links to videos of the officers, can encompass an array of activities — everything from an officer responding to a homicide to a noise complaint.

Police departments say virtual ridealongs reach more people at once and add transparency to the job.

“People spend hard-earned money on taxes to allow the government to provide services. That’s police, fire, water, streets, the whole works, and there should be a way for those government agencies to let the public know what they’re getting for their money,” said Chief Steve Allender of the Rapid City Police Department in South Dakota, which started offering tweetalongs several months ago — https://twitter.com/rcpdtweetalong — after watching departments in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas do so.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Tarah Heupel, the Rapid City Police Department’s public information officer, rode alongside Street Crimes Officer Ron Terviel. Heupel posted regular updates every few minutes about what Terviel was doing, including the officer citing a woman for public intoxication, responding to a call of three teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup and body spray from a store and locating a man who ran from the scene of an accident. Photos were included in some of the tweets.

Michael Taddesse, a 34-year-old university career specialist in Arlington, Texas, has done several ridealongs with police and regularly follows multiple departments that conduct tweetalongs.

“I think the only way to effectively combat crime is to have a community that is engaged and understands what’s going on,” he said.

Ridealongs where “you’re out in the elements” are very different than sitting behind a computer during a tweetalong and the level of danger is “dramatically decreased,” he said. But in both instances, the passenger gains new information about the call, what laws may or may not have been broken and what transpires, he added.

For police departments, tweetalongs are just one more way to connect directly with a community through social media.

More than 92 percent of police departments use social media, according to a survey of 600 agencies in 48 states conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Social Media. And Nancy Kolb, senior program manager for IACP, called tweetalongs a “growing trend” among departments of all sizes.

There is no set protocol and departments are free to conduct the tweetalong how they see fit, she said.

In Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Regional Police Service conducted their first virtual ridealong in August over a busy eight-hour Friday night shift. The police department’s followers were able to see a tweet whenever the police unit was dispatched to one of the more than 140,000 calls received that night.

Richard Gadreau, the social media officer for the police department, said officers routinely take people out on real ridealongs, but there is a waiting list and preference is given to people interested in becoming an officer.

With tweetalongs, many calls also mean many tweets. Kolb said departments are cognizant of cluttering peoples’ Twitter feeds.

That’s why the Rapid City Police Department decided to create a separate account for the tweetalong, Allender said.

Kolb also said officers are careful not to tweet personal or sensitive information. Officers typically do not tweet child abuse or domestic abuse cases, and they usually only tweet about a call after they leave the scene to protect officers and callers.

But Allender, the chief of police in Rapid City, said tweetalongs also show some of the more outrageous calls police deal with on a regular basis — like the kid who breaks out the window of a police car while the officer is standing on the sidewalk.

“Real life is funnier than any comedy show out there and not to make fun of people, embarrass them or humiliate them, but people do funny things,” Allender said. “… I mean, that guy deserves a little bit of ridicule, and everyone who would be watching would agree. That’s just good clean fun to me.”

___

Rapid City Police Department’s “Tweetalong” account: https://twitter.com/rcpdtweetalong

___

Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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It's husband No. 3 for actress Kate Winslet

NEW YORK (AP) — Kate Winslet has tied the knot again.

The Oscar-winning actress wed Ned Rocknroll in New York earlier this month. The private ceremony was attended by Winslet's two children as well as a few friends and family members, her representative said Thursday.

It is the third marriage for the 37-year-old Winslet. She was previously married to film directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes.

The 34-year-old Rocknroll, who was born Abel Smith, is a nephew of billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson.

The couple had been engaged since last summer.

Winslet won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the 2008 film "The Reader."

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7-Eleven Stores Focus on Healthier Food Options

The chain that is home of the Slurpee, Big Gulp and self-serve nachos with chili and cheese is betting that consumers will stop in for yogurt parfaits, crudité and lean turkey on whole wheat bread.

7-Eleven, the convenience store chain, is restocking its shelves with an eye toward health. Over the last year, the retailer has introduced a line of fresh foods for the calorie conscious and trimmed down its more indulgent fare by creating portion-size items.

The change is as much about consumers’ expanding waistlines as the company’s bottom line. By 2015, the retailer aims to have 20 percent of sales come from fresh foods in its American and Canadian stores, up from about 10 percent currently, according to a company spokesman.

“We’re aspiring to be more of a food and beverage company, and that aligns with what the consumer now wants, which is more tasty, healthy, fresh food choices,” said Joseph M. DePinto, the chief executive of 7-Eleven, a subsidiary of the Japanese company, Seven & i Holdings.

Convenience stores have typically been among the most nimble of retailers. In the 1980s, they added Pac-Man arcade games as a way to keep customers in stores longer and to buy more merchandise. They installed A.T.M.’s a decade later, taking a slice of the transaction fees. More recently, they built refrigerated dairy cases, with milk, eggs, cheese and other staples.

But just as they have taken business from traditional supermarkets, convenience stores have faced increased competition from the likes of Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, which offer a basic menu of fresh foods for consumers on the go.

At the same time, a major profit driver for convenience stores — cigarettes — has been in steady decline over the last decade as the rate of smoking has dropped in the United States.

Fresh foods can help offset some of those losses. The markup on such merchandise can be significant, bolstering a store’s overall profits. It’s also a fast-growing category.

“If you can figure out how to deliver consistent quality and the products consumers want, fresh food is attractive because margins are higher, and it addresses some of the competitive issues you’re facing,” said Richard Meyer, a longtime consultant for the convenience store industry. “But it’s not easy to do.”

7-Eleven has been selling fresh food since the late 1990s. But much of its innovation has been limited to the variety of hot dogs spinning on the roller grill or the breakfast sandwiches languishing beneath a heating lamp.

As 7-Eleven refocuses its lineup, the retail chain has assembled a team of culinary and food science experts to study industry trends and develop new products. Such groups have been around for a while at fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and packaged-goods manufacturers like Kraft. But it’s a relatively new concept for players like 7-Eleven, which have typically relied on their suppliers to provide product innovation.

“We’re working to create a portfolio of fresh foods,” said Anne Readhimer, senior director of fresh food innovation, who joined the company in May from Yum Brands, where she had worked on the KFC and Pizza Hut brands. “Some will be for snacking, some for a quick meal, but we hope everything we offer our guests is convenient and tasty.”

One new menu item just hitting stores is a Bistro Snack Protein Pack, which includes mini pita rounds, cheddar cheese cubes, grapes, celery, baby carrots and hummus. The meal in a box, similar to one carried by Starbucks, is part of a broader menu with healthier items under 400 calories.

The company is also taking existing products and retooling them for single portions. For example, customers can now buy jelly doughnuts and tacos, in mini sizes.

“There are definitely customers who want healthy options, but there are also lots of customers who are excited about the new sandwich options that aren’t low calorie — and minidoughnuts are doing very well,” said Lori Primavera, senior manager of fresh food innovation at 7-Eleven, who previously worked for Food and Drink Resources, a consulting firm for restaurant companies.

Norman Jemal, a franchisee, said sales of the new products are growing steadily in the three 7-Eleven stores that he owns in Manhattan. “At first, people are surprised when they come in here and see a bag of carrots and celery,” Mr. Jemal said. “They say, ‘I came in here for a bag of chips — I can’t believe you have fruit cups or yogurt cups.’ ”

He said the Yoplait Parfait, a cup of vanilla yogurt topped with fresh strawberries or blueberries and granola, is his best-selling fresh food item, while the 7 Smart turkey sandwich is his top sandwich.

The fresh food in Mr. Jemal’s stores and other locations around the country are supplied from a system of 29 commissaries and bakeries that fulfill orders from 7-Eleven. They tailor menu items for specific markets. In the Miami area, they produce a hot Cuban sandwich with ham, cheese, pickles and mustard. The Turkey Gobbler with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sells in Northeastern stores around the holidays.

Each store has a data system that allows it to see exactly what is selling, which helps manage waste. Stores can track consumers’ purchase habits over a month, and adjust their orders based on those behaviors.

“In this 28-day cycle, I know I sold 3,563 bananas to customers in this store,” said Todd Ferguson, who owns five 7-Eleven locations in Las Vegas.

Mr. Ferguson has owned 7-Eleven franchises since 1986, and he said the variety of fresh food options in the stores is far better than before. The category already accounts for 20 percent of his sales, and his goal is to reach a quarter of sales volume.

“We used to be a place for people to buy beer, wine, cigarettes, candy and chips, and people would occasionally ask where they could go to get something to eat,” Mr. Ferguson said. “We’re no longer getting that question because now you can get something to eat right here.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 27, 2012

An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified a 7-Eleven franchisee in Las Vegas. He is Todd Ferguson, not Tom Ferguson.

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Starz will face new, challenging world as public company

Pay-TV channel Starz is trying to chart a new orbit.

Early next year, its parent company, Liberty Media, plans to spin off the premium network and its sister channel Encore into a new, stand-alone, publicly traded company.

Such a move would normally be cause for celebration. But for Starz, the separation comes amid uncertainty.

Its track record producing original shows has been mixed. The market is getting increasingly crowded not only from Starz's traditional competitors, HBO and Showtime, but also from new rivals including Netflix, Amazon and Redbox. And, starting in 2017, the network will lose one of its key suppliers of movies — Walt Disney Studios — to Netflix.

"It's an interesting time for Starz," said Matthew Harrigan, a media analyst with Wunderlich Securities. "Losing those Disney movies makes life a little more difficult, and it becomes even more important for them to create successful original programming."

STORY: On Location

Liberty Media is spinning off Starz in part to make it more attractive to potential buyers. Companies mentioned by analysts as possible suitors include Comcast Corp., parent of Universal Pictures. Other deep-pocketed prospective buyers could be News Corp., Walt Disney Co. and Viacom Inc. HBO and Showtime probably would face anti-trust issues if either of them made a run at Starz.

The shift also raises the stakes for Starz and its chief executive, Chris Albrecht, who has been given the task of building an original programming pipeline. Albrecht, who joined Starz nearly three years ago, has the experience. As the former head of HBO, he was a key architect of that network's success by helping nurture such culture-defining hits as "Sex and the City" and "The Sopranos."

Achieving those heights again, this time at Starz, has proved more elusive. Starz made a splash with its gladiator series "Spartacus," but another high-profile drama, "Boss," about a corrupt Chicago mayor played by Kelsey Grammer ("Frasier"), failed to deliver ratings to match its critical acclaim. "Boss" was canceled after two seasons. Last year's "Camelot," about a young King Arthur, started strong but then fell on its sword.

Starz, which has 20.8 million subscribers in the U.S., has spent the last few years playing catch-up. The network began developing original dramas much later than industry leaders HBO and Showtime, and also lags behind basic cable channels FX, AMC and USA Network.

At the same time, the availability of movies through other venues has increased dramatically, and film fans can just as easily get their fix by buying or renting DVDs — online or at supermarket kiosks — or through Internet streaming services. That makes the need for strong original content even greater.

Starz executives declined to comment for this story, citing the "quiet period" mandated by regulators before the public stock offering.

Hollywood movie studios have a strong incentive to protect the premium channels, which have long served as their unofficial ATMs. The channels, including HBO, Starz and Showtime, spit out hundreds of millions of dollars each year to movie studios in exchange for the first-run TV rights to recent releases. The fees — which can approach $30 million for a single blockbuster film — have helped studios turn deficits into profits for many movies.

The parent companies of HBO (Time Warner), Showtime (CBS Corp.) and Starz (Liberty Media), also have long collected hundreds of millions of dollars each year in profit from the channels in distribution fees from cable and satellite operators. According to consulting firm SNL Kagan, Starz and sister channel Encore this year will generate revenue of $1.34 billion and $414 million in cash flow, a metric similar to operating income.

Just a few years ago, Starz trailed HBO as the No. 2 movie channel in terms of distribution. But it has since been surpassed by Showtime. The CBS Corp. network has staged a string of hits including "Weeds," the serial killer drama "Dexter," the pill-popping dark comedy "Nurse Jackie" and its latest hit, the terrorist thriller "Homeland," which this fall won the Emmy for TV's best drama.

According to SNL Kagan, Showtime has 21 million subscribers and 2012 revenue of $1.6 billion. Cash flow for Showtime and its sister channels TMC and Flix should approach $690 million combined for this year. Showtime's programming expenses are slightly less because it ended its relationships with movie studios several years ago.

"Showtime has been doing something similar [to Starz] with their strategy, but they have programming that people are talking about," said BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said. "The question is how does Starz stack up?"

Its shows have largely failed to attract the buzz that can drive subscriptions and ratings. "Spartacus" was Starz's most popular show, averaging more than 5 million viewers an episode during the third season when viewing on all platforms was counted. "Magic City," the channel's stylistic drama about Miami gangsters in the 1950s, averaged 3.1 million viewers an episode when it debuted this year, while "Boss" collared just 2.2 million an episode.

Starz is betting heavily on its lineup for next two years, which includes the second season of "Magic City" and the new prospects "Da Vinci's Demons," a drama about Leonardo's early days from David S. Goyer, a co-writer of the "Dark Knight Rises" film trilogy, and "Black Sails," a swashbuckling adventure from "Transformers" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" filmmaker Michael Bay.

The company this year is spending about $692 million on programming, with four-fifths of that amount earmarked for buying products from Disney and Sony Pictures Entertainment, according to SNL Kagan, which said Starz spends less than $100 million annually creating original series.

"They still need the movies to fill their schedule, but at the same time Starz needs some unique programs to define the channel," said Deana Myers, an SNL Kagan television analyst. "It's not an easy market to get into because a lot of other networks are doing original productions."

Although Starz will continue to receive the Disney movies for three years, the eventual loss puts pressure on the company to keep Sony as a supplier beyond 2016, when the parties' current arrangement ends. The loss of Disney movies and the coming end of the Sony contract could also complicate the picture as Starz tries to attract a new owner.

Potential suitor Viacom already has a presence in the premium channel business. The parent of Paramount Pictures teamed in 2009 with two other studios, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., to launch the movie service Epix. The upstart has struggled to make distribution deals with leading cable and satellite TV systems. That could make a merger between Epix and Starz enticing. Given that Epix is not nearly as powerful as HBO and Showtime, such a deal may also be able to pass regulatory muster.

meg.james@latimes.com

joe.flint@latimes.com

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