Winfrey, 'Beasts' actress honored at Essence lunch

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhane' (Kwa-VEHN-ja-nay) Wallis toted a plush, dog-shaped purse with jeweled handles as she rubbed shoulders with Oprah Winfrey and Alfre Woodard.

The star of best-picture contender "Beasts of the Southern Wild" was among the honorees Thursday at Essence magazine's sixth annual Black Women in Hollywood awards luncheon. Quvenzhane stood on a step so she could speak at the podium, and thanked God, "Beasts" director Behn Zeitlin and her "baby sitter that was on set."

Quvenzhane is the youngest best-actress nominee in Oscar history, and one of only 10 African-Americans recognized in the category.

Actresses Gabrielle Union and Naomie Harris, and writer-director Mara Brock-Akil also were honored at the Essence event at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

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Living With Cancer: Arrivals and Departures

After being nursed and handed over, the baby’s wails rise to a tremolo, but I am determined to give my exhausted daughter and son-in-law a respite on this wintry evening. Commiserating with the little guy’s discomfort — gas, indigestion, colic, ontological insecurity — I swaddle, burp, bink, then cradle him in my arms. I begin walking around the house, swinging and swaying while cooing in soothing cadences: “Yes, darling boy, another one bites the dust, another one bites the dust.”

I kid you not! How could such grim phrases spring from my lips into the newborn’s ears? Where did they come from?

I blame his mother and her best friend. They sang along as this song was played repeatedly at the skating rink to which I took them every other Saturday in their tweens. Why would an infatuated grandma croon a mordant lullaby, even if the adorable one happily can’t understand a single word? He’s still whimpering, twisting away from me, and understandably so.

Previously that day, I had called a woman in my cancer support group. I believe that she is dying. I do not know her very well. She has attended only two or three of our get-togethers where she described herself as a widow and a Christian.

On the phone, I did not want to violate the sanctity of her end time, but I did want her to know that she need not be alone, that I and other members of our group can “be there” for her. Her dying seems a rehearsal of my own. We have the same disease.

“How are you doing, Kim?” I asked.

“I’m tired. I sleep all the time,” she sighed, “and I can’t keep anything down.”

“Can you drink … water?” I asked.

“A little, but I tried a smoothie and it wouldn’t set right,” she said.

“I hope you are not in pain.”

“Oh no, but I’m sleeping all the time. And I can’t keep anything down.”

“Would you like a visit? Is there something I can do or bring?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so, no thanks.”

“Well,” I paused before saying goodbye, “be well.”

Be well? I didn’t even add something like, “Be as well as you can be.” I was tongue-tied. This was the failure that troubles me tonight.

Why couldn’t I say that we will miss her, that I am sorry she is dying, that she has coped so well for so long, and that I hope she will now find peace? I could inform an infant in my arms of our inexorable mortality, but I could not speak or even intimate the “D” word to someone on her deathbed.

Although I have tried to communicate to my family how I feel about end-of-life care, can we always know what we will want? Perhaps at the end of my life I will not welcome visitors, either. For departing may require as much concentration as arriving. As I look down at the vulnerable bundle I am holding, I marvel that each and every one of us has managed to come in and will also have to manage to go out. The baby nestles, pursing his mouth around the pacifier. He gazes intently at my face with a sly gaze that drifts toward a lamp, turning speculative before lids lower in tremulous increments.

Slowing my jiggling to his faint sucking, I think that the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s meditation on death pertains to birth as well. Each of these events “names the very irreplaceability of absolute singularity.” Just as “no one can die in my place or in the place of the other,” no one can be born in this particular infant’s place. He embodies his irreplaceable and absolute singularity.

Perhaps we should gestate during endings, as we do during beginnings. Like hatchings, the dispatchings caused by cancer give people like Kim and me a final trimester, more or less, in which we can labor to forgive and be forgiven, to speak and hear vows of devotion from our intimates, to visit or not be visited by acquaintances.

Maybe we need a doula for dying, I reflect as melodious words surface, telling me what I have to do with the life left to be lived: “To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.”

“Oh little baby,” I then whisper: “Though I cannot tell who you will become and where I will be — you, dear heart, deliver me.”

---

Susan Gubar is a distinguished emerita professor of English at Indiana University and the author of “Memoir of a Debulked Woman,” which explores her experience with ovarian cancer.

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Foreign tourists' spending in U.S. rises to new record

The U.S. continues to be a hot destination for big-spending tourists, setting a new record of $168.1 billion in foreign visitor spending in 2012.

The country last year welcomed 66 million foreign visitors, whose spending represents a 10% increase over 2011, said Rebecca Blank, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The greatest increase in visitors and spending came from countries with a burgeoning middle class, including China, Brazil and India.

Spending by foreign tourists has been on the rise for the last three years, with tourist hubs such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and San Francisco reaping much of the spending, Blank said.

"The coasts that are close to Asia and South America will see the notable effects," she said.

The federal government and the tourism industry have been paying special attention to foreign overseas tourists because they typically stay longer and spend more than visitors from Mexico or Canada.

Long-haul foreign visitors spend an average of $4,000 per visit, while visitors from Mexico and Canada — although they represent the greatest number of foreign tourists — spend less than $1,000 per visit, according to federal reports.

Visitor numbers from Europe — once the source of most of the U.S. tourism spending — have been dropping in recent years, as Europeans struggle with economic hardships. But the U.S. Department of Commerce predicts continued growth in tourists from Brazil (274% by 2016), China (135%) and India (50%).

To promote more foreign visitors, the Obama administration and leaders of the travel industry launched in 2011 a public-private partnership to promote the U.S. in foreign countries. The campaign, known as Brand USA, is funded by fees charged to visitors applying for visas and contributions from private firms.

The administration has also pushed the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to shorten the wait time for visa interviews and expanded a program to speed low-risk visitors through expedited security lines at major airports.

The number of international visitors rose to 62.3 million in 2011, up from 59.7 million in 2010, according to the Department of Commerce. President Obama has set a goal of welcoming 100 million foreign visitors by 2021.

"Our projection is that the travel and tourism industries are going to create over 1 million jobs in the next decade," Blank said.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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Interstate 5 reopens through the Grapevine

From Times Staff

February 20, 2013, 9:44 a.m.

The California Highway Patrol has reopened a stretch of Interstate 5 through the Grapevine that was closed earlier today because of ice.

The highway was opened to vehicles with escorts at about 9:15 a.m., said CHP Officer Ed Jacobs. The freeway was closed between Castaic and Grapevine Road about 6:35 a.m., Jacobs said.

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

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'For Better or Worse' moves from TBS to OWN

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Oprah Winfrey's cable channel says it will be the new home of the sitcom "For Better or Worse."

Tyler Perry's comedy series will move from TBS to OWN for its third season, starting this fall. OWN announced Wednesday that it's also getting rerun rights for the show's first two years.

"For Better or Worse" is about three couples dealing with the challenges of dating and married life. OWN says the original cast, including Tasha Smith and Michael Jai White, will remain with the show. Production on season three begins in April.

The comedy will be OWN's third scripted series from Perry, who has a deal with OWN to produce TV shows and other projects. The first two original series, a sitcom and a drama, are scheduled to debut in May.

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Well: Caffeine Linked to Lower Birth Weight Babies

New research suggests that drinking caffeinated drinks during pregnancy raises the risk of having a low birth weight baby.

Caffeine has long been linked to adverse effects in pregnant women, prompting many expectant mothers to give up coffee and tea. But for those who cannot do without their morning coffee, health officials over the years have offered conflicting guidelines on safe amounts during pregnancy.

The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 300 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to about three eight-ounce cups of regular brewed coffee. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated in 2010 that pregnant women could consume up to 200 milligrams a day without increasing their risk of miscarriage or preterm birth.

In the latest study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, researchers collected data on almost 60,000 pregnancies over a 10-year period. After excluding women with potentially problematic medical conditions, they found no link between caffeine consumption – from food or drinks – and the risk of preterm birth. But there was an association with low birth weight.

For a child expected to weigh about eight pounds at birth, the child lost between three-quarters of an ounce to an ounce in birth weight for each 100 milligrams of average daily caffeine intake from all sources by the mother. Even after the researchers excluded from their analysis smokers, a group that is at higher risk for complications and also includes many coffee drinkers, the link remained.

One study author, Dr. Verena Sengpiel of the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, said the findings were not definitive because the study was observational, and correlation does not equal causation. But they do suggest that women might put their caffeine consumption “on pause” while pregnant, she said, or at least stay below two cups of coffee per day.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article described incorrectly the relationship between the amount of caffeine a pregnant woman drank and birth weight. For a child expected to weigh about eight pounds at birth, the child lost between three-quarters of an ounce to an ounce in birth weight for each 100 milligrams of average daily caffeine intake by the mother, not for each day that she consumed 100 milligrams of caffeine.

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Tesla results renew worries about its long-term viability

Tesla Motors Inc. reported another good-not-great quarter, renewing concerns about its ability to quickly churn out enough electric vehicles to sustain the company for the long term.

The company plans to ramp up the introduction of Tesla Model S cars to consumers worldwide, saying it was "on a journey" this year to expand the line and turn profitable, Chairman Elon Musk and Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja wrote in a letter to shareholders Wednesday.

"Our intention is not to make customers wait six months for a car," Musk said in a call with analysts. "Our focus in Q1 is on production efficiency, improving gross margin and making sure customers are really happy when they receive the car. It's important for us to operate at that steady state for a bit before we try to drive that number higher."

This year, Tesla plans to deliver about 20,000 Model S units, with about 4,500 deliveries expected in the current quarter. The Palo Alto company projected that it would "generate slightly positive net income" in the quarter. That was welcome news to analysts, who have been looking for the company to become more financially stable.

"There have been other electric vehicle car companies that have had numerous problems. So if I compare it to that, they're leaps and bounds ahead," said Ben Kallo, senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. "Now they have to prove the details around the business model."

On-time delivery of those Model S cars — which sell for $61,000 to more than $100,000 — will be key to the survival of future Tesla products, which have been hampered by delays. The company initially planned to start building the Model X crossover SUV by the end of 2013, but now says production will start in 2014. The X will share its platform and many of its components with the Model S.

Down the line, Tesla hopes to build a more affordable car, which it will need to sell in quantities greater than the S and X to ensure long-term viability.

Regardless of when and how Tesla expands its offerings, the company faces long odds in making a dent in the sales of gas and diesel vehicles. Electric vehicles accounted for just 0.1% of U.S. sales in 2012, and that number is expected to rise to only 2% by 2020.

Many consumers remain wary of a vehicle with a perceived finite range. The cost of the batteries and related technologies in EVs also makes it difficult to price them competitively with comparable gas-powered vehicles.

Tesla found itself dealing with the issue of electric vehicle range in a recent public dispute with the New York Times.

After reporter John Broder detailed problems with the car's range on a trip from Washington, D.C., to Connecticut, Tesla's stock dropped. Musk went on the offensive, calling the article "fake" and railing against the piece in several television appearances. He then released data logs from Broder's test car, saying they backed up his claims.

The Times initially responded by saying the article was "completely factual," and Broder wrote a follow-up piece defending his initial assertions. The Times' public editor, Margaret Sullivan, eventually waded into the controversy with a blog post that offered measured criticism of Broder but defended his motives.

For the three months ended Dec. 31, Tesla reported revenue of $306 million, beating expectations. But it posted a larger-than-expected loss — $90 million, or 79 cents a share.

In the year-earlier quarter, Tesla reported revenue of $39.4 million and a loss of $81.5 million, or 78 cents a share.

Excluding one-time charges, the company posted a fourth-quarter loss of $75 million, or 65 cents; analysts had expected a loss of 53 cents a share.

Tesla said it delivered about 2,400 Model S vehicles during the fourth quarter and sold most of its remaining Roadsters. It ended the year with more than $221 million in cash.

Shares fell 7.3%, or $2.80, to $35.74 in after-hours trading. During regular trading before earnings were released, shares declined 1.9% to $38.54.

Wednesday's release was the first detailed look at Tesla's finances since September. At that time, production delays had forced the company to downgrade its projected 2012 revenue to no more than $440 million, compared with previous estimates of up to $600 million.

Tesla had built just 255 Model S cars at that point, though it hoped to build 10 times that by the end of 2012. The company confirmed in Wednesday's report that it had indeed built 2,750 cars in the fourth quarter.

The company said Wednesday it has more than 15,000 fully refundable deposits on hand.

Now it just needs to deliver the cars.

andrea.chang@latimes.com

david.undercoffler@latimes.com

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O.C. shooting suspect identified as college student with no record

Orange County sheriff's officials on Tuesday identified the suspect in series of fatal shootings and carjackings as Ali Syed, a 20-year-old community college student with no criminal record.

Authorities don't have a motive for the shootings, which began with the slaying of a woman at Syed's  south Orange County home, spread north in a series of random and deadly carjackings, and ended with his suicide in the city of Orange.

Syed was described as an unemployed man who was taking a class at Saddleback College. He had no criminal record and was living with his parents on Red Leaf Lane in Ladera Ranch, Amormino said.

PHOTOS: Shootings at multiple locations in O.C.

Deputies were called to their home about 4:45 a.m. after his parents reported a shooting, Amormino said. Responding deputies found a woman dead inside who had been shot multiple times.

The relationship between the woman and Syed was not yet known, Amormino said, although she was not related to the suspect. The woman has not yet been identified.

Family members, including children, were at the home at the time of the shooting, Amormino said, but no other injuries were reported.

MAP: Orange County shootings

Syed fled the area and headed toward Tustin, where Amormino said "multiple incidents" occurred.

The first, authorities said, occurred near Red Hill Avenue and the 5 Freeway, where authorities received a report of a man with a gun about 5:10 a.m. The suspect attempted a carjacking, Tustin police Lt. Paul Garaven said, opened fire and wounded a bystander.

About five minutes later, the suspect stopped the BMW near the 55 Freeway in Santa Ana, officials said.

TIMELINE: Deadliest U.S. mass shootings

Around that time, authorities also received reports about a man shooting at moving vehicles on the 55 Freeway. Officials believe the man fired either while driving or after he stopped and got out of his vehicle. At least three victims have reported minor injuries or damage to their cars, and investigators asked that others who believe they may have been fired upon to contact police.

Shortly after, another shooting and carjacking was reported on Edinger Avenue near the Micro Center computer store in Tustin, Garaven said. One person was killed and another was taken to a hospital.

Co-workers identified the men as plumbers who were working at the under-construction Fairfield Inn on Edinger Avenue.

Officers spotted the suspect in a stolen vehicle, followed him into the city of Orange and initiated a traffic stop near the intersection of East Katella Avenue and North Wanda Road, Garaven said.

The suspect then shot and killed himself, authorities said. A shotgun was recovered, but officials said other weapons might have been involved earlier. 

In Orange, financial planner Kenneth Caplin said he had a clear view of the gruesome drama that unfolded Tuesday on the street outside his office.

Although the street had been blocked, Caplin parked farther away and persuaded an officer to let him walk to his office. He arrived shortly before 7 a.m., about an hour after the shooting.

From a conference room window, Caplin saw the police investigators at work, a white work truck up on a curb, and the suspect lying dead on the ground, with blood streaked across the pavement.

"It's scary.... This just happened right here," Caplin said hours later, as a team in biohazard suits scrubbed away at the street in an afternoon drizzle. "It's ludicrous."

Caplin, 71, said he is a pistol instructor for the NRA. What happened Tuesday only affirmed for him the need to stay armed.

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DNA Analysis, More Accessible Than Ever, Opens New Doors

Matt Roth for The New York Times

Sam Bosley of Frederick, Md., going shopping with his daughter, Lillian, 13, who has a malformed brain and severe developmental delays, seizures and vision problems. More Photos »

Debra Sukin and her husband were determined to take no chances with her second pregnancy. Their first child, Jacob, who had a serious genetic disorder, did not babble when he was a year old and had severe developmental delays. So the second time around, Ms. Sukin had what was then the most advanced prenatal testing.

The test found no sign of Angelman syndrome, the rare genetic disorder that had struck Jacob. But as months passed, Eli was not crawling or walking or babbling at ages when other babies were.

“Whatever the milestones were, my son was not meeting them,” Ms. Sukin said.

Desperate to find out what is wrong with Eli, now 8, the Sukins, of The Woodlands, Tex., have become pioneers in a new kind of testing that is proving particularly helpful in diagnosing mysterious neurological illnesses in children. Scientists sequence all of a patient’s genes, systematically searching for disease-causing mutations.

A few years ago, this sort of test was so difficult and expensive that it was generally only available to participants in research projects like those sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. But the price has plunged in just a few years from tens of thousands of dollars to around $7,000 to $9,000 for a family. Baylor College of Medicine and a handful of companies are now offering it. Insurers usually pay.

Demand has soared — at Baylor, for example, scientists analyzed 5 to 10 DNA sequences a month when the program started in November 2011. Now they are doing more than 130 analyses a month. At the National Institutes of Health, which handles about 300 cases a year as part of its research program, demand is so great that the program is expected to ultimately take on 800 to 900 a year.

The test is beginning to transform life for patients and families who have often spent years searching for answers. They can now start the grueling process with DNA sequencing, says Dr. Wendy K. Chung, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Columbia University.

“Most people originally thought of using it as a court of last resort,” Dr. Chung said. “Now we can think of it as a first-line test.”

Even if there is no treatment, there is almost always some benefit to diagnosis, geneticists say. It can give patients and their families the certainty of knowing what is wrong and even a prognosis. It can also ease the processing of medical claims, qualifying for special education services, and learning whether subsequent children might be at risk.

“Imagine the people who drive across the whole country looking for that one neurologist who can help, or scrubbing the whole house with Lysol because they think it might be an allergy,” said Richard A. Gibbs, the director of Baylor College of Medicine’s gene sequencing program. “Those kinds of stories are the rule, not the exception.”

Experts caution that gene sequencing is no panacea. It finds a genetic aberration in only about 25 to 30 percent of cases. About 3 percent of patients end up with better management of their disorder. About 1 percent get a treatment and a major benefit.

“People come to us with huge expectations,” said Dr. William A. Gahl, who directs the N.I.H. program. “They think, ‘You will take my DNA and find the causes and give me a treatment.' ”

“We give the impression that we can do these things because we only publish our successes,” Dr. Gahl said, adding that when patients come to him, “we try to make expectations realistic.”

DNA sequencing was not available when Debra and Steven Sukin began trying to find out what was wrong with Eli. When he was 3, they tried microarray analysis, a genetic test that is nowhere near as sensitive as sequencing. It detected no problems.

“My husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘The good news is that everything is fine; the bad news is that everything is not fine,' ” Ms. Sukin said.

In November 2011, when Eli was 6, Ms. Sukin consulted Dr. Arthur L. Beaudet, a medical geneticist at Baylor.

“Is there a protein missing?” she recalled asking him. “Is there something biochemical we could be missing?”

By now, DNA sequencing had come of age. Dr. Beaudet said that Eli was a great candidate, and it turned out that the new procedure held an answer.

A single DNA base was altered in a gene called CASK, resulting in a disorder so rare that there are fewer than 10 cases in all the world’s medical literature.

“It really became definitive for my husband and me,” Ms. Sukin said. “We would need to do lifelong planning for dependent care for the rest of his life.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An article on Tuesday about the use of DNA sequencing to identify rare genetic diseases misstated the name of a medicine taken by two teenagers who have a rare gene mutation. The drug is 5-hydroxytryptophan, not 5-hydroxytryptamine.

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Anthem halts plan to require some drug purchases by mail

Anthem Blue Cross is backing off a decision to require some policyholders to buy their prescription drugs from a single mail-order pharmacy — a requirement that the California attorney general's office said may be illegal.

Anthem, California's largest for-profit health insurer, said in November that it was imposing the new rule for so-called specialty medications used to treat major illnesses, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS. The company said the limitation would help keep costs down for patients and businesses.

That may indeed be true. But as I reported last month, California's Unruh Civil Rights Act (Section 51 of the Civil Code) specifies that all people must be treated equally "no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status or sexual orientation."

In response, California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris said that any rule that forces some people to buy their meds from one drugstore but allows others to shop elsewhere could violate the law.

"California law clearly states that no one can be discriminated against because of a medical condition," said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Harris. "If patients are being required to get their prescriptions from a certain pharmacy because of their condition, that is likely illegal."

Anthem is now notifying people who take specialty medications that it won't require them to buy their drugs from the online pharmacy CuraScript starting March 1, as originally planned.

"Because Anthem has received feedback about this specialty pharmacy program from its members, we are evaluating that input to better serve our members and, for the time being, have eliminated the stated March 1, 2013, required date to use CuraScript for such additional specialty medications," the insurer said in its letter.

Darrel Ng, an Anthem spokesman, said the insurer believes the new requirement is legal. He said the company is only postponing the rule, rather than abandoning it.

"In response to feedback that has been conveyed by our members, which we are in the process of evaluating, we are delaying the March 1 changes in the specialty pharmacy program," Ng said. "We value the input of our members."

He declined to say when Anthem may again try to implement the requirement.

David Balto, former policy director for the Federal Trade Commission, said Anthem will have to make significant changes if it hopes to avoid legal action by Harris' office.

"They recognized that the policy violated the law," he said. "Consumers and pharmacies drew a line in the sand, and Anthem backed down."

Balto, who now works as a Washington antitrust attorney, was retained by retail drugstores to challenge the specialty-med requirement.

Anthem also faces a class-action lawsuit filed by the Santa Monica advocacy group Consumer Watchdog. It alleges that the insurer's policy switch would endanger people with HIV/AIDS by denying them the opportunity to interact with a pharmacist about their medication.

"Blue Cross' announcement is a big relief to HIV/AIDS patients who had a gun to their head to cut off contact with their local pharmacist," said Jerry Flanagan, staff attorney for Consumer Watchdog.

Sections 54 and 55 of the Civil Code state that people with disabilities or medical conditions "have the same right as the general public to the full and free use of the streets, highways, sidewalks, walkways, public buildings [and] medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics and physicians' offices."

Section 12926.1 of the California Government Code specifies that "physical and mental disabilities include, but are not limited to, chronic or episodic conditions such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, epilepsy, seizure disorder, diabetes, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis and heart disease."

In its first notices to people using specialty meds, Anthem said that "using a retail pharmacy will be considered going out-of-network."

It warned such people that the only way to receive coverage for their drugs would be to shop at CuraScript. Buying medication elsewhere would require them to pay the full cost, Anthem said.

The price of specialty medications can run in the thousands of dollars. Anthem's requirement thus would have forced a specific group of people to buy their drugs at the pharmacy of Anthem's choosing.

Other people with chronic conditions such as diabetes faced no such requirement. It was this seemingly inconsistent approach to drug coverage that raised a red flag for the attorney general's office.

Experts said Anthem was correct in arguing that prices for specialty meds can be better controlled by cutting deals with a single pharmacy. But this placed the interests of the insurer and the pharmacy ahead of those of the patient.

A more equitable solution may be for Anthem to allow people to buy their drugs anywhere, but to offer a discount for drugs purchased from CuraScript. This would provide an opt-out of the CuraScript requirement.

This may not provide as much cost savings as limiting all coverage to CuraScript, but it would likely make the attorney general a whole lot happier.

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

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