15 Cheesy Christmas Music Videos on YouTube

1. “Last Christmas” – Wham!

What would a cheesy Christmas music video roundup be without George Michael — and his mullet, covered by a furry, snow-covered hood? If you like this video, just wait until you see the a cappella Norwegian version.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 10 Adorable Animals Feeding Other Animals [VIDEOS]]

Now that the turkey has been picked apart and you’ve survived another Black Friday, it is now officially acceptable to listen to Christmas music. If you’ve been secretly listening to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” since early November, crank it up!

One of the best — or worst, depending on your perspective — parts about the holidays is how we embrace corniness. The lyrics are cheesy, the wardrobe is tacky and some traditions are silly.

[More from Mashable: Rebecca Black Shows Off Hidden Talent in New Music Video]

To kick off the season, here are the 15 cheesiest holiday music videos we could find on YouTube. Which is your favorite? Share your pick in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, ronnie44052

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Psychotherapy’s Image Problem Pushes Some Therapists to Become ‘Brands’

Illustration by Matt Dorfman. Photograph by Jens Mortensen for The New York Times.

In the summer of 2011, after I completed six years of graduate school and internship training and was about to start my psychotherapy practice, I sat down with my clinical supervisor in the Los Angeles office we’d be sharing. It had been a rigorous six years, transitioning from my role as a full-time journalist always on tight deadlines to that of a therapist whose world was broken into slow, thoughtful hours listening and trying to help people come to a deeper understanding of their lives. My supervisor went over the filing systems, billing procedures and ethical quandaries like whether to take referrals from current clients, but we never discussed how I would get these clients. I fully assumed, in what now seems like an astounding fit of naïveté, that I’d send out an e-mail announcement and network with doctors, and to paraphrase “Field of Dreams,” if I built it, they would come.

Except that they didn’t. What nobody taught me in grad school was that psychotherapy, a practice that had sustained itself for more than a century, is losing its customers. If this came as a shock to me, the American Psychological Association tried to send out warnings in a 2010 paper titled, “Where Has all the Psychotherapy Gone?” According to the author, 30 percent fewer patients received psychological interventions in 2008 than they did 11 years earlier; since the 1990s, managed care has increasingly limited visits and reimbursements for talk therapy but not for drug treatment; and in 2005 alone, pharmaceutical companies spent $4.2 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising and $7.2 billion on promotion to physicians, nearly twice what they spent on research and development.

According to the A.P.A., therapists had to start paying attention to what the marketplace demanded or we risked our livelihoods. It wasn’t long before I learned that an entirely new specialized industry had cropped up: branding consultants for therapists.

I couldn’t imagine hiring a branding consultant to lure people to the couch. Psychotherapy is perhaps one of the few commercial businesses that doesn’t see itself as one, that views financial gain as unseemly when connected to the delicate work of emotional insight. Moreover, the field is predicated on strict concepts of authenticity, privacy and therapist-patient boundaries. Branding was the antithesis of what we did.

But a couple of months after setting up my office and waiting for people to call, I found myself wondering — first idly, then deliberately, and always guiltily — about those branding consultants and how exactly they helped therapists like me. Sitting at my desk one morning when my appointment book looked particularly dismal, a combination of curiosity and desperation got the best of me. On Google, I came across a branding consultant named Casey Truffo. Her Web site’s home page spoke directly to my situation: “You are called to be a therapist. Are you also called to poverty?” I immediately dialed her number.

The first thing Truffo told me when I reached her in her Orange County office was that I shouldn’t feel bad about my empty hours; nowadays, she said, even established veterans were struggling. Yes, the economy was bad, but the real issue was that psychotherapy had an image problem.

She told me about a therapist named Sandra Bryson. In 2009, Bryson called for help after her successful Oakland-based practice of 25 years lost patients when she stopped taking insurance. According to Truffo, Bryson shared a problem common to therapists: “a blah-sounding message and no angle.” Bryson had always done well as a generalist — treating anything from depression to grief to marital issues — but Truffo urged her to find a specialty, one that “captured the zeitgeist but didn’t feel played out.” Bryson mentioned that she liked helping parents and had an affinity for technology, and voilà — suddenly she had a brand. Not as a clinician addressing typical parenting issues like boundary-setting, which Truffo called “generic and old-school,” but as an expert who helps modern families navigate digital media. She also became a sought-after speaker on so-called hot issues like screen time, cyberbullying and sexting, and Bryson told me her practice, which is based on “mostly deep work,” had become “more advice-driven.” Now her schedule is full, and her income has increased about 15 percent a year.

“Nobody wants to buy therapy anymore,” Truffo told me. “They want to buy a solution to a problem.” This is something Truffo discovered in her own former private practice of 18 years, during which she saw a shift from people who were unhappy and wanted to understand themselves better to people who would come in “because they wanted someone else or something else to change,” she said. “I’d see fewer and fewer people coming in and saying, ‘I want to change.’ ”

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Toyota on track to become world's bestselling automaker again

Toyota Motor Corp. appears poised to regain its position as the world's largest automaker, a remarkable turnaround after years of safety recalls, huge federal fines and the Japanese earthquake last year.

In short order, surging sales have put that all in the rearview mirror.

Toyota is likely to sell 9.7 million vehicles this year, surpassing second-place General Motors Co. by more than 1 million vehicles and setting a record for annual auto sales. That's generating huge profits, with earnings tripling in the latest quarter to $3.2 billion and sales surging almost 20% compared with a year earlier.

The U.S. — where Toyota's reputation suffered most through the recalls — is now a cash cow. Through the first 10 months of the year, the Japanese automaker sold more than 1.7 million cars and trucks in the country, a 30% gain and more than double the industry growth rate.

"Toyota has done some smart things," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Automotive. "They have concentrated a lot of time and effort on the U.S., which is incredibly important because they make so much money here."

The Japanese automaker has launched 11 new or completely redesigned models in the U.S. in the last year, including new station wagon and commuter versions of its popular Prius hybrids. On Wednesday, the first day of the Los Angeles Auto Show, it will launch a new-generation RAV4 sport utility vehicle. The current model is an aging vehicle facing stiff competition from newly redesigned offerings such as Ford Motor Co.'s Escape and Honda Motor Co.'s CR-V.

Toyota has ramped up its factories in the U.S., opening a Corolla plant in Mississippi and expanding pickup truck manufacturing in Texas. And at the urging of Chief Executive and founding-family member Akio Toyoda, the automaker is looking to inject some panache into its historically bland styling, especially for its Lexus luxury division.

Toyota now accounts for 14.4% of the U.S. auto market, up from 12.6% during the first 10 months of 2011. In retail — not including rental and fleet sales — the Toyota brand is the biggest in the U.S., outselling GM's Chevrolet.

Lynne Thomas, a Santa Monica resident who works in the restaurant industry, bought a Toyota Prius C hybrid in October after considering other fuel-efficient vehicles including the Smart fortwo, Fiat 500 and Volkswagen Jetta.

"I love the mileage. I'm getting more than 50 mpg," Thomas said. "It fits my lifestyle completely. It is easy to park in this crazy city. I can put my bike in the back and drive somewhere and do an amazing bike ride. It works really well in stop-and-go traffic."

The company is expanding its factory network in the U.S. as part of a strategy to manufacture in regional markets and blunt the profit-eating consequences of the Japanese yen's strong exchange rate with the dollar. It has put $1.4 billion into U.S. factories and equipment in the last year, adding more than 2,700 jobs, on top of the 1,300 positions created in the U.S. the previous year.

The expansion comes after Toyota's controversial decision to close the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif., displacing nearly 5,000 workers in early 2010. Toyota shut the plant after GM, as part of its bankruptcy reorganization, pulled out of joint manufacturing there.

Toyota also is shipping more U.S.-built vehicles abroad. In the first 10 months of this year, it exported 74,000 U.S.-built cars to Canada and Mexico and 29,000 to overseas markets. It is sending Kentucky-built Camrys to South Korea and Indiana-built Sequoias to Saudi Arabia. Exports of U.S.-built Toyotas are on track to rise more than 50% this year.

Just three years ago, Toyota was the second-largest auto seller in America, with 17% of the market, and was closing in on a crippled GM, which was struggling with the stigma of bankruptcy and a federal bailout. But Toyota was derailed in a series of embarrassing recalls. In one high-profile accident, an improperly positioned floor mat in a sedan from Toyota's Lexus luxury division may have trapped the accelerator — causing the car to race down California Highway 125 near San Diego at more than 100 mph. The car crashed and burned, killing off-duty California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor and three members of his family.

That crash led to a safety investigation and recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to fix the floor mat problem. After a Los Angeles Times series on unintended sudden acceleration, Toyota issued millions more recall notices to fix sticking gas pedals and other issues. Then, two years ago, Toyota paid record federal fines of nearly $50 million for failing to promptly inform regulators of defects and for delaying recalls. At one point it had to halt much of its production of new cars in the U.S. to fix recalled vehicles.

Just as the automaker started to recover, it was hobbled by last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which upended Toyota's manufacturing even on American soil. Toyota's share of U.S. auto sales slid to 12.9%, well below GM's and Ford's.

Several factors have helped Toyota survive the recalls and disaster-related production shutdowns, said James E. Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor Sales, the automaker's U.S. marketing arm.

First, there was "the loyalty of our consumers as we went from the financial crisis to the recalls to the tsunami," he said. "They stayed with us for the entire time."

Lentz is thankful for customers such as Evan Rabinowitz of Sherman Oaks, who bought a Camry sedan in August.

"I didn't look at anything else because I never had an issue with my 2008 Camry. Going back to Toyota was a no-brainer," said Rabinowitz, who owns a fabric business. He said his previous Toyota was recalled twice to fix pedal issues, but that work was done quickly and well and didn't dissuade him from purchasing another Camry.

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Survey finds many MTA employees have safety concerns

Hundreds of Metro transit workers — many of whom operate the trains and buses that carry 1.5 million riders daily — say they have concerns about their on-the-job safety.

Of 745 employees who responded to a workplace survey at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a large majority of mechanics, track workers, bus drivers, train operators and others described their workplace as somewhat safe, not very safe or not safe at all.

A significant number of employees, particularly those who operate and repair transit systems, also believe their supervisors are only concerned about safety when there is a serious accident.

Most of the Metro workers who were questioned, however, gave the agency high marks for safety overall. Yet almost half said they have encountered close calls on the job that could have killed or seriously injured someone.

Metro Chief Executive Art Leahy said he was pleased that the survey was "generally positive" and pointed out that many of its recommendations already have been addressed. He noted, for example, that the management of the department that maintains rail systems has been changed, more workers have been hired and trackside safety measures improved.

But Leahy said the study by Sam Schwartz Engineering, a national consulting firm, was not as comprehensive as he would have liked. And he questioned whether the employees who responded to the detailed questionnaire were really representative.

"I take deep offense to anyone who says I don't care about safety," Leahy said. "This is no joke."

Metro operates about 2,000 buses and 87 miles of subway and light-rail lines. It has about 9,000 employees and a $4.5 billion-annual budget.

The report, obtained by The Times under the state Public Records Act, is scheduled to be discussed at the authority's December board meeting. It comes at a time when agency leaders have been debating several safety issues.

During the last year, the authority has been dealing with a faulty rail junction on the recently opened Expo light-rail line to the Westside and a surge in accidents on the Blue Line, the light-rail link between Los Angeles and Long Beach.

In the survey, solid majorities of Metro employees said that accidents were thoroughly investigated, education and training programs were effective, management addressed safety-related complaints and changes in safety rules were adequately communicated.

"There is clearly a positive safety culture at Metro," researchers said, adding that such a distinction is only enjoyed by "a handful of transit agencies."

Metro's board of directors ordered the safety study in October 2011, at the request of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, the current board chairman. The consultants reviewed written safety procedures, interviewed key managers and held group discussions with workers. Questionnaires were sent to 6,000 of Metro's 9,000 employees, of whom 745 responded.

Though the survey was not a scientifically based opinion poll, about 8% of the authority's workforce participated, considered to be a significant sample.

Howard Roberts, the author of the report, said the survey was designed to identify strengths as well as suspected problems that Metro should look into and correct if necessary.

The authority is "working on all the report's recommendations," said Roberts, a veteran transit executive who is now a consultant. "Metro ought to be commended for the survey. Not a lot of people do this. Some agencies don't want to recognize that they might have serious problems."

Roberts cautioned that some of the survey's findings were not always a reflection of the quality of Metro's safety policies. Track workers, train operators and bus drivers, he said, can feel vulnerable in the field and face inherent dangers that are difficult to eliminate, such as crime and accidents caused by the public.

The report found that significant numbers of bus drivers, train operators and those who work on Metro's rail network were more critical of their safety and agency practices than workers who are less connected to the direct operation and maintenance of rail and bus systems.

They said that many close calls or near misses are never reported to supervisors and that Metro is more interested in disciplining individuals for mishaps or safety violations instead of preventing recurrences.

Many other employees who work on tracks and related equipment said they were seriously concerned about pressure from supervisors to ignore some safety rules and procedures to get assignments done.

Majorities of all workers, however, said that Metro's management takes a "no blame" approach if near-misses are reported and that supervisors maintain an open-door policy and act quickly to correct safety problems.

In other findings, the report states that some bus drivers in group discussions complained that they now have to go faster than usual, turning their lines into "racetrack routes." Deep service cuts, they say, have increased the number of passengers, which makes it harder to stay on schedule because loading and unloading takes more time.

"I'd like to know where they exist," Leahy said, adding that he thought the complaints might have involved scheduling issues on the Orange Line bus rapid transit route in the San Fernando Valley, which have been looked into.

The report further stated that other drivers were concerned that there is not enough law enforcement presence on buses. They complained that Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies are seldom seen or only ride a few blocks before getting off.

Agency officials counter that deputies conducted more than 3,000 boardings from September through the first week of November and took about 900 bus rides of two hours each. Statistics show that deputies checked the fares of more than 100,000 riders and made 130 misdemeanor and felony arrests.

dan.weikel@latimes.com

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Research In Motion shares climb

TORONTO (AP) — Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. Jumped nearly 14 percent Friday as investors seemingly grew more optimistic about a February launch of the Canadian company’s much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

RIM will release the latest version of its smartphone “not too long” after a Jan. 30 launch event, Kristian Tear, the company’s chief operating officer, has said.

The new phones are seen as critical to RIM’s survival as the smartphone pioneer struggles in North America to hold on to customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones.

The Waterloo, Ontario, company seems to be preparing for a February global launch, a month earlier than many analysts were expecting, according to an analyst with National Bank Financial, a Canadian bank. Kris Thompson raised his shipments forecast for RIM for fiscal 2014 in a research note from Wednesday.

Thompson also increased his price target for the BlackBerry maker to $ 15 from $ 12.

RIM shares on the Nasdaq closed up $ 1.41, or nearly 14 percent, to $ 11.67 Friday in an abbreviated trading session on Wall Street.

The spike in the BlackBerry maker’s shares came after a week of steady gains amid more positive sentiment.

On Wednesday, shares in Research In Motion gained almost 5 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange even though it was reported that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board had dropped the BlackBerry maker in favor of Apple’s iPhone 5.

Thompson, the National Bank Financial analyst, was bolstered by RIM’s new management team, which he said is maintaining the BlackBerry smartphone subscriber base, managing costs and cash, and seemingly readying a February 2013 BB10 global product release, a month earlier than expected.

He said certification of the new BlackBerrys by wireless carriers is the key risk to his prediction and estimate of BlackBerry shipments. Carrier certification, which tests the new devices, can take time.

The new BlackBerry 10 system is designed for the touch screen, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now expect. RIM’s current software is still focused on email and messaging and is less user-friendly, agile and robust than iPhone or Android.

Earlier this week, a prominent tech analyst gave RIM’s new operating system a small but improved chance of success. Analyst Peter Misek of New York-based Jefferies & Company said he’s still giving the BlackBerry 10 operating system only a 20 to 30 percent probability of success.

RIM was once Canada‘s most valuable company with a market value of more than $ 80 billion in 2008, but the stock has plummeted since, from over $ 140 per share. Its decline evokes memories of Nortel, another former Canadian tech giant, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Marc Anthony comes to aid of Dominican orphanage

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Singer Marc Anthony is coming to the aid of an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

A foundation run by Anthony with music and sports producer Henry Cardenas plans to build a new residence hall, classrooms and a baseball field for the Children of Christ orphanage in the eastern city of La Romana. Anthony attended the groundbreaking ceremony Friday with his model girlfriend Shannon de Lima.

Children of Christ Foundation Director Sonia Hane said Anthony visited the orphanage previously and decided to help. His Maestro Cares Foundation raised $200,000 for the expansion on land donated by a sugar company. The orphanage was founded in 1996 for children who were abused or abandoned or whose parents were unable to care for them.

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Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied

DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday.

The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files he had received from the Irish Health Service Executive about the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, including any mention of her requests for an abortion after she learned that the fetus would not survive.

The death of Dr. Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, has focused global attention on the Irish ban on abortion.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, has refused to cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the Irish health agency. “I have seen the way my wife was treated in the hospital, so I have no confidence that the H.S.E. will do justice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday night on RTE, the state television broadcaster. “Basically, I don’t have any confidence in the H.S.E.”

In a tense debate in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday evening, Robert Dowds of the Labour Party said Dr. Halappanavar’s death had forced politicians “to confront an issue we have dodged for much too long,” partly because so many Irish women travel to Britain for abortions.

“The reality is that if Britain wasn’t on our doorstep, we would have had to introduce abortion legislation years ago to avoid women dying in back-street abortions,” he said.

After the debate, the Parliament voted 88 to 53 against a motion introduced by the opposition Sinn Fein party calling on the government to allow abortions when women’s lives are in danger and to protect doctors who perform such procedures.

The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins — who is restricted by the Constitution from getting involved in political matters — also made a rare foray into a political debate on Wednesday, saying any inquiry must meet the needs of the Halappanavar family as well as the government.

In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court interpreted the current law to mean that abortion should be allowed in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,” including the threat of suicide. But that ruling has never been codified into law.

“The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan, of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told RTE last week. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”

Dr. Ruth Cullen, who has campaigned against abortion, said that any legislation to codify the Supreme Court ruling would be tantamount to allowing abortion on demand and that Dr. Halappanavar’s death should not be used to make that change.

Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood infection, septicemia, and died Oct. 28, a week after she was admitted to Galway University Hospital with severe back pains. She was 17 weeks pregnant but having a miscarriage and was told that the fetus — a girl — would not survive. Her husband said she asked several times for an abortion but was informed that under Irish law it would be illegal while there was a fetal heartbeat, because “this is a Catholic country.”

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Shopping season off to strong start

Opening their doors earlier than ever for Black Friday paid off for retailers as shoppers mobbed malls thick with sales across the Southland, snapping up electronics, toys and other deals.

Hundreds of bargain hunters surged toward the Glendale Galleria before midnight, some banging on one entrance and shouting to be let in. At the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, shoppers rushing into Urban Outfitters shattered a glass door. Mall traffic was a nightmare throughout Southern California.

Despite the chaos, early signs point to a blockbuster shopping day for merchants — with stores raking in even more than the record $11.4 billion for Black Friday they reported last year. More comprehensive numbers are expected Sunday.

PHOTOS: Black Friday shopping

"Overall it was a smash hit," said Britt Beemer, a retail expert at America's Research Group who has been tracking holiday sales nationally for more than three decades. "In all the years I have been out, I have never seen such crowds in my life."

Target, Sears and the Disney Store reported a surge in customers. Wal-Mart said it was the retail behemoth's best Black Friday sale ever. Mall operators saw long lines, and shoppers scooped up even some full-price items as well as bargains in stores and online.

The shopping frenzy cheered merchants and Wall Street, which enjoyed a big boost Friday.

There was no violence reported in Southern California, where last year at least 10 people were injured when a shopper used pepper spray to ward off rivals at a Porter Ranch Wal-Mart.

But protests erupted over working conditions at dozens of Wal-Marts nationwide, including one that led to the arrest of nine people blocking a street in Paramount. And two people were shot in what police said was a scuffle over a parking spot at a Wal-Mart in Tallahassee, Fla.

Bargains continue through Sunday as an estimated 147 million shoppers are expected to hit the malls over the long weekend. Customers said they liked what they saw and took their enthusiasm straight to the cash register.

"You can't miss out on that deal, man!" said Robert Perez, 26, of Mount Washington, who skipped Thanksgiving dinner altogether to buy two televisions at a Target in Glendale for $147 each, a $103 discount for each TV.

"If I stayed at home eating turkey, I would have told myself, 'I could have gotten the TVs,'" he said.

Lauren Sweeney, 31, of Whittier hit the Third Street Promenade on Friday morning, zooming through seven stores in less than four hours for clothes and gifts for co-workers and family. The sales director, who was strategically shopping with her sister, mother and stepmother, said she was more confident in the economy and planned to splurge more on Christmas presents.

"We made it out of H&M and we didn't get trampled," Sweeney said.

It was good news for merchants who can rake in up to 40% of their annual sales during November and December and could give the economy a much-needed boost at the end of the year.

The National Retail Federation estimated that holiday sales will increase to $586.1 billion this year, up about 4.1% compared with the previous year. It will release its closely watched estimate of Black Friday sales Sunday.

According to a Gallup survey, consumers say they'll spend an average of $770 on holiday gifts this year, roughly on par with what they estimated at this time last year.

"There's a little more discretionary spending, and if the deal is right shoppers will make the extra purchase that they didn't make last year," said Ken Perkins, an expert at Retail Metrics Inc. "Consumer confidence is at a five-year high, there has been improvement in people's net worth and we see just general improvement overall."

In addition, consumers were benefiting from a drive by brick-and-mortar merchants to step up their deals.

Price-matching efforts and promotions were aimed at combatting the success of rival online merchants, who enjoyed a 22.9% jump as of 3 p.m. on Black Friday over last year in sales. They'll roll out even more Web bargains on so-called Cyber Monday, the first workday after the Thanksgiving weekend.

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Cyber Corps program trains spies for the digital age

TULSA, Okla. — Jim Thavisay is secretly stalking one of his classmates. And one of them is spying on him.

"I have an idea who it is, but I'm not 100% sure yet," said Thavisay, a 25-year-old former casino blackjack dealer.

Stalking is part of the curriculum in the Cyber Corps, an unusual two-year program at the University of Tulsa that teaches students how to spy in cyberspace, the latest frontier in espionage.

Students learn not only how to rifle through trash, sneak a tracking device on cars and plant false information on Facebook. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.

It may sound like a Jason Bourne movie, but the little-known program has funneled most of its graduates to the CIA and the Pentagon's National Security Agency, which conducts America's digital spying. Other graduates have taken positions with the FBI, NASA and the Department of Homeland Security.

The need for stronger cyber-defense — and offense — was highlighted when Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned in an Oct. 11 speech that a "a cyber-terrorist attack could paralyze the nation," and that America needs experts to tackle the growing threat.

"An aggressor nation or extremist group could gain control of critical switches and derail passenger trains, or trains loaded with lethal chemicals," Panetta said. "They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country."

Panetta said the Pentagon spends more than $3 billion annually for cyber-security. "Our most important investment is in skilled cyber-warriors needed to conduct operations in cyberspace," he said.

That's music to the ears of Sujeet Shenoi, a naturalized citizen from India who founded the cyber program in 1998. He says 85% of the 260 graduates since 2003 have gone to the NSA, which students call "the fraternity," or the CIA, which they call "the sorority."

Shenoi subjects his students to both classroom theory and practical field work. Each student is assigned to a Tulsa police crime lab on campus and uses digital skills to help uncover evidence — most commonly child pornography images — from seized devices. Several students have posed as children online to lure predators. In 2003, students helped solve a triple homicide by cracking an email account linking the perpetrator to his victims.

"I throw them into the deep end," Shenoi said. "And they become fearless."

The Secret Service has also tapped the Cyber Corps. Working from a facility on campus, students help agents remove evidence from damaged cellphones, GPS units and other devices.

"Working alongside U.S. Secret Service agents, Tulsa Cyber Corps students have developed techniques for extracting evidence from burned or shattered cellphones," Hugh Dunleavy, who heads the Secret Service criminal division, said in a written statement. More than 5,000 devices have been examined at the facility, he added.

In 2007, California's secretary of state, Debra Bowen, hired the University of California to test the security of three electronic voting systems used in the state, and Shenoi and several students joined one of the "red" teams assigned to try to hack the voting machines. They succeeded. One of the students, who now works at the NSA, showed that someone could use an off-the-shelf device with Bluetooth connectivity to change all the votes in a given machine, Shenoi said.

"All our results were provided to the companies so they could fix the machines to the extent possible," Shenoi said.

In May, the NSA named Tulsa as one of four national centers of academic excellence in cyber-operations. The others were Northeastern University in Boston, Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and Dakota State University in Madison, S.D.

"Tulsa students show up to NSA with a lot of highly relevant hands-on experience," said Neal Ziring, a senior NSA official who visited the school recently to consult about the curriculum and to interview students for jobs and internships. "There are very few schools that are like Tulsa in terms of having participation with law enforcement, with industry, with government."

Shenoi's students have ranged in age from 17 to 63. Many are retired from the military, or otherwise starting second careers. They are usually working toward degrees in computer science, engineering, law or business. About two-thirds get a cyber-operations certification on their diplomas, or what Shenoi calls a "cyber-ninja" designation "because they have to be super techie."

To be accepted into the corps, applicants must be U.S. citizens with the ability to obtain a security clearance of "top secret" or higher. But not all of them spend their careers in government.

One former student, Philip McAllister, worked after graduation at the Naval Research Laboratory, which does scientific research and development for the Navy and Marines. He later moved to San Francisco and worked at several startup companies before he joined Instagram, which developed a photo-sharing mobile application, early this year. Facebook purchased Instagram, which had only 13 employees, for $1 billion three months later.

"Sujeet gets incredibly talented people," said Richard "Dickie" George, who retired last year after a three-decade career at the NSA.

Shenoi speaks proudly of students who pushed the boundaries or broke the rules.

One, who now works at the NSA, hacked the school's computer system and created a fake university ID to impersonate his cyber-stalking target, for example. Another spoofed a professor's email account to fool his target into spilling details. As part of a vulnerability study, one student sneaked into a Tulsa water system facility and stole blueprints that a more malign attacker could use to wreak havoc.

A few years ago, Shenoi says, a group of students rummaged through trash bins outside offices on campus and obtained confidential information about football recruits, professors' salaries, and major financial donors.

"We are now banned from Dumpster diving on campus," he said with a smile.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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Halle Berry's ex arrested after fight at her house

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Halle Berry's ex-boyfriend Gabriel Aubry was arrested for investigation of battery Thursday after he and the Oscar-winning actress' current boyfriend got into a fight at her Hollywood Hills home, police said.

Aubry, 37, was booked for investigation of a battery, a misdemeanor, and released on $20,000 bail, according to online jail records. He's scheduled to appear in court Dec. 13.

Aubry came to Berry's house Thanksgiving morning and police responded to a report of an assault, said Los Angeles Police Officer Julie Boyer. Aubry was injured in the altercation and was taken to a hospital where he was treated and released.

Emails sent to Berry's publicist, Meredith O'Sullivan, and Aubry's family law attorney, Gary Fishbein, were not immediately returned.

Berry and Aubry have been involved in a custody dispute involving their 4-year-old daughter, Nahla. The proceedings were sealed because the former couple are not married. Both appeared in the case as recently as Nov. 9, but neither side commented on the outcome of the hearing.

Berry has been dating French actor Olivier Martinez, and he said earlier this year that they are engaged.

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