UnitedHealth to rebate $3.5 million to California small businesses

UnitedHealth to rebate $3.5 million to California small businesses

Nearly 4,400 small businesses in California will share in $3.5 million in rebates from insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. this summer as insurers nationwide prepare to return millions of dollars to customers as a key benefit of the federal healthcare law kicks in.

The first of these California rebates, amounting to about $98 each for nearly 36,000 small-business employees and dependents covered by UnitedHealth, comes because the company's spending on medical care fell short of new government requirements.

Insurers must notify federal and state officials of how much they may owe policyholders by Friday if they failed to spend a minimum amount of customers' premiums on medical care last year. Consumer groups pushed for this provision in President Obama's Affordable Care Act to ensure that companies aren't raising premiums to pay for executive salaries, shareholder dividends and other expenses unrelated to customers' care.

Healthcare experts say the rebates probably will be modest on a per-person basis and most of the money may go to employers. As of Wednesday, UnitedHealth was the only insurer that had filed rebate information with the state Department of Managed Health Care. Other companies are expected to disclose the size of their customer rebates later this week and send out money by Aug. 1.

UnitedHealth, the nation's largest insurer, said checks will go out in July to those small businesses affected. The Minnetonka, Minn., company said that under the federal rules it did not owe rebates to individual policyholders or large employers in California.

Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said these rebates are an important milestone since most other provisions of the federal law don't take effect until 2014, and policyholders have continued to face rising premiums. The average premium for employer coverage in California has increased 154% over the last decade, more than five times the 29% increase in the state's overall inflation rate.

"For the first time, a broad spectrum of California and America will feel a positive consequence of this legislation," Kominski said."When is the last time you got a rebate from your health insurance company? People have been waiting a long time for this."

California insurance officials said it's too early to estimate the overall amount of rebates statewide. Janice Rocco, the deputy insurance commissioner for health policy, said regulators will begin auditing insurers' information on expenses and profits next month to ensure that their rebate calculations are accurate.

However, the future of these rebates and the entire federal healthcare overhaul is uncertain as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the law. A court ruling is expected next month.

California lawmakers passed a similar state requirement on medical spending, and state regulators have said those rules would stand even if the federal law is overturned. But insurers don't necessarily agree with that view.

Excluding California, insurers are expected to pay an estimated $1.3 billion in rebates to U.S. consumers and employers this year, according to a study last month from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The nonprofit group said the average rebate for individuals was an estimated $127 per person.

Under the federal and state laws, insurers must spend at least 80% of premiums collected on medical care for individual and small-group policies, which cover businesses with 50 or fewer workers. For larger employers, insurers must spend at least 85% of premiums on medical expenses. Employers that self-insure are not subject to these requirements, which are referred to as a medical-loss ratio.

In its state filing, UnitedHealth said it owed rebates because its medical-loss ratio for small businesses was 77.9% last year, short of the 80% threshold. UnitedHealth said its loss ratio on individual customers was 80.1% and 88.6% on larger companies, meeting the government requirements.

Cheryl Randolph, a spokeswoman for UnitedHealth, said 35,922 workers and their dependents are covered by the small-business rebates, but it's up to employers to decide how they share those savings under the federal law. Some employers may split the rebate money based on the percentage workers contribute to their annual premiums or they could reduce next year's premium by a similar amount. Not all small-business customers of UnitedHealth qualified for the rebate.

"We think our numbers reflect that we are pretty close to pricing in line with what we are seeing on the medical cost trend," Randolph said.

Rebates will vary for each company and kinds of policies. A spokesman for Health Net Inc. in Woodland Hills said its medical spending met the minimum requirements and that it doesn't expect to issue any rebates to its 1.1 million customers in California.

Patrick Johnston, president and chief executive of the California Assn. of Health Plans, said insurers are committed to issuing rebates, when necessary, but the rules don't address the larger issue of rising medical costs.

"Rebates are one way to adjust the price of insurance," Johnston said, "but the bigger issues are containing cost and extending coverage."

chad.terhune@latimes.com

Medi-Cal works for most enrollees, survey finds

Medi-Cal works for most enrollees, survey finds

As California gears up for a major expansion of its publicly funded health program for the poor, a statewide survey released Thursday shows that Medi-Cal enrollees have more trouble finding doctors and use the emergency room more frequently than people with other health coverage.

But overall, perceptions of the program were positive, with more than 70% of all recipients reporting that Medi-Cal provided high-quality care.

The survey â€" called Medi-Cal at a Crossroads â€" comes at a critical time, as the state continues to cut costs and simultaneously prepare for new enrollees.

"At a time when the program is being cut back, it is poised for a dramatic expansion," said Mark Smith, president and chief executive of the California HealthCare Foundation, which commissioned the survey. "Trying to figure out what it does well and where there is room for improvement is really important."

Smith said the survey highlights some of the obstacles the state will face when the coverage expansion takes effect in 2014. About 7.6 million people receive Medi-Cal services now, and if theU.S. Supreme Courtdoesn't throw out the federal health reform law, an additional 2 million California residents could be newly eligible for enrollment.

California Department of Health Care Services Associate Director Len Finocchio said it was validating to see that Medi- Cal works well for the vast majority of enrollees. He said the department knows that there are some beneficiaries who have difficulty maneuvering through the program.

"We are not shying away from the issues that we have to deal with," he said. "We are working on that all the time."

Having enough doctors who accept Medi-Cal patients may prove to be the greatest hurdle for the state as it enrolls more beneficiaries. Reimbursement rates for doctors have been cut significantly and now are among the lowest in the nation.

Nearly a quarter of Medi-Cal recipients reported having difficulty finding a primary care provider who accepted their insurance, compared with 11% of people with other health coverage. And 34% of Medi-Cal enrollees said it was difficult finding a specialist, compared with 13% of people with other health coverage. Even more people in fair or poor health reported difficulty finding a specialist.

"Almost half of the people who are the sic kest are having the hardest time finding doctors," said Tresa Undem, a partner at Lake Research Partners, which conducted the survey. "That is a big challenge for the program."

Their ER use was also higher. Among those in fair or poor health, Medi-Cal patients were more than twice as likely as those with other health coverage to say they visited the emergency room in the prior year.

Enrolling the newly eligible could also pose a problem, Undem said. Only about a third of those not yet enrolled said they knew how to apply and many didn't know they would qualify. Finnocio said the state is already planning how to get the word out about eligibility and enrollment, and new applicants will be able to sign up in person, online, over the phone or by mail.

Jolina Barsanti, 34, receives health insurance through her employer but her husband and young children are covered under Medi-Cal. Barsanti, who lives in Alameda County, said she has been generally pleased wit h the program but said she wished it included dental coverage for her husband and vision coverage for her whole family.

Barsanti said that because she works, she has to pay about $1,250 before Medi-Cal picks up any costs. "It is expensive," she said. "We can't afford that, especially living in the Bay Area."

Enrollees with disabilities had the worst perceptions of the program.

"This is a wake-up call that these patients are not particularly happy with the status quo," Smith said, adding that the state needs to closely monitor their ongoing transition into managed care. "These are patients for whom mistakes can translate into really serious medical problems."

anna.gorman@latimes.com

Tech executives expect growth to begin slowing in 2012

Tech executives expect growth to begin slowing in 2012

Growth in the technology sector will begin slowing in 2012, according to industry executives who answered an annual survey released Thursday.

Though the sector is expected to continue expanding, 42% of executives said they expected only moderate growth of 1% to 6% in 2012, while in 2011 that figure was just 14%.

At the same time, only 15% of those surveyed said they expect growth higher than 7% this year, quite a bit less than the 36% who answered the same in 2011.

The annual Technology Industry Business Outlook survey was conducted by the KPMG consulting firm during April. It involved 122 mostly senior executives, most of whom work at companies with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion.

Along with slowing growth, the survey shows a similar outlook for revenue in the coming year. Those expecting significantly higher revenue than the year before dropped by 7 percentage points, while those expecting only moderately higher revenue went up by those same 7 points.

The survey showed that tech executives expect the amount of money their companies spend to begin slowing as well. The survey showed spending growth of 6% or more was anticipated by 27% of those surveyed, down from 31% a year ago, while more executives predicted spending growth of 5% or less.

Research and development spending was also anticipated to start slowing. Last year, 36% of those surveyed said they expected growth of 6% or more for RD while this year only 29% said they expected that much. And once again, more moderate growth expectations was higher this year than 2011.

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Twice as many adults using Twitter daily

Twice as many adults using Twitter daily

The number of adults using Twitter every day has doubled since 2011, according to a new survey.

Eight percent of adult Internet users said they log on to Twitter every day, up from the 4% who said the same last year, according to the Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey.

That number was even higher for young adults. One in five Internet users ages 18 to 24 are using the website each day, and nearly one-third of all users that age are on Twitter.

The reason for the increase in daily usage is likely because of the rise of smartphones, the survey suggests.

"Those ages 18-24 are not just the fastest growing group when it comes to Twitter adoption over the last year," the survey reads. "They also experienced the largest increase in smartphone ownership of any demographic group over the same time period."

The survey shows that 20% of smartphone users are also Twitters users while those who own basic phones are half as likely to use Twitter.

The bad news for Twitter, however, is its overall adult usage did not pick up by much. Last year, 13% of adults on the Internet were using Twitter. That number went up to only 15% in the latest results.

Another interesting fact from the survey is African Americans use Twitter twice as much as other ethnic groups. More than a quarter, 28%, of black Internet users are on Twitter as opposed to Hispanic, 12%, and white Inter net users, 14%.

The Pew Research Center's Internet American Life Project Winter 2012 Tracking Survey got its information by speaking with more than 4,500 people between late January and early April.

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Old people don't smell so bad, study finds

Old people don't smell so bad, study finds

Old people have a reputation for producing a distinct stink that follows them around like, well, a bad odor. Now, chemosensory experts have found that people can indeed pick out the aged aroma â€" and it's actually more pleasant and less intense than body odors from twentysomethings and middle-aged folk.

Humans excel at many things, but they aren't known for their olfactory prowess. In recent years, however, scientists have shown that humans use their noses when selecting romantic partners, picking out kin and distinguishing men from women.

All this indicates that humans' ability to navigate their social worlds is far more complex than commonly thought. The new study, published Wednesday by the journal PLoS ONE, provides the first look at humans' ability to gauge age on the basis of smell â€" even when they aren't aware of it.

The inspiration for the study came from a childhood memory, said Johan Lundstrom, a neuropsychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Lundstrom's mother worked at a retirement home in Sweden, and as a boy he would visit from time to time. While giving a talk at a retirement home in Philadelphia, he was struck by a sense of olfactory deja vu.

The smell, he said, "was identical to this retirement home in Sweden â€" two different continents, two different populations, but similar odor."

To see if this phenomenon held up in the lab, researchers asked 41 volunteers between the ages of 20 and 95 t o spend five nights sleeping in T-shirts with nursing pads sewn into the armpits. During the day, they placed their shirts in freezer bags to prevent bacteria from growing, which could have contaminated the results.

Just before bedtime, the volunteers also showered with odor-free soap and shampoo and laundered their linens in odor-free detergent. They even avoided spicy foods, which can alter secretions from sweat glands.

When the five nights were over, the researchers snipped out the armpit pads and stuck them in jars. Because they didn't want the unique qualities of any individual's aroma to affect the results, each jar contained cut-up quarters of pads from several people in the same age group.

A different group of 41 volunteers was asked to assess the odors in the jars, rating them according to intensity and pleasantness (or unpleasantness).

It turned out that the underarm odor of 75-to-95-year-olds was judged to be less intense and far more p leasant than the scent of either young or middle-aged adults. The most intense â€" and perhaps not coincidentally, the most unpleasant â€" odor came from 45-to-55-year-old men. Women in that age group, on the other hand, produced the most pleasant smell of everyone who wore the underarm pads.

On the whole, men generally smelled worse than women, but that distinction disappeared in old age, the researchers found.

"As you grow older, you smell more and more like a woman," Lundstrom said. That is due to changes in men's hormone levels as they age. "It's almost as if you're going back to what happened before puberty."

In other tests, sniffers were given several jars at once and asked to group them in similar pairs. Subjects were able to match the distinctive scents of old people more than twice as often as they could for either the young adults or the middle-aged folk.

"There must be something that sticks out," Lundstrom said.

The so-called old -people smell, sometimes conflated with the more medicinal "nursing-home smell," has many negative associations, Lundstrom said. If the study participants had been told what they were smelling, perhaps they wouldn't have assessed the aroma so favorably, he said.

Jay Gottfried, a neurologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., an expert on how memory and experience influence odor perception, said the study was "certainly provocative and raises interesting questions."

"The human sense of smell is much better than people regard it to be," he said. "That we can detect low concentrations of odors outside of conscious awareness can influence our behavior."

For instance, in a 2007 study he worked on, people who smelled an unpleasant odor â€" one so faint that they weren't aware they had smelled it â€" right before being shown faces with neutral expressions were more likely to rate the faces as unlikable.

But Gottfried expressed some skepticism that any kind of body odor could be characterized as pleasant.

"I have smelled isolated, pure male and female body odor," he said. "Female body odor â€" to me â€" doesn't smell any better than male."

amina.khan@latimes.com

Iran's Kiarostami: I'm not rushing to shoot there again

Iran's Kiarostami: I'm not rushing to shoot there again

With "A Separation" the reigning Oscar foreign-language winner, Iranian film has perhaps never been more in the global spotlight. And yet with Iran's artists continuing to face free-speech issues, some of its leading directors have never been less willing to make movies there.

"A Separation" director Asghar Farhadi is taking his next production to Paris, where for the first time he will use Europe, not Iran, as his backdrop, in a movie that has him casting French actors such as Marion Cottilard.

Now Abbas Kiarostami, the eminence grise of Iranian cinema,  says he too is in no hurry to resume working in his home country. After setting and shooting his last two films far outside the Middle East -- in Italy and Japan -- Kiarostami told 24 Frames the new film he is working on will also be shot and set in a place other than Iran and will feature non-Iranian actors.

"All Iranians have grown up with [free-speech] restrictions," he said in a candid interview with 24 Frames explaining his choice. "But when rules are written, we'd find a way to work around it. You can cope. What's really perverse now is the unsaid and irrational rules that every [government] person creates. I don't want to deal with that."

Kiarostami, 71, has been setting films in Iran for nearly four decades, before and after the country's 1979 revolution, and even during the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He won the Palme d’Or in 1997 ("Taste of Cherry") and a Venice special jur y prize in 1999 ("The Wind Will Carry Us"). For many Westerners, he has become one of the few ways to understand everyday life in Tehran, where foreign media coverage is severely restricted.

But he said his new film, which he is still writing and declined to offer further details about, will follow the pattern of his last two movies and take place elsewhere. He said he might consider making another Iran-set movie at some point in the future, but it is not something he is planning.

The director's most recent effort, "Like Someone In Love," was well received at the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival, where it was picked up for U.S. distribution by Sundance Selects. The movie features Kiarostami's slow-burn takes and the subtle shifting of power between characters throughout the course of a scene.

But those looking for a window into Iran will be disappointed -- the film is set in Japan and tells of the relationship between an elderly professor, a call girl and the girl's boyfriend. It follows his 2010 effort, "Certified Copy," which was about a relationship between a French woman and a British man and was set in Tuscany. (We explore how a host of Iranian directors are handling the question of free speech in a recent Sunday Calendar article, which you can read here.)

Asked if there are ways to touch on Iran-specific issues ev en when making movies in another country -- perhaps by depicting Iranian emigres to other places, such as Los Angeles -- Kiarostami said he had little desire to attempt that either.
 
"We [Iranians] live in such a bitter situation, and I don't want to make films that are dark and bitter," he said. "It would do too much harm to myself. I don't want to live with darkness and bitterness for six months or a year."

Kiarostami, who continues to reside in Iran, described a situation that remains in flux for many artists. His son, a documentary filmmaker, recently found that his passport had been suspended for a year. When he inquired why, he was told that it was for "a serious crime" but that he wouldn't be given further information, Kiarostami said. The elder Kiarostami said he pushed his son to appeal, but his son is standing pat, afraid the suspension could be extended if he challenged it.

Kiarostami said he does believe other directors can pick up the man tle, noting that even his longtime fellow filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is officially under a 20-year ban for his attempt to chronicle democracy protests, still managed to make a movie last year (the meta documentary "This Is Not a Film").

"There are talented artists who will find a way," Kiarostami said. "The Panahi case is interesting -- he was able to make a film last year and send it to Cannes." (Though it should be noted that Panahi had to put the movie on a USB drive and smuggle it out of the country hidden inside a cake.)

Kiarostami said he hoped other filmmakers continued making movies in Iran -- particularly younger directors, who he said have more of a stomach for the capricious rules and th e effort required to circumvent them. 

But he isn't optimistic about those rules changing, in large part because he doesn't feel any changes are forthcoming to the political situation from which the restrictions stem. "The petrol is keeping the country imprisoned," he said, offering a thought popular with many Iran-based democracy advocates.

He added, "The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free."

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twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: Abbas Kiarostami at the Cannes Film Festival last week. Credit: Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP/Getty Images

 

What will happen to the guy who sold the iPad prototype?

What will happen to the guy who sold the iPad prototype?

A man sold a prototype of the first-generation iPad earlier this week for $10,200, but now that there's a likelihood he came across the item after it was stolen, it poses the question: What will Apple do about it?

The seller, who posted the unique two dock-connector iPad on Ebay on Memorial Day, said he bought the device from a colleague but doesn't know how he came across the item.

“I don’t know if it was stolen from Apple, or if the person who was working with it kept it,” the man told Wired. “Judging by how Apple works, it’s most likely stolen, but I’m no t sure about that.”

The seller, who did not reveal his identity to the publication to protect himself from Apple, said he purposely chose Memorial Day weekend to sell the item.

“I knew that Apple wouldn’t be as active over the weekend, and I had a better chance of Apple not taking it down,” he said. 

The man said he made a bigger profit than he expected for the prototype, selling it to a buyer whose identity he also did not reveal, though he did say it was someone in the U.S.

But now, it'll be interesting to see if Apple attempts to recover the device. In the past, the Cupertino tech company has not been shy about going after pieces of its test devices that ended up in the hands of others.

Last year, the company stopped an auction for a prototype of its MacBook Pro line that featured an antenna. And afterward, the would-be seller ended up giving the machine back to Apple.

Apple also did not take lightly news in 2010 that one of its iPhone 4 prototypes had been sold to Gizmodo after it had been left behind at a bar by one of its employees. In fact, the people involved in selling the phone ended up getting sentenced to probation last year. 

And when another phone went missing last year, the tech giant sent investigators, along with officers of the San Francisco Police Department, to search a man's home.

Where that leaves the seller and the buyer of the this latest Apple prototype remains to be seen, but the anonymous seller told Wired, “I’m pretty sure any contact I have with [Apple] won’t be very positive.”

But it's not all bad for Apple. The seller -- who claims he sold another Apple prototype before, though he didn't specify what it was -- said he plans to put all the money from the auction back into Apple. 

“I plan to save it and buy a new iPhone 5 or new MacBook Pro when it comes out," he said. "It will definitely get back to Apple.”

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Mitt Romney struggles to differentiate his foreign policy from the president's

Mitt Romney struggles to differentiate his foreign policy from the president's

Mitt Romney's foreign policy argument against a second term for President Obama has been sharp: He says his Democratic rival has made the U.S. less safe by failing to lead on the world stage.

Romney has roughed up Obama with a hawkish tone â€" at times bordering on belligerent. Yet for all his criticisms of the president, it has been difficult to tell exactly what Romney would do differently.

He has argued that reelecting Obama will result in Iran having a nuclear weapon â€" without explaining how. He has charged that Obama should have taken "more assertive steps" to force out the repressive regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad â€" but has said he is not "anxious to employ military action." He accused Obama of tipping his hand to the Taliban by announcing a timeline for withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, but also accepts the 2014 timeline.

Romney's approach could be seen in his take on the case of Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist who in early May sought shelter at the American Embassy before leaving his country. As Americans officials negotiated over his fate, Romney suggested that the Obama administration had put Chen in danger to placate the Chinese.

He said that if reports he had heard were true, "this is a dark day for freedom and it's a day of shame for the Obama administration."

Two weeks later, when Chen arrived in New York, Romney declared himself "relieved" and said the episode "underscores the need for the United States to forthrightly stand up for the human rights of the Chinese people."

At no point did he elaborate on how his approach would have differed from Obama's.

Christopher Preble, a foreign policy expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says he does not yet see "a huge difference" between the foreign policy approaches of Obama and Romney.

"A lot is made of Romney's tough talk with respect to Russia and Iran and China, but even there it's not like I see a dearth of toughness on the part of President Obama," Preble said. "As a challenger, for someone like Mitt Romney, it really is incumbent on him to draw distinctions and differences. He doesn't. It allows people to paint with a broad brush [what] they would guess … his response would be."

By portraying his opponent as a feckless commander in chief, Romney is playing on historic Republican criticisms of Democrats as insufficiently tough. But that task is more difficult this year as he faces a war-weary public and an incumbent president with some notable foreign policy victories, including the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden.

Foreign policy is not Romney's strength; 2008 GOP nominee John McCain defeated the former Massachusetts governor in primaries that year in part because of his international exp ertise. In Washington Post-ABC News poll last month, 53% of respondents said they trusted Obama to do a better job handling international affairs. Thirty-six percent picked Romney.

That may also be due to the lack of distinctions between the two. In 2008, Obama and McCain used the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to differentiate themselves from primary opponents, and their proposals remained a central issue until the economic collapse that September.

This year, Romney and Obama agree on the basic timeline of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan; Romney's chief critique has been his assertion that the president's actions are driven by political considerations. He says he would give greater deference to the generals on the ground.

Romney did not agree with Obama's decision to withdraw 33,000 surge troops before the end of the fighting season this year. But neither candidate has offered specifics on what size the U.S. combat force should be in 2013.

On Ira n, Romney frequently faults Obama for waiting too long to put "crippling sanctions" in place on the central bank and the petroleum industry, measures that the Obama administration agreed to late last year. But when asked what further steps Romney would take to crack down on Iran, campaign aides said they were keeping an eye on legislation working its way through Congress that would put sanctions on regime officials and that Romney's main task would be to make sure the current sanctions are vigorously enforced.

In addition, Romney has said he would do more to support dissidents in Iran and make it clear that military action by the U.S. is a real option (something Romney charges Obama has failed to do, though the president has repeatedly said all options are on the table).

Two areas where clear differences exist are on policy toward Syria and on defense spending. On Sunday, Romney reiterated his call for the U.S. to work with Turkey and Saudi Arabia "to organize an d arm Syrian opposition groups" with the goal of forcing Syria's Assad from power.

Obama has said Assad must step down, and the administration has backed the peace plan brokered by United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan. On Tuesday, seeking to increase pressure on Assad after the massacre of more than 100 people in Houla, the U.S. and other nations expelled Syrian diplomats.

Romney charged Sunday that Obama had "merely granted the Assad regime more time to execute its military onslaught."

On defense spending, Romney has railed against cuts that amount to as much $1 trillion over the next decade (half of the cuts were initiated by Obama and the other half negotiated in a deal with Congress). In January, Obama called for shrinking the Army and Marines by 100,000 troops, along with other reductions meant to make the military leaner. (He argued that the defense budget would still grow over the next decades, but that the rate of spending growth would slow.)

Romney, by contrast, has called for increasing active-duty military personnel by 100,000 troops and boosting the nation's fleet. He has also said he would increase defense spending â€" by ensuring that the budget would not fall below 4% of the nation's gross domestic product. He has not said, however, how he would pay for that increase, which some analysts project would add more than $2 trillion in government spending over the next decade.

As he has campaigned, the Republican nominee has shifted the positions he held during his first run for president, though his aides attribute that to changes in global relations over the last four years.

In 2008, Romney said the United States should do more to prevent intellectual property theft by China and to persuade China to allow the marketplace to determine its currency's exchange rate.

This time, he has called China a "cheater," and said it is in a trade war with the U.S. On his first day in office, Romney has s aid, he would issue an executive order labeling China a "currency manipulator" and directing commerce officials to consider new duties on Chinese imports if the nation does not move to stop artificially depressing its currency's worth, which gives its goods a competitive advantage.

In 2008, Romney called for more collaboration with China and Russia. In a debate four months ago, he put Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the same category â€" among the "world's worst actors" â€" as Cuba's Fidel Castro and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He labeled Russia the United States' "No. 1 geopolitical foe," in a March interview on CNN. The latter statement drew widespread scorn as a throwback to Cold War-era politics.

Yet Russia represents another instance in which Romney and Obama don't differ much, despite the rhetoric. Romney has assailed Obama as trying to appease the Russians by scrapping aGeorge W. Bush-era plan to build a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe, and repla cing it with a different plan to be completed by 2020. Yet Romney says he is willing to commit to the same timeline.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Is this the best marriage proposal video ever?

Is this the best marriage proposal video ever?

Isaac Lamb, we salute you.

The 31-year-old Portland-based actor is the creative force behind "Isaac's Lip-Dub Proposal," an over-the-top marriage proposal video that has gone viral on the Internet.

In the six days since the video was posted online, it has already racked up more than 11.2 million views, and with good reason. This video is INSANE.

About 60 people helped Lamb create the memorable marriage proposal, performing an elaborately choreographed street dance to the song "Marry Me" by Bruno Mars while Lamb's soon-to-be fiancee, Amy Frankel, clutched at her heart and squealed.

When the dance was over, Lamb himself appeared in a suit, and asked Frankel for her hand in marriage.

You can guess what she said.

The video is called "Isaac's Lip-Dub Proposal" because he had Frankel wear headphones to listen to the song while the dancers pretended to sing the words.

The video got a viewer boost when Mars, who has no relationship to Lamb or Frankel, tweeted a link to the video to his 9.6 million followers, writing, "Congrats to Isaac Lamb and the fu ture Mrs. I don't think I could've made a better music video for this song. Thank you."

While the video is getting tons of views, and even landed the happy couple an interview on the "Today" show, "Isaac's Lip-Dub Proposal" is currently outpaced by another proposal video called "The Greatest Marriage Proposal EVER!!!" that went online in 2011.

According to data compiled by the online video tracking company Visible Measures, "The Greatest Marriage Proposal" had received 16.8 million views just six days after it was posted online -- a good 4 million more than "Lip-Dub Proposal" has received in the same period time.

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Controversial Malibu Lagoon project to begin Friday

Controversial Malibu Lagoon project to begin Friday

In a battle that has polarized the wealthy beach town of Malibu, activists are pledging to stand in the path of oncoming bulldozers when work begins this week on a controversial effort by the state to clean up a pollution-choked salt marsh that sits next to a world-renowned surf spot.

State contractors are set to begin fencing off Malibu Lagoon on Friday before draining the salt marsh and reshaping its shores and channels. Activists, who for years have fought a plan they believe is dangerously aggressive, say they will meet the bulldozers face-to-face and stage protests until the state backs off.

On one side is a well-organized alliance of surfers, environmental activists, Malibu locals and celebrities such as Pamela Anderson and Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis. They say the project is too heavy-handed, would destroy a lagoon they contend is already healthy and would flatten the waves at Surfrider Beach.

The activists have mounted a legal challenge that has delayed the project for a year, turned out in force at City Council meetings and held roadside protests with the slogans "Stop the Bulldozers" and "Save Malibu Lagoon."

On the other side is the state of California, government scientists, a loose contingent of local supporters and prominent environmental groups saying that critics are ignoring years of science showing that the lagoon is sick and in need of radical surgery.

Backers have tried â€" mostly in vain â€" to convince the community that the $8-million restoration project will save the lagoon.

The idea to cleanse the lagoon's sediment-clogged channels and oxygen-deprived waters was conceived more than a decade ago, and â€" initially â€" without much controversy.

The plan calls for workers to drain 12 acres of the wetland and scoop out more than 1,000 dump-truck loads of sediment. The banks will be reshaped and new vegetation planted, correcting a 1983 project that carved a restored wetland out of an estuary that had been filled with dirt to build baseball diamonds.

The four-month project, backers say, will create a viable ecosystem with water flowing in and out again; support more plants, birds and fish; and have no effect on surfing. They say it could potentially bring even cleaner water to Surfrider Beach, one of the most polluted in the state.

Opponents suffered what could be a final setback last week when a state appeals court denied their petition to halt the restoration, clearing the way for work to begin.

But they vowed to keep fighting to the last minute by appealing directly to state officials and running full-page newspaper advertisements.

"We still think this is a very bad project and needs to be rethought," said Marcia Hanscom, who heads two groups that filed suit to halt the project.

Opposition to the project has snowballed over the last two years. It was a pressing issue in last month's City Council election and a turning point for endorsements in a state Assembly race.

After Malibu withdrew its support for the restoration last month, Mayor Laura Rosenthal sent a letter asking Gov. Jerry Brown to place the restoration on permanent hold because the city's concerns about water quality and the environment "have been ignored by the lead agencies, leading to mistrust and anger over this project."

Brown responded with a statement supporting the science behind the restoration: "Without significant intervention, the Malibu Lagoon will continue in decline and is doomed to become a stagnant waterway, devoid of the kind of life that historically thrived here."

The Los Angeles County Democratic Party joined the opposition last month, passing a resolution calling on the state to put the project on hold until more studies are completed on "whether the Lagoon destruction is necessary."

State parks officials said the party relied on false and unsupported information. "The project will not destroy the lagoon," Deputy Director Anthony Perez wrote in a May 1 letter.

Andy Lyon, a Malibu real estate agent and the most vocal of three surfers who ran for City Council opposing the restoration, calls the project the linchpin of a secret development scheme and accuses scientists and environmental groups of standing to benefit financially â€" claims supporters call outrageous and unfounded.

He and other opponents contend the grading of the wetland would ruin the flow of sand that forms the famous surf break's perfect waves. Project supporters like the Surfrider Foundation, the international advocacy group founded in the 1980s by Malibu surfers, have rebutted that claim, saying the grading would have no effect on wave action.

Lyon said decades of surfing next to the lagoon tells him otherwise.

"They can drive their projects with their science or whatever they want to call it," Lyon said, "but I'm in the water all the time."

Suzanne Goode, a California State Parks environmental scientist, said such claims are typical of the "barrage of misinformation" the project has faced.

"We've tried to be on the record as much as possible to correct it," she said, "but we're not full-time PR people, we're scientists and bureaucrats."

Others say proponents left the door to criticism wide open because they failed to clearly communicate the need for the project.

"Ten years of science and research, and these groups with all their rabble-rousing are pulling the rug from under it," said Randy Olson, a Malibu filmmaker and former marine biologist who is in favor of the project.

tony.barboza@latimes.com

'A Cat in Paris' animated film draws on French roots

'A Cat in Paris' animated film draws on French roots

In “A Cat in Paris,” Dino is the beloved pet of Zoé, a young girl whose policeman father was recently murdered. Her mother, a detective on the police force, is so obsessed with finding her husband’s killer that she often neglects Zoé. After the girl goes to bed at night, Dino sneaks out of the window to work with Nico, a cat burglar with a heart of gold who seems to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

“A Cat in Paris” was hand-drawn on paper “’the old-fashioned way,” said Gagnol, who along with Felicioli, set out to pair the shadowy, dark-alley feel of film noir with a surreal, dream-like vision of Paris. They found inspiration for the look of the human characters, who have unusually elongated faces, in the paintings of Modigliani.

The film also features an evocative score that includes Billie Holiday’s “I Wished on the Moon.” “We loved old jazz going back to the 1930s,” Gagnol said. “We were also hoping to include some Duke Ellington in the film, but the rights were too expensive.”

For its U.S. release, “A Cat in Paris” will be paired with a feline-themed animated short, “Extinction of the Saber-Toothed House Cat.” The film is being released by GKIDS, a New York-based company that also scored an Oscar nomination this year for the Cuban-jazz-infused feature “Chico Rita” and two years ago with the Irish-French-Belgian family film “The Secret of Kells.”

Eric Beckman, who founded both GKIDS and the New York International Children’s Film Festival, screened “A Cat in Paris” last year at the event to considerable acclaim. “Some films are wonderful films that you have to explain to people what they are about,” Beckman said. “But this is a cat, it’s Paris, and that tells you a lot. The images are so beautiful. I fell in love with the movie after I had seen 10 minutes.”

GKIDS is opening two versions of “Cat in Paris” â€" one with the original French-language soundtrack and another that’s been dubbed into English and features the voices of Marcia Gay Harden, Anjelica Huston and Matthew Modine. (The Nuart will show the dubbed edition.)

“It is a family film, so it does make sense to dub it into English,” Beckman said. “But it is important for us to retain all the authenticity of the original.”

Gagnol and Felicioli are hard at work on their next project, a fanciful crime thriller set in New York called “Phantom Boy.” It too will be hand-drawn.

“It is not our artistic vision to do computer animation,” Gagnol said. “We prefer to feel there is a human being behind [the drawings], not a machine.”

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-- Susan King

Photo: A scene from "A Cat in Paris." Credit: GKIDS Distribution

Jurors in Edwards case reach verdict on 1 count

Jurors in Edwards case reach verdict on 1 count

The jury in the John Edwards campaign corruption trial has reached a verdict on one of six counts, but is apparently deadlocked on the others.

The jury said it had reached a verdict on one count of taking illegal campaign contributions. The money involves payments from wealthy donor Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. The verdict was not announced.

Prosecutors argued that the jury should keep deliberating and the defense asked for the verdict to be read. They also want a mistrial on the other counts. The judge is taking a five-minute break to weigh her options.

Texas primary delivers blows to establishment favorites

Texas primary delivers blows to establishment favorites

WASHINGTON â€" As the battle rages between the Republican establishment and the tea party, two Texas GOP candidates for the Senate are headed toward a costly runoff as their party works to take majority control of the chamber this fall.

Ted Cruz, an underdog backed by the tea party and Sarah Palin, forced Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst into the July 31 runoff when neither emerged with 50% of the vote in this week's election.

Because the Lone Star State remains reliably Republican, the winner of the showdown is likely to take the general election and become the state's next senator.

Still, the prolonged contest will pose another test for the GOP. Bitter primaries in Indiana and Nebraska have divided the party, and more contentious intraparty contests are on the horizon for Wisconsin, Utah and beyond.

"The runoff will be a battle between establishment Republican vs. the tea party conservative," the Tea Party Express, which is backing Cruz, said Wednesday in a letter to supporters.

The primary contests also changed the landscape in House races as Democrats look to Texas to make gains in their pursuit of the 25 seats needed to win majority control.

Voters rejected eight-term Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes â€" despite appeals from President Obama and former President Clinton â€" in favor of challenger Beto O'Rourke, a former El Paso City Council member, who was seen as the more progressive candidate. The district is expected to remain in Democratic control, but the upset showed an anti-incumbent s entiment among voters.

House Democrats saw their top opportunity to upset a GOP incumbent this fall slip slightly in West Texas. There, former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez forced the party's preferred candidate, state Rep. Pete Gallego, into a July runoff after neither secured the majority.

Democrats maintain that either Gallego or Rodriguez will pose a strong challenge to freshman Republican Rep. Francisco Canseco in the 23rd District. But the Rothenberg Political Report called this the "most worrisome outcome for Democrats," and shifted the race ranking from a pure tossup to a "tossup/tilt Republican."

The Senate race remains the state's marquee contest as Republicans work to retain the seat held by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is retiring after four terms.

About $35 million was poured into the Senate race, including more than $6 million from Dewhurst's personal fortune.

Among nine candidates vying for the open seat, Dewhurst took 48% and Cruz 30%. C ruz, a Cuban American and the state's former solicitor general, emerged as an early tea party favorite.

In what has become one of the worst criticisms that can be flung at a Republican this cycle, Dewhurst was accused of being a "moderate" in an attack ad by the conservative Club for Growth, which funneled $2.5 million into the race. The group also was heavily involved in the Indiana defeat of veteran Republican Sen.Richard G. Lugarby a tea party challenger.

"I am confident that we will prevail over the Washington insiders funding my opponent," Dewhurst said Wednesday.

Republicans are quick to portray this year's contested GOP primaries as having little in common with those from the 2010 cycle, which some strategists blame for the party's inability to wrest control of the Senate from Democrats.

Two years ago, the tea party helped to send Christine O'Donnellin Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada to general election contests, where they were perceived by voters as too extreme, and lost.

Both Texas candidates have backgrounds in the federal government â€" Cruz in the George W. Bushadministration and Dewhurst in the CIA.

Now, Republicans need four seats to gain control of the Senate â€" or three if a Republican is elected vice president, becoming the tie-breaker.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Dr. David L. Rimoin dies at 75; Cedars-Sinai geneticist

Dr. David L. Rimoin dies at 75; Cedars-Sinai geneticist

Dr. David L. Rimoin, a medical geneticist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center who pioneered studies of dwarfism and other skeletal abnormalities, died Sunday at the Los Angeles hospital. He was 75 and had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer days earlier.

Rimoin was also among the first to recognize that diabetes is caused by a variety of genetic abnormalities and he played an influential role in establishing screening programs for Tay-Sachs disease.

---

FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this obituary said Dr. David L. Rimoin recruited Dr. Michael M. Kaback to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 1970. Rimoin recruited Kaback to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he began working in 1970. Rimoin joined Cedars in 1986.

---

"We have lost a giant in the field of medicine," said Thomas M. Priselac, president and chief executive of Cedars. "Children, adults and families from across the country and the world who turned to him for his medical expertise have lost a uniquely skilled and caring physician who was singularly devoted to their health and well-being."

Rimoin was a fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the 1960s when he encountered a woman who was in the hospital to have a mitral valve in her heart repaired. She was about 4 feet tall and looked, he said, like a pituitary dwarf, with wrinkled skin and a high-pitched voice. But unlike pituitary dwarfs, who are deficient in all hormones produced by the pituitary gland, she was sexually mature and had a daughter who was normal-sized.

Rimoin used the then-new assay for human growth hormone and found that was the only hormone she was missing. The discovery began a lifetime of research examining dwarfism and other skeletal defects. He traveled to circus sideshows and little peoples' meetings to collect blood samples and persuaded many of them to undergo a rib biopsy to provide bone samples as well.

In 1970, he established the International Skeletal Dysplasia Registry at Cedars to provide a source of data and diagnostic consultations for people with bone and cartilage disorders that affect the growth of the skeleton.

While he was still at Hopkins, Rimoin reasoned that African Pygmies might also suffer from a growth hormone deficiency. His mentor, Victor McKusick, contacted Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, who was doing population genetics work in Pygmies in Africa. Cavalli-Sforza told Rimoin to be in the Central African Republic village of Bangi in two weeks.

Collecting a variety of necessary medical supplies and liquid nitrogen containers (that had been developed to collect bull sperm in the field), Rimoin reached Bangi on schedule and began negotiating with the Pygmies and the Bantu (who treated the Pygmies as slaves) to collect blood samples.

Back in Baltimore, Rimoin and his team found that the Pygmies had normal levels of growth hormone, but had unusually low levels of glucose, insulin and fatty acids. He ultimately showed that the Pygmies were resistant to the effects of growth hormone. A second trip to Africa to collect samples from the Bantu showed that this condition was genetic, not environmental.

For his research, Rimoin has been named an honorary life member of the Little People of America.

Shortly after he arrived at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 1970, he recruited Dr. Michael M. Kaback to join the medical center. Kaback, now at UC San Diego, developed a blood-screening test for Tay-Sachs disease, a lethal genetic disorder that was common among Ashkenazi Jews. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of cell-membrane components in nerves, leading to deterioration of mental and physical abilities. There is no treatment and the disorder is deadly by the age of 4.

Kaback and Rimoin organized the California Tay-Sachs screening program, which allowed the identification and termination of fetuses with the disorder. That program became a model for nationwide screening programs and has led to the virtual elimination of the disease.

David Lawrence Rimoin was born Nov. 9, 1936, in Montreal and raised there. He enrolled in McGill University at the age of 16, then continued on to McGill's medical school, receiving his medical degree in 1961. During his fellowship and residency at Hopkins, he also obtained a doctorate in human genetics.

During this period, it was not recognized that there were two major forms of diabetes, now known as Type 1 and Type 2. There are also several different forms of Type 2 diabetes, which strike different populations.

For his doctoral thesis, Rimoin collected information about the disorder and concluded that diabetes was a heterogeneous group of disorders and not just a single one as had been believed. Diabetologists scoffed at his conclusion, but within 10 years his findings were upheld by a variety of research.

In 1986, he joined Cedars and established an adult genetics program at the hospital to provide comprehensive risk assessment for a variety of adult-onset diseases, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and stroke. More recently, he established a unique genetic screening program to test for four common inherited disorders within the Persian Jewish population, which numbers more than 20,000 in Los Angeles.

Rimoin is survived by his second wife, the former Ann Piilani Garber; two daughters, Anne and Lauren; and a son, Michael.

The family is planning a private funeral and a public memorial.

LATimesScience@gmail.com
twitter.com/LATMaugh

Seattle shootings leave 6 dead, including suspected gunman

Seattle shootings leave 6 dead, including suspected gunman

SEATTLE â€" An explosive day of violence ended Wednesday when a man believed to have shot five people in a cafe near the University District and a woman in a downtown parking lot shot himself in the head as police closed in.

"We strongly believe that this is the person that committed the homicides," Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel told reporters after the dramatic face-off in West Seattle. The shootings left six people dead, including the suspect, and one critically wounded.

Among the four people killed at Cafe Racer, near the University of Washington, were two men who were members of the band God's Favorite Beefcake, which had performed over the weekend at the city's Folklife Festival, witnesses told KIRO television. One of the pair was also a sword swallower and fire breather who often performed in local burlesque shows, the station said.

Police initially were not certain whether the two incidents were related. The shootings had occurred within half an hour of each other but several miles apart.

Surveillance photos from the 11 a.m. shootings at the cafe showed a man with dark hair, a beard and a pale blue jacket.

In the second incident, which happened about 11:30 a.m., police said a man shot a woman and drove off in a black sport utility vehicle. It was found abandoned several miles away in West Seattle, with a gun on the seat.

While a massive dragnet was underway in the neighb orhood near the cafe, plainclothes detectives began combing the area where the black SUV was found, Pugel said.

An officer in West Seattle saw a man who appeared to resemble the one in the cafe surveillance photos, Pugel said.

The officer called for backup. As uniformed officers and a SWAT team arrived, the man knelt down in the street and shot himself in the head, police said. He died later at a hospital.

Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson said witnesses had identified an item carried by the gunman in both shootings, which convinced them that a single man was responsible.

"We now feel confident in connecting the two," Pugel told reporters.

A police source told the Seattle Times the suspect had been identified as Ian Lee Stawicki, 40, of Seattle. Stawicki's family said he had mental problems that had led them to fear something could go wrong.

"It's no surprise to me this happened," his brother, Andrew Stawicki of Ellensburg, Wash ., told the newspaper. "We could see this coming. Nothing good is going to come with that much anger inside of you."

The five homicides Wednesday bring Seattle's total this year to 21 â€" matching the total for all of 2011.

kim.murphy@latimes.com

Late Night: For Jon Stewart, Trump a gift from the comedy gods

Late Night: For Jon Stewart, Trump a gift from the comedy gods

He's baaaack!

Just as the general election campaign was getting underway this week, reality star Donald Trump emerged from whatever gold-plated cage he's been hiding in for the last few months to try, once again, to revive the "birther" controversy. 

While most of us just rolled our eyes at Trump's latest round of grandstanding -- which included a heated interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer and a tweet calling conservative pundit George Will the "dumbest political commentator of all time" -- Jon Stewart welcomed the return of the Donald. 

PHOTOS: Donald Trump's famous feuds

Until this week, Stewart had been concerned that the two-man race between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would be a tedious slog, unlike the three-ring circus of the Republican primary.

He needn't have worried.

Stewart noted the fortuitous timing of Trump's reemergence: "The comedy gods deliver. On the day Mitt Romney celebrates clinching the Republican nomination, he also holds a fundraiser with reality TV host and antique doll hair thief Donald Trump."

For Stewart, the most amusing thing about Trump's latest round of publicity-mongering was his refusal to answer any questions about President Obama's allegedly suspicious birth certificate, only hours after he'd chastised the press for not asking these exact questions.  

As Stewart put it, "No one’s mad enough to bring up the birther issue, and [bleep] you for bringing it up!"

ALSO:

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â€" Meredith Blake

twitter.com/MeredithBlake

Grammys set for Feb. 10 in Los Angeles

Grammys set for Feb. 10 in Los Angeles

The 55th annual Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 10, 2013, the Recording Academy announced  Thursday.

“Music's Biggest Night” will once again take place at the Staples Center, with the academy’s nomination concert special airing Dec. 5, 2012.

RELATED: 2012 Grammy coverage

This year's telecast drew nearly 40 million viewers, the largest audience since 1984 and the second largest in history. The telecast also boasted the highest ratings of the award show season, and became one of the largest social events in the history of television, with socia l networks buzzing over Adele's Grammy sweep and the emotional impact of the ceremony as pop icon Whitney Houston passed away the day before, forcing organizers to revamp the show in the eleventh hour.

The Grammy winners are determined by about 13,000 voting members. The eligibility period for nominated recordings is Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2012. The awards will be televised on CBS and will be broadcast live except to viewers on the West Coast.

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-- Gerrick D. Kennedy

Photo: Adele sweeps at the 54th annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 12, 2012. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Federal appeals court rules Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional

Federal appeals court rules Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. appeals court in Boston became the first such court to strike down as unconstitutional the federal Defense of Marriage Act, ruling Thursday that it unfairly denies equal benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

The ruling is a victory for gay-rights advocates and the Obama administration, which had refused to defend that part of the 1996 law.

The decision sets the stage for a ruling next year by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the law that limits federal recognition of marriage to the union of a man and a woman.

The Boston-based judges stressed their decision did not establish a national right to gay marriage. That issue remains a matter for the states, they said.

But in states such as Massachusetts, where gays and lesbians can legally marry, the federal government cannot deny these couples the right to file a joint federal tax return or to receive a survivor's benefit under the Social Security Act, the appeals court said.

The court's opinion said there are more than 100,000 legally married gay and lesbian couples in the half-dozen states that have legalized same-sex marriages.

Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 to prevent same-sex marriages in one state from being legally recognized by all states. Usually, a couple's marriage in one state is recognized as valid in all states. However, the federal law said no state "shall be required to give effect" to a "relationship between persons of the same sex." Moreo ver, it said that under federal law, a marriage "means only the legal union between one man and one woman."

The case decided Thursday dealt only with this latter provision involving federal law and benefits.

In 2003, the Massachusetts state high court became the first to declare that gays and lesbians had an equal right to marry. Several years later, seven same-sex couples who were married in Massachusetts filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging as unconstitutional the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denied them the same benefits as other married couples. The state of Massachusetts filed a similar suit against the federal government, stressing this was a states-rights issue.

The Justice Department defended the law, but U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled in 2010 that it was unconstitutional to deny equal benefits to the same-sex couples who had sued. The government appealed to the 1st Circuit Court in Boston, but the Obama administration th en switched sides.

President Obama and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced they would not defend the denial of equal federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. The Justice Department then filed a brief urging the 1st Circuit to strike down the federal-benefits provision of the legislation.

House Republicans, led by Speaker John Boehner, hired Washington attorney Paul Clement to defend the law in the Boston court.

Thursday's opinion in Massachusetts vs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was written by Judge Michael Boudin, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush. It was joined by Chief Judge Sandra Lynch, a Clinton appointee, and Judge Juan Torruella, a Reagan appointee. 

In the key passage, the judges stressed they were upholding a state's right to insist on equal treatment for its married couples.

"To conclude, many Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage," Boudin wrote.

"Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

david.savage@latimes.com

Around Town: Marilyn, Lucy and Kristy McNichol hit the big screen

Around Town: Marilyn, Lucy and Kristy McNichol hit the big screen

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting a two-day retrospective, "Grand Designs: Mid-Century Life in the Movies," at the Leo S. Bing Theater, in conjunction with the closing weekend of the exhibition "California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way."

The festival opens Friday with the 1957 romantic comedy "Desk Set," with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, about the computer age invading a TV network, followed by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as newlyweds honeymooning in an Airstream in Vincente Minnelli's 1954 comedy "The Long, Long Trailer."

On tap for early Saturday evening is the English-language version of Jacques Tati's Oscar-winning 1958 comedy "My Uncle," in which Mr. Hulot encounters an uber modern world in French suburbia.

The evening concludes with Nicholas Ray's classic 1955 tale of disenchanted youth "Rebel Without a Cause," starring James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo and the Griffith Park Observatory.

http://www.lacma.org

The indie film festival "Dances With Films" celebrates its 15th anniversary Thursday evening through June 7 at the Mann's Chinese 6. The festival includes features, shorts, documentaries and music videos. The opening-night programs are "Attack of the Bat Monsters" and "Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life." The closing night feature is "Eye of the Hurricane," with Campbell Scott. http://www.danceswithfilms.com

Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is celebrating its 85th anniversary this year, is also commemorating  the 86th birthday of the late Marilyn Monroe with a weeklong film festival that begins Friday evening with Billy Wilder's 1959 gender-bender comedy "Some Like It Hot." Screening Saturday is 1954's "There's No Business Like Show Business," followed by 1953's "How to Marry a Millionaire" on Sunday; 1955's "The Seven Year Itch" on Monday; 1956's "Bus Stop" on Tuesday; and 1961's "The Misfits," her final film, on Wednesday. http://www.chinesetheatres.com

Film Independent at LACMA presents a preview screening Thursday of Corinna Betz's documentary, "Gerhard Richter Painting," which profiles the 80-year-old German painter.

And on Tuesday evening, Film Independent at LACMA welcomes screenwriter and USC professor Howard A. Rodman to chat about Sam Fuller's controversial 1982 drama "White Dog" at the 30th anniversary screening of the film about an actress (played by Kristy McNichol) who adopts a stray white German shepherd only to discover it has been trained to attack African Americans. http://www.lacma.org

Before he "Made 'Em Laugh" in 1952's "Singin' in the Rain," Donald O'Connor was a teen idol who appeared in several youth-oriented musicals at Universal in the 1940s. UCLA Film Television Archive's current centennial celebration of the studio presents a new print Sunday afternoon at the Billy Wilder Theater of his 1944 musical comedy "Chip Off the Old Block," which also stars Peggy Ryan.

And on Sunday, the archive and Outfest present the 1991 drama "The Hour and Times," directed by Christopher Munch about a holiday John Lennon took with the Beatles' gay manager Brian Epstein. Director Munch and actor Ian Hart will appear. http://www.cinema.ucla.edu

Director Whit Stillman will appear to take part in the Cinefamily Pajama Party screening Saturday of his 1998 comedy drama "The Last Days of Disco" at the Silent Movie Theatre.

Cinefamily 's Wednesday silent movie is a real rarity -- 1928's "The Showdown," a romantic soap opera set in South America starring George Bancroft, Fred Kohler and Evelyn Brent. http://www.cinefamily.org

The Assn. of Moving Image Archivists UCLA Student Chapter presents its monthly screening Sunday and Monday at the New Beverly Cinema with "These Are the Damned," the 1963 sequel to "Village of the Damned" and the 2011 British cult film "Attack the Block." http://www.newbevcinema.com

The Skirball's free Tuesday matinee features 1949's "The Barkleys of Broadway," the glossy MGM musical that reunited Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in a tale about a bickering show business couple. http://www.skirball.org

Geena Davis is scheduled to appear at the Los Angeles Conservancy's "Last Remaining Seats" screening Wednesday evening of the 1982 comedy "Tootsie," in which she had one of her first major roles. The film, which earned 10 Oscar nominations and won supporting actress for Jessica Lange, will screen at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. http://www.laconservancy.org

Related:

"Review: 'California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way' at LACMA"

--Susan King

Photo: James Dean, left, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood star in "Rebel Without a Cause." Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures 

FDA rejects bid to rename high-fructose corn syrup 'corn sugar'

FDA rejects bid to rename high-fructose corn syrup 'corn sugar'

The Food and Drug Administration rejected a petition from the Corn Refiners Assn. to rename high-fructose corn syrup “corn sugar,” saying that the change could confuse consumers and “pose a public health concern.”

In a letter to association President Audrae Erickson made public Wednesday evening, the federal agency told the industry group that using “corn sugar” on nutrition labels could even prove dangerous for customers who suffer from fructose intolerance.

The FDA also considers sugar to be a “solid, dried and crystallized food” while syrup is “an aqueous solution or liquid food,” wrote Michael M. Landa, the agency’s director for the Center for Food Safe ty and Applied Nutrition.

In a statement, Erickson said that the corn refiners’ petition was denied “on narrow, technical grounds” and complained that the FDA “did not address or question the overwhelming scientific evidence that high-fructose corn syrup is a form of sugar and is nutritionally the same as other sugars.”

“The vast majority of American consumers are confused” about the product, Erickson said.

The nearly 2-year-old petition argued that consumers inaccurately assume that high-fructose corn syrup has more calories, fructose and sweetness than sugar.

The industry group even launched a multimillion-dollar advertising and marketing campaign as the FDA considered its request. Sugar companies and trade associations struck b ack with a federal lawsuit, now pending in Los Angeles, alleging that the CRA made misleading claims. 

Advocacy groups such as Consumers Union celebrated the FDA’s decision.

“If the name had been changed, it would have given consumers the wrong impression that this product is ‘natural,’ ” said Urvashi Rangan, director of the union’s Consumer Safety Group in a statement. “The term ‘corn sugar’ simply doesn't reflect the chemical changes that take place in production. Consumers know the term high-fructose corn syrup, and they should be able to easily differentiate among products that use it.”

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Follow Tiffany Hsu on Twitter and Google+

Heart of gay marriage law unconstitutional, appeals court rules

Heart of gay marriage law unconstitutional, appeals court rules

An appeals court ruled Thursday that the heart of a law that denies a host of federal benefits to gay married couples is unconstitutional.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against married same-sex couples by denying them federal benefits.

The law was passed in 1996 at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004.

The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who ruled in 2010 that the law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns.

The court didn't rule on the law's other provision, which said states without same-sex marriage cannot be forced to recognize gay unions performed in other states.

During arguments before the court last month, a lawyer for gay married couples said the law amounts to "across-the-board disrespect." The couples argued that the power to define and regulate marriage had been left to the states for more than 200 years before Congress passed DOMA.

An attorney defending the law argued that Congress had a rational basis for passing it in 1996, when opponents worried that states would be forced to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. The group said Congress wanted to preserve a traditional and uniform definition of marriage and has the power to define terms used to federal statutes to distribute federal benefits.

Since DOMA was passed in 1996, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Washington state and the District of Columbia. Maryland and Washington's laws are not yet in effect and may be subject to referendums.

Last year, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. Department of Justice would no longer defend the constitutionality of the law. After that, House Speaker John Boehner convened the Bipart isan Legal Advisory Group to defend it.

SpaceX's mission ends with a splashdown in the Pacific

SpaceX's mission ends with a splashdown in the Pacific

This post has been corrected. See note below.

SpaceX’s Dragon space capsule successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday about 563 miles west of Baja California after spending nine days in outer space.

The unmanned capsule hit the water at 8:42 a.m. PDT, marking the end of a historic mission carried out by the Hawthorne-based company, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

"Splashdown! Welcome home #Dragon!" the company tweeted.

About five minutes before splashdown, the three main parachutes billowed open. The orange and white striped parachutes, each 116 feet in diameter, slowed the spacecraft's descent to approximately 16 to 18 feet per second. 

INTERACTIVE: SpaceX's demonstration mission

A 185-foot working barge equipped with a crane, an 80-foot crew boat, and two 25-foot rigid hull inflatable boats are now steaming toward the capsule for recovery.

The Dragon is packed with 1,455 pounds of cargo that will be returned to NASA.

SpaceX last week became the world’s first privately built an d operated spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

The test mission largely went without a hitch, SpaceX and NASA have said. The successful mission bolsters the prospects for  SpaceX, which built the Apollo-like Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket that launched it to orbit.

Dragon's mission, which began May 22 when the Falcon 9 lifted off in the predawn hours from Cape Canaveral,  Fla., is considered the first test of NASA's  plan to outsource space missions to privately funded companies now that the U.S. fleet of space shuttles has been retired. SpaceX aims to prove to NASA that its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are ready to take on the task of hauling cargo â€" and eventually astronauts â€" for the space agency.

If Dragon's recovery is successful, this will be the second time that SpaceX has launched a space capsule into orbit and had it survive a fiery reentry. The company previously pulled off the feat in December 2010 on a test mission that proved Dragon was capable of orbit and reentry.

[For the record, May 31, 12:25 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said Dragon's mission began March 22.]

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Cricket launching $55 monthly prepaid iPhone in June

Cricket launching $55 monthly prepaid iPhone in June

Cricket announced Thursday that it will become the first U.S. carrier to offer a prepaid iPhone starting in late June.

The company said it'll begin carrying 16GB versions of the iPhone and iPhone 4S beginning on June 22.

in its announcement, Cricket said it will sell the phones online, at its stores, at select dealers and over the phone for $499.99 for the 4S and $399.99 for the 4.

Users of the service who choose to buy the prepaid iPhone will pay a $55 fee for unlimited talk and text and 2.3 GBs of data per month.

"Our customers want the best products available, and we are excited to bring iPhone to our prepaid consumers with an industry-leading $55-per-month service plan," said Doug Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer of Leap Wireless International, Cricket's parent company.

"Launching iPhone is a major milestone for us and we are proud to offer iPhone customers attractive nationwide coverage, a robust 3G data network and a value-packed, no-contract plan," he said in a statement.

Though the Cricket iPhones will cost $200 more than their two-year contract counterparts at ATT, Verizon and Sprint, they are $150 cheaper than non-contract iPhones available at those carriers.

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Syrian diplomat in California defects from Assad regime

Syrian diplomat in California defects from Assad regime

Syria's honorary consul general in California said Wednesday he has defected from the regime of  President Bashar Assad in protest of the killings last week in the town of Houla.

Hazem Chehabi, reached at his home in Orange County, said he had resigned his post and severed association with Assad's government in protest of the attack Friday that left more than 100 Syrians dead, most of them women and children.

"You get to a point where your silence or inaction becomes ethically or morally unacceptable," Chehabi said, describing the Houla killings as a "barbaric" incident with which he couldn't be associated.

Chehabi was one of Syria's highest-ranking diplomats in the United States and is the first to defect from Assad. The United States on Tuesday joined 10 other nations in expelling Syria's diplomats in protest of the Houla slayings, which U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Wednesday were "unambiguously" the work of militiamen loyal to Assad.

A spokesman for the Syrian American Council said Chehabi is a U.S. citizen and as honorary counsel wasn't subject to Washington's  expulsion order.

"We welcome Chehabi's resignation and urge him to use his ties with Syrian officials to convince them to defect from the Assad regime in order to help speed its fall and save lives," said council activist Ammar Kahf.

Chehabi is chairman of the University of California at Irvine board of trustees and had been the subject of student protests  urging his removal.

Charles Ries, director of Rand Corp.'s Center for Middle East Public Policy, said the diplomatic expulsions could force Syrian officials, military officers and foreign envoys to reconsider their relationship with the Assad regime and set off embarrassing defections that the Syrian president has so far been spared.

Bryan Stow beating suspect looked ready to fight, witnesses say

Bryan Stow beating suspect looked ready to fight, witnesses say

Testimony continued Wednesday in the preliminary hearing of two men accused of severely beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow, with witnesses saying one suspect looked ready to fight after heckling Giants fans throughout last year's opening day game at Dodger Stadium.

Marc Lu said he was at the March 31 game with three friends â€" including one who wore an orange shirt and another who wore a shirt that read "Giants" across the front. As the game progressed, he testified, a man wearing sunglasses and a backward baseball hat began throwing peanuts at the orange-clad duo.

Sheila Christenson sat two rows behind Lu's group at the game.

"He was throwing peanuts," Christenson said of the man. "He was just cussing, saying, 'F you.' ... That really drew my attention away from the game."

Both Lu and Christenson identified the man as 29-year-old Louie Sanchez, one of two men accused of attacking Stow after the game. The Santa Cruz paramedic suffered severe head trauma in the assault and remains in a therapy facility.

The other suspect in the case, 30-year-old Marvin Norwood, was sitting with Sanchez at the game, Lu and Christenson said.

At the end of the game, Lu said Sanchez sprayed soda on the Giants fans, prompting a "30-second stare down" between the groups.

"What ... are you going to do?" Lu recalled Sanchez saying.

Norwood, Lu said, started to hold Sanchez back. There was no physical altercation, but both witnesses said Sanchez appeared ready for one.

"It looked like he was going to fight," Christenson said.