Ex-cop hunted over California vendetta killings

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BIG BEAR LAKE, California (Reuters) – A fugitive former police officer accused of declaring war on law enforcement in an Internet manifesto and wanted as a suspect in three murders eluded a manhunt for a second day on Friday in the snow-swept mountains east of Los Angeles.


Search teams combed hillsides and homes around a ski area through the night and past daybreak for Christopher Dorner, 33, a former Navy officer presumed by police to be heavily armed and intent on carrying out a vendetta against those he blames for his 2008 dismissal from the Los Angeles Police Department.






“We did not find any additional evidence, and we certainly did not locate him,” San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon told a news briefing, adding that investigators were pressing ahead despite heavy snow that complicated the manhunt.


“We’re going to continue searching until either we determine that he’s left the mountain or we find him,” McMahon said at the Big Bear Lake resort, about 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.


Snowfall forced authorities to ground helicopters used on Thursday to scour the area with infrared cameras. But a team of more than 100 law enforcement officers, some of them riding on “snow cat” tractor vehicles, kept up an intense ground search with dogs.


The search was focused on a wooded area near where Dorner‘s pickup truck was found burning in the snow on Wednesday, and in nearby higher elevations dotted with abandoned cabins, McMahon said.


Search teams had followed footprints found in the snow near Dorner’s truck on Thursday “around the forest … until we lost them where the ground got frozen and we couldn’t continue to track,” he said.


By Friday morning, sheriff’s deputies had gone door to door to several hundred vacation homes without finding signs of forced entry, and no vehicles were reported stolen. Area schools shut on Thursday as a precaution remained closed due to snow, McMahon said.


Police have said they believe Dorner was carrying multiple weapons, including an assault-style rifle, though the manifesto attributed to the suspect suggested he might be more heavily armed.


“Do not deploy airships or gunships. SA-7 Manpads will be waiting,” the message said, in a reference to a Russian-made shoulder-launched missile system.


“The violence of action will be high…I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) uniform whether on or off duty,” he allegedly wrote.


Police said they had taken steps to protect about 40 potential targets mentioned in the online declaration, but the LAPD canceled a citywide tactical alert, where officers are held over on their shifts and work overtime for as long as needed.


DOUBLE HOMICIDE


Dorner first came to public attention on Wednesday when he was named as a suspect in the weekend killings of a university security officer and his fiancée, college basketball coach Monica Quan, 28, in Irvine, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles. They were found shot to death on Sunday in a car at the top of a parking structure.


Quan was the daughter of a retired Los Angeles police captain who represented Dorner in disciplinary action that led to his firing in 2008. Police say Dorner was dismissed for making false statements accusing another officer of using excessive force.


Two Los Angeles police officers assigned to a search detail traded gunfire with him early on Thursday in the city of Corona, east of Los Angeles, police said.


About 20 minutes later, two other officers were ambushed and one of them was killed. They had been sitting in their patrol car at a traffic light near Corona in the town of Riverside.


The officer who died, and whose name has not been released by authorities in an effort to protect his family from Dorner, was an 11-year Riverside police veteran. His wounded partner is expected to make a full recovery, police said.


Former Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton warned on CBS television that the burned-out truck was “possibly a diversionary tactic to draw people into that area while he’s actually heading south.”


The FBI said its agents had searched a Las Vegas residence owned by Dorner, who joined the Navy in 2002 and the LAPD in 2005. He was discharged from the Navy Reserves last Friday, two days before Quan and her fiance were found slain.


Dorner, who once played college football, blamed the police department not just for firing him but also for ending his Navy career and the loss of close relationships.


He listed other grievances as well, such as encountering racism both at the LAPD and as an African-American boy growing up in Southern California.


But it remained unclear what led to the violence nearly five years after his firing and three years after his petition to be reinstated to the LAPD was denied by a judge.


(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Alden Bentley, Cynthia Johnston and Leslie Gevirtz)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Blizzard Forces Katie Holmes to Miss Her Own Fashion Show

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Style News Now





02/08/2013 at 01:58 PM ET



Katie HolmesKevin Mazur/WireImage


Katie Holmes spent yesterday kicking off her heels with fashion editors in a New York City hotel suite to present the latest elegant collection for her Holmes & Yang fashion line. But today, the blizzard that’s battering the East Coast caused Holmes to reprioritize. Her daughter Suri‘s school was closing early, it was explained, and she had to go pick her up.


That practical part of her life — and that of her design partner and stylist Jeanne Yang, herself a mother to twin girls — is an ever-present influence on their fashion philosophy. “Our customer is somebody who wants to be comfortable” says Yang, who walked PEOPLE through an intimate one-on-one presentation of the line. “You want to look good, but Katie and I always talk about this, it should never come at the cost of comfort.”


As Holmes herself told The New York Times, their goal is “to make high-quality pieces that are simple enough, you can wear over and over again.”


With luxe fabrics and silhouettes that show subtle peeks of skin, Holmes & Yang, produced entirely in America, was inspired this season “by the 40s by way of the 70s, Katherine Hepburn, and menswear with little touches of femininity,” says Yang.


One of Holmes’s favorite looks is a figure-flattering, shoulder exposing peplum power suit because, “Katie and I always talk about our shoulders,” says Yang. “The fact is that shoulders are always sexy, and you never lose your shoulders.”


The designers took an equally beauty-conscious yet practical approach to the Bobbi Brown makeup their models wore (Holmes is the face of the line). Get all the details on what Brown called the “dewy faces and feminine raspberry stained lips” of the makeup looks, including which products were used, in an exclusive first peek at the below sketch.


Katie Holmes Bobbi Brown Holmes & Yang Beauty LookCourtesy Bobbi Brown


–Suzanne Zuckerman


PHOTOS: SHOP EDITOR-APPROVED BEAUTY PRODUCTS!


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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

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Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.


It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.


Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.


"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.


People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.


In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.


"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.


Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.


The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:


—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.


—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.


—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.


—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.


—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.


"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.


Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.


There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.


There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.


The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.


Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.


The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.


"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.


"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Wall Street dips on renewed euro zone fears

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Thursday as comments by the ECB president on the euro raised worries about Europe's outlook and curbed investors' appetite for risky assets.


The euro currency dropped against the safe-haven dollar and yen after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the exchange rate was important to growth and price stability, which investors took as a sign the bank is concerned about the euro's advance in recent days.


Materials shares were among the weakest performers on the S&P 500, with the S&P 500 materials index <.splrcma> down 0.7 percent, while housing stocks also declined. A housing sector index <.hgx> was off 1.4 percent.


Despite the day's decline and weakness earlier this week, the stock market has been in an almost uninterrupted uptrend for most of the year, with the S&P 500 gaining more than 5 percent for 2013.


Many investors could see buying opportunities in the decline.


"I don't think there's the systemic risk that we had some time ago of bank failures in Europe and so forth. They seem to be ahead of that sort of crisis," said Dan Veru, chief investment officer of Palisade Capital Management, in Fort Lee, New Jersey.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 67.95 points, or 0.49 percent, at 13,918.57. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 6.31 points, or 0.42 percent, at 1,505.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 16.76 points, or 0.53 percent, at 3,151.72.


Top U.S. retailers reported strong January sales after offering compelling merchandise that drew in shoppers facing a hit to their take-home pay from higher payroll taxes.


Macy's Inc rose 1.5 percent to $40.09 after reporting January same store sales rose 11.7 percent.


But Ann Inc dropped 6.7 percent to $30.59 after forecasting fourth-quarter sales below analysts' expectations.


Fund manager David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital on Thursday said it has sued Apple Inc and said the company needs to do more to unlock value for shareholders. Apple shares gained 0.6 percent to $457.43.


Akamai Technologies Inc lost 15.6 percent to $35.06 as the worst performer on the S&P 500 after the Internet content delivery company forecast current-quarter revenue below analysts' expectations.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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The Lede: Video Broadcast on State Television Was Downloaded From U.S. Drone, Iran Says

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Last Updated, 2:17 p.m. Iran’s state television broadcast Wednesday what it described as video recorded by the American surveillance drone that crash-landed about 140 miles from the country’s border with Afghanistan in late 2011.

Video broadcast on Iranian state television, said to have been downloaded from an American surveillance drone that crash-landed in Iran in 2011.

As The Associated Press reports from Tehran, the state television broadcast included aerial views of what the narration described as the American air base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, plus still photographs of an RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone at that base made public in 2011, and images of the craft being recovered in 2011 by Iran’s military.

The report also featured an interview with Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, identified as the head of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, who denied that the drone had simply crashed because of a computer malfunction, as American officials have claimed. “We were able to definitively access the data of the drone, once we brought it down,” General Hajizadeh said.

More footage said to have been recorded by the drone can be seen in a copy of the 24-minute Iranian report posted on YouTube on Wednesday by Lenziran, a site that monitors Iranian media.

In an analysis of the footage for Foreign Policy, the national security reporter John Reed observes that in one segment of the Iranian report, “the camera on this aircraft is positioned behind a rather complex nose landing gear assembly — a layout that matches grainy Web images of the Sentinel that show what looks like a compartment that could contain a camera positioned on the bottom of the airplane, just behind the front landing gear.”

A copy of an Iranian television report on a captured United States drone posted on YouTube.

The report, Mr. Reed adds, also features what appear to be authentic images of an American air base, “right down to C-130s parked on the ramp,” and “what looks like an MQ-9 Reaper drone (or possibly two) parked in an enclosed ramp — a drone pen if you will — complete with a walled perimeter and those tent hangars that are seen at expeditionary drone bases around the world.”

As The A.P. notes, on Thursday Iran’s Fars News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, claimed that Iran had also started to produce functional copies of the smaller, American ScanEagle surveillance drone it displayed on state television in December. The Fars report quoted Iran’s deputy defense minister, Mohammad Eslami, saying that the country had also established a “production line for the drones in foreign countries.”

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Father Gives Daughter $200 to Quit Facebook

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Spending too much time on Facebook? More than half of Facebook users say they’ve taken vacations from the site. Now comes the story of a 14-year-old who did better — she managed to get paid for quitting.


Rachel Baier, a high school freshman in Massachusetts, went to her dad with a deal: no Facebook for the rest of the school year in exchange for cash.






“She approached me. She has been frustrated she hasn’t been able to find a babysitting job and she has been looking for ways to get cash,” Baier told ABC News. “So she asked, ‘If I didn’t use Facebook for so long would you pay me?’”


RELATED: Facebook Vacation: 61 Percent of Users Take Breaks From Site


Baier, knowing that his daughter spends hours and hours on the site every day, thought she was joking at first. “I said, ‘Go away, you can’t live without Facebook!’” But Rachel was serious. Her dad drew up the paperwork. “I went back and thought about it, and said if you are going to do it, we are going to sign a contract. And she said okay.”


The contract says that from Feb. 4, 2013 through June 26, 2013, Rachel will have her Facebook account deactivated. She will receive $ 50 halfway through and the remaining $ 150 on June 26, which is the last day of ninth grade.


Baier says that he thinks his daughter will keep her part of the bargain. “She has deactivated a few times for the weekend,” he said “She has spent two to three years on Facebook for 24/7, she realizes there is a lot of talk and noise.”


RELATED: Mom Has Son Sign 18-point Agreement for iPhone


Rachel, who was at school when we spoke to her father, told him she doesn’t worry about being left out by friends.


“I asked her about that. She said, ‘Dad, I see my friends at school. I am in the loop and I can still text them,’” Baier said.


But even if Rachel does have a moment of weakness and yearn to see her Newsfeed, her dad now holds the keys to the castle. “Part of the agreement,” he says “was that she allowed me to change the password. She can’t get back in and turn it back on.”


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William & Kate Enjoying Private Mustique Babymoon

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By Amanda Orr and Simon Perry





02/07/2013 at 02:10 PM EST







The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (inset) visited Aurora House, Mustique


IPHOTO; Inset: Splash News Online


The The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are keeping a low profile on their "babymoon" to the idyllic island of Mustique.

The couple – expecting their first baby in July – are staying at a five-bedroom villa set in lush gardens, which normally costs an eye-popping $25,000 a week. Also enjoying paradise are Kate's parents Carole and Mike and siblings Pippa and James.

On previous visits, William, 30, has stopped by to grab a drink and play the piano at the bar at Firefly, and together the couple have participated in Sunday night Karaoke at Basil's Bar.

But on this visit, the couple are mostly keeping to themselves, and they have good reason.

With a staff of six (including a chef on standby), a 60-foot infinity pool and a media room and guest cottage, the villa has everything they need. And, best of all for the private couple, it's completely hidden from the main road and with just the tips of the pitched roof line visible from the beach down below.

The stunning beach, which many believe to be the finest on the island, is just a short walk down a private path from the house. On their past trips the sporty pair made several trips a day down that path to stroll on the beach, take quick dips in the ocean and also to snorkel well past the rocky outcrops that border the cove. The beach is still public however, and the couple save their sunbathing for the villa's expansive pool deck. 

From the lounge chairs, pregnant Kate, 31, will be able to look along the surface of an infinity pool and out to the other islands of the Grenadines spread out in the ocean below.

Mustique, a favorite of the Middletons for years, and made famous by William's great aunt Princess Margaret and her friends in the 70s, ensures the privacy of its high-end visitors. A local tells PEOPLE, "The island is locked-down – that always means some royalty is here."

When they return, William is due back at his north Wales base, from where he flies search-and-rescue helicopters, while Kate is scheduled to visit a drug treatment center in London that is run by one of the charities she supports, Action on Addiction.

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


___


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


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Wall Street pulls back after recent gains

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks drifted lower on Wednesday as investors pulled back after the recent push to five-year highs on the S&P 500 and as worries about political problems in Europe weighed on sentiment.


Transportation stocks were among the worst performers, pressured by a 9.7 percent drop in CH Robinson Worldwide to $60.48 after the freight transport company posted a lower-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit.


The benchmark S&P 500 index has advanced 6 percent this year and reached to its highest since December 2007. The Dow industrials <.dji> have risen above 14,000 recently, making it a challenge for investors to push stocks higher in the absence of strong positive catalysts.


"The market is starting to feel a little tired, though we're holding together. I think a lot of people are wondering whether this (up trend) continues," said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago.


Also, investors have been speculating about leadership changes in Spain and Italy, as well as watching for comments from European leaders. European Central Bank policymakers are due to meet Thursday.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 27.37 points, or 0.20 percent, at 13,951.93. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 3.66 points, or 0.24 percent, at 1,507.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 12.27 points, or 0.39 percent, at 3,159.31.


Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose more than 1 percent on Tuesday.


The Dow Jones Transportation average <.djt> was down 0.4 percent after hitting another record high on Tuesday. The average is up 10.4 percent for the year so far and has made a series of new highs since mid-January.


Among shares trading higher, Time Warner Inc jumped 4.4 percent to $52.18 after reporting higher fourth-quarter profit that beat Wall Street estimates, as growth in its cable networks offset declines in film, TV entertainment and publishing units.


Walt Disney Co was up 0.7 percent at $54.66, after the company beat estimates for quarterly adjusted earnings and gave an optimistic outlook for the next few quarters.


According to Thomson Reuters data, of 301 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 68.1 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters. In terms of revenue, 65.8 percent of companies have topped forecasts.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 4.7 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


(Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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The Lede: Video of Protests Across Tunisia After an Opposition Leader Is Gunned Down

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Video of a protest outside the interior ministry in Tunis on Wednesday from the blog Nawaat.

As my colleagues Kareem Fahim and Gerry Mullany report, there were protests across Tunisia on Wednesday following the assassination of Chokri Belaid, a leader of the secular opposition.

Video shot by activist bloggers for the independent Tunisian site Nawaat showed protesters rallying outside the interior ministry on the tree-lined Avenue Habib Bourguiba in Tunis early in the day, and then being chased from the street by police officers who fired tear gas into the crowd and beat demonstrators.

The Tunisian blog Nawaat’s video of police officers attacking protesters in Tunis on Wednesday.

After the avenue was cleared, witnesses reported that a small crowd accompanied the ambulance carrying Mr. Belaid’s body down the same street.

As news of the assassination spread, there were protests in other cities and reports of attacks on the offices of Ennahda, the ruling Islamist party. Mr. Belaid had criticized Ennahda’s leaders for failing to condemn violent attacks on his party’s activists by young Islamists, in a television appearance shortly before his death, the French radio station Europe 1 reported.

Agence France-Presse video showed protesters marching in Sidi Bouzid, the town where the Tunisian revolt began.

More video of the demonstration in Tunis, and a clip of protesters occupying the headquarters of Ennahda in the city of Sfax, was posted online by Jadal, a Tunisian news site set up by the Institute for Peace and War Reporting.

Video from the Tunisian news site Jadal, said to show protesters occupying the offices of the ruling party in Sfax on Wednesday.

A demonstration outside the office of Ennahda in the coastal city of Mahdia was caught on video by a Nawaat blogger.

Before the demonstration at the interior ministry was attacked by the police, activists in the crowd posted updates on the protest on Twitter.

Among the chants, witnesses reported, were calls for the resignation of the interior minister, Ali Larayedh, a leader of Ennahda who is a former dissident.

Mr. Larayedh called the assassination of Mr. Belaid a “terrorist act” and “a blow to the democratic transition experience in Tunisia,” the state news agency reported.

One member of the crowd was Amira Yahyaoui, the president of the rights organization Al Bawsala, who suggested that Tunisians had waited long enough for reform of the hated police force. After Mr. Balaid’s death, she wrote, it was “necessary to go inside the interior ministry and clear out the incompetents and, worse, the facilitators” who had allowed such acts of political violence to take place.

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