Irvine City Council overhauls oversight, spending on Great Park

Capping a raucous eight-hour-plus meeting, the Irvine City Council early Wednesday voted to overhaul the oversight and spending on the beleaguered Orange County Great Park while authorizing an audit of the more than $220 million that so far has been spent on the ambitious project.

A newly elected City Council majority voted 3 to 2 to terminate contracts with two firms that had been paid a combined $1.1 million a year for consulting, lobbying, marketing and public relations. One of those firms — Forde & Mollrich public relations — has been paid $12.4 million since county voters approved the Great Park plan in 2002.

"We need to stop talking about building a Great Park and actually start building a Great Park," council member Jeff Lalloway said.

The council, by the same split vote, also changed the composition of the Great Park's board of directors, shedding four non-elected members and handing control to Irvine's five council members.

The actions mark a significant turning point in the decade-long effort to turn the former El Toro Marine base into a 1,447-acre municipal park with man-made canyons, rivers, forests and gardens that planners hoped would rival New York's Central Park.

The city hoped to finish and maintain the park for years to come with $1.4 billion in state redevelopment funds. But that money vanished last year as part of the cutbacks to deal with California's massive budget deficit.

"We've gone through $220 million, but where has it gone?" council member Christina Shea said of the project's initial funding from developers in exchange for the right to build around the site. "The fact of the matter is the money is almost gone. It can't be business as usual."

The council majority said the changes will bring accountability and efficiencies to a project that critics say has been larded with wasteful spending and no-bid contracts. For all that has been spent, only about 200 acres of the park has been developed and half of that is leased to farmers.

But council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who have steered the course of the project since its inception, voted against reconfiguring the Great Park's board of directors and canceling the contracts with the two firms.

Krom has called the move a "witch hunt" against her and Agran. Feuding between liberal and conservative factions on the council has long shaped Irvine politics.

"This is a power play," she said. "There's a new sheriff in town."

The council meeting stretched long into the night, with the final vote coming Wednesday at 1:34 a.m. Tensions were high in the packed chambers with cheering, clapping and heckling coming from the crowd.

At one point council member Lalloway lamented that he "couldn't hear himself think."

During public comments, newly elected Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer chastised the council for "fighting like schoolchildren." Earlier this week he said that if the Irvine's new council majority can't make progress on the Great Park, he would seek a ballot initiative to have the county take over.

And Spitzer angrily told Agran that his stewardship of the project had been a failure.

"You know what?" he said. "It's their vision now. You're in the minority."

mike.anton@latimes.com

rhea.mahbubani@latimes.com

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Source: Britney Spears out of 'X Factor'

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A person familiar with plans for Fox's "The X Factor" says Britney Spears is out of the show.

Spears was a mentor on the singing contest for one season, reportedly drawing a $15 million paycheck but failing to pull reviews to match. The person who confirmed reports of her departure wasn't authorized to comment publicly, speaking Thursday on condition of anonymity.

The person said that over the holidays, producers discussed replacements for Spears and for another "X Factor" panelist, record executive Antonio "L.A." Reid. Reid previously announced he would leave the show after two seasons.

It's yet another shake-up for "The X Factor," Simon Cowell's attempt to strike magic with a U.S. version of his successful U.K. series. Cowell replaced panelists Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger after a disappointing first season.

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City Room: How Are You Warding Off the Flu?

Sure, you could go out and get a flu shot like everyone keeps telling you to do. It’s relatively cheap, and available just about everywhere.

But the shot is not 100 percent effective. And it takes two weeks to kick in. Although influenza can be deadly, some have been making light of the virus’s symptoms.

On the bright side, having the flu was a great start to my spring break diet.. eating nothing and still managing to puke

— Allison (@Ally_YM) 6 Jan 13

Turns out I don’t have the flu, I just really like NyQuil and hate wearing pants.

— NYC Blonde (@NYC_Blonde) 10 Jan 13

If you’re holding out, or procrastinating, or have decided against getting vaccinated altogether, what alternative means are you using to keep those bad bugs away? Comment in the box below.

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CES 2013: Samsung shows off flexible, unbreakable smartphone screens

Samsung has been rumored to be readying flexible, high-resolution displays for its smartphones, and this week at CES the South Korean tech giant somewhat confirmed those rumors by showing off several prototypes.

At its keynote the company announced Youm, a new line of flexible OLED displays. OLED technology allows companies to create thinner and lighter displays that also provide even more vivid images than other HD technologies.

Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung's San Jose Display Lab, said that with Youm the company can make displays on ultra-thin and unbreakable plastic.

PHOTOS: CES 2013 in Las Vegas

"It won't break even if it's dropped, and we can actually bend the screen," Berkeley said, at which point he grabbed the edge of a prototype screen and started bending it forward and backward without anything happening to the display or the image quality. 

Berkeley then pulled out a prototype phone that used a Youm display. The part of the device's screen curved around onto one of its edges.

"Content can now flow along the sides of the device," Berkeley said.

He then covered the phone with a case that left the curved part of the screen visible and showed how he could still read a message without having to use the entire display.

"This kind of display is going to allow our partners to create a whole new ecosystem of devices," he said. "Devices with bended, foldable and rollable screens."

Samsung then ran a video in which two guys have devices that use the Youm displays. One has a tablet that then folds up and has a second screen on the outside so it can be used as a phone. On the other man's device, the screen slides out of a box after he presses a button.

"Imagine the products you could design with this," Berkeley said. 

But the company did not say if or when its smartphones would be made with these flexible screens.

You can check out the keynote on YouTube. The Youm presentation begins around the 40 minute mark.

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Baseball Hall of Fame: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza shut out

Steroid-tainted stars Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa have been denied entry to baseball's Hall of Fame with voters failing to elect any candidates for only the second time in four decades. (Jan. 9)

No players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame this year in a polarizing vote that reopened the wounds of the steroid era.

Home run king Barry Bonds, owner of baseball’s most cherished record, was resoundingly rejected. So was pitcher Roger Clemens, who risked prison time by challenging allegations that he used steroids and successfully defended himself against perjury charges.

Craig Biggio came closest to election, getting 68.2% of the vote and falling 39 votes short. With 569 members of the Baseball Writers' Assn. of America returning ballots, 427 votes were required to meet the 75% standard for election.

This is only the eighth time since 1936 that no player has been elected by the baseball writers.

Former Detroit Tigers ace Jack Morris was second in the balloting with 67.7%. Jeff Bagwell got 59.6%, followed by Mike Piazza at 57.8% and Tim Raines at 52.2%.

For the first time since 1960, the Hall of Fame -- located in Cooperstown, N.Y. -- will host a ceremony with no living inductees. The July 28 ceremony will honor the three inductees selected by a committee on baseball’s pre-integration era, but all of those inductees have been dead for at least 74 years.

Bonds, who holds the career and single-season home-run records, is the only seven-time most valuable player. Clemens is the only seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

Yet their links to alleged steroid use turned each player from a first-ballot lock into an also-ran, with voters sharply divided among those who deny induction to any player with ties to performance-enhancing drugs, those who prefer to wait and see what further information might emerge about those players, and those who vote for the most dominant players whatever their era.

Clemens was named on 37.6% of the ballots; Bonds on 36.2%. Sammy Sosa received only 12.5%.

Players remain on the ballot for 15 years, provided they receive at least 5% of the vote.

Dale Murphy, a two-time National League MVP, got 18.6% in his 15^th and final year on the ballot. Morris will be on the ballot for the final time next year.

Mark McGwire, who had gotten no more than 23.7% in six previous appearances on the ballot, got 16.9% this time. McGwire is about to start his first season as hitting coach for the Dodgers.

McGwire and Sosa were credited with reviving the sport in 1998 when the two players staged a fabled battle for the single-season home-run record. McGwire won with 70, and Sosa finished with 66.

In 2001, Bonds hit 73 home runs, a record that stands.

McGwire has since admitted to steroid use. Sosa has not, although the New York Times reported he failed a steroid test in 2003, the year before baseball started identifying and penalizing offenders.

Bonds leads the all-time home-run list at 762, with Sosa eighth at 609 and McGwire 10^th at 583. The trio are the only men to hit more than 62 home runs in a season – Bonds did it once, McGwire twice and Sosa three times.

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Suspicious minds could keep Mike Piazza out of the Hall

What if they gave a Hall of Fame ceremony and no one came?

Dodger Stadium remodel to include wider concourses, new scoreboard

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Dark Horse, Wood start new 'Star Wars' comic

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — There's excitement brewing for fans of the original "Star Wars" trilogy.

Writer Brian Wood and Dark Horse Comics began a new monthly series Wednesday that focuses on Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Han Solo and Chewbacca, along with R2D2 and C3P0, as they seek to establish a foothold for the rebellion in the aftermath of the Death Star's destruction.

Wood, whose previous comics include the acclaimed "DMZ" and "Northlanders" at Vertigo and the ongoing "The Massive" at Dark Horse, called the new series about the classic "Star Wars" characters the only such series he could write.

"I know the original trilogy best," he explained, noting that George Lucas' creation has spawned its own universe of expanded characters, books, comics and more.

Disney has already announced plans to revive the "Star Wars" franchise after the events of "Return of the Jedi" in 2015. Milwaukie, Ore.-based Dark Horse has been publishing "Star Wars" comics for more than 20 years.

Woods called the new series — illustrated by Carlos D'Anda — a way to examine the events that transpired between the end of the first film, "Star Wars: A New Hope" and the second film, "The Empire Strikes Back," by detailing the next, furtive steps for the rebellion and the Empire's efforts to stop it from spreading.

"The basic approach is sort of how everybody, including the Empire, is kind of reeling from that battle in various different ways," Wood said. "The rebellion is in need of a home base, Darth Vader is dealing with serious disapproval from the Emperor for having failed to stop the Death Star's destruction — he's actually been demoted!"

Leia has lost her home world. Luke lost his family. Han and Chewie have seen their smuggling business hurt by their association with the rebels.

"Everyone has suffered enormous losses," Wood said.

Wood said the challenge for the series is keeping track of all the story possibilities, given the established mythology of the "Star Wars" universe and the sheer number of characters.

"It's a big cast! The droids, Ben Kenobi is there, all of the Empire, too. It's a very large cast so that's kind of a tricky thing," he said.

And most readers already know what happened to the characters, good and bad.

"It's writing the story knowing what the audience knows but what the characters don't. Obviously, Luke and Leia don't know they're related — I can't ignore that," Wood said.

"It's a very enjoyable challenge walking that line," he said.

___

Matt Moore can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/mattmooreap

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Online:

Dark Horse: http://bit.ly/RGkqMu

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Pap Test May Prove Useful at Detecting More Types of Cancer, Study Suggests

The Pap test, which has prevented countless deaths from cervical cancer, may eventually help to detect cancers of the uterus and ovaries as well, a new study suggests.

For the first time, researchers have found genetic material from uterine or ovarian cancers in Pap smears, meaning that it may become possible to detect three diseases with just one routine test.

But the research is early, years away from being used in medical practice, and there are caveats. The women studied were already known to have cancer, and while the Pap test found 100 percent of the uterine cancers, it detected only 41 percent of the ovarian cancers. And the approach has not yet been tried in women who appear healthy, to determine whether it can find early signs of uterine or ovarian cancer.

On the other hand, even a 41 percent detection rate would be better than the status quo in ovarian cancer, particularly if the detection extends to early stages. The disease is usually advanced by the time it is found, and survival is poor. About 22,280 new cases were expected in the United States in 2012, and 15,500 deaths. Improved tests are urgently needed.

Uterine cancer has a better prognosis, but still kills around 8,000 women a year in the United States.

These innovative applications of the Pap test are part of a new era in which advances in genetics are being applied to the detection of a wide variety of cancers or precancerous conditions. Scientists are learning to find minute bits of mutant DNA in tissue samples or bodily fluids that may signal the presence of hidden or incipient cancers. Ideally, the new techniques would find the abnormalities early enough to cure the disease or even prevent it entirely. But it is too soon to tell.

“Is this the harbinger of things to come? I would answer yes,” said Dr. Bert Vogelstein, director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University, and a senior author of a report on the Pap test study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. He said the genomes of more than 50 types of tumors had been sequenced, and researchers were trying to take advantage of the information.

Similar studies are under way or are being considered to look for mutant DNA in blood, stool, urine and sputum, both to detect cancer and also to monitor the response to treatment in people who already have the disease.

But researchers warn that such tests, used for screening, can be a double-edged sword if they give false positive results that send patients down a rabbit hole of invasive tests and needless treatments. Even a test that finds only real cancers may be unable to tell aggressive, dangerous ones apart from indolent ones that might never do any harm, leaving patients to decide whether to watch and wait or to go through surgery, chemotherapy and radiation with all the associated risks and side effects.

“Will they start recovering mutations that are not cancer-related?” asked Dr. Christopher P. Crum, a professor at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the research.

But he also called the study a “great proof of principle,” and said, “Any whisper of hope to women who suffer from endometrial or ovarian cancer would be most welcome.”

DNA testing is already performed on samples from Pap tests, to look for the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer. Dr. Vogelstein and his team decided to try DNA testing for cancer. They theorized that cells or DNA shed from cancers of the ovaries and the uterine lining, or endometrium, might reach the cervix and turn up in Pap smears.

The team picked common mutations found in these cancers, and looked for them in tumor samples from 24 women with endometrial cancer and 22 with ovarian cancer. All the cancers had one or more of the common mutations.

Then, the researchers performed Pap tests on the same women, and looked for the same DNA mutations in the Pap specimens. They found the mutations in 100 percent of the women with endometrial cancer, but in only 9 of the 22 with ovarian cancer. The test identified two of the four ovarian cancers that had been diagnosed at an early stage.

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Wall Street gains as earnings flow in; Alcoa up

Stocks rose on Wall Street Wednesday after U.S. corporate earnings reports got off to a good start.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 86 points to 13,415 as of noon EST. The Dow is coming off of two days of losses.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained six points to 1,463 and the Nasdaq composite rose 17 points to 3,109.

Stocks, having rallied after a last-minute resolution stopped the U.S. going from over the “fiscal cliff,” are facing their first challenge of the year as companies start to report their earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012. Throughout last year, analysts had cut their outlook for earnings growth in the period and now expect them to rise by 3.21 percent, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.

“Maybe earnings expectations were a little too low,” said Ryan Detrick, a strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. “You don't need to have great earnings, you just need to beat those expectations” for stocks to rally, Detrick said.

Alcoa predicted rising demand for aluminum this year as the aerospace industry gains strength. Late Tuesday the company reported fourth-quarter revenue that beat analysts' estimates. Investors pay close attention to Alcoa's results and forecasts because the aluminum it makes is used in so many industries including construction and manufacturing.

Alcoa's stock rose 8 cents to $9.18.

Consumer products maker Helen of Troy, whose brands include Dr. Scholl's, Vicks and Fabreze, rose 89 cents to $34.42 after reporting a 15 percent increase in net income. Agricultural products giant Monsanto gained 84 cents to $99.34 after it said that its profit nearly tripled in the first fiscal quarter as sales of its biotech corn seeds expanded in Latin America.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged at 1.87 percent.

Among other stocks making big moves:

— Wireless network operator Clearwire jumped 22 cents to $3.14 after Dish network made an unsolicited offer to buy the company, which has already agreed to sell itself to Sprint. Dish rose $1.17 to $37.14 and Sprint fell 8 cents to $5.89.

— Online education company Apollo Group plunged 10 percent after reporting a sharp decline in fall-term student sign-ups at the University of Phoenix. The stock fell $2.04 to $18.88.

— Seagate Technology, a maker of hard-disk drives, jumped $1.52 to $32.91 after predicting revenue for its fiscal second quarter that topped Wall Street expectations late Tuesday.

— Bank of America fell 29 cents to $11.69 after Credit Suisse analysts lowered their outlook on the lender to “neutral” for “outperform,” saying the current stock price overestimates the improvement in cost reduction that the bank can achieve this year.

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Testimony about Colorado massacre resumes in James Holmes hearing

More emotional testimony was expected at a hearing on the Aurora movie theater massacre, as prosecutors continued to lay out their case against the defendant, James Holmes.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Vivid testimony about the movie theater massacre that shocked a nation extended into a second day as a preliminary hearing for James E. Holmes resumed Tuesday.

Prosecutors continued to lay out their case against Holmes, 25, accused of killing 12 people and injuring about 70 during a shooting rampage on July 20 in a suburban cinema. At issue in the proceeding, expected to last a week, is whether there is a sufficient case to go to trial.

In the first day of testimony Monday, law enforcement officials described the bloody shooting scene and heartbreaking rescue attempts to bring the gravely wounded to treatment.

PHOTOS: Colorado movie theater shooting

The prosecution has been trying to show that Holmes acted deliberately while the defense in cross-examination has focused on how the former neuroscience graduate student appeared emotionally detached, bolstering their expected insanity presentation.

Throughout, Holmes has sat impassive, while some of the victims' relatives have wept during the more graphic testimony.

On Tuesday, the atmosphere at the Arapahoe County Court House contained less of the frenzy that marked the first day. Yet the proceedings come as the debate over gun control has heated up in the wake of the attack last month in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman who invaded the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The gunman first killed his mother in their home and ended his shooting spree by killing himself.

WHO THEY WERE: Aurora theater shooting

Tuesday’s testimony also comes as the nation commemorates the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting where six died and 13 were injured when gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was holding a meet-and-greet with her constituents. Tucson, which has had events for several days, will mark the exact time of the shooting with the ringing of bells across the city at the moment of the morning attack.

Giffords, who went through a painful recovery and rehabilitation for gun wounds to the head, has become a spokeswoman for greater gun control. She and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, announced they would raise money to support gun control efforts. The pair visited Newtown last week.

On Monday, Aurora police testified about the horrors they found in the theater, including blood-soaked aisles and walls, crumpled bodies, and scores of spent shell casings.

TIMELINE: U.S. mass shootings

The prosecution also showed surveillance video of Holmes entering the theater complex just past midnight. He had purchased his ticket 12 days earlier. The chilling, soundless video shows Holmes redeeming his ticket at a kiosk, giving it to a ticket taker, then lingering near the concession stand for a few minutes before turning toward Theater 9, where the Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” was playing.

Prosecutors have yet to announce whether they will seek the death penalty.

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Deam reported from Centennial, Colo.; Muskal reported from Los Angeles. 

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Fox: Passion, disagreements with new 'Idol' team

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Five minutes into their season-opening news conference and the new team at "American Idol" were having their first disagreement — about their disagreements.

Asked Tuesday whether a supposed feud between new judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj was a publicity stunt, Fox network executive Mike Darnell said it was authentic. He said there was a lot of passion within the group, which also includes country star Keith Urban and returning judge Randy Jackson. He said there were also a lot of disagreements.

Carey, however, called the story "some trumped-up thing."

Minaj later called Carey one of her favorite all-time artists who has shaped a generation of singers.

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