Shhhh! A new law says TV ads can't blare anymore

NEW YORK (AP) — TV viewing could soon sound a little calmer. The CALM Act, which limits the volume of TV commercials, goes into effect on Thursday.

CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation. The act is designed to prevent TV commercials from blaring at louder volumes than the program content they accompany. The rules govern broadcasters as well as cable and satellite operators.

The rules are meant to protect viewers from excessively loud commercials.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted the rules a year ago, but gave the industry a one-year grace period to adopt them.

Suspected violations can be reported by the public to the FCC on its website.

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Online: www.fcc.gov

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Facebook helps FBI bust cyber crime ring

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times

December 13, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has busted an international cyber crime ring that infected 11 million computers around the world and resulted in more than $850 million in losses.

Facebook Inc.'s security team assisted law enforcement in the investigation by helping identify compromised accounts and the perpetrators around the globe who stole credit cards and bank and personal information — and in some cases spammed Facebook users — after infecting computers with malicious software.

Facebook said a "small subset" of the 11 million computers infected had accounts on Facebook but its researchers were able to provide "intelligence" to law enforcement about the malware and the perpetrators.

Quiz: How much do you know about Facebook?

The FBI and law enforcement agencies outside the U.S. arrested 10 suspects from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, Britain and the United States, the FBI said. The FBI has accused the suspects of deploying "botnets," a collection of infected computers that is used to steal credit card and other information.

"Facebook's security team is vigilant against any threats that target our site and the Internet at large," Facebook said in a blog post.

Facebook said it began investigating the malicious software in 2010 and identified affected accounts based on suspicious activity.

"We provided free anti-virus software to remediate impacted accounts, and our anti-spam systems were able to block much of the malicious content," Facebook said.

Facebook said it has seen no new infections since October. But some devices may still be infected. Facebook users who are concerned can visit the Facebook malware checkpoint.

If your computer is infected, the free anti-virus software offered will safely remove it.

jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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U.S. designates Syria rebel group a terrorist organization

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has formally designated a rebel group fighting in Syria as a terrorist organization in an effort to marginalize the Al Qaeda affiliate and reduce its chances of gaining power should the Syrian government fall.

Blacklisting Al Nusra Front is one of several diplomatic moves planned by the administration to try to maneuver moderate opposition groups into position to shape a pro-Western government if President Bashar Assad is ousted.

U.S diplomats are to take another step toward that end Wednesday at a meeting in Morocco, where the U.S. is expected to formally recognize a recently formed coalition of rebel groups — the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces — as Syria's legitimate government-in-waiting.

"We've made a decision that the Syrian opposition coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime," President Obama told ABC News on Tuesday in advance of the Morocco meeting.

U.S. officials acknowledge, however, that the umbrella group has limited influence with the dozens of insurgent groups that have emerged in Syria's nearly 21-month-old civil war.

Most of those insurgent groups are believed to be secular in nature, but administration officials described Al Nusra Front as a wing of the group Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans during the height of the Iraq war.

"Extremists fighting the Assad regime are still extremists, and they have no place in the transition that will come," a senior administration official, who declined to be identified because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the subject, said Tuesday.

U.S. officials said they hoped that blacklisting Al Nusra Front would persuade other opposition militias in Syria to steer clear of it and prompt Mideastern allies that may be arming its fighters to stop.

But some Syrian opposition leaders denied that Al Nusra Front is connected to Al Qaeda. Their comments raised the possibility that the U.S. move could backfire and increase rebel unhappiness with the United States. Some rebel commanders feel Washington has let them down by failing to provide military support.

Many militias respect Al Nusra Front's fighting ability and have gained access to captured weapons by collaborating with the group. At least 29 opposition groups have called for demonstrations Friday to show their support for Al Nusra Front.

An opposition activist in Morocco preparing for the meeting on Syria called the blacklisting a mistake that was supposedly based on intercepted communications between Al Nusra Front and Al Qaeda. Many of its fighters "have no links to Al Qaeda," said the activist, who asked not to be identified by name.

Farouk Tayfour, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria, said the designation was "very wrong and too hasty.... It is too early to categorize people inside Syria this way, considering the chaos and the gray atmosphere in the country," he told Reuters news service.

The terrorist designation will freeze the group's foreign assets and bar Americans from knowingly providing support to it. U.S. officials acknowledged that the group probably relies little, if at all, on American support.

But officials said the blacklisting will make it harder for known Al Nusra Front members to cross borders, which could hamper their operations, and will alert Syrians to a group supporting a radical Islamist ideology that most in the country don't share.

"We have called them out," a second senior administration official said.

paul.richter@latimes.com

Special correspondent Rima Marrouch, on assignment in Marrakech, Morocco, contributed to this report.

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'Evita' to close in January when Big 3 leave

NEW YORK (AP) — The Broadway revival of "Evita" — faced with trying to replace Ricky Martin, Elena Roger and Michael Cerveris — will instead close when the Big Three leave early next year.

Producers of the Tony Award-nominated revival of Tim Rice's and Andrew Lloyd Webber's landmark musical said Tuesday night they have decided against plans for an open-ended run after Martin, Roger and Cerveris leave after the Jan. 26 performance.

"Our extensive search for a new cast presented the significant challenges of not only replacing a high-caliber trio of stars but also synchronizing the schedules of potential replacements with that of the production," producer Hal Luftig said in a statement. "Despite going down the road with a variety of artists, the planets have simply not aligned for us to engage the right talent at the right time."

When it closes, the musical will have played 26 previews and 337 performances, far less than the original's more than 1,580 shows played between 1979 and 1983.

A national tour will launch in September 2013 at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence, R.I., and a cast album has been released, including the songs "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "High Flying Adored." The cast for the tour has not been announced.

The revival opened March 12 at the Marquis Theatre, directed by Michael Grandage and choreographed by Rob Ashford. It has broken the theater's box office record seven times, though has seen the box office slump at times.

Last week, it pulled in $920,994, or a little more than half its $1,666,936 potential. The average ticket price was $111.73 and the top premium went for $275.

The musical tells the story of Argentina's Eva Peron, who rose from the slums to the presidential mansion. Roger plays Eva, Cerveris her husband and Martin is Che.

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Online: http://evitaonbroadway.com

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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

At William H. Ziegler Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia, students are getting acquainted with vegetables and healthy snacks.

PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”

Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.

Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.

But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”

Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.

Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.

“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”

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U.S. to get $7.6 billion from sale of remaining AIG shares

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said it would raise $7.6 billion in the sale of its remaining shares of American International Group Inc., ending the controversial bailout of the insurance giant with a $22.7-billion profit.

The department agreed Tuesday to sell its remaining 234 million shares in AIG, which represented 15.9% of the company, for $32.50 each. The offering is expected to be completed Friday.

The sale, in effect, closes the books on a bailout that, at its height, left the government pledging more than $182 billion in taxpayer funds to rescue the firm in return for owning 92% of its shares.

"The closing of this transaction will mark the full resolution of America's financial support of AIG — with a profit to taxpayers of $22.7 billion to date," AIG Chief Executive Robert Benmosche wrote in an email to company employees Tuesday.

"It marks one of the most extraordinary — and what many believed to be the most unlikely — turnarounds in American business history," Benmosche wrote.

Despite the bailout's profit, critics note the huge toll it took on public confidence in the financial system and the precedent it helped set for government intervention to protect companies deemed too big to fail.

"The bailout was an enormous cost to this country," said Phil Angelides, who headed the government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Since 2008, AIG has been selling assets to raise money to repay the government and stabilize the company's finances.

Bad bets on the housing market brought AIG to the brink of bankruptcy in September of that year, helping fuel the financial crisis and drawing an unprecedented effort by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to keep the company afloat.

The bailout was the single largest of the crisis and fueled outrage and resentment from the public, Congress and government officials. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said no single episode involving the near meltdown of the financial system made him more angry than having to help bail out AIG after its risky behavior.

AIG ended up using about $125 billion of the money promised to it. After the company was stabilized, the Fed and the Treasury Department began the long process of unwinding the complex bailout.

"Since the financial crisis, AIG has undertaken a dramatic restructuring effort, which put it in a stronger position to repay taxpayers," the Treasury Department said in a statement Tuesday. "The size of the company has been cut nearly in half as it sold non-core assets and focused on its core insurance operations."

The improvements — AIG's stock price is up 44% this year, gaining $1.90 to $35.26 on Tuesday — enabled the government to end the bailout more quickly than expected.

In August, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York sold the last of the asset-backed securities it acquired from AIG as part of the bailout. The Fed turned a profit of $17.7 billion on its part of the complex bailout.

The Treasury Department began selling its shares of the company in early 2011.

This week's sale will lead to a $5-billion profit, the department said. The Treasury Department will continue to hold warrants to buy about 2.7 million shares of AIG stock, and selling those warrants could generate more money.

"No taxpayer should be pleased that the government had to rescue this company, but all taxpayers should be pleased with [the] announcement, ending the largest of the government's financial industry bailouts with a profit to the Treasury Department," said James Millstein, a former Treasury official who oversaw AIG's restructuring from 2009 to 2011.

"The people of AIG who worked hard the past four years to repay the taxpayers' investment should be very proud of this accomplishment," Millstein said.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

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Appeals court orders removal of 100 digital billboards across L.A.

A digital billboard on Lincoln Blvd. in Venice. A panel ruled Monday that 100 of these digital billboards in Los Angeles must be taken down. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times / December 10, 2012)

By David Zahniser

December 10, 2012, 4:01 p.m.

A three-judge panel on Monday ruled that roughly 100 digital billboards installed in Los Angeles under a 2006 legal settlement approved by the Los Angeles City Council must be removed.

The panel from the state's 2nd District Court of Appeal said sign companies CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel outdoor should not have been allowed to convert their existing billboards to electronic formats when existing laws prohibited such changes. "We do not see how the language could be plainer," the ruling states.

The panel instructed a lower court to order the removal of digital billboards already permitted under the agreement, many of which were on the Westside.

Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight, hailed the ruling. "Needless to say, [it's] a very happy day for us," he said in an email.

Of the billboards that are at issue, 79 are operated by Clear Channel. The remainder were owned by CBS.
CBS and Clear Channel sued the city nearly a decade ago, seeking to block implementation of an ordinance banning the installation of new billboards except in special sign districts. In 2006, the council backed a settlement with the two companies that allowed them to convert up to 840 existing billboards to electronic formats.

Summit Outdoor, a smaller sign company, went to court to invalidate the agreement, calling it a sweetheart deal.

A judge sided with Summit, calling the agreement "poison" and blocking the city from allowing new digital signs to go up. But he refused to order the removal of the 100 or so billboards that had already been converted to digital formats under the 2006 settlement.

"It's fantastic," said Barbara Broide, president of the Westwood South of Santa Monica Blvd. Homeowners Assn., which filed an amicus brief in support of Summit Media's lawsuit. "I think this is a hard-fought win. This city should be grateful to Summit for having brought the suit."

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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld. For example:  

Kramer is under investigation for heavy torrenting. Jerry’s new girlfriend writes an extremely graphic blog. George discovers Banh Mi.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

The man behind the account, BuzzFeed’s sports editor Jack Moore, started tweeting out scenarios with his friend, comedian Josh Gondelman, and then decided that the joke merited its own account. Moore is a Seinfeld fanatic himself: “I’m pretty much constantly watching episodes in the background while I’m doing anything,” he told us in an email. “I have a thumb drive with the whole series on it that I keep in my bag pretty much all the time.” 

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So far, the modern-day episode summaries ring true, despite warnings from Gawker last year that classic episodes wouldn’t have worked if the characters just had the use of newfangled technology. “It would be different but not as different as everyone acts like,” Moore wrote to us. “People always say that ‘if they had cell phones Seinfeld couldn’t exist,’ which is true for a certain type of Seinfeld episode, but not as a general rule (which I think the account shows).” 

RELATED: Jon Huntsman Finds His Voice by Sounding Like a Dad on Twitter

The account makes it obvious that Internet apps and 2012 trends would create the same awkward situations that Seinfeld thrived on. For example: 

Kramer uses grinder to meet new friends, doesn’t know it’s a gay hook-up app. Jerry refuses to admit he cried on @wtfpod.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

Elaine has a bad waiter at a nice restaurant, her negative Yelp review goes viral, she gets banned. Kramer accidentally joins the Tea Party.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

George thinks his GF is faking a gluten-intolerance, feeds her real cookies, sending her to the ER. Autocorrect ruins Jerry’s relationship.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

We kind of really want to see some of these made, actually. Reunion special? 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Skyfall' launches back to top spot with $10.8M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The James Bond blockbuster "Skyfall" has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $10.8 million.

That brought its domestic total to $261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $918 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony, $10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $3,170 average, $261,400,281, five weeks.

2. "Rise of the Guardians," Paramount, $10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $2,858 average, $61,774,192, three weeks.

3. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," Summit, $9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $2,511 average, $268,691,029, four weeks.

4. "Lincoln," $8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $4,427 average, $97,137,447, five weeks.

5. "Life of Pi," Fox, $8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $2,828 average, $60,948,293, three weeks.

6. "Playing For Keeps," FilmDistrict, $5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $2,027 average, $5,750,288, one week.

7. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $1,770 average, $164,402,934, six weeks.

8. "Red Dawn," FilmDistrict, $4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $1,538 average, $37,240,920, three weeks.

9. "Flight," Paramount, $3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $1,288 average, $86,202,541, six weeks.

10. "Killing Them Softly," Weinstein Co., $2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $1,158 average, $11,830,638, two weeks.

11. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,171,665, 371 locations, $5,854 average, $13,964,405, four weeks.

12. "Anna Karenina," Focus, $1,544,859, 422 locations, $3,661 average, $6,603,042, four weeks.

13. "The Collection," LD Entertainment, $1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $1,060 average, $5,455,328, two weeks.

14. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,482,346, 944 locations, $1,570 average, $103,160,015, nine weeks.

15. "End of Watch," Open Road Films, $751,623, 1,259 locations, $597 average, $39,989,766, 12 weeks.

16. "Hitchcock," Fox Searchlight, $712,544, 181 locations, $3,937 average, $1,661,670, three weeks.

17. "Talaash," Reliance Big Pictures, $449,195, 161 locations, $2,790 average, $2,397,909, two weeks.

18. "Taken 2," Fox, $387,227, 430 locations, $901 average, $137,700,304, 10 weeks.

19. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $305,765, 387 locations, $790 average, $63,517,408, 11 weeks.

20. "The Sessions," Fox, $218,973, 197 locations, $1,112 average, $4,948,342, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Vital Signs: Smoking Tied to Less Dense Bones for Girls

Smoking in teenage girls is associated with slower development of bone mineral density, a new study reports.

The scientists studied 262 healthy girls ages 11 to 19, using questionnaires and interviews to assess their smoking habits. The researchers also measured the girls’ bone density at the hip and lumbar spine three times at one-year intervals.

Smokers entered adolescence with the same lumbar and hip bone density as nonsmokers, but by age 19, they were about a year behind on average. After adjusting for other factors that affect bone health — height, weight, hormonal contraceptive use and more — the researchers found that even relatively low or irregular rates of smoking were independently associated with lower bone density.

The study, published last week in The Journal of Adolescent Health, used a sample that fell below national averages for calcium intake and physical activity, so the results may not be generalizable to wider populations.

The lead author, Lorah D. Dorn, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, pointed out that this is only one study and that more research is needed. Still, she said, “It tells me that for care providers — clinicians and parents — this needs to be something they’re vigilant about.”

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