Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf dies at 78























































































Norman Schwarzkopf, George Bush


Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and President George Bush, pictured in 1991, watch the National Victory Parade from a viewing stand in Washington.
(Ron Edmonds / AP / June 8, 1991)




































































Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died, according to a U.S. official. He was 78.


The official told the Associated Press that Schwarzkopf died Thursday in Tampa, Fla. The official wasn't authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. A much-decorated combat soldier in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was known popularly as “Stormin' Norman” for a notoriously explosive temper.













































































































































































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It's husband No. 3 for actress Kate Winslet


NEW YORK (AP) — Kate Winslet has tied the knot again.


The Oscar-winning actress wed Ned Rocknroll in New York earlier this month. The private ceremony was attended by Winslet's two children as well as a few friends and family members, her representative said Thursday.


It is the third marriage for the 37-year-old Winslet. She was previously married to film directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes.


The 34-year-old Rocknroll, who was born Abel Smith, is a nephew of billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson.


The couple had been engaged since last summer.


Winslet won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the 2008 film "The Reader."


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China closing Web loophole









BEIJING — For years, China's net censors turned a blind eye to a major loophole.


Anyone who wanted access to blocked overseas websites like Twitter, Facebook, and more recently, the New York Times, only needed to download foreign software called a virtual private network (VPN) to circumvent the Great Firewall.


But in recent weeks, even these tools have begun to falter, frustrating tech-savvy Chinese and foreign businesspeople who now struggle to access Internet sites as innocuous as gmail.com and imdb.com.





The tightening appears to be part of a broader and continuing campaign by China to rein in the country's Internet, which has nearly 600 million users and challenges the government's monopoly on information.


State media have been running editorials regularly about the dangers of an unregulated Internet, citing an uptick in rumormongering and misinformation.


"By typing on the computer, one can send the meanest curse, the most shocking scandals, the most insensitive ridicule and it seems no one can do anything to you," the Beijing Morning Post said in an editorial Thursday. "Any responsible government shouldn't let this become a method for the mass public to seek justice."


On Monday, one of China's top governing bodies, the National People's Congress Standing Committee, proposed requiring Internet users to register their real identities before accessing online services as a way to combat online fraud. If passed, the law would be especially damaging to China's micro-blogging platforms such as Sina Weibo.


The Twitter-like services double as a national nerve center for public opinion. Because bloggers have been able to shield their identities, the platform has also engendered online vigilantism by exposing government malfeasance — such as hiding ill-gotten wealth in dozens of apartments, sex with a teenager or keeping two remarkably similar-looking sisters as mistresses.


Michael Anti, a Beijing-based critic of Web censorship, believes the current pushback on the Web reflects paranoia over incoming President Xi Jinping's crackdown on official corruption. Local officials could be pressuring propaganda departments to curb freedom of speech online, he said.


"Officials hate the Internet," Anti said. "They're afraid of being victims of the anti-corruption campaign."


Furthermore, Anti said, China's myriad ministries policing the Web are probably engaging in a turf war before Xi takes office in March.


Jurisdiction over services like VPNs could result in revenues through registration fees. Fan Binxing, creator of the Great Firewall, told the state-owned Global Times earlier this month that VPN businesses were illegal in China unless they were registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.


Many of the top commercial VPN services have reported trouble working as usual in China. Users say access is often denied or crashes after short use. When working correctly, VPN software encrypts users' Web activity and scales the Great Firewall by logging onto a server overseas.


Experts suspect Chinese censors have determined a way to identify encrypted Web use and block corresponding proxy servers.


Foreign businesses such as banks rely on VPNs to exchange confidential information. Expatriates generally regard the software as a necessity to keep up with the outside world.


For the ruling Communist Party, the foreign Internet has never been more dangerous. Overseas Chinese websites have been breathlessly reporting party intrigue, and news organizations have been detailing the most sensitive details about families of the ruling elite.


Bloomberg's website has been blocked in China since June 29, the day it published an investigation on the family wealth of Xi. The news service released another sensitive investigation Thursday that explored the wealth and influence of China's biggest political families.


david.pierson@latimes.com





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Former President George H.W. Bush in intensive care























































































Former President George H.W. Bush


Former President George H.W. Bush, seen in March, has been moved to intensive care at a Houston hospital.
(Tom Pennington / Getty Images)





































































Former President George H.W. Bush has been moved to the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital in Houston, hospital officials confirmed to the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.


Bush, 88, has been struggling with fever, weakness and a bronchitis-like cough, according to the Associated Press. He was originally planning to spend Christmas at home, but that plan was prevented by high fever.


Bush originally was checked into the hospital in November with bronchitis symptoms.





Bush suffers from vascular Parkinson’s disease and missed the Republican National Convention this year.


ALSO:


N.Y. gunman wrote that 'killing people' was what he did best


Newtown desperately needed Christmas after Sandy Hook massacre

Louisiana town is up in arms over resident's outdoor Christmas lights

































































































































































































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';
shareDiv.innerHTML = templateHTML;

/* append the new div to the end of the document, which is hidden already with CSS */
document.body.appendChild(shareDiv);

/* Store the div in both a regular JavaScript variable and as a jQuery object so we can reference them faster later */
var shareTip = document.getElementById('shareTip'),
$shareTip = $('#shareTip');

/* This extends our settings object with any user-defined settings passed to the function and returns the jQuery object shareTip
was called on */
return this.each(function() {
if (options) {
$.extend(settings, options);
}

/* This is a hack to make sure the shareTip always fades back to 100% opacity */
var checkOpacity = function (){
if ( $shareTip.css('opacity') !== 1 ){
$shareTip.css({'opacity': 1});
}
};

/* Function that replaces the HTML in the shareTip with the template we defined at the top */
/* It will wipe/reset the links on the social media buttons each time the function is called */
var removeLinks = function (){
shareTip.innerHTML = templateHTML;
};

/* This is the function that makes the links for the Tweet / Share functionality */

var makeURLS = function (link, message){
/* Here we construct the Tweet URL using an array, with values passed to the function */
var tweetConstruct = [
'http://twitter.com/share?url=', link, '&text=', message, '&via=', settings.twitter_account
],
/* Then join the array into one chunk of HTML */
tweetURL = tweetConstruct.join(''),

/* Same story for Facebook */
fbConstruct = [
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],

fbURL = fbConstruct.join(''),

newHTML = [
''
],
shareHTML = newHTML.join('');
/* Load in our new HTML */
shareTip.innerHTML = shareHTML;
};

/* Since the shareTip will automatically fade out when the user mouses out of an element */
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/* This effectively gives the user a 500 ms (or whatever) window to mouse */
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$shareTip.hover(function(){
$shareTip.stop(true, true);
$shareTip.show();
checkOpacity();
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$(this).fadeOut(settings.speed);
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removeLinks();

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$shareTip.stop(true, true);

var eso = $(this),
message,
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link;


link = eso.children('a').attr('href');
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if (link.search('http://') === -1){
link = 'http://www.latimes.com' + link;
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Mint, otro Linux para quienes quieren explorar el mundo fuera de Windows






Una de las grandes virtudes de Linux (un sistema operativo libre para PC y otros dispositivos) es la cantidad innumerable de versiones disponibles. Estas distribuciones, además, son en su enorme mayoría de uso gratis, y representan una buena alternativa para los que no desean invertir en una licencia de Windows o quieren explorar -sin gastar- alternativas para la computadora hogareña.


Hemos recomendado en varias ocasiones opciones sencillas de usar e instalar que tienen herramientas iguales o muy similares a las que pueden encontrarse en Windows, destacando la ductilidad de las distribuciones disponibles y cómo hacer para probarlas sin complicarse demasiado , usando un CD regrabable o un pendrive, para no afectar el Windows instalado en la computadora.






En los últimos años fue Ubuntu el que más hizo para facilitarle el trabajo a los neófitos que venían de Windows, automatizando y simplificando procesos de instalación, creando un sitio amigable, sumando instrucciones de instalación y uso en lenguaje no técnico e incluso haciendo acuerdo para preinstalarlo en equipos de marca , pero la elección de la interfaz de usuario Unity (algo rígida) le hizo perder adeptos.


Una de las alternativas que venía creciendo en popularidad era Linux Mint (gratis), y los últimos números de DistroWatch , un sitio que lista las diferentes distribuciones y su popularidad, lo dan como el rey de 2012. Mint usa a Ubuntu como base, por lo que aprovecha algunas de sus herramientas (como la que permite instalarlo dentro de Windows para poder usarlo sin afectar la instalación original) y viene con una gran cantidad de componentes multimedia preinstalados, para facilitar la reproducción de audio y video, entre otras cosas (las distribuciones más “puras” suelen evitar esto para promover el uso de estándares libres de audio y video).


Hace poco más de un mes Linux Mint liberó su versión más reciente, Nadia 14, que incluye dos entornos de escritorio que resultarán muy agradables para quienes no se sienten cómodos con Unity, porque mantienen el esquema tradicional de Windows y Gnome 2.x: una barra de herramientas en la parte inferior de la pantalla, ventanas con los botones de control a la derecha, etcétera.


Linux Mint 14 tiene dos versiones: MATE (basado en Gnome 2.x, y cuyo nombre está inspirado en la yerba mate) y Cinnamon (canela, en inglés) de aspecto similar pero con algunos detalles visuales más atractivos: menús de notificaciones más sofisticados, escritorios virtuales persistentes, miniaturas en el administrador de ventanas y más.


cómo instalarlo


Cualquiera de ellas se puede meter en un pendrive o disco externo y correr desde allí o, si se quiere, instalarlas en la PC, junto con Windows (es compatible con Windows 8) o en una partición nueva. Alcanza con descargar el archivo ISO de instalación (hay uno para MATE y otro para Cinnamon). Ese archivo (900 MB, aproximadamente) se puede grabar en un DVD con una aplicación para quemar imágenes de disco: en Windows está el freeware CDBurnerXP , por ejemplo. Con el disco en la lectora, al encender al PC debería cargar primero Mint antes que Windows (si no, habrá que cambiar una configuración en el BIOS). Podremos usarlo como si estuviera instalado en la PC y luego, si queremos, instalarlo en el disco rígido de nuestra computadora, cuidando de hacerlo en una partición vacía o dentro de Windows.


Otra opción es instalarlo en una memoria USB (de 2 GB o más de capacidad). Para eso hay que usar la aplicación Image Writer (gratis, hay que cliquear donde dice win32diskimager-binary.zip para descargar el archivo). Luego habrá que cambiar la extensión del archivo de .ISO a .IMG para que Image Writer reconozca el archivo y pueda copiarlo en el pendrive (atención que borrará todo lo que está allí).


Si al prender la PC con el pendrive conectado no lo reconoce, habrá que cambiar el orden de carga de sistemas operativos, una opción que suele aparecer apenas se prende la PC (y que no estará disponible si la computadora es muy vieja) para ordenarle que cargue primero el contenido de la memoria USB.


Para quienes estén pensando en probar una distribución de Linux y buscan reducir el “choque cultural” con una interfaz de usuario que sea parecida -pero no idéntica- a la del Windows tradicional, y que además sea sencillo de usar, tienen en Linux Mint 14 Nadia una opción muy atractiva.


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Patrick Dempsey brews up coffee shop purchase


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patrick Dempsey says he wants to rescue a coffee house chain and more than 500 jobs.


The "Grey's Anatomy" star said Wednesday he's leading a group attempting to buy Tully's Coffee. The Seattle-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.


Dempsey said he's excited about the chance to help hundreds of workers and give back to Seattle.


The actor has a strong TV tie to the city: He plays Dr. Derek Shepherd on "Grey's Anatomy," the ABC drama set at fictional Seattle Grace Hospital.


Tully's has 47 company-run stores in Washington and California, as well as five franchised stores and 58 licensed locations in the U.S.


Any sale would have to be approved by a judge. A bankruptcy court hearing is set for Jan. 11 in Seattle.


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Q & A: Should Older Adults Be Vaccinated Against Chickenpox?





Q. Should a 65-year-old who has never had chickenpox be vaccinated against it?




A. In someone who has never had chickenpox, the vaccine would protect against a disease that is far more serious in adults than it is in children, said Dr. Mark S. Lachs, director of geriatrics for the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.


After childhood chickenpox, the varicella virus is never eliminated from the body but lies dormant in nerve roots. Decades later, it may reactivate along the nerve pathway and cause the very painful rash called shingles, and later, in many cases, a persistent pain called postherpetic neuralgia, or PHN.


Therefore, for most people over 60, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the shingles vaccine. It safely reduces (but does not eliminate) the risk of both shingles and PHN in those who have had chickenpox, Dr. Lachs said.


In someone who never had chickenpox, he said, the concern is not shingles but adult chickenpox, which has “fatality rates 25 times higher than in children.”


Such a person should instead be vaccinated against a primary infection with the varicella virus, Dr. Lachs said. The vaccine differs in strength from the one for shingles and is given in two injections, a month apart.


C. CLAIBORNE RAY


Readers may submit questions by mail to Question, Science Times, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018, or by e-mail to question@nytimes.com.



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Junior's Deli to close at end of year because of rent dispute









Junior's Deli, which has been serving pastrami and other deli fare on L.A.'s Westside since 1959, will close at the end of the year.


Employees, some of them multi-decade veterans of the business, learned Wednesday of the comfort food haven's impending shutdown, a casualty of a rent dispute over the 11,000-square-foot space.


"It's catastrophic for me," said David Saul, who co-owns the business with his brother, John. "I'm at a loss. It's like I'm grieving a death."





The Sauls' father, Marvin, launched the delicatessen after a failed stint as a uranium miner in Utah. Junior was his nickname as a child.


Celebrities including Bruce Willis and Hank Azaria were known to patronize the restaurant. Mel Brooks purportedly wrote parts of his film comedy "History of the World Part 1" in the dining room.


Originally on Pico Boulevard, the deli was moved to its current location at 2379 Westwood Blvd. in Westood in 1967. In addition to the restaurant, the space includes a bakery and catering business.


Each year from 1971 on, Marvin Saul hammered out a rental agreement with Beverly Hills-based landlord Four Corners Investments. But just over a year ago he died at 82.


Negotiations this year between Four Corners and the sons broke down over a proposed rise in the rent, David Saul said. "They want a number that we can't give, and they're not willing to bend," he said.


Managers at the real estate firm could not be reached for comment Wednesday.


The eatery has also seen a slump in business in recent years.


In the early 2000s, Junior's was pulling in more than $7 million a year in revenue, Saul said. Sales slumped 20% over the last three years and food costs surged — the Saul brothers were paying nearly $4 for a pound of corned beef, up from $1.15 a pound 10 years ago.


"Customers don't want to pay $13 for a sandwich," Saul said. "For a lot of people in today's economic times, that's a hard thing to stomach. They'd rather go to a Subway or something."


From a high of 150 employees a decade ago, the workforce at Junior's deflated to 95.


Junior's will close within the week, Saul said. But he hopes to eventually reopen the deli somewhere else with a "more 21st century" vibe.


"The allure of delis has been tarnished over the years," he said. "People won't recognize what they had until they've lost it."


tiffany.hsu@latimes.com





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Lakers snap Christmas Day streak with win over Knicks









Lakers 100, Knicks 94 (final)

The Lakers closed out the New York Knicks on Christmas Day to win their fifth in a row, avenging a Dec. 13 loss in New York, the low point of the season during a four-game losing streak. 

The Lakers haven't dropped a game since.

With the Lakers up by three points, Pau Gasol found a lane to the basket from the high post and flushed down a dunk to seal the victory with 11.6 seconds left.  Steve Nash, in his second game back from a leg injury, scored 16 points and dished 11 assists.

The Lakers shot 48.1% from the field but it was their defense that was instrumental in the victory, holding New York to only 16 points in the fourth quarter.

The Knicks shot 42.7% from the field despite 34 from Carmelo Anthony (13-23 shooting), who exploded in the third quarter to give the Knicks a nine-point lead.  The Lakers never led by more than five points.

Kobe Bryant also scored 34 points on 14-for-24 shooting.  Metta World Peace fouled out after scoring 20.  For the second consecutive game, Pau Gasol had six assists.

Knicks center Tyson Chandler also fouled out, finishing with six points and nine rebounds.  J.R. Smith helped carry the offensive load for New York with 25 points.

The Lakers will play on Wednesday night against the Nuggets in Denver.

Knicks 78, Lakers 77 (end of third quarter)

The Lakers survived a 17-point quarter from Carmelo Anthony to close to within one point after three quarters.

Falling behind by as many as nine points after halftime, the Lakers had a chance to go up by a point but Kobe Bryant missed a pair of free throws with 2.6 seconds left in the quarter.

Anthony climbed to 27 points for the game on 11-for-20 shooting while his Knicks shot 43.8% through three.  J.R. Smith contributed 20 points off the bench.

The Lakers were led by Bryant's 26 points on 11-for-18 shooting, while getting 18 points from Metta World Peace and 14 from Steve Nash.

Some of New York's lead was earned from behind the three-point line with eight makes in 22 tries.  The Lakers shot 48.3% from the field but only five of 18 (27.8%) from three-point range.

World Peace started the second half in place of Darius Morris but Anthony had the hot hand.

Lakers 51, Knicks 49 (halftime)

For the second consecutive quarter, the Lakers closed well against the Knicks. After New York's reserves had helped push the Knicks to a six-point advantage, the Lakers rallied to take a two-point lead at halftime.

Carmelo Anthony and Metta World Peace battled through a very physical period, challenging each other in the post. Anthony finished the half with 10 points while World Peace had a game-high 16 points after coming off the Lakers' bench.

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Tajikistan blocks scores of websites as election looms






DUSHANBE (Reuters) – Tajikistan blocked access to more than 100 websites on Tuesday, in what a government source said was a dress rehearsal for a crackdown on online dissent before next year’s election when President Imomali Rakhmon will again run for office.


Rakhmon, a 60-year-old former head of a Soviet cotton farm, has ruled the impoverished Central Asian nation of 7.5 million for 20 years. He has overseen constitutional amendments that allow him to seek a new seven-year term in November 2013.






The Internet remains the main platform where Tajiks can air grievances and criticize government policies at a time when the circulation of local newspapers is tiny and television is tightly controlled by the state.


Tajikistan’s state communications service blocked 131 local and foreign Internet sites “for technical and maintenance works”.


“Most probably, these works will be over in a week,” Tatyana Kholmurodova, deputy head of the service, told Reuters. She declined to give the reason for the work, which cover even some sites with servers located abroad.


The blocked resources included Russia‘s popular social networking sites www.my.mail.ru and VKontakte (www.vk.com), as well as Tajik news site TJKnews.com and several local blogs.


“The government has ordered the communications service to test their ability to block dozens of sites at once, should such a need arise,” a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.


“It is all about November 2013,” he said, in a clear reference to the presidential election.


Other blocked websites included a Ukrainian soccer site, a Tajik rap music site, several local video-sharing sites and a pornography site.


VOLATILE NATION


Predominantly Muslim Tajikistan, which lies on a major transit route for Afghan drugs to Europe and Russia, remains volatile after a 1992-97 civil war in which Rakhmon’s Moscow-backed secular government clashed with Islamist guerrillas.


Rakhmon justifies his authoritarian methods by saying he wants to oppose radical Islam. But some of his critics argue repression and poverty push many young Tajiks to embrace it.


Tighter Internet controls echo measures taken by other former Soviet republics of Central Asia, where authoritarian rulers are wary of the role social media played in revolutions in the Arab world and mass protests in Russia.


The government this year set up a volunteer-run body to monitor Internet use and reprimand those who openly criticize Rakhmon and other officials.


In November, Tajikistan blocked access to Facebook, saying it was spreading “mud and slander” about its veteran leader.


The authorities unblocked Facebook after concern was expressed by the United States and European Union, the main providers of humanitarian aid for Tajikistan, where almost a half of the population lives in abject poverty.


Asomiddin Asoyev, head of Tajikistan’s association of Internet providers, said authorities were trying to create an illusion that there were no problems in Tajik society by silencing online criticism.


“This is self-deception,” he told Reuters. “The best way of resolving a problem is its open discussion with civil society.”


Moscow-based Central Asia expert Arkady Dubnov told Reuters that Rakhmon’s authoritarian measures could lead to a backlash against the president in the election. “Trying to position itself as the main guarantor of stability through repression against Islamist activists, the Dushanbe government is actually achieving the reverse – people’s trust in it is falling,” he said.


(Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Pravin Char)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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