Well: Effects of Bullying Last Into Adulthood, Study Finds

Victims of bullying at school, and bullies themselves, are more likely to experience psychiatric problems in childhood, studies have shown. Now researchers have found that elevated risk of psychiatric trouble extends into adulthood, sometimes even a decade after the intimidation has ended.

The new study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday, is the most comprehensive effort to date to establish the long-term consequences of childhood bullying, experts said.

“It documents the elevated risk across a wide range of mental health outcomes and over a long period of time,” said Catherine Bradshaw, an expert on bullying and a deputy director of the Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence at Johns Hopkins University, which was not involved in the study.

“The experience of bullying in childhood can have profound effects on mental health in adulthood, particularly among youths involved in bullying as both a perpetuator and a victim,” she added.

The study followed 1,420 subjects from Western North Carolina who were assessed four to six times between the ages of 9 and 16. Researchers asked both the children and their primary caregivers if they had been bullied or had bullied others in the three months before each assessment. Participants were divided into four groups: bullies, victims, bullies who also were victims, and children who were not exposed to bullying at all.

Participants were assessed again in young adulthood — at 19, 21 and between 24 and 26 — using structured diagnostic interviews.

Researchers found that victims of bullying in childhood were 4.3 times more likely to have an anxiety disorder as adults, compared to those with no history of bullying or being bullied.

Bullies who were also victims were particularly troubled: they were 14.5 times more likely to develop panic disorder as adults, compared to those who did not experience bullying, and 4.8 times more likely to experience depression. Men who were both bullies and victims were 18.5 times more likely to have had suicidal thoughts in adulthood, compared to the participants who had not been bullied or perpetuators. Their female counterparts were 26.7 times more likely to have developed agoraphobia, compared to children not exposed to bullying.

Bullies who were not victims of bullying were 4.1 times more likely to have antisocial personality disorder as adults than those never exposed to bullying in their youth.

The effects persisted even after the researchers accounted for pre-existing psychiatric problems or other factors that might have contributed to psychiatric disorders, like physical or sexual abuse, poverty and family instability.

“We were actually able to say being a victim of bullying is having an effect a decade later, above and beyond other psychiatric problems in childhood and other adversities,” said William E. Copeland, lead author of the study and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center.

Bullying is not a harmless rite of passage, but inflicts lasting psychiatric damage on a par with certain family dysfunctions, Dr. Copeland said. “The pattern we are seeing is similar to patterns we see when a child is abused or maltreated or treated very harshly within the family setting,” he said.

One limitation of the study is that bullying was not analyzed for frequency, and the researchers’ assessment did not distinguish between interpersonal and overt bullying. It only addressed bullying at school, not in other settings.

Most of what experts know about the effects of bullying comes from observational studies, not studies of children followed over time.

Previous research from Finland, based on questionnaires completed on a single occasion or on military registries, used a sample of 2,540 boys to see if being a bully or a victim at 8 predicted a psychiatric disorder 10 to 15 years later. The researchers found frequent bully-victims were at particular risk of adverse long-term outcomes, specifically anxiety and antisocial personality disorders. Victims were at greater risk for anxiety disorders, while bullies were at increased risk for antisocial personality disorder.

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More Fed officials worry about negative effects of stimulus

WASHINGTON — An increasing number of top Federal Reserve officials are worried about the downside effects of their economic stimulus efforts, raising the possibility that the central bank could curb its monthly bond purchases sooner than financial markets are expecting.

Fed policymakers met at the end of last month and decided to keep buying $85 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed bonds a month. The program is aimed at pushing down long-term interest rates to spur investment and economic growth and help lower the nation's high unemployment rate.

But minutes of that Jan. 29-30 meeting, which were released Wednesday after the usual three-week lag, indicated that "many" of the Fed policymakers were concerned about the potential costs and risks of the stimulus, namely higher inflation and the threat of destabilizing financial markets and exposing the central bank to significant losses.

Some analysts interpreted "many" as meaning a majority of the policymakers, contrasting that with minutes from the central bank's previous meeting in December when only "several" officials were said to have expressed a desire to slow or stop the bond purchases well before the end of 2013.

The minutes pushed stocks lower. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 108.13 points to 13,927.54, with most of the loss coming after the minutes were released.

The Fed's public statement after the January meeting said that it would continue the bond buying until the labor market improved substantially, which many analysts and investors don't see as happening until 2014.

Even so, the latest minutes also make clear that "most" Fed officials feel that the bond purchases "had been effective in easing financial conditions and helping stimulate economic activity."

And with Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the Fed's vice chair, Janet Yellen, having publicly expressed strong concerns about the dangers of high unemployment, analysts said the central bank was unlikely to make a premature exit from its easy-money policies.

"Although concerns about the costs of [the Fed's] balance sheet expansion are rising, the committee judged that 'the recovery in the labor market was far from complete,'" said Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Bank, in a note to clients.

"We maintain our expectation that the Fed will conduct asset purchases through the end of 2013, with some tapering in the pace in the second half of the year," Gapen said, though he noted that the threat of fiscal budget cuts could extend the stimulus program.

With the debate over asset purchases intensifying, Fed officials instructed their staff members to do a review of the bond-buying program ahead of future meetings. The Fed's next policymaking meeting is March 19-20.

don.lee@latimes.com

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O.C. shooting suspect identified as college student with no record

Orange County sheriff's officials on Tuesday identified the suspect in series of fatal shootings and carjackings as Ali Syed, a 20-year-old community college student with no criminal record.

Authorities don't have a motive for the shootings, which began with the slaying of a woman at Syed's  south Orange County home, spread north in a series of random and deadly carjackings, and ended with his suicide in the city of Orange.

Syed was described as an unemployed man who was taking a class at Saddleback College. He had no criminal record and was living with his parents on Red Leaf Lane in Ladera Ranch, Amormino said.

PHOTOS: Shootings at multiple locations in O.C.

Deputies were called to their home about 4:45 a.m. after his parents reported a shooting, Amormino said. Responding deputies found a woman dead inside who had been shot multiple times.

The relationship between the woman and Syed was not yet known, Amormino said, although she was not related to the suspect. The woman has not yet been identified.

Family members, including children, were at the home at the time of the shooting, Amormino said, but no other injuries were reported.

MAP: Orange County shootings

Syed fled the area and headed toward Tustin, where Amormino said "multiple incidents" occurred.

The first, authorities said, occurred near Red Hill Avenue and the 5 Freeway, where authorities received a report of a man with a gun about 5:10 a.m. The suspect attempted a carjacking, Tustin police Lt. Paul Garaven said, opened fire and wounded a bystander.

About five minutes later, the suspect stopped the BMW near the 55 Freeway in Santa Ana, officials said.

TIMELINE: Deadliest U.S. mass shootings

Around that time, authorities also received reports about a man shooting at moving vehicles on the 55 Freeway. Officials believe the man fired either while driving or after he stopped and got out of his vehicle. At least three victims have reported minor injuries or damage to their cars, and investigators asked that others who believe they may have been fired upon to contact police.

Shortly after, another shooting and carjacking was reported on Edinger Avenue near the Micro Center computer store in Tustin, Garaven said. One person was killed and another was taken to a hospital.

Co-workers identified the men as plumbers who were working at the under-construction Fairfield Inn on Edinger Avenue.

Officers spotted the suspect in a stolen vehicle, followed him into the city of Orange and initiated a traffic stop near the intersection of East Katella Avenue and North Wanda Road, Garaven said.

The suspect then shot and killed himself, authorities said. A shotgun was recovered, but officials said other weapons might have been involved earlier. 

In Orange, financial planner Kenneth Caplin said he had a clear view of the gruesome drama that unfolded Tuesday on the street outside his office.

Although the street had been blocked, Caplin parked farther away and persuaded an officer to let him walk to his office. He arrived shortly before 7 a.m., about an hour after the shooting.

From a conference room window, Caplin saw the police investigators at work, a white work truck up on a curb, and the suspect lying dead on the ground, with blood streaked across the pavement.

"It's scary.... This just happened right here," Caplin said hours later, as a team in biohazard suits scrubbed away at the street in an afternoon drizzle. "It's ludicrous."

Caplin, 71, said he is a pistol instructor for the NRA. What happened Tuesday only affirmed for him the need to stay armed.

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Police say NY TV anchor threatened wife with death

A New York City TV anchorman issued a death threat against his wife as he was being arrested on charges of attacking her at their Connecticut home, according to a court document released Tuesday.

New York City police, meanwhile, disclosed that they were called 11 times to the couple's home when they lived in Manhattan. One call resulted in an arrest, but the case was sealed, they said.

In the Connecticut case, a Darien police officer wrote that Rob Morrison, who works for WCBS-TV, "threatened that if he was released from police custody, he would kill his wife."

The document was offered in Superior Court in Stamford, in support of an order of protection against Morrison. Judge Kenneth Povadator ordered Morrison to stay 100 yards away from Ashley Morrison except when they're both at work.

She works for "CBS Moneywatch."

Rob Morrison, 44, was charged Sunday with strangulation, threatening and disorderly conduct. Officers had been called by his mother-in-law to the couple's home in Darien. They said Morrison had been belligerent toward his wife throughout the night and had wrapped his hands around her neck, leaving red marks.

Morrison's lawyer, Robert Skovgaard, did not enter a plea at the arraignment. He said afterward a plea would come "at the appropriate time."

Skovgaard said Monday that the allegations had been exaggerated and on Tuesday he referred to his previous statement.

Outside the courthouse, Morrison said: "I did not choke my wife. I've never raised my hands to my wife."

The NYPD said it was called 11 times between 2004 and 2009 to the couple's home on West 90th Street. In the 10 cases that did not result in an arrest, the calls involved verbal disputes and harassment, with no allegations of physical violence, the police said.

It was not clear if violence was alleged in the case that was sealed. Skovgaard did not immediately return a call about the New York incidents.

Morrison was released Tuesday on the $100,000 bond he posted Sunday. He is due back in court in Stamford on March 26.

Morrison, who has been a combat correspondent and was a reporter and anchor for WNBC-TV, anchors WCBS-TV's news programs "This Morning" and "News at Noon." Ashley Morrison worked for Bloomberg Television before joining "CBS MoneyWatch."

The couple has a young son.

Skovgaard said that because of the order of protection, Morrison "will not be going home tonight."

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Associated Press writer Colleen Long in New York contributed to this report.

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DNA Analysis, More Accessible Than Ever, Opens New Doors

Matt Roth for The New York Times

Sam Bosley of Frederick, Md., going shopping with his daughter, Lillian, 13, who has a malformed brain and severe developmental delays, seizures and vision problems. More Photos »

Debra Sukin and her husband were determined to take no chances with her second pregnancy. Their first child, Jacob, who had a serious genetic disorder, did not babble when he was a year old and had severe developmental delays. So the second time around, Ms. Sukin had what was then the most advanced prenatal testing.

The test found no sign of Angelman syndrome, the rare genetic disorder that had struck Jacob. But as months passed, Eli was not crawling or walking or babbling at ages when other babies were.

“Whatever the milestones were, my son was not meeting them,” Ms. Sukin said.

Desperate to find out what is wrong with Eli, now 8, the Sukins, of The Woodlands, Tex., have become pioneers in a new kind of testing that is proving particularly helpful in diagnosing mysterious neurological illnesses in children. Scientists sequence all of a patient’s genes, systematically searching for disease-causing mutations.

A few years ago, this sort of test was so difficult and expensive that it was generally only available to participants in research projects like those sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. But the price has plunged in just a few years from tens of thousands of dollars to around $7,000 to $9,000 for a family. Baylor College of Medicine and a handful of companies are now offering it. Insurers usually pay.

Demand has soared — at Baylor, for example, scientists analyzed 5 to 10 DNA sequences a month when the program started in November 2011. Now they are doing more than 130 analyses a month. At the National Institutes of Health, which handles about 300 cases a year as part of its research program, demand is so great that the program is expected to ultimately take on 800 to 900 a year.

The test is beginning to transform life for patients and families who have often spent years searching for answers. They can now start the grueling process with DNA sequencing, says Dr. Wendy K. Chung, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Columbia University.

“Most people originally thought of using it as a court of last resort,” Dr. Chung said. “Now we can think of it as a first-line test.”

Even if there is no treatment, there is almost always some benefit to diagnosis, geneticists say. It can give patients and their families the certainty of knowing what is wrong and even a prognosis. It can also ease the processing of medical claims, qualifying for special education services, and learning whether subsequent children might be at risk.

“Imagine the people who drive across the whole country looking for that one neurologist who can help, or scrubbing the whole house with Lysol because they think it might be an allergy,” said Richard A. Gibbs, the director of Baylor College of Medicine’s gene sequencing program. “Those kinds of stories are the rule, not the exception.”

Experts caution that gene sequencing is no panacea. It finds a genetic aberration in only about 25 to 30 percent of cases. About 3 percent of patients end up with better management of their disorder. About 1 percent get a treatment and a major benefit.

“People come to us with huge expectations,” said Dr. William A. Gahl, who directs the N.I.H. program. “They think, ‘You will take my DNA and find the causes and give me a treatment.' ”

“We give the impression that we can do these things because we only publish our successes,” Dr. Gahl said, adding that when patients come to him, “we try to make expectations realistic.”

DNA sequencing was not available when Debra and Steven Sukin began trying to find out what was wrong with Eli. When he was 3, they tried microarray analysis, a genetic test that is nowhere near as sensitive as sequencing. It detected no problems.

“My husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘The good news is that everything is fine; the bad news is that everything is not fine,' ” Ms. Sukin said.

In November 2011, when Eli was 6, Ms. Sukin consulted Dr. Arthur L. Beaudet, a medical geneticist at Baylor.

“Is there a protein missing?” she recalled asking him. “Is there something biochemical we could be missing?”

By now, DNA sequencing had come of age. Dr. Beaudet said that Eli was a great candidate, and it turned out that the new procedure held an answer.

A single DNA base was altered in a gene called CASK, resulting in a disorder so rare that there are fewer than 10 cases in all the world’s medical literature.

“It really became definitive for my husband and me,” Ms. Sukin said. “We would need to do lifelong planning for dependent care for the rest of his life.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 19, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a medicine taken by two teenagers who have a rare gene mutation. The drug is 5-hydroxytryptophan, not 5-hydroxytryptamine.

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Computer security firm blames cyber spying on Chinese military

WASHINGTON — A clandestine Chinese military unit has conducted sophisticated cyber espionage operations against dozens of American and Canadian companies, according to a private report that provides unusual new details about China's involvement in cyber theft of economic and trade secrets.

The report by computer security firm Mandiant Corp. in Alexandria, Va., breaks new ground by attributing attacks against 141 companies to a specific 12-story office building in the financial center of Shanghai.

According to the report, the building is home to the 2nd Bureau of the People's Liberation Army's General Staff Department's 3rd Department, which is known as Unit 61398.

Mandiant said it traced computer penetrations to Unit 61398 by telltale digital signatures left in malware, the use of Shanghai phone numbers and social networking information posted by some of the hackers. The report profiles three operatives associated with the unit, including one known by the moniker "Ugly Gorilla."

The report said Unit 61398 has stolen "technology blueprints, proprietary manufacturing processes, test results, business plans, pricing documents, partnership agreements and emails and contact lists."

It said it's impossible to inventory the losses since hackers often copy, rather than remove, digital data and erase all but traces of the theft.

Mandiant, which signs confidentiality agreements with its clients, did not name the companies targeted. The New York Times first disclosed details from the report Tuesday.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly denied any government involvement in hacking of U.S. companies. Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not answer phone calls or emails Tuesday.

Richard Bejtlich, Mandiant's security director, said the report "should dismiss all the wiggle room that the Chinese use to deny engaging in this conduct."

Bejtlich said U.S. officials had indicated that they were "ready to go beyond just sort of watching the fireworks happen and they wouldn't be particularly upset if we released a report."

President Obama signed an executive order last week that aims to improve U.S. cyber defenses by sharing more classified government information about digital threats with private companies that operate critical infrastructure, including energy, telecommunications, utilities and dams.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to address the report or discuss U.S. intelligence assessments of Chinese cyber spying.

"We have repeatedly raised our concerns at the highest levels about cyber theft with senior Chinese officials, including the military, and we will continue to do so," Carney told reporters.

U.S. intelligence officials have said for years that Chinese cyber attacks present a growing threat to U.S. security and economic interests, but they have been reluctant to provide details in public.

A highly classified National Intelligence Estimate under preparation asserts that China is a major player in cyber attacks, along with Russia, Iran and several other countries.

U.S. intelligence and military agencies conduct aggressive cyber operations against foreign governments and their agencies. U.S. and Israeli experts, for example, allegedly cooperated on a cyber attack that sabotaged Iran's efforts to enrich uranium for several years.

But U.S. intelligence officials said they don't steal foreign trade secrets or technology to benefit U.S. companies.

Bejtlich said no evidence indicates that Unit 61398 tried to destroy American infrastructure via a cyber attack, but he said the unit stole potentially sensitive data from electric utilities and chemical companies.

"By virtue of the access that they have, they could cause some damage," he said. "They wouldn't even have to do it on purpose."

It's sometimes easier for hackers to disable computer networks than to sneak into them and steal data, said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and the National Security Agency, which conducts America's digital spying abroad.

"In the cyber domain, an actual attack is often easier than conducting the reconnaissance," Hayden said in an email. "That's what makes this so unnerving."

Members of the House and the Senate intelligence committees responded sharply to the 76-page report.

"This is a sobering public report on the lengths to which the Chinese military has gone to infiltrate and hack American companies," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"The Chinese government's direct role in cyber theft is rampant and the problems have grown exponentially," said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

"The Mandiant report provides vital insights into the Chinese government's economic cyber espionage campaign against American companies," he said.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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Jerry Buss dies at 80; Lakers owner brought 'Showtime' success to L.A.

Longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss has died at the age of 80. Last week, it was revealed that he was hospitalized with an undisclosed form of cancer.

When Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, he wanted to build a championship team. But that wasn't all.

The new owner gave courtside seats to movie stars. He hired pretty women to dance during timeouts. He spent freely on big stars and encouraged a fast-paced, exuberant style of play.

As the Lakers sprinted to one NBA title after another, Buss cut an audacious figure in the stands, an aging playboy in bluejeans, often with a younger woman by his side.

PHOTOS: Jerry Buss through the years

"I really tried to create a Laker image, a distinct identity," he once said. "I think we've been successful. I mean, the Lakers are pretty damn Hollywood."

Buss, 80, died Monday of complications of cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Lakers fans will remember Buss for bringing extraordinary success — 10 championships in three-plus decades — but equally important to his legacy was a sense of showmanship that transformed pro basketball from sport to spectacle.

Live discussion at 10:30: The legacy of Jerry Buss

"Jerry Buss helped set the league on the course it is on today," NBA Commissioner David Stern said. "Remember, he showed us it was about 'Showtime,' the notion that an arena can become the focal point for not just basketball, but entertainment. He made it the place to see and be seen."

His teams featured the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Dwight Howard. He was also smart enough to hire Hall of Fame-caliber coaches in Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.

"I've worked hard and been lucky," Buss said. "With the combination of the two, I've accomplished everything I ever set out to do."

A Depression-era baby, Jerry Hatten Buss was born in Salt Lake City on Jan. 27, 1933, although some sources cite 1934 as his birth year. His parents, Lydus and Jessie Buss, divorced when he was an infant.

His mother struggled to make ends meet as a waitress in tiny Evanston, Wyo., and Buss remembered standing in food lines in the bitter cold. They moved to Southern California when he was 9, but within a few years she remarried and her second husband took the family back to Wyoming.

His stepfather, Cecil Brown, was, as Buss put it, "very tight-fisted." Brown made his living as a plumber and expected his children (one from a previous marriage, another son and a daughter with Jessie) to help.

TIMELINE: Jerry Buss' path

This work included digging ditches in the cold. Buss preferred bell hopping at a local hotel and running a mail-order stamp-collecting business that he started at age 13.

Leaving high school a year early, he worked on the railroad, pumping a hand-driven car up and down the line to make repairs. The job lasted just three months.

Until then, Buss had never much liked academics. But he returned to school and, with a science teacher's encouragement, did well enough to earn a science scholarship to the University of Wyoming.

Before graduating with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, when he was 19 he married a coed named JoAnn Mueller and they would eventually have four children: John, Jim, Jeanie and Janie.

The couple moved to Southern California in 1953 when USC gave Buss a scholarship for graduate school. He earned a doctorate in physical chemistry in 1957. The degree brought him great pride — Lakers employees always called him "Dr. Buss."

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Singer Mindy McCready dies in apparent suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Perhaps there was one heartbreak too many for Mindy McCready.

The former country star apparently took her own life on Sunday at her home in Heber Springs, Ark. Authorities say McCready died of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot to the head and an autopsy is planned. She was 37, and left behind two young sons.

McCready had attempted suicide at least three times since 2005, as she struggled to cope amid a series of tumultuous public events that marked much of her adult life.

Speaking to The Associated Press in 2010, McCready smiled wryly while talking about the string of issues she'd dealt with over the last half-decade.

"It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time," she said of her life. "I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that's really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality."

This time it seems the whirlwind overwhelmed McCready.

Her death comes a month after that of David Wilson, her longtime boyfriend and the father of her youngest son. He is believed to have shot himself on the same porch of the home they shared in Heber Springs, a small vacation community about 65 miles north of Little Rock. His death also was investigated as a suicide.

It was the most difficult moment in a life full of them. McCready issued a statement last month lamenting his death. And she called him her soul mate and a caregiver to her sons in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

"I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I'll have," she said, according to a transcript of the interview.

Melinda Gayle McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994, still in her teens with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records. She had a few memorable moments professionally, scoring her first No. 1 hit almost immediately.

"Guys Do It All the Time," a self-assured dig at male chauvinism, endeared her to female fans in 1996. She also scored a hit with "Ten Thousand Angels," and her album of that title sold 2 million copies.

Like so many times before, McCready showed a little toughness in the midst of a personal storm, again endearing herself to her fans. But as usual, the brave face for the camera hid a much more complicated internal struggle that surfaced publicly time and again over the last 10 years.

This time, along with her remembrances of finding Wilson as he lay dying, she also answered questions about whether they'd argued earlier that evening about an affair and if she'd shot him.

"Oh, my God," the "Today" transcript reads. "No. Oh, my God. No. He was my life. We were each other's life."

It's unclear what circumstances led to McCready taking her own life, but it appears she was struggling again with twin issues that have persisted for years: substance abuse and the custody of her children.

She checked into court-ordered rehab and gave her children up to foster care earlier this month after her father asked a judge to intervene, saying she'd stopped taking care of herself and her sons, and that she was abusing alcohol and prescription drugs.

It's unclear why McCready was out of rehab.

Billy McKnight, McCready's ex-boyfriend and the father of her oldest son, said the children remain in foster care. Arkansas Department of Human Services spokeswoman Amy Webb could not confirm their whereabouts, citing agency rules.

McCready's relationship with McKnight was one of the more difficult periods of her life. McKnight was arrested in 2005 on charges of attempted murder after authorities say he beat and choked her. And the two continued to struggle over their son with McKnight recently filing for custody in light of McCready's latest sting in rehab.

McCready made headlines in April 2008 when she claimed a longtime relationship with baseball great Roger Clemens. Published reports at the time said she met the pitcher at a Florida karaoke bar when she was 15 and he was 28 and married. Clemens has denied the relationship.

On Monday, Clemens handed a written statement to reporters at the Houston Astros spring training facility in Kissimmee, Fla., where he is serving as a special instructor for the team.

"Yes, that is sad news. I had heard over time that she was trying to get peace and direction in her life. The few times that I had met her and her manager/agent they were extremely nice."

McCready also was engaged to actor Dean Cain in 1997, but their relationship fell apart as well.

Her troubles weren't just romantic. Over time she was arrested for fraudulently obtaining prescription drugs, probation violation, misdemeanor assault of her mother Gayle Inge and other problems.

In 2010, after a stint on Dr. Drew Pinsky's "Celebrity Rehab 3" where she was treated for "love addiction," she told The Associated Press she may have finally found love and the strength to get her life back on track.

Pinsky, who had no comment Sunday, called McCready an "angel" in the season finale and expressed hope she would continue to seek treatment in a later interview. McCready suffered a seizure in one of the show's scarier moments. Tests showed she had suffered brain damage, something she attributed to her abuse at the hands of McKnight.

McCready is the fifth celebrity to pass away since appearing on Pinsky's show and the third from Season 3. Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr and "Real World" participant Joey Kovar both died of overdoses.

She entered her relationship with Wilson, a producer and musician who was 34 when he died last month, a short time later. She'd just met Wilson and talked openly about their relationship in the 2010 interview. Wilson declined to speak on the record.

With a publicist, reporters, cameras, makeup artists and musicians swirling around her during a press day for her last album, "I'm Still Here," McCready fended off questions about a sex tape and said she and Wilson started out as friends.

"And I've never had a relationship like that before where we started completely as friends," she said. "It turned into friends really caring about each other and then it turned into love and I've never had that happen before."

Things didn't remain calm for long, though. Unhappy with custody arrangements, McCready took her older son from her mother, the boy's legal guardian, in late 2011. She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears. Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a home without permission and took the boy into custody.

She and Wilson had their son in April 2012, and she regained custody of Zander in December. But Wilson's death appears to have led to another dark period.

"I met Mindy at 23 coming off of a big record, and from knowing her as personal as I did back then, sometimes being famous can hurt you," McKnight said in a phone interview Monday from Tampa, Fla. "I think she was too young. I think that she was having some personal issues in her life and her family anyways, and when she got famous ... she started mixing booze and pills and the negativity, it took the best of her."

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Music Writer Chris Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. Sports Writer Noah Trister, in Kissimmee, Fla., contributed to this report.

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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Personal Health: Health Effects of Smoking for Women

The title of a recent report on smoking and health might well have paraphrased the popular ad campaign for Virginia Slims, introduced in 1968 by Philip Morris and aimed at young professional women: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Today that slogan should include: “. . . toward a shorter life.” Ten years shorter, in fact.

The new report is one of two rather shocking analyses of the hazards of smoking and the benefits of quitting published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine. The data show that “women who smoke like men die like men who smoke,” Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, a professor of health and health care at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

That was not always the case. Half a century ago, the risk of death from lung cancer among men who smoked was five times higher than that among women smokers. But by the first decade of this century, that risk had equalized: for both men and women who smoked, the risk of death from lung cancer was 25 times greater than for nonsmokers, Dr. Michael J. Thun of the American Cancer Society and his colleagues reported.

Today, women who smoke are even more likely than men who smoke to die of lung cancer. According to a second study in the same journal, women smokers face a 17.8 times greater risk of dying of lung cancer, than women who do not smoke; men who smoke are at 14.6 times greater risk to die of lung cancer than men who don’t. Women who smoke now face a risk of death from lung cancer that is 50 percent higher than the estimates reported in the 1980s, according to Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto and his colleagues.

After controlling for age, body weight, education level and alcohol use, the new analysis found something else: men and women who continue to smoke die on average more than 10 years sooner than those who never smoked.

Dramatic progress has been made in reducing the prevalence of smoking, which has fallen in the United States from 42 percent of adults in 1965 (the year after the first surgeon general’s report on smoking and health) to 19 percent in 2010. Yet smoking still results in nearly 200,000 deaths a year among people 35 to 69 years old in this country. A quarter of all deaths in this age group would not occur if smokers had the same risk of death as nonsmokers.

The risks are even greater among men 55 to 74 and women 60 to 74. More than two-thirds of all deaths among current smokers in these age groups are related to smoking. Over all, the death rate from all causes combined in these age groups “is now at least three times as high among current smokers as among those who have never smoked,” Dr. Thun’s team found.

While lung cancer is the most infamous hazard linked to smoking, the habit also raises the risk of death from heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease and other cancers, including breast cancer.

Furthermore, changes in how cigarettes are manufactured may have increased the dangers of smoking. The use of perforated filters, tobacco blends that are less irritating, and paper that is more porous made it easier to inhale smoke and encouraged deeper inhalation to achieve satisfying blood levels of nicotine.

The result of deeper inhalation, Dr. Thun’s report suggests, has been an increased risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or C.O.P.D., and a shift in the kind of lung cancer linked to smoking. Among nonsmokers, the risk of death from C.O.P.D. has declined by 45 percent in men and has remained stable in women, but the death rate has more than doubled among smokers.

But there is good news, too: it’s never too late to reap the benefits of quitting. The younger you are when you stop smoking, the greater your chances of living a long and healthy life, according to the findings of Dr. Jha’s international team.

The team analyzed smoking and smoking-cessation histories of 113,752 women and 88,496 men 25 and older and linked them to causes of deaths in these groups through 2006.

Those who quit smoking by age 34 lived 10 years longer on average than those who continued to smoke, giving them a life expectancy comparable to people who never smoked. Smokers who quit between ages 35 and 44 lived nine years longer, and those who quit between 45 and 54 lived six years longer. Even quitting smoking between ages 55 and 64 resulted in a four-year gain in life expectancy.

The researchers emphasized, however, that the numbers do not mean it is safe to smoke until age 40 and then stop. Former smokers who quit by 40 still experienced a 20 percent greater risk of death than nonsmokers. About one in six former smokers who died before the age of 80 would not have died so young if he or she had never smoked, they reported.

Dr. Schroeder believes we can do a lot better to reduce the prevalence of smoking with the tools currently in hand if government agencies, medical insurers and the public cooperate.

Unlike the races, ribbons and fund-raisers for breast cancer, “there’s no public face for lung cancer, even though it kills more women than breast cancer does,” Dr. Schroeder said in an interview. Lung cancer is stigmatized as a disease people bring on themselves, even though many older victims were hooked on nicotine in the 1940s and 1950s, when little was known about the hazards of smoking and doctors appeared in ads assuring the public it was safe to smoke.

Raising taxes on cigarettes can help. The states with the highest prevalence of smoking have the lowest tax rates on cigarettes, Dr. Schroeder said. Also helpful would be prohibiting smoking in more public places like parks and beaches. Some states have criminalized smoking in cars when children are present.

More “countermarketing” of cigarettes is needed, he said, including antismoking public service ads on television and dramatic health warnings on cigarette packs, as is now done in Australia. But two American courts have ruled that the proposed label warnings infringed on the tobacco industry’s right to free speech.

Health insurers, both private and government, could broaden their coverage of stop-smoking aids and better publicize telephone quit lines, and doctors “should do more to stimulate quit attempts,” Dr. Schroeder said.

As Nicola Roxon, a former Australian health minister, put it, “We are killing people by not acting.”

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Chinese car companies likely Fisker Automotive investment partners

Fisker Automotive Inc. has what it is calling “detailed proposals” from several investment partners that could save the maker of expensive hybrid sports cars.

The Anaheim company behind the $110,000 Karma plug-in hybrid sports car has previously said it needs about $500 million to launch a second, less expensive model, which would be made at a factory in Wilmington, Del.

Fisker ran into a cash crunch after the federal government froze a Department of Energy loan to the company and its battery maker went bankrupt.

“We can only confirm that the company has received detailed proposals from multiple parties in different continents," the company said in a statement, "which are now being evaluated by the Company and its advisors.”

A deal could be reached in March.

Previously reported potential partners include Geely Auto, the Chinese company that owns Volvo, and Wanxiang Group, another Chinese company, which recently purchased battery maker A123 Systems out of bankruptcy. A123 builds the lithium-ion battery that goes into Fisker’s cars.

Fisker also is in talks with Wanxiang to start purchasing batteries again. But for now, production of the Karma, which is built in Finland, has been halted until the automaker secures a battery supply. The company had built up an inventory of cars prior to A123’s bankruptcy and there are cars still for sale at dealerships in the U.S. and Europe.

The automaker is looking for funds to restart work on the Atlantic, a $55,000, four-door rechargeable sports sedan that Fisker sees as a higher-volume model that would have a broader market.

Work on the Atlantic came to a halt last year when the federal government suspended a $529-million loan after delays in the introduction of the Karma. Fisker had drawn down about $192 million of the loan.

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Lexus bikini ad comes to life

Alfa Romeo will launch new sport car in U.S.

Lexus, Toyota top JD Power dependability list

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