School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians

T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times

Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination. More Photos »

ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras.

Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing.

“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”

Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.

A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.

After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.

Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them.

“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.”

Ms. Eady and a few dozen other parents say a public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that.

Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga.

Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Mr. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose.

“There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said.

“The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said.

The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums.

The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community.

The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky” are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy.

Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the program, and Mr. Broyles has threatened to sue if the board does not address their concerns.

The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said.

“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.”

Ms. Eady is not convinced.

“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”

Russell Case, a representative of the Jois Foundation, said the parents’ fears were misguided.

“They’re concerned that we’re putting our God before their God,” Mr. Case said. “They’re worried about competition. But we’re much closer to them than they think. We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”

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Sidney Gilman’s Shift Led to Insider Trading Case

Speaking in front of a packed convention hall in Chicago, a top Alzheimer’s researcher, Sidney Gilman, presented the results of a drug trial that had the potential to change the fate of elderly patients everywhere.

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Dr. Gilman’s lifestyle was a well-kept secret among colleagues at the University of Michigan medical school.

But as he worked through the slides, it became clear to the audience on that day in July 2008 that the drug was not delivering and that its makers, Elan and Wyeth, could lose out on blockbuster profits. Along with other Wall Street analysts in the front rows, David Moskowitz zapped messages to clients to dump shares of the companies. “I can remember gasping” at the results, Mr. Moskowitz said.

Little did anyone in the room know that 12 days earlier, Dr. Gilman had e-mailed a draft of the presentation to a trader at an affiliate of one of the nation’s most prominent hedge funds, according to prosecutors, allowing the fund, SAC Capital, and its affiliate to sell over $700 million of Elan and Wyeth stock before Dr. Gilman’s public talk.

Last month, the trader was arrested on insider trading charges after Dr. Gilman agreed to cooperate with prosecutors to avoid charges.

While he appeared a grandfatherly academic, Dr. Gilman, 80, was living a parallel life, one in which he regularly advised a wide network of Wall Street traders through a professional matchmaking system. Those relationships afforded him payments of $100,000 or more a year — on top of his $258,000 pay from the University of Michigan — and travels with limousines, luxury hotels and private jets.

The riddle for Dr. Gilman’s longtime friends and colleagues is why a nationally respected neurologist was pulled into the high-rolling life of a consultant to financiers and how he, by his own admission, crossed the line into criminal behavior.

“My first reaction was, ‘That can’t possibly be right,’ ” said Dawn Kleindorfer, a former student of Dr. Gilman’s at Michigan.

What is clear is that Dr. Gilman made a sharp shift in his late 60s, from a life dedicated to academic research to one in which he accumulated a growing list of financial firms willing to pay him $1,000 an hour for his medical expertise, while he was overseeing drug trials for various pharmaceutical makers. Among the firms he was advising was another hedge fund that was also buying and selling Wyeth and Elan stock, though the authorities have given no sign they have questioned those trades.

His conversion to Wall Street consultant was not readily apparent in his lifestyle in Michigan and was a well-kept secret from colleagues. Public records show no second home, and no indication of financial distress. Nevertheless, he was willing to share a glimpse of his lifestyle with a 17-year-old student whom he sat next to on a flight from New York to Michigan a few months ago, telling her how his Alzheimer’s research allowed him to enjoy fine hotels in New York and limousine rides to the airport.

“I wouldn’t say he was egotistical because he didn’t come across as obnoxious, but he definitely mentioned the kind of lifestyle that he had,” said the student, Anya Parampil, who had been upgraded to first class.

Dr. Gilman’s role in the case involving SAC Capital has largely been overshadowed by the possibility that investigators may be narrowing in on the firm’s billionaire founder, Steven A. Cohen. Mr. Cohen and his firm have not been accused of wrongdoing in acting on the insider information.

Colleagues now say Dr. Gilman’s story is a reminder of the corrupting influence of money. The University of Michigan, where he was a professor for decades, has erased any trace of him on its Web sites, and is now reviewing its consulting policy for employees, a spokesman said.

The case also turns the spotlight back onto the finance world’s expert networks, which match sources in academia and at publicly traded companies — like Dr. Gilman — with traders at hedge funds and financial firms.

The networks have been a central target of prosecutors in the sprawling insider trading investigations that have resulted in dozens of convictions in recent years.

Some networks have closed, and many are shifting their focus outside the financial world, hoping to make up revenue by consulting for corporate America.

Days after the charges were filed, Dr. Gilman retired and has gone into seclusion at his home on a wooded lot overlooking the Huron River on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, which is listed in public records as worth $400,000. He declined to open the door to a reporter last week, directing questions to his lawyer. “I can’t discuss it,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Stephanie Steinberg contributed reporting.

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Gary Squier dies at 61; L.A.'s first housing director

Gary Squier, who became the first housing director for the city of Los Angeles in 1990 and faced a formidable housing challenge in the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake, died Dec. 4 at his Santa Monica home. He was 61.

The cause was lung cancer, although he was not a smoker, said his wife, Anita Landecker.

With a background in nonprofits, Squier was said to bring an advocate's zeal to his work when Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to lead the newly created Housing Preservation and Production Department. Since 1987, he had served as Bradley's housing coordinator, overseeing restructuring of the city's housing policy. He had also helped launch programs to address a severe shortage of units for low-income residents.

"With Gary, it was always the human dimension of housing that mattered," said Alice Callaghan, a longtime advocate for Los Angeles' poor. "He created lots and lots of housing and he knew that in every one of those units lived a family whose life was better and more hopeful because that unit was there."

In the late 1980s, Squier served on a mayoral committee whose recommendations led to creation of the housing department. When he was named the department's first general manager, a Times editorial called him "an inspired choice."

After the Northridge earthquake in 1994, Squier helped secure more than $300 million in federal funding to reconstruct 14,000 damaged housing units in Los Angeles. Nearly all were rebuilt within three years, but an audit later criticized some aspects of the effort, including the city's failure to ensure that carpenters were paid federally required union wages.

"In attempting to put together a massive recovery program, this union wage-monitoring question just slipped through the cracks and shouldn't have," Squier said in 1997 in The Times and noted that the issue was being remedied. He resigned the same year to become a private developer of affordable housing.

City Controller Wendy Greuel, who helped oversee the earthquake response as a top official in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said Squier "worked from morning to night to make sure we rebuilt that housing."

"He said, 'This is unlike anything that's ever happened,' " Greuel recalled this week. " 'How do we change city policy and even our own department rules to be nimble in how we address this problem?' He was an effective leader."

Gary William Squier was born Aug. 29, 1951 in Portland, Ore. He later joked that he all but grew up on construction sites; his mother June was an interior designer who refurbished Victorian houses and an electrician grandfather often worked on remodeling projects. His father George was in the grocery business.

After earning a bachelor's degree in geography and journalism in 1975 from the University of Oregon, Squier arrived in Los Angeles as a VISTA program volunteer. Assigned to assist the Catholic Worker group with housing preservation on downtown's skid row, he later headed several nonprofits focused on housing and community development, including the Los Angeles Community Design Center and the Community Corporation of Santa Monica.

In addition to Landecker, his wife of 23 years, Squier is survived by his children, Aaron, Hannah and Jake, and a sister, Marilyn Hagoes.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday at Leo Baeck Temple, 1300 N. Sepulveda Blvd.

rebecca.trounson@latimes.com

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Meet the World?s Cheapest Venture Capitalist

Maciej Cegłowski’s new startup fund was the toast of Silicon Valley on Friday, lighting up Twitter, winning top billing on the elite Hacker News forum, and drawing dozens of applications from would-be portfolio companies. The fund’s draw: Extreme stinginess.

The Pinboard Investment Co-Prosperity Cloud, as the fund is called, offers chosen startups all of $37 in venture capital. Not $37 million, like you might get from the uber-investors on Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road, or $37,000, like what YCombinator and other incubators offer. Thirty-seven crisp George Washingtons.

“The thing that has really changed in the past couple of years that hasn’t been internalized by everyone is that startup costs are really very, very low,” says Cegłowski. “Even compared to 2008 it costs very little money to do stuff. You have these technologies that are pretty good at scaling up … but it’s still free, open source software. So as long as the labor is free, you’re fine.”

‘I want to promote ideas that aren’t game changers.’

— Maciej Cegłowski

The Co-Prosperity Cloud is more than a statement on the rapidly falling cost of scaling software. It’s also about a crucial shift in the role played by startup investors. The importance of the actual capital distributed by venture capitalists continues to fall along with the costs of deploying, distributing, and scaling up apps, websites, other software, and even hardware. Less tangible aspects of an investment, like the endorsement, expertise, and social graph of the investor have become correspondingly more important.

If Cegłowski can prove there is an extreme version of this trend — that there are compelling startups for which investment dollars are borderline meaningless, and for which social capital is paramount – he could help remake the tech investment pipeline from a glorified money hose into a system for primarily distributing social capital like prestige, attention, taste, and advice.

The Co-Prosperity Cloud is an experiment in distributing just that sort of social capital. It offers not just the $37, but also Cegłowski’s vote of confidence – he’s only picking six winners – and “as much publicity as I can provide,” as the fund webpage says. That publicity will presumably come via the devoted online following Cegłowski has built over the years for his articles on bootstrapping his bookmark service Pinboard.in, as well as for his wide-ranging personal essays, including an indispensable meat-lover’s guide to visiting Argentina.

“I want to see if I can give people the social boost to get a chance to explain their idea and attract that initial group of customers,” Cegłowski says. “Because once you have a handful of people who use your product you can kind of claw your way up from that. It’s just that the first part is really tough.”

The former Yahoo engineer is hardly the first to capitalize on the changing nature of startup funding. YCombinator pioneered the pairing of tiny, low-five-figure funding rounds with intensive mentoring and an unconventional selection process. Its success stories include Dropbox, SocialCam, and Airbnb. The venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, meanwhile, bolsters its monetary investments with exceptional expertise in areas like human resources and public relations. Its investments have included Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.

Where the Co-Prosperity Cloud is different is in its lower ambitions. It aims to fund what Cegłowski calls “barely successful … modest” companies like his own Pinboard, a one-man operation that he says couldn’t pay a second employee but that covers his costs, salary, plus a contribution to his savings. Where YCombinator encourages two-founder teams and follow-on venture capital rounds that push startups toward a big-money exit, the Co-Prosperity Cloud actively encourages solo founders and slow-building, sustainable companies.

“I’m interested in this world of niche businesses no one will really fund,” Cegłowski says. “[I] want to promote ideas that aren’t game changers and aren’t going to grow into a giant business but are a perfectly great business.”

The fund is off to a promising start. As of this morning, it was a brand-new idea that had popped into Cegłowski’s head during an a.m. jog around San Francisco. By the end of the evening, he had upward of 40 applications, as well as offers to supplement each of his investments, to the tune of $50 apiece, from venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (of the aforementioned Andreessen Horowitz) and tech entrepreneur Thomas Ptacek.

The Co-Prosperity Cloud’s application deadline is Jan. 1, and Cegłowski anticipates announcing winners shortly thereafter. He jokes about how poorly things could go, but in the end resolved that this would be OK: “I decided I could spend $200 for this experiment.” That small outlay could result in big savings for future entrepreneurs. Or, at the very least, another blockbuster entry on Cegłowski’s blog.

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Owner of Rivera plane being investigated by DEA

PHOENIX (AP) — The company that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Latin music star Jenni Rivera is under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the agency seized two of its planes earlier this year as part of the ongoing probe.

DEA spokeswoman Lisa Webb Johnson confirmed Thursday the planes owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood Management were seized in Texas and Arizona, but she declined to discuss details of the case. The agency also has subpoenaed all the company’s records, including any correspondence it has had with a former Tijuana mayor who U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected has ties to organized crime.

The man widely believed to be behind the aviation company is an ex-convict named Christian Esquino, 50, who has a long and checkered legal past. Corporate records list his sister-in-law as the company’s only officer, but insurance companies that cover some of the firm’s planes say in court documents that the woman is merely a front and that Esquino is the one in charge.

Esquino’s legal woes date back decades. He pleaded guilty to a fraud charge that stemmed from a major drug investigation in Florida in the early 1990s and most recently was sentenced to two years in federal prison in a California aviation fraud case. Esquino, a Mexican citizen, was deported upon his release. Esquino and various other companies he has either been involved with or owns have also been sued for failing to pay millions of dollars in loans, according to court records.

The 43-year-old California-born Rivera died at the peak of her career when the plane she was traveling in nose-dived into the ground while flying from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey to the central city of Toluca early Sunday morning. She was perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated Mexico regional style, and had branched out into acting and reality television.

It remained unclear Thursday exactly what caused the crash and why Rivera was on Esquino’s plane. The 78-year-old pilot and five other people were also killed. Esquino was not on the plane.

The late singer’s brother, Pedro Rivera Jr., said that he didn’t know anything about the owner or why or how she ended up in his plane.

Esquino told the Los Angeles Times in a telephone interview from Mexico City earlier this week that the singer was considering buying the aircraft from Starwood for $ 250,000 and the flight was offered as a test ride. He disputed reports that he owns Starwood, maintaining that he is merely the company’s operations manager “with the expertise.”

In response to an email from The Associated Press, Esquino said he did not want to comment. Calls to various phone numbers associated with him rang unanswered.

Esquino is no stranger to tangles with the law. He was indicted in the early 1990s along with 12 other defendants in a major federal drug investigation that claimed the suspects planned to sell more than 480 kilograms of cocaine, according to court records. He eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal money from the IRS and was sentenced to five years in prison, but much of the term was suspended for reasons that weren’t immediately clear.

He served about five months in prison before being released.

Cynthia Hawkins, a former assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case and is now in private practice in Orlando, remembered the investigation well.

“It was huge,” Hawkins said Thursday. “This was an international smuggling group.”

She said the case began with the arrest of Robert Castoro, who was at the time considered one of the most prolific smugglers of marijuana and cocaine into Florida from direct ties to Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s. Castoro was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to life in prison, but he then began cooperating with authorities, leading to his sentence being reduced to just 10 years, Hawkins said.

“Castoro cooperated for years,” she said. “We put hundreds of people in jail.”

He eventually gave up another smuggler, Damian Tedone, who was indicted in the early 1990s along with Esquino and 11 others in a conspiracy involving drug smuggling in Florida in the 1980s at a time when the state was the epicenter of the nation’s cocaine trade.

Tedone also cooperated with authorities and has since been released from prison. Telephone messages left Thursday for both Tedone and Castoro were not returned.

Esquino eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of concealing money from the IRS.

Joseph Milchen, Esquino’s attorney at the time, said Thursday the case eventually revolved around his client “bringing money into the United States without declaring it.”

However, Milchen acknowledged that a plane purchased by Esquino was “used to smuggle drugs.”

He denied his former client has ever had anything to do with illegal narcotics.

“The only thing he has ever done is with airplanes,” Milchen said.

Court filings also indicate Esquino was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to committing fraud involving aircraft he purchased in Mexico, then falsified the planes’ log books and re-sold them in the United States.

Also in 2004, a federal judge ordered him and one of his companies to pay a creditor $ 6.2 million after being accused of failing to pay debts to a bank.

As the years passed, Esquino’s troubles only grew.

In February this year, a Gulfstream G-1159A plane the government valued at $ 500,000 was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service on behalf of the DEA after landing in Tucson on a flight that originated in Mexico

Four months later, the DEA subpoenaed all of Starwood’s records dating to Dec. 13, 2007, including federal and state income tax documents, bank deposit information, records on all company assets and sales, and the entity’s relationship with Esquino and more than a dozen companies and individuals, including former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank-Rhon, a gambling mogul and a member of one of Mexico’s most powerful families. U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected Hank-Rhon is tied to organized crime but no allegations have been proven. He has consistently denied any criminal involvement.

He was arrested in Mexico last year on weapons charges and on suspicion of ordering the murder of his son’s former girlfriend. He was later freed for lack of evidence.

The subpoena was obtained by the U-T San Diego newspaper.

A Starwood attorney listed on the subpoena, Jeremy Schuster, declined Thursday to provide details.

“We don’t comment on matters involving clients,” he said.

In September, the DEA seized another Starwood plane — a 1977 Hawker 700 with an insured value of $ 1 million — after it landed in McAllen, Texas, from a flight from Mexico.

Insurers of both aircraft have since filed complaints in federal court in Nevada seeking to have the Starwood policies nullified, in part, because they say Esquino lied in the application process when he noted he had never been indicted on drug-related criminal charges. Both companies said they would not have issued the policies had he been truthful.

Another attorney for Starwood has not responded to phone and email messages seeking comment, and no one was at the address listed at its Las Vegas headquarters. The address is a post office box in a shipping and mailing store located between a tuxedo rental shop and a supermarket in a shopping center several miles west of the Las Vegas Strip.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Children in Nairobi, Kenya. Sub-Saharan Africa lagged in mortality gains, compared with Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

“The growth of these rich-country diseases, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, is in a strange way good news,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It shows that many parts of the globe have largely overcome infectious and communicable diseases as a pervasive threat, and that people on average are living longer.”

In 2010, 43 percent of deaths in the world occurred at age 70 and older, compared with 33 percent of deaths in 1990, the report said. And fewer child deaths have brought up the mean age of death, which in Brazil and Paraguay jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 30 in 1970, the report said. The measure, an average of all deaths in a given year, is different from life expectancy, and is lower when large numbers of children die.

But while developing countries made big strides the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries’ female populations between 1990 and 2010. American women gained just under two years of life, compared with women in Cyprus, who lived 2.3 years longer and Canadian women who gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. Life expectancy for American women was 80.5 in 2010, up from 78.6 in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said. American men gained in life expectancy, to 75.9 years from 71.7 in 1990.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which provided estimates of disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The World Health Organization issued a statement on Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differed substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others were similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries — representing about 15 percent of the world’s population — produce quality cause-of-death data.

Sub-Saharan Africa was an exception to the trend. Infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternity-related causes of death still account for about 70 percent of the region’s disease burden, a measure of years of life lost due to premature death and to time lived in less than full health. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

Globally, AIDS was an exception to the shift of deaths from infectious to noncommunicable diseases. The epidemic is believed to have peaked, but still results in 1.5 million deaths each year.

Over all, the change means people are living longer, but it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is a rising threat, especially in developing countries, and is responsible for almost six million deaths a year globally. Illnesses like diabetes are also spreading fast.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting.

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Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.

Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

The campaigns by Mr. Penn, 58, a longtime political operative known for his brusque personality and scorched-earth tactics, are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas.

Microsoft has long attacked Google from the shadows, whispering to regulators, journalists and anyone else who would listen that Google was a privacy-violating, anticompetitive bully. The fruits of its recent work in this area could come next week, when the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce the results of its antitrust investigation of Google, a case that echoes Microsoft’s own antitrust suit in the 1990s. A similar investigation by the European Union is also wrapping up. A bad outcome for Google in either one would be a victory for Microsoft.

But Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has realized that it cannot rely only on regulators to scrutinize Google — which is where Mr. Penn comes in. He is increasing the urgency of Microsoft’s efforts and focusing on their more public side.

In an interview, Mr. Penn said companies underestimated the importance of policy issues like privacy to consumers, as opposed to politicians and regulators. “It’s not about whether they can get them through Washington,” he said. “It’s whether they can get them through Main Street.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions specifically, but said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition.”

In Washington, Mr. Penn is a lightning rod. He developed a relationship with the Clintons as a pollster during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, when he helped identify the value of “soccer moms” and other niche voter groups.

As chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president, he conceived the “3 a.m.” commercial that raised doubts about whether Barack Obama, then a senator, was ready for the Oval Office. Mr. Penn argued in an essay he wrote for Time magazine in May that “negative ads are, by and large, good for our democracy.”

But his approach has ended up souring many of his professional relationships. He left Mrs. Clinton’s campaign after an uproar about his consulting work for the government of Colombia, which was seeking the passage of a trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, then a senator, opposed.

“Google should be prepared for everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them,” said a former colleague who worked closely with Mr. Penn in politics and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Actually, they should be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at them, too.”

Hiring Mr. Penn demonstrates how seriously Microsoft is taking this fight, said Michael A. Cusumano, a business professor at M.I.T. who co-wrote a book about Microsoft’s browser war.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to do whatever they can to halt Google’s advance, just as their competition did to them,” Professor Cusumano said. “I suppose that if Microsoft can actually put a doubt in people’s mind that Google isn’t unbiased and has become some kind of evil empire, they might very well get results.”

Nick Wingfield reported from Seattle and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

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Head of Catalina Island Conservancy at center of controversy

The conservancy that manages 88% of Santa Catalina Island is roiling with dissent that has led to the departures of a half-dozen senior officers and scientists in the last year.

At the core of the rancor is dissatisfaction with the direction the nonprofit Santa Catalina Island Conservancy has taken under Ann Muscat, president and executive officer. Muscat helped engineer a controversial shift away from a focus on conservation and toward creation of tourism-oriented attractions intended to bring more visitors — and revenue — to the island.

Many residents of the island 22 miles off the Southern California coast depend on the conservancy for their livelihoods. Established by the Wrigley family, the island's wealthiest and most powerful benefactors, the organization employs 75 people and operates on a $12-million budget. It is funded by philanthropy and grants, endowments and earned income from gift stores sales and inland tours.

The conservancy's governing board plans to meet in closed session Friday to discuss the problem. The board could trigger a significant retooling of the conservancy's staff at a time when it is trying to raise funds for costly tourist attractions.

"We clearly have issues here," board Chairman John Cotton said. "No organization likes to have its talent taken from it. Does it hinder our ability to push forward? You bet."

"We will come to a decision based on what we believe is best for the organization," Cotton said.

Critics say Muscat, an aloof and tough manager who earns $286,000 a year, is to blame for the ongoing problems and should be removed from office. Muscat was unavailable for comment.

"There's dissension within the ranks of the conservancy and it's up to a good manager to deal with it," Avalon Mayor Bob Kennedy said. "The island's residents consider the Catalina interior part of their home. But there's been a disconnect with the conservancy because Ann doesn't care about that. It's her way or the highway."

In October, the board's then-chairman, Cliff Hague, quit and leveled snarling broadsides about Muscat's managerial style. Hague declined to comment this week.

Norris Bishton, a lawyer and chairman of the conservancy's legal affairs committee, said, "Ann is a Type-A personality who is hard-driving and expects people to do their jobs. Does that ruffle feathers? Yes it does."

Among others who left the conservancy are Jackie McDougall, chief development officer, who resigned in October.

Mel Dinkel, the conservancy's treasurer and chief operating officer, resigned in May. Bishton said Dinkel left because he found a better job elsewhere. However, Dinkel did not have a job when he quit.

Dinkel's wife, Leslie Baer, the conservancy's chief of educational outreach and marketing, is out on sick leave and was unavailable for comment.

Carlos de la Rosa, one of the most popular scientists on the island, stepped down in March as chief conservation and science officer.

In a written statement, de la Rosa, now director of the Organization of Tropical Studies' La Selva biological station in Costa Rica, said, "The conservancy had completely lost its way under Ann's poor leadership, and I couldn't bear to watch it crumble ... as it is continuing to do."

The organization has undergone internal investigations into Muscat's conduct in office. Bishton said he personally investigated a claim that the conservancy violated its rules by paying about $5,000 in travel expenses for Muscat's husband to join her on a conservancy-sponsored "donor development trip" in 2009 to an island off Baja California, Mexico.

Sources say that Muscat later reimbursed the organization after other officers pointed out that there was no policy for covering a spouse's travel costs in full.

Bishton denied that any wrongdoing occurred. "When the bills came in, she paid them," he said. "She did it voluntarily."

Cotton said that the conservancy later decided to stop sponsoring such trips, but insisted the move had nothing to do with ethical questions related to Muscat. "Those trips were just not paying off," he said.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Dec. 14

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

Read more by Ken Denmead

Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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One Direction named MTV’s 2012 Artist of the Year

NEW YORK (AP) — They’re platinum. They’re fascinating. And now One Direction is MTV‘s 2012 Artist of the Year.

MTV says the fivesome is “the clear choice for the top spot” after a year that included two No. 1 albums, hits such as “What Makes You Beautiful” and a sold-out world tour.

One Direction’s Louis (LOO’-ee) Tomlinson calls Thursday’s honor “the icing on the cake.”

MTV’s team of music staffers chose Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe” as song as the year.

One Direction placed third on the U.K. version of “The X Factor” in 2010 and made their U.S. debut in March with the No. 1 album “Up All Night.” Their sophomore album, “Take Me Home,” was the year’s third-highest debut.

The group also made Barbara Walters’ most fascinating people of 2012 list.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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