Leah Remini sued by former managers over “Family Tools” commissions

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Leah Remini‘s new TV gig is already giving her a headache, months before it even starts. Former “King of Queens” star Remini is being sued by her former managers, the Collective Management Group, which claims that it’s owed $ 67,000 in commissions relating to her upcoming ABC comedy “Family Tools,” which debuts May 1.

In a complaint filed with Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, the Collective says that it entered into an agreement with the actress in November 2011 that guaranteed the company 10 percent of the earnings that emerged from projects that Remini “discussed, negotiated, contemplated, or procured/booked during Plaintiff’s representation of Remini,” regardless of whether the income was earned after she and the Collective parted ways.

According to the lawsuit, that would include the $ 1 million that it says Remini will earn for the first season of “Family Tools.” (The suit allows that it isn’t owed commission on a $ 330,000 talent holding fee that Remini received from ABC prior to officially being booked on the show.)

Remini, pictured above wearing the self-satisfied smirk of someone who just might stiff her former managers out of their commission, terminated her agreement with the Collective “without warning or justification” in October, the suit says.

Alleging breach of oral contract among other charges, the suit is asking for an order stipulating that it’s owed the $ 67,000, plus unspecified damages, interest and court costs.

Remini’s agent has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Officials Confront Skepticism Over Health Law

On its face, the low-key discussion around a conference table in Miami last month did not appear to have national implications. Eight men and women, including a diner owner, a chef and a real estate agent, answered questions about why they had no health insurance and what might persuade them to buy it.

But this focus group, along with nine others held around the country in November, was an important tool for advocates coming up with a campaign to educate Americans about the new health care law. The participants were among millions of uninsured people who stand to benefit from the law. With incomes below 400 percent of the poverty level, or $92,200 for a family of four this year, the focus group members will qualify for federal subsidies to help cover the cost of private insurance starting in 2014.

The sessions confirmed a daunting reality: Many of those the law is supposed to help have no idea what it could do for them. In the Miami focus group, a few participants knew only that they could face a fine if they did not buy coverage.

“It’s another forced bill,” said Christopher Pena, 24, who works in customer service.

There lies the challenge for Enroll America, a nonprofit group formed last year to get the word out to the uninsured and encourage them get coverage, providing help along the way. With the election over and the law almost certain to survive, the group is honing its fund-raising and testing strategies for persuading people to sign up for health insurance — a process that will begin in less than a year.

Starting next October, people will be able to shop for coverage, or find out if they are eligible for Medicaid, through online markets known as insurance exchanges.

“Our job is to convey to them that there is help coming that they didn’t know about,” said Rachel Klein, Enroll America’s executive director.

The group has raised only about $6 million so far — but financial backers include some major players in the medical industry: insurers like Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield, associations representing both brand name and generic drug manufacturers, hospitals and the Catholic Health Association. Insurance companies generally opposed the law before its passage in 2010 but now have a stake in its success.

Over the next two years, the group hopes to raise as much as $100 million for advertising, social media and other outreach efforts. “There are so many different groups that can play some role in this: hospitals, community health centers, pharmacies, tax preparers,” said Ron Pollack, chairman of Enroll America’s board. “Our job has got to be to try to galvanize each of those sectors, so there is a wide variety of ways people potentially can hear about this.”

Although the campaign will be national, the group will devote more resources to some states than to others. About half of the nation’s uninsured population lives in six states: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York and Texas. Of those, states whose leaders remain opposed to the health care law, like Texas, will probably get the most attention, Mr. Pollack said.

At the same time, Enroll America will coordinate with states, many of which are planning their own outreach and enrollment efforts, and with the Obama administration.

The Department of Health and Human Services has already awarded a $3.1 million contract to Weber Shandwick, a public relations firm, to plan a national education campaign for next year. It plans to seek proposals soon for a larger contract with a public relations firm that would help with the actual campaign, officials there said. Although the campaign has yet to take shape, an administration official confirmed that President Obama will play a role as it moves forward.

Republicans in Congress have already criticized the administration for spending taxpayer money to promote the law. Last month, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, who leads the Ways and Means Committee, subpoenaed Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, seeking information on “public relations campaigns, advertisements, polling, message testing, and similar services.”

In addition to holding focus groups in Miami, Philadelphia, San Antonio and Columbus, Ohio, Enroll America commissioned a nationwide survey to help hone its message. The survey, conducted in September and October by Lake Research Partners, a Democratic polling group, found that the vast majority of uninsured people are unaware of the new coverage options provided by the law.

They are also skeptical. Many who participated in the focus groups or survey reported bad experiences trying to get health insurance, and doubted that the law would provide coverage that was both affordable and comprehensive.

“It’s two major mountains that need to be climbed,” Mr. Pollack said. “People are unaware of the benefits that could be provided to them, and they have to overcome skepticism, based on their past experiences with trying to obtain insurance.”

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DealBook: Leniency Denied, UBS Unit Admits Guilt in Rate Case

UBS on Wednesday became the first big global bank in more than two decades to have a subsidiary plead guilty to fraud.

UBS, the Swiss bank, scrambled until the last minute to avoid that fate. A week ago, in a bid for leniency over interest-rate manipulation, the bank’s chairman traveled to Washington to plead his case to the Justice Department, according to people briefed on the matter. Knowing the long odds, the chairman, Axel Weber, asked the criminal division for a lighter punishment.

But the government did not budge. With support from Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the agency’s criminal division decided the bank’s actions were simply too egregious, people briefed on the matter said.

On Wednesday, UBS announced it would plead guilty to one count of felony wire fraud as part of a broader settlement. With federal prosecutors, British, Swiss and American regulators secured about $1.5 billion in fines, more than triple the only other rate-rigging case, against Barclays. The Justice Department also filed criminal charges against two former UBS traders.

The guilty plea and the individual charges provide the Justice Department with a long-awaited case to prove it is taking a hard line against financial wrongdoing.

Since the financial crisis, the government has faced criticism that it has not brought significant criminal actions. The money-laundering case against HSBC, which averted indictment when it agreed instead last week to pay $1.9 billion, raised more concerns that the world’s largest and most interconnected banks were too big to indict.

With UBS, prosecutors wanted to send a warning.

The Justice Department’s decision stops short of imperiling the broader financial system because it shields UBS’s parent company from losing its charter, among other major repercussions. But by securing a guilty plea against a subsidiary, the department has shown that it is willing to punish severely one of the world’s most powerful banks. It was the first guilty plea from a major financial institution since Drexel Burnham Lambert admitted to six counts of fraud in 1989.

“We are holding those who did wrong accountable,” Lanny A. Breuer, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We cannot, and we will not, tolerate misconduct on Wall Street.”

The rate-rigging inquiry, which has ensnared more than a dozen big banks, is focused on major benchmarks like the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. Such rates are central to determining the borrowing rates for trillions of dollars of financial products like corporate loans, mortgages and credit cards.

The fallout from the UBS case is expected to increase pressure on some of the world’s largest financial institutions and spur settlement talks across the banking industry. The Royal Bank of Scotland has said it expects to pay fines before its next earnings statement in February, while American institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, also remain in regulators’ cross hairs.

The UBS case highlighted a pattern of abuse that authorities have uncovered in a multiyear investigation into the rate-setting process. The government complaints laid bare a 10-year scheme, describing how the bank had reported false rates to squeeze out extra profits and deflect concerns about its health during the financial crisis.

“The settlement reflects the magnitude of the wrongdoing and how critical it is that these be honest and reliable,” said Gary S. Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the American regulator that opened the UBS investigation.

Six months ago, authorities did not seem ready to take an aggressive stance with UBS.

They had just scored their first Libor settlement, a $450 million payout from Barclays. UBS, which had already struck a conditional immunity deal with the Justice Department’s antitrust division, figured its penalty would be similar.

The immunity deal, some UBS executives contended, would protect the bank from criminal charges. Even officials at the Justice Department were skeptical about the prospect of levying large penalties, according to people briefed on the matter.

Then the tone shifted this fall. After examining thousands of e-mails and hours of taped phone calls, the agency’s criminal division concluded that the conduct at the Japanese subsidiary warranted a criminal charge.

Agency officials also cited the bank’s repeated run-ins with authorities. For example, the Swiss bank had agreed in 2009 to pay $780 million to settle charges that it had helped clients avoid taxes.

Not everyone in the Justice Department agreed on the course of action. According to people briefed on the matter, the antitrust unit pushed for less-onerous penalties, citing the cooperation of UBS. With officials split over how to proceed, Mr. Holder cast the deciding vote in favor of securing a guilty plea from the subsidiary.

The move caught UBS off guard. The bank dispatched several lawyers to Washington to negotiate the fine print of the deal, setting up makeshift offices at the Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown.

Mr. Weber joined the lawyers, in a typical last-ditch appeal to the criminal division. Last Wednesday, Mr. Weber and his general counsel explained to the agency how UBS had overhauled its management ranks, bolstered internal controls and generally tried to clean up its act.

Mr. Breuer and other Justice Department officials agreed to consider the bank’s request to abandon the guilty plea, people briefed on the talks said. But hours later, a prosecutor phoned to say the agency was standing firm.

UBS agreed to the guilty plea, conceding that the Japanese unit would otherwise most likely face an indictment. In turn, prosecutors credited the bank for its recent efforts to improve.

“We are pleased that the authorities gave us credit for the important and positive changes we have already made,” Mr. Weber said in a statement.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission adopted a similarly tough attitude.

Since Thanksgiving, UBS has tried to negotiate lower penalties with the regulator, according to people briefed on the matter. But David Meister, the agency’s enforcement chief, would not back down from $700 million in fines, an agency record.

“Even for a megabank, that amount serves as a direct deterrent,” said Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the regulator.

Authorities’ strict stance stems from the extent of the bank’s actions. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission cited more than 2,000 instances of illegal acts involving dozens of UBS employees across continents.

The most significant wrongdoing took place within the Japanese unit, where traders colluded with other banks and brokerage firms to tinker with yen-denominated Libor and bolster their returns.

In colorful e-mails, instant messages and phone calls, traders tried to influence the rates. “I need you to keep it as low as possible,” one UBS trader said to an employee at another brokerage firm, according to the complaint filed by the Financial Services Authority of Britain.

As the employees carried out the ostensible manipulation, they also celebrated the efforts, with one trader referring to a partner in the scheme as “superman.” “Be a hero today,” he urged, according the complaint.

The Justice Department also took aim at two former UBS traders, Tom Hayes, 33, and Roger Darin, 41, bringing the first criminal charges against individuals connected to the Libor case.

Like other traders at UBS, Mr. Hayes was willing to reward others for their efforts. He trumpeted the work of an outside broker who had helped, writing in a message, “i reckon i owe him a lot more.” Another broker responded that the person was “ok with an annual champagne shipment,” and “a small bonus every now and then.”

As prosecutors ramped up their investigation, Mr. Hayes even tried to dissuade former colleagues from cooperating, the complaint said. “The U.S. Department of Justice, mate, you know,” he said, they are the “dudes who…put people in jail. Why…would you talk to them?”

Mark Scott, Ashley Southall and Julia Werdigier contributed reporting.

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Fix for flawed light rail junction in downtown L.A. is outlined

Local transit officials Tuesday outlined plans to permanently repair the flawed intersection of two light rail lines in downtown Los Angeles that had raised safety and maintenance concerns.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority asserts that the repair should prevent further problems at Washington Boulevard and Flower Street, the busiest junction in Metro's 87-mile rail network.

Officials plan to slightly narrow the width between the rails along 15 feet of track where the popular Blue Line curves to merge into the recently opened Expo Line before the route heads into the Metro Center station. About 32 trains an hour now pass through the intersection.

The fix is expected to eliminate excess play in the track that was causing train wheels to slam into a small section of the junction, resulting in excessive wear to wheel assemblies and a critical piece of the layout known as a "frog" that guides rail cars through a switch. According to an earlier Metro report, the flaw presented a risk of derailment on the Blue Line.

"It is safe now and we will keep it safe," said Frank Alejandro, Metro's chief operating officer. "That is our commitment to our customers and to our employees."

Officials for Metro and the Exposition Construction Authority, which built the Expo Line to the Westside, said the repair can be made during a weekend in the months ahead, minimizing service disruptions. When the work will begin and what it will cost have not been determined.

The repair is one of three options presented this month by ZetaTech, a New Jersey-based rail consulting firm hired by rail officials to analyze the junction.

According to the company's report, the problem was caused by a design that did not comply with standards put forth by the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Assn. Among other things, the width between rails was 4 feet, 9 inches, in parts of the junction where it should have been 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches.

The company also concluded that the junction has been safe since Metro made temporary modifications, began a stringent inspection program imposed by the California Public Utilities Commission and limited train speeds through the intersection to 5 mph. The Blue Line normally travels through the intersection at 10 mph, and Expo trains go through at 35 mph.

Michael Harris-Gifford, Metro's chief executive of wayside systems, said that two other solutions proposed by ZetaTech were not practical because they would reduce the number of trains and remove some traffic lanes.

The track alignment problem was first noticed in April 2010, when Metro officials discovered excessive wear and damage to wheel flanges and the pins that hold wheel assemblies to Blue Line cars. Internal agency reports state that the defect presented a potential risk of derailment in the junction or elsewhere on the Blue Line.

Trying to avoid the cost and service disruptions that would be required to replace flawed tracks, transit officials attempted to solve the problem by welding a bulb of metal to the frog and lengthening rail guides for train wheels. The weld, however, has had to be redone twice because of cracking.

In July, the utilities commission noted the failed welds and recommended that the damaged frog be replaced. Since then, Metro and Expo hired ZetaTech to help come up with a permanent solution. Once the repair is made, Harris-Gifford said, Metro and Expo officials plan to meet with the commission.

dan.weikel@latimes.com

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Dec. 19

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."

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“Zero Dark Thirty” won’t be “Hurt Locker” at the Box Office

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Kathryn Bigelow‘s Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” hits theaters Wednesday, and when it comes to the box office, this isn’t going to be “Hurt Locker.”

That was Bigelow’s last film, a gritty Iraq war drama that upset “Avatar” for Oscar’s Best Picture in 2009 but took in just $ 17 million domestically. “Zero Dark Thirty” could well top $ 100 million, say industry analysts – and if the awards season breaks the right way for the Oscar Best Picture front-runner, it could go higher than that.

“ZDT” and this year’s winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, “Amour,” are making limited debuts Wednesday, while the Barbra Streisand-Seth Rogen comedy “Guilt Trip” and a 3D re-release of “Monsters Inc.” go into wide release.

Six more movies will roll out on Friday, including Judd Apatow‘s “This Is 40″ and the Tom Cruise starrer “Jack Reacher,” in what Hollywood is hoping will be a very busy pre-holiday week at the box office.

In the course of detailing the killing of Bin Laden, “ZDT” is an examination of the nation’s war on terror, its prosecution and its effect on America’s collective psyche, and that will help, not hurt, the film at the box office, Exhibitor Relations Senior analyst Jeff Bock told TheWrap.

“This movie is about the biggest American war story since Pearl Harbor,” Bock said. “The American people are at a place now where they are ready to look back and really think about what we’ve been through.

“This movie, particularly if it keeps getting awards buzz, is going to be talked about everywhere, and if you want to have an opinion, you’re going to have to see it.”

Despite all the newcomers arriving Wednesday and Friday, Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” is expected to continue dominating. It took in about $ 7 million Monday – on the heels of its $ 85 million debut weekend – and should cross the $ 100 million mark Tuesday

Sony Classic is rolling out “Amour,” Michael Haneke‘s dark and unsparing look at old age and death, at two theaters in New York and one in L.A. The French-language film was recently named the best film of 2012 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, giving it an important boost during a season in which its chances outside the Oscar foreign-language category hinge on getting Academy voters to see it.

That honor stopped an awards run by “Zero Dark Thirty,” which Sony is rolling out on five screens. The intense tale had won the top award with the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, the Boston Film Critics Society and the New York Film Critics Online.

“ZDT” was produced by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures for about $ 45 million.

Sony’s plan is to go wide with it release on January 11 after the Academy Award nominations.

Beside the film itself and director Bigelow, her producing partner Mark Boal is a good bet for an Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, as is Jessica Chastain in the Best Actress category. All of those earned Golden Globes nominations in those categories.

The gritty and gripping tale is a critical favorite – it has a 97.7 percent rating at Movie Review Intelligence – but a lightning rod for political criticism, from both the left and right of the political spectrum. Some critics have charged the film is an apology for U.S. interrogation tactics that included waterboarding, while others say it’s intended to boost the image of President Obama.

“Our agenda isn’t a partisan agenda – it’s an agenda of trying to look behind the scenes at what went down,” screenwriter Boal told TheWrap earlier. “Hopefully art or cinema can present a point of view that’s a little above the political fray, but that doesn’t mean the political narrative doesn’t try to assert itself and pull you back in.”

“Amour” is a co-production between companies in Austria, France and Germany. It is Austria’s entry and a favorite in Oscar’s Best Foreign Language category, and it has a shot at a Best Picture nomination, too.

Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva star as Anne and George, an elderly couple who are retired music teachers and have a daughter (Isabelle Huppert) living abroad. The story, which Haneke wrote and directed based on a similar experience in his own family, focuses on what happens when Anne suffers a stroke.

It was nominated in six categories at the recent European Film Awards and won four, including Best Film and Best Director. The L.A. Film Critics named the 85-year-old Riva co-Best Actress (with Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook”), and she has an outside shot an Oscar nomination in that category.

“Guilt Trip” is Streisand’s first film foray since “Little Fockers,” which debuted around the same time of year in 2010 for Universal – and her first starring role since 1996′s “The Mirror Has Two Faces.”

“Little Fockers,” a sequel to “Meet the Fockers,” opened to $ 30 million and went on to make $ 148 million. Distributor Paramount will be happy if the PG13-rated “Guilt Trip,” which will be on about 2,300 screens, can match half that debut.” The analysts are looking for it to wind up around $ 12 million.

It’s one of three Paramount releases this week; the Tom Cruise thriller “Jack Reacher” and concert film “Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away” debut Friday.

“They all play to distinctly different demographics, Paramount’s head of distribution Don Harris told TheWrap, “so other than being really busy, we don’t have any problem with these three all in the marketplace.”

What could provide some tough competition is Judd Apatow‘s R-rated comedy “This Is 40,” which Universal is rolling out on roughly 2,900 screens Friday.

Disney will have its 3D version of its 2001 animated hit “Monsters Inc.” in 2,400 theaters. It will be the third 3D re-release of a Disney film this year. The first two did unspectacular but solid business, particularly when you consider the only cost to the studio is the 3D conversion and marketing.

A 3D version of “Beauty and the Beast” debuted to $ 17 million in July and went on to make $ 47 million. In September, a converted “Finding Nemo” took in $ 16 million in its first week and wound up at $ 41 million.

Between “The Hobbit,” the holdover kids holiday film “Rise of the “Monsters Inc.” and a very crowded marketplace, “Monster Inc.” will have a tough time matching those numbers.

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Attackers in Pakistan Kill Anti-Polio Workers

Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A Pakistani mother mourned her daughter, who was killed on Tuesday in an attack on health workers participating in a drive to eradicate polio from Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen shot dead five female health workers who were immunizing children against polio on Tuesday, causing the Pakistani government to suspend vaccinations in two cities and dealing a fresh setback to an eradication campaign dogged by Taliban resistance in a country that is one of the disease’s last global strongholds.

“It is a blow, no doubt,” said Shahnaz Wazir Ali, an adviser on polio to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf. “Never before have female health workers been targeted like this in Pakistan. Clearly there will have to be more and better arrangements for security.”

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but most suspicion focused on the Pakistani Taliban, which has previously blocked polio vaccinators and complained that the United States is using the program as a cover for espionage.

The killings were a serious reversal for the multibillion-dollar global polio immunization effort, which over the past quarter century has reduced the number of endemic countries from 120 to just three: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Nonetheless, United Nations officials insisted that the drive would be revived after a period for investigation and regrouping, as it had been after previous attacks on vaccinators here, in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Pakistan has made solid gains against polio, with 56 new recorded cases of the diseases in 2012, compared with 192 at the same point last year, according to the government. Worldwide, cases of death and paralysis from polio have been reduced to less than 1,000 last year, from 350,000 worldwide in 1988.

But the campaign here has been deeply shaken by Taliban threats and intimidation, though several officials said Tuesday that they had never seen such a focused and deadly attack before.

Insurgents have long been suspicious of polio vaccinators, seeing them as potential spies. But that greatly intensified after the C.I.A. used a vaccination team headed by a local doctor, Shakil Afridi, to visit Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, reportedly in an attempt to obtain DNA proof that the Bin Laden family was there before an American commando raid on it in May 2011.

In North Waziristan, one prominent warlord has banned polio vaccinations until the United States ceases drone strikes in the area.

Most new infections in Pakistan occur in the tribal belt and adjoining Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province — some of the most remote areas of the country, and also those with the strongest militant presence. People fleeing fighting in those areas have also spread the disease to Karachi, the country’s largest city, where the disease has been making a worrisome comeback in recent years.

After Tuesday’s attacks, witnesses described violence that was both disciplined and well coordinated. Five attacks occurred within an hour in different Karachi neighborhoods. In several cases, the killers traveled in pairs on motorcycle, opening fire on female health workers as they administered polio drops or moved between houses in crowded neighborhoods.

Of the five victims, three were teenagers, and some had been shot in the head, a senior government official said. Two male health workers were also wounded by gunfire; early reports incorrectly stated that one of them had died, the official said.

In Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, gunmen opened fire on two sisters participating in the polio vaccination program, killing one of them. It was unclear whether that shooting was directly linked to the Karachi attacks.

In remote parts of the northwest, the Taliban threat is exacerbated by the government’s crumbling writ. In Bannu, on the edge of the tribal belt, one polio worker, Noor Khan, said he quit work on Tuesday once news of the attacks in Karachi and Peshawar filtered in.

“We were told to stop immediately,” he said by phone.

Still, the Pakistani government has engaged considerable political and financial capital in fighting polio. President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa have been at the forefront of immunization drives. With the help of international donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, they have mounted a huge vaccination campaign aimed at up to 35 million children younger than 5, usually in three-day bursts that can involve 225,000 health workers.

The plan seeks to have every child in Pakistan immunized at least four times per year, although in the hardest-hit areas one child could be reached as many as 12 times in a year.

Declan Walsh reported from Islamabad, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Zia ur-Rehman from Karachi, Pakistan.

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Boehner Plan Addresses Taxes but Delays Fight Over Spending Cuts

Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Speaker John A. Boehner, leaving a news conference Tuesday, proposes allowing tax rates to rise only on incomes over $1 million.

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders struggled on Tuesday night to rally their colleagues around a backup measure to ease the sting of a looming fiscal crisis by allowing tax rates to rise only on incomes over $1 million.

The plan would leave in place across-the-board spending cuts to military and domestic programs that Republicans have been warning could have dire consequences, especially to national defense.

Speaker John A. Boehner unveiled what he dubbed “Plan B” less than 24 hours after President Obama offered a more comprehensive deal that would raise tax rates on incomes over $400,000 and, over 10 years, produce $1.2 trillion in tax increases and cut $930 billion in spending.

Mr. Boehner pledged to continue negotiating on a broad deficit-reduction deal but called the president’s plan unbalanced and insufficient.

“What we’ve offered meets the definition of a balanced approach, but the president is not there yet,” Mr. Boehner said Tuesday.

The Boehner proposal was intended to raise the pressure on Democrats to compromise further still by embracing a tax increase on millionaires first pushed by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader.

Confronted with her past support for raising income taxes only on millionaires, Ms. Pelosi said that effort had merely been “a plan to smoke out” Republicans.

But a protracted meeting of the House Republican Conference on Tuesday night made it clear that passage of Mr. Boehner’s proposal would be difficult. Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was not sure he could support a bill that would allow $500 billion in military cuts over the next 10 years and indicated that other Republicans on his committee shared his concern.

Representative John Fleming, a conservative Republican from Louisiana, dismissed the speaker’s plan as a pointless “messaging exercise.”

“Why go on record raising taxes on anybody if it won’t cut spending and won’t even become law?” he asked. “I haven’t found a way of supporting that.”

Ms. Pelosi was leaning hard on House Democrats to stay united in their opposition. If she succeeds, the speaker could afford about only 18 Republican defections, fewer than he has had on any major fiscal vote since Republicans took control two years ago.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta was unsparing on Tuesday in his criticism of lawmakers resisting a deal to stop the military cuts.

“It is unacceptable to me that men and women who put their lives on the line in distant lands have to worry about whether those here in Washington can effectively support them,” Mr. Panetta said in a speech at the National Press Club. “We’re down to the wire now. In these next few days, Congress needs to make the right decisions to avoid the fiscal disaster that awaits us.”

Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, an influential Republican, said the Pentagon cuts would damage not only military readiness but also the fragile economy.

House Republican leaders on Tuesday night sought to assess whether the speaker’s proposal could be brought to the House floor on Thursday. Under that plan, the House would take up take up tax legislation and consider two amendments. The first would mirror a Senate-passed bill to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for incomes below $250,000. That would be expected to fail, as a show to the president that his initial offer cannot pass.

A second amendment would raise that threshold to incomes below $1 million. The House may also vote on some middle ground, like the president’s $400,000.

Mr. Boehner told House Republicans that he would also like the bill to include provisions to prevent the existing alternative minimum tax from expanding to impact more of the middle class and to extend existing low tax rates on inherited estates.

But he said the bill would not cancel across-the-board spending cuts — known as sequestration — that are scheduled to total $110 billion in 2013 and more than $1 trillion over 10 years.

Republicans would resume the fight for broad spending cuts, especially to entitlement programs like Medicare, in late January or February, when the government will face raising its borrowing limit and when, many Republicans believe, they will have much more leverage than they do now.

The White House came out strongly against the speaker’s plan. The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said that it could not pass the Senate and “therefore will not protect middle-class families” from large tax increases schedule to begin on Jan. 1.

Jennifer Steinhauer and Thom Shanker contributed reporting.

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White House considers responses to Connecticut shooting

WASHINGTON — As gun control advocates cheered President Obama's call to action on gun violence, the White House began to weigh its options Monday on how to fulfill the president's vow to use all the power of his office to prevent future mass killings.

The most likely initiatives following Friday's Connecticut school shooting — efforts to tighten gun show sales, for example, or to reinstate a ban on assault weapons — are laden with political pitfalls and challenges. Although several members of Congress indicated they were newly open to gun control measures, opposition to stiffer gun laws is expected to remain firm, particularly in the Republican-led House.

Taking on another uphill legislative battle would scramble an already full agenda for the White House, which is embroiled in fiscal negotiations and hoping to start Obama's second term with a focus on immigration reform.

PHOTOS: Shooting at Connecticut school

Gun control supporters pushed the White House to move quickly to harness the anguish and outrage at the Newtown massacre, in which 20 first-graders and six adults died. But the president needs time to build consensus for any action in Congress, said an advisor who asked not to be named discussing strategy. Aides said the president wanted to avoid pushing gun partisans into their usual foxholes on an issue that has deeply entrenched and well-funded interests.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to outline an agenda or offer policy specifics, although he said gun control measures would be under consideration.

"I don't have a series of proposals to present to you," Carney told reporters. "This is a complex issue that requires complex solutions, and he looks forward to engaging the American people in an effort to do more."

FULL COVERAGE: Shooting at Connecticut school

Obama met at the White House on Monday with Vice President Joe Biden and senior staff members to consider ways to respond. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan also took part.

Experts say the president could take some steps to strengthen gun laws without congressional approval.

For example, the law already forbids some mentally incompetent people and drug users from buying guns. But the administration could expand its use of government resources to improve the database used in background checks, or better fund efforts that help state and local agencies improve their databases.

A string of previous tragedies sparked similar calls for stiffer gun laws, only to see pressure fade as politics and time eroded the sense of urgency.

The Justice Department began an effort to research measures that would tighten gun laws and improve background checks, without banning weapons, after a gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), in Tucson in 2011. Some of the changes did not require congressional action. Most have not been imposed.

"My judgment is that if we're going to move, we need to move on them fairly expeditiously," said Christopher H. Schroeder, who researched the policies at the Office of Legal Policy before leaving the Justice Department this year. "As horrific as the Connecticut shooting was, memories tend to fade. There's a limited window of opportunity to act."

In an emotional speech Sunday night in Newtown, Obama raised expectations of direct engagement when he promised to use "whatever power this office holds" to prevent similar mass killings. He did not mention the words "gun" or "weapon" in his speech, or offer specifics.

It was the fourth time Obama had addressed the nation to express grief after a monstrous crime. He wiped away a tear as he spoke, two days after a poignant White House appearance in which he repeatedly dabbed his eyes and fought to maintain composure as he decried the school massacre.

Some signs indicated the Newtown killings could weaken opposition to new gun laws in Congress.

Two prominent Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Mark R. Warner of Virginia — said Monday that despite their history of defending gun rights, they now believed tighter laws were needed. Manchin, whose candidacy was endorsed by the National Rifle Assn., said the Newtown shooting "has changed us."

"Everything should be on the table," said Manchin, who in a 2010 campaign TV ad fired a rifle at one of Obama's legislative proposals. "We need to move beyond dialogue — we need to take a sensible, reasonable approach to the issue of mass violence."

Polls often find support for tighter gun laws evenly divided, but a survey released Monday suggested a slight shift in favor of gun control.

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Cosmo the God Hijacks Twitter Account of Hateful 'Church'

The 15-year-old hacker known as Cosmo the God was behind the takeover of a Westboro Baptist Church member’s Twitter feed, a source with direct knowledge of the attack confirmed to Wired on Monday.

Cosmo gained access to the @DearShirley Twitter account via an e-mail account, and from there was able to leverage control of the Twitter feed itself, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. As of this writing, the account remains up and operating, and seemingly beyond the control of its owner.

Westboro Baptist Church is notorious for picketing funerals of American soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week the organization apparently announced its intention to protest at the funerals of the children killed at Sandy Hook, with spokewoman Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper tweeting the following: “Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.”

The sentiment was echoed on Westboro Baptist Church’s website, which included the line “God sent the shooter to Newton, CT.”

The announcement triggered astonished outrage from observers, and the hacker group Anonymous declared open season on the group, publishing contact information for many of its members, including Phelps-Roper. Phelps-Roper’s Twitter account @DearShirley was then taken over early Monday morning.

Cosmo the God has been able to keep control of the account using a flaw in Twitter’s Zendesk system that allows an attacker to close an account support ticket before it’s acted on, according to the source, who demonstrated inside knowledge of the account takeover.

Cosmo and his group UG Nazi took part in many of the highest-profile hacking incidents of 2012, including taking down websites for NASDAQ, CIA.gov, and UFC.com, redirecting 4Chan’s DNS to point to its own Twitter feed, and defeating CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince’s Google two-step authentication.

The teen’s social-engineering techniques allowed him to gain access to user accounts at Amazon, PayPal and a slew of other companies. He was arrested in June, as part of a multi-state FBI sting and was recently sentenced to probation until his 21st birthday, during which time he is prohibited from using the internet without supervision and prior consent.

The latest hack would seem to violate those terms. But it’s garnered Cosmo an unending stream of Twitter praise. “I love that @cosmothegod hacked @DearShirley!! I’m glad that there is one less hateful twitter account,” wrote one fan. “I think @cosmothegod deserves a medal for hacking @DearShirley and making everyone’s day,” another tweeted.

Wired sought to reach Westboro Baptist Church for comment, but its phone line was consistently busy.

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