Live updates: 'Argo' wins top SAG Award; Day-Lewis, Lawrence win

Ben Affleck's “Argo” seems to be unstoppable. The film about a CIA plot to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980 won the 19th Screen Actors Guild Award on Sunday night for ensemble in a motion picture.

The win came hours after the film, which also stars Affleck, took the Producers Guild Award on Saturday night — an honor that is one of the leading indicators of Oscar gold. Two weeks ago, “Argo” won the Golden Globe for best dramatic motion picture, one of the many honors it has recently picked up this season.

 “Argo” heads into next month's Academy Awards with momentum — and seven nominations, including best picture, supporting actor for Alan Arkin, and adapted screenplay. (Shockingly, Affleck was not nominated for a directing Oscar, even though he received a Directors Guild of America nomination and won the Golden Globe for director.)

PHOTOS: SAG Awards red carpet

The outlook seems equally golden for Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway, whose Golden Globe awards two weeks ago were followed Sunday night with SAG awards.

Day-Lewis won the trophy — and a standing ovation — for lead actor as the nation’s 16th president in “Lincoln.” Lawrence won her award for female actor playing a young widow in the quirky romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.” Hathaway took the SAG award for female actor in a supporting role as the tragic Fantine in “Les Miserables.”

Tommy Lee Jones won his first major award of the season for male supporting actor for “Lincoln.” Jones is also nominated for an Academy Award for supporting actor.

SAG 2013: Winners | Show highlights | Complete list | Red carpet

The SAG movie wins offered a rare moment of clarity as the highly unpredictable awards season enters its final stretch, culminating with the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. 

A SAG win does not guarantee Oscar gold, but history suggests it's nearly impossible to win an Academy Award in the acting categories without a SAG nomination.

 On the television side of the awards ceremony, it was a three-peat night for Claire Danes, Julianne Moore, Kevin Costner and the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.”

FULL COVERAGE: SAG Awards 2013 

The performers made it a clean sweep by winning the Emmy, the Golden Globe and the SAG award.

Danes won for female actor in a drama series for Showtime’s political thriller “Homeland.” Moore’s uncanny performance as 2008 Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin in HBO’s “Game Change” earned her female actor in a television movie or miniseries. And Costner nabbed male actor in a television movie or miniseries for History’s “Hatfields & McCoys.”

“Modern Family,” meanwhile, earned its third consecutive SAG award for ensemble in a comedy series.

PHOTOS: SAG Award nominees & winners

 Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey earned a great parting gift when they won for their lead roles in a comedy series for NBC's “30 Rock.” Fey used the win to ask people to tune in at 8 Thursday night for the series’ one-hour finale, opposite the highly rated CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

“Just tape ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for once, for crying out loud!” Fey pleaded.

Bryan Cranston won for male actor in a drama series for “Breaking Bad.” “It is so good to be bad,” purred Cranston as he picked up the honor. And PBS’ “Downton Abbey” won for ensemble in a drama series.

SAG 2013: Winners | Show highlights | Complete list | Red carpet

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Lace 'Em Up: 4 Running Shoes Reviewed

Hitting the streets to get fit by spring? We review four new specialty sneakers for runners.

Adidas' Adizero Feather 2.0 runners are so light (barely 7 ounces) and so responsive, running in them feels more like bouncing on fluffy clouds than pounding on pavement. OK, I'm exaggerating, but I was really blown away by the light weight when I took them out on long-distance runs. So effective was the feather-weight design on a 5-mile outing, I could actually notice the reduced effort in my legs.

The shoe is topped with a barely-there breathable mesh that runs from the toes all the way back to the heel. Ventilation is therefore excellent, with a constant flow of cool air delivered directly to your piggies. And, unlike most shoes that make use of fancy, lightweight materials, they're actually quite sturdy.

These sneaks are compatible with Adidas' miCoach data reporting system and its companion apps. So if you already have a miCoach Speed_Cell sensor, just lift up the shoe's insert and pop it in (You can also attach the sensor to your laces). The sensor can be synced with your iPhone to track your speed, acceleration, distance, and pace during runs.

The only problem is that the miCoach system needs some work, including the inconsistent syncing and the iPhone app's interface. If you're used to the Nike+ app, you'll be struggling to work your way through using Adidas' lesser creation. That said, it's an add-on to the shoe and not a primary feature, so miCoach's shortcomings don't detract from the sneaker's quality.

WIRED Obscenely light at only 7 ounces. Flexible mesh upper keeps your tootsies cool and dry. Durable, despite the lightweight design. miCoach-compatible for tracking your runs. Great styling. Affordable at $115. Men's and women's versions.

TIRED If you're not into light shoes, these aren't for you. The miCoach system needs a lot of work -- it's adequate, but could be so much better.

Photos by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

Rating: 8 out of 10

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‘Argo,’ Lawrence, Day-Lewis win at SAG

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The CIA thriller “Argo” continues to steamroll through awards season, winning the top honor for overall cast performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

SAG’s lead-acting honors Sunday went to Jennifer Lawrence won for her role as a troubled widow in a shaky new relationship in the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook” and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War epic “Lincoln.”

The supporting film awards Sunday went to Anne Hathaway of “Les Miserables” and Tommy Lee Jones of “Lincoln.”

“It occurred to me — it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln,” said Day-Lewis, a solid front-runner to join an exclusive list of three-time acting Oscar winners. “And therefore, somehow it is only so fitting that every now and then an actor tries to bring him back to life again.”

The SAG cast win came a day after “Argo” claimed the top honor from the Producers Guild of America, whose winner often goes on to claim best picture at the Academy Awards. “Argo” also was a surprise victor two weeks ago at the Golden Globes, where it won best drama and director for Ben Affleck.

The award momentum positions “Argo” for a rare feat at the Feb. 24 Oscars, where it could become just the fourth film in 85 years to be named best picture without a nomination for its director.

“To me this has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who were in this movie,” said Affleck, who also stars in “Argo” and accepted the SAG prize alongside his cast.

It was a brisk, businesslike and fairly bland evening as the actors union handed out honors to a predictable lineup of winners who generally had triumphed at earlier Hollywood ceremonies or past SAG shows.

“Now I have this naked statue that means some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling,” ”Silver Linings” star Lawrence said after explaining she earned her SAG card at age 14 by filming a spot for MTV.

Hathaway won for her role as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution in the adaptation of the stage musical based on Victor Hugo’s epic novel. Her win came over four past Oscar recipients — Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman and Maggie Smith.

“I’m just thrilled I have dental,” Hathaway said. “I got my SAG card when I was 14. It felt like the beginning of the world. I have loved every single minute of my life as an actor. … Thank you for nominating me alongside incredible women and incredible performances.”

Jones, who was not at the show, won for his turn as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens in the Civil War epic. The win improves his odds to become a two-time Academy Award winner. He previously won a supporting-actor Oscar for “The Fugitive.”

On the television side, with “30 Rock” ending its run, its stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin won the SAG awards for best comedy performers. It was Baldwin’s seventh-straight win, while Fey earned her fifth SAG prize.

“Oh, my God. It’s ridiculous,” Baldwin said. “It’s the end of our show, which is sad. Everybody is sad about that. It was the greatest experience I’ve ever had.”

Fey gave a plug for the show’s finale airing Thursday, noting that it’s up against “The Big Bang Theory.”

“Just tape ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for once, for crying out loud,” Fey said.

“Modern Family” won for best overall cast in a TV comedy show. Accepting for the cast, “Modern Family” co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson offered thanks to the makers of “30 Rock” and another departing series, “The Office,” saying “you all have set the comedy bar so high.”

Ferguson joked that if the “30 Rock” or “The Office” stars need jobs, they should contact the “Modern Family” casting director.

The TV drama acting awards went to Claire Danes of “Homeland” and Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad.”

“It is so good to be bad,” Cranston said.

“Downton Abbey” won the TV drama cast award.

Julianne Moore’s turn as Sarah Palin in “Game Change” earned her the TV prize for best actress in a movie or miniseries. Kevin Costner won for best actor in a movie or miniseries for “Hatfields & McCoys.”

Fey, who memorably spoofed Palin herself in “Saturday Night Live” sketches, said backstage that Moore’s performance was “incredible. She really disappeared into the character, she did a real film acting job. You wouldn’t want a sketch acting job in that movie.”

Earlier, the James Bond adventure “Skyfall” and the fantasy series “Game of Thrones” picked up prizes for best stunt work, honors announced on the red carpet before the official SAG Awards ceremony.

JoBeth Williams and Scott Bakula announced the winners, noting the value of stunt players, who often are overlooked for their contributions to film and television.

“The stunt men and women of our union are critical to the work that gets done,” Bakula said. “They keep us healthy, they keep us alive, they keep us working. They keep our shows working.”

The SAG honors are the latest show in a puzzling Academy Awards season in which Hollywood’s top prize, the best-picture Oscar, looks up for grabs among several key nominees.

Honors from the actors union, next weekend’s Directors Guild of America Awards and Saturday night’s Producers Guild of America Awards — whose top honor went to “Argo” — typically help to establish clear favorites for the Oscars.

But Oscar night looks more uncertain this time after some top directing prospects, including Affleck for “Argo” and Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty,” missed out on nominations. Both films were nominated for best picture, but a movie rarely wins the top Oscar if its director is not also in the running.

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” would seem the Oscar favorite with 12 nominations. Yet all of the triumphs for “Argo” leave the Oscar race looking like anybody’s guess.

The SAG honors at least should help to establish solid front-runners for the stars. All four of the guild’s individual acting winners often go on to receive the same prizes at the Academy Awards.

The SAG cast prize has a spotty record at predicting the eventual best-picture recipient at the Oscars. Only eight of 17 times since the guild added the category has the cast winner gone on to take the best-picture Oscar. “The Help” won the guild’s cast prize last year, while Oscar voters named “The Artist” as best picture.

Such past guild cast winners as “The Birdcage,” ”Gosford Park” and “Inglourious Basterds” also failed to take the top Oscar.

Receiving the guild’s life-achievement award was Dick Van Dyke, who presented the same prize last year to his “The Dick Van Dyke Show” co-star, Mary Tyler Moore.

After waiting on stage for a prolonged standing ovation to end, Van Dyke said, “That does an old man a lot of good.”

___

Associated Press writers Beth Harris, Christy Lemire and Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

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Dave Purchase, Who Led Needle-Exchange Movement, Dies at 73

Dave Purchase, a bearded biker who 24 years ago began handing out sterile syringes to prevent AIDS among drug addicts on the streets of Tacoma, Wash., and went on to become a national leader of the needle-exchange movement, died on Jan. 21 in Tacoma. He was 73.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his son, Dylan.

With a borrowed television tray and a folding chair that he set up on a downtown street steps away from a heroin den, Mr. Purchase began handing out syringes, bottles of bleach, cotton swabs and condoms in the summer of 1988. Within five months he had exchanged 13,000 clean needles (most of them bought at his own expense) for dirty ones — and was gaining wide attention from the news media.

“How does this work?” a toothless addict asked him, The New York Times reported in January 1989.

“You give me an old one, I give you a sterile one, and it keeps your butt alive,” Mr. Purchase responded.

Mr. Purchase would trade as many as 10 needles at a time, while also handing out cookies and mittens.

By 1993 he had founded both the Point Defiance AIDS Project, with support from the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, and the North American Syringe Exchange Network. The network, which buys syringes wholesale and sells them at cost to programs across the country, now distributes more than 15 million syringes annually.

Articles over the years have cited Mr. Purchase’s 1988 street-corner operation as the first exchange in the nation. Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which promotes alternatives to harsh legal treatment of drug users, could not confirm that.

“Whether or not he was literally the first to hand out syringes to stop AIDS, he was undoubtedly the godfather of needle exchange in America,” Mr. Nadelmann said in an interview. “He was a mentor and adviser to activists and public health workers around the world.”

In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when many critics argued that needle exchanges encouraged drug use, Mr. Purchase “was able to get political acceptance in Tacoma and obtain public funding,” said Don Des Jarlais, the director of research for the Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan.

When Mr. Purchase set up shop, he was without official government sanction or financial backing and, he said, was prepared to go to jail for 90 days for the misdemeanor offense of possessing drug paraphernalia. But he soon received support from the Tacoma police chief, Ray Fjetland, who suspended enforcement of the syringe law.

Mr. Purchase also worked closely with the county health department. The program became something of a model.

By 2011, according to a survey by Dr. Des Jarlais, there were 197 known needle-exchange programs in 36 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. That year, those exchanges distributed more than 36 million syringes.

“Given that over the course of the epidemic there have been several million people who injected drugs,” Dr. Des Jarlais said, “the efforts of Dave and people like him have literally saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

In a way, David Joe Purchase found his calling on a Harley-Davidson. Born in Tacoma on Aug. 29, 1939, to Kenneth and Bernice Purchase, he was something of a rebel as a youngster. He worked at several jobs after dropping out of college.

“My dad was a biker, with the big beard, the black leather jacket,” Mr. Purchase’s son said. “Because of that look, he started assisting a friend who was a drug counselor who would send him around town when clients went missing — into bars, down an alley.”

Mr. Purchase was nearly killed in 1983 when a drunken driver crashed into his motorcycle. After a long rehabilitation, he returned to work as a drug counselor and soon realized that many of his clients were dying of AIDS. He used $3,000 from a settlement from the accident to buy syringes and set up his table.

Mr. Purchase’s marriages, to Sally Riewald and Sue Powers, ended in divorce. Beside his son, he is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Rebecca Ford; two stepsons, Blake Barry and Kelly Powers; a stepdaughter, Krista Townsend; a sister, Karen Robinson; and three step-grandchildren.

In 2006, Mr. Purchase told The News Tribune in Tacoma that he would never consider giving up his work.

“I’d have to live with that,” he said. “This is life and death. There were unnecessary deaths, unnecessary and preventable deaths.”

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DealBook: Beneath the Calm, SAC Works to Contain Fallout From an Inquiry

At last month’s Hurricane Sandy benefit concert, Steven A. Cohen sat near the Madison Square Garden stage, grooving to performances by Bon Jovi and Billy Joel.

Last week, he flew a private jet to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, rubbing shoulders with world leaders and Fortune 500 chieftains. And on Monday, he will show up at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Fla., for one of the year’s biggest hedge fund conferences and, if he can squeeze it in, a round of golf.

For a man who has emerged as the Justice Department’s great white whale in its insider trading investigation — a Wall Street version of Captain Ahab pursuing Moby-Dick — Mr. Cohen, the billionaire owner of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, does not appear concerned.

But inside the offices of SAC’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters, and at Midtown Manhattan law firms, Mr. Cohen’s employees and lawyers are working hard to contain the fallout from the investigation.

His executives have offered financial incentives to Mr. Cohen’s staff members to stay with SAC. Marketing officers are trying to persuade investors to keep their money at the fund. And defense lawyers are working furiously to persuade federal securities regulators not to file a civil fraud lawsuit against the firm.

“This has always been a stressful place to work,” said an SAC employee who requested anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak publicly about the fund. “Now it’s just more stressful.”

Neither SAC nor Mr. Cohen has been accused of any wrongdoing.

The main question now looming over the firm is whether its clients will stand by the fund, or its legal and regulatory problems will cause investors to head for the exits. Under the firm’s rules, SAC clients have until Feb. 15 to ask for their money back, and then cannot make another so-called redemption request for another three months.

Mr. Cohen’s fund was dealt a blow last week when a Citigroup unit that manages money for wealthy families disclosed that it was withdrawing its $187 million investment. The move by the bank was the most prominent client departure since November, when the multiyear investigation into SAC’s trading practices entered a more serious phase.

Citigroup’s withdrawal represents a tiny percentage of SAC’s $14 billion in assets under management. The fund has said it expects total investor redemptions for the first quarter of up to $1 billion, a number that an SAC spokesman has said will not adversely affect its business.

SAC is largely insulated from the potentially devastating effects that client defections can have on a hedge fund in part because of Mr. Cohen’s extraordinary wealth. Unlike other hedge fund managers who rely almost entirely on outside investors, Mr. Cohen has the comfort of knowing that about $8 billion of SAC’s fund belongs to him and his employees.

Still, the Citigroup decision stung, say people close to SAC’s business, because of the longstanding and lucrative relationship between the bank and the fund. Another concern, said these people, is that the move could influence other large SAC investors currently weighing whether to keep their money at the fund.

For Citigroup, its withdrawal of money from SAC carries substantial business risk. The bank has a vast relationship with SAC, earning revenue by providing the fund with financing and trading services.

SAC could exact retribution on Citigroup by terminating, or at least scaling back, its broader relationship with the bank. An SAC spokesman declined to comment.

Citigroup’s move came two months after federal authorities arrested Mathew Martoma, a former SAC portfolio manager, in what they described as the most lucrative insider trading case ever uncovered. The Martoma indictment represented the first time that the government had brought charges stemming from a trade in which Mr. Cohen had been involved. The Securities and Exchange Commission has warned Mr. Cohen that it might file a civil fraud action against SAC related to the case.

In addition to Mr. Martoma, at least seven former SAC employees have been tied to insider trading while at the fund. Three have pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Citigroup issued a statement that its decision “should not be construed as a statement on the merits of any outstanding legal proceedings or potential regulatory action.” But the bank specifically cited the Martoma case, explaining that “in the event these legal and regulatory matters are resolved favorably for Mr. Martoma and SAC, Citi Private Bank expects to reconsider admission of SAC’s funds to its hedge fund platform.”

Mr. Martoma has pleaded not guilty and rejected requests by federal agents to cooperate against his former boss. Mr. Cohen has told his employees and clients that he is confident that he has acted appropriately at all times.

Yet the heightened government scrutiny has caused skittishness among SAC’s top ranks, forcing the fund to lavish even richer financial incentives on a group of employees that is already among the most highly compensated in the hedge fund industry.

This month, SAC told its stable of portfolio managers that it would increase year-end bonuses by three percentage points. SAC portfolio managers — the fund’s most senior traders, given the authority to make their own investment decisions and also feed Mr. Cohen their best ideas — are paid, on average, 20 percent of the profits they generate for the fund.

“The program is intended to retain our most valuable resource, our investment professionals,” said Jonathan Gasthalter, the SAC spokesman.

Another valuable resource is SAC’s outside investors, which account for about $6 billion, or 40 percent, of the fund’s assets. That money accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, which SAC uses to finance one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated hedge fund operations, with more than 1,000 employees and 125 teams of traders and analysts. Its operation is also one of the most successful, posting average annualized returns of about 30 percent since 1992.

Those results have in the past kept SAC’s customers satisfied, but the government scrutiny has made many of them uneasy. The firm’s marketing team has reached out to the fund’s investors to address their concerns and reassure them that the insider trading inquiry will not affect its performance.

Despite those efforts, several investors in addition to Citigroup, including Titan Advisors and a unit of Société Générale, have notified SAC that they are withdrawing money. Other clients, like Chapwood Investments and SkyBridge Capital, have said they will continue to invest with the fund.

SAC executives continued the charm offensive with major clients on Sunday, holding an annual golf outing in Palm Beach on the eve of a hedge fund conference at the Breakers sponsored by Morgan Stanley. The conference — a matchmaking event that connects top managers with the world’s richest investors — is considered an important stop on the hedge fund money-raising circuit.

Since Morgan Stanley does not invite the news media to its conference, there is not expected to be the same paparazzi-like reports on Mr. Cohen that emerged last week from Davos. Bloomberg News filed a dispatch that Mr. Cohen sat in on a panel discussion on data security called “The Digital Infrastructure Context.” And Henry Blodget, the editor of the financial Web site Business Insider, wrote a Twitter post on a sighting of Mr. Cohen.

“Steve Cohen was hanging in Davos lounge yesterday,” he wrote. “Didn’t look worried.”

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L.A. mayoral candidates sound off on pot dispensaries

As Los Angeles voters face the possibility of as many as three medical marijuana initiatives on the May ballot, several mayoral candidates have begun to outline their own plans to deal with the proliferation of pot dispensaries — an issue that has ensnared the City Council in countless legal tangles.

At a mayoral forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters last week, four of the five leading candidates argued for paring back the hundreds of pot dispensaries around the city. But Councilman Eric Garcetti said his first goal would be to persuade the federal government to reclassify marijuana as a medicine: "I will advocate that as mayor," he said.

Garcetti, who presided over many of the battles on the issue as council president from 2006 to 2012, said he would also urge state lawmakers to set regulations governing the distribution of medical marijuana.

"The courts say wildly different things because there has not been clear guidance from the state or federal level," he said. At the city level, Garcetti said, he would try to "keep access" while limiting the number of dispensaries. "You charge a fee so you have an enforcement mechanism, and where possible collect taxes" — steps that, he said, would free up law enforcement officers to focus on more serious crime.

City Controller Wendy Greuel called for "compassion" but placed a greater emphasis than Garcetti on tightening regulations on the locations of pot shops in the city.

"I think when people voted in the state of California to allow medical marijuana, they thought they would go to their local CVS pharmacy and get it. They didn't think about the impact it would have on neighborhoods," said Greuel, who is targeting many of the more conservative San Fernando Valley voters. "The bottom line is we have a right to regulate where marijuana clinics are in the city of Los Angeles…. The public is demanding that the government actually do their job."

After the forum, aides to Greuel told The Times she also would support classifying marijuana as a medicine at the federal level.

The city has struggled for years to regulate the placement of pot shops. A loophole in the city's 2007 moratorium allowed hundreds of additional shops to open. The council's efforts to limit the proliferation led to more than 100 lawsuits against the city. In response to complaints from neighborhood activists, the council enacted a ban on storefront marijuana sales last July. But it retreated in October, repealing the ban after a well-organized coalition of marijuana activists mounted an effort to overturn it at the ballot box.

Kevin James, a former federal prosecutor and the sole Republican among the major contenders, said the confusion and legal wrangling illustrated the dysfunction of the council.

"More pot clinics than Starbucks? Unbelievable," James said at Thursday night's forum. "Only this City Council could put a moratorium on 180 or so pot clinics — and it skyrockets to over 1,000."

The five mayoral candidates were pressed to say how many dispensaries should be allowed across the city. James said he favored about 10 in each of the 15 council districts. Garcetti said the original number of dispensaries — approximately 100 — was "about right."

Greuel and Councilwoman Jan Perry said they were hesitant to name an exact number, with Perry adding that she would take her policy cues from the voters in May.

Candidate Emanuel Pleitez, a technology executive who read from notes throughout the forum, argued that "politicians shouldn't be in the business of setting numbers" and should "let the market decide."

Last week the City Council advanced a measure for the May ballot that would permit only the dispensaries that opened before the moratorium to operate; the measure would also raise taxes on marijuana sales. Garcetti backed the request by Councilman Paul Koretz and Council President Herb Wesson asking the city attorney to draw up language for a ballot measure. Perry was absent for the vote.

Two additional — and competing — medical marijuana initiatives have qualified for the May ballot.

One, which is largely backed by dispensaries that opened after the moratorium, would allow many pot shops to remain open, but it would set new requirements for their operations — such as limited hours and maintaining a certain distance from schools. It would raise taxes on medical marijuana by 20% to pay for city enforcement.

The other was created by a coalition of medical marijuana advocates and the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which began organizing dispensary workers last year. Like the City Council-sponsored proposal, it would allow only pot dispensaries that opened before 2007 to operate. Koretz and Wesson have criticized the measure for not mandating that the shops be located farther away from schools, churches and parks.

Some advocates for the union-backed measure now say they probably will support the council's proposal because it too would allow older dispensaries to remain open and has a better chance of passing.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

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Crazy Alien Weather: Lightning-Filled Rocket Dust Storms of Mars

Scientists have modeled the internal workings of lightning-filled “rocket dust storms” on Mars that rise at speeds 100 times faster than ordinary storms and inject dust high into the Martian atmosphere.

The Red Planet is a very dry and dusty place, with global storms that sometimes obscure the entire surface. Satellites orbiting Mars have seen persistent dust layers reaching very high altitudes, as much as 30 to 50 km above the ground, though scientists are at a loss to explain exactly how the dust got there.

Using a high-resolution model, researchers have shown that a thick blob-like dust pocket inside a storm may become heated by the sun, causing the surrounding atmosphere to warm quickly. Because hot air rises, these areas will shoot skyward super fast, much like a rocket launching into space, hence “rocket dust storms.”

“The vertical transport was so strong we want to come up with a kind of spectacular name, to give an idea of the very powerful rise,” said planetary scientist Aymeric Spiga from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris, France, who is lead author on a paper describing the phenomena in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets on Jan. 14.

These speedily rising dust blobs can soar from near the surface to 30 or 40 km into the atmosphere in a matter of hours at speeds in excess of 10 meters per second (22 mph). This is far faster than the typical convection speeds in a dust storm of 0.1 meters per second (0.2 mph). Since the dust particles rub up against one another and create friction, the rocket dust storms may become charged with electrostatic forces, which could which could trigger fantastic lightning bolts.

Spiga and his team used detailed models of winds and dust on Mars to determine exactly how these rocket dust storms behave. Most previous models of Mars’ climate simulate large-scale global dust storms with fairly coarse resolution and so have not noticed the rocket storms. The team seeded their model with data from a dust storm observed by the OMEGA instrument aboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiting satellite and watched the rise of rocket storms.

Similar dust storms can’t happen on Earth. This is mainly because Mars’ atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than our own, meaning that it gets quickly and efficiently heated when dust particles absorb sunlight and then emit thermal radiation.

But a comparable phenomenon occurs in grey cumulonimbus thunderstorm clouds on Earth. The large accumulations of water particles in such clouds release latent heat, causing strong vertical motions and an extensive tall structure. Spiga’s team has used this Earthly analogy in the rocket dust storm’s more technical name, conio-cumulonimbus, from the Greek conious, which means dust.

“But I prefer to call them rocket dust storms,” Spiga said. “Then everyone knows what I’m talking about.”

Other researchers are impressed with the physical modeling done in the work. “I was a little surprised that such a small dust disturbance could remain intact over such long distances,” said planetary atmospheres scientist Scot Rafkin from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The mechanism could help explain how long-lasting layers of dust climb so high in the Martian atmosphere, he says. 

Because they appear to be relatively rare, it may take a while to track down more rocket dust storms. But Spiga is hopeful they will be found by orbiting satellites, which may even image the lightning flashes inside them.

Video: Spiga, Aymeric, et al. “Rocket dust storms and detached dust layers in the Martian atmosphere,” JGR:Planets, DOI: 10.1002/jgre.20046

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Opera about Nazi atrocity shown in Austria

VIENNA (AP) — Thousands of children were murdered by the Nazis because they fell short of the Aryan ideal. On Friday, a hushed audience gathered in Austria’s Parliament to watch the world premiere of an opera depicting how the Nazis methodically killed mentally or physically deficient children at a Vienna hospital during World War II.

The killings were part of a greater campaign that led to the deaths of about 75,000 people — homosexuals, the handicapped, or others the Nazis called “unworthy lives” — and served as a prelude to the Holocaust.

Austrians played a huge role in these and other atrocities of the era — nearly 800 children were killed at Vienna’s Spiegelgrund psychiatric ward — and Friday’s premiere of the opera “Spiegelgrund” was the latest installment of a national effort to atone for such acts in word and deed.

The timing was picked to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, which will be observed worldwide Sunday, and the performance was streamed live on the Internet for international audiences. But the parliamentary venue was chosen for a particularly Austrian reason: as a reminder of how the country’s politicians fomented the atmosphere of intolerance and authoritarianism that allowed Hitler’s troops to walk in in 1938, and a determination to not let history repeat itself.

Composer Peter Androsch said his focus on the era was in part born of his own family’s history. His great grandfather died in a Nazi concentration camp. Androsch said the fact that that was hidden for generations “says a lot about conditions in totalitarian regimes and should serve as a reminder for me and many others.”

At the premiere — a hauntingly effective hour-long performance — legislators were joined in the audience by diplomats, Holocaust survivors, former Spiegelgrund patients and other invited guests in an ornate chamber lined with Ionic columns and used for special legislative sessions.

Spiegelgrund survivor Friedrich Zavel was in the audience. He was brought to the clinic in 1940 after being accused of homosexuality. Now 83, he still shudders when he speaks of his ordeals: humiliation, solitary confinement and torture.

The “Wrap Treatment” consisted of orderlies binding a child first in two sheets soaked in ice water, then two dry sheets, followed by waiting for days without food and drink until the body warmth dried the sheets. There also were beatings and injections that either made the child vomit or left him unable to walk for days.

Asked Friday how he felt about the wrongs done to him, Zavel said: “I know neither revenge nor hate.”

The opera itself was more of an oratory. Backlit in gloomy purple and red, and accompanied by strings, flute, percussion and a harpsichord, a trio slipped into each other’s roles in an allegorical depiction of how all are victims and perpetrators.

Thus a white-coated doctor embodying “The Law” switched from vocalizing about Sparta’s doctrine of letting weak newborns die to singing a child’s ditty before moving to the role of “Memory” — singing broken phrases that harken back to the horrific experiences of the victimized children. The two other singers shifted roles accordingly as a narrator dryly recited facts reflecting the atrocities committed.

“On some days, so many children were killed that the orderlies had to pile the little bodies on a wheelbarrow,” narrator Karl Sibelius intones in one sequence before reading a letter from a mother addressed to an institute doctor and pleading for the return of her son.

Bass Robert Holzer was “The Law,” and sopranos Katerina Beranova and Alexandra Diesterhoeft sang “Memory” and “Children’s Song” respectively. All were very solid.

Parliament President Barbara Prammer said the nation could no longer focus only on glorifying its past.

“We can’t choose our history,” she told The Associated Press.

___

AP video journalist Philipp Jenne contributed.

___

Online: www.sonostream.tv

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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7 Die in Fire at Factory in Bangladesh

A.M. Ahad/Associated Press

Firefighters and volunteers worked to extinguish the fire at a small garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital on Saturday.

DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the latest blow to Bangladesh’s garment industry, seven workers died Saturday after a fire swept through a factory here not long after seamstresses had returned from a lunch break. Workers said supervisors had locked one of the factory exits, forcing some people to jump out of windows to save their lives.

Abir Abdullah/European Pressphoto Agency

Relatives mourned beside the bodies of workers killed in the fire at a hospital in Dhaka.

Reuters

People sifted through the wreckage at the Smart Fashions factory.

The fatal fire comes roughly two months after the blaze at the Tazreen Fashions factory left 112 workers dead and focused global attention on unsafe conditions in Bangladesh’s garment industry. Tazreen Fashions, located just outside Dhaka, the capital, had been making clothing for some of the world’s biggest brands and retailers, including Walmart.

In the aftermath of the Tazreen Fashions fire, political and industrial leaders in Bangladesh pledged to quickly improve fire safety and even conducted high-profile, nationwide inspections of many of the country’s 5,000 clothing factories. And global brands promised they would not buy clothes from unsafe factories.

But Saturday’s fire in a densely populated section of Dhaka is a grim reminder that the problems remain. The blaze erupted about 2 p.m. at Smart Garment Export, a small factory that employed about 300 people, most of them young women who were making sweaters and jackets. All seven of the dead workers were women.

Masudur Rahman Akand, a supervisor in the fire department, said the factory’s workers were returning from lunch when the blaze erupted in a storage area. The factory was located on the second floor of a building, above a bakery, and it lacked proper exits and fire prevention equipment, Mr. Akand said.

“We did not find fire extinguishers,” he said. “We did not find any safety measures.”

With smoke filling the factory floor, workers apparently panicked. Mr. Akand said the seven workers who died either suffocated or were trampled by people trying to escape.

Eight other workers were hospitalized with injuries. Some of them told rescuers that many people could not quickly escape because one of the exits was blocked by a locked steel gate. Witnesses said people began jumping out of windows before the gate was unlocked.

Azizul Hoque, a police supervisor, said the investigation was continuing. “We do not know the reason or the source or the origin of the fire,” he said.

It was unclear whether the Smart Garment factory was making clothing for international brands or retailers. Dhaka’s industrial areas are filled with factories, large and small, that produce clothing for much of the Western world.

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Jim Yardley from New Delhi.

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