Gun control draws vigorous debate across California

From shooting ranges to churches, gun control was the subject of vigorous debate over the weekend at various venues across California.

In Sacramento, hundreds rallied in front of the Capitol on Saturday to protest efforts to restrict gun ownership. President Obama has called for an assault weapons ban, a universal background check system for every gun sale and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

At the Los Angeles Gun Club, range master Joseph Im said the downtown facility had seen an uptick in its ammunition sales since the Sandy Hook shooting and the renewed debate over gun control.

Thomas Brambila, 38, and Tamara Vravis, 43, had come to the range on a first date. Brambila said he had grown up target shooting, although he does not own a gun now because he has young children at home. He called Obama's gun control proposal "misguided."

Vravis said she grew up on a ranch in Minnesota, where guns were common. She agreed with Brambila.

"I think if you really want to get a gun, you can get a gun. It's going to hurt the law-abiding citizens," she said of the move to tighten gun laws.

While some people were celebrating their love of guns, others held events to draw attention to gun violence. A network of churches around the country planned a Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, with services centering on community members who have lost family members to gun violence.

The City of Refuge Church in Gardena held special services Sunday to call for efforts to crack down on gun violence. Hollywood Adventist Church held a smaller gathering of a few dozen Saturday.

Carmen Taylor Jones and Darryl Jones spoke about their 15-year-old daughter, Breon Taylor, who was killed five years ago Saturday when two young men shot through a window into the Lakewood Masonic Lodge, where Breon was one of several hundred young people attending a birthday party. Breon and a 17-year-old boy were killed.

It was the day before Taylor Jones' 45th birthday.

"At that moment, in the twinkling of an eye, everyone's lives, some of their destinies were interrupted," Taylor Jones said.

The gunmen who shot into the party, 16 and 19 at the time, were eventually sentenced to a combined 400 years in prison.

Taylor Jones, who grew up in Watts, said she sees memorials for other young people who were gunned down and worries about the safety of her 15-year-old son.

"When he's with me in South Los Angeles, I almost feel like he's a target, like he has a mark on him," she said.

Taylor Jones said she believes the Sandy Hook massacre got people's attention in a way that individual tragedies like her daughter's death couldn't. She called Obama's gun control proposal "a step in the right direction."

"It's just time for us to have some very serious conversations," she said.

The Sacramento protest was one of dozens held at state capitals nationwide as politicians push new gun laws.

They keep adding more and more laws," said Wes Holst, who hosts a radio show about guns in Santa Cruz. "More laws don't prevent crime."

Some people waved flags or hoisted signs saying "Hands off my guns" and "Gun laws don't stop criminals, bullets do," and many spoke fearfully of restrictions they say would leave them defenseless against criminals or even a government they view with suspicion.

California has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and there were no firearms to be seen at Saturday's rally. A few people wore empty holsters.

Daniel Silverman, an information technology consultant who lives in Tracy, Calif., said he organized the Sacramento event as part of a grass-roots campaign called Guns Across America. He said the rally was not connected to Gun Appreciation Day, which was started by a Republican consulting firm in Washington.

He said politicians have unfairly singled out firearms as the cause of violence. A gun, he said, is only "a piece of plastic, aluminum and steel that does no harm in the hands of good men and women."

abby.sewell@latimes.com

chris.megerian@latimes.com

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Priest Is Planning to Defy the Vatican’s Orders to Stay Quiet

Jekaterina Saveljeva for The New York Times

The Rev. Tony Flannery, an Irish priest, was suspended by the Vatican last year. “I refuse to be terrified into submission,” he said.

DUBLIN — A well-known Irish Catholic priest plans to defy Vatican authorities on Sunday by breaking his silence about what he says is a campaign against him by the church over his advocacy of more open discussion on church teachings.

The Rev. Tony Flannery, 66, who was suspended by the Vatican last year, said he was told by the Vatican that he would be allowed to return to ministry only if he agreed to write, sign and publish a statement agreeing, among other things, that women should never be ordained as priests and that he would adhere to church orthodoxy on matters like contraception and homosexuality.

“How can I put my name to such a document when it goes against everything I believe in,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. “If I signed this, it would be a betrayal not only of myself but of my fellow priests and lay Catholics who want change. I refuse to be terrified into submission.”

Father Flannery, a regular contributor to religious publications, said he planned to make his case public at a news conference here on Sunday.

The Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote to Father Flannery’s religious superior, the Rev. Michael Brehl, last year instructing him to remove Father Flannery from his ministry in County Galway, to ensure he did not publish any more articles in religious or other publications, and to tell him not to give interviews to the news media.

In the letter, the Vatican objected in particular to an article published in 2010 in Reality, an Irish religious magazine. In the article, Father Flannery, a Redemptorist priest, wrote that he no longer believed that “the priesthood as we currently have it in the church originated with Jesus” or that he designated “a special group of his followers as priests.”

Instead, he wrote, “It is more likely that some time after Jesus, a select and privileged group within the community who had abrogated power and authority to themselves, interpreted the occasion of the Last Supper in a manner that suited their own agenda.”

Father Flannery said the Vatican wanted him specifically to recant the statement, and affirm that Christ instituted the church with a permanent hierarchical structure and that bishops are divinely established successors to the apostles.

He believes the church’s treatment of him, which he described as a “Spanish Inquisition-style campaign,” is symptomatic of a definite conservative shift under Pope Benedict XVI.

“I have been writing thought-provoking articles and books for decades without hindrance,” he said. “This campaign is being orchestrated by a secretive body that refuses to meet me. Surely I should at least be allowed to explain my views to my accusers.”

His superior was also told to order Father Flannery to withdraw from his leadership role in the Association of Catholic Priests, a group formed in 2009 to articulate the views of rank-and-file members of the clergy.

In reply to an association statement expressing solidarity with Father Flannery, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denied it was acting in a secretive manner, pointed out that Father Flannery’s views could be construed as “heresy” under church law, and threatened “canonical penalties,” including excommunication, if he did not change his views.

This month, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote to an American priest, Roy Bourgeois, notifying him of his laicization, following his excommunication in 2008 over his support for the ordination of women.

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100 Years of U.S. Presidential Inaugurations

On March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson took the oath of office. Nearly 100 years later, Barack Obama will take that same oath.

The U.S. presidential inauguration looks a tad different than it did a century ago. In 1913, women still did not have the right to vote and Wilson rode to the Capitol in a horse-drawn carriage. And don’t expect to see President Obama wearing a silk top hat like Wilson either.

[More from Mashable: Watch Every President’s Inauguration Since Reagan in 36 Seconds]

Thanks to the digital archiving of government images, zipping through 100 years of presidential history doesn’t even require a trip to the library. We’ve compiled the most memorable photographs and videos taken at presidential inaugurations since 1913 for a scrollable history lesson.

[More from Mashable: The Letters Kids Wrote to Obama About Gun Control]

If you like your history well-aged, then there’s also a special gallery at the bottom featuring images from inaugurations that occurred before 1913 — including those of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ulysses S. Grant.

Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1913

“President-elect Wilson and President Taft, standing side by side, laughing, at White House prior to Wilson’s inauguration ceremonies” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Woodrow Wilson, March 5, 1917

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Telegram from Evangeline Booth, Commander of the Salvation Army” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921

“Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Philander Knox and Joseph Cannon, in convertible” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Calvin Coolidge, March 4, 1925

“President Coolidge, Mrs. Coolidge and Senator Curtis on the way to the Capitol” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Herbert Hoover, March 4, 1929

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

Inaugural Program, Inauguration. Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States. John N. Garner Vice President of the United States. Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 20, 1937

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Ticket for the 1937 inauguration, the first to take place on January 20th.” Image courtesy of FDR Library

“Eleanor Roosevelt poses in her inaugural gown at the White House.” Image courtesy of FDR Library

Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 20, 1941

“Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt riding in an open car, returning to the White House from FDR’s third inauguration.” Image courtesy of FDR Library

Excerpt from home movie of FDR driving and walking with assistance to take the Oath of Office on January 20, 1941.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 20, 1945

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Crowd stands in snow for inauguration” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Harry S. Truman, January 20, 1949

“Truman and Barkley during Inaugural parade.” Image courtesy of Truman Library

Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 20, 1953

“Ike responds to cheers of crowd.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“With smiles and a wave, President Harry Truman and his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, leave White House in an open car on way to Capitol for inauguration ceremonies.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 21, 1957

“President Eisenhower waves to the crowd” Image courtesy of Eisenhower Library

“Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon watching inaugural parade with Anne & David Eisenhower and Julie & Tricia Nixon” Image courtesy of Eisenhower Library

“Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower attend the Inaugural Ball with John and Barbara Eisenhower” Image courtesy of Eisenhower Library

John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961

Image courtesy of National Archives

“President-elect John F. Kennedy shakes hands with Father Richard J. Casey, the Pastor, after attending Mass at Holy Trinity Church … prior to inauguration ceremonies.” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Lyndon B. Johnson, January 20, 1965

“President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, Lynda Bird Johnson, and Luci Baines Johnson preparing for Inauguration ceremonies.” Image courtesy of LBJ Library

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“Secret service agents try to hold back the crowds that surge forward to watch President Johnson dance with the First Lady at the inaugural ball at the National Guard Armory” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Richard M. Nixon, January 20, 1969

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

“President and Mrs. Nixon waving to the crowd from the Presidential limousine in the inaugural motorcade” Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Richard M. Nixon, January 20, 1973

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Jimmy Carter, January 20, 1977

Image courtesy of Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Ronald Reagan, January 21, 1985

Image courtesy of Reagan Library

“1985 Inaugural Ball: President and Mrs. Reagan in National Air and Space Museum” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

George H. W. Bush, January 20, 1989

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

“1989 Presidential Inaugration, George H. W. Bush, Opening Ceremonies, at Lincoln Memorial” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Bill Clinton, January 20, 1993

“While the Clintons and Gores watch, Chelsea Clinton rings a replica of the Liberty Bell during festivities kicking off the Clinton/Gore 1993 Inaugural events.” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

“George Bush and Bill Clinton shake hands just after the inaugural ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol.” Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Bill Clinton, January 20, 1997

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

Image courtesy of Smithsonian

George W. Bush, January 20, 2001

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

George W. Bush, January 20, 2005

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of White House

Image courtesy of White House

Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

Image courtesy of Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo, U.S. Air Force

“President Barack Obama is given the Oath of Office for a second time by Chief Justice John G. Roberts” Image courtesy of Pete Souza/White House

“President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama share a private moment in a freight elevator at an Inaugural Ball” Image courtesy of Pete Souza/White House

“President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama ride in a golf cart at an Inaugural Ball” Image courtesy of Pete Souza/White House

BONUS: Pre-1913 Presidential Inaugurations

Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861

Image courtesy of Library of Congress

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Five Things to Know About The Lumineers

By Marisa Laudadio

01/19/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

From left: Wesley Schultz, Neyla Pekarek and Jeremiah Fraites

Alan Poizner/PictureGroup

You already know their hit song "Ho Hey" with its catchy shout-it-out chant that sticks in your head – but what's behind Denver-based band The Lumineers' cool blend of indie rock and Americana?

Here are five things to know about the trio – Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar), 30; Jeremiah Fraites (guitar), 27; and Neyla Pekarek (cello, piano), 26 – who are up for two Grammys (best new artist and best Americana album) and are also performing on Saturday Night Live this week alongside host Jennifer Lawrence.

1. Most people think that 'Ho Hey' – which reached No. 1 on three different charts – is about a romantic relationship, but that's not the whole story.
"The essence of the song was that I was really struggling to make ends meet in the big city when I was living in Brooklyn and working in New York. It was a myth, this idea that you'd go there and get discovered and it would be this great place for music," explains Schultz, who, like Fraites, hails from New Jersey and moved to Denver in recent years, where they met Pekarek.

"It's about a lost love in some ways, but it's also a lost dream. It's funny that a lot of people play it at their weddings because it was written from a different place. But it's kind of a beautiful thing, actually, that people can take something I was feeling really, really down about and turn it into a message of hope."

2. They've only recently been able to quit their day jobs.
"I was working as a busser, a bartender, a barista, a guitar teacher, caterer – a lot of service industry jobs, because it allows you to get away and tour if you need to or take a night off to play," explains Schultz.

"Jer was bussing tables right along beside me. And Neyla was a hostess and a substitute teacher. She'd been offered a full-time teaching position while we were in the midst of touring – and losing a lot of money – and she still stuck with it. Somehow she chose this over that, which is absurd, but we're glad she did!"

3. They named their hit song carefully.
Were they ever concerned people might call it "Hey Ho" in a derogatory way? "Yeah, at some point we laughed about it," says Schultz. "We specifically named it 'Ho Hey' instead of 'Hey Ho' [for that reason]. If people searched for it online, we'd rather it not be something that takes you in that direction."

Do they mind when people get the title wrong? "Oh no, that would be a little pretentious!" says Schultz with a chuckle. "It's kind of a silly name to begin with."

4. That's Schultz's mom on the cover of their debut, self-titled album.
"It's my mom, Judy, as a child, and her mother," he explains. "I'd asked my mom if she had any old photos that I could look through a while back, and I fell in love with it. You know if you set up a child for a picture then can't get out of the frame in time? My mom had a funny take on it: It's our first album, kind of our baby, like this child."

Schultz thanked his mom for all her years of emotional support with some heavy metal when their album went gold. "I had the plaque sent to my mom, because she'd been really supportive of us and believed in us when a lot of people were pretty concerned. And now she's got a platinum one!"

5. Their band name has more than one meaning.
While Schultz and Fraites have been playing music together for more than eight years (previous band names include Free Beer, 6Cheek, and Wesley Jeremiah), they've only been known as The Lumineers for the last four thanks to a mistake.

"We were playing a small club in Jersey City, N.J.," explains Schultz, "and there was a band out there at the time called Lumineers who were slotted for the same time, same day, the next week. The person running the show that night [mistakenly] announced us as The Lumineers."

The name stuck. "It doesn't mean anything literally. It's a made-up word," says Schultz. Another strange coincidence they learned? "It's also the name of a dental veneer company," he adds.

So how are Schultz's teeth? "I have a pretty good smile," he says with a big laugh. "I won 'Best Smile' in high school. It's a pretty big deal."

Read More..

Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.

The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.

Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.

"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.

In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.

Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

___

Online:

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Costa Mesa confronts homelessness head-on

The police officers made their way though the Costa Mesa park known as "ground zero," the crowded hub for the city's homeless, handing out fliers and encouraging people to get on a bus that would take them out of town.

Like other cities, Costa Mesa has had a tenuous relationship with its homeless, and many would just as soon they all simply leave. But efforts on this crisp afternoon had a different motivation: They were nudging them to seek shelter from the near-freezing nights that had gripped the area and board a shuttle to the Santa Ana armory.

In the morning, they promised, the bus would bring them back, bright and early.

"There has been a shift," said Becks Heyhoe, director of the Churches Consortium, a collective effort of about a dozen churches in town. "The city has shown — really, for the first time in its history — they are willing to address homelessness in Costa Mesa. This is really the first time the city has taken a stab at it."

A back-and-forth relationship with the homeless has long been the blueprint in a city that is defined by the high-end elegance of South Coast Plaza at one end and the clusters of homeless dozing under the shade trees and hanging around Lions Park at the other.

But the response to the deaths of two homeless people last week as temperatures dropped down into the 30s highlighted an evolution of the city's outlook, as city services and local charities were kicked into action.

Those aiding the homeless have long been the target of scorn by those wanting to rid the city of the people who drift through the old city core and sleep in the park. The bounty of services there was seen as magnets for transients. A few months ago, the now-former mayor pushed for decades-old service providers — including a clinic and a soup kitchen — to be investigated. The problem might be cured, he said, "if we managed to put the soup kitchen out of business."

But the recent deaths have expedited ongoing efforts to improve services and care for a segment of the community considered vulnerable. Patrols were stepped up and volunteers handed out blankets. One woman who lived in her car and who suffered from a chronic illness was taken to a motel to spend the night.

"We don't want any more people dying on us," said Rick Francis, assistant chief executive of Costa Mesa. "That's the bottom line."

Two years ago, when tensions over the homeless population reached a peak, the city formed a task force to confront the issue. Residents had grown frustrated by the homeless taking over Lions Park, and complained about finding abandoned needles and drunk people in the middle of the day. "It's like everything came to a head," said Muriel Ullman, a longtime city employee who now works as a consultant on homeless issues.

At that point, many held to the theory that the homeless numbers were growing at such a swift clip that there was no hope to manage, said Edward J. Clarke, a professor of sociology at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, who had led a multi-year count of the homeless population.

But his count showed that those apprehensions were unfounded. He documented about 120 homeless people with ties to Costa Mesa, with a few dozen others who came from outside the city — a figure that remained close to the same over five years. He said many came from colder climates — "the kind of places where homeless people die in the winter — and others just wandered between cities in Orange County, "where you can easily cross the border by crossing the street."

The task force's recommendations, which came out last year, focused on streamlining services and tailoring them to the needs of that community, in particular those who are Costa Mesa natives.

The churches, Heyhoe said, were also prompted to do some soul-searching about services that were found to be redundant or simply ineffective: "Were we doing it because it made us feel good or because it was really meeting a need?"

Based on task force recommendations, a picnic shelter in Lions Park that was used to hand out meals — a place that had become a homeless hangout — was demolished, and bikes are now required to be secured to racks instead of strewn about the park.

At the same time, the city hired a social worker, who worked to help people find housing or enroll in substance abuse programs. The Churches Consortium has also built a storage facility for the homeless to tuck away their possessions — backpacks, bags and carts — and come by weekly to do laundry and take a shower. Heyhoe said more than 150 people used the service last year, freeing them to have a chance to go to job interviews or enter detox programs.

Heyhoe said the system citywide has become "a lot more strategic, a lot more coordinated and, I'd argue, a lot more effective." Ullman echoed that, saying that various forces — the city, charities and churches — seem to now be pushing in the same direction. "It's kind of like we're all a team now."

One of those most recent projects has been testing out a shuttle service, carrying people to the Santa Ana armory each night.

Heyhoe met up with Costa Mesa police officers one afternoon last week, starting at the city library at the center of Lions Park and fanning out into the streets.

They met resistance as they handed out fliers. One couple was suspicious, taking it as an attempt to run them out of Costa Mesa. Others thought the armory was too sketchy — or "where all the jailbirds are," one woman told Heyhoe. A man who had made the trek to the Santa Ana armory before refused to return: "That's the worst place I've ever been."

Rose Ouellette, 44, was hanging out at the Someone Cares soup kitchen and was receptive. She said she's noticed a change for the better in services, especially the storage facility known as a "check-in center."

"It has helped me out a lot," she said, grateful for the lighter load. "You don't have to carry your stuff."

But Ouellette, who said she has lived in Costa Mesa for 15 years, had enough of the outsiders coming in and leaving rubbish in the park. "It's disgusting," she said.

As the time approached for the bus to make its pickup, a small group had gathered in the church parking lot.

Trevor Martinez was one of them. "If they've got transportation over there, and I can stay out of the cold, that sounds like a good idea," said Martinez, who's been on the streets since May. "I can't walk that far."

One man, who took the ride to the armory the day before, was back again. "It's all right," he shrugged. "It wasn't cold."

When the bus pulled up, only four people climbed aboard. But Heyhoe was optimistic. It was one more than the day before.

rick.rojas@latimes.com

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New Northern Ireland Violence May Be About More Than the British Flag

Peter Muhly/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Police officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, remained with their armored vehicles as a car burned after violence between unionists and loyalists on Jan. 12.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — For more than six weeks, it has been a dismal case of back-to-the-future, a crudely sectarian upheaval that has defied all attempts at peacemaking.

Paul Faith/Press Association, via Associated Press

Loyalist protests began in Belfast after the City Council voted to reduce the number of days a year the British flag was flown in public, to 18 from 365.

The scenes recall the sectarian bitterness that infused the 30 years of virtual civil war known as the Troubles: night after night of street protests marshaled by balaclava-wearing militants, who have updated their tactics by using social media to rally mobs; death threats to prominent politicians, some of whom have fled their homes and hidden under police guard; firebombs, flagstones and rocks hurled at churches, police cars and lawmakers’ offices; protesters joined by rock-throwing boys of 8 and 9; neighborhoods sealed off for hours by the police or protesters’ barricades.

Many had hoped that the old hatreds between Northern Ireland’s two main groups — the mainly Protestant, pro-British unionists, and the mainly Roman Catholic republicans, with their commitment to a united Ireland — would recede permanently under the auspices of the Good Friday agreement. That accord was reached 15 years ago as a blueprint for the power-sharing government that now rules the province.

But the fragility of those hopes has been powerfully demonstrated by more than 40 days and nights of violence that were triggered by a decision to cut back on the flying of the Union Jack, Britain’s red, white and blue national flag, over the grandly pillared, neo-Classical pile City Council building in central Belfast.

By the latest count, more than 100 police officers have been injured, along with dozens of protesters and bystanders. At times, the violence has expanded to other cities, including Londonderry. Business has slumped. Police commanders, their forces overwhelmed, have assigned dozens of officers to scan hundreds of hours of closed-circuit video, looking for ringleaders.

The crisis began modestly enough. The Belfast council, its pro-British members outvoted by a coalition of republicans and a small liberal bloc, decided in early December to limit the flag flying to 18 days a year, as specified by London for all of Britain. Through the decades when the council was dominated by Protestant unionists, committed to links with Britain, the flag flew from the pinnacle of the building every day of the year.

Incongruously, perhaps, most of those 18 days do not represent landmarks in Britain’s history — Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, say, or Germany’s surrender in the Second World War — but the birthdays of Queen Elizabeth II and her family members, including the former Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, on whose 31st birthday, Jan. 9, the Belfast flag fluttered for the first time since it came down in early December. Under Britain’s strict rules about flying the national standard on public and private buildings, not even the Parliament buildings in London fly it on any but government-designated days. But the hauling down of the Belfast flag provoked a furious reaction, the most protracted period of unrest in many years in Northern Ireland.

Among pro-British loyalists, the episode was seen as part of the step-by-step erosion of the British presence, a stripping of what many of them call their identity. Other examples they invoke have also been symbolic, including moves to delete the word Ulster — an ancient designation for the northern Irish provinces commonly used by Protestants but mostly shunned by republicans — from the formal names of the province’s police force and its military reservists, and to remove the British crown emblem from the cap and shoulder badges of prison guards and other public officials.

But many of the province’s political commentators see the flag dispute as a token of something more profound and ultimately more threatening to the hopes for a permanent peace here.

They say the council’s decision on the flag, made possible by the fact that nationalists now hold 24 seats on the council, compared with 21 for the unionists, reflects the rapid growth of the Catholic population in the years since the Good Friday agreement, unsettling the long-held assumption among unionists that Protestants would constitute a permanent majority in the province.

Read More..

Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.

The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.

Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.

"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.

In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.

Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

___

Online:

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

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West L.A. teacher's class act earns a Milken award

Jackie Bonilla knew there would be a special presentation at Clover Avenue Elementary in West Los Angeles on Friday morning.

She didn't know it would be for her.

The second-grade teacher was surprised by the announcement of the Milken Educator Award, an honor given to 40 teachers nationwide this year. Each recipient gets a $25,000 prize, no strings attached.

The honor is given by the Milken Family Foundation, which created the award in 1987 to motivate gifted teachers in a field in which financial gifts are rare.

Bonilla, who was awarded the prize by foundation Chairman Lowell Milken at an assembly also attended by L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy and State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, is a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo graduate. She was the only California teacher so recognized this year.

Bonilla thought the event she would be attending was organized to recognize her school's new status as a National Blue Ribbon School. Then Milken took the microphone and asked the assembled students, "Have you seen a teacher get an A?" He then asked her to rise.

Bonilla, visibly moved, paused to compose herself before thanking her principal and colleagues and accepting the award.

"I am extremely honored and humbled," she said. "Teaching is truly is my passion; I don't look at it as a job."

With the help of each state's board of education, the awards are made based on a confidential process that takes into account teachers' methods, leadership outside the classroom and their students' test scores.

Bonilla, who switched to second grade this year, is rated among the "most effective" of district teachers in math and English, according to The Times' value-added analysis. During the 2011-12 school year, 87% of her third-grade students scored proficient or above in English language arts on the California Standards Test.

She now joins "a great network of teachers" who have won the award, said Shannon Garrison, a fourth-grade teacher at Solano Elementary who received the award in 2008.

The Milken Foundation nominated Garrison for her position on the National Assessment Governing Board — the committee that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, test — and she carried the Olympic torch in Edinburgh, Scotland, before the 2012 Summer Olympics.

"That award changed my life. It created an immediate support system of people that think you're going to do great things," Garrison said.

Back in Bonilla's colorful classroom, each of her students recited Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech.

"She makes math fun," said one student. "And she's the only teacher to laugh at all our jokes."

dalina.castellanos@latimes.com

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In Regional Elections, a Microcosm of Trouble Ahead for Merkel

BERLIN — With the national parliamentary election scheduled for September, many in Germany are looking to Lower Saxony, which holds regional elections on Sunday, for clues of what could happen in Berlin this autumn.

Political experts insist that regional elections in Germany have traditionally had little direct influence on the outcome of national elections. But several similarities between Lower Saxony and the German government make it appear a microcosm of the larger political scene.

Like Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, Lower Saxony’s is led by a center-right coalition of her Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats. The Christian Democratic candidate in the state, David McAllister, is personally popular with voters, as is the chancellor, helping him to close in on his Social Democratic rival, Stephan Weil, making for a tight race.

But also like the chancellor, Mr. McAllister will rely heavily on the Free Democrats’ winning enough votes to earn seats in the regional legislature to continue his current government. In recent surveys, the party has hovered around 5 percent, the threshold needed to secure representation at the regional and national levels.

That polling has focused attention on the vote in Lower Saxony as a make-or-break moment for the party and perhaps even for Ms. Merkel’s coalition in Berlin.

The Free Democratic Party ended a string of losses at the regional level by winning slightly more than 8 percent of the vote in two states last year, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. But for now that performance has not translated into a stronger position at the national level.

Many blame a lack of leadership. The party chairman, Philipp Rösler, who also serves as economy minister, consistently ranks as among the country’s least-popular politicians. But Karl-Rudolf Korte, a professor of politics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, says the party’s problems reach deeper than who is at its helm.

“It is not a problem of personality — it is a problem of issues,” Mr. Korte said.

Regardless of the outcome Sunday, he predicts that the party would be well advised to go for a two-pronged approach, keeping Mr. Rösler as its leader, but choosing the party’s parliamentary leader, Rainer Brüderle, as its main candidate because of his popularity.

Traditionally the Free Democrats have provided a clear voice for individual citizens’ rights against an overly powerful nanny state. They have served in more governments in postwar Germany than any other political party, although as the junior coalition partner. Two respected presidents, Theodor Heuss and Walter Scheel, hailed from the Free Democrats, as did an influential former foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

Four years ago, the Free Democratic Party, or F.D.P., emerged with its strongest showing ever, earning 14.6 percent of the vote after campaigning on a promise to cut taxes. But with the euro crisis, that promise has been watered down and the party has failed to find other issues that resonate with voters.

At a party congress this month, Mr. Brüderle sought to drum up support by singling out legislation passed by the current coalition that clearly reflected the Free Democrats’ influence.

“The F.D.P. made the union better,” he said of the coalition, citing the scrapping of required military service, a €10 payment at doctors’ offices, policies affecting growth and consumer protection laws. “We need to believe in ourselves then many others will believe in us.”

A poll by the Forsa Institute, published by the weekly Stern on Wednesday showed the Free Democratic Party getting only 3 percent support, which would translate to their ejection from lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag.

Such an outcome would force Ms. Merkel, whose center-right Christian Democrats appear to be stronger than ever, earning 43 percent support in the Forsa survey, to find a new partner in government.

The center-left Social Democrats, however, polled their lowest since 2011, earning only 23 percent, largely because of a plunge in popularity for their candidate in the national election, Peer Steinbrück.

Manfred Güllner, who heads the Forsa Institute, said that even if the Social Democratic candidate in Lower Saxony, Mr. Weil, could pull off a victory, it would be unlikely to translate into increased support for Mr. Steinbrück.

“The latest survey shows that peoples’ image of Mr. Steinbrück has become increasingly negative,” Mr. Güllner said. “People view him as greedy, arrogant and awkward. Very few people associate him with political competence.”

Mr. Steinbrück’s image as a former finance minister who shepherded Germany through the first days of the financial crisis has been battered by a drawn-out debate over his private earnings from a book and, more recently, a comment that Ms. Merkel benefited from a “women’s bonus.”

Even an attempt by Mr. Steinbrück to change that image by inviting undecided voters to his home for a personal talk backfired earlier this week when the media began reporting that the family of a person in Lower Saxony that was selected from 150 candidates included an active member of the party’s local branch.

A victory by the Social Democrats in Lower Saxony, however, could have a greater impact on national politics through the upper house of Parliament, the Bundesrat, which is made up of representatives of the country’s 16 states. Together with their main political allies, the Greens, they could form a majority.

“If a party is clever, such a majority can be used to block, drag out or otherwise delay any legislative procedure,” Mr. Korte said.

That power would effectively hamper the government’s ability to pass legislation, regardless of their popularity.

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