OB/GYNs back over-the-counter birth control pills

WASHINGTON (AP) — No prescription or doctor's exam needed: The nation's largest group of obstetricians and gynecologists says birth control pills should be sold over the counter, like condoms.

Tuesday's surprise opinion from these gatekeepers of contraception could boost longtime efforts by women's advocates to make the pill more accessible.

But no one expects the pill to be sold without a prescription any time soon: A company would have to seek government permission first, and it's not clear if any are considering it. Plus there are big questions about what such a move would mean for many women's wallets if it were no longer covered by insurance.

Still, momentum may be building.

Already, anyone 17 or older doesn't need to see a doctor before buying the morning-after pill — a higher-dose version of regular birth control that can prevent pregnancy if taken shortly after unprotected sex. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration held a meeting to gather ideas about how to sell regular oral contraceptives without a prescription, too.

Now the influential American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is declaring it's safe to sell the pill that way.

Wait, why would doctors who make money from women's yearly visits for a birth-control prescription advocate giving that up?

Half of the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended, a rate that hasn't changed in 20 years — and easier access to birth control pills could help, said Dr. Kavita Nanda, an OB/GYN who co-authored the opinion for the doctors group.

"It's unfortunate that in this country where we have all these contraceptive methods available, unintended pregnancy is still a major public health problem," said Nanda, a scientist with the North Carolina nonprofit FHI 360, formerly known as Family Health International.

Many women have trouble affording a doctor's visit, or getting an appointment in time when their pills are running low — which can lead to skipped doses, Nanda added.

If the pill didn't require a prescription, women could "pick it up in the middle of the night if they run out," she said. "It removes those types of barriers."

Tuesday, the FDA said it was willing to meet with any company interested in making the pill nonprescription, to discuss what if any studies would be needed.

Then there's the price question. The Obama administration's new health care law requires FDA-approved contraceptives to be available without copays for women enrolled in most workplace health plans.

If the pill were sold without a prescription, it wouldn't be covered under that provision, just as condoms aren't, said Health and Human Services spokesman Tait Sye.

ACOG's opinion, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, says any move toward making the pill nonprescription should address that cost issue. Not all women are eligible for the free birth control provision, it noted, citing a recent survey that found young women and the uninsured pay an average of $16 per month's supply.

The doctors group made clear that:

—Birth control pills are very safe. Blood clots, the main serious side effect, happen very rarely, and are a bigger threat during pregnancy and right after giving birth.

—Women can easily tell if they have risk factors, such as smoking or having a previous clot, and should avoid the pill.

—Other over-the-counter drugs are sold despite rare but serious side effects, such as stomach bleeding from aspirin and liver damage from acetaminophen.

—And there's no need for a Pap smear or pelvic exam before using birth control pills. But women should be told to continue getting check-ups as needed, or if they'd like to discuss other forms of birth control such as implantable contraceptives that do require a physician's involvement.

The group didn't address teen use of contraception. Despite protests from reproductive health specialists, current U.S. policy requires girls younger than 17 to produce a prescription for the morning-after pill, meaning pharmacists must check customers' ages. Presumably regular birth control pills would be treated the same way.

Prescription-only oral contraceptives have long been the rule in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and a few other places, but many countries don't require a prescription.

Switching isn't a new idea. In Washington state a few years ago, a pilot project concluded that pharmacists successfully supplied women with a variety of hormonal contraceptives, including birth control pills, without a doctor's involvement. The question was how to pay for it.

Some pharmacies in parts of London have a similar project under way, and a recent report from that country's health officials concluded the program is working well enough that it should be expanded.

And in El Paso, Texas, researchers studied 500 women who regularly crossed the border into Mexico to buy birth control pills, where some U.S. brands sell over the counter for a few dollars a pack. Over nine months, the women who bought in Mexico stuck with their contraception better than another 500 women who received the pill from public clinics in El Paso, possibly because the clinic users had to wait for appointments, said Dr. Dan Grossman of the University of California, San Francisco, and the nonprofit research group Ibis Reproductive Health.

"Being able to easily get the pill when you need it makes a difference," he said.

___

Online:

OB/GYN group: http://www.acog.org

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Truth and honesty, that's the ticket

Marty Ingels, the actor and comedian whose wife is Oscar-winning actress and "Partridge Family" mom Shirley Jones, could not believe the injustice.

He went into a photo shop on Ventura Boulevard, looked out the window and saw a ticket on his car windshield. Ingels charged outside, read the ticket and was convinced there'd been a terrible mistake. The ticket was for parking in a bus zone.

Ingels looked left, he looked right. No bus zone.

Not long after, Ingels called a colleague of mine at The Times, who passed his story on to me. I called him to ask what he'd done about the ticket.

"Fight it, like I do everything," Ingels told me on the phone, saying his wife shared his outrage after hearing him tell the story.

Ingels said he called LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and "what's his name?"

Who? I asked.

"The mayor."

Villaraigosa?

"Yeah, what's-his-name."

Ingels, 76, says the mayor told him he'd have someone look into it. Meanwhile, Ingels had to pay the $293 fine, which he found outrageous, while contesting the ticket. Twice, his challenges were thrown out at administrative hearings, and even then, he kept fighting.

I remembered Ingels, who sounds like he just left Brooklyn yesterday, from his comic days and a TV show called "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster." That was a long time ago, though, and I wondered if the ticket writer got it right and Ingels was a little hazy on where he'd been that day. So I asked him to tell me if the address on the ticket was the address of the photo shop.

No, he said. That was part of the mistake. The ticket was written for a location 10 or 20 blocks away.

OK, I said, but wasn't it possible he had been parked in the bus zone earlier and got the ticket, but didn't notice it until he got to the photo shop?

"You're like a priest and a therapist," Ingels said. "I'll deny we ever spoke."

At this point, Ingels made two confessions.

First, in the time between him calling The Times, and me returning his call, he'd already beaten the ticket.

But the next confession was a doozy. Just as he was notified by mail that the ticket had been dismissed, he realized he was guilty, after all.

Say what?

It was an honest mistake, Ingels insisted. He ran a hundred errands that day, and totally forgot parking in the bus zone while he ran into a sign shop. But the ticket writer had taken photos, and at one of the ticket hearings, a car that looked very much like Ingels' Cadillac Escalade was parked in the bus zone.

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Hamas Strengthens as Palestinian Authority Weakens

RAMALLAH, West Bank — In the daily demonstrations here of solidarity with Gaza, a mix of sympathy and anguish, there is something else: growing identification with the Islamist fighters of Hamas and derision for the Palestinian Authority, which Washington considers the only viable partner for peace with Israel.

“Strike a blow on Tel Aviv!” proclaim the lyrics of a new hit song blasting from shops and speakers at Monday’s demonstration, in a reference to Hamas rockets that made it nearly to Israel’s economic and cultural capital. “Don’t let the Zionists sleep! We don’t want a truce or a solution! Oh Palestinians, you can be proud!”

Pop songs everywhere are filled with bravado and aggression. But this one reflects a widespread sentiment that does not augur well for President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority, which is rapidly losing credibility, even relevance. The Gaza truce talks in Cairo, involving Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, offer a telling tableau. The Palestinian leader seen there is not Mr. Abbas, but Khaled Meshal, the leader of the militant group Hamas, who seeks to speak for all Palestinians as his ideological brothers in the Muslim Brotherhood rise to power around the region.

Israel is also threatening Mr. Abbas, even hinting that it may give up on him, as he prepares to go to the United Nations General Assembly on Nov. 29 to try to upgrade the Palestinian status to that of a nonmember state. The Israelis consider this step an act of aggression, and even some Palestinians say it is somewhat beside the point at this stage.

“His people are being killed in Gaza, and he is sitting on his comfortable chair in Ramallah,” lamented Firas Katash, 20, a student who took part in the Ramallah demonstration.

For the United States, as for other countries hoping to promote a two-state solution to this century-old conflict, a more radicalized West Bank with a discredited Palestinian Authority would mean greater insecurity for Israel and increased opportunity for anti-Western forces to take root in a region where Islamism is on the rise.

Since Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, threw the Fatah-controlled authority out of Gaza a year later, Mr. Abbas has not set foot there. Yet he will be asking the world to recognize the two increasingly distinct entities as a unified state.

Manar Wadi, who works in an office in Ramallah, put the issue this way: “What is happening in Gaza makes the Palestinian Authority left behind and isolated. Now we see the other face of Hamas, and its popularity is rising. It makes us feel that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t offer a path to the future.”

In Cairo on Monday, Mr. Meshal seemed defiant and confident in his new role, daring the Israelis to invade Gaza as a sixth day of Israeli aerial assaults brought the death toll there to more than 100 people, many of them militants of Hamas and its affiliates. Rockets launched from Gaza hit southern Israel, causing some damage and panic, but no casualties, leaving the death toll there at three.

“Whoever started the war must end it,” Mr. Meshal said at a news conference. “If Israel wants a cease-fire brokered through Egypt, then that is possible. Escalation is also possible.”

Officials in the authority have been holding leadership meetings, staying in close touch with the talks in Cairo and issuing statements of solidarity. They have also sent a small medical delegation to Gaza and argue that there is a new opportunity to forge unity between the two feuding movements. But they are acutely aware of their problem.

“The most dangerous thing is the fact that what we could not do in negotiations, Hamas did with one rocket,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The people had such excitement seeing the occupiers run in panic. It’s a very dangerous message.”

Mr. Abbas, whose popularity has been on the decline as the Palestinian Authority faces economic difficulty and growing Israeli settlements, also ran into trouble not long before the Gaza fighting began when he seemed to give up on the Palestinian demand of a right of return to what is now Israel.

Many Palestinians believe that Israel launched its latest operation in Gaza to block the Palestinian Authority’s United Nations plans by embarrassing it. Israeli officials say that is ridiculous: the operation’s purpose is to stop the growing number of rockets being fired at their communities, and Israelis interrupted their deliberations over the United Nations bid to wage the military campaign.

But Israel says anything that does not involve direct negotiations is a waste of time. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to take severe retaliatory steps against the Palestinian Authority, including cutting off badly needed tax receipts to Palestinian coffers, should Mr. Abbas go ahead at the United Nations.

In a speech here on Sunday night at a Palestinian leadership meeting, Mr. Abbas repeated his determination to go to New York and ask for a change in status to that of nonmember state. He has chosen the symbolically significant date of Nov. 29, when the General Assembly voted in 1947 to divide this land into two states, one Jewish and the other Palestinian Arab.

The United States has asked Mr. Abbas not to do so, but instead to resume direct negotiations with Israel, which have essentially been frozen since 2008.

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Miley Cyrus Celebrates in New York - with Her Entire Family!

11/19/2012 at 07:05 PM EST

From left: Noah, Bill Ray, Tish, Miley, Brandi and Braison Cyrus

Bruce Glikas/Filmmagic

The Cyrus family has a lot to be thankful for this year.

Miley Cyrus is celebrating her 20th birthday on Friday. Her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, is starring as slick lawyer Billy Flynn in the Broadway hit musical Chicago. And it looks like (practically) the whole family is together for the occasions.

Photos show Billy Ray – dressed in a tuxedo – his wife Tish and their kids, Miley, 19, Noah, 12, Brandi, 25, and Braison, 18, all posing together backstage at the Ambassador Theater in New York City on Sunday. (Brother Trace is the only one absent.)

"The whole family had a great time," an observer tells PEOPLE.

They came backstage at intermission to spend time with Billy Ray in his dressing room, and again after the show to meet some of his fellow cast members.

Billy Ray, who began his Broadway run recently, told PEOPLE that his family hadn't come to see him yet partly because he wanted to get comfortable in the role. "I gotta get my legs up [before they see it]," he said. "I think everybody's coming in for Thanksgiving. So we'll see what happens."

Now that they've seen it, it seems his family is giving his performance a thumbs-up. "So glad to be back with my daddy (@billyraycyrus) for the first time in 3 MONTHS!! He was so great on broadway," Noah Tweeted on Monday.

Miley, too, is having a blast in the Big Apple. "What a dope morning. So many fans outside my hotel this a.m. in NYC. If there's this much chaos NOW imagine when I drop this record! #ohsnap," she Tweeted.

As for Billy Ray, whose Chicago run ends Dec. 23, he says taking the part on Broadway has been great fun – and a great challenge.

"I couldn't come up here and do something predictable," he says of the role. "I was offered Rock of Ages, and my instincts said, 'That's a bit predictable for me.' "

But when the role of Billy Flynn came up, Ray explained, "He's the total opposite of me" – and that was just what he wanted.

For more on Billy Ray Cyrus – including what he does (and doesn't) know about Miley's wedding plans – pick up PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

___

Online:

Task force recommendation: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org

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An ethics debate over embryos on the cheap

Dr. Ernest Zeringue was looking for a niche in the cutthroat industry of fertility treatments.

He seized on price, a huge obstacle for many patients, and in late 2010 began advertising a deal at his Davis, Calif., clinic unheard of anywhere else: Pregnancy for $9,800 or your money back.

That's about half the price for in vitro fertilization at many other clinics, which do not include money-back guarantees. Typically, insurance coverage is limited and patients pay again and again until they give birth — or give up.

Those patients use their own eggs and sperm — or carefully select donors when necessary — and the two are combined in a petri dish to create a batch of embryos. Usually one or two are then transferred to the womb. Any embryos left over are the property of the customers.

Zeringue sharply cuts costs by creating a single batch of embryos from one egg donor and one sperm donor, then divvying it up among several patients. The clinic, not the customer, controls the embryos, typically making babies for three or four patients while paying just once for the donors and the laboratory work.

People buying this option from Zeringue must accept concessions: They have no genetic connection to their children, and those children will probably have full biological siblings born to other parents.

Inside the industry, Zeringue's strategy for making embryos on the cheap has spurred debate about the ethical boundaries of creating life.

"I am horrified by the thought of this," said Andrew Vorzimer, a Los Angeles fertility lawyer alarmed that a company — not would-be parents — controls embryos. "It is nothing short of the commodification of children."

Other experts say they see no problem with the arrangement, although the business model and the issues it raises are to be discussed at a meeting in January of the ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Zeringue said the concerns are overblown.

Most of his customers have run out of money and patience by the time they come to his clinic, he said: "They're kind of at the end of the line."

::

Natosha Dukart and her husband, Brad, an oil field worker, spent more than $100,000 without producing a child. They ran up credit cards, flipped houses and moved four times to help finance round after round of IVF.

It was never clear if the problem was her eggs or his sperm.

After eight unsuccessful attempts, Natosha took to the Internet and found Zeringue's clinic, California IVF: Davis Fertility Center Inc., and its embryo program, California Conceptions. With no financial risk, there was nothing to lose.

"It was an easy choice," Natosha said.

She sent their photographs to the clinic and filled out a form saying they wanted a Caucasian baby. Two months later, they received a profile of an embryo the clinic had frozen in storage. Both donors had brown eyes and healthy family histories.

The Dukarts liked the description and this February traveled from their home near Calgary to Davis in an attempt to get Natosha pregnant.

"It was just as emotional as it was with our own embryos," she said.

Last month, at age 39, she gave birth to a healthy 7-pound girl with blue eyes and dark hair. The couple named her Milauna.

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Gaza Violence Is Unabating as Other Nations Push for Truce

GAZA CITY — Israeli forces killed at least 11 people, including several children, in a single airstrike that destroyed a home here on Sunday, as Israel pressed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip for a fifth day, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave.

The airstrike, which the Israeli military said was meant to kill a Palestinian militant involved in the recent rocket attacks, was the deadliest operation to date and would no doubt weigh on negotiations for a possible cease-fire. Among the dead were five women and four small children, The Associated Press reported, citing a Palestinian health official.

Two media offices were also hit on Sunday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel warned of a “significant” expansion in the onslaught, which has already killed over 50 people, many of them civilians.

Speaking on Sunday from Bangkok, President Obama condemned missile attacks by Palestinian fighters in Gaza and defended Israel’s right to protect itself.

“There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Mr. Obama said in his first public comments since the violence broke out. “We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The president also said that efforts were under way to address Israel’s security concerns and end the violence. “We’re going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours,” Mr. Obama said.

Even as the diplomacy intensified on Sunday, the attacks continued in Gaza and Israel.

Mr. Netanyahu made his warning as militants in Gaza aimed at least one rocket at Tel Aviv, a day after Israeli forces broadened the attack beyond military targets, bombing centers of government infrastructure in Gaza, including the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister.

“We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations, and the Israel Defense Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation,” Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet at its routine Sunday meeting, referring directly to the of thousands of reservists who have been called up and the massing of armor on the Gaza border that many analysts have interpreted as preparations for a possible invasion.

“I appreciate the rapid and impressive mobilization of the reservists who have come from all over the country and turned out for the mission at hand,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Reservist and conscript soldiers are ready for any order they might receive.”

His remarks were reported shortly after a battery of Israel’s Iron Dome defense shield, hastily deployed near Tel Aviv on Saturday in response to the threat of longer-range rockets, intercepted at least one aimed at the city on Sunday, Israeli officials said. It was the latest of several salvos that have illustrated Hamas’s ability to extend the reach of its rocket attacks.

Since Wednesday, when the escalation of the conflict began, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said Saturday, while 500 have struck Israel.

The American-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground. But on Sunday a rocket fired from Gaza plowed through the roof of an apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of casualties there.

In Gaza City, the crash of explosions pierced the quiet several times throughout the early morning.

Before the latest deadly strike involving civilians on Sunday, Hamas health officials had said the Palestinian death toll had risen to 53. One of the latest victims was a 52-year-old woman whose house in the eastern part of Gaza City was bombed around lunchtime.

A few hours earlier, a Hamas militant was killed and seven people were wounded in an attack on the Beach Refugee Camp, where Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister, has a home. Those killed on Sunday included three children ages 1 through 5, the health officials said.

In Israel, 3 civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were wounded on Saturday.

The onslaught continued despite talks in Cairo that President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt said Saturday night could soon result in a cease-fire. Mr. Netanyahu said he would consider a comprehensive cease-fire if the launchings from Gaza stopped.

The attack on Mr. Haniya’s office, one of several on government installations, came a day after he hosted his Egyptian counterpart in the same building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world.

Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram reported from Gaza City. Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem; Tyler Hicks from Gaza, Peter Baker from Bangkok, Alan Cowell from London, Michael Schwirtz from New York and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

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Tom Cruise & George Clooney Sign On to Sci-Fi Films & More Casting News

By Julia Haskins

11/18/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

George Clooney and Tom Cruise

Daniel Deme/EPA/Landov; Jackson Lee/Splash News Online

Get ready to squirm!

Tom Cruise, George Clooney and Ashley Greene have all signed on to star in some creepy film projects.  

Cruise takes on aliens in the sci-fi war flick All You Need Is Kill, Zimbio reports. After dying in battle, the alien-fighting soldier Cruise must relive the day again and again until he can escape the cycle. The movie is scheduled for a March 2014 release.

Meanwhile, Clooney is in talks to play the lead in 1952, a sci-fi flick about a man who contacts extra-terrestrial life on Earth, Variety reports. 

After starring in the Twilight saga, Greene is no stranger to the supernatural. She's been tapped for Satanic, a horror movie that follows a group of college students who spend Thanksgiving break in their dorm, only to battle a mysterious gang and try to survive what they thought would be a relaxing week, TheWrap reports.

Also coming soon: 

• A third season is in the works for American Horror Story, Deadline reports. Jessica Lange is one of several actors set to return in different roles for the new installment. Production will begin in summer 2013 and premiere in the fall of 2013.

• It's a family affair for Jack Nicholson and Robert Downey Jr., who will play father and son in The Judge, Ace Showbiz reports. The courtroom drama follows a lawyer who comes home after his mother's death only to discover that his father is a suspect in the murder.

• After endless rumors, Michael Bay has made it official on his website: Mark Wahlberg will star in Transformers 4, The Hollywood Reporter confirms. "Mark is awesome," Bay said. "We had a blast working on Pain and Gain and I'm so fired up to be back working with him. An actor of his caliber is the perfect guy to re-invigorate the franchise and carry on the Transformers' legacy.” Transformers 4 hits theaters June 27, 2014.

• Legos are getting the Hollywood treatment with the help of some big name talent. Liam Neeson, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks and Morgan Freeman have all joined the cast of Lego: Piece of Resistance, THR confirms. Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman and Will Arnett are also on board for the 3D animated movie. The movie comes to theaters February 7, 2014.

• Two Steve McQueen biopics are in the works, Ace Showbiz reports.
Brothers Chris Hemsworth and Liam Hemsworth are slated to star in the film Triumph AKA 40 Summers Ago, while Jeremy Renner has signed on to a different untitled Steve McQueen flick.

• Chris Hemsworth will also star in the crime thriller Candy Store, Ace Showbiz reports. The film revolves around an operative who must start over after losing everything.

• One Direction may sing "They Don’t Know About Us," but fans will get a behind-the-scenes look at the world of the powerhouse group in their new movie, AceShowbiz reports. "We are going to do our first-ever movie and it's going to be in 3D and it's coming to cinemas near you on the 30th of August, 2013," Niall Horan said on the band's appearance on Today.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Jerry Brown hurdles over sophomore traps

SACRAMENTO — There's a strange atmosphere in Sacramento. It's as if there has just been a gubernatorial election and the incumbent has decisively won another term.

All hail the governor. The people have reaffirmed their confidence in his leadership. His contract has been renewed.

That's only the mind playing tricks, of course.

Gov. Jerry Brown merely won passage of a tax increase — and one that was about the easiest imaginable for voters to swallow. Only the top 1% or so will be nailed with the higher income tax rates. There'll be a tiny sales tax bump. The beneficiaries will be schoolchildren and college kids.

Brown still faces reelection in 2014, assuming he's up to running. He'll be 76. But he just showed he's capable of a month-long sprint.

There's no major opponent on the horizon, none of any kind. There's no rational incentive to challenge someone who seems unbeatable. The left wouldn't dare. Brown occupies the center. The right is moribund.

Here's the lofty perch on which the Democrat currently rests: He's the most politically fit California governor at this stage of his tenure since Earl Warren back in World War II. By this stage, I mean following the second year of his reign.

I'd say "most powerful" except that all California governors possess phenomenal power. Some use it better than others. We'll see how Brown uses his in the future.

But for now, he's about the only governor in the last half-century to have escaped the sophomore jinx that has plagued his predecessors.

Go back to his father, Gov. Pat Brown. He was elected by a landslide in 1958. But in his sophomore year, 1960, Brown was dubbed "a tower of jelly" for trying to save notorious "Red Light Bandit" Caryl Chessman from the gas chamber — at son Jerry's pleading. At that summer's Democratic National Convention in L.A., Pat Brown was tagged a "bumbler" for failing to control California's splintered delegation.

His job ratings tumbled. The derisive monikers stuck throughout his career, even though Brown became a great governor.

Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown — the 1970s version — became afflicted with Potomac fever in their second years as governor, running lamely for president. Reagan recovered; Brown never fully did.

Gov. Pete Wilson suffered a horrendous second year. He meddled awkwardly in Republican legislative primaries and lost. He became bogged down in a summer-long budget quagmire. He sponsored a welfare/budget "reform" initiative that voters rejected. His job approval fell into the low 30s.

Gov. Gray Davis began stumbling down the path to eventual recall in his sophomore year by ducking as the power pirates profited and California fell into an energy crisis. He also was bullied by liberal legislators into spending temporary revenue on permanent programs, leading to huge deficits.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a colossal sophomore failure. He called a costly special election for his divisive, clumsily written "reform" package that voters soundly rejected. His approval ratings plummeted.

Contrast all that with Jerry Brown's year. He just bolstered his governorship by finessing rare voter approval of a riskily sought tax increase. At last count, Proposition 30 was ahead by a surprising 9.4 percentage points.

Brown's job approval rating among voters, according to a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times post-election poll, is a respectable 49%. And 54% of people under 30 approve of the old guy.

His future is on the upswing. He's not even facing lame-duck syndrome, as he would be if he truly had been reelected to another term. And he should benefit from new supermajority Democratic control of both legislative houses.

Brown is in an extraordinary position to perform great deeds.

This governor doesn't ordinarily like to talk about agendas — he's basically a single-focus type — but he did mention five priorities at a post-election news conference.

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