Live blog: Samsung’s new gear at CES 2013

yep thats how apple works now, but can you stream network flash players thru your i pad via apple tv , answer = no , same with google tv. hook the comp directly to the comp get a wireless keayboard and an air mouse , and fyi windows media player can be streamed wirelessly from any pc all you need is a 50 dollar blue ray player , if you want to stream media from a hard drive wirelessly it just has to be one built to the standard like any wd home drive , but dont go usb get one that connects via gigabit

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Justin Bartha Is Dating Trainer Lia Smith

01/07/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Lia and Justin in Hawaii New Years Day

Pacific Coast News

Justin Bartha's "mystery woman" is in fact his girlfriend, trainer Lia Smith, a source reveals to PEOPLE.

The pair recently enjoyed a cozy trip to Smith's native Hawaii and were snapped basking in the sun on Maui on New Year's Day, which got people buzzing about her identity.

"They were very cute with each other," says an eyewitness. "They had their arms around each other and were kissing."

The couple also spent time with Smith's parents on Oahu. Bartha, who currently stars on The New Normal, was previously linked to Scarlett Johansson and dated Ashley Olsen for two years before breaking up in 2011.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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LAPD officers allegedly forced women to have sex with them

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers are under investigation for allegedly preying on women over a period of five years, luring them into an unmarked car and forcing them to perform sex acts, according to court records.

Detectives from the LAPD’s internal affairs unit suspect that Officers Luis Valenzuela and James Nichols targeted at least four women whom they had arrested previously or who worked for them as informants, according to a search warrant reviewed by The Times.

The pair repeatedly used the threat of jail to get women into their car and drove them to secluded areas where one of the officers demanded sex while the other kept watch, the warrant alleges.

Valenzuela and Nichols worked together until recently as narcotics officers in the Hollywood Division. Investigators have identified four women who encountered the pair and made similar independent accusations against them.

The warrant cites sexually explicit text messages that one alleged victim claims she exchanged with the officers after their encounters. Last month, investigators obtained the woman’s cellphone and computers in hopes of finding the messages the officers are alleged to have written. The department has yet to examine the electronic devices, a police official said.

Investigators had planned to confront the officers in a surprise operation early next week, but were forced to accelerate those plans Thursday, when one of the women unexpectedly filed a lawsuit against the officers. Fearing that Valenzuela and Nichols might destroy evidence, investigators rushed to sequester the officers and seize their computers and phones, police confirmed.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck emphasized Thursday that the investigation was ongoing, but added that he was “saddened by the allegations. If they are true, it would be horrific,” he said.

Valenzuela, a 15-year department veteran, and Nichols, a 12-year veteran, were expected to be assigned to their homes pending the outcome of the probe, the head of the internal affairs group said. The officers could not be reached for comment.

The first woman to accuse Valenzuela and Nichols came forward in January 2010, when she told a supervisor in their narcotics unit that the officers had stopped her more than a year earlier, according to the warrant. The woman, who worked as a confidential informant for the narcotics unit and knew the men, said they were dressed in plainclothes and driving a Volkswagen Jetta. Valenzuela threatened to take the woman to jail if she refused to get in the car, then got into the back seat with her and exposed himself, telling the woman to touch him, the warrant said.

An investigation into the woman’s claim went nowhere when the detective assigned to the case was unable to locate her, according to the warrant.

A year later, however, another woman demanded to speak to a supervisor after being arrested and taken to the LAPD’s Hollywood station. Sometime in late 2009, according to the warrant, two officers driving a Jetta pulled up alongside her as she was walking her dog in Hollywood. The officers, whom she recognized as the same cops who had arrested her in a previous encounter, ordered her into the car, the woman recounted. It is not known why she was arrested.

Believing that the officers were investigating a case, the woman said she felt compelled to comply. Valenzuela then got into the back seat with the woman and handed her dog to Nichols, who drove the car a short distance to a more secluded area. “Why don’t you cut out that tough girl crap,” the woman recounted Valenzuela saying as he “unzipped his pants and forced [her] head down toward his lap and physically held her head down” as he forced her to perform oral sex on him, according to police records contained in the warrant.

The woman said she didn’t report the incident immediately because she felt humiliated, thought no one would believe her and feared for her safety. Police noted that the woman displayed erratic behavior while recounting the events. Later, she made violent threats while in custody and was transported to a hospital.

Based on this allegation, the department reopened the investigation into the pair. The investigator assigned to the case interviewed this second accuser and managed, as well, to find the first woman who had come forward the year before. She, too, gave a statement, saying she had refused Valenzuela’s commands to fondle him.

For reasons not explained in the warrant, the department’s investigation made little progress for the next 18 months. During this time, police records show, the officers were transferred, with Valenzuela being reassigned to the Olympic Division and Nichols to the Northeast Division. (Nichols was involved in the high-profile arrest last year of Brian C. Mulligan, an executive at Deutsche Bank, who alleged he was the victim of excessive force. Police contend that Mulligan, while deranged on drugs, charged at Nichols and suffered injuries while Nichols and his partner took him into custody).

Cmdr. Rick Webb, who heads the LAPD’s internal affairs group, declined to comment on the specifics of the probe, but said such cases are often difficult to complete.

The case picked up steam again in July 2012, when a man left a phone message for the vice unit at the Northeast station, saying he was a member of the Echo Park neighborhood watch and had been told by a prostitute that patrol officers in the area were picking up prostitutes and letting them go in exchange for oral sex, the warrant said.

Two more months passed before a third internal affairs officer was assigned to look into the Echo Park claim. The investigator was aware of the earlier allegations against Valenzuela and Nichols and “thought the circumstances and location were very similar.”

It is not clear how, but the investigator identified another two women who reported encounters in which Nichols and Valenzuela had sought sexual favors in exchange for leniency.

One said Nichols had detained her in July 2011, handcuffed her and driven her to a quiet location. Removing the restraints, Nichols exposed himself and said, “You don’t want to go to jail today, do you?” the woman recalled. Fearing she would be arrested, the woman performed oral sex on Nichols, who then released her, she said. She said Nichols had done the same thing to her six years earlier.

The other woman discovered by the internal affairs investigator alleged that she became a confidential informant for Valenzuela and Nichols after she was arrested, according to the warrant. Valenzuela, she said, told her that having sex with him would help her avoid jail, according to the warrant. She alleged that she had sex with the officer twice, once when he was off duty at her apartment in Los Angeles, and the second time in the back seat of an undercover police car while he was on duty. She said she was afraid he would send her back to jail if she refused.

She said Nichols contacted her in January 2011 and told her he would cancel her obligation to inform for him if she would have sex with him.

The woman filed a lawsuit against the city Wednesday, alleging that the officers forced her to have sex with them several times in exchange for keeping her out of jail. The Times in general does not name the victims of alleged sex crimes.

That lawsuit was first reported by City News Service. Despite the officers’ promises, the woman was sentenced to jail in April 2011 and remains there, the lawsuit alleged. A district attorney’s spokeswoman said the woman is serving more than seven years in jail for possession of cocaine with intent to sell and identity theft.

ALSO:

Superman caught on video flying along Carlsbad beach

Teens drugged parents to use Internet past curfew, police say

Rare river otter a celebrity after settling near Golden Gate Bridge

-- Joel Rubin and Jack Leonard

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Chinese Newspaper, Southern Weekend, Challenges Censors

Pool photo by

Xi Jinping at a meeting in Beijing in December. Unrest at an influential newspaper, Southern Weekend, has caught the public’s attention.

BEIJING — Turmoil at one of China’s leading newspapers is posing an early challenge to the measured political program of the new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, pitting a pent-up popular demand for change against the Communist Party’s desire to maintain a firm grip.

The unrest at the influential newspaper Southern Weekend began last week when censors appeared to have toned down the paper’s New Year’s letter to readers — traditionally a call for progress in the new year. That caused journalists and their supporters — including students at nearby Sun Yat-sen University — to issue open letters expressing their outrage.

“Our yielding and our silence has not brought a return of our freedom,” the students said in their petition on Sunday, according to a translation by Hong Kong University’s China Media Project. “Quite the opposite, it has brought the untempered intrusion and infiltration of rights by power.”

By Sunday night, the protests had transformed into a real-time melee in the blogosphere — a remarkable development in a country where protests of all kinds are tightly controlled and the media largely know the boundaries of permissible debate.

In this case, the newspaper’s economics and environmental news staffs appeared to declare that they were on strike, while editors loyal to the government shut down or took control of the paper’s official microblogs. One widely distributed staff declaration with 90 signatures said the publication’s microblogs were no longer authentic.

“I don’t know whether it will be a full strike, but I do know the joint statement about the confiscation of the Weibo account has widespread support,” said one former editor, referring to a microblogging site and speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The turmoil at the Guangzhou-based newspaper resonates especially strongly among politically aware Chinese because Mr. Xi chose southern China for a tour after taking power in November. He made a pilgrimage to nearby Shenzhen, where the father of China’s economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, initiated them two decades ago.

Indeed, Mr. Xi seems to be casting himself in the mold of Deng, who was known for bold economic reforms but who also brooked no opposition to the rule of the Communist Party.

The latest indication was a speech Mr. Xi made that also was published in newspapers on Sunday. Speaking to senior leaders, Mr. Xi repeatedly invoked Deng, especially on the need to adhere to “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” a phrase often used to mean a combination of pragmatic policies and one-party rule. He also praised the prereform era, in what appeared to be an effort to appeal to harder-line Communists.

But part of the reason for the clamor for reforms are hopes that Mr. Xi himself has raised. So far he has won praise by calling for China’s constitutional protections to be put in effect, ordering officials to cut pomp and setting in motion an anticorruption campaign.

These actions seem to have prompted the calls for even bolder reforms.

Beyond the unrest at Southern Weekend, editors of the edgy historical journal Yanhuang Chunqiu published a cover article last week arguing that the existing Constitution offered a basis for political reform and that the party’s failure to abide by it was a central cause of political instability. On Friday, the magazine’s Web site was shut down, with officials claiming that it had failed to update its registration.

A message posted by the journal about the shutdown was forwarded 31,000 times, provoking many scathing criticisms of the government. The chief editor, Wu Si, said the journal’s staff had filed the paperwork and could be back online in 10 days.

Optimists say they hope the measures against the two publications were the result of recalcitrant officials appointed by the departing team of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, whose decade in power was marked by an overriding desire for stability. Many members of Mr. Xi’s team will not take office until the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in March, and it could take years for Mr. Xi to put allies into important positions of power.

“If Xi does not remove people and promote some officials, his new policies — if he has any — will be sunk by the old people,” said a senior editor at a top party newspaper who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicacy of the subject. “The conflicts between the old and the new have just emerged.”

Chinese politics since Deng’s time have been defined by similar tensions between liberalization and reaction. But Mr. Xi also confronts millions of increasingly outspoken Internet users whose outpourings can confound even China’s heavy censorship.

Zhan Jiang, a professor of media at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the public anger showed how expectations had risen. “Currently in China people are unusually sensitive to developments like this, and so the reaction has been quite intense,” Mr. Zhan said.

Some are less sure that the atmosphere is more open, saying the media shutdowns have occurred because Mr. Xi has avoided taking a clear position.

“There are still no clear rules on the media, and so officials stick to using their habitual ways to control the media,” said Li Datong, a prominent Chinese newspaper editor fired for his views. “There won’t be any change until Xi Jinping enunciates any ideas about major change.”

Other commentators doubt this will happen. They note that in previous jobs Mr. Xi upheld the status quo and that now that he has reached the pinnacle of his career he is unlikely to support systemic reform.

“This is a traditional viewpoint: if you change the emperor you’ll have a change of policy and maybe some new, hopeful things,” said the exiled Chinese political commentator Zhang Ping, who goes by the pen name Chang Ping. “But I don’t think this is likely, because you still have an emperor.”

Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting from Beijing, and Chris Buckley from Hong Kong.

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Analysts predicting slow start for ‘ultra-HD’ TVs

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Ultra high definition TVs are set to be the talk of International CES, the gadget show kicking off this week, but they aren’t likely to account for much of the market even four years down the road.

That is the conclusion of analysts of the show’s host, a day before TV makers such as Samsung, LG and Sony attempt to wow conference attendees with their latest models.

Ultra-HD TVs, with four times as many pixels as HD TVs, are expected to account for only 1.4 million units sold in the U.S. in 2016, or about 5 percent of the entire market. Sales in the rest of the world are expected to be smaller.

The analysts blamed high prices and low availability for the slow start.

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Jordana Brewster Is 'Enamored' with the Idea of Having Twins

01/06/2013 at 05:00 PM EST

Jordana Brewster has babies on the brain – yes, you read that right: plural.

The Dallas star, 32, who has been married to movie producer Andrew Form since 2007, tells Latina she "definitely" wants two kids and is "enamored" by the idea of having twins.

"My dad was a twin, so it runs in the family," she explains. "Fingers crossed. We're thinking about having kids but I don't know when it'll happen. I feel very ready now."

When the couple does eventually expand their family, the children will be raised in a loving home.

"We FaceTime all of the time," Brewster says, of keeping the romance alive long distance. "We love that. There are times when I just say, 'I need to see you now.' And so we FaceTime a lot, or I surprise him and visit him or he does the same. It's super important … Couples shouldn't be apart for too long. We've been married for five years now and we know how important that is because otherwise you just lose touch with each other."

A big part of their bond has come from the way Form inspires his wife on a professional level.

"It's so amazing to have a husband in the business who can challenge me and we can talk about his work and my work and understand each other in that way," Brewster says. "I love getting his feedback and he likes getting mine. And of course, that has pushed me more to consider producing in the future."

And she's not just talking about babies!

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes

CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.

Wait, what?

If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.

Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.

Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.

"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.

He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.

It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.

Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.

Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."

She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.

Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.

She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.

Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."

Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.

A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.

Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.

"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.

NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.

Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.

Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."

Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.

___

Online:

Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Backyard vineyards take off in Santa Clarita

A group of friends gathered in Roman Weiser's Newhall garage one September day in 2005.

They had with them crushed grapes from Paso Robles, compressed in an oak barrel. They added yeast. And then they waited, periodically monitoring the barrel's contents, straining it of pulp and sediment.

A year later, the friends — most of them amateur vintners — had produced a barrel of wine.

"Our hopes were not really to create outstanding wine," said Weiser, 51, a graphic designer in the advertising industry. "We were just hoping to produce something that was drinkable."

But the Syrah they produced was a hit with their friends and families, and that wine — called Mantis after a praying mantis that flew into the garage where the barrel was stored — launched a trend that is turning this suburban outpost into wine country.

So far, wine production in Santa Clarita is largely noncommercial, carried out by hobbyists who host winemaking parties and showcase their wines at regional viniculture events, sometimes winning awards for their creations. As amateur winemakers, they cannot sell their product, and, unlike the Sierra Pelona Valley just to the north, the Santa Clarita Valley cannot boast a special federal designation as a wine grape growing region.

But about a dozen vineyards have been started in backyards in the area, with such names as Whistling Vineyard, Compa, Bobcat and One Vine Four Branches. Santa Clarita now boasts some 30 winemakers, most of whom belong to the Santa Clarita Vintners and Growers Assn., an informal group launched in 2007. Backyard vintners here produce an average of 30 to 60 gallons of wine each, association members say. For the last five years, a local fundraising event, Sunset in the Vineyard, enables growers to showcase their beverages while helping a cause.

The rising profile of Santa Clarita wine is evident in scattered commercial efforts, including a new wine-crushing facility that opened in part to serve the local market. And despite the subdivisions that dominate the valley, dry hot days and cool evenings make it conducive to growing grapes, local wine enthusiasts say.

"Mantis unleashed the winemaking movement in our part of Santa Clarita," said Weiser, who established Whistling Vineyard on a slope at the back of his property. The 150 plants he cultivates are enough to produce 30 to 35 gallons of wine. His all-natural Syrah and Grenache are made the old-fashioned way. The grapes are stomped by foot and the wine is named for whoever is doing the stomping, Weiser said. Among them are "Jon's Crush" and "Ben's Crush," named for his sons.

"Right now, I'm focusing on producing the best wine possible," said Weiser, who shares the final product with family and friends and donates some to fundraising events.

Fellow vintner Chris Carpenter got his taste for making wine from a kit he bought in 2005. By 2007 he had planted his vineyard, Compa, with about 250 plants on the slope of the Newhall property he co-owns with his brother Tim. The Carpenters, who also work with Weiser, produce about 125 gallons of wine a year, including Merlot red and Roussanne white.

"Nobody is using the kit anymore, that's for sure," Carpenter said.

Steve Lemley and his business partner Nate Hasper, who own the local Pulchella Winery and its tasting room in Old Town Newhall, noticed the jump in interest in local viniculture and decided to capitalize on it. In September they opened the Santa Clarita Valley's first certified wine crush facility to serve commercial vineyard owners, winemakers, distributors and restaurateurs. The company specializes in what it calls "limited-production, ultra premium" red winemaking and offers full-service grape crushing, bin fermentation, barrel storage, bottling and on-site laboratory analysis.

"The Santa Clarita Valley is the gateway to wine country," said Lemley, who was among the friends who gathered in Weiser's garage that day in September 2005. Just north of Santa Clarita are the commercial wineries Agua Dulce, founded in 1999, and Reyes Winery, established in 2004, which is scheduled to host the first Sierra Pelona Valley Wine Festival on Jan. 26.

Eve Bushman, a local writer who has a blog called Eve's Wine 101, said that many Santa Clarita residents are wine enthusiasts and that the area's upscale demographics make it fertile ground for a growing local wine culture. The city already is home to at least five wine bars.

Lemley said his business, called SCV Custom Crush Services, fills a void because local winegrowers otherwise must travel to Ventura or Santa Barbara counties. He hopes his new business will spur more of Santa Clarita's small-scale wine growers to go commercial.

"People are intimidated by commercial winemaking," Lemley said. "We're hoping that we'll be able to help some people … to mentor them through the process in a no-stress home environment and take some of the intimidation factor out of it."

Carpenter said the new wine crush would be "invaluable to guys like me as we start making more wine and our inventory and our capacity to make wine expands."

At SCV Custom Crush's small temperature-controlled warehouse, tucked in a business park just off the Golden State Freeway at Magic Mountain Parkway, grapes are loaded into 1,000-pound bins. A minimum of one ton of fruit, equal to two barrels of wine, is required to start. Grapes are crushed by hand, allowed to ferment for up to four weeks, transferred into a press to extract juice and stored in barrels to undergo the full aging process.

Lemley, 37, a film industry worker whose interest in winemaking was sparked 13 years ago when he wife bought him a $100 kit, said his goal is to produce small lots of high-quality limited-production boutique wines, much like the so-called garagistes, or specialty garage winemakers, of France's Bordeaux region.

"There is a garagiste movement in Santa Clarita right now," Lemley said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

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New High for Tuna at Tokyo Fish Sale

TOKYO — Tokyo’s main fish market ushered in the new year with an auction on Saturday that resulted in the highest price paid here, and probably anywhere, for a tuna.

A Tokyo-based sushi restaurant chain owner paid 155.4 million yen, or about $1.76 million, for a 488-pound bluefin, or about $3,600 per pound.

The record price was offered at the year’s first auction at the Tsukiji fish market, which provides Tokyo with much of its fresh fish. Restaurant owners from Japan and elsewhere in Asia compete annually for the prestige of buying the year’s first tuna, whose meat is prized by sushi fans. Conservationists warn that bluefin has been severely overfished.

The winning bidder was Kiyoshi Kimura, president of the company that runs the Sushi Zanmai chain. The bluefin was caught by a fisherman from Oma, a town renowned in Japan as the source of the most delicious tuna.

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