Euro Official, in New Role, Aims to Mend Rift Over Austerity

BRUSSELS — Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the newly elected president of the group of ministers overseeing the euro, said on Monday he wanted to heal the rift over austerity policies that had bred mistrust between southern and northern nations using the currency.

Mr. Dijsselbloem, 46, the Dutch finance minister, also said he wanted to improve the stature of the group, and the image of the currency, after three years of near-constant crises and moments of deep division.

The only opposition during the vote to elect Mr. Dijsselbloem, held late Monday, came from Luis de Guindos, the Spanish economy minister. Mr. Dijsselbloem, whose term lasts two-and-a-half years, told a news conference that Mr. de Guindos offered no explanation for the decision but he said the Spanish move should not “lead to dramatic consequences.”

Spain is among the countries in southern Europe to have been hardest hit by the austerity policies that northern nations like Finland, Germany and the Netherlands have insisted on as an important solution to the euro crisis.

Spanish officials have been irritated by the preponderance of representatives from so-called Triple-A rated countries, which pay less to borrow than countries with weaker ratings, in top economy jobs in Europe. Spanish officials were particularly angered by a decision last year not to select a Spaniard for a seat on the executive board of the European Central Bank.

In a sign of his concern about fractures in the euro zone, Mr. Dijsselbloem pledged to do what he could to assuage those tensions in his new role coordinating meetings of finance ministers when they make decisions like giving political approval for bailouts and pressing governments to shore up their finances.

“If we are going to approach the euro zone and the euro area as a zone with a harsh line in the middle between Triple-A and non-Triple-A, between the north and the south, there’s no way we’re going to move forward and no way are we going to reach decisions that are so much needed,” Mr. Dijsselbloem said. “So that will definitely not be my approach,” he said.

The French also had concerns about putting a representative from the Netherlands in charge of the group and they insisted that Mr. Dijsselbloem explain to the other 16 finance ministers in the Eurogroup how he intended to carry out the job before the vote was held.

But the French finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, told a news conference that he was satisfied with the outcome because he expected Mr. Dijsselbloem to act fairly. “It’s a Dutchman who is president; it’s not a Dutch presidency,” Mr. Moscovici said.

Mr. Moscovici said he expected other top finance jobs, including the job of overseeing a new banking supervisor based at the European Central Bank, would be allocated to French candidates. But he insisted that was not a reason he voted in favor of Mr. Dijsselbloem’s appointment.

Allies of Mr. Dijsselbloem also have sought to ease fears that his presidency would be divisive, saying that his membership of a left-leaning social democratic party could help him mediate between nations like France with different views to many in the Netherlands on how to stabilize the euro.

“Jeroen should be able, within financial sound limits, to bridge the debate between those who criticize budget cuts and those who emphasize the need to enforce the treaties on budgetary controls,” Thijs Berman, the leader of the Dutch social democrats in the European Parliament, said Monday.

Another goal of Mr. Dijsselbloem is to reform the way the group operates to cut down on the need for emergency sessions and all-night meetings.

In a letter sent to ministers on the eve of the vote, Mr. Dijsselbloem suggested that the group hash out their views in “discussion papers” to make decision-making smoother. He also said he wanted a “clear mandate” to represent the Eurogroup “on an international stage,” including at Group of 20 meetings and in international financial institutions.

“Our focus needs to shift from crisis management to delivering and implementing sound medium-term policies,” Mr. Dijsselbloem said in his letter to ministers.

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Sony to sell new Xperia tablet in Japan: Nikkei

(Reuters) – Sony Corp’s Sony Mobile Communications Inc said it will sell the new version of its Xperia tablet in Japan this spring, the Nikkei reported, citing Kyodo News.

The Xperia Tablet Z, whose price has not been announced, has a 10.1-inch display, is 6.9 mm thin and weighs 495 grams, according to the company’s website.

Rival Google Inc’s Nexus 10 tablet is 8.9 mm thick, while Apple Inc’s iPad mini measures 7.9 mm.

Sony halted sales of Xperia in October, a month after launch, after discovering gaps between the screen and the case that made some of the machines susceptible to water damage.

The Nikkei reported on Sunday that Japanese smartphone makers seem to be regaining some market share they lost to companies like Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.

(Reporting by Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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Vera Wang Reveals Details of Michelle Kwan's Wedding Dress

By Cynthia Wang

01/21/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Michelle Kwan and Clay Pell

Courtesy of Caitlin Maloney

Although she was a singles figure skater throughout her successful career, Michelle Kwan did have one steadfast partner on the ice – fashion designer Vera Wang.

"I wore so many skating dresses designed by her, whole skating shows and everything," Kwan, 32, tells PEOPLE. "I have a long relationship with her."

And that made picking a wedding dress designer a fairly easy decision.

For Kwan's Rhode Island nuptials on Jan. 19 to Clay Pell, 31, Wang put plenty of consideration into her creation.

"She is marrying someone whose family has a political history, and Michelle is living and working in Washington, D.C.," the designer says. "[The dress] had to have a certain dignity and a certain classicism, and I think it was a lot about a new way of looking at tradition."

So Wang created an ivory, strapless mermaid gown for Kwan, made with layers of silk organza and featuring lace appliqué.

"The fact that it's got an inordinate amount of handwork in terms of lace is really a tribute to the art of hand-piecing lace," Wang says. "There is a princess-slash-queenly level of sophistication and quiet without sacrificing a lot of detail."

To complement the formal wedding gown, Kwan asked Wang what she thought of designing a second dress for the reception. "She said, 'Yeah, I got it,' " Kwan says. "She said, 'First dance, yes, and then you've got to change into something else.' "

Her history with the skater was not lost on Wang. "I'm really very honored and very thrilled that a, Michelle has found the love of her life and b, that I am the one to dress her for that special day just as I did for world championships, national championships, and Olympics," she said. "It's just the ongoing saga of our friendship."

For more on Kwan's wedding, including photos and details from the ceremony, pick up a copy of next week's PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Holding on to Downey's place in the space race

Gerald Blackburn walked out of his office and surveyed the ruins of what was once the nerve center of America's space race.

The vast debris field with giant cranes nosing through heaps of broken concrete and metal sheeting had been home to the Downey Industrial Site, a 160-acre campus southeast of Los Angeles where engineers like Blackburn designed the spacecraft that put Americans on the moon.

The largely abandoned buildings were leveled over the holidays to make way for a big-box retail center.

"Unfortunately this is the view of what's left," Blackburn said.

Blackburn is disheartened not just by the demolition but the lack of regard for the legacy of the Downey Plant. From the 1960s to the 1990s, tens of thousands of engineers and technicians built the Apollo modules, and then designed and supervised assembly of the space shuttle fleet.

Blackburn, who worked 35-plus years at the Downey Plant as a technician, systems engineer and project manager, said the history is vanishing with the buildings. He tried not to watch as the structures came down.

Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and khakis, the bearded Blackburn looks younger than his 68 years. Growing up in the Lynwood/South Gate area, Blackburn was a "garage tinkerer" who started working at the Downey Plant straight out of Don Bosco Technical Institute, a Roman Catholic high school in Rosemead.

It was a time of challenge and excitement, he said. "We would get up in the morning wondering what new problem there was to solve," Blackburn said. "The nation called us and we responded."

It was also a time of sacrifice; marriages crumbled, and Blackburn lost sight in one eye in a testing accident.

Blackburn runs a volunteer group, the Aerospace Legacy Foundation, out of the last original building of significance at the plant site, an Art Deco timber-and-beam structure designed by Gordon Kaufman, architect of the Hoover Dam and the Los Angeles Times building.

His offices are filled with memorabilia from what he calls the "Cosmic Camelot" years. A photograph on one wall shows women at the assembly line in high-rise trousers and pinned-up hair. During World War II, tens of thousands of workers at the Downey Plant built training planes for the military.

A panel from the Apollo 13 moon capsule is mounted with a plaque signed by the crew, thanking Downey workers for getting them home safely. "That's one of our treasures," Blackburn said. By the back door is a wooden cutout of the Snoopy cartoon character dressed as an astronaut labeled in peeling paint, "Next Launch Date." The sign was used to announce missions, he said.

After the space shuttle program wound down, the city of Downey bought the site from the federal government and turned part of it into a movie production facility. Major films like "Spider-Man" were made at Downey Studios.

But advances in movie technology and runaway production eliminated the need for big sound stages, and the facility shut down, Blackburn said.

The city heavily courted Tesla Motors to replace film production with electric car manufacturing. For a full-page newspaper advertisement, the entire Downey City Council dressed up in "Downey [Heart] Tesla" T-shirts, holding a banner that read "Apollo to Tesla … the legacy continues."

But in 2010, Tesla decided to move into an old Toyota factory in Fremont in the Bay Area.

Many people in Downey were deeply disappointed, Blackburn said, when the City Council in January approved plans for the 77-acre big-box center "Tierra Luna Marketplace."

"Everybody's reaction was this development seems so short-sighted," Blackburn said. "Can't you do better?"

There's already a shopping center on the former plant site, Downey Landing. A sports park, a Kaiser Permanente hospital and a small museum called the Columbia Memorial Space Center are also on the grounds. The space center honors the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart on reentry in 2003, killing all seven on board.

Although Downey has managed to save the first Taco Bell and the first McDonald's arch, all that's left at the Downey Plant to honor the men and women who worked on the space program, aside from the aerospace legacy's collection and efforts, are a few plaques and artwork, Blackburn said.

"It's a very small token of 80 years of history that happened here," he said.

Blackburn had hoped there could be a tie-in event at the Downey Plant to the ballyhooed journey last September of the space shuttle Endeavour to its retirement berth in Exposition Park. It didn't happen.

A full-scale shuttle mock-up that Downey workers built in the 1970s to land the space shuttle contract survived the plant's destruction. Blackburn and the city would like to see it on display for visitors. But the city is still looking for money to build a permanent home for the mock-up.

So while crowds lined up 10 deep on sidewalks to watch the Endeavour overhead, the mock-up sat under lock and key in a white tent next to the Columbia Memorial Space Center. The Endeavour flew over the 5 Freeway in the vicinity of Downey, but only because it was on its way to Disneyland, Blackburn said.

Blackburn said he is developing a virtual tour of the Downey Plant for smartphones that visitors could view as they walk through the old grounds. He is also hoping to team with some of the other aerospace pioneers and companies to commemorate and preserve their joint history.

"The story has not been told of the men and women of this nation and this community that built the most incredible and complex machines in the history of mankind," Blackburn said.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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Bomb Attacks in Greece Raise Fear of Revived Radicalism

Angelos Tzortzinis for the International Herald Tribune

Riot police were stationed in front of Villa Amalia, a gathering point in central Athens that has long been home to antiauthoritarian youth and some anarchists. Violence flared after police raids there.

ATHENS — When alarms jolted Christos Konstas awake at 4 a.m. recently, he thought a neighbor’s apartment had caught fire. But as he made his way to the building’s lobby, it was clear something more nefarious had taken place.

The remnants of a crude bomb lay smoldering at the front door.

A police officer, recognizing Mr. Konstas as a television commentator who had often defended the Greek government’s efforts to cope with the financial crisis, pulled him aside. “Another journalist was also just hit,” the officer told him in a low voice. Within minutes, reports emerged of explosions at the homes of three more journalists.

Greece has been dealing with an outbreak of violence in recent weeks, following several months in which such activity seemed to have calmed. On Sunday, a crude bomb exploded at the country’s largest shopping mall in a middle-class suburb of Athens, injuring two security guards and escalating a wave of attacks that have gripped the nation’s attention. No immediate claim of responsibility was made.

The government, which just secured $60 billion in aid from its international creditors, says it is determined to crack down on lawless behavior and to press a safety agenda that, as a candidate, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had vowed to undertake.

The problem, his opponents say, is that in its bid to restore order the government is provoking exactly the violence it says it is trying to quash. They say the government’s true aim is to distract public attention from a growing tax scandal that threatens the stability of the shaky governing coalition.

They point to a police raid on Dec. 20 on the Villa Amalia, a gathering point in central Athens that has been home to antiauthoritarian youth and some anarchists for two decades. While the Greek authorities called the Villa an “anarchist stronghold,” its occupants described it as a cultural center offering free concerts, an occasional children’s nursery and a space for publishing antiauthoritarian literature.

The police evicted the squatters, arrested eight people and confiscated gas masks, propane gas and hundreds of empty beer bottles that they said could be used to make explosives and firebombs. They conducted a second raid on Jan. 9, arresting 92 squatters who had moved back in and padlocked the building.

Within days of the second raid, violence flared. Attacks were carried out on Greek government offices, banks, businesses and other establishment symbols, including the simultaneous explosions at Mr. Konstas’s building and the homes of the other journalists. The home of the government spokesman’s brother was firebombed. On Monday, unidentified gunmen strafed Mr. Samaras’s party headquarters with an AK-47.

The bomb that was ignited Sunday went off at 11 a.m. inside a shopping center run by a company belonging to one of Greece’s wealthiest men, Spiros Latsis. About 200 people were inside when news organizations received calls warning that a bomb would explode in half an hour. The police evacuated the building and said that an investigation was under way.

So far, no one has been seriously hurt in any of the attacks, which seemed intended more for effect than harm. But they raised questions, Greek antiterrorism officials said, about whether new groups of radical left militants are reviving in the wake of the Villa Amalia eviction, perpetuating a turbulent history of violent episodes that have plagued Greece since the collapse of the military junta in 1974.

To its opponents, the timing of the raids raised questions about the government’s motives. They say that Mr. Samaras’s coalition partners are trying to disentangle themselves from the so-called Lagarde list scandal, involving accusations that they failed to pursue rampant tax evasion by the wealthy and well connected. The publication of the list of more than 2,000 Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland, which the government was given two years ago but did little with, has threatened his coalition — though on Friday the Greek Parliament voted to investigate the role played by a former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou.

Aggelos Petropoulos contributed reporting.

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BlackBerry Z10 confirmed for Verizon in new leak

Another day, another handful of BlackBerry 10 leaks to enjoy as the tech world waits for the new platform’s January 30th unveiling. Twitter user “evleaks,” who has a solid track record of leaking accurate details and images of unreleased smartphones, published a purported screenshot from Verizon Wireless (VZ) on Friday. The document confirms some details we already know — RIM’s (RIMM) first full-touch BlackBerry 10 phone will be called the BlackBerry Z10 and will feature 4G LTE, among other specs — and it also confirms Verizon will support the handset. An image of Verizon’s BlackBerry Z10 screenshot follows below.

[More from BGR: Samsung’s latest monster smartphone will reportedly have a 5.8-inch screen]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Selena Gomez vs. Justin Bieber: Who Sang It Better?

By Alison Schwartz

01/20/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber

Bryan Bedder/Getty; Steve Mack/FilmMagic

Selena Gomez didn't officially comment on the status of her relationship with on-again, off-again beau Justin Bieber at her New York City acoustic concert benefit for UNICEF. She didn't have to: her song choices seemed to do all the talking.

Along with a cover of industry pal Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble," she also performed a rousing rendition of Justin Timberlake's ultimate breakup anthem: "Cry Me a River."

"I’ve kind of been through a lot these past couple of months, and it’s been really interesting and fun at the same time – and weird and sad, but cool," Gomez, 20, told the audience gathered Saturday night before launching into the 2002 pop single. "This song has helped me through a lot, and if anybody knows 'N Sync or, you know, some J.T., you’re gonna know what I’m talking about. But this song definitely speaks to me."

Of course, true Be-liebers know who made the first move: At his November concert in Boston, Bieber, 18, grabbed his acoustic guitar for a stripped-down version of Timberlake's hit, which takes on the feeling of finding out a partner has been cheating. (According to Vulture, he also covered the song in 2008.)

Watch the former couple try their hands at Timberlake's tune, and tell us in the comments below: Who deserves a standing ovation?

• Reporting by GABRIELLE OLYA

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Homeless inventor, generous doctor are pod-ners in helping others

SACRAMENTO — The smell of the blossoms had drawn Mike Williams to the rose garden sometime after midnight. Capitol Park security guards were scarce at that hour, and he hoped to get a little sleep.

At 60, the medical technology inventor and entrepreneur was homeless, his money gone, his 28-year marriage over.

But on that August night, things got worse: Williams was awakened by brutal kicks to his midsection. The thieves grabbed his backpack and laptop — which he'd been using to chronicle his unexpected journey.

When he was able, Williams stumbled two miles to an emergency room.

"My biggest fear was that I'd lose my faith," Williams said recently. "But it took those guys who beat me up for me to meet Dr. Chen."

A 72-year-old urologist with an easy laugh, Jong L. Chen later operated on the homeless man's damaged prostate — treating him "with total respect and love," Williams said.

Then Chen took a leap of faith.

Today, the two men are partners in a start-up venture that aims to use Williams' street insights to help others. Compliments of Chen, Williams also now has a roof over his head.

When they shook on the partnership, Williams did not let go.

"Do you mind if I just hold your hand for a minute?" he asked Chen. "Because I don't touch people anymore."

::

Short and stout with thick sideburns and sparkling blue eyes, Williams is full of gratitude these days, tearing up easily when chronicling what he has lost — and gained.

But then, hardship notwithstanding, he has always been prone to optimism.

Williams grew up poor in a small pink trailer in Pollock Pines, Calif., and was on his own by the time he was 14, working two jobs while attending high school. He served in Vietnam, then made his way to the San Francisco Peninsula, where his entrepreneurial spirit took flight.

During a dental checkup, Williams asked Dr. Ronald Asti if he had a camera that would let him peer inside patients' mouths. When the dentist said he didn't, Williams replied: "I want to make one."

The intra-oral camera he invented in the mid-1980s was "one of the best things to come around in dentistry," said Asti, who was Williams' business partner. "He was the leader."

But those brilliant ideas didn't necessarily translate into business success, Asti said.

Despite ample cash infusions from a local investor, their company did not reach profitability; in 1991 they sold to Canoga Park-based New Image Industries.

Five years later, Williams turned his next venture into the nation's second-largest manufacturer of intra-oral dental cameras, with more than $13 million in annual sales. But rapid revenue growth was outpaced by marketing and other expenses, and New Image snatched that one up too.

Williams' constant push to turn big ideas into bigger companies landed his family on a roller coaster of success and disappointment. At one point, they had to leave their plush Atherton, Calif., home — with its pool, tennis courts and horses — behind.

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