U.S. Aid to Syria Shows Obama’s Cautious Approach to Crisis

ROME — The food rations and medical supplies that Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday would be provided to the Free Syrian Army mark the first time that the United States has publicly committed itself to sending nonlethal aid to the armed factions that are battling President Bashar al-Assad.

But the nature of the assistance also illustrates the Obama administration’s caution about getting involved in the Syrian crisis.

At each stop of his first foreign trip as secretary of state, Mr. Kerry has emphasized that one of his principal goals was to change Mr. Assad’s calculations about his ability to remain in power.

Mr. Assad is “out of time and must be out of power,” Mr. Kerry asserted after meeting here with Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition.

The announcement of the supplies fell well short of the weapons and equipment Syrian rebels have requested and left unclear why Mr. Assad, who has fired Scud missiles at the city of Aleppo, would now conclude that he could no longer stand up to his opponents.

The nonlethal aid was just one element of the American program of assistance that Mr. Kerry unveiled on Thursday.

The United States is also providing $60 million to help the political wing of the Syrian anti-Assad coalition improve the delivery of basic services like sanitation and education in areas it has already wrested from the government’s control.

A covert effort to program to train rebel fighters, which State Department officials here were not prepared to discuss, has also been under way. According to an official in Washington, who asked not to be identified, the Central Intelligence Agency since last year has been training groups of Syrian rebels in Jordan.

The official did not provide details about the training or what difference it may have made on the battlefield, but said that the C.I.A. had not given weapons or ammunition to the rebels. An agency spokesman declined to comment.

Defending the limited program to provide medical supplies and military rations known as Meals Ready to Eat, or M.R.E.’s, to the military wing of the Syrian resistance, Mr. Kerry said that other countries would also provide help. He said that the “totality” of the effort would make an impression on Mr. Assad.

“We’re doing this, but other countries are doing other things,” Mr. Kerry said. But neither he nor any diplomats at a meeting here of the so-called Friends of Syria countries that support the Syrian resistance provided details about that effort.

Britain is planning more substantial nonlethal aid, which could include vehicles, bulletproof vests and night vision equipment, according to an American official. British officials have been consulting with European counterparts about what sort of nonlethal aid might be allowed under the terms of European Union decisions.

There is speculation that the Obama administration might expand its program of support to the Free Syrian Army to include nonlethal equipment if rebel fighters use the initial assistance effectively and do not allow any to fall into the hands of extremists.

“We’re in the Middle East. It’s all about the bargaining,” said Mona Yacoubian, a Middle East expert at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington. “It could be this is part of a strategy of deliberately trickling in aid, to sort of see how things are going on the ground. You start with harmless things, like M.R.E.’s. Is this a conversation starter? We might think of it that way.”

But Mr. Kerry provided no indication that the White House was committed to such a phased expansion of nonlethal support.

“I am going back to Washington with a number of thoughts and ideas that were put on the table today, and I’m confident we’re going to have a robust and ongoing conversation,” he said.

Some members of the Syria opposition said they were disappointed by the Rome session.

“It is obvious that the real support is absent,” said Walid al-Bunni, a spokesman for the anti-Assad coalition. He said what the resistance needed most was weapons. “What we want is to stop the Scuds launched on Aleppo, to stop the warplanes that are bombing our towns and villages.”

Mr. Khatib, for his part, delivered an emotional statement in which he urged establishment of a humanitarian corridor to the besieged city of Homs, and complained that many in the West were too quick to judge some members of the opposition as Islamic extremists because of “the length of a beard of a fighter.”

“Bashar Assad, for once in your life, behave as a human being,” Mr. Khatib said. “Bashar Assad, you have to make at least one wise decision in your life for the future of your country.”

One aim of the $60 million in aid is to help the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the umbrella group led by Mr. Khatib that the United States backs and has helped shape, in building credibility within the country and contesting the influence of extremist groups like the Al Nusra Front, an organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.

American officials have become increasingly concerned that the Al Nusra Front is making inroads among the Syrian population by dispersing assistance in the areas it controls.

The American assistance could also help the Syrian coalition develop the governance skills it will need to play a role in any post-Assad political transition.

The funds are to be used in areas controlled by the Syrian opposition coalition to improve education, sanitation and security. Another goal is to strengthen the rule of law in these areas and discourage vigilante justice or revenge killings. To carry out the program, the United States plans to send technical advisers to the headquarters of the Syrian opposition in Cairo. The advisers will be drawn from nongovernmental organizations.

The $60 million is on top of more than $50 million in assistance, including communications equipment, that the United States has already provided to local councils and civil activists. The new funds need to be approved by Congress, which is caught up in politics over how to cut the American budget deficit. But Mr. Kerry said that he expects Congressional approval soon.

Reporting was contributed by Mark Mazzetti from Washington, Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon, and Christine Hauser from New York.

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Josh Duhamel Has 'Full Conversations' with His Unborn Child

FameFlynet

Daddy-to-be Josh Duhamel is so excited about welcoming his first child that he’s begun to bond with wife Fergie‘s belly.

“I’ve had full conversations with the baby already,” Duhamel jokes to PEOPLE at Tuesday’s Nickelodeon upfront presentation in New York. “I’m trying my best to communicate from beyond the womb. Whether it can hear me, I don’t know, but I’m talking to it a lot.”

In addition to enjoying his chats with Fergie’s baby bump, the Safe Haven star, 40, admits he loves the Black Eyed Peas singer’s pregnancy glow.

“She looks so beautiful,” he says. “I look at her now as not only as my beautiful wife, but also as the woman carrying our child. That takes our relationship to a whole new level.”

As for dealing with the sleepless nights, diaper duty and constant feedings, the actor claims he’s up for the challenge.

“I actually look forward to that stuff that people warn you about,” he says. “I don’t mind waking up and dealing with the middle of the night stuff. I wake up early anyway. So I’m definitely ready for it. More so than I’ve ever been.”

There is one task Duhamel really wants to be ready for: ”I hope to be a great dad.”

“I have a lot more life experience than I had at 24. I feel like I’m a little more patient and more wise than I was before,” he explains. “It’s easier said than done, but I’m just looking to raise a good person.”

He adds, “When we saw the ultrasound, that thing was moving around a lot. So I think we are going to have our hands full.”

In the meantime, Duhamel will be busy preparing to host Nickelodeon’s 26th annual Kids’ Choice Awards, airing March 23 at 8 p.m..

“It’s truly bonkers what this show is going to be,” he says. “I’m trying to do things as a host that people would never expect me to do. So if people didn’t take me seriously before, they definitely won’t take me seriously now.”

– Paul Chi

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

__

Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

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Repelled by the worst in the Church, yet held by the best

The first time I visited the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, I found myself in a side chapel that Cardinal Roger Mahony had dedicated to "healing" the victims of clergy sexual abuse. I was shocked to see dozens of school photos left behind by victims or their families that looked just like my brother: the same shy smile, the shock of hacked-off hair.

We had grown up Irish Catholic in the San Fernando Valley in the 1960s and '70s, when the abuse was rampant. But I'd never discussed the scandal with my brother. So I called him, and he told me this story: During a trip to Tijuana to build houses for the poor, the teacher, a member of a religious order, tried to climb into his friend's sleeping bag. The friend kicked him out. Another boy probably didn't.

Chilled by this near-brush with abuse in my own family, I avoided the cathedral for months. But eventually I returned. With the latest round of revelations about Mahony working to shield molester priests from criminal investigation, friends once again are asking why? Why do I call myself Catholic?

Like most Catholics, I reject a good deal of the dogma. The ban on women in the priesthood and views on gays that drove many of my friends and family members out of the church are just as offensive to me.

But over the years I have practiced the religion on and off, on my own terms. And I still see myself as one of the faithful. Or perhaps the loyal opposition is the right term.

It's partly tradition. I grew up in a surprisingly insular Catholic world, given that the San Fernando Valley had no "Catholic" neighborhoods. In my mind, the Valley was made up of parishes — St. Mel's, St. Cyril's — not neighborhoods, each with its own character.

Families came with giant broods of nine, 10, even 13 kids. I was envious. They were so boisterous and jolly. With only four children, our family seemed meager by comparison.

I value my Catholic education. I did 12 years of Catholic school, barely. Because of my poor behavior, some years I would not be invited back and my mother would have to beg the principal to readmit me.

When I got to college, I found to my surprise that I had been fairly well educated, with the glaring exception of history class, where we spent an inordinate amount of time on the Counter-Reformation.

Like many Catholics, I love the pageantry of the church rites. The gilded censer of incense at Benediction. The altars to Mary we built in shoe boxes, lined with blue velvet.

My father grew up with Bishop Buddy of San Diego. When he came to visit our family in full medieval regalia, we were told to genuflect and kiss his ring. Then the bishop put on swim trunks and dove into our neighbor's pool. The about-face was delirious.

We were taught moral values that have faded from modern life, but have a place today, like purity and penitence. Life was full of miracles, from the lame at Lourdes throwing away their crutches to the crown of thorns plant in our backyard. My father told me the shrub always bloomed in blood-red bursts right at Easter.

As Catholics, we were also taught to help the sick and poor by performing good works. I volunteered as a candy-striper at the hospital. We wrote the boys in Vietnam and knitted them bandages. I doubt my bandages, with gaping holes where I had dropped stitches and wildly vacillating widths, were of much use. But I loved making them.

Those hand-knit bandages also went to the leper colony on Molokai. This was but one of the gothic horrors we Catholics were wont to dwell on. St. Agatha, whose breasts were torn from her chest as part of her martyrdom. St. Sebastian, who was pierced by arrows. It didn't occur to me until years later that outsiders would find the iconography distasteful; I found the stories thrilling.

My best friend and I were faithful correspondents, and when our soldier pen pals returned, they offered to take us to Disneyland. I was bitterly disappointed when the nuns forbade it.

Although they wouldn't say why, it was pretty clear what the nuns feared. We were only in middle school, but the race was on to protect our virginity.

Keeping us virgins through high school was the primary goal of the nuns and many of our parents. We girls wanted to play along, really we did, at least in the beginning. But no surprise, the boys had other ideas. They too were supposed to be saving sex for marriage. But you would never have guessed it by their behavior.

I never figured out how the girls got one message and the boys got another. In the end, we picked the boys over the nuns.

During this period, the church began to lose many of the people I grew up with. Girls were getting pregnant and trying to hide it from school and family, with disastrous consequences. The nuns suspended at least one girl who reported that her friend was in trouble, in callous disregard for both students' welfare.

The clergy were held to a different standard, as I saw for myself one Saturday. I was sent out to walk my brother home from a sleepover at a household headed by a single mother, a rarity in our world. Sprawled unshaven at the breakfast table, in an undershirt and boxers, was the assistant pastor. He appeared utterly unconcerned that I had seen him in a compromising position.

And really, his secret, if he even bothered keeping it secret, was safe with me. I never mentioned it to teachers or my parents. It wasn't clear they would have cared. Priests had absolute dominion over us. Parents were happy for any help keeping us in line, with the back of the hand if necessary. Who would have believed me?

So although I had no idea priests were molesting children, I was well aware of sexual hypocrisy in the church. Thoroughly disgusted, I picked a college as far away from my upbringing as I could. UC Berkeley had 35,000 students, 100 times the enrollment at my all-girls school, and was the opposite of insular.

On campus, I rarely mentioned my Catholic background. I thought it made me seem even more hayseedy than I already felt in a new world of prep school students and sophisticates.

But around the edges, I never renounced Catholicism completely. A friend from high school and I sneaked off to the Newman Center, the Catholic campus ministry, for Sunday Mass.

I met Catholics and ex-Catholics, including former nuns and priests, who were carving out spiritual lives and fighting for social justice. When I got involved in journalism, I stuck to my roots, working for an anti-war publication for soldiers overseas.

With the revelations of the rape and abuse of children who reminded me of my brother, I saw an even scarier side to the monolithic authority the clergy wielded than I had imagined. But many of the victims and advocates who fought to rip the secrets from church files and place them before the public were Catholics. Catholics fighting to make the church and the world a better place. Just as I was raised to do.

So I'm a Catholic because I still hope to fulfill the ideals of my youth and do some good. And I'm not going to let anyone — not Mahony or anyone else in the clergy — define what that is for me. It's between me and my conscience, just as I learned in Catholic school.

gale.holland@latimes.com

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The Lede: Video of Pope Benedict’s Public Farewell

During his final farewell address, Pope Benedict XVI describes the joys and challenges of his papacy via CNN on YouTube.

As our colleagues, Rachel Donadio and Alan Cowell report, Pope Benedict XVI held his final general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, a day before he withdraws from the public for a cloistered life of prayer and meditation.

Before tens of thousands of people gathered in the square, the pope acknowledged the difficulties he faced during his papacy, describing “moments of joy and light but also moments that were not easy.” At times, when the “seas were rough”, he said that “the Lord seemed to sleep.”

From the full text of his address:

When, almost eight years ago, on April 19th, [2005], I agreed to take on the Petrine ministry, I held steadfast in this certainty, which has always accompanied me. In that moment, as I have already stated several times, the words that resounded in my heart were: “Lord, what do you ask of me? It a great weight that You place on my shoulders, but, if You ask me, at your word I will throw out the nets, sure that you will guide me” – and the Lord really has guided me. He has been close to me: daily could I feel His presence.

[These years] have been a stretch of the Church’s pilgrim way, which has seen moments joy and light, but also difficult moments. I have felt like St. Peter with the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee: the Lord has given us many days of sunshine and gentle breeze, days in which the catch has been abundant; [then] there have been times when the seas were rough and the wind against us, as in the whole history of the Church it has ever been – and the Lord seemed to sleep. Nevertheless, I always knew that the Lord is in the barque, that the barque of the Church is not mine, not ours, but His – and He shall not let her sink. It is He, who steers her: to be sure, he does so also through men of His choosing, for He desired that it be so. This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. It is for this reason, that today my heart is filled with gratitude to God, for never did He leave me or the Church without His consolation, His light, His love.

An English translation from the Vatican of Pope Benedict XVI’s last general audience before his formal resignation on Thursday.

On Twitter, the pope’s account, @Pontifex, which has more than 1.5 million followers, posted:

If only everyone could experience the joy of being Christian, being loved by God who gave his Son for us!

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) 27 Feb 13

Shortly after he announced his resignation, he asked on Twitter for people “to pray for me and for the church, trusting as always in divine providence.”

From St. Peter’s Square, people posted photographs from the crowd, including a shot of the pope arriving in the so-called popemobile, on his way to deliver his final farewell.

St. Peter’s Square completely full of people! #vatican #pope #last #speaking http://t.co/m2RBoGNDJy

— Marko Style (@MarkoStyle44) 27 Feb 13

This is how close I got to the Pope http://t.co/BfOXkddkrE

— Becca Liudzius (@becksky123) 27 Feb 13

As my colleague, Laurie Goodstein reports, the church faces, among its many challenges as cardinals gather to select a new pope, the wounds caused by sexual abuse cases involving minors all over the world that have been mishandled for years.

In St. Peter’s Square, the pope also spoke briefly in English to the crowd.

The pope spoke in English, and asked Catholics to pray for both him and the new pope.

I offer a warm and affectionate greeting to the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors who have joined me for this, my last General Audience. Like Saint Paul, whose words we heard earlier, my heart is filled with thanksgiving to God who ever watches over his Church and her growth in faith and love, and I embrace all of you with joy and gratitude. During this Year of Faith, we have been called to renew our joyful trust in the Lord’s presence in our lives and in the life of the Church. I am personally grateful for his unfailing love and guidance in the eight years since I accepted his call to serve as the Successor of Peter. I am also deeply grateful for the understanding, support and prayers of so many of you, not only here in Rome, but also throughout the world.

The decision I have made, after much prayer, is the fruit of a serene trust in God’s will and a deep love of Christ’s Church. I will continue to accompany the Church with my prayers, and I ask each of you to pray for me and for the new Pope. In union with Mary and all the saints, let us entrust ourselves in faith and hope to God, who continues to watch over our lives and to guide the journey of the Church and our world along the paths of history. I commend all of you, with great affection, to his loving care, asking him to strengthen you in the hope which opens our hearts to the fullness of life that he alone can give. To you and your families, I impart my blessing. Thank you!

The identity of the new pope will revealed from this balcony after the conclave, likely within 2 weeks. http://t.co/40Q9oWAz3f

— Eric Reguly (@ereguly) 27 Feb 13

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Billie Joe Armstrong Comes Clean About Rehab

By Kevin O'Donnell

02/27/2013 at 08:00 PM EST

Last September, Billie Joe Armstrong made headlines when, during his band Green Day's performance at the I Heart Radio Music Festival in Las Vegas, the rocker unleashed a profanity-laced tirade that took aim at everyone from the concert's promoter, Clear Channel, to Justin Bieber.

The meltdown forced Armstrong to enter an outpatient rehab program for a month and in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, the frontman, who turned 41 this month, reveals his struggle to get sober.

"I'm a blackout drinker," he reveals. "That's basically what happened [that night]."

Leading up to that infamous performance, Armstrong was struggling with a dependence on pills for anxiety and insomnia, combined with a heavy drinking problem. After the concert, he agreed to enter an outpatient rehab program for a month.

Although he declines to specify what type of medications he was taking, he tells the magazine, "I started combining them to a point where I didn't know what I was taking during the day and what I was taking at night. It was just this routine. My backpack sounded like a giant baby rattle [from all of the bottles inside]."

Armstrong, who has been married to wife Adrienne since 1994 and has two sons, Joseph and Jakob, also reveals how hard it was to go through withdrawal.

"That was gruesome, laying on the bathroom floor and just feeling like ... [pauses] I didn't realize how much of that stuff affected me." He also opens up about the toll it took on his family: "I kept [the withdrawal] away from my sons pretty good ... [And my wife] knew the deal. I'm sure it was rough for her to see me going through this."

Now, the musician insists he's on the mend and no longer drinking. "I want to put on good shows," says Armstrong, who will resume touring with Green Day on March 10 in Pomona, Calif. "I want to be reliable." 

Armstrong also admits maintaining his sobriety will be a challenge. "There is still the obsession for alcohol," he says. "There's also sleepless nights. But I have to work on it every day. Because I know what goes on out there … I've got to watch my step."

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Huge study: 5 mental disorders share genetic links

WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest genetic study of mental illnesses to date finds five major disorders may not look much alike but they share some gene-based risks. The surprising discovery comes in the quest to unravel what causes psychiatric disorders and how to better diagnose and treat them.

The disorders — autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia — are considered distinct problems. But findings published online Wednesday suggest they're related in some way.

"These disorders that we thought of as quite different may not have such sharp boundaries," said Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the lead researchers for the international study appearing in The Lancet.

That has implications for learning how to diagnose mental illnesses with the same precision that physical illnesses are diagnosed, said Dr. Bruce Cuthbert of the National Institute on Mental Health, which funded the research.

Consider: Just because someone has chest pain doesn't mean it's a heart attack; doctors have a variety of tests to find out. But there's no blood test for schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. Instead, doctors rely on symptoms agreed upon by experts. Learning the genetic underpinnings of mental illnesses is part of one day knowing if someone's symptoms really are schizophrenia and not something a bit different.

"If we really want to diagnose and treat people effectively, we have to get to these more fine-grained understandings of what's actually going wrong biologically," Cuthbert explained.

Added Mass General's Smoller: "We are still in the early stages of understanding what are the causes of mental illnesses, so these are clues."

The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, a collaboration of researchers in 19 countries, analyzed the genomes of more than 61,000 people, some with one of the five disorders and some without. They found four regions of the genetic code where variation was linked to all five disorders.

Of particular interest are disruptions in two specific genes that regulate the flow of calcium in brain cells, key to how neurons signal each other. That suggests that this change in a basic brain function could be one early pathway that leaves someone vulnerable to developing these disorders, depending on what else goes wrong.

For patients and their families, the research offers no immediate benefit. These disorders are thought to be caused by a complex mix of numerous genes and other risk factors that range from exposures in the womb to the experiences of daily life.

"There may be many paths to each of these illnesses," Smoller cautioned.

But the study offers a lead in the hunt for psychiatric treatments, said NIMH's Cuthbert. Drugs that affect calcium channels in other parts of the body are used for such conditions as high blood pressure, and scientists could explore whether they'd be useful for psychiatric disorders as well.

The findings make sense, as there is some overlap in the symptoms of the different disorders, he said. People with schizophrenia can have some of the same social withdrawal that's so characteristic of autism, for example. Nor is it uncommon for people to be affected by more than one psychiatric disorder.

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Online:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60223-8/abstract

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Two L.A. mayoral candidates unlikely backers of business tax cut

In the debate over who should be the next mayor of Los Angeles, who would you suppose argues for elimination of a business tax to kick-start economic growth?

Not the one-time investment banker who dropped out of the race early and says killing the business tax would leave a huge hole in the city treasury. Not the lone Republican in the field, who wants more modest business tax reform. Not a City Council fiscal hawk, also a candidate for mayor, who says cutting the tax could leave the city with a $400-million shortfall.

Instead it's two liberal Democrats — City Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti — pushing what sounds a lot like Ronald Reagan- or Mitt Romney-style "supply side" fiscal dogma. Cut taxes for business, Garcetti and Greuel contend, and the overall economic pie will grow, with benefits trickling down in the form of more jobs for Angelenos and more money in the city's general fund.

The duo's insistence on ending the tax on businesses' gross receipts puts them at odds with not only Democratic Party orthodoxy nationally but also with several figures viewed as leading watchdogs on municipal finance — former deputy mayor and investment banker Austin Beutner, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Miguel Santana, the city's top budget official.

"It's an interesting strategy, but there is no proposal of what we would do to backfill the loss of that revenue," says Councilwoman Jan Perry, a mayoral candidate and among the more conservative city lawmakers on financial matters. "Who makes up the difference?"

Political observers believe that Garcetti and Greuel, both of whom have been identified as allies of organized labor, offer the elimination of the tax, at least in part, as a signal to the business community that they have more than one dimension.

"Mayoral candidates have to court business," said Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. "There is a widespread perception that L.A. is not business friendly and anyone who aspires to be mayor has to fight that perception."

But will lost revenue from killing the tax be made up from other sources?

"It's rare that a tax cut actually pays for itself," Pitney said. "The best kind of tax cut is the kind that raises revenue and that actually has happened from time to time. It's not impossible. But the more reasonable prediction is it might end up losing less revenue than one would think otherwise."

Greuel and Garcetti reject what they say is conventional thinking. Both say they have seen the benefits of previous business tax cuts, with employers coming to the city after they were granted relief from the levy, currently the highest of its kind in Los Angeles County. They also say they would phase out the tax incrementally and only as it proved to help the city's bottom line.

It's another irony of the tax debate that Garcetti and Greuel — sharp rivals and perceived front-runners in the race to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — have worked closely on previous reforms of the business levy and agree on the need for its elimination.

Greuel calls herself the "architect" of business tax reform, pointing to a 2006 council vote she led that cut the rate 15% over several years and reduced the number of tax categories from 42 to fewer than 10. The controller said the 2006 rate reduction not only brought in more businesses but that the city government also "saw more revenue as it related to those businesses coming into Los Angeles."

City budget officials say, however, that the previous tax changes came during a time of economic growth and they can't tease out how much of those increases accumulated because of the natural business cycle versus the city's tax cut.

Critics say that the incremental rate reductions of the past offer no proof that the revenue lost from wholesale elimination of the tax could be replaced. The debate has been complicated by the conflicting analysis of experts hired by the city.

In 2011, USC accounting professor Charles Swenson issued a report that found the death of the business tax would provoke such strong growth that the city would more than recoup the $400 million in lost revenue with the expansion of other taxes.

Last year, the city hired a consulting firm that picked apart Swenson's analysis, concluding that business would expand but that little of the tax revenue would be recouped from other sources. That is the prevailing view of Santana, the city's administrative officer, and outsiders like Beutner, the businessman who worked for a year and a half as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's "jobs czar."

Beutner said that in his time working at City Hall businesses most commonly complained about regulatory delays and the uncertainty of doing business in Los Angeles.

"They talked about how hard it was to get a permit, how anti-business the city is in its attitude," Beutner said. "Waving a magic wand and reducing a tax rate doesn't address those other issues."

Los Angeles only receives a fraction of property and sales taxes and other levies, but it receives 100% of every dollar brought in by its gross receipts tax, which charges businesses roughly one-tenth of a cent to half a penny per dollar of revenue.

Those tiny incremental payments add up, Beutner said. "So if you take a whole dollar in those taxes away, please show me how I get that dollar back with pennies from these other taxes," said Beutner. "It's not enough to just say, 'The whole pie grows.' Here you have a couple of progressives … espousing trickle-down. And this is the most indirect form of trickle-down one can imagine."

Garcetti agreed that many factors influence where companies make their homes, but he said "not a week goes by" that he doesn't have executives complain about L.A.'s gross receipts tax. Online retailer Shopzilla and ratings company Nielsen decided they could stay in Los Angeles, but only after getting a break on the tax, the councilman said. Online law document service Legal Zoom, in contrast, fled for Glendale and its lower rents and business levy. The company bolstered its bottom line by a few million dollars because of Glendale's lower tax, Garcetti said.

Greuel and Garcetti said they would phase out the tax over 15 years, only proceeding with incremental cuts each year if other tax revenues increased enough to make up for the money lost from the business levy. "Its not a Republican or Democratic issue," Greuel said. "It's about being responsible and being business-friendly."

Garcetti said he is a bit surprised at how his position on the tax has evolved.

"I started someplace else ideologically until I saw the impact this tax had," he said. Before, "I would have absolutely been a skeptic of things like this" tax cut, he added. "I realize [now] there are smart taxes and there are dumb taxes. This is a dumb tax."

james.rainey@latimes.com

Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

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U.S. Officials Propose Sharing Drone Surveillance Data With Algerian Forces

Hussein Malla/Associated Press

In a cave in Idlib Province, Free Syrian Army fighters did a traditional dance and sang songs critical of President Bashar al-Assad.

 WASHINGTON — The American ambassador to Algeria and senior counterterrorism officials have proposed sharing more information with Algerian security forces to help them kill or capture militants in their own country and in areas just across their borders.

Their approach reflects the growing support within the administration for more forceful action against extremists in the area since the attack on a gas field in eastern Algeria last month left 37 dead, including three Americans, and focused new concerns on terrorist activity in Africa.

Under one plan, information from American surveillance drones would be provided to Algerian forces to enable them to engage in operations both inside Algeria and possibly, in a limited way, across its borders. The United States is already providing surveillance information to the French-led military operation in Mali to help combat militants there who last year seized the northern half of the country.

In a cable to the State Department last week, according to administration officials, Henry S. Ensher, the United States envoy in Algiers, urged that the pursuit of the Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of the gas field attack, be made a priority. Toward that end, he recommended that the Obama administration tell the Algerians that if they allowed the United States to fly unarmed drones over the border area of Algeria as well as over Mali, the Americans would share the information with the Algerian government.

There was broad agreement among policy makers and intelligence officials at a meeting of President Obama’s top national security deputies at the White House last week that Mr. Belmokhtar and members of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb should be aggressively pursued, according to one senior American official who insisted on anonymity so he could discuss internal deliberations. But no decision appears to have been reached on whether to make a formal proposal to the Algerians.

The idea of taking stronger action in the region has been supported in recent months by Michael Sheehan, the senior counterterrorism official at the Pentagon, and Daniel Benjamin, who until December was the senior State Department counterterrorism official. In the past, State Department lawyers have questioned whether the military action approved by Congress against Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks authorized efforts to target extremists who were not clearly linked to the group. But according to some officials, those legal arguments  have recently been overcome.  

The United States has long sought Algeria’s cooperation in antiterrorism efforts, and sharing information with a government that has jealously guarded its sovereignty would be a significant step toward that goal. During the siege of the gas plant at In Amenas, Algeria permitted the United States to fly a Predator surveillance drone over the complex, though it insisted that the drone be withdrawn after the assault was over.  

Mr. Obama announced last week that about 100 American troops had arrived in Niger in West Africa, next to Mali, to set up a new drone base to conduct surveillance flights in the region.

American officials also sense a possible change of heart by Algerian officials to move away from their longstanding policy not to conduct military operations outside the nation’s borders. Algerian officials recently told the United States that they were prepared to conduct operations in border areas, one American official said.

Mr. Belmokhtar, 40 — sometimes known as “Laaouar,” or the one-eyed, after he lost an eye to shrapnel —  was deemed to be a menace long before he drew international attention for last month’s attack. As the Algerians pressed their campaign against the militants, he took refuge in Mali, where he engaged in smuggling and kidnapped foreigners for ransom, including Robert Fowler, a Canadian diplomat and United Nations special envoy who was abducted in 2008.

By the spring of 2012, northern Mali had become a gathering place for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Other militant factions in northern Mali included Ansar al-Dine, a group largely made up of members of Mali’s nomadic Tuareg minority. Its leader, Iyad ag Ghali, has been officially designated as a global terrorist, the State Department announced  Tuesday.  The growing extremist presence in Mali became an increasing concern for Mr. Ensher as well as for Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the Africa Command, and counterterrorism officials at the Pentagon and the State Department.

Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington and Adam Nossiter from Lagos, Nigeria.

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Exclusive: All About Christina Applegate's Wedding Ring!

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/26/2013 at 09:00 AM ET

Courtesy Neil Lane; Inset: Kevan Brooks/AdMedia

When Christina Applegate said “I do” with Martyn LeNoble in Los Angeles on Saturday, she not only added a new member to her family, but also a new piece of jewelry to her collection.

Neil Lane, who tells PEOPLE the piece “is not a typical ring,” designed the actress’s new sparkler.

Lane explains of the bauble, “It has a border of diamonds around it like a sleeve. We took her engagement ring and fit it in a sleeve of little diamonds to become one with the wedding band. It’s platinum and diamond inset with tiny little diamonds everywhere.”

As for the very intimate nuptials — which only about eight people attended, including the couple’s daughter Sadie and LeNoble’s daughter Marlin — Lane says, “It was just the right time. They’re a very happy couple. There is a great deal of love between them.”

–Elizabeth Leonard and Dahvi Shira

PHOTOS: SEE THE BLINGIEST STAR ENGAGEMENT RINGS!

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