Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Hate mail won't stop church from hosting Muslim convention

Despite receiving a slew of hate mail, All Saints Church in Pasadena is moving forward with a conference hosted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council — the first time the organization has conducted a national convention at a Christian church.

All Saints Rev. Ed Bacon described the emails his congregation received as "some of the most vile, mean-spirited emails I've ever read in my life."

"When we scheduled this event, we had absolutely no anticipation that we would have this kind of response," Bacon said, adding that none of the emails made actual threats.

Salam al-Marayati, president of Los Angeles-based Muslim council, said his organization is working with the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and local authorities to ensure the Dec. 15 event is safe. The gathering is expected to focus on the state of the American Muslim community.

"The hatemongerers have made our convention relevant, so we saved on our marketing budget, so some of the money was transferred to extra security," al-Marayati said, half jokingly. "We are taking extra precautions, but at this point there is no threat to the convention."

Church officials believe the hate mail was prompted by an article posted by the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy. The piece alludes to connections between the council and the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Yet again, the Islamists are taking advantage of naive Christians with a desire to show off their tolerance," Ryan Mauro wrote in the article.

Institute President Mark Tooley said the piece didn't call for people to send hate mail, adding that the Muslim Public Affairs Council hasn't denied any of the article's points and instead offered only a broad response.

"I think it's wrong for people to send nasty emails to anybody," Tooley said. "For the couple of nasty emails they received, to portray themselves as victims is somewhat of an exaggeration."

The tone and candor of the emails is what caught the church's attention, said Susan Russell, senior associate at All Saints Church.

"So dripping with vitriol and the worst possible demonization of people of other faiths," Russell said. "What they offered us was basically a window into the ugly underbelly of Islamophobia."

U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) commended All Saints Church and the Muslim Public Affairs Council for hosting the convention and bridging interfaith understanding.

"I was deeply distressed to learn of the hateful and vitriolic messages that the church has received," Schiff said in a statement. "Yet, these odious emails will only increase our determination to fight bigotry and increase understanding."

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

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Clinton Expresses Support for New Syrian Opposition Coalition

Pressure is building on a new Syrian opposition coalition to choose leaders and transform itself into a political force that could earn formal recognition from the United States and other countries as a viable alternative to the Syrian government.

The coalition, formally known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, was pulled together from a variety of opposition groups at a meeting last month in Doha, Qatar, that was convened at the insistence of the United States and other nations.

On Nov. 13, France became the first Western country to formally recognize the coalition, and President François Hollande said France would consider arming it. Britain, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council have also recognized the coalition.

But the coalition has struggled to agree on a slate of governing leaders that would unite what is still a loosely allied organization, trying to weave together local councils, splinter organizations, disparate opposition groups and the loyalties of the armed units fighting the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

On Wednesday, the United States, just ahead of a meeting next Wednesday of the so-called Friends of Syria in Marrakesh, Morocco, expressed fresh support for the coalition, as American intelligence said it had detected that Syrian troops had mixed precursor chemicals for a deadly nerve gas. American officials hinted that the United States would upgrade relations with the opposition, possibly to formal recognition, if the coalition had made progress on a political structure by the meeting.

“Now that there is a new opposition formed, we are going to be doing what we can to support that opposition,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a news conference in Brussels, adding that at the Marrakesh meeting “we will explore with like-minded countries what we can do to” end this conflict. The State Department announced on Wednesday that Mrs. Clinton would lead the United States delegation at the meeting.  

Separately, the United States is moving toward designating one Syrian opposition group, Al Nusra Front, as an international terrorist organization, American officials said. The group is seen by experts as affiliated with Al Qaeda. The step would be synchronized with the emerging strategy toward the opposition and  would aim to isolate radical foes of the Assad government. 

With the pressure on to create a government framework, the coalition and its delegates have held meetings in Cairo to try to agree on how to choose leaders, including a prime minister. Another round of talks could take place there on Saturday. Yaser Tabbara, a member of the coalition, said they might also try to identify candidates for 10 to 15 cabinet positions.

The spotlight on the coalition as a governing alternative is also growing stronger at the same time that pressure is building on the Assad government.

This week, fighting has raged around the capital, Damascus, and the airport, and diplomatic setbacks have come in waves. A senior Turkish official has said that Russia, a staunch supporter of Mr. Assad’s government, had agreed to a new diplomatic approach that would seek ways to persuade him to give up, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman was said to have defected.

In addition, President Obama, Mrs. Clinton and NATO ministers warned Syria that any use of chemical weapons would be met with a strong international response. The Syrian Foreign Ministry told state television that the government “would not use chemical weapons, if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances.”

But American intelligence officials detected that Syrian troops have mixed together small amounts of precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, at one or two storage sites, and that the chemical weapons might be loaded into aerial bombs or artillery shells and deployed in the fighting there. Mrs. Clinton again highlighted the new concerns.

“And I have to say again what I said on Monday, what President Obama has said repeatedly: We’ve made our views absolutely clear to the Syrians, to the international community, through various channels — public, private, direct, indirect — that this is a situation that the entire international community is united on,” she said in Brussels on Wednesday after the NATO meeting.

“And our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria.”

Fighting continued on Wednesday in the suburbs of Damascus as the government pressed a counteroffensive against rebels. Some antigovernment fighters said they had taken the Aqraba air base near the Damascus airport, which has been effectively closed during six days of fighting, but activists said the fight for the base, and for Damascus was continuing.

Speculation percolated about whether Mr. Assad would seek asylum in a foreign country. State media in Cuba and Venezuela have reported that the Syrian deputy foreign minister, Faisal Miqdad, visited the countries in late November and delivered written messages from Mr. Assad to their leaders, who share his defiance of the United States. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that he had requested asylum in Latin America.

But the subject of the meetings remained unclear, and some analysts expressed doubt that Mr. Assad would leave Syria.In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, said, “We do understand that some countries, both in the region and elsewhere, have offered to host Assad and his family should he choose to leave Syria.”

But Mr. Miqdad, making the first appearance by a Syrian government official in more than a week, called the media reports “laughable.”

“I assure you 100 percent that President Assad will never leave his country,” he said.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, Lebanon; Michael R. Gordon from Brussels; and Christine Hauser from New York. Reporting was contributed by Randal C. Archibold from Mexico City; William Neuman from Caracas, Venezuela; Neil MacFarquhar from Beirut; and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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Kate Receives Hospital Visit from Pippa and James

12/05/2012 at 07:30 PM EST

James and Pippa Middleton

Alpha /Landov; Inset:Allpix/ plash News Online

The Duchess of Cambridge had more hospital visitors on Wednesday.

Just two days after husband Prince William, 30, was photographed leaving the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London where a pregnant Kate, 30, was admitted for hyperemesis gravidarum, her sister, Pippa Middleton, brother James and mom Carole (not pictured), also dropped by to keep the mom-to-be company.

Pippa was bundled up in a coat, sporting a tan-colored ensemble, while her brother was casually dressed in jeans and layered tops.

The Palace announced the Duchess's pregnancy Monday in a statement. "Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Cambridge is expecting a baby," it said. "The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and Prince Harry and members of both families are delighted with the news."

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.

A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities by gene scans, the study found. The gene flaws can cause anything from minor defects such as a club foot to more serious ones such as mental retardation, heart problems and fatal diseases.

"This isn't done just so people can terminate pregnancies," because many choose to continue them even if a problem is found, said Dr. Ronald Wapner, reproductive genetics chief at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "We're better able to give lots and lots of women more information about what's causing the problem and what the prognosis is and what special care their child might need."

He led the federally funded study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

A second study in the journal found that gene testing could reveal the cause of most stillbirths, many of which remain a mystery now. That gives key information to couples agonizing over whether to try again.

The prenatal study of 4,400 women has long been awaited in the field, and could make gene testing a standard of care in cases where initial screening with an ultrasound exam suggests a structural defect in how the baby is developing, said Dr. Susan Klugman, director of reproductive genetics at New York's Montefiore Medical Center, which enrolled 300 women into the study.

"We can never guarantee the perfect baby but if they want everything done, this is a test that can tell a lot more," she said.

Many pregnant women are offered screening with an ultrasound exam or a blood test that can flag some common abnormalities such as Down syndrome, but these are not conclusive.

The next step is diagnostic testing on cells from the fetus obtained through amniocentesis, which is like a needle biopsy through the belly, or chorionic villus sampling, which snips a bit of the placenta. Doctors look at the sample under a microscope for breaks or extra copies of chromosomes that cause a dozen or so abnormalities.

The new study compared this eyeball method to scanning with gene chips that can spot hundreds of abnormalities and far smaller defects than what can be seen with a microscope. This costs $1,200 to $1,800 versus $600 to $1,000 for the visual exam.

In the study, both methods were used on fetal samples from 4,400 women around the country. Half of the moms were at higher risk because they were over 35. One-fifth had screening tests suggesting Down syndrome. One-fourth had ultrasounds suggesting structural abnormalities. Others sought screening for other reasons.

"Some did it for anxiety — they just wanted more information about their child," Wapner said.

Of women whose ultrasounds showed a possible structural defect but whose fetuses were called normal by the visual chromosome exam, gene testing found problems in 6 percent — one out of 17.

"That's a lot. That's huge," Klugman said.

Gene tests also found abnormalities in nearly 2 percent of cases where the mom was older or ultrasounds suggested a problem other than a structural defect.

Dr. Lorraine Dugoff, a University of Pennsylvania high-risk pregnancy specialist, wrote in an editorial in the journal that gene testing should become the standard of care when a structural problem is suggested by ultrasound. But its value may be incremental in other cases and offset by the 1.5 percent of cases where a gene abnormality of unknown significance is found.

In those cases, "a lot of couples might not be happy that they ordered that test" because it can't give a clear answer, she said.

Ana Zeletz, a former pediatric nurse from Hoboken, N.J., had one of those results during the study. An ultrasound suggested possible Down syndrome; gene testing ruled that out but showed an abnormality that could indicate kidney problems — or nothing.

"They give you this list of all the things that could possibly be wrong," Zeletz said. Her daughter, Jillian, now 2, had some urinary and kidney abnormalities that seem to have resolved, and has low muscle tone that caused her to start walking later than usual.

"I am very glad about it," she said of the testing, because she knows to watch her daughter for possible complications like gout. Without the testing, "we wouldn't know anything, we wouldn't know to watch for things that might come up," she said.

The other study involved 532 stillbirths — deaths of a fetus in the womb before delivery. Gene testing revealed the cause in 87 percent of cases versus 70 percent of cases analyzed by the visual chromosome inspection method. It also gave more information on specific genetic abnormalities that couples could use to estimate the odds that future pregnancies would bring those risks.

The study was led by Dr. Uma Reddy of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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L.A. affirms drivers who park at broken meters will be ticketed

Los Angeles motorists beware: If the parking meter won't take your change, find another spot.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to uphold a policy that makes it illegal to park at spaces with broken meters. City transportation officials said violations issued at non-working meters generate about $5 million a year in revenue for the city.

The action exercises an option for cities to override a new state law that greatly limits the practice of issuing tickets to drivers who park at malfunctioning meters. Under the state law, motorists may park for free at broken meters up to the maximum time allowed for the space.

The council reaffirmed the city's 2-year-old policy of ticketing cars at flawed meters on a 12-1 vote, with Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Jan Perry the lone opponent.

Officials said that allowing the state law to take effect would cost the city a sizable chunk of ticket and parking fee revenue, and would encourage meter vandalism.

"Meter vandalism has become extremely rare," said transportation department official Dan Mitchell. Since the city began switching to meters that take credit cards and coins — and banned parking at broken meters — only about five meters each month have required repairs, he said.

Before 2010 — when Los Angeles allowed free parking at broken meters — roughly 10% of the city's parking meters were broken at any time, Mitchell said.

But vandalism problems declined sharply when the city began replacing its roughly 40,000 parking meters with more advanced devices that include red stickers warning that tickets will be issued when meters are broken.

The meters, which are expected to be installed citywide by the end of the year, automatically message transportation employees of operational problems and are typically back in service within three hours, officials said.

The updated meters have cut down on parking complaints in his district, Councilman Bill Rosendahl said. "The technology we now have employed is rather fantastic," he said.

The state law requires cities to post notices on meters if they ticket when the devices are broken. Sponsors of the legislation said their primary objective was to force cities to alert drivers when they risk getting a ticket.

"It's really fair to the driving public. If the parking meter is broken and if you can't physically pay, then you shouldn't be ticketed," said state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), who sponsored the state law.

Cities had adopted inconsistent policies that created confusion and frustration, DeSaulnier said. In some cities, an inoperable meter meant a few hours of free parking, he said. In others, it meant an expensive parking ticket.

"The main objective of this law is to make sure motorists know the rules," said Steve Finnegan, government affairs manager for Auto Club of Southern California, which backed the broken meter bill.

Councilman Tom LaBonge praised the new meters, but cautioned his colleagues against utilizing technological advances that could erase time left on a meter when a car pulls away. That would be going too far, he said.

"I think there is a certain joy in life in the city of Los Angeles when you pull up to a parking meter [and] there is a little bit of time left on it," he said. "I think the city needs that joy."

wesley.lowery@latimes.com

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IHT Rendezvous: Tibet's Desperate Toll Keeps Climbing

HONG KONG — What pushes them to do it, these desperate Tibetans, more than 90 of them, dozens in recent days and another one on Monday, the ones drenching themselves in gasoline, sometimes even drinking the fuel beforehand, and then setting themselves on fire, their robes bursting into pennants of flame as they die such painful deaths, why, what is happening here? Are they killing themselves because of politics, sadness, despair, religion, what?

We don’t yet know what drove Lobsang Gedun, 29, a Buddhist monk who burned himself to death on Monday in the western Chinese province of Qinghai. My colleague Edward Wong reported on the death, and Radio Free Asia quoted an account of the immolation: “With his body on fire, he walked about 300 steps with hands folded in prayer posture, and raised slogans before he collapsed dead on the ground.”

Lobsang Gedun’s slogans were likely in praise of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, or condemnations of Beijing’s harsh, militarized rule in Tibet and the Tibetan areas of western China. Foreign reporters, United Nations investigators and many international relief groups are almost universally barred by the Chinese authorities from entering Tibet.

“The Chinese still blame everything on us,” the Dalai Lama said in an interview with The Hindu newspaper. “If the Chinese have the confidence, they must allow the international community to see the truth. That is very important. If they do not allow, it is an indication that they have the feeling of guilt, that they have something to hide.”

“The Chinese propaganda always says the Tibetan people are very happy, that they were liberated from the feudal system under the Dalai Lama,” he said. “So now their propaganda is on shaky ground.”

The full interview, conducted in July at the Dalai Lama’s residence in the Indian hill-station town of McLeod Ganj, in Dharamsala, can be seen here.

A harrowing and deeply reported piece in National Geographic by Jeffrey Bartholet examines the final days and fiery death of one self-immolator, a young exile named Jamphel Yeshi, who burned himself to death in a Tibetan enclave of New Delhi in March.

He was known as Jashi to his friends. He had a couple of dragon tattoos on his muscular body, and he was known as a strong swimmer. During the winter back home in Tibet he loved to go sledding on makeshift toboggans.

He fled Tibet on foot in 2006 and eventually made his way to Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan government in exile, “where every newcomer gets an audience with the Dalai Lama, and everyone gets free schooling,” Mr. Bartholet writes.

“Jashi cried when the Dalai Lama blessed him, touching his head. He couldn’t get a word out.”

Later, reaching Delhi, he lived in a one-room flat, splitting the $90-a-month rent with four Tibetan friends. He became somewhat active in Tibetan politics. At the time of his death, Jashi owned a thin vinyl suitcase, two pens, a scarf, four pairs of pants and a small Tibetan flag.

The night before his death, he ate well, sharing a Tibetan mutton stew with seven friends. The next day, at a large street protest, Mr. Bartholet writes, “He poured the gasoline over himself. It ran down his shoulders, over his clothes, and into his shoes. Then he put a flame to it. Jashi ran about 20 strides, stumbled and fell under a giant banyan tree.”

A crowd gathered. “Above all of the cries and shouts,” Mr. Bartholet says, “several witnesses later recalled most distinctly the roar of the fire: foh-foh-foh.”

As we have written and reported on Rendezvous, young Tibetans are increasingly inclined to more aggressive protests over Chinese authority. The Dalai Lama’s Middle Way — nonviolent pursuit of Tibetan autonomy rather than outright independence — is too incremental for many political activists.

The rise in self-immolations, many believe, is an expression of this anxiety and impatience.

“The world hardly notices when another young man or woman goes up in flames,” Mr. Bartholet says. “Some young activists are talking darkly of another possible phase, of how thin the line is between killing yourself and killing your enemies.”

The Dalai Lama has largely refrained from commenting on the self-immolations, except to express sadness, along with his disapproval of violent or extreme forms of protests. But in the Hindu interview he calls the immolations “a very, very delicate political issue.”

“Now, the reality is that if I say something positive, then the Chinese immediately blame me,” he said. “If I say something negative, then the family members of those people feel very sad. They sacrificed their… life. It is not easy. So I do not want to create some kind of impression that this is wrong.”

Mr. Bartholet quotes Tenzin Wangchuk, 38, the president of the Delhi chapter of the Tibetan Youth Congress:

The older generation is 90 percent religious and 10 percent nationalistic; they want to spread happiness and make the world a better place. But the younger generation is not a bunch of Buddhas. We are Buddhists but not Buddhas. If you kill evil, we don’t think that’s bad. We need actions. . . One day, who knows? We may raise our issue by bombing ourselves, and if you are going to die, maybe it’s better to take some enemies along with you.

And he offers this comment from Lodi Gyari, a former Tibetan negotiator with China:

The only reason the Tibetans are so committed to nonviolence is purely because of the influence of the Dalai Lama. I have also told the Chinese this. It’s a very thin line. One day, somebody may say, “I’ve had enough, it’s meaningless for me, but I’m not going to go alone … I’m going to take a couple of Chinese guys with me.” That can happen any day.

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The Voice Reveals Top Four Contestants

TV Watch

By Julia Haskins

12/04/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

The Voice"'s top six contestants were under double pressure Monday night when they had to sing two songs each. But there was even more stress at Tuesday's elimination.

"It went as well as it could have gone," Team Blake's Terry McDermott said on Monday of his performances of "I Want to Know What Love Is" and Rod Stewart's "Stay with Me." "There was a lot of pressure stripping a song down, but it worked to my advantage."

"I felt good," said Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte, who performed "Walking on Sunshine" and Jennifer Hudson's "And I Am Telling You (I'm Not Going)." "I'm confident. I feel like I've really grown. I'm definitely happy with my performance. I just want to see how America votes."

His chance came Tuesday when he and McDermott stood alongside competitors Nicholas David (Team Cee Lo), Cassadee Pope (Team Blake), Melanie Martinez and Amanda Brown (both Team Adam) to hear host Carson Daly reveal the voting results. Keep reading to find out ...

America saved McDermott, Hunte and Pope, but Martinez said goodbye to the competition for good. "I love all of you who have supported me," she said to her fans. "I'm just so grateful for you."

Brown also met the same fate, making David the final member of the top four.

The semi-final show airs Monday at 8:00 p.m. on NBC.

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.

The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.

Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice.

Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited.

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Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv

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L.A. fire chief blames slower response times on budget cuts

Los Angeles Fire Chief Brian Cummings turned the tables on City Council members Tuesday, blaming increased 911 response times on budget cuts approved by lawmakers.

"You gave us a budget," Cummings said during a nearly two-hour City Hall hearing. "We're giving you the most effective Fire Department that we can within that budget."

Cummings was summoned to appear before the council after he failed to produce a plan to improve service and response times, which have grown longer since budget cuts were ordered three years ago after the economic downturn.

The council asked for the blueprint in April. On Tuesday, Cummings was given an additional 60 days to submit the plan.

Cummings blamed the delay on the department's data problems, which have been the subject of multiple investigations by city auditors and outside experts. Years of response time data were found to be flawed and the LAFD has accurate data only for the last two to three months, Cummings said.

Reliable performance data from a longer period is needed before changes in the department deployment plan can be recommended, he said. Improvements will require more funding, he added.

"The simple answer is money," Cummings said. "The way we improve response times is by putting more resources in the field."

The department's performance has been under scrutiny since March when fire officials acknowledged producing inaccurate response time data that made it appear rescuers were getting to emergencies faster than they actually were.

Fire officials are dealing with other embarrassments. Federal officials are investigating whether confidential information was obtained illegally on hundreds of patients who rode in Fire Department ambulances, according to a city lawyer. The department also has been criticized by the city's top budget officials for going over its budget by millions of dollars.

On Tuesday morning, The Times reported on a YouTube video titled "Firehouse Burlesque Hula Hooping" showing a woman in high-heels and tight shorts dancing with a hoop at a Venice fire station. The video was a promotion for Hoopnotica, a fitness company. The firm's chief executive said the shoot was unplanned, lasted no more than 30 minutes and that no money changed hands.

Last year, firefighters from the same Venice firehouse and another station were investigated for allowing fire engines to be used in porn shoots. Shortly after those videos surfaced, the controversy spread to Cummings when the chief acknowledged that he once posed for racy photos with a bikini-clad woman when he was stationed in Venice as a captain.

Cummings said the department was investigating the hula hoop video. Councilman Mitchell Englander, who chairs the council's Public Safety Committee, said firehouse antics are "another part of the culture we have to change."

At the council meeting, Cummings and other fire officials reviewed the recent findings of a task force formed to examine the department's various data management troubles.

Councilman Eric Garcetti said he was happy the data problems were being addressed, but said he wanted a detailed plan for service improvements.

He also said the department needs stronger leadership. "I want somebody fighting for this department," he said. "Talk to your firefighters out there. They don't feel that is happening."

After the economic downturn, the council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa cut the LAFD's annual budget by $88 million — from $561 million in 2008 to $473 million in 2011.

The cuts led to service "brownouts," which took units out of service on a rotating basis, and which were eventually replaced by a new deployment plan. Cummings, an assistant chief at the time who oversaw development of the redeployment, predicted response times would match pre-recession levels following the changes. But investigations by The Times and City Controller Wendy Greuel found response times for medical emergencies have increased over the last four years.

Councilman Richard Alarcon admonished his colleagues, saying they should have known their budget cuts would lead to slower response times.

"Even Barry Bonds can't hit home runs with a plastic bat," said Alarcon, who voted against the cuts.

This spring, responding to concerns about the department's performance and the controversy over the accuracy of its data, lawmakers added back $40 million to the department budget. Cummings has requested an additional $50 million in next year's budget.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

robert.lopez@latimes.com

ben.welsh@latimes.com

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