L.A. County supervisors defer vote on storm water cleanup fee

Facing overwhelming opposition to a proposed parcel fee to clean up storm water pollution, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors deferred a vote to place it on the ballot.

The proposed fee would be levied on all property owners within the county's flood control district, raising an estimated $290 million a year to help cities and the county deal with widespread water quality issues stemming from polluted storm water and urban runoff — and the resulting threat of fines and litigation.

Nearly 200 people spoke to the board at a hearing Tuesday, a required first step before the supervisors could vote to put it on the ballot. Senior citizens and officials with schools and nonprofits said they were concerned that the proposed fee would strain their already tight budgets. The fee would range from about $54 a year for most single family homes to tens of thousands of dollars for large properties.

"To put another tax burden on our city would be way over the top," said Donna Gannon, 59, a resident of Bell, a low-income city in southeast Los Angeles County that became notorious when many of its leaders were embroiled in a corruption scandal two years ago. "It is a financial difficulty for a lot of people in our area that are not working."

Retiree Steve Colf, 68, said the property tax bill on a six-acre horse ranch that he and his wife own in Newhall would jump from about $600 to $1,100 a month under the new fee.

"We would probably lose the ranch," he said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District submitted a protest, as did a number of the county's smaller school districts. L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy said in a letter that the district might reconsider its opposition if schools were exempted or got a fee reduction for investing in water quality improvement projects.

The board also heard from business groups concerned that the proposal contained no sunset date or list of specific projects, and from property owners angry about the hearing notice and protest form mailed to them. Many said they had thrown the notice away because it looked like junk mail.

A smaller number spoke in favor of the proposal, including environmentalists and city officials from some of the cities that would get a share of the money.

Simboa Wright, 34, said he works for the city of Los Angeles' sanitation bureau and sees the problem of pollution from runoff firsthand while maintaining the city's storm water catch basins.

"I see what goes in there, from trash to bottles of ammonia, bleach bottles and motor oil. And what happens if we don't do this? What happens is it goes straight to our ocean, to the L.A. River and Santa Monica Bay," he said.

If a majority of property owners had protested by Tuesday, the current fee proposal would have died. Only about 95,000 had submitted protests as of the Friday before the hearing, so the supervisors could have voted Tuesday to hold an election on the proposal.

Two of the supervisors, Don Knabe and Michael D. Antonovich, had been adamantly opposed to the proposed fee from the start. A third, Gloria Molina, said Tuesday she was "troubled" about aspects of the measure, particularly the public outreach process.

Instead they voted to keep the protest period for the measure open 60 more days and directed staff members to work on changes suggested by Knabe and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, including adding a sunset date and list of projects and developing a credit for property owners who are already capturing and treating storm water. Department of Public Works spokesman Kerjon Lee said the department was already working on such a credit. Knabe also requested that staff members look into setting up an email protest process for property owners.

The supervisors also want them to look for other mechanisms to fund the needed clean-water projects.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

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At War Blog: Russian Military Ordered to Switch Portyanki for Socks

Near the end of World War II, Soviet and American soldiers met at the Elbe River in Germany. Lacking a common language, they compared their boots.

The Americans wore socks and lace-up boots. The Russians wore something that boggled the minds of their allies from the West: pieces of cloth twirled around their feet and inserted into bulky, knee-high boots.

The cloth strips, called portyanki, have been a signature element of the Russian military uniform since the 16th century. On Monday Russia’s minister of defense issued an order for a militarywide switch to socks.

“I have an instruction for you,” the minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, said to a gathering of the equivalent of the chiefs of staff and regional commanders in comments broadcast on NTV television news. “In 2013, or at least by the end of this year, we will forget foot bindings. I’m asking you, please, if there is need we will provide additional funds. But we need to finally, fully reject this concept in our armed forces.”

It is hardly the stuff to alarm a Central Intelligence Agency military analyst. But it sheds light on the Russian military all the same.

NTV in Russia, reporting the change, noted that foot bindings were a common solution in militaries predating industrial looms, though “Russia is just about the only country where new enlisted men still learn to twirl portyanki.” (The video below gives a sense of what twirling looks like.)

The bindings are not unique to Russia. Such foot coverings were known as puttees when they had wide-scale use in the United States, Canadian and British militaries before and during World War I. Then, they were worn wrapped around the calf, above the boot.

(The video below shows another variety of these sock alternatives.)

In the Russian version, a swath of cloth about a foot wide, cotton in the summer, flannel in the winter, is inserted into the boot, effective against trench foot and frostbite alike, if bound correctly.

In basic training, even before breaking down a Kalashnikov, a Russian conscript learns to twist the portyanki around his feet to form mummylike cocoons, fit for the inside of the standard-issue Russian infantry boots, made today, as they were a century ago, of blackened canvas on a sole of rawhide. Running in these heavy boots, former soldiers say, is all but impossible.

This system of footwear had its principal advantage in military-industrial planning and logistics, freeing up Soviet factories from sewing millions of socks and allowing soldiers to tear wraps from old sheets in the field, if needed. During the Afghan war, however, Russian soldiers soured on the heavy boots; officers allowed soldiers to shed them for nonregulation running shoes.

The switch to socks began during the never-completed military reform in 2007, so some units march at parades in socks and lace-up boots, others in portyanki and boots without laces.

The minister’s statement on socks to the assembled generals may also have carried a deeper meaning, said Ruslan Pukhov, an analyst with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. The cloth strips, almost a symbol of the Russian enlisted man’s life, are also emblematic of outmoded practices, he said.

Deeper changes, with higher stakes, are under way in the Russian military. Since 2007, the political leadership has systematically thinned the top-heavy officer ranks to alter the “egg-shaped” hierarchy of the army into a pyramid form. Mr. Shoigu’s order to complete the switch to socks, Mr. Pukhov said, signaled to the generals that they would not be exempt from following through with the reforms begun by his disgraced predecessor, Anatoly E. Serdyukov, who is under investigation for real estate deals involving the ministry’s property.

“We cannot fight the wars of the 21st century with the equipment we used 35 years ago in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pukhov said. “That is impossible to think about.”

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Apple shares fall on reports of cuts to iPhone parts orders

(Reuters) – Shares in Apple Inc dipped below $ 500 for the first time in almost one year after reports it is slashing orders for screens and other components from its Asian supplier as intensifying competition erodes demand for its latest iPhone.

Japan‘s Nikkei reported on Monday that the world’s largest technology corporation began sharply reducing buying of liquid crystal displays about a month ago from suppliers like Japan Display Inc and Sharp Corp.

Sharp’s stock dipped as much as 7 percent in early trading on Tuesday and shares in South Korean Apple suppliers such as LG Display also fell.

“We can’t comment on individual clients,” said Miyuki Nakayama, a spokeswoman for Sharp, which builds iPhone 5 screens at its Kameyama plant in central Japan. Japan Display, a state-run business formed from the small LCD units of Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd also declined to discuss its orders.

The Nikkei report, later matched by the Wall Street Journal, comes as hard-charging rivals like Samsung Electronics, which makes phones based on Google Inc’s popular Android software, continue to expand market share globally.

Apple stock slid more than 4 percent to an intraday low of $ 498.51 — a level not seen since February 16, 2012 — before bouncing back to trade just above $ 500 at midday. The news also hurt shares of suppliers such as Cirrus Logic Inc, which dived 9 percent.

Some analysts argued that Apple and its manufacturing partners had struggled with quality issues that might have curtailed production times.

Dogged by low production yields, Sharp last year fell behind schedule for iPhone 5 screen shipments in the run-up to the phone’s launch in September. Sharp has yet to acknowledge that Apple is a customer.

“Our checks with supply chain contacts close to the situation identified a very different cause: a slower ramp in the manufacturing of iPhones and iPads (reflecting some quality control issues) and insufficient production lines,” said JoAnne Feeney of Longbow Research.

“Rather than ordering more components and having inventory build up further, Apple put component suppliers on notice to hold off, for the time being, on further shipments until it expanded its production lines – which it plans to complete by the end of the quarter.”

By some estimates, the holiday quarter may have been the worst for U.S. retailers since the 2008 financial crisis, with sales growth far below expectations. Other data yields a more mixed picture of holiday season demand.

Apple was not immediately available for comment. No one at Sharp was immediately available to comment on Monday – a national holiday in Japan – and parts suppliers to Apple in Taiwan declined to comment.

CUTBACKS

Apple has asked Japan Display, Sharp and LG Display Co Ltd to roughly halve supplies of LCD panels from an initial plan for about 65 million screens in January-March, the Nikkei cited people familiar with the situation as saying.

Japan Display’s plant in southwest Japan, where Apple has invested heavily, is expected to temporarily reduce output by up to 80 percent from October-December levels, the Nikkei reported, while Sharp’s dedicated facility for iPhone 5 LCDs will trim production in January-February by about 40 percent.

The move, if confirmed, would tally with analysts saying that sales of the new iPhone 5, which was released in September, have not been as strong as anticipated.

Apple has lost ground gradually to South Korean rival Samsung, as well as smaller, fast-growing rivals such as China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

Samsung overtook Apple in 2012 to become the world’s biggest seller of smartphones, helped in part by the popularity of its Galaxy Note II phone-cum-tablet and a vastly wider range of low- to high-end devices that appeal to a broad swath of consumers. Apple rolled out a single new smartphone last year.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek trimmed his iPhone shipment estimates for the January-March quarter on December 14, saying that the technology company had started cutting orders to suppliers to balance excess inventory.

Apple also cut its orders for memory chips for its new iPhone from its main supplier and competitor Samsung, Reuters reported in September, quoting sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The company has been cutting back its orders from Samsung as it seeks to diversify its memory chip supply lines.

Samsung said on Monday that global sales of its flagship Galaxy S smartphones had topped 100 million since the first model was launched in May 2010. The Galaxy S3, launched last May, sold more than 40 million in seven months.

The Galaxy S IV is expected within months and may sport an unbreakable screen, full high-definition quality resolution of 440 pixels per inch, and a more powerful processor.

It’s expected to increase its smartphone sales by more than a third this year and widen its lead over Apple, according to researcher Strategy Analytics. It forecast Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones in 2013 versus iPhone sales of 180 million.

Kim Sung-in, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities in Seoul, sees Samsung shipping 320 million smartphones this year and doubling sales of its tablets to 32 million.

(Reporting by Tokyo bureau, Avik Das and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore, Clare Jim in Taipei and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Editing by Supriya Kurane, Andrew Hay and Alex Richardson)

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Bachelor Sean Lowe: My Girl Must Love Dogs

For any of the 25 women looking to win over this season's Bachelor, Sean Lowe, here's a tip straight from the source: "The girl I'm dating must be into my dogs," he tells PEOPLE.

The proud pet parent to two pooches, a boxer named Lola and a chocolate Labrador named Ellie, Lowe says, "For so long it's just been me and my two dogs, and I'm certainly not going to replace them with any woman."

Having had both animals for the past six years, the hunk has developed a special bond with the duo – though he admits his quest for love has forced him to make some changes.

"For many years, my dogs would sleep in the bed with me," he says. "I'm a big guy and I've got two good-sized dogs, so it's a full bed. Then I just realized one day, 'Alright, if I get married and a woman's going to join me in the bed, there's not going to be enough room.' I had to break the dogs of the habit of sleeping in the bed."

Luckily for Lowe, the pair have taken to their new accommodations easily.

"They're very intelligent dogs; they pick up on things really quickly," he says. "They learn pretty fast."

To hear more from Sean Lowe – including how his dogs help him navigate the dating world – check out the video above.

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Hospitals crack down on workers refusing flu shots

CHICAGO (AP) — Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who won't get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal.

"Where does it say that I am no longer a patient if I'm a nurse," wondered Carrie Calhoun, a longtime critical care nurse in suburban Chicago who was fired last month after she refused a flu shot.

Hospitals' get-tougher measures coincide with an earlier-than-usual flu season hitting harder than in recent mild seasons. Flu is widespread in most states, and at least 20 children have died.

Most doctors and nurses do get flu shots. But in the past two months, at least 15 nurses and other hospital staffers in four states have been fired for refusing, and several others have resigned, according to affected workers, hospital authorities and published reports.

In Rhode Island, one of three states with tough penalties behind a mandatory vaccine policy for health care workers, more than 1,000 workers recently signed a petition opposing the policy, according to a labor union that has filed suit to end the regulation.

Why would people whose job is to protect sick patients refuse a flu shot? The reasons vary: allergies to flu vaccine, which are rare; religious objections; and skepticism about whether vaccinating health workers will prevent flu in patients.

Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director for adult immunization at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the strongest evidence is from studies in nursing homes, linking flu vaccination among health care workers with fewer patient deaths from all causes.

"We would all like to see stronger data," she said. But other evidence shows flu vaccination "significantly decreases" flu cases, she said. "It should work the same in a health care worker versus somebody out in the community."

Cancer nurse Joyce Gingerich is among the skeptics and says her decision to avoid the shot is mostly "a personal thing." She's among seven employees at IU Health Goshen Hospital in northern Indiana who were recently fired for refusing flu shots. Gingerich said she gets other vaccinations but thinks it should be a choice. She opposes "the injustice of being forced to put something in my body."

Medical ethicist Art Caplan says health care workers' ethical obligation to protect patients trumps their individual rights.

"If you don't want to do it, you shouldn't work in that environment," said Caplan, medical ethics chief at New York University's Langone Medical Center. "Patients should demand that their health care provider gets flu shots — and they should ask them."

For some people, flu causes only mild symptoms. But it can also lead to pneumonia, and there are thousands of hospitalizations and deaths each year. The number of deaths has varied in recent decades from about 3,000 to 49,000.

A survey by CDC researchers found that in 2011, more than 400 U.S. hospitals required flu vaccinations for their employees and 29 hospitals fired unvaccinated employees.

At Calhoun's hospital, Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, Ill., unvaccinated workers granted exemptions must wear masks and tell patients, "I'm wearing the mask for your safety," Calhoun says. She says that's discriminatory and may make patients want to avoid "the dirty nurse" with the mask.

The hospital justified its vaccination policy in an email, citing the CDC's warning that this year's flu outbreak was "expected to be among the worst in a decade" and noted that Illinois has already been hit especially hard. The mandatory vaccine policy "is consistent with our health system's mission to provide the safest environment possible."

The government recommends flu shots for nearly everyone, starting at age 6 months. Vaccination rates among the general public are generally lower than among health care workers.

According to the most recent federal data, about 63 percent of U.S. health care workers had flu shots as of November. That's up from previous years, but the government wants 90 percent coverage of health care workers by 2020.

The highest rate, about 88 percent, was among pharmacists, followed by doctors at 84 percent, and nurses, 82 percent. Fewer than half of nursing assistants and aides are vaccinated, Bridges said.

Some hospitals have achieved 90 percent but many fall short. A government health advisory panel has urged those below 90 percent to consider a mandatory program.

Also, the accreditation body over hospitals requires them to offer flu vaccines to workers, and those failing to do that and improve vaccination rates could lose accreditation.

Starting this year, the government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is requiring hospitals to report employees' flu vaccination rates as a means to boost the rates, the CDC's Bridges said. Eventually the data will be posted on the agency's "Hospital Compare" website.

Several leading doctor groups support mandatory flu shots for workers. And the American Medical Association in November endorsed mandatory shots for those with direct patient contact in nursing homes; elderly patients are particularly vulnerable to flu-related complications. The American Nurses Association supports mandates if they're adopted at the state level and affect all hospitals, but also says exceptions should be allowed for medical or religious reasons.

Mandates for vaccinating health care workers against other diseases, including measles, mumps and hepatitis, are widely accepted. But some workers have less faith that flu shots work — partly because there are several types of flu virus that often differ each season and manufacturers must reformulate vaccines to try and match the circulating strains.

While not 100 percent effective, this year's vaccine is a good match, the CDC's Bridges said.

Several states have laws or regulations requiring flu vaccination for health care workers but only three — Arkansas, Maine and Rhode Island — spell out penalties for those who refuse, according to Alexandra Stewart, a George Washington University expert in immunization policy and co-author of a study appearing this month in the journal Vaccine.

Rhode Island's regulation, enacted in December, may be the toughest and is being challenged in court by a health workers union. The rule allows exemptions for religious or medical reasons, but requires unvaccinated workers in contact with patients to wear face masks during flu season. Employees who refuse the masks can be fined $100 and may face a complaint or reprimand for unprofessional conduct that could result in losing their professional license.

Some Rhode Island hospitals post signs announcing that workers wearing masks have not received flu shots. Opponents say the masks violate their health privacy.

"We really strongly support the goal of increasing vaccination rates among health care workers and among the population as a whole," but it should be voluntary, said SEIU Healthcare Employees Union spokesman Chas Walker.

Supporters of health care worker mandates note that to protect public health, courts have endorsed forced vaccination laws affecting the general population during disease outbreaks, and have upheld vaccination requirements for schoolchildren.

Cases involving flu vaccine mandates for health workers have had less success. A 2009 New York state regulation mandating health care worker vaccinations for swine flu and seasonal flu was challenged in court but was later rescinded because of a vaccine shortage. And labor unions have challenged individual hospital mandates enacted without collective bargaining; an appeals court upheld that argument in 2007 in a widely cited case involving Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle.

Calhoun, the Illinois nurse, says she is unsure of her options.

"Most of the hospitals in my area are all implementing these policies," she said. "This conflict could end the career I have dedicated myself to."

__

Online:

R.I. union lawsuit against mandatory vaccines: http://www.seiu1199ne.org/files/2013/01/FluLawsuitRI.pdf

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

___

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

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Entertainment executives, unions join to promote Greuel candidacy

Entertainment industry executives and labor unions — including one representing city utility workers — are joining forces to mount an independent TV ad campaign to promote the Los Angeles mayoral candidacy of City Controller Wendy Greuel, a top advisor to the group said Monday.

The group, Working Californians, has hired two of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's former campaign consultants, Ace Smith and Sean Clegg, to run the campaign, according to Clegg, a former deputy mayor.

If the group succeeds in raising a substantial sum of money, it could play a significant role in the fiercely competitive March 5t mayoral primary.

Greuel's leading rivals are City Council members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, and Kevin James, an entertainment lawyer and former talk-radio personality.

Greuel, a former government relations executive at the DreamWorks movie studio, has drawn strong financial support from the entertainment industry. Company co-founders Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen are three of the Democratic Party's top donors and fundraisers in Hollywood.

Greuel has raised $3.5 million, just shy of the $3.6 million collected by Garcetti. But even with matching funds provided by the city, that will be too little to buy more than a few weeks of saturation TV advertising in the city's expensive media market. Donations to mayoral candidates are capped at $1,300, but independent committees like Working Californians are not subject to those limits.

Clegg said the group's labor supporters include the powerful International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, which represents more than 8,600 Department of Water and Power employees. "We're looking at a significant campaign," Clegg said. Brian D'Arcy, the business manager of IBEW Local 18, did not return calls for comment.

Working Californians said in a statement that it hired Clegg and Smith to run a campaign to elect officials "with the leadership, strength and courage to rebuild L.A.'s struggling economy." The group will support Greuel for mayor, City Councilman Dennis Zine for controller and four candidates for City Council.

D'Arcy and his union-affiliated groups have helped Greuel and other city candidates in the past. An IBEW-related group was a major player in Greuel's 2009 race for controller, spending $112,490 on mailings supporting her, according to city ethics filings. In 2008, Working Californians, with D'Arcy as its co-chairman, pushed a ballot measure backed by Villaraigosa that would have installed 100,000 rooftop solar panels on buildings across the city. Greuel was among those who argued for it, but voters rejected the measure. The consulting firm headed by Smith and Clegg played a leading role in electing Villaraigosa, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee and Gov. Jerry Brown.

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

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Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to boy, Facebook

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man and his sister have reunited 65 years after being separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend’s Facebook search.

Clifford Boyson of Davenport met his sibling, Betty Billadeau, in person Saturday. Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Mo., with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson‘s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $ 125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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It's Halle Berry vs. Eva Longoria and the Thigh's the Limit

Stylewatch
Style News Now

01/13/2013 at 11:25 PM ET

Jason Merritt/Getty (2)

We could call it pulling an Angelina, but at this point, lots of stars have flashed lots of legs on lots of red carpets — and Halle Berry and Eva Longoria are two of the latest.

The stars tied for the “highest slit” award at the Golden Globes Sunday night, beating fellow risk-takers Lea Michele, Miranda Kerr and Katharine McPhee and giving all of us quite the eyeful. Berry gave the goods while posing in her Versace gown, while Longoria (in Emilio Pucci) made her big reveal as she walked toward the Beverly Hilton. So whose leg flashing did you like better? Vote in our poll below!

PHOTOS: FIND OUT WHICH STARS MADE THE BEST DRESSED LIST

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is now widespread in all but three states as the nation grapples with an earlier-than-normal season. But there was one bit of good news Friday: The number of hard-hit areas declined.

The flu season in the U.S. got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest flu seasons in recent memory.

The latest numbers do show that the flu surpassed an "epidemic" threshold last week. That is based on deaths from pneumonia and influenza in 122 U.S. cities. However, it's not unusual — the epidemic level varies at different times of the year, and it was breached earlier this flu season, in October and November.

And there's a hint that the flu season may already have peaked in some spots, like in the South. Still, officials there and elsewhere are bracing for more sickness

In Ohio, administrators at Miami University are anxious that a bug that hit employees will spread to students when they return to the Oxford campus next week.

"Everybody's been sick. It's miserable," said Ritter Hoy, a spokeswoman for the 17,000-student school.

Despite the early start, health officials say it's not too late to get a flu shot. The vaccine is considered a good — though not perfect — protection against getting really sick from the flu.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii.

The number of hard-hit states fell to 24 from 29, where larger numbers of people were treated for flu-like illness. Now off that list: Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina in the South, the first region hit this flu season.

Recent flu reports included holiday weeks when some doctor's offices were closed, so it will probably take a couple more weeks to get a better picture, CDC officials said Friday. Experts say so far say the season looks moderate.

"Only time will tell how moderate or severe this flu season will be," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said Friday in a teleconference with reporters.

The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people in an average year. Nationally, 20 children have died from the flu this season.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Since the swine flu epidemic in 2009, vaccination rates have increased in the U.S., but more than half of Americans haven't gotten this year's vaccine.

Nearly 130 million doses of flu vaccine were distributed this year, and at least 112 million have been used. Vaccine is still available, but supplies may have run low in some locations, officials said.

To find a shot, "you may have to call a couple places," said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, who tracks the flu in Iowa.

In midtown Manhattan, Hyrmete Sciuto got a flu shot Friday at a drugstore. She skipped it in recent years, but news reports about the flu this week worried her.

During her commute from Edgewater, N.J., by ferry and bus, "I have people coughing in my face," she said. "I didn't want to risk it this year."

The vaccine is no guarantee, though, that you won't get sick. On Friday, CDC officials said a recent study of more than 1,100 people has concluded the current flu vaccine is 62 percent effective. That means the average vaccinated person is 62 percent less likely to get a case of flu that sends them to the doctor, compared to people who don't get the vaccine. That's in line with other years.

The vaccine is reformulated annually, and this year's is a good match to the viruses going around.

The flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in flu-like illnesses caused by other bugs, including a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." Those illnesses likely are part of the heavy traffic in hospital and clinic waiting rooms, CDC officials said.

Europeans also are suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo have also reported increasing flu.

Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.

Most people with flu have a mild illness. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.

Some shortages have been reported for children's liquid Tamiflu, a prescription medicine used to treat flu. But health officials say adult Tamiflu pills are available, and pharmacists can convert those to doses for children.

___

Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati, Catherine Lucey in Des Moines, and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

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Judge to rule in neo-Nazi's slaying

Before sunrise, a troubled 10-year-old Riverside boy quietly crept downstairs with a loaded revolver, held it at his sleeping father's head and, using two fingers, squeezed the trigger.

That's not in dispute. Neither is this: The youngster will be a free man before his 23rd birthday, if not sooner.

A Riverside County judge will make the difficult decision Monday about whether the boy, now 12, possessed the mental capacity to know it was wrong to kill his father, an abusive neo-Nazi activist. But lurking behind that legal issue is a more vexing moral one: what should be done long term about a boy who was born to a heroin-addled mother, raised in a house steeped in violence and, by all accounts, is sporadically consumed by uncontrollable rage.

"The thing is, eventually he'll be out there … so we need to help this kid," said his attorney, public defender Matthew Hardy.

Jeffrey Hall, the boy's father, was a leader in a budding neo-Nazi organization known as the National Socialist Movement. His son, who is not being named by The Times because of his age, was charged as a juvenile and will not land in adult prison. His future is up to the judge, and no matter where the boy goes, he can be held only until he turns 23.

If Superior Court Judge Jean P. Leonard finds that the boy grasped the difference between right and wrong when he pulled the trigger, she could be send him to one of California's three juvenile detention centers. Those institutions are filled with young murderers, rapists and gang members. None currently house anyone younger than 14.

Hardy said that if his client is sent there, he would probably leave as either a corpse or a serial killer.

The judge also could sentence the boy to probation, placing him in foster care or with a family member and order him to undergo intensive counseling.

On the other hand, if Leonard rules that the boy didn't know the difference between right and wrong, the youngster would be released from juvenile hall and, most likely, into the custody of the county social service agency. A judge then will have the burden of deciding whether to place him with relatives or into the foster care system.

The boy's birth mother, who divorced Hall shortly after their son was born, has a checkered history. She is accused of neglecting the boy as a baby and using heroin and methamphetamine while pregnant, possibly planting the seeds to his violent, disturbed behavior, say psychologists who examined him.

His grandmother would be the most likely relative to take him in. She visits him weekly and says he has told her that he wants to come live with her.

She said she is torn. She still grieves for her son.

"I don't know that I could handle him," said the grandmother, Jo Ann Patterson. "I have a double interest in all this. I want justice for my son, but I don't want it at the cost of my grandson."

The grandmother and a psychologist who examined the child agree that the best option may be to place the youngster, at least at the outset, in an intensive juvenile rehabilitation facility where he can receive professional care. Those can include private facilities or juvenile centers run by the Riverside County Department of Probation. They can range from residential group homes to high-security compounds.

"Honestly, the best-case scenario we believe is that he gets some rehabilitation" while also going to school, Patterson said.

A probation officer will assess the boy's history and eventually make a recommendation to the judge about what's best for him, said Mark Hake, the county's interim chief probation officer.

"Our first goal is to reunify kids with a family member," Hake said. "You're looking at trying to gear them up and equip them to go out in the world on their own."

Anna Salter, a clinical psychologist from Wisconsin who testified for the prosecution, offered a relatively bright assessment of the boy's chances. In testimony last week, Salter rejected the defense argument that the boy, brutalized by his father and indoctrinated in the violent, hate-filled world of neo-Nazis, was too morally confused to know that killing was wrong.

She said the youngster's show of remorse offered a glimmer of hope. He is not a psychopath, a monster void of empathy or a conscience, she testified. "I do believe there is hope for [him]. I believe he wants to have a good life. I believe he will work hard to get one."

Killings committed by children under 14 are exceptionally rare, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Just 29 occurred nationwide in 2010. Killing a parent is rarer still.

"The research shows that kids who kill their parents typically don't go on to kill others," said Paul Mones, a Portland, Ore., attorney who has handled numerous cases involving children accused of killing a parent.

The vast majority of patricide cases are "situational homicides" committed against controlling fathers who abused multiple members of their families, he said. The young killers are focused on ending that abuse and rarely lash out at outsiders, he said.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Soccio, the prosecutor in the Hall case, agrees that there still is hope for the boy. But he argued in court that the boy's rehabilitation cannot begin until he acknowledges that he is guilty of his father's death.

"He's not a lost cause," Soccio said. "He had virtues in him that could be fostered. But that won't work … if we minimize, if we justify the murder."

phil.willon@latimes.com

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