‘Lincoln,’ ‘Les Miz,’ ‘Argo’ earn producers honors

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Civil War saga “Lincoln,” the musical “Les Miserables” and the Osama bin Laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” are among the nominees announced Wednesday for the top honor from the Producers Guild of America.

Other best-picture contenders are the Iran hostage-crisis thriller “Argo”; the low-budget critical favorite “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; the slave-turned-bounty-hunter saga “Django Unchained”; the shipwreck story “Life of Pi”; the first-love tale “Moonrise Kingdom“; the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook”; and the James Bond adventure “Skyfall.”

Walt Disney dominated the guild’s animation category with three of the five nominees: “Brave,” ”Frankenweenie” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” The other nominees are Focus Features’ “ParaNorman” and Paramount’s “Rise of the Guardians.”

Along with honors from other Hollywood professional groups such as actors, directors and writers guilds, the producer prizes help sort out contenders for the Academy Awards. Those nominations come out Jan. 10.

The guild, an association of Hollywood producers, hands out its 24th annual prizes Jan. 26. The big winner often goes on to claim the best-picture honor at the Oscars, which follow on Feb. 24.

Previously announced nominees by the Producers Guild for best documentary are “A People Uncounted,” ”The Gatekeepers,” ”The Island President,” ”The Other Dream Team” and “Searching for Sugar Man.”

Other nominees:

— TV drama series: “Breaking Bad,” ”Downton Abbey,” ”Game of Thrones,” ”Homeland,” ”Mad Men.”

— TV comedy series: “30 Rock,” ”The Big Bang Theory,” ”Curb Your Enthusiasm,” ”Louie,” ”Modern Family.”

— Long-form television: “American Horror Story,” ”The Dust Bowl,” ”Game Change,” ”Hatfields & McCoys,” ”Sherlock.”

— Non-fiction television: “American Masters,” ”Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” ”Deadliest Catch,” ”Inside the Actors Studio,” ”Shark Tank.”

— Live entertainment and talk television: “The Colbert Report,” ”Jimmy Kimmel Live,” ”Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” ”Real Time with Bill Maher,” ”Saturday Night Live.”

— Competition television: “The Amazing Race,” ”Dancing with the Stars,” ”Project Runway,” ”Top Chef,” ”The Voice.”

— Sports program: “24/7,” ”Catching Hell,” ”The Fight with Jim Lampley,” ”On Freddie Roach,” ”Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.”

— Children’s program: “Good Luck Charlie,” ”iCarly,” ”Phineas and Ferb,” ”Sesame Street,” ”The Weight of the Nation for Kids: The Great Cafeteria Takeover.”

___

Online:

http://www.producersguild.org

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: ‘Lincoln,’ ‘Les Miz,’ ‘Argo’ earn producers honors
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/lincoln-les-miz-argo-earn-producers-honors/
Link To Post : ‘Lincoln,’ ‘Les Miz,’ ‘Argo’ earn producers honors
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

5-Hour Energy’s ‘No Crash Later’ Claim Is Disputed

The distributor of the top-selling energy “shot,” 5-Hour Energy, has long claimed on product labels, in promotions and in television advertisements that the concentrated caffeine drink produced “no crash later” — the type of letdown that consumers of energy drinks often feel when the beverages’ effects wear off.

But an advertising watchdog group said on Wednesday that it had told the company five years ago that the claim was unfounded and had urged it then to stop making it.

An executive of the group, the National Advertising Division, also said that 5-Hour Energy’s distributor, Living Essentials, had publicly misrepresented the organization’s position about the claim and that it planned to start a review that could lead to action against the company by the Federal Trade Commission.

“We recommended that the ‘no crash’ claim be discontinued because their own evidence showed there was a crash from the product,” said Andrea C. Levine, director the National Advertising Division. The organization, which is affiliated with the Council of Better Business Bureaus, reviews ad claims for accuracy.

The emerging dispute between Living Essentials and the National Advertising Division is unusual because the $10 billion energy drink industry is rife with questionable marketing. And Living Essentials, which recently cited the advertising group’s support in seeking to defend the “no crash” claim, may have opened the door to greater scrutiny.

Major producers like 5-Hour Energy, Red Bull, Monster Energy and Rockstar Energy all say their products contain proprietary blends of ingredients that provide a range of mental and physical benefits. But the companies have conducted few studies to show that the costly products provide anything more than a blast of caffeine, a stimulant found in beverages like coffee, tea or cola-flavored sodas.

The dispute over 5-Hour Energy’s claim also comes as regulatory review of the high-caffeine drinks is increasing. The Food and Drug Administration recently disclosed that it had received reports over the last four years citing the possible role of 5-Hour Energy in 13 deaths. The mention of a product in an F.D.A. report does not mean it caused a death or injury. Living Essentials says it knows of no problems related to its products.

The issue surrounding the company’s “no crash” claim dates to 2007, when National Advertising Division began reviewing all of 5-Hour Energy’s marketing claims. That same year, the company conducted a clinical trial of the energy shot that compared it to Red Bull and Monster Energy.

At the time, Living Essentials was already using the “No crash later” claim. An article on Wednesday in The New York Times reported that the study had shown that 24 percent of those who used 5-Hour Energy suffered a “moderately severe” crash hours after consuming it. The study reported higher crash rates for Red Bull and Monster Energy.

When asked how those findings squared with the company’s “no crash” claim, Elaine Lutz, a spokeswoman for Living Essentials, said the company had amended the claim after the 2007 review by the National Advertising Division. In doing so, it added an asterisklike mark after the claim on product labels and in promotions. The mark referred to additional labeling language stating that “no crash means no sugar crash.” Unlike Red Bull and Monster Energy, 5-Hour Energy does not contain sugar.

Ms. Lutz said that based on the modification, the advertising accuracy group “found all of our claims to be substantiated.”

However, Ms. Levine, the advertising group’s director, took sharp exception to that assertion, saying it mischaracterized the group’s decision. And a review of the reports suggested that Living Essentials had simply added language of its choosing to its label rather than doing what the group had recommended — drop the “no crash” claim altogether.

That review concluded that the company’s 2007 study had shown there was evidence to support a “qualified claim that 5-Hour Energy results in less of a crash than Red Bull and Monster” Energy. But it added the study, which showed that 5-Hour Energy users experienced caffeine-related crashes, was inadequate to support a “no crash” claim.

Ms. Levine said Living Essentials had apparently decided to use the parts of the group’s report that it liked and ignore others.

Companies “are not permitted to mischaracterize our decisions or misuse them for commercial purposes,” she said.

She said the group planned to notify Living Essentials that it was reopening its review of the “no crash later” claim. If the company fails to respond or provides an inadequate response, the National Advertising Division will probably refer the matter to the F.T.C., she said.

A Democratic lawmaker, Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, has asked that the agency review energy drink marketing claims.

Asked about the position of the National Advertising Division, Ms. Lutz, the 5-Hour Energy spokeswoman, stated in an e-mail that the “no sugar crash” language had been added to address the group’s concern.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 2, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of deaths in which the Food and Drug Administration said 5-Hour Energy possibly played a role. The number was 13, not 15.

Read More..

Your Money: Piecing Together a Tax Plan’s Effects

It is tempting for people who earn less than $400,000 to think that they got off easy this week under the tax deal to end the fiscal impasse, given that only those with incomes above that level will be in a higher income tax bracket in 2013.

But the legislation that both houses of Congress have now approved could increase taxes on people with incomes that are not quite that high as well. That’s because the bill includes language that begins to do what both President Obama and Mitt Romney proposed at various points in the past: Limit certain tax breaks available to people who are affluent.

The new rules target two tax breaks: personal exemptions and many popular deductions like those for state and local taxes, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. For both breaks, single people with at least $250,000 in adjusted gross income and married people filing jointly with at least $300,000 in income are vulnerable. A hypothetical Texas couple could end up paying about $2,500 more in taxes, for instance.

The mechanics of how the new limits will work are now clear, though it takes a fair bit of explaining to lay them out in plain English. What we don’t know yet is how many people will end up paying more in 2013 than they did in 2012.

The uncertainty is tied to the fact that many of the targets of the legislation often end up ensnared by the alternative minimum tax. The A.M.T., and its high tax bill, may continue to catch most of them.

But let’s start with the basics. Most of the discussion here begins with that adjusted gross income figure. That’s the number you get when you subtract items from your salary or take-home pay that are often referred to as above-the-line deductions.

For the income range we’re talking about, these deductions tend to include things like health savings account contributions and alimony. People who work for themselves also get deductions for health insurance premiums, certain retirement contributions and self-employment taxes that an employer would otherwise pay.

Mark Luscombe, principal analyst with CCH, a tax information provider, points out just how confusing the use of adjustable gross income is, given that the new tax limits, the new tax bracket and the new Medicare tax are all based on different definitions of income.

Under normal circumstances, a personal exemption, for a specific dollar amount, is available for each member of your household. You then add all of the exemptions and subtract the total from your adjusted gross income, which has the effect of lowering your taxable income. CCH predicts that the personal exemption amount for 2013 will be $3,900 per person.

The new law requires taxpayers in the targeted income range to reduce the amount of their exemptions by 2 percent for every $2,500 by which their income exceeds the $250,000 or $300,000 limit. So a married, childless couple with $400,000 in adjusted gross income and $7,800 in potential exemptions could lose $6,240 of that $7,800.

The math for the limit on deductions is different. There, the rules call for you to add up the applicable deductions. Let’s say that equals $50,000. Then, you subtract from that 3 percent of the amount by which your adjusted gross income exceeds those $250,000 or $300,000 thresholds.

So if you’re a married couple with $400,000 in income, you’re $100,000 over the threshold. Three percent of that is $3,000. So you’d subtract that from $50,000. The rule, which existed for years but had been phased out more recently, is known as the Pease limitation, for Representative Donald J. Pease, the Ohio newspaper editor-turned-legislator who got it passed. As before, you can’t lose more than 80 percent of your deductions, no matter how high your income gets.

If you’re trying to figure out whether and how this may affect you, well, join the club. So much depends on your income, your state and your various deductions. All of that will affect whether the A.M.T. hits you as well.

For people who are already in the A.M.T. but will not end up with the $400,000 (for individuals) or $450,000 (for married couples filing jointly) in income necessary to be in the new 39.6 percent tax bracket in 2013, the new exemption and deduction rules may not hurt you. “I don’t think there’s enough there that you would no longer be in the A.M.T.,” said Jude Coard, a tax partner at Berdon L.L.P., of people with income in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.

Much will depend on your own situation. CCH ran two hypothetical cases for me, which you can see in the accompanying graphic. The first examined a family of four in New York with $400,000 in adjusted gross income and $79,000 in total itemized deductions. The household pays the A.M.T. in both 2012 and under the new tax rules in 2013. They pay just $790 more in 2013, but that includes $1,350 in new Medicare taxes. (The total does not include the Social Security payroll tax that has been restored to its prerecession level.)

A family in Texas, however, might have the same income but lower property taxes and no income tax and thus lower deductions for its federal tax return. Their deductions are just $43,700, but they end up being hurt more by the new rules. They would have no A.M.T. liability in 2013 and would end up paying $3,852 more, or about $2,500 if you don’t count the $1,350 from the new Medicare tax.

This is a lot to digest, so much so that even the experts at the Tax Policy Center have not yet finished updating their online calculator. Once they do, if you have the stomach to gather (or try to predict) all of the data, you can take your shot at projecting what these new rules may cost you.

Read More..

Obama claims victory, heads back to Hawaii

WASHINGTON -- Even as he claimed victory and praised leaders for walking back from the edge of economic danger,  President Obama looked ahead to his next round of sparring with Republicans in Congress over deficits, taxes and government spending.

Speaking to reporters in the White House moments after the House passed a deal averting the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama declared his intention to keep chipping away at deficit reduction efforts.

"I think we all recognize that this law is just one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy and broaden opportunity for everybody," Obama said late Tuesday night. "The fact is that the deficit is still too high, and we're still investing too little in the things we need for the economy to grow as fast as it should."

The House passed the tax deal, 257-167, winning more support from the chamber’s Democrats than the majority Republicans. The measure keeps income taxes from resetting to higher rates for 99% of American taxpayers, while allowing rates to climb for the wealthiest. It also delays automatic spending cuts that were scheduled Wednesday to start phasing in.

Immediately after his remarks, Obama boarded Marine One en route to Andrews Air Force Base, for an overnight flight to Hawaii to rejoin his family.

Obama had interrupted his holiday visit to his birth state after five days to return to Washington on Dec. 27. He's expected to stay there through the weekend.

When he returns, he will greet a new Congress and a new set of fiscal crises. The deal passed Tuesday ensures that the next round of deficit brinkmanship will build to a new deadline, probably at the end of February, when Congress will be asked to increase the nation’s debt limit, pass legislation funding the government and address the automatic spending cuts.

Obama stressed that he would seek new tax revenue in any future deal, saying we can’t "simply cut our way to prosperity." He also repeated his assertion that he would not negotiate with Republicans over whether Congress will vote to increase the debt limit, as he did in 2011. A failure to raise the limit prevents the Treasury from borrowing more to pay its bills and could result in a U.S. default.

Obama said that such a fight would be "catastrophic" for the global economy.

"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they’ve passed," he said. "We can’t go down that path again."

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Twitter: @khennessey

Read More..

The Future Is Now: What We Imagined for 2013 — 10 Years Ago

Predicting the future is hard, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’re Wired, after all.

Ten years ago, we boldly declared that we’d be living with phones on our wrists, data-driven goggles on our eyes and gadgets that would safety-test our food for us. Turns out, a lot of the things Sonia Zjawinski conceptualized in our “Living in 2013” feature way back in 2003 were remarkably close to what we’ve seen. We even got the iPhone right (sort of).

And so, as we look back on life in 2013 circa 2003, we’re going to spin it forward once again to tell you what life will be like in 2023.

Predicted for 2003 (above):

Apple redefined the desktop, laptop, and MP3 player. The next insanely great thing: an LCD arm cuff that includes a PDA, wireless Internet, a mini iPod, and, of course, a phone. The iPhone bracelet's motion sensor allows you to scroll through apps and files with the flick of a wrist, its clasp holds a digicam for use during video calls, and its wireless ear clip lets you listen and speak to callers. And everything can be done via voice recognition or touchscreen. Talk about the right call. Illustration: Kenn Brown.

Delivered in 2013:

Hey, it turns out, Apple gave us an iPhone after all! We got the name right, and even seemed to know about FaceTime. But the form factor details? Not so much. While you can wear an iPod nano as a watch, or make a call with your iPhone, if you want the watch-plus-phone combination that we teased you with 10 years ago, for now you'll need to pick up a secondary gadget that can transmit to your phone, like this Pebble. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired.

Looking ahead to 2023:

Here's the thing, the screen on a watch is simply too small to display lots of data. And as an input device? Forget it. Yet keeping your phone out of sight means you often can't interact with your data on the go. The obvious answer is a variable size display. Samsung has already demonstrated a pretty convincing foldable OLED display prototype. Given 10 more years, we can easily see one screen serving multiple purposes by taking on multiple form factors, depending on whether you wanted to simply glance at it to read a message, or unfold it to write your reply. Illustration: Simon Lutrin/Wired

Mat Honan is a senior writer for Wired's Gadget Lab and the co-founder of the Knight-Batten award-winning Longshot magazine.

Read more by Mat Honan

Follow @mat on Twitter.

Read More..

Heartwarming moments defy chill at Rose Parade

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — A couple who became husband and wife on the “Love Float,” a surprise reunion between a returning soldier and his little boy, and a grand marshal famed globally for her chimpanzee research were among the highlights of the 124th Rose Parade on Tuesday.

The parade’s spectacular 42 floral floats brightened an otherwise cloudy New Year’s morning and boosted the spirits of a chilled crowd estimated at some 700,000 spectators lining the 5-mile route.

“The only way that you’re going to experience the Rose Parade is to be here in person,” said Los Angeles resident Gineen Alcantara-Nakama, who camped out Monday night to save front row sidewalk spots.

“Growing up, I watched it on television, but it’s not the same — the smell, the atmosphere, smelling the flowers as they come down the street. And the energy. It’s like being with family all night long.”

Spectators rose to a standing ovation when Army Sgt. First Class Eric Pazz, who was riding on the Natural Balance Pet Foods float along with other service members, got off the float and walked over to his surprised wife Miriam and 4-year-old son Eric Jr., who came running out of the stands into the arms of his 32-year-old father.

Miriam Pazz had been told she had won a contest to attend the parade and did not know her husband, who is deployed in Afghanistan, would be there. A native of Clio, Mich., Pazz is a highly decorated soldier who has also served in Iraq. The family, who currently lives in Germany, climbed aboard the float for the rest of the route.

Cheers also went up for a Chesapeake, Va., couple who tied the knot aboard Farmers Insurance “Love Float.”

Gerald Sapienza and Nicole Angelillo were high school classmates who reconnected 10 years later and won the parade wedding over three other couples in a nationwide contest. They received a trip to Pasadena, a wedding gown, tuxedo, rings, marriage license fees, Rose Bowl game tickets and hair and makeup for the bride.

The parade’s theme this year was “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” named in honor of the Dr. Seuss book. It served as a fitting slogan for grand marshal British primatologist Jane Goodall, who has spent much of her life in Tanzania studying chimpanzees.

Goodall chose conservation as her message for the parade

“My dream for this New Year’s Day is for everyone to think of the places we can all go if we work together to make our world a better place,” said Goodall, 78.

“Every journey starts with a step and I am pleased to see the Tournament of Roses continue to take steps toward not only celebrating beauty and imagination, but also a cleaner environment.”

This year’s parade also saw the first-ever float entered by the Defense Department.

The $ 247,000 military float was a replica of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington to commemorate the veterans from that conflict.

The float that scooped up the parade’s grand “Sweepstakes” prize for the most beautiful floral presentation and design was “Dreaming in Paradise” by fruit and vegetable producer Dole.

According to parade rules, every inch of the floats must be covered with flowers or plant material, most of it applied by volunteers in the last weeks of December.

Besides floats, the parade also featured 23 marching bands and 21 equestrian units from around the world.

Banda El Salvador, a 200-plus member marching band and folkloric dance troupe, played sassy Latin rhythms and paid homage to their Central American country by dressing in the national colors of blue and white and shouting “Arriba El Salvador!”

The Aguiluchos band from Puebla, Mexico, earned cheers for their fancy footwork and vaquero rope tricks. Colorful dancers from Costa Rica and South Korea were other crowd pleasers.

Die-hard parade fans staked out their spots overnight or in pre-dawn hours with folding chairs, hammocks and portable barbeque grills despite frosty temperatures.

Emergency personnel received a number of cold-weather exposure calls, police department spokeswoman Lisa Derderian told City News Service.

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, police had made a total of 22 arrests along the parade route since 6 p.m. Monday, said police Lt. Rick Aversan. All but one arrest were for suspected public intoxication. The other was for suspected possession of burglary tools that could have been used to break into cars, police said.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Heartwarming moments defy chill at Rose Parade
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Ground Zero Volunteers Face Obstacles to Compensation

On the day the terrorists flew into the World Trade Center, the Wu-Tang Clan canceled its meeting with a record mixer named Richard Oliver, so Mr. Oliver rushed downtown from his Hell’s Kitchen apartment to help out.

He said he spent three sleepless days at ground zero, tossing body bags. “Then I went home, ate, crashed, woke up,” he said. He had left his Dr. Martens boots on the landing outside his apartment, where he said they “had rotted away.”

“That was kind of frightening,” he continued. “I was breathing that stuff.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, nothing symbolized the city’s rallying around like many New Yorkers who helped at ground zero for days, weeks, months, without being asked. Now Mr. Oliver, suffering from back pain and a chronic sinus infection, is among scores of volunteers who have begun filing claims for compensation from a $2.8 billion fund that Congress created in 2010.

But proving they were there and eligible for the money is turning out to be its own forbidding task.

The other large classes of people who qualify — firefighters, police officers, contractors, city workers, residents and students — have it relatively simple, since they are more likely to have official work orders, attendance records and leases to back them up. But more than a decade later, many volunteers have only the sketchiest proof that they are eligible for the fund, which is expected to make its first awards early this year. (A separate $1.5 billion treatment fund also was created.)

They are volunteers like Terry Graves, now ill with lung cancer, who kept a few business cards of people she worked with until 2007, then threw them away. Or Jaime Hazan, a former Web designer with gastric reflux, chronically inflamed sinuses and asthma, who managed to dig up a photograph of himself at ground zero — taken from behind.

Or Mr. Oliver, who has a terse two-sentence thank-you note on American Red Cross letterhead, dated 2004, which does not meet the requirement that it be witnessed or sworn.

“For some people, there’s great records,” said Noah H. Kushlefsky, whose law firm, Kreindler & Kreindler, is representing volunteers and others who expect to make claims. “But in some respects, it was a little bit of a free-for-all. Other people went down there and joined the bucket brigade, talked their way in. It’s going to be harder for those people, and we do have clients like that.”

As documentation, the fund requires volunteers to have orders, instructions or confirmation of tasks they performed, or medical records created during the time they were in what is being called the exposure zone, including the area south of Canal Street, and areas where debris was being taken.

Failing that, it will be enough to submit two sworn statements — meaning the writer swears to its truth, under penalty of perjury — from witnesses describing when the volunteers were there and what they were doing.

Proving presence at the site might actually be harder than proving the illness is related to Sept. 11, since the rules now allow a host of ailments to be covered, including 50 kinds of cancer, despite an absence of evidence linking cancer to ground zero.

A study by the New York City health department, just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found no clear association between cancer and Sept. 11, though the researchers noted that some cancers take many years to develop.

Unlike the original compensation fund, administered by Kenneth Feinberg, which dealt mainly with people who were killed or maimed in the attack, “This one is dealing with injuries that are very common,” said Sheila L. Birnbaum, a former mediator and personal injury defense lawyer, who is in charge of the new fund. “So it’s sort of a very hard process from the fund’s point of view to make the right call, and it requires some evidence that people were actually there.”

Asked how closely the fund would scrutinize documents like sworn statements, Ms. Birnbaum said she understood how hard it was to recreate records after a decade, and was going on the basic assumption that people would be honest.

In his career as a record mixer, Mr. Oliver, 56, has been associated with 7 platinum and 11 gold records, and 2 Grammy credits, which now line the walls of his condominium in College Point, Queens. He said he first got wind of the Sept. 11 attacks from a client, the Wu-Tang Clan. “One of the main guys called me: ‘Did you see what’s on TV? Because our meeting ain’t going to happen,’ ” he recalled.

Having taken a hazmat course after high school, he called the Red Cross and was told they needed people like him. “I left my soon-to-be-ex-wife and 1-year-old son and went down,” he said. “I came back three days later,” after surviving on his own adrenaline, Little Debbie cakes handed out to volunteers and bottled water. After working for three days setting up a morgue, he was willing to go back, he said, but “they said we have trained people now, thank you very much for your service.”

Read More..

Breakaway Oil Rig Runs Aground in Gulf of Alaska

Petty Officer 3rd Class Jonathan Klingenberg/U.S. Coast Guard

A view of the Kulluk aground southeast of Sitkalidak Island. The grounding was only the latest of the problems Shell has run into in seeking to drill north of Alaska.

WASHINGTON — One of Shell Oil’s two Arctic drilling rigs is beached on an island in the Gulf of Alaska, threatening environmental damage from a fuel spill and calling into question Shell’s plans to resume drilling in the treacherous waters north of Alaska in the summer.

The rig, the Kulluk, broke free from a tow ship in stormy seas and ran aground Monday night. The Coast Guard was leading an effort to keep its more than 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel and lubricants from spilling onto the rocky shoreline.

At a news conference in Anchorage on Tuesday afternoon, Capt. Paul Mehler III, the federal on-scene coordinator, said that a reconnaissance flight showed the Kulluk was upright and stable, with no significant motion.

“The results are showing us that the Kulluk is sound,” Captain Mehler said. “No sign of breach of hull, no sign of release of any product.” He said the response team hoped to get salvage experts aboard the ship to get a better picture of damage.

Steven Russell of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation said that, so far, there was no sign of harm to the environment or wildlife.

The Kulluk’s 18 crew members had been evacuated by Coast Guard helicopters on Saturday after the rig first went adrift in high winds and rough seas.

The grounding was the latest in a series of mishaps to befall Shell’s ambitious plans to prospect for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off the North Slope of Alaska.

Shell halted drilling for oil in September after equipment failures, unexpected ice floes, operational missteps and regulatory delays forced the company to scale back its plans.

Its drilling rigs completed two shallow pilot holes and left the Arctic in late fall to return to Seattle for maintenance work but have encountered problems in transit.

If the Kulluk, which Shell upgraded in recent years at a cost of nearly $300 million, is wrecked or substantially damaged, it will be hard for the company to find a replacement and receive the numerous government permits needed to resume drilling in July, as planned.

Under Department of Interior rules governing Arctic drilling, the company must have two rigs on site at all times to provide for a backup vessel to drill a relief well in case of a blowout, an uncontrolled escape of oil or gas.

A separate containment system designed to collect oil in the case of a well accident failed during testing, preventing Shell from drilling into oil-bearing formations during its abbreviated exploration season last summer and fall. Shell’s Alaska vice president, Pete Slaiby, said he could not discuss the latest accident, saying that company officials were working with a Coast Guard-directed unified command and could not comment separately.

An official involved in the response operation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment, said: “We don’t know about the damage. It’s too dark. The weather is horrendous.” The official said that when a helicopter flew over the rig Monday night: “It looked upright about 1,600 feet off the beach. There was no sign of any spill.” The official said the fuel tanks on the vessel were well protected inside the hull, making a spill unlikely.

The Kulluk, which does not have a propulsion system of its own, ran into trouble late last week when its tow ship, the Aiviq, lost engine power and the towline separated. A Coast Guard cutter and other ships arrived, and crews struggled through Monday, in seas up to 35 feet, to reconnect tow lines to the rig, succeeding several times. But each time the lines separated.

On Monday night, the Kulluk, 266 feet in diameter, broke free from one tow ship and the Coast Guard ordered a second ship to disconnect, fearing for the safety of its crew.

The Kulluk is sitting on the southeast coast of Sitkalidak Island, an uninhabited island separated by the Sitkalidak Strait from the far larger Kodiak Island to the west. The nearest town, Old Harbor, is across the strait on Kodiak Island; it has a population of about 200 people. The strait is home to a threatened species of sea lion.

Clifford Krauss contributed reporting.

Read More..

USC's dreadful performance is perfect way to conclude imperfect season

EL PASO — A football season that once swaggered through the warmth of a No. 1 ranking has curled up and expired in a cold, remote desert, buffeted by a chilled and foreboding wind.

The kid coach is bundled in a black hoodie and wearing sunglasses. He is standing 10 yards from most of his team. He is hunched over a play card, huddled into himself, alone.

The kid quarterback is battered by the wind, perplexed by the defense and wandering the sidelines looking for comfort or instruction. He receives neither and wanders alone.

The athletic director who has said he is "150%" behind this mess is on speed dial, but he cannot be reached for comment, which could mean nothing or everything. In offering his unwavering and unconditional support of the most underachieving team in college football history, he, too, could be alone.

Happy New Year's Eve, USC football fans. Are you ready for the mother of all hangovers?

Playing a losing team from a weakened conference in a secondary bowl game Monday, the Trojans did worse than simply lose. They didn't even show up.

In a 21-7 loss to Georgia Tech, Coach Lane Kiffin was distant, quarterback Max Wittek was despairing, the defense was battered for nearly 300 rushing yards, and even their scarf-swaddled fans finally had enough. In the final minutes of the game, Trojans fans rained boos down upon Georgia Tech for having the nerve to call timeout and extend their agony.

This wasn't just one bad game; this was the end of a season filled with bad games, the last milepost in arguably the most unsightly journey ever taken by a football team in NCAA history.

The Trojans went from No. 1 in the country to out of the rankings entirely, the first time this has happened in 48 years. The Trojans went from talk of an undefeated season to six losses, including five in the last six games. The Trojans went from Hollywood to El Paso to a tiny Sun Bowl conference room in which Kiffin tried to explain it all.

"A very surprising day," he said. "Obviously, it starts with the head coach."

Many believe this should be the end of the head coach. Even though Athletic Director Pat Haden assured me on Nov. 17 that Kiffin was returning next season and that he was "150%" behind the coach, many think he could and should change his mind.

Since that statement — oddly coming on the day of the loss to UCLA — the Trojans suffered through questionable play-calling in a loss to Notre Dame and then experienced an awful week here. Georgia Tech walked out of a Sun Bowl banquet because the Trojans showed up late, two Trojans tweeted nasty things about the city of El Paso, and even a giant Trojans thank-you ad purchased for the back page of the sports section of the El Paso Times couldn't fully make amends.

Although USC claimed bowl officials knew about its late banquet arrival, and although USC players aren't the first kids to tweet dumb things, there are no easy explanations about what happened in the week's culminating event. How on earth does a Trojans team supposedly loaded with NFL prospects gain only 205 total yards against a Georgia Tech team that gave up 510 yards to Middle Tennessee State? Or have only two more first downs than punts? Or commit three turnovers, giving them 34 for the season, the most ever for a team with a winning record?

"We had two great weeks of practice. ... I thought our guys were really into it," said Kiffin, shaking his head, showing again the apparent fraying in his connection with his team.

Kiffin later said he was huddled under the hoodie because he didn't want to wear a ski cap. He also said he was wearing sunglasses to hide a tiny bandage, which he said was covering a scrape caused by some horsing around with linebacker Hayes Pullard.

"C'mon, you know that how I looked is not the reason we lost this game," he said.

But all of it contributed to the perception of a coach who is not a strong leader, which is another reason Haden could ultimately change his mind and make a change. This lack of leadership spread to his players, even quarterback Matt Barkley, who began the season as a Heisman Trophy favorite and ended it as a no-show.

Yes, Barkley's season ended when he suffered a sprained shoulder against UCLA. But where was the quarterback on the sidelines Monday when Wittek could have used his counsel? Where was any veteran to support the redshirt freshman when he was clearly lost while completing 14 of 37 passes for 107 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions? And where were the veterans at the start of the fourth quarter, with the Trojans still trailing by only a touchdown, when USC trudged down the field while the Yellow Jackets bounced and danced in unified excitement?

"I never saw this coming," said senior defensive end Wes Horton. "With the talent and coaches we had, I thought we'd have a much better record."

Statements like that, and games like this, are all damning to Kiffin's cause. But remember, the two things that Haden said he liked about Kiffin are still true. Haden said he loves Kiffin's commitment to academics, and two Trojans were sent home from El Paso for academic reasons. Haden also said he loves Kiffin's recruiting, and the Trojans are still scheduled to have one of the nation's top hauls.

"We'll sign the No. 1 class in the country and go back to work," Kiffin said.

For now, that is true, and I wouldn't be surprised if it remained true. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Haden suddenly changes his mind and changes everything. By now, all shock has been drained from college football's most stunning team, its season ending Monday in the chilliest and most desperate of climes, with an embarrassing loss that was no surprise to anybody.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

twitter.com/billplaschke

Read More..

The Best of Exploration: Top 8 Stories of Space Exploration in 2012

Our recap of the year’s best exploratory exploits continues today with a look at the biggest developments in space exploration. 2012 saw the stunning debut of new spacecraft (Curiosity), the continued contributions of geriatric ones (Voyager), and the first full year since the end of the Space Shuttle program. Casey Dreier of The Planetary Society nominated 8 particularly meaningful developments from the last twelve months.

Image: Dreier’s pick for image of the year, a Cassini photograph of Saturn’s north pole through an infrared filter. (Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / Emily Lakdawalla)

Read More..