Health officials: Worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread flu dropped again last week, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, spiking first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths have been dropping for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said in an email.

It's been nine years since a conventional flu season started like this one. That was the winter of 2003-04 — one of the deadliest in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths. Like this year, that season had the same dominant flu strain, one that tends to make people sicker.

But back then, the flu vaccine didn't protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated each year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed this year's version is about 60 percent effective.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 such deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week.

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older.

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Bar trivia is more than just fun and games

The door to the bar in Palms swung open, and strains of the theme from "Rocky III" burst into the street: "It's the eye of the tiger / It's the thrill of the fight!"

It was the call to arms for the Tuesday trivia night at the Irish Times pub.

A tall man stood among the Irish flags and faux-antique Guinness etchings and shot off the first question: "An NFL broadcaster who earned a law degree." Regulars nursing craft brews and munching on mozzarella sticks at the bar ignored him. But in the corner, John Verran and his trivia team worked intently on the correct answer.

"It's very competitive," said Verran, 27, a geographical information systems graduate student.

Bar trivia in Los Angeles is no trifling matter. Building on the runaway popularity of the game Trivial Pursuit in the 1980s, the pub quiz phenomenon exploded in British and Irish watering holes, spread to the East Coast and arrived in Southern California in earnest five years ago. As many as 70 local bars put on trivia nights, with more joining every day, said Andy Roth, owner of Action Trivia, one of the larger promoters.

"It's Manifest Destiny, man," said Roth, talking of the trend's momentum after hosting a pub quiz Wednesday at Michael's Bar & Grill in Burbank. "The hipsters love this."

The Irish Times game is highly organized — printed answer forms, weighted categories, intricate scoring. Some promoters hire staff members to research questions; others rely on hosts and players for suggestions. Prizes are usually nominal: a free dinner, or cash off the bar tab.

It's a know-it-all's paradise, and I should know. My childhood nickname was "Mrs. Dictionary." Does anyone else remember the Knowledge Bowl at the Balboa Fun Zone?

The players are Type-Aers whose idea of relaxation is a savage intellectual dogfight. All in good fun, of course. The top teams skew young, 20-somethings who spend all day online and are hungry for human contact. Structured play is safe ground for a generation raised in day care with their off-hours strictly regimented, and who suffer from early-onset nostalgia — Teletubbies, '90s pop.

Verran's team, Deliveries in the Rear ("It seemed amusing at the time," he said), formed around a nucleus of classmates from USC law school. They've been playing trivia at Irish Times for four years, returning week after week to face familiar rivals.

Verran was captain of his high school's championship Quizbowl team in Huntington Beach and is a lifelong trivia buff. "My mind just works that way," he said. Avi Schwartz, a patent lawyer with a chemistry degree, is the science nerd. Kristen Sales, who writes about movies for a film website, just likes games. "I grew up playing games," Sales said. "Me at 25 and me at 12 are basically the same person."

Some teams study on their own time, or enlist ringers to shore up their weak areas. Players size each other up in competition, then come together to form superteams.

"There are even headhunters out there recruiting," said entertainment attorney and Deliveries member Vanessa Flanders.

Greg Beron of Dreambuilders Multi-Media was the evening's host. A former lawyer, he runs a home brewing supply store in Culver City and does trivia on the side.

The Irish Times game is tough, he conceded. His musical interludes are sometimes clues to the answers, but not always. Beron doesn't want me to say which were which, and was touchy about my printing answers to any of his questions; he's saving the game for another pub quiz.

"We're not there to make it easy for people," Beron said.

Early in the first round, Deliveries faced their first big challenge, a four-part bonus question: Name double-word song titles performed by musicians David Bowie, Billy Idol, Paula Abdul and Run DMC.

A thrill of excitement ran through me when I heard it: "Rebel Rebel!" I cried. Bowie, my era!

Deliveries also got the Bowie tune and Idol's "Mony Mony" ("Spelling counts on this one," Beron said.) But Run DMC's "Mary, Mary" and Abdul's "Rush Rush" eluded the team.

"We almost had it — we put 'Hush Hush,' " Verran said of fluffing the Abdul answer.

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IHT Rendezvous: Baron Von Fancy Goes to Paris

PARIS—Baron Von Fancy’s name may belong in an 18th-century German royal court, but he is very much a 20th-century child. He’s a multimedia artist who lives in New York and surfs on the vintage-is-cool wave, using social media as his manager, agent and public relations firm.

His latest exhibition, “A Thing Called Love,” opened on Monday at the Paris Colette shop, a European mecca of all things fashionable, and runs through Feb. 23. It’s his first big break. “I’m honored to be shown in Colette. I couldn’t have asked for more,” said Baron Von Fancy, who is 28, while sipping tea in a cafe across the street from the store.

The exhibition is a collection of handpainted 1950s-looking signs of catchphrases overheard in the subway and in conversation. Some of them are poetic, some are jokes and some clichés. The theme for the show, whose run encompasses Valentine’s Day, is love. “Crazy About You,” “To the Moon and Back,” “Just Kids” (referencing Patti Smith’s book) are a few examples. He added “Bisous,” and “Loin des yeux, loin du coeur,” as a nod to his new French audience. He also redesigned Colette’s Water Bar menu and painted huge murals. The one behind the cash register reads “The Thrill Is Gone.”

Outside, along the wall, he had started painting the words Very Fancy, but the person who was supposed to help him paint was late and he didn’t have time to finish before the opening of the show. Welcome to France, Mr. Fancy.



Baron Von Fancy isn’t – surprise, surprise – his real name. He was born Gordon Stevenson, in New York, in the early 1980s, one of seven siblings and half-siblings. He is not without connections: his father, Charles Stevenson, is an investor; his stepmother is the writer Alex Kuczynski, who contributes to The New York Times. The story behind his strange but catchy moniker is a mix of many anecdotes including a nickname of an ex-girlfriend’s dog and his fancy collection of vintage Versace jeans.

Baron Von Fancy (why call him Gordon when you can call him Baron Von Fancy?) epitomizes Generation Y, also known as Generation Sell. He creates art under both names, but uses Baron Von Fancy as a brand for his more commercial art. As Gordon Stevenson, he paints, dyes waterfalls, and does light installations. When he is Baron, as he says his mother now often calls him, he does lighters, bow ties, socks and his painted signs.

Baron doesn’t whip out a battered Moleskine when he has an idea, he uses Twitter is his notebook. He tweets several times a day, to more than a thousand people, phrases that could end up on a sign in an exhibition.

His Instagram account has more than 4,000 subscribers, and serves as his PR office.

As it happens, Instagram, the photo-sharing application with  90 million users, had a key role in securing his Colette exhibition. 

Several months ago, one of Baron Von Fancy’s friends noticed a picture of a T-shirt on Colette’s Instagram account with what looked like a Baron Von Fancy sign, and notified him. He wrote to Colette’s owner Sarah Andelman and showed her a picture of his art. She agreed the brand they were selling must have copied Baron Von Fancy’s art and invited him to exhibit his work in her store.

“I can’t help but thank Instagram,” says Baron Von Fancy with a laugh. “I realize how crazy that sounds, and people may say I take Instagram too seriously, but it has done so much for me. It has changed my life.”

You can already here a vast group of people shriek and shake their heads at his statement but the fact is that today social media is the way young artists to get themselves known. 

He uses the application to share his vision and show his inspiration, but also to showcase his work.

“All I think of when I wake up in the morning is create,” he says. And although he makes a living writing sentences, he says he’s not a writer, but expresses himself visually. “I’m not very good a keeping a blog, but Instagram is a perfect way to communicate and get visibility.”

Technology has opened many opportunities for him. Through social media, he has started a collaboration with the clothing brand Patagonia (the New York art director followed his Instagram account) and a collaboration with a rapper on socks.

Although Baron Von Fancy is very much an artist of our time, his art is turned toward the past, inspired by old-school classic sign painting. “Today everyone uses computer-generated fonts,” he says, looking out the window at the Parisian store fronts, “but I think that in general there is a real movement of people who are going back to things being made by hand and with care.”

To learn the art of handmade signs, Baron Von Fancy turned toward a old Latvian man called Fred who has a sign store in Queens, New York, and who taught him his art. “I sat there and looked at how he moved his hand,” he explains.

Fred has always worked in Queens, and has no idea what Colette is. He has no idea that this show means his student plays with the big boys now. “He doesn’t even get why I use most of my catchphrases,” says Baron Von Fancy.

But that is exactly what Baron Von Fancy does, and why he’s representative of his generation. He takes something basic and old, and turns into something nostalgically new and cool. Fancy, as it were.

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Prison Inmates Save Three Boys from Drowning

By Janine Rayford

02/07/2013 at 04:45 PM EST

From left: Larry Bohn, Nelson Pettis and Jon Fowler

KPTV

When three inmates were assigned to clean up a park near their Yacolt, Wash. minimum security corrections facility, they had no idea how important that day's community service would be.

While finishing up their work on Jan. 30, Nelson Pettis, 37, Larry Bohn, 29, and Jon Fowler, 29, heard children's screams coming from the nearby creek. Rushing to the water's edge, they saw three young boys struggling to keep their heads above water.

The children's small canoe had capsized, dumping the boys into the cold, 25-mph current, which was rushing towards the Washington River.

"It was raging pretty fast," Pettis told the local KPTV news station. "They were really scared."

He and Bohn didn't think twice, leaping into the water to grab the boys – later identified as brothers ages 8, 10 and 16 – carrying them to a small island, where they awaited emergency rescue. "They kept telling us, 'Thank you, thank you,' " Bohn told reporters.

Fowler, who remained on land and helped emergency crews blow up an inflatable raft and bring the group back to shore, told reporters that while some may find their actions surprising, "We did what any good person would do."

The men took off their shirts to wrap up the shivering boys, all of whom were taken to the hospital for mild hypothermia.

Prison authorities say the men involved are all serving time for non-violent crimes.

"Just because we're incarcerated doesn't mean we're bad people," Fowler told reporters. "We made some bad choices in our lives, but we're still just like everybody else."

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

___

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

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Police on high alert after ex-LAPD cop's alleged serial shootings

Authorities across Southern California were on high alert Thursday morning as a massive manhunt was underway for an ex-Los Angeles police officer sought in connection with a double homicide and the shootings of three police officers, one of whom was killed.

Local, state and federal authorities are involved in the search for Christoper Jordan Dorner, 33, who threatened "unconventional
and asymmetrical warfare" against police in a manifesto posted on his Facebook page.

Dorner also threatened more than two dozen people -- including police officials -- in his manifesto. Officers from around Southern California have been deployed
to protect those people. In some cases, police said, those at risk have relocated for their safety.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

 LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is expected to hold a news conference at
10 a.m.

When asked if police felt they were under attack, Riverside Police Lt. Guy Toussaint said: “Based on the circumstances of the
shooting, yes I do.”

Hours after authorities announced they were looking for Dorner in connection with a double homicide in Orange County, the search intensified after three police officers were shot in Riverside County and Dorner was identified as a possible suspect.

Ex-LAPD cop tried to steal boat, flee to Mexico, authorities say

Freeway signs urged motorists to call 911 if they saw the suspect's vehicle as officers patrolled the streets near one of the Riverside County crime scenes with rifles at the ready. Los Angeles was put on a citywide tactical alert and California Highway Patrol issued a "blue alert" for nine Southern California counties warning Dorner was considered "armed and extremely dangerous."

The first shooting occurred about 1:30 a.m. Thursday in Corona, where two Los
Angeles Police Department officers providing protection for
someone mentioned in Dorner's manifesto, officials said. One
officer suffered a graze wound to the head during a shootout and Dorner fled
the scene, police said.

A short time later, two Riverside officers were shot at the corner of Magnolia Avenue and Arlington
Avenue in
Riverside. Toussaint said the officers were
sitting at a red light when they were ambushed. One was killed, the
other was still in surgery Thursday morning.

Ex-LAPD officer threatened to kill in online manifesto

There was no indication the officers were "actively seeking Dorner," Toussaint said.

“Our
officers were stopped at an intersection at a red light when they were
ambushed," he said. "Because of the close proximity to the timeline, we believe there is a
strong likelihood that former LAPD Officer Christopher Dorner was involved in
our incident.”

In the online manifesto, Dorner specifically named the father of
Monica Quan, the Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach who was
found dead Sunday in Irvine along with her fiance, Keith Lawrence.

Randy Quan, a retired LAPD captain, was involved in the review
process that ultimately led to Dorner’s dismissal. A former U.S. Navy
reservist, Dorner was fired in 2009 for allegedly making false
statements about his training officer. In the manifesto, he complained that Randy Quan and others did not fairly represent him at the review hearing.

“The violence of action will be high .... I will bring unconventional
and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off
duty," Dorner wrote.

As authorities swarmed the area, two officer-involved shootings occurred in Torrance after police came across vehicles they thought might be Dorner's.

The first Torrance incident occurred about 5:20 a.m. in the 19500
block of Redbeam Avenue in Torrance, Lt. Devin Chase said. That incident involved
Los Angeles police detectives from the Hollywood division, sources said.

Two people were struck by gunfire and transported to an area hospital with unknown injuries, Chase said. No officers were injured.

The second incident, which involved Torrance police officers,
occurred at Flagler Lane and Beryl Street about 5:45 a.m. No injuries
were reported in that incident.

Chase said both incidents involved vehicles matching the description of the one sought in connection with Dorner.

"Now it appears neither of them are directly related," Chase said. "In both of them, officers believed they were at the time."

Authorities said they believe Dorner attempted to steal a boat from an elderly man about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday
at the Point Loma Yacht Club in San Diego, hours before the shootings in
Riverside County.

The boat owner reported being accosted by a burly man who tied him up, threatened
him with a gun and said he wanted the boat to flee to Mexico.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

But while they were trying to get underway, a rope became entangled
in the propeller and the boat was inoperable, authorities said.

The suspect fled the scene and the boat owner was unharmed.

About 2 a.m., a citizen reported finding property belonging to Dorner
on a street near Lindbergh Field, not far from the scene of the
attempted boat theft. The property included a briefcase and Dorner's
LAPD badge.

ALSO:

Riverside police 'ambushed' by shooter, official says

Police shoot two in Torrance in search for ex-LAPD cop

Manhunt underway for ex-LAPD officer suspected of shooting 3 cops

— Andrew Blankstein, Kate Mather, Phil Willon and Tony Perry

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IHT Special: Syria's Kurds Try to Balance Security and Alliances

ERBIL, IRAQ — Syria’s Kurds have mostly escaped prolonged bouts of direct conflict in the country’s civil war, but with rebel units pushing east toward the resource-rich Kurdish heartland, Kurdish militias proliferating and calls for greater autonomy growing, this may not remain the case.

Last summer, the Democratic Union Party, known by its Kurdish-language acronym P.Y.D., seized control of many towns and villages in the Kurdish majority northeast. The group also holds territory in a few Aleppo neighborhoods and some towns around the city.

The P.Y.D. is the most powerful Kurdish faction in Syria and has a well trained militia. This is perhaps a product of its ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., a guerrilla group that has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.

The leadership of the P.Y.D. plays down its ties to the P.K.K. But Syrian Kurds often use the names interchangeably, and P.Y.D. offices feature portraits of the imprisoned P.K.K. leader Abdullah Ocalan and Syrian P.K.K. guerrillas killed in fighting with Turkey.

Detractors of the P.Y.D. accuse it of working in collusion with the Syrian government. The party’s leadership and supporters, who say they were struggling against the government to secure rights for Syria’s two million-plus Kurds well before the uprising began in 2011, reject this allegation.

But in the complexities of Syria’s civil war, friendships are not born of common enemies.

The P.Y.D.’s militant Kurdish nationalism, which puts ethnic identity before allegiance to Syria, and their goal of some form of autonomy has put them at odds with Syria’s rebels. After decades of discriminatory policies against the Kurds under the Baath Party, the P.Y.D. is opposed to anybody but Kurds ruling their areas.

Last month, fighting flared in Ras al-Ain, which the Kurds call Serekaniye, as rebel units assaulted P.Y.D.-held areas. Dozens were killed in the fighting.

“Those groups attacking Serekaniye, we don’t consider them as Free Syrian Army,” said Saleh Muslim, the leader of the P.Y.D. Instead, he said the groups that attacked “are mainly just taking orders from the Turkish regime.”

The Free Syrian Army “is a name, or a trademark, not registered to anybody,” said Mr. Muslim. “So anybody can come from his home and get a hold of some weapons and say, ‘I am Free Syrian Army.”’

The push on Ras al-Ain, a town on the Turkish border about 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, northeast of Aleppo, could reflect a number of things: a rebel attempt to gain strategic territory, the lack of coordination among Free Syrian Army units, the spread of armed groups beyond the control of the Free Syrian Army, or the prodding of rebel groups by Turkey to confront the Kurds.

Mr. Muslim believes that Turkey, which is concerned that P.Y.D.-controlled areas along its borders could act as a base for P.K.K. attacks and has warned of intervention if it feels threatened, had something to do with the outbreak of fighting.

“I think it’s a part of the larger plan by the Turkish regime,” he said. “They want to disarm all people, to leave them without defense.”

Beyond the strategic value offered by the northeast, with its access to long stretches of the Iraqi and Turkish borders, the area is home to the majority of Syria’s oil. Before the conflict, oil exports earned Syria $4 billion per year.

The amount of oil that Syria could produce is negligible when compared with other exporters in the region, but with the economy shattered the oil fields are attractive real estate.

There are conflicting reports over who holds the main northeastern oil fields around the town of Rmeilan, though in late January a video appeared online purporting to show members of the P.Y.D.’s militia patrolling the smaller Gir Ziro field nearby.

Beyond the P.Y.D., the other notable political player in Syria’s Kurdish areas is the Kurdish National Council, a coalition of 16 parties. The parties are mostly small and have differing views, though on the whole they are more amenable to working with the mainstream Syrian opposition, which the P.Y.D. rejects.

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Miley Cyrus: Why I'll 'Never' Have Long Hair Again

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/06/2013 at 03:45 PM ET

Getty; WireImage (2)

Hope you weren’t too attached to Miley Cyrus‘s long hair, because she has a message for you: “I could never see myself having long, long hair again.”

“I’m feeling it!” the star tells E! News of her close crop. “My fiancé [Liam Hemsworth] loves it. It’s so much easier to go shave the sides once a week, rather than getting your roots done and all this stuff.”

And it’s not just that she prefers the low maintenance of her new do: she actually hates the way she looks with long locks. “I do not like looking back at [photos of my long hair],” she says. “I wish somebody would have ripped those [extensions] out of my head. I do not miss that in any way.”

Though we initially found the chop surprising, it’s definitely growing on us (no pun intended) — and we love that Cyrus keeps finding new, fun ways to style her shorter do. Tell us: Do you love Cyrus’s awesome attitude about her hair as much as we do?

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: VOTE ON MORE CELEB HAIRCUT AND COLOR CHANGES HERE!

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.

With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.

"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.

City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.

"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.

Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.

"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.

Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.

While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.

Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.

___

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

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Woman drugged girl, use her in hard-core porn, police allege

This post has been corrected. Please see below for details.

A North Hills woman who authorities allege plied a young girl with crack cocaine and photographed her having sex with an older man was indicted Tuesday on federal charges of producing child pornography and child sex trafficking.

Letha Montemayor Tucker was named Tuesday in a four-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. If convicted of all the charges, Tucker would face a mandatory minimum federal prison sentence of 10 years and could get up to life in prison, authorities said.

The charges come a month after authorities sought the public's help in the investigation by releasing photographs of a man and woman depicted in a set of widely circulated child pornography photos. 

Tips started pouring in immediately after the photos were released, investigators said.

Tucker, who goes by the name Butterfly, was located about 10 hours after the release of the photos and taken into custody, said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The alleged victim, who was about 12 years old when the photos were taken, was located within a week of the case going public, Arnold said. She is an adult now and is cooperating with authorities, he said. In addition to photographing the girl having sex with the man, authorities say, Tucker also committed sex acts with the victim.

Authorities are still trying to identify the man in the photographs.  

The photos were part of a child pornography collection known as the "Jen Series." The 40-some photos were first discovered by investigators in the Chicago area in 2007. Investigators say images in the series have been reported about 300 times and have been found on computers across the country.

The victim "didn't even know these images were out there," Arnold said.

An arraignment for Tucker is scheduled Feb. 13.

For the record, 6:06 p.m.: A previous version of this post gave the incorrect job title for Arnold.

ALSO:

Chris Brown case raises tough questions for Virginia authorities

L.A. supervisors approve task force to examine 'maternity hotels'

Amid molestation scandal, archdiocese mulls over $200-million fund-raiser

-- Hailey Branson-Potts

Photo: Letha Montemayor Tucker, 52, of North Hills is led away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after her arrest on suspicion of child pornography Jan. 3. Credit: Associated Press

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