Singer Randy Travis pleads guilty to DWI, gets probation

DALLAS (Reuters) – Grammy Award-winning country singer Randy Travis on Thursday pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and was sentenced to two years probation for an incident in which Texas State Troopers found him lying naked near his crashed car.

Travis, 53, was ordered to serve at least 30 days at an in-patient alcohol treatment facility and was not charged for threatening the troopers who arrested him August 7 in Tioga, Texas, about 60 miles north of Dallas.

Travis’ blood alcohol level was more than double the legal limit in Texas when he was arrested, authorities said.

The guilty plea to a Class A misdemeanor in Grayson County Court ends legal troubles Travis faced in connection with several incidents last year, his attorney Larry Friedman said.

“He is ready to put all this behind him and focus on his music and his fans,” Friedman said. “He expects a trouble-free 2013.”

Travis was also fined $ 2,000 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Travis will have to serve six months in jail if he fails to complete the probation terms.

Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown called the sentence “appropriate” given Travis’ level of intoxication and behavior during his arrest.

“We are all hopeful that Mr. Travis is on the road to recovery,” Brown said in a statement.

In January, Travis pleaded no contest in a case in which police said he assaulted a man on August 23 in a church parking lot while trying to intervene in a disagreement between a woman, who is now his fiancée, and her estranged husband.

Travis is serving 90 days of deferred adjudication in that case, which means the charges could be dismissed if he successfully completes the requirements, Friedman said.

The singer filed a lawsuit recently in a Collin County District Court against the man he was charged with assaulting, claiming the altercation was an attempt to injure and embarrass him.

Travis, known for such hits as “Forever and Ever, Amen,” was cited in February 2012 for public intoxication and paid a fine, Friedman said.

(Editing by David Bailey and Stacey Joyce)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age Blog: Caregiving, Laced With Humor

“My grandmother, she’s not a normal person. She’s like a character when she speaks. Every day she’s playing like she’s an actress.”

These are words of love, and they come from Sacha Goldberger, a French photographer who has turned his grandmother, 93-year-old Frederika Goldberger, into a minor European celebrity.

In the photos, you can see the qualities grandson and grandmother have in common: a wicked sense of humor, an utter lack of pretension and a keen taste for theatricality and the absurd.

This isn’t an ordinary caregiving relationship, not by a long shot. But Sacha, 44 years old and unmarried, is deeply devoted to this spirited older relation who has played the role of Mamika (“my little grandmother,” translated from her native Hungarian) in two of his books and a photography exhibition currently underway in Paris.

As for Frederika, “I like everything that my grandson does,” she said in a recent Skype conversation from her apartment, which also serves as Sacha’s office. “I hate not to do anything. Here, with my grandson, I have the feeling I am doing something.”

Their unusual collaboration began after Frederika retired from her career as a textile consultant at age 80 and fell into a funk.

“I was very depressed because I lived for working,” she told me in our Skype conversation.

Sacha had long dreamed of creating what he calls a “Woody Allen-like Web site with a French Jewish humor” and he had an inspiration. What if he took one of the pillars of that type of humor, a French man’s relationship with his mother and grandmother, and asked Frederika to play along with some oddball ideas?

This Budapest-born baroness, whose family had owned the largest textile factory in Hungary before World War II, was a natural in front of the camera, assuming a straight-faced, imperturbable comic attitude whether donning a motorcycle helmet and goggles, polishing her fingernails with a gherkin, wearing giant flippers on the beach, lighting up a banana, or dressed up as a Christmas tree with a golden star on her head. (All these photos and more appear in “Mamika: My Mighty Little Grandmother,” published in the United States last year.)

“It was like a game for us, deciding what crazy thing we were going to do next, how we were going to keep people from being bored,” said Sacha, who traces his close relationship with his grandmother to age 14, when she taught him how to drive and often picked him up at school. “Making pictures was a very good excuse to spend time together.”

“He thought it was very funny to put a costume on me,” said Frederika. “And I liked it.”

People responded enthusiastically, and before long Sacha had cooked up what ended up becoming the most popular character role for Frederika: Super Mamika, outfitted in a body-hugging costume, tights, a motorcycle helmet and a flowing cape.

His grandmother was a super hero of sorts, because she had helped save 10 people from the Nazis during World War II, said Sacha. He also traced inspiration to Stan Lee, a Jewish artist who created the X-Men, The Hulk and the Fantastic Four for Marvel comics. “I wanted to ask what happens to these super heroes when they get old in these photographs with my grandmother.”

Lest this seem a bit trivial to readers of this blog, consider this passage from Sacha’s introduction to “Mamika: My Might Little Grandmother”:

In a society where youth is the supreme value; where wrinkles have to be camouflaged; where old people are hidden as soon as they become cumbersome, where, for lack of time or desire, it is easier to put our elders in hospices rather than take care of them, I wanted to show that happiness in aging was also possible.

In our Skype conversation, Sacha confessed to anxiety about losing his grandmother, and said, “I always was very worried about what would happen if my grandmother disappeared. Because she is exceptional.”

“I am not normal,” Frederika piped up at his side, her face deeply wrinkled, her short hair beautifully coiffed, seemingly very satisfied with herself.

“So, making these pictures to me is the best thing that could happen,” Sacha continued, “because now my grandma is immortal and it seems everyone knows her. I am giving to everybody in the world a bit of my grandma.”

This wonderful expression of caring and creativity has expanded my view of intergenerational relations in this new old age. What about you?

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DealBook: Morgan Stanley's Chief Gets a Base Salary Raise

James P. Gorman, the chief executive of Morgan Stanley, will receive a huge raise in his base salary this year, but his overall pay package for 2012 was down from 2011, according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Gorman made $9.75 million in 2012, down 7 percent from 2011. The firm had previously disclosed pieces of Mr. Gorman’s pay, like some incentive bonuses, but on Thursday, the firm revealed the value of his entire package. He was also granted performance-based stock compensation valued at almost $3.75 million in 2012.

The firm also said that his base salary in 2013 would double to $1.5 million, or $28,846.15 a week. The firm’s board said in the filing that Mr. Gorman’s base salary was raised to bring it in line with the salaries of other bank chiefs. The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, for instance, makes a base salary of $2 million.

Base salaries across Wall Street rose sharply after the financial crisis. Traders and bankers have historically been paid a relatively small base salary and a big one-time bonus based on their financial performance. Regulators, however, have argued that this type of pay system gives employees incentives to take unnecessary risks and have pushed banks to increase the amount of fixed compensation.

Still, Mr. Gorman’s overall pay in 2012 was down, partly because of the firm’s challenges. C. Robert Kidder, the board’s lead independent director, said in the filing that “2012 was a transition year for Morgan Stanley, and management along with much of the organization saw reduced compensation.” Still, he said the board was “confident” in Mr. Gorman’s strategic plan.

Morgan Stanley was badly bruised during the financial crisis. Mr. Gorman, who took over as chief executive in 2010, had been working hard to reduce the firm’s risk profile, slimming down divisions like fixed income and expanding steadier units like wealth management. The firm’s stock was up more than 25 percent in 2012.

The board also increased the base salaries of Mr. Gorman’s top deputies. Gregory J. Fleming, who leads the firm’s wealth management division, and Colm Kelleher, who runs institutional securities, will now make a base salary of $1 million, or $19,230.77 a week, as do all members of the firm’s operating committee. Last year the two made a base of roughly $750,000 each.

So far the company has disclosed compensation for these two men valued at $6.4 million. It is expected that they will also be awarded deferred cash. The total value of their compensation won’t be known until later this year, but it will be lower than last year, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Hagel to stress opposition to a nuclear Iran in Senate testimony

WASHINGTON -- President Obama’s nominee for secretary of Defense, former Sen. Chuck Hagel, will stress at his confirmation hearing Thursday that he opposes letting Iran acquire nuclear weapons and will focus on developing military options to set back Tehran’s program, according to a U.S. official familiar with his planned testimony.

It will be Hagel’s first chance to explain his views publicly since his selection last month ignited fierce opposition from several former Republican colleagues and pro-Israel groups. They contend Hagel was not tough enough on Iran during his two terms as a GOP senator from Nebraska, and warn he might not push for a U.S. attack on Iran if one is needed.

“He’s going to be very clear that he fully supports the president’s policy of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Hagel had not yet testified. “His job as secretary of Defense is to ensure that the military is prepared for any contingency, and he believes all options should be on the table, including military options.”

Hagel’s willingness to back the use of force against Iran is likely to be the key area of questioning during what is expected to be a daylong hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

After a shaky start, Hagel’s nomination has picked up increasing support from Democrats, and the first Republican, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, announced Monday that he would vote for Hagel.

White House officials say they expect more Republicans to back Hagel and predict that when the full Senate votes, he will win more than the 60 votes necessary to avoid the threat of a filibuster.

Some pro-Israel groups have greeted Hagel’s nomination with opposition or lukewarm support. Even Democrats who back Hagel are determined to press him for greater clarity on how long diplomatic pressure and sanctions on Iran should be given to work before a military strike becomes necessary.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the committee, said “most Democrats are leaning very strongly” for Hagel, including himself. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have questions,” he added.

Many Republicans have not forgiven Hagel for publicly criticizing the George W. Bush administration for its handling of the war in Iraq, and they are likely to be considerably harsher in tone.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon, said Hagel’s nomination had “already done damage to the United States’ credibility” in dealing with Iran.

“I realize that Sen. Hagel is now repudiating many of his past actions and statements,” he added. “But we’ve seen this before.”

Like Obama, Hagel has long called for a mix of negotiations and international economic sanctions to pressure Iran, insisting that military action should be considered only as a last resort. As he has sought support for his nomination, Hagel has emphasized that unilateral U.S. sanctions and even military action could be required.

“If Iran continues to flout its international obligations, it should continue to face severe and growing consequences,” Hagel said in response to written questions from the committee. ‘‘While there is time and space for diplomacy, backed by pressure, the window is closing. Iran needs to demonstrate it is prepared to negotiate seriously.’’

Ironically, the pressure on Hagel to come out strongly for a possible military strike against Iran comes as some Israeli officials, who have long pressed the Obama administration to consider a preemptive attack, say Iran appears to have backed away, at least for now, from what the West believes is a program to develop a nuclear bomb.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the panel, said last week that he and Hagel were “too philosophically opposed on the issues" for Inhofe to support his nomination, citing Hagel’s support for defense budget cuts and for cutting nuclear stockpiles. Inhofe was one of three Republicans who voted Tuesday against confirming Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as secretary of State.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday declined to rule out the possibility that Republicans would require a 60-vote threshold for confirming Hagel.

“Sen. Hagel hasn't had his hearing yet, and I think it's too early to predict the conditions under which his nomination will be considered,” McConnell said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has said he would block Hagel’s nomination from coming to a vote unless the current Pentagon chief, Leon E. Panetta, agrees to testify about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. A White House official downplayed the possibility that Hagel’s nomination could be blocked, saying negotiations were underway to let Panetta testify.

david.cloud@latimes.com

michael.memoli@latimes.com

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Microsoft, Yahoo Among Open Source 'Rookies of the Year'

Each year, Black Duck unveils what it calls the Rookie Open Source Projects of the Year. The California company sells software for managing open source projects, and its annual list is a way of promoting both itself and the wider open source software community. But the list is also good reading.

This year, Microsoft made a surprise appearance, as did Yahoo, which fell down a bit in terms of developer relations last year, thanks to heavy layoffs and its widely panned patents policy.

Black Duck maintains extensive statistics on open source projects, running a site called Ohloh, which tracks the activity and popularity of just about every open source project the company can find. According to Black Duck, the Rookie of the Year projects were chosen based on a simple weighted scoring system that factored in “project activity, commits pace, project team attributes, and other factors.” Each project was introduced in 2012.

The winners are:

• Ansible –a radically simple configuration management, deployment, and ad-hoc task execution tool.


• Chaplin.js – an architecture for JavaScript applications using the Backbone.js library, it provides a lightweight and flexible structure that features well-proven design patterns and best practices.


• GPUImage –an iOS library that lets you apply GPU-accelerated filters and other effects to images, live camera video, and movies.


• Hammer.js –a JavaScript library for multi-touch gestures, Hammer.js enables gestures for the web on mobile devices.


• InaSAFE – produces realistic natural hazard impact scenarios for better planning, preparedness and response activities.


• Yahoo! Mojito – a JavaScript MVC framework for mobile and Web applications running on client and server.


• Sidekiq – provides simple, efficient message processing for Ruby.


• Syte –simple but powerful packaged personal site that has social integrations like Twitter, GitHub, Tumblr, WordPress, Stack Overflow and more.


• Twitter Bower – a package manager for the web that lets you easily install assets such as images, CSS, JS and manages dependencies for you.


• TypeScript – a language for application-scale JavaScript development, providing a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.


• Honorable Mention: DCPUToolChain – an assembler, compiler, emulator and Integrated Development Environment for the DCPU-16 virtual CPU.

The list reflects the broader trends in modern programming, especially the growing need for mobile and cross-platform development.

Several of the projects deal with extending or enhancing JavaScript. JavaScript was originally as a simple scripting language for the Netscape browser. Now developers are building much larger applications that run both in the browser and on the server using JavaScript, and relying on it to build mobile applications.

For example, Yahoo Mojito is part of a growing family of JavaScript frameworks that help developers to build complex, desktop-like applications. AJAX-heavy web applications like Google Docs have changed user expectations for responsiveness and interactivity on the web. With drameworks like Mojito, Meteor, Derby and Flatiron, developers can create code that runs in both the browser and on the server using the Node.js platform.

Microsoft’s TypeScript was released last October and is a JavaScript-like language that is translated into JavaScript before being run. It adds a few additional features, such as static typing, that are helpful for developers trying to build larger applications. Its goals are similar to Google’s Dart programming language, but is much less of a departure from JavaScript.

Getting outside the tech community bubble, InaSAFE is a project backed by the Indonesian Disaster Management Agency, the Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction and the World Bank. It’s a plugin for the open source GIS application Quantum GIS designed to help prepare for the impacts of floods, earthquakes, or tsunami. It crunches data from several sources, including scientists and local governments to model flooding and other scenarios, allowing governments and NGOs to make evacuation plans and other preparations.

Not all of the winners had big organizations behind them. Syte was created by developer/designer/entrepreneur Rodrigo Neri to fill a gap he saw in site building applications. “I know a lot of people that should have a personal web site but they don’t,” he wrote on his own Syte-based blog. “Some of them are developers and some are designers, both that should be capable of putting one together but they don’t.”

There are already thousands of ways to build a website, open source or otherwise, yet Syte was successful by filling a gap that was still open. “I think what made Syte take off was the ability to integrate with most of your social networks which was a concept only a few were doing at the time,” Neri says. The platform allows users to use existing tools, such as Tumblr or WordPress.com to manage a blog, but brings everything together in a central location, much like the hosted service About.me.

Neri also has some thoughts on how other new open source projects can succeed. “I feel that building good documentation on how to utilize an open source project is the key for a project success,” he says. “You want to make sure that when people go download your project they can quickly recreate it for their needs.”

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Patty Andrews of Andrews Sisters rallied troops

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Patty Andrews never served in the military, but she and her singing sisters certainly supported the troops.

During World War II, they hawked war bonds, entertained soldiers overseas and boosted morale on the home-front with tunes like “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” and “I Can Dream, Can’t I?”

Andrews, the last surviving member of the singing Andrews Sisters trio, died Wednesday at 94 of natural causes at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, said family spokesman Alan Eichler in a statement.

“When I was a kid, I only had two records and one of them was the Andrews Sisters. They were remarkable. Their sound, so pure,” said Bette Midler, who had a hit cover of “Bugle Boy” in 1973. “Everything they did for our nation was more than we could have asked for. This is the last of the trio, and I hope the trumpets ushering (Patty) into heaven with her sisters are playing ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’”

Patty was the Andrews in the middle, the lead singer and chief clown, whose raucous jitterbugging delighted American servicemen abroad and audiences at home.

She could also deliver sentimental ballads like “I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time” with a sincerity that caused hardened GIs far from home to weep.

From the late 1930s through the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters produced one hit record after another, beginning with “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” in 1937 and continuing with “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar,” ”Rum and Coca-Cola” and more. They recorded more than 400 songs and sold over 80 million records.

Other sisters, notably the Boswells, had become famous as singing acts, but mostly they huddled before a microphone in close harmony. The Andrews Sisters — LaVerne, Maxene and Patty — added a new dimension. During breaks in their singing, they cavorted about the stage in rhythm to the music.

Their voices combined with perfect synergy. As Patty remarked in 1971: “There were just three girls in the family. LaVerne had a very low voice. Maxene’s was kind of high, and I was between. It was like God had given us voices to fit our parts.”

Kathy Daris of the singing Lennon Sisters recalled on Facebook late Wednesday that the Andrews Sisters “were the first singing sister act that we tried to copy. We loved their rendition of songs, their high spirit, their fabulous harmony.”

The Andrews Sisters‘ rise coincided with the advent of swing music, and their style fit perfectly into the new craze. They aimed at reproducing the sound of three harmonizing trumpets.

Unlike other singing acts, the sisters recorded with popular bands of the ’40s, fitting neatly into the styles of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, Guy Lombardo, Desi Arnaz and Russ Morgan. They sang dozens of songs on records with Bing Crosby, including the million-seller “Don’t Fence Me In.” They also recorded with Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Danny Kaye, Al Jolson, Jimmy Durante and Red Foley.

The Andrews’ popularity led to a contract with Universal Pictures, where they made a dozen low-budget musical comedies between 1940 and 1944. In 1947, they appeared in “The Road to Rio” with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

The trio continued until LaVerne’s death in 1967. By that time the close harmony had turned to discord, and the sisters had been openly feuding.

Midler’s cover of “Bugle Boy” revived interest in the trio. The two survivors joined in 1974 for a Broadway show, “Over Here!” It ran for more than a year, but disputes with the producers led to the cancellation of the national tour of the show, and the sisters did not perform together again.

Patty continued on her own, finding success in Las Vegas and on TV variety shows. Her sister also toured solo until her death in 1995.

Her father, Peter Andrews, was a Greek immigrant who anglicized his name of Andreus when he arrived in America; his wife, Olga, was a Norwegian with a love of music. LaVerne was born in 1911, Maxine (later Maxene) in 1916, Patricia (later Patty, sometimes Patti) in 1918.

All three sisters were born and raised in the Minneapolis area.

Listening to the Boswell Sisters on radio, LaVerne played the piano and taught her sisters to sing in harmony; neither Maxene nor Patty ever learned to read music. All three studied singers at the vaudeville house near their father’s restaurant. As their skills developed, they moved from amateur shows to vaudeville and singing with bands.

After Peter Andrews moved the family to New York in 1937, his wife, Olga, sought singing dates for the girls. They were often turned down with comments such as: “They sing too loud and they move too much.” Olga persisted, and the sisters sang on radio with a hotel band at $ 15 a week. The broadcasts landed them a contract with Decca Records.

They recorded a few songs, and then came “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” an old Yiddish song for which Sammy Cahn and Saul Kaplan wrote English lyrics. (The title means, “To Me You Are Beautiful.”) It was a smash hit, and the Andrews Sisters were launched into the bigtime.

In 1947, Patty married Martin Melcher, an agent who represented the sisters as well as Doris Day, then at the beginning of her film career. Patty divorced Melcher in 1949 and soon he became Day’s husband, manager and producer.

Patty married Walter Weschler, pianist for the sisters, in 1952. He became their manager and demanded more pay for himself and for Patty. The two other sisters rebelled, and their differences with Patty became public. Lawsuits were filed between the two camps.

Patty Andrews is survived by her foster daughter, Pam DuBois, a niece and several cousins. Weschler died in 2010.

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.

I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common in menopausal women. I can always find my car in the parking lot, although lots of “normal” folk can’t.

Rather, I suddenly can’t remember the name of someone with whom I’ve worked for years. I cover by saying “sir” or “madam” like the Southerner I am, even though I live in Vermont and grown people here don’t use such terms. Better to think I’m quirky than losing my faculties. Sometimes I’ll send myself an e-mail to-do reminder and then, seconds later, find myself thrilled to see a new entry pop into my inbox. Oops, it’s from me. Worse yet, a massage therapist kicked me out of her practice for missing three appointments. I didn’t recall making any of them. There must another Nancy.

Am I losing track of me?

Equally worrisome are the memories increasingly coming to the fore. Magically, these random recollections manage to circumnavigate my imagined build-up of beta-amyloid en route to delivering vivid images of my father’s first steps down his path of forgetting. He was the same age I am now, which is 46.

“How old are you?” I recall him asking me back then. Some years later, he began calling me every Dec. 28 to say, “Happy birthday,” instead of on the correct date, Dec. 27. The 28th had been his grandmother’s birthday.

The chasms were small at first. Explainable. Dismissible. When he crossed the street without looking both ways, we chalked it up to his well-cultivated, absent-minded professor persona. But the chasms grew into sinkholes, and eventually quicksand. When we took him to get new pants one day, he kept trying on the same ones he wore to the store.

“I like these slacks,” he’d say, over and over again, as he repeatedly pulled his pair up and down.

My dad died of Alzheimer’s last April at age 73 — the same age at which his father succumbed to the same disease. My dad ended up choosing neurology as his profession after witnessing the very beginning of his own dad’s forgetting.

Decades later, grandfather’s atrophied brain found its way into a jar on my father’s office desk. Was it meant to be an ever-present reminder of Alzheimer’s effect? Or was it a crystal ball sent to warn of genetic fate? My father the doctor never said, nor did he ever mention, that it was his father’s gray matter floating in that pool of formaldehyde.

Using the jarred brain as a teaching tool, my dad showed my 8-year-old self the difference between frontal and temporal lobes. He also pointed out how brains with Alzheimer’s disease become smaller, and how wide grooves develop in the cerebral cortex. But only after his death — and my mother’s confession about whose brain occupied that jar — did I figure out that my father was quite literally demonstrating how this disease runs through our heads.

Has my forgetting begun?

I called my dad’s neurologist. To find out if I was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have to look for proteins in my blood or spinal fluid and employ expensive neuroimaging tests. If he found any indication of onset, the only option would be experimental trials.

But documented confirmation of a diseased brain would break my still hopeful heart. I’d walk around with the scarlet letter “A” etched on the inside of my forehead — obstructing how I view every situation instead of the intermittent clouding I currently experience.

“You’re still grieving your father,” the doctor said at the end of our call. “Sadness and depression affect the memory, too. Let’s wait and see.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that two people at my father’s funeral made some insensitive remarks.

“Nancy, you must be scared to death.”

“Is it hard knowing the same thing probably will happen to you?”

Maybe the real question is what to do when the forgetting begins. My dad started taking 70 supplements a day in hopes of saving his mind. He begged me to kill him if he wound up like his father. He retired from his practice and spent all day in a chair doing puzzles. He stopped making new memories in an all-out effort to preserve the ones he already had.

Maybe his approach wasn’t the answer.

Just before his death — his brain a fraction of its former self — my father managed to offer up a final lesson. I was visiting him in the memory-care center when he got a strange look on his face. I figured it was gas. But then his eyes lit up and a big grin overtook him, and he looked right at me and said, “Funny how things turn out.”

An unforgettable moment?

I can only hope.

---

Nancy Stearns Bercaw is a writer in Vermont. Her book, “Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory,” will be published in April 2013 by Broadstone.

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Chinese Hackers Infiltrate New York Times Computers

SAN FRANCISCO — For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees.

The New York Times published an article in October about the wealth of the family of China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, in both English and Chinese.

After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in.

The timing of the attacks coincided with the reporting for a Times investigation, published online on Oct. 25, that found that the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, had accumulated a fortune worth several billion dollars through business dealings.

Security experts hired by The Times to detect and block the computer attacks gathered digital evidence that Chinese hackers, using methods that some consultants have associated with the Chinese military in the past, breached The Times’s network. They broke into the e-mail accounts of its Shanghai bureau chief, David Barboza, who wrote the reports on Mr. Wen’s relatives, and Jim Yardley, The Times’s South Asia bureau chief in India, who previously worked as bureau chief in Beijing.

“Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive e-mails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times.

The hackers tried to cloak the source of the attacks on The Times by first penetrating computers at United States universities and routing the attacks through them, said computer security experts at Mandiant, the company hired by The Times. This matches the subterfuge used in many other attacks that Mandiant has tracked to China.

The attackers first installed malware — malicious software — that enabled them to gain entry to any computer on The Times’s network. The malware was identified by computer security experts as a specific strain associated with computer attacks originating in China. More evidence of the source, experts said, is that the attacks started from the same university computers used by the Chinese military to attack United States military contractors in the past.

Security experts found evidence that the hackers stole the corporate passwords for every Times employee and used those to gain access to the personal computers of 53 employees, most of them outside The Times’s newsroom. Experts found no evidence that the intruders used the passwords to seek information that was not related to the reporting on the Wen family.

No customer data was stolen from The Times, security experts said.

Asked about evidence that indicated the hacking originated in China, and possibly with the military, China’s Ministry of National Defense said, “Chinese laws prohibit any action including hacking that damages Internet security.” It added that “to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyberattacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless.”

The attacks appear to be part of a broader computer espionage campaign against American news media companies that have reported on Chinese leaders and corporations.

Last year, Bloomberg News was targeted by Chinese hackers, and some employees’ computers were infected, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s internal investigation, after Bloomberg published an article on June 29 about the wealth accumulated by relatives of Xi Jinping, China’s vice president at the time. Mr. Xi became general secretary of the Communist Party in November and is expected to become president in March. Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Bloomberg, confirmed that hackers had made attempts but said that “no computer systems or computers were compromised.”

Signs of a Campaign

The mounting number of attacks that have been traced back to China suggest that hackers there are behind a far-reaching spying campaign aimed at an expanding set of targets including corporations, government agencies, activist groups and media organizations inside the United States. The intelligence-gathering campaign, foreign policy experts and computer security researchers say, is as much about trying to control China’s public image, domestically and abroad, as it is about stealing trade secrets.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 31, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the year that the United States and Israel were said to have started a cyberattack that caused damage at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment plant, and the article misstated the specific type of attack. The attack was a computer worm, not a virus, and it started around 2008, not 2012.

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South Korea successfully launches satellite into orbit

SEOUL -- In danger of falling behind in the space race on the Korean peninsula, Seoul announced Wednesday it had successfully launched a rocket into space.

Pressure had been mounting ever since mid-December when Communist archrival, North Korea, managed to launch a multi-stage rocket and put a satellite into orbit.

South Korea's Satellite Launch Vehicle-1, which is also known as Naro, blasted off at 4 p.m. local time from a space center in Jeolla province on the Southwestern coast.

"Five hundred forty seconds after the launch, Naro successfully separated the satellite," South Korean Science and Technology Minister Lee Joo-ho said at a press briefing Wednesday. "After analyzing various data we have confirmed that [the satellite] has been successfully put into orbit." 

South Korean officials said the launch made them the 13th country to get a satellite into orbit from their own territory. Iran on Monday announced as well that it had launched a live monkey into space using its own technology.

The sky was clear and the weather had warmed up on Wednesday afternoon at the space center, where some 3,000 people had gathered to observe their country’s latest attempt to launch Naro. The crowd excitedly cheered and waved the national flag during the countdown.

Two previous attempts to launch the space vehicle in 2009 and 2010 ended in failures. The third attempt was to take place in October, but it was delayed due to damaged rubber seal that caused a fuel leak. The next try came in November, but it was canceled seventeen minutes before the rocket was fired off due to a technical glitch.

The failures looked all the more embarrassing after North Korea's, with an economy less than one-twentieth the size of South Korea's, successful launch on Dec. 12 of the Unha-3 rocket. What North Koreans have dubbed "peaceful satellite launch" was a part of the legacy of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il who passed away in December 2011.

The international community condemned North Korea as their rocket launch was suspected to be a cover for a test of ballistic missile technology.

Lee Sang-ryul, a South Korean scientist with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said the launches seven weeks apart were not comparable because the South Korean objective was purely scientific.

"The exterior of Unha-3 and Naro seems to be very much alike. It is about the same weight, the shapes are similar, and the fact that it puts a satellite in the orbit is the same. However, I believe North Korea's purpose is not to develop a satellite launch vehicle but a weapons development," South Korean television quoted Lee as saying Wednesday.

North Korea said earlier this month it would also conduct a nuclear test and that "the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire...are targeted at the United States, the arch enemy of the Korean people."

Independent scientists say that the North Korean satellite was not a complete success because the transmitter failed during the launch, but that it achieved a reasonably accurate orbit.

"Most countries when they launch their first satellite, don't get too close," said with Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in a recent interview. However, he added that South Koreans shouldn't feel that North Korea has beaten them.

"It is difficult, but it is basically high-tech plumbing," said McDowell. "It is not as sophisticated as creating the industrial base to make a Samsung monitor."

South Korea's Naro space program began in 2002 with the help of Russian technology.  The South had so far sent about ten satellites into space, but they were all launched from foreign rockets overseas.

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--Barbara Demick is reporting from Beijing.

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Even After Lackland Scandal, Military Still Isn't Fixing Its Sexual Abuse Epidemic

The Pentagon has talked a lot about putting a stop to sexual abuse and harassment in the military, including abuse carried out by general officers. Yet a new report from the investigative arm of Congress finds it’s mostly that — talk. It catalogs how the military still hasn’t fixed a host of systemic obstacles that contribute to sexual assault and make it less likely for survivors to get help.

According to a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), while the Pentagon has made some progress in recent years at trying to stop sexual abuse, treatment isn’t always available. Medical first-responders are undertrained and not always aware of services available for survivors. Perhaps worse, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs — which oversees the military’s health resources — hasn’t “established guidance,” required by the Pentagon, “for the treatment of injuries stemming from sexual assault.”

Among those guidelines: standardizing procedures for collecting evidence; providing specialized medical care; and, perhaps most alarming, keeping the identities of survivors private. Instead, sexual assault survivors within the military have to navigate a hodge-podge of different standards between branches — even at individual bases. “These inconsistencies,” the report states, can “erode servicemembers’ confidence. As a consequence, sexual assault victims who want to keep their case confidential may be reluctant to seek medical care.”

All these systemic obstacles to ending sexual abuse persist despite endless pledges from Pentagon officials to finally do away with one of the military’s most glaring sources of injustice. “If we don’t take steps to deal with it — if we don’t exercise better leadership to confront it — it’ll get worse,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told NBC News in September. “In a May 2012 letter to military commanders signed by Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chiefs stated: “As military professionals we must fully understand the destructive nature of these acts, lead our focused efforts to prevent them, and promote positive command climates and environments that reinforce mutual respect, trust and confidence.”

The Pentagon has had an overarching sexual-abuse policy since 2005 which “calls for sexual assault prevention … to be gender-responsive, culturally competent, and recovery-oriented; and for an immediate, trained sexual assault response capability to be available in deployed locations,” according to the report. But the Pentagon has fallen short of establishing and enforcing policies that are more specific, and trained first-responders may not always be available or trained properly to respond.

A huge problem is confidentiality — a reoccurring issue in sexual assault cases where victims may fear retaliation for reporting the crimes. First, sexual assault cases can be reported in the military using two ways: unrestricted reports and restricted reports. For an unrestricted report, a survivor reports an assault to superiors and military law enforcement, who — in theory — begin an investigation, and provide medical care and counseling. A restricted report, on the other hand, allows a survivor to confidentially inform superiors about the assault without sparking a criminal investigation. The survivor, according to military policy, should still receive medical care, but personally identifying information will be kept anonymous.

But that’s not always the case. At one unidentified military installation, the installation’s medical policies “did not … offer health care providers alternative procedures for documenting and reporting medical issues associated with restricted reports of sexual assault,” the GAO finds. And across different bases, medical personnel were being given conflicting instructions about how to report the assaults from different levels of command. These contradictory policies “created confusion for health care providers regarding the extent of their responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of victims who choose to make a restricted report of sexual assault.”

And there’s no single method for victims to access medical and mental health care across the military branches, according to the GAO. The Army requires each brigade “to deploy with a health care provider who is trained to conduct a forensic examination, whereas the Air Force deploys trained health care providers based on the medical needs at specific locations.” The Navy doesn’t require ships to have a sailor aboard who is trained to conduct forensic examinations, instead preferring a policy of transferring victims to ships that do — or onto shore. If a trained examiner is out of reach, the policy is for medical providers to “do their best … using the instructions provided with examination kits.”

Meanwhile, the military’s medical first responders are “still unsure of the health care services available to sexual assault victims at their respective locations.” According to the report, there’s no consistent instructions on where sexual assault survivors should go for examination, even though evidence in such cases is perishable. “Refresher training” for sexual assault cases, which the Pentagon requires military first responders to undergo every year, is also below standards, with thousands of personnel missing annual courses.

The report comes a week after the House Armed Services Committee brought in Gen. Mark Welsh III, the Air Force’s top general, for a grilling about the Lackland Air Force Base sexual abuse scandal. The sprawling base in San Antonio, Texas, where the Air Force sends all its recruits for basic training, has been the focus of an investigation into sexual abuse of at least 59 recruits and airmen by their instructors. Thirty-two instructors have been disciplined — including prison terms — for charges ranging from aggravated sexual assault to rape. There’s also the case of Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, accused of “forcibly sodomizing” a woman Army captain and threatening her military career “if she ended their sexual relationship,” as stated by military documents acquired by Danger Room in December. On Jan. 22, Sinclair deferred entering a plea at his court-martial.

There’s hope things could be different. On Thursday, Dempsey argued to reporters that sexual abuse in the military is partly owed to how the military treats women: as less than equal. “When you have one part of the population that’s designated as warriors, and another part of the population that’s designated as something else, I think that disparity begins to establish a psychology that, in some cases, led to that environment,” Dempsey said while announcing plans to integrate women in combat roles and units.

Dempsey never said that equality by itself would be a solution, for the simple reason that it’s true. For a start, it means recognizing that talk is talk. It’s quite another thing to step up and do something about it.

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