Nordstrom hostages made to strip naked; 1 sexually assaulted, police say

Los Angeles police confirmed Sunday evening the arrests of three suspected gang members in the takeover robbery at the Nordstrom Rack in Westchester last week.

The Times first reported two arrests, one on Friday and the second Saturday in Phoenix. Sources familiar with the investigation described the man arrested in Phoenix as a principal suspect but would give no further details.

In a press release Sunday, the LAPD said that a total of three suspects had been arrested but did not give additional details.

Police would not release the suspects’ identities, nor would they detail how the suspects were taken into custody or their alleged roles in the robbery and hostage situation.

Sources said they had strong evidence linking the men to the crime, including physical evidence and security camera video. Prosecutors will decide this week whether to file charges.

The incident began about 11 p.m. Thursday at the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center, near the 405 Freeway. The LAPD called a tactical alert and closed off the area around the shopping center.
When the Police Department's SWAT officers arrived, they surrounded the store. At one point, one suspect exited, saw the police and ran back inside.

A second suspect walked out with an unidentified woman, saw police and also headed back inside. The officers entered the store at 3:30 a.m. and freed the hostages.

At least three of the hostages were injured, including one woman who was sexually assaulted. Another woman was stabbed in the neck and sustained non-life-threatening injuries, and a third employee was pistol-whipped, police said.

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India Ink: Woman Raped by Seven Men in Punjab, India, Police Say

NEW DELHI — Police said Sunday that a  29-year-old woman had been raped by a bus driver, a bus conductor and five other men in the north Indian state of Punjab, in an incident that recalls the recent attack in Delhi that has caused widespread outrage.

The woman boarded a bus on Friday bound for Gurdaspur, to visit her in-laws, the police chief of Gurdaspur, Raj Jit Singh, said in a telephone interview. When she got off the bus, the driver offered her a ride on his motorcycle, perhaps to her in-laws village, the police said. Instead, he took her to a nearby village where he and six other men, including the bus conductor, raped her repeatedly through the night.

The next morning, the driver dropped her at her in-laws home, where the woman told her family members of the incident, and then reported it to the police, Mr. Singh said.

Six men, including the bus driver and conductor, have been arrested, he said. All of the men are their twenties.

Gurmesh Singh, the deputy superintendent of police for the  region, said it was unclear how or why the bus driver persuaded the woman to go with him on his motorcycle. She was in a state of distress during the bus ride, Mr. Singh said, and originally refused to get off of the bus when it reached its final destination.

The Press Trust of India reported that the bus driver did not stop at her stop when requested.

The gang-rape of a woman on a moving bus in New Delhi on Dec. 16, and her subsequent death from injuries sustained during the rape, has sparked widespread protests and calls for increased policing and tougher laws against sexual assault in India.

The case against five of the men arrested in that rape is being heard this month in a special fast-track court created just for incidents of sexual assault.

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Women pry open door to video game industry’s boys’ club

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When video game developer Brenda Brathwaite Romero started her career in the 1980s, she could count the number of female developers in the industry on one hand.

Today, many “Women in Games” roundtables she attends are filled to capacity with new faces. The 46-year-old, sometimes referred to as the longest-serving woman in the video game arena, jokes that these days one can even encounter long lines for the ladies’ room at the Game Developers Conference, one of the industry’s largest gatherings.

“Over the years, greatly helped by the social and mobile boom, there have been many, many women coming into game development,” Brathwaite Romero said.

With women comprising just over 1 in 10 in the video game workforce, the industry has a reputation for being among the most testosterone-fueled of the traditionally male-dominated technology sector. But thanks to the mobile revolution, industry executives say that’s changing.

With smartphones going mainstream and delivering gaming to a new, broader population, publishers and developers are keen to tap an audience beyond young males. And, not surprisingly, as women have explored a growing range of mobile games on Facebook or other platforms, they have discovered the allure of working in the industry.

The number of women hired by game companies has tripled since 2009, according to recruiting firm VonChurch, based on over 350 placements it has made in digital gaming firms like CrowdStar and GREE.

In 1989, when veteran games designer Sheri Graner Ray started out, women made up less than 3 percent of the workforce. That’s now up to 11 percent.

“In 20 years, it’s not a lot of growth,” said Graner Ray, who has worked at leading companies like Electronic Arts and Sony Online Entertainment. But she agrees that number will rise as more women assert themselves in the industry, educational programs take hold, and mobile games continue to flourish.

Some of the first engineers at mobile games maker Pocket Gems were women, and though that wasn’t intentional when the company was founded in 2009, it proved instrumental to success, said Chief Executive Ben Liu.

Pocket Gems, best known as a maker of family-friendly mobile games like its popular “Tap” series, recently launched “Campus Life”, where players can build and run a college sorority, to target a female audience.

“I’ve worked at other, different game companies and I’ve been on floors where it’s only guys,” Liu said. “Our aspiration is to create games that are mass market and accessible to all people, and having that representative base of employees helps us keep true to that.”

DEBAUCHERY ‘WAY, WAY DOWN’

Gaming still conjures up images of young men glued to flickering screens for hours on end, fueled by energy drinks and waging online battles unto death in such “shooters” as “Call of Duty” or tactical war games like “Starcraft.”

But the advent of affordable smartphones and tablets and the burgeoning world of social media has drawn in a whole new world of gamers. Individuals who had never been tempted to plunk down hundreds of dollars to buy a gaming console found themselves enticed by a whole new genre of games.

These days, gaming might just as easily mean launching attacks on pigs in “Angry Birds” or slicing produce with swiping motions in “Fruit Ninja” — games that have mass appeal.

“Mobile is still the Wild West and it’s founded on this idea of inclusion, because everyone has these mobile devices and everyone wants to play,” said game content designer Elizabeth Sampat, who works at social game company Storm8.

That’s partly why more than half of America’s social and mobile gamers are women, according to research firm EEDAR, while they comprise just 30 percent of those who play hard-core violent games like Microsoft’s “Halo 4″ on game consoles.

Erin McCarty, 24, grew up playing such fare. She went to engineering school at Carnegie Mellon University, with a goal toward working in the video game industry.

Today she’s the only female engineer in a seven-member team crafting multiplayer-shooter game “Realm of the Mad God” at social and mobile game company Kabam that targets male gamers.

But far from feeling different, McCarty considers herself just another coder at Kabam, where women make up just a fifth of the payroll.

“I’m around guys a lot and they are always people that I’m happy to work with,” McCarty said.

Brathwaite Romero recalls how her male coworkers on the team that created the mature-rated “Playboy: The Mansion” game with nude characters that was published in 2005, were wholly professional.

“I’ve fortunately not experienced the level of misogyny that I’ve heard other people experience,” Brathwaite Romero said.

“Some of the debauchery that was evident in the early days of the industry, like meetings at strip clubs, having strippers at your party, that sort of stuff has gone down way, way down from where it used to be.”

DANCING GIRLS AND SEXISM

That’s not to say the industry doesn’t have a ways to go.

First, there’s a 27 percent gap in average incomes, with women making $ 68,062 versus men at $ 86,418, according to Game Developer Magazine’s 2011 annual salary survey.

Women in the game industry are underrepresented in software engineering and top-level management, reflecting a similar trend in the broader technology sector, industry executives say.

VonChurch found engineering positions were skewed more toward men in their placements since 2009. Female engineers made up 21 percent from the pool of women it placed, while over half of the men it placed were hired in engineering positions.

Then there are the occasional throwbacks to the male-dominated 1980s and 1990s. Gameloft created a stir a few weeks ago after a holiday party at its Montreal studio ran amok.

The studio, which makes games for devices like Apple Inc’s iPhone, hired a burlesque dance troupe that featured scantily clad women in body paint. By the end of the evening, several dancers began to discard their bathing suits, according to a person with knowledge of the event, who asked not be named.

The dancers were expelled from the event “as soon as their misconduct was brought to light,” Gameloft said in a statement.

Over a month ago, a tweet from a male gaming professional — “Why are there so few women in gaming?” — ignited a top-trending Twitter conversation under the #1reasonwhy hashtag, that quickly morphed into a now infamous discussion of discrimination and sexism in the workplace.

“I was told I’d be remembered not on my own merits, but by who I was or was assumed to be sleeping with,” Seattle-based pen and paper game designer Lillian Cohen-Moore, who goes by @lilyorit, tweeted.

Gaming conventions can bring out the worst in attendees, said several women gaming professionals. While not a pure work environment, they are a forum for professionals from across the industry to convene to talk shop and do business.

Cohen-Moore, 28, said she was appalled to see men at the annual Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle groping women working as costumed characters when she worked there last year.

“I’ve been leery about transitioning into video games because the culture over there is a lot more blatant and active in how many sex trolls they have,” she said.

Brathwaite Romero, who is married to industry legend and “Doom” creator John Romero, also recounts a jarring instance at last summer’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, the industry’s biggest gathering.

“I was discussing a potential contract with somebody and the guy right next to me is talking about — to quote him — ‘the tits and ass’ on this particular model. And he’s going on and on and on about this,” she said. “This is wrong.”

Sampat said in some workplaces, though not at her current employer Storm8, women are often expected to tolerate off-color jokes – of which they’re often the target.

Before stepping into an interview at an online game company a couple of years ago, Sampat said a female human resources employee told her: “It’s my job to make sure that all potential candidates can, you know, take a joke.”

“I couldn’t help but wonder if she asked the white male programmer who came in before me whether he could take a joke too,” Sampat said.

Women outside the United States find similar challenges. Alisa Chumachenko, CEO and founder of Game Insight, a fast-growing mobile and social company in Russia, thinks having more women in senior and more diverse roles will help. Her company of 450 employees has three other women in high-level positions, but she wishes she knew more women in gaming.

“We need to really look at the women who have become movers and shakers in this industry,” the veteran games designer Graner Ray said, “and claim them and hold them up and say: ‘Here’s where we are, here’s what we can do. Pay attention to us.’”

(Editing by Edwin Chan and Leslie Adler)

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Girls Star Lena Dunham Has Another TMI Moment

Stylewatch
Style News Now

01/10/2013 at 12:30 PM ET

Startraks (2); AP; Retna

While everyone else is buzzing about what the four stars of Girls wore to the season two kickoff event, it was what creator Lena Dunham didn’t wear that has us in the PEOPLE offices talking.

The actress arrived in a strapless Valentino jumpsuit and quickly divulged some very personal info: “I’m not wearing underwear,” Dunham told reporters at the premiere, hosted by HBO with The Cinema Society, in N.Y.C. on Wednesday night. Dunham called the move “liberating.”

But in Dunham’s opinion, hitting a red carpet without undergarments was only the second boldest decision she made. She shared that opting for a jumpsuit required quite a leap a faith. “I didn’t think I could get away with [wearing it] because jumpsuit seems like such a dirty word,” the actress joked. “But people are acting like it’s a normal thing to do, so I’m just rolling with it.” (Hmm, wonder if this gave her the idea.)

At the other end of the style spectrum was Allison Williams, who stunned in an embroidered gold top and a black knee-length skirt by Altuzarra, plus flawless makeup (we were so smitten that we tracked down all the details on it) and Fred Leighton drop earrings.

“They’re very old,” Williams said of the danglers. “I’ve asked for the whole story, because when I wear estate jewelry I love knowing the story behind it,” Williams told PEOPLE. So what exactly is the history of those stunning earrings? “I’m waiting on [it]!” she said.

New mom Jemima Kirke stepped out in something we could see her character, free-spirited Jessa, wearing on the HBO hit show: a one-of-a-kind vintage velvet dress by Geminola, a N.Y.C. label founded by her mother.

But perhaps the most surprising look of all was Zosia Mamet‘s. Not only did she select an above-the-knee black dress with a dramatic white neckline and ankle-strap pumps, a major departure from her typically low-key red carpet looks, but Mamet also lightened her locks! Tell us: Which Girls star had the best premiere style? Vote below!

–Jennifer Cress, reporting by Catherine Kast

PHOTOS: SEE MORE RED CARPET STYLE!

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

___

Online:

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

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Ridge Route repair group runs up against Forest Service

The roadblock facing Harrison Scott and his aging band of volunteers as they try to preserve the Ridge Route north of Los Angeles isn't just the heavy steel gate across the historic paved roadway that was the first to link Northern and Southern California.

As Scott tells it, it's also the U.S. Forest Service, which technically owns the two-lane road that was created by horse-drawn scrapers in 1914 across ridge tops dotting the Sierra Pelona mountain range north of Castaic.

The Ridge Route's place in California history is well-documented. Some experts say its construction prevented the state from being divided in two at the Tehachapi Mountains.

Others say it brought tourism that helped fuel Los Angeles' 1920s boom and served as a vital trade route until the three-lane Highway 99 — dubbed the Ridge Route Alternate — opened nearby in 1933. That highway in turn was replaced in the 1960s by the I-5 Freeway.

For history buffs willing to tackle its 697 curves, the original Ridge Route remained open to traffic well into the 21st century.

But the Forest Service closed the 20-foot-wide road to the public in 2005 after heavy rains washed out parts of it. Federal officials later spent millions of dollars to repair the damage and repave 1 1/2 miles of the road. It is now passable, although some areas remain unpaved because of recent pipeline relocation projects conducted by petroleum and gas companies whose lines run parallel to the road.

Nonetheless, Angeles National Forest officials — who have jurisdiction over the mountains that are crossed by the Ridge Route — have not reopened the 30-mile stretch, which zigzags along mountaintops between Castaic and Highway 138 near Gorman.

Officials also won't allow members of the nonprofit Ridge Route Preservation Organization to use mechanized equipment to clean out culverts and remove rocks that occasionally tumble onto the roadway, said Scott, though as the group's president, he has been given a key to the roadway's gate.

And they have balked at designating the road a National Forest Scenic Byway, according to Scott. That designation is a preliminary step in getting it named a National Scenic Byway, recognition that in the past would have freed up federal funding for things like guardrails, signage and a Ridge Route interpretive center, he said.

What repair and maintenance is now performed on the road is apparently done solely by the 150 or so members of Scott's organization.

"We're an older group of volunteers, in our 60s, 70s and 80s," said Mike Simpson, secretary of the preservation group. "We go up with shovels and wheelbarrows and clean out drains. It would be very helpful if we could use a Bobcat instead of having five or six guys shoveling dirt into a wheelbarrow."

The volunteers use sledgehammers to break up steamer-trunk-sized boulders that sometimes fall onto the road where it slices through a steep ridge at a place called Swede's Cut.

Simpson, 55, lives in Seal Beach and is a legal assistant with DirecTV. Since learning of Scott's preservation efforts, he has spent nearly 10 years helping out during monthly Ridge Route work days.

Scott and Simpson said frustration with the Forest Service has grown to the point that the group's board of directors may be asked later this month to approve disbanding the Ridge Route Preservation Organization.

"We can't even shove a spade of dirt over the side of the road" because of the agency's rules, said Scott, a 77-year-old retired Pacific Bell engineer who lives in Torrance and discovered the Ridge Route as a teenager in 1955 when he took his first car out for a spin.

Scott says his group was criticized for performing emergency repairs to a concrete stairway at the Ridge Route's 22-mile mark, the site of what 87 years ago was known as the Tumble Inn. It was a collection of stone structures that featured $2-per-night rooms, a restaurant and a Richfield gas station.

Off-road motorcyclists had damaged a staircase that once led to the sleeping rooms, and Scott's volunteers attempted to stabilize it to prevent the concrete steps from completely collapsing. Angeles National Forest officials complained in a letter to the state Office of Historic Preservation of the "inappropriate rehabilitation measures by a volunteer group."

The preservation organization also commissioned plans from a registered engineer that they could use in conjunction with an Eagle Scout from Santa Clarita to rebuild a stone archway that once stood at the top of the Tumble Inn steps. Although the Forest Service had earlier approved those plans, Scott's group was told last month that officials now "don't know that we can let you do it," he said.

The Forest Service's alleged foot-dragging over the scenic byway designation is particularly galling to Scott and Simpson. They speculate that the cash-strapped federal agency may be unnecessarily worried that such a label might require it to spend money on Ridge Route's maintenance.

"They promised years ago they would support the designation," Scott said. "But they're stonewalling. They say, 'We just don't have the money.' The road has to be open in order to get the National Forest Scenic Byway designation."

Simpson said the scenic byway label "wouldn't require any more" from the Forest Service than its blessing and could free up money for maintenance from other federal sources. "Scotty got the Ridge Route named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997," he pointed out.

The criticism has jarred Angeles National Forest officials.

Acton-based District Ranger Bob Blount said he would try to discourage Scott and Simpson from disbanding the Ridge Route group. He said the roadway might reopen to the public later this year after the utility companies undertake a $10-million slope-shoring project that will protect both their pipelines and the pavement at Osito Canyon, near the road's halfway point.

"I look forward to working with the utility companies and potentially the state to hopefully come up with some funds so the road can be maintained," Blount said Friday. His agency is also "looking at what the Scouts are proposing to do" at the Tumble Inn site. Blount voiced support for the National Scenic Byway designation and said he is willing to ease the ban on mechanized equipment on days when there is not a high fire danger along the road.

"I love Harrison Scott," Blount said. "The Forest Service appreciates a great deal the valuable work he and his group have done. I certainly hope they hang in there."

bob.pool@latimes.com

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Russia Says It Supports U.N. Envoy for Syria

George Ourfalian/Reuters

Syrian soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo on Saturday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia voiced support on Saturday for Lakhdar Brahimi, the special Syria envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League, but insisted that the exit of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, could not be a precondition for a deal to end the country’s conflict.

A Foreign Ministry statement after talks in Geneva on Friday with the United States and Mr. Brahimi, who the Syrian government has said is “flagrantly biased,” reiterated calls for an end to the violence in Syria, where more than 60,000 people have been killed since March 2011.

At the meeting with Mr. Brahimi and an American deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, a Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, “expressed unfailing support for Brahimi’s mission as the U.N.-Arab League special envoy on Syria,” the statement said.

The issue of Mr. Assad — who the United States, European powers and gulf-led Arab states say must step down to end what has escalated into a civil war — appeared to be a sticking point at the meeting.

“As before, we firmly uphold the thesis that questions about Syria’s future must be decided by the Syrians themselves,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said, “without interference from outside or the imposition of prepared recipes for development.”

Russia has been Mr. Assad’s most powerful international supporter during the nearly 22-month conflict, joining with China to block three Western- and Arab-backed United Nations Security Council resolutions intended to pressure him or push him from power.

In Geneva, Russia called for “a political transition process” based on an agreement by foreign powers last June.

Mr. Brahimi, who is trying to build on the agreement reached in Geneva on June 30, has met three times since early December with senior Russian and American diplomats, and he met Mr. Assad in Damascus.

Russia and the United States disagreed over what the June agreement meant for Mr. Assad, with Washington saying it sent a clear signal that he must go and Russia contending it did not.

In Washington, a spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland, said there had been some progress toward a common view at Friday’s meeting, but she did not provide details.

Moscow says it is not propping up Mr. Assad and, as rebels gain ground in the war, it has given indications it is preparing for his possible exit. But it continues to insist he must not be forced out by foreign powers.

Analysts say President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to prevent the United States from using military force or support from the Security Council to bring down governments it opposes.

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Jennie Finch Welcomes Third Child

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

01/12/2013 at 12:00 PM ET

Jennie Finch‘s daughter has arrived!

The Olympic softball star and husband Casey Daigle welcomed their third child, Paisley Faye Daigle, in the early morning hours of Saturday, Jan. 12.

“We are so thrilled to announce the birth of our sweet baby girl,” Finch, 32, tells PEOPLE.

Paisley weighed in at 8 lbs., 1 oz. and joins big brothers Diesel Dean, 18 months, and Ace Shane, 6½.

Finch, 32, who has blogged her last two pregnancies for PEOPLE.com, said in October that she was leaning towards a Southern-sounding name for her third child.

“Everyone is expecting something crazy and outrageous with having Ace and Diesel,” she joked at the time.

Courtesy Jennie Finch

RELATED: Jennie Finch’s PEOPLE.com Blog Series

– Sarah Michaud

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Flu season puts businesses and employees in a bind

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half the 70 employees at a Ford dealership in Clarksville, Ind., have been out sick at some point in the past month. It didn't have to be that way, the boss says.

"If people had stayed home in the first place, a lot of times that spread wouldn't have happened," says Marty Book, a vice president at Carriage Ford. "But people really want to get out and do their jobs, and sometimes that's a detriment."

The flu season that has struck early and hard across the U.S. is putting businesses and employees alike in a bind. In this shaky economy, many Americans are reluctant to call in sick, something that can backfire for their employers.

Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii. And the main strain of the virus circulating tends to make people sicker than usual.

Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York, says his agency is operating with less than 40 percent of its staff of 35 because of the flu and other ailments.

"The people here are working longer hours and it puts a lot of strain on everyone," Fleetwood says. "You don't know whether to ask people with the flu to come in or not." He says the flu is also taking its toll on business as customers cancel their travel plans: "People are getting the flu and they're reduced to a shriveling little mess and don't feel like going anywhere."

Many workers go to the office even when they're sick because they are worried about losing their jobs, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employer consulting firm. Other employees report for work out of financial necessity, since roughly 40 percent of U.S. workers don't get paid if they are out sick. Some simply have a strong work ethic and feel obligated to show up.

Flu season typically costs employers $10.4 billion for hospitalization and doctor's office visits, according to the CDC. That does not include the costs of lost productivity from absences.

At Carriage Ford, Book says the company plans to make flu shots mandatory for all employees.

Linda Doyle, CEO of the Northcrest Community retirement home in Ames, Iowa, says the company took that step this year for its 120 employees, providing the shots at no cost. It is also supplying face masks for all staff.

And no one is expected to come into work if sick, she says.

So far, the company hasn't seen an outbreak of flu cases.

"You keep your fingers crossed and hope it continues this way," Doyle says. "You see the news and it's frightening. We just want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to keep everyone healthy. Cleanliness is really the key to it. Washing your hands. Wash, wash, wash."

Among other steps employers can take to reduce the spread of the flu on the job: holding meetings via conference calls, staggering shifts so that fewer people are on the job at the same time, and avoiding handshaking.

Newspaper editor Rob Blackwell says he had taken only two sick days in the last two years before coming down with the flu and then pneumonia in the past two weeks. He missed several days the first week of January and has been working from home the past week.

"I kept trying to push myself to get back to work because, generally speaking, when I'm sick I just push through it," says Blackwell, the Washington bureau chief for the daily trade paper American Banker.

Connecticut is the only state that requires some businesses to pay employees when they are out sick. Cities such as San Francisco and Washington have similar laws.

Challenger and others say attitudes are changing, and many companies are rethinking their sick policies to avoid officewide outbreaks of the flu and other infectious diseases.

"I think companies are waking up to the fact right now that you might get a little bit of gain from a person coming into work sick, but especially when you have an epidemic, if 10 or 20 people then get sick, in fact you've lost productivity," Challenger says.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Eileen A.J. Connelly in New York, Paul Wiseman in Washington, Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines, Iowa, and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.

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Robbers at Nordstrom raped hostage, made women take off clothes, police say

This post has been updated.

One female hostage held overnight at the Nordstrom Rack in Westchester was sexually assaulted and another was stabbed, Los Angeles police said Friday.

The two were among 14 hostages held by two robbers at the clothing store. About a half hour into the ordeal, which began at 11 p.m. Thursday, the hostages were led into a bathroom, said sources familiar with the investigation.

The woman who was stabbed was struck in the neck and her injuries were not life threatening, police said. [Updated at 7:16 a.m., Jan. 11: A third hostage was pistol-whipped, police said.]

Police did not say exactly how long the suspects were in the Nordstrom Rack before they fled with an undisclosed amount of money.

Police early Friday were trying to confirm that the getaway car was found at a nearby location.

When the Los Angeles Police Department's SWAT officers arrived Thursday night, they surrounded the store, according to police sources.
At one point, one of the suspects left the store, saw police and ran back inside.

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