Gretchen Rossi: Is She Wearing an Engagement Ring?
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
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Gretchen Rossi and Slade Smiley
FayesVision/WENN
Slade Smiley hasn't put a ring on it – yet.
The reality TV personality's longtime girlfriend, Real Housewives of Orange County star Gretchen Rossi, was spotted at Heather McDonald's book launch at Hollywood's Emerson Theater on Wednesday night, sporting some bling on her engagement finger.
But apparently Smiley hasn't popped the question.
"The ring was not from Slade," a source tells PEOPLE, while a second source says when asked about the ring at the event, "Slade danced around the question."
About two years ago, Rossi, 34, told PEOPLE she was in no rush to head to the altar with Smiley.
"When I first got married, I thought I was going to be married for life," she said. "I thought that was it and it was really hard to fail at that marriage."
But now, although the ring wasn't from him, the first source tells PEOPLE, "They're planning on getting engaged pretty soon."
Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction
Label: HealthBOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.
It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.
The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.
"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.
Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.
"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."
Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.
They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.
The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.
The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.
The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.
The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.
"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."
Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.
It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.
Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."
Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.
The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.
Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.
Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.
___
Online:
Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html
Mayor who gambled away $1 billion had brain tumor
Label: BusinessThe lawyer for former San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor suggested that a brain tumor may have caused her to lose massive sums gambling on video poker games.
Over a nine-year period O'Connor wagered an estimated $1 billion,
including millions from a charity set up by her late husband, who
founded the Jack in the Box fast-food chain.
That was the portrait that emerged in court Thursday as the frail
former mayor tearfully acknowledged that she skimmed more than $2 million
from the charity founded by her late husband, Robert O. Peterson.
O'Connor, 66, admitted in a plea deal that she had a gambling addiction
and is nearly destitute. Her lawyer, prominent defense attorney Eugene
Iredale, suggested that a brain tumor may have impaired her reasoning.
Reporters were given copies of her brain scan from a 2011 surgery.
O'Connor's rapidly declining medical condition "renders it highly
improbable — if not impossible — that she could be brought to trial,"
according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors.
"This is a sad day for the city of San Diego," said Assistant U.S.
Atty. Phillip Halpern. "Maureen O'Connor was born and raised in this
town. She rose from humble origins.... She dedicated much of her life,
personal and professional, to improving this city."
The $1-billion gambling binge stretched from 2000 to 2009, according
to court documents. In 2008 and 2009, when the fortune she had inherited
was not enough, she began taking from the R.P. Foundation to cover her
losses.
Despite being ahead more than $1 billion at one point, O'Connor
"suffered even larger gambling losses," according to prosecutors. Her
net loss, Iredale said, was about $13 million.
She was considered such a high roller that Las Vegas casinos would
send a private jet to pick her up in San Diego. Records show that
O'Connor won $100,000 at the Barona casino in San Diego County, while at
roughly the same time she needed to cash a $100,000 check at the
Bellagio in Las Vegas.
Those who knew the former political doyenne said she had become a recluse, inscrutable even to those she counted as friends.
"I considered myself one of her closest friends, but I would call her
and she wouldn't return my call," said lawyer Louis Wolfsheimer. "I
didn't want anything from her, just to know how she was. But it looked
like she was becoming reclusive."
In a bargain with prosecutors, O'Connor agreed to repay $2,088,000 to
the R.P. Foundation, which supported charities such
as City of Hope, San Diego Hospice, and the Alzheimer's Assn. before it was driven into insolvency in 2009 by O'Connor's misappropriation of funds, prosecutors said.
"I never meant to hurt the city," an emotional O'Connor told
reporters gathered at a restaurant close to the federal courthouse. She
promised to repay the foundation but declined to answer questions.
Prosecutors agreed to defer prosecution for two years. If O'Connor
violates no further laws and makes restitution, the charge of making
illegal financial transactions may be dismissed. Under the agreement,
O'Connor acknowledged her guilt but was allowed to plead not guilty.
If convicted, O'Connor could have faced a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $250,000.
As part of her plea agreement, O'Connor agreed to settle "all tax
liability resulting from her receipt" of money from the foundation. She
also agreed to seek treatment for her gambling addiction.
Although she is currently without income or a bank account,
O'Connor's economic status could reverse if she wins a civil lawsuit
filed against a German bank involved in the 2005 purchase of a resort in
Mendocino County that O'Connor had acquired in 1998.
O'Connor sold the Heritage House for $19.5 million but has alleged
that she was the victim of fraud in the sale. A settlement or victory at
trial could provide the millions needed to pay restitution to the
foundation as well as the tax liabilities involved with the misallocation
of its funds.
"No figure, regardless of how much good they've done or how much
they've given to charity, can escape criminal liability with impunity,"
said U.S. Atty. Laura Duffy.
One of O'Connor's major worries, defense attorney Iredale said, "is fear of losing her reputation."
ALSO:
Man killed in Valentine's Day shooting in Maywood
Ex-mayor's lawyer ties her gambling addiction to brain tumor
Gusty winds blow through Southern California, advisory issued
-- Tony Perry in San Diego
Photo: Maureen O'Connor walks to court with her attorney, Eugene Iredale. If
O'Connor violates no further laws and makes restitution, the charge of
making illegal financial transactions may be dismissed.
Credit: Peggy Peattie / Associated Press
Way of the World: Technology, Trade and Fewer Jobs
Label: World
NEW YORK — President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech this week confirmed it: The pre-eminent political and economic challenge in the industrialized democracies is how to make capitalism work for the middle class.
There is nothing mysterious about that. The most important fact about the United States in this century is that middle-class incomes are stagnating. The financial crisis has revealed an equally stark structural problem in much of Europe.
Even in a relatively prosperous age — for all of today’s woes, we have left behind the dark, satanic mills and workhouses of the 19th century — this decline of the middle class is more than an economic issue. It is also a political one. The main point of democracy is to deliver positive results for the majority.
All of which is why understanding what is happening to the middle class is urgently important. There is no better place to start than by talking to David Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Autor is one of the leading students of the most striking trend bedeviling the middle class: the polarization of the job market. That is a nice way of saying the economy is being cleaved into high-paying jobs at the top and low-paying jobs at the bottom, while the middle-skill and middle-wage jobs that used to form society’s backbone are being hollowed out.
But when I asked him this week what had gone wrong for the U.S. middle class, he gave a different answer: “The main problem is we’ve just had a decade of incredibly anemic employment growth. All of a sudden, around 2000 and 2001, things just slowed down.”
Academics can usually be counted on to have a confident explanation for everything. That is why I was surprised and impressed by Mr. Autor’s answer when I asked him where the jobs had gone. “No one really understands why that is the case,” he said.
It was a winningly modest reply. But work by Mr. Autor and two colleagues — David Dorn, a visiting professor at Harvard, and Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego — is starting to untangle the two forces that both the conventional wisdom and the academy agree are probably responsible for a lot of what is happening to the middle class.
Those forces are technological change and trade. The easy assumption is that the two go together. After all, trade needs technology — it is hard to imagine outsourcing without the Internet, sophisticated logistics systems and jet travel. Technology is dependent on trade, too: The opportunity for global scale is one reason technological innovation has yielded such outsize rewards.
But in a careful study of local labor markets in the United States, Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson have found that trade and technology had very different consequences for jobs.
“We were surprised at how distinct the two were,” Mr. Autor said. “We found that the trade shock had a very measurable impact on the employment rate. Technology led to job polarization, but its employment effect was minimal.” Trade, at least in the short term, really did ship jobs overseas. Technology did not kill jobs per se, but it did hollow out those essential jobs in the middle.
The big surprise, at least for believers (like me) in the classic liberal economic view that trade benefits both parties, is the strong and negative impact of globalization on U.S. workers — Mr. Autor estimates it accounts for 15 to 20 percent of jobs lost.
“The rise of China was such a huge change. It really did matter,” Mr. Autor said. “First, China is such a huge country. Two, China was 40 or 50 years behind in technology, so it had a lot of catching up to do. Third, it happened so fast.”
What is striking, and frightening, is the extent to which, at least in the U.S.-China trade relationship, the knee-jerk, populist fears intellectuals tend to deride actually turned out to be true.
“U.S.-China trade is almost a one-way street. This trade relationship doesn’t clearly give you the benefit that you can sell a lot of stuff to your trade partner,” Mr. Dorn said. “If you talk to someone who is somehow involved in the promotion of free trade, they may say that maybe the headquarters of Apple benefits. That may be true. But the first-order effect is of job loss.”
The impact of technology is more familiar. Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson found that it did not create fewer jobs overall, but it did hollow out the jobs in the middle.
“Technology has really changed the distribution of occupation. That doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with reduced unemployment, but it creates a more bimodal set of opportunities,” Mr. Autor said. “There is an abundance of work to do in food service and there is an abundance of work in finance, but there are fewer middle-wage, middle-income jobs.”
What is challenging about both of these trends, and what makes the hollowing out of the middle class a political problem as well as an economic one, is how different they look depending on whether you own a company or work for one.
Shipping middle-class jobs to China, or hollowing them out with machines, is a win for smart managers and their shareholders. We call the result higher productivity. But looked at through the lens of middle-class jobs, it is a loss. That profound difference is why politics in the rich democracies are so polarized right now. Capitalism and democracy are at cross-purposes, and no one yet has a clear plan for reconciling them.
Chrystia Freeland is editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.
Has Miley Cyrus Chosen Her Wedding Dress Designer?
Label: Lifestyle
Stylewatch
Style News Now
02/14/2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Christopher Polk/Getty
Until now, Miley Cyrus has been fairly tight-lipped about her impending nuptials to fiancé Liam Hemsworth, but it seems she’s ready to dish about the part we most care about: her bridal gown.
“[Marchesa] is definitely one of our options,” Cyrus told PEOPLE at the Marchesa fashion show in N.Y.C. on Monday. “[They're] amazing.”
If Cyrus does walk down the aisle in Marchesa, she certainly wouldn’t be the first celebrity to do so: Blake Lively, Nicole Richie, Petra Nemcova and Molly Sims all wore custom gowns from the romantic, feminine line for their weddings.
But don’t start collecting from your Miley Cyrus Wedding Dress Pool just yet; it’s hardly a done deal: “I have so many options of different people who want to be involved in it,” she said. “I’ll probably have 30 [dresses]!”
Tell us: Who do you hope designs Cyrus’s wedding dress?
–Jennifer Cress, reporting by Catherine Kast
PHOTOS: SEE MORE STAR STYLE!
Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.
The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went on the market and adults still needed a prescription.
The increased popularity is probably because it is easier to get now and because of media coverage of controversial efforts to lift the age limit for over-the-counter sales, experts said. A prescription is still required for those younger than 17 so it is still sold from behind pharmacy counters.
In the study, half the women who used the pills said they did it because they'd had unprotected sex. Most of the rest cited a broken condom or worries that the birth control method they used had failed.
White women and more educated women use it the most, the research showed. That's not surprising, said James Trussell, a Princeton University researcher who's studied the subject.
"I don't think you can go to college in the United States and not know about emergency contraception," said Trussell, who has promoted its use and started a hot line.
One Pennsylvania college even has a vending machine dispensing the pills.
The morning-after pill is basically a high-dose version of birth control pills. It prevents ovulation and needs to be taken within a few days after sex. The morning-after pill is different from the so-called abortion pill, which is designed to terminate a pregnancy.
At least five versions of the morning-after pills are sold in the United States. They cost around $35 to $60 a dose at a pharmacy, depending on the brand.
Since it is sold over-the-counter, insurers generally only pay for it with a doctor's prescription. The new Affordable Care Act promises to cover morning-after pills, meaning no co-pays, but again only with a prescription.
The results of the study were released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's based on in-person interviews of more than 12,000 women in 2006 through 2010. It was the agency's first in-depth report on that issue, said Kimberly Daniels, the study's lead author.
The study also found:
—Among different age groups, women in their early 20s were more likely to have taken a morning-after pill. About 1 in 4 did.
—About 1 in 5 never-married women had taken a morning-after pill, compared to just 1 in 20 married women.
—Of the women who used the pill, 59 percent said they had done it only once, 24 percent said twice, and 17 percent said three or more times.
A woman who uses emergency contraception multiple times "needs to be thinking about a more regular form" of birth control, noted Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that does research on reproductive health.
Also on Thursday, the CDC released a report on overall contraception use. Among its many findings, 99 percent of women who've had sex used some sort of birth control. That includes 82 percent who used birth control pills and 93 percent whose partner had used a condom.
___
Online:
CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/
Emergency contraception info: http://ec.princeton.edu/index.html
Coach posed as girl to get nude images of boys, police allege
Label: BusinessAn Irvine baseball coach and high school history teacher posed as a young blonde woman on Facebook to persuade boys to send him pornographic images of themselves, prosecutors alleged this week.
Zachary Reeder, 30, of Orange has been charged with 110 felonies, including 34 counts each of distributing pornography to a minor, contacting a child with the intent to commit a lewd act and using a minor for sex acts.
Other charges include six felony counts of committing a lewd act upon a child and one felony count of bringing obscene material into California, according to court records.
Some of the 35 known victims were between the ages of 14 and 15, according to court documents filed in Orange County.
Reeder allegedly posed as a young blonde woman on Facebook to lure boys into taking sexually explicit photos of themselves and sending them to him, Irvine police said.
Irvine detectives were investigating whether Reeder targeted victims while working at Servite High School in Anaheim, where he has taught history since fall 2008, police said.
Reeder also worked at Beckman High School in Irvine for four seasons, ending last year, as a walk-on assistant baseball coach, police said.
Anyone who believes they may be a victim is asked to call Anthony Sosnowski, an investigator for the district attorney, at (714) 834-8794 or Irvine Police Det. Frough Jahid at (949) 724-7184.
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Tow truck driver killed on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu
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— Lauren Williams and Jeremiah Dobruck, Daily Pilot
International Military Officials Investigate Afghan Deaths
Label: World
KABUL, Afghanistan — International military officials are investigating two episodes in which as many as 11 Afghan civilians may have been killed in what appeared to be American-led military actions.
In the more lethal episode, Afghan officials said 10 civilians were killed overnight in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan in a village where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members.
“Ten civilians were killed last night in a joint Afghan and American operation that took place in Chogam Valley in Shigal District,” said Fazullah Wahidi, the provincial governor. He said four women, one man and five children between the ages of 8 and 13 were killed; four teenagers were wounded, three of whom were girls.
Increasingly over the last two years, foreign insurgents, sometimes with links to Al Qaeda and other non-Afghan groups, have taken refuge in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan Province. Both provinces have a long border with Pakistan, and insurgents can hide easily in the rugged and forested mountain terrain Mr. Wahidi said the target of Kunar operation was a Taliban leader named Shahpour, “a known and really dangerous Afghan Taliban commander with links to Al Qaeda operatives in Kunar” and another Taliban commander, known as “Rocketi,” a Pakistani citizen from the Northwest Frontier Province. Both men were killed in the attack.
Mr. Wahidi said that the operation was not coordinated with Afghan security forces, but that locally hired Afghan paramilitaries were involved in the raid, which included an airstrike and a ground operation. Sometimes other United States government agencies rather than the military use special commandos.
Maj. Adam Wojack, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said they had no information on the operation but “were aware of the reports” of civilian deaths and were looking into it.
Local officials in Kunar said that Shahpour was believed to have links to Al Qaeda and narrowly escaped being killed last year when the Americans attacked another Al Qaeda-linked Taliban commander known as Abu Hafez Al-Najde, who also went by the name Commander Ghani. Shahpour was the Taliban leader in charge of nearby Dangam district but was visiting relatives at the time of the raid.
People from Chogam, who brought injured from the remote village where the attack took place to the main hospital in the provincial capital of Asadabad, described a precise but damaging hit on two adjacent houses.
“Two homes were totally destroyed; air power was used during the operation,” said a man who brought a boy with cuts to the hospital for treatment, but refused to give his name. “There are still dead bodies under the rubble and human flesh scattered in the area.”
The other episode in which an Afghan civilian was killed by foreign troops occurred on Tuesday during daylight hours.
It took place as NATO-led forces were checking a stretch of heavily traveled highway between Kandahar and Spin Boldak for explosives during a road clearance mission and shot at an oncoming car that did not stop when signaled to do so, Major Wojack said.
An Afghan policeman, Taj Mohammed, the local Border Police commander, corroborated much of the ISAF account, but did not see the shooting himself. He said the car was carrying people from a wedding party.
Major Wojack said that the forces had followed standard procedure of signaling to the car to stop. After the driver stopped, he then started to accelerate toward the convoy, at which point the soldier ISAF shot at the car, Mr. Wojack said.
Dear Jessica Chastain, We've Found Your Oscars Gown!
Label: Lifestyle
Stylewatch
Style News Now
02/13/2013 at 12:05 PM ET
As we pull together our Academy Awards gown predictions, we’ve had the hardest time picking one for Jessica Chastain. She’s gorgeous, talented and impossible to anticipate on the red carpet, not favoring any one designer or color, and we were stumped.
But the moment we watched this rich violet peplum number sashay down the Oscar de la Renta runway Tuesday night, we knew we’d found the perfect look for her big night on Feb. 24. First of all, the color was practically made to complement her fair complexion — and in a sea of nudes, blacks and reds, the vivid hue is sure to stand out.
It’s also a blend of fashion-forward and body-conscious, a combination the actress seems to favor. Finally, that neckline is just begging for some major diamond chandeliers or a beautiful diamond choker (by Harry Winston, of course — her go-to jeweler for big events).
Now that we’ve pictured it, we’ll be devastated if our wish doesn’t come true, so let’s just hope she’s an avid reader of the site. Tell us: Do you agree with our pick for Jessica Chastain’s Academy Awards gown? If not, what do you want to see her wear?
–Alex Apatoff
SEE MORE MAJOR STAR RED CARPET MOMENTS HERE!
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