Rolling Stones hit NY for 50th anniversary gig

NEW YORK (AP) — It sure didn't feel like a farewell.

The Rolling Stones — average age 68, if you're counting — were in rollicking form on Saturday as they rocked the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for 2½ hours, their first U.S. show on a mini-tour marking a mind-boggling 50 years as a rock band.

And though every time the Stones tour, the inevitable questions arise as to whether it's "The Last Time," to quote one of their songs, there was no sign that anything is ending.

"People ask us why we've been doing this for so long," said Mick Jagger, the band"s impossibly energetic frontman, thanking the crowd for its loyalty. "The answer is we do it for you."

Jagger was in his usual swaggering form — strutting, jogging, skipping and pumping his arms like a man half his age. And though he briefly donned a flambouyant feathered black cape for "Sympathy for the Devil" and later, some red-sequined tails, he was mostly content to prowl the stage in a tight black T-shirt and trousers.

Jagger was joined by his brilliant guitarists, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, and of course drummer Charlie Watts, and Mary J. Blige, who sang a searing "Gimme Shelter" with Jagger.

The band played a generous 23 songs, including two new ones, but mostly favorites like "Brown Sugar," ''Honky Tonk Woman" and "Midnight Rambler." The rousing encore included "Jumping Jack Flash," of course, but the final song was "Satisfaction." And though the song speaks of not getting any, the consenus of the packed 18,000-seat arena was that it was a hugely satisfying evening indeed.

"If you like the Stones, this was as good a show as you could have had," said one fan, Robert Nehring, 58, of Westfield, NJ.

The Stones also will play two shows in Newark, N.J., on Dec. 13 and 15. Then next week they join a veritable who's who of British rock royalty and U.S. superstars at the blockbuster 12-12-12 Sandy benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. Also scheduled to perform: Paul McCartney, the Who, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Eddie Vedder, Billy Joel, Roger Waters and Chris Martin.

In a flurry of anniversary activity, the band also released a hits compilation last month with two new songs, "Doom and Gloom" and "One More Shot," and HBO premiered a new documentary on their formative years, "Crossfire Hurricane."

The Stones formed in London in 1962 to play Chicago blues, led at the time by the late Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart, along with Jagger and Richards, who'd met on a train platform a year earlier. Bassist Bill Wyman and Watts were quick additions.

Wyman, who left the band in 1992, was a guest at the London shows last month, as was Mick Taylor, the celebrated former Stones guitarist who left in 1974 — to be replaced by Wood, the newest Stone and the youngster at 65.

The inevitable questions have been swirling about the next step for the Stones: another huge global tour, on the scale of their last one, "A Bigger Bang," which earned more than $550 million between 2005 and 2007? Something a bit smaller? Or is this mini-tour, in the words of their new song, really "One Last Shot"?

The Stones won't say. But in an interview last month, they made clear they felt the 50th anniversary was something to be marked.

"I thought it would be kind of churlish not to do something," Jagger told The Associated Press. "Otherwise, the BBC would have done a rather dull film about the Rolling Stones."

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Associated Press writer David Bauder contributed to this report.

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Doping at U.S. Tracks Affects Europe’s Taste for Horse Meat

PARIS — For decades, American horses, many of them retired or damaged racehorses, have been shipped to Canada and Mexico, where it is legal to slaughter horses, and then processed and sold for consumption in Europe and beyond.

Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

A slaughterhouse in Saint-André-Avellin, Quebec, where meat is processed for sale in Europe.

Lately, however, European food safety officials have notified Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses of a growing concern: The meat of American racehorses may be too toxic to eat safely because the horses have been injected repeatedly with drugs.

Despite the fact that racehorses make up only a fraction of the trade in horse meat, the European officials have indicated that they may nonetheless require lifetime medication records for slaughter-bound horses from Canada and Mexico, and perhaps require them to be held on feedlots or some other holding area for six months before they are slaughtered.

In October, Stephan Giguere, the general manager of a major slaughterhouse in Quebec, said he turned away truckloads of horses coming from the United States because his clients were worried about potential drug issues. Mr. Giguere said he told his buyers to stay away from horses coming from American racetracks.

“We don’t want them,” he said. “It’s too risky.”

The action is just the latest indication of the troubled state of American racing and its problems with the doping of horses. Some prominent trainers have been disciplined for using legal and illegal drugs, and horses loaded with painkillers have been breaking down in arresting numbers. Congress has called for reform, and state regulators have begun imposing stricter rules.

But for pure emotional effect, the alarm raised in the international horse-meat marketplace packs a distinctive punch.

Some 138,000 horses were sent to Canada or Mexico in 2010 alone to be turned into meat for Europe and other parts of the world, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Organizations concerned about the welfare of retired racehorses have estimated that anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the population sent for slaughter may have performed on racetracks in the United States.

“Racehorses are walking pharmacies,” said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, a veterinarian on the faculty of Tufts University and a co-author of a 2010 article that sought to raise concerns about the health risks posed by American racehorses. He said it was reckless to want any of the drugs routinely administered to horses “in your food chain.”

Horses being shipped to Mexico and Canada are by law required to have been free of certain drugs for six months before being slaughtered, and those involved in their shipping must have affidavits proving that. But European Commission officials say the affidavits are easily falsified. As a result, American racehorses often show up in Canada within weeks — sometimes days — of their leaving the racetrack and their steady diets of drugs.

In October, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers found serious problems while auditing the operations of equine slaughter facilities in Mexico, where 80 percent of the horses arrive from the United States. The commission’s report said Mexican officials were not allowed to question the “authenticity or reliability of the sworn statements” about the ostensibly drug-free horses, and thus had no way of verifying whether the horses were tainted by drugs.

“The systems in place for identification, the food-chain information and in particular the affidavits concerning the nontreatment for six months with certain medical substances, both for the horses imported from the U.S. as well as for the Mexican horses, are insufficient to guarantee that standards equivalent to those provided for by E.U. legislation are applied,” the report said.

The authorities in the United States and Canada acknowledge that oversight of the slaughter business is lax. On July 9, the United States Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to an Ohio feedlot operator who sells horses for slaughter. The operator, Ronald Andio, was reprimanded for selling a drug-tainted thoroughbred horse to a Canadian slaughterhouse.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency had tested the carcass of the horse the previous August and found the anti-inflammatory drug phenylbutazone in the muscle and kidney tissues. It also discovered clenbuterol, a widely abused medication for breathing problems that can build muscle by mimicking anabolic steroids.

Because horses are not a traditional food source in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration does not require human food safety information as it considers what drugs can be used legally on horses. Patricia El-Hinnawy, a spokeswoman for the agency, said agency-approved drugs intended for use in horses carried the warning “Do not use in horses intended for human consumption.”

She also said the case against Mr. Andio remained open.

“On the warning letter, the case remains open and no further information can be provided at this time,” Ms. El-Hinnawy said.

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More young American adults are leaving the nest

WASHINGTON — After riding out the tough economy in their parents' basements, more young American adults are starting to break out on their own, pushing up the nation's mobility rate and giving an important boost to the housing market and the broader recovery.

Thanks to improving job prospects and super-low mortgage rates, adults in their 20s and early 30s are moving into their own apartments and buying homes in increasingly greater numbers, according to real estate experts and government statistics.

Census Bureau data show that the nation added more than 2 million households in the 12 months that ended March 31, about triple the annual average for the previous four years. Most of the gain came from baby boomers, but young adults are hitting the road as well.

The recession had knocked overall U.S. interstate migration to a post-World War II low, but last year the number of people ages 25 to 29 who moved across state lines reached its highest level in 13 years, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

Frey called the shift significant: "They're leading indicators of migration coming for the broader population."

Laurie Brown, 26, said she was "completely broke" when she moved back into her parents' house near Tahoe City, Calif., in early March 2011. She came home with college loans to pay and other debt from bouncing from one place to the next.

"At first, I thought I'd be there only two months," she said.

But Brown soon realized just how tough the job market was. She had a bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in business communications from George Fox University in Newburg, Ore., but the best she could find after returning home was busing and waiting tables at a restaurant in Tahoe City.

"I was really humbled," she said. "It made me feel like I wasn't an adult, like you're back in high school." Once a week, she got together for happy hour with three high-school buddies who were all in the same boat: college graduates living at home again. "We were kind of a support group," she said.

Then in late April, after finding full-time work at a nonprofit youth development and literacy program in the Tahoe area, Brown moved into an apartment about 15 minutes from her parents' home.

"In some ways it was a blessing in disguise," she said of her 14 months living with her mother and father. Although it was hard at times to adjust, she said, "it was really nice to spend time with my parents. I was able to reconnect with them."

During the recession and slow recovery, young people better educated than their parents' generation have struggled to compete with older workers in a job market with several unemployed people for every opening. That compares with about two people unemployed for every job opening before the 2007-09 recession.

Without sufficient incomes, they delayed getting married and having children, and simply stayed where they could pay little or no rent.

The result was that 2 million more adults ages 18 to 34 were living under their parents' roofs last year than four years earlier, according to an analysis of census data by Timothy Dunne, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Over the last year, the jobless rate of those ages 25 to 34 has dropped a little more sharply than it has for the overall population. It fell to 7.9% in November from 9% at the start of the year, compared with a decline to 7.7% from 8.3% for all workers.

"With stronger economic fundamentals, the process will pick up speed," Dunne said. "I think there's pressure. Households can delay formation for only so long."

People tend to move long distances for new jobs.

A week ago, Kevin Ratz, 27, hitched a U-haul to his Ford pickup, loaded the trailer with furniture, stereo equipment and skis, and drove to Chicago.

Ratz left behind his parents' suburban Detroit home, where he had stayed in his childhood room for the last two years. The room was pretty much unchanged, with its sports-car posters on the wall and youth-hockey trophies lining the bookshelf.

One big reason he moved back in with his parents was the weak job market for young pilots. Although he had a degree in aviation from Western Michigan University and some experience as a flight instructor, he found few well-paying openings in the field.

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Egypt protesters demand that Mohamed Morsi step down

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of Egyptians broke through barbed wire and marched to the presidential palace Friday demanding that President Mohamed Morsi step down even as government officials appeared to offer a slight concession on a controversial proposed constitution.

"Leave, leave like Mubarak!" protesters chanted, referring to Morsi's predecessor, longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Many protesters outside the palace no longer asked for Morsi to rescind a decree last month that expanded his powers and postpone a referendum scheduled Dec. 15 on a proposed charter written by an Islamist-dominated assembly. They demanded his resignation in what has become the sharpest political crisis since last year's overthrow of Mubarak.

Protesters said they were upset by Morsi's televised address Thursday, during which he offered a "national dialogue" with opposition leaders but remained adamant about the referendum and kept his unpopular decree in place.

In response to protests that have spread across the country, Vice President Mahmoud Mekki announced that Morsi was willing to postpone the constitutional referendum if the opposition agreed not to challenge the document in court. The government, in another effort to calm the crisis, announced that it would delay the early start of voting on the referendum for Egyptians living abroad from Saturday until Wednesday.

Analysts said the government's announcement may have been an attempt by Morsi to allow time for negotiations with opposition leaders.

"Morsi underestimated the opposition," said Ziad Akl, senior analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "After witnessing the protesters break through the barbed wire to surround the palace, he realized that he had to make some kind of concession."

Opposition leaders had not responded to government officials by late Friday. They have said the opposition is not willing to negotiate until the president revokes his "dictatorial" constitutional decree and postpones the referendum.

At least six people have died and hundreds have been injured in clashes that began Wednesday between Islamist supporters of Morsi and protesters from mainly secular opposition movements.

The civil strife has been the bloodiest the country has witnessed since last year's uprising that toppled Mubarak. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have refused to retreat as the opposition promised more protests.

"Morsi has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the people, especially after yesterday's speech. As a leader, he is responsible for those who died," Waleed Essam, a 30-year-old artist, said as he waved a large white banner with the image of one of the protesters killed in the recent violence.

"He didn't even acknowledge that those who died were revolutionaries. He spoke 24 hours after the violence. This is not a president for Egyptians," Essam said.

Tamer Sherif, a 38-year-old engineer protesting outside the palace, said Morsi must go because "he is a president for the Brotherhood."

"He didn't respect the judiciary, the people or the constitution," Sherif said. "He wants to turn the country into a Brotherhood nation."

More than 20 political parties and opposition movements called for Friday's protests against Morsi. The groups said Morsi's legitimacy as president "fell as the blood of revolutionaries" fell during the clashes.

Thousands of Morsi's supporters marched in the afternoon after holding funeral prayers for victims of Wednesday's violence in Al Azhar mosque.

Abdellatif is a special correspondent.

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Viral rapper PSY apologizes for anti-US protests

South Korean rapper and Internet sensation PSY is apologizing to Americans for participating in anti-U.S. protests several years ago.

Park Jae-sang, who performs as PSY, issued a statement Friday after reports surfaced that he had participated in concerts protesting the U.S. military presence in South Korea during the early stages of the Iraq war.

At a 2004 concert, the "Gangnam Style" rapper performs a song with lyrics about killing "Yankees" who have been torturing Iraqi captives and their families "slowly and painfully." During a 2002 concert, he smashed a model of a U.S. tank on stage.

"While I'm grateful for the freedom to express one's self, I've learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I'm deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted," he wrote in the statement. "I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused by those words."

The 34-year-old rapper says the protests were part of a "deeply emotional" reaction to the war and the death of two Korean school girls, who were killed when a U.S. military vehicle hit them as they walked alongside the road. He noted anti-war sentiment was high around the world at the time.

PSY attended college in the U.S. and says he understands the sacrifices U.S. military members have made to protect South Korea and other nations. He has recently performed in front of servicemen and women.

"And I hope they and all Americans can accept my apology," he wrote. "While it's important that we express our opinions, I deeply regret the inflammatory and inappropriate language I used to do so. In my music, I try to give people a release, a reason to smile. I have learned that thru music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology."

His participation in the protests was no secret in South Korea, where the U.S. has had a large military presence since the Korean War, but was not generally known in America until recent news reports.

PSY did not write "Dear American," a song by the Korean band N.EX.T, but he does perform it. The song exhorts the listener to kill the Yankees who are torturing Iraqi captives, their superiors who ordered the torture and their families. At one point he raps: "Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers/Kill them all slowly and painfully."

PSY launched to international acclaim based on the viral nature of his "Gangnam Style" video. It became YouTube's most watched video, making him a millionaire who freely crossed cultural boundaries around the world. Much of that success has happened in the U.S., where the rapper has managed to weave himself into pop culture.

He recently appeared on the American Music Awards, dancing alongside MC Hammer in a melding of memorable dance moves that book-end the last two decades. And the Internet is awash with copycat versions of the song. Even former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the 81-year-old co-chairman of President Barack Obama's deficit commission, got in on the fun, recently using the song in a video to urge young Americans to avoid credit card debt.

It remains to be seen how PSY's American fans will react. Obama, the father of two pop music fans, wasn't letting the news change his plans, though.

Earlier Friday, the White House confirmed Obama and his family will attend a Dec. 21 charity concert where PSY is among the performers. A spokesman says it's customary for the president to attend the "Christmas in Washington" concert, which will be broadcast on TNT. The White House has no role in choosing performers for the event, which benefits the National Children's Medical Center.

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Election is over, but 'super PACs' remain a threat

Just as the devil's finest trick is persuading you that he doesn't exist (according to the poet Baudelaire), the best trick of big-money political donors may be persuading Americans that Citizens United doesn't matter.

Citizens United, of course, is the infamous 2010 ruling by the Supreme Court that overturned limits on political spending via ostensibly independent groups, and thereby unleashed a torrent of donations from corporations and wealthy individuals in presidential and congressional election cycles.

One of the big post-election punditry themes after last month's election was that it showed big-time spending couldn't help donors like Las Vegas mogul Sheldon Adelson get their way and might even have worked against them. A determined Obama foe, Adelson donated $20 million to a "super PAC" supporting Mitt Romney, and at least $32 million more to other conservative groups in an election widely seen as a rout of the right wing. The conclusion was: Hoo boy, did he waste his money.

This sort of schadenfreude by liberals and progressives — or is it "Sheldonfreude"? — is misplaced and dangerous. Influence by corporations and the wealthy still counts for a lot in our electoral process, and it's only going to count for more. Citizens United still needs an antidote.

"People are too complacent," says Fred Wertheimer, a veteran public interest advocate who currently heads Democracy 21, a Washington nonprofit devoted to campaign finance reform. "The larger issue is the ability to buy influence over government policies, and that's operating in full force regardless of the outcomes of particular races."

Nor is it entirely correct to say that the Citizens United style of spending failed because more Democrats than Republicans prevailed at the polls. "There was super PAC money on both sides," says Larry Noble, president of Americans for Campaign Reform, a Concord, N.H.-based nonprofit seeking to dilute the influence of private money in elections. "They may not have determined the election, but you can't say they didn't have any influence."

Super PACs are a species of political organization that can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions, and individuals and spend the money for or against specific candidates; they're merely barred from directly coordinating with the candidates they back, a porous and easily finessed limitation.

Federal election records show that the biggest ones this year were Restore Our Future, which spent $143 million in support of Romney; the Karl Rove-affiliated American Crossroads, which spent $124 million for conservative causes; and Priorities USA Action, which spent $78 million in support of President Obama.

"The candidates are happy you made those donations," Noble says. "And as long as the candidates are happy, that money will continue to flow."

The impulse to please big donors to keep the money flowing visibly narrows the breadth of debate in Washington, where raising the top marginal income tax rate by 4.6 percentage points, to 39.6%, is treated as the absolute limit on taxation of the wealthy. For most of the Reagan administration, the top rate was 50% or higher.

This mind-set reflects the outsized influence of a small clutch of wealthy individuals and corporate donors. According to a study by the nonprofit progressive organizations Demos and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, contributions to super PACs by just 61 large donors averaging $4.7 million each matched the combined donations of 1.4 million donors of $250 or less to the Romney and Obama campaigns.

Whose voices are likely to resonate more loudly in the halls of the White House and Congress — the 61 donors or the 1.4 million?

That's why the Washington debate over the "fiscal cliff" has boiled down to a discussion about how to impose long-term sacrifices on average working men and women by gutting their retirement and healthcare benefits, while leaving those who earn more than $250,000 a year better off.

That side of the debate is being spearheaded by corporate CEOs organized as the Campaign to Fix the Debt. It has close ties to Peter G. Peterson, a hedge fund billionaire who has spent millions in a decades-long attack on Social Security and Medicare. (There are also links between Peterson and Americans for Campaign Reform.)

The organization's most prominent spokesmodels, such as Honeywell Chairman and Chief Executive David M. Cote, are tolerably well insulated from the sacrifices they advocate as part of a fiscal-cliff solution. Cote is a member of Fix the Debt's steering committee. As of the end of last year, Honeywell calculated the present value of the pension benefits due him upon retirement at $36.2 million.

He accumulated those benefits over a period of less than 10 years in his job and is entitled to collect at age 60, which means he's eligible this year. (The figures come from Honeywell's latest proxy statement.)

According to several commercial annuity calculators, Cote's accumulated benefits might yield him a monthly stipend of $150,000 to $175,000 today. For comparison's sake, the monthly Social Security retirement benefit for the average worker is $1,230 this year — and that's for a worker who likely earned benefits from 45 years of labor, not 10, and retired at age 66, not 60. By the way, Honeywell's employee pension plan was underfunded at the end of last year to the tune of $2.76 billion, a deficit of 18%.

The most important point to make about big donations in the 2012 election is that they may have been ineffective, especially on the conservative side, because they were deployed stupidly.

Romney and his GOP supporters sank their money into overpriced and transparently fatuous advertisements, while the Obama camp invested frugally on ads and heavily on ground-level organizing. But people like Sheldon Adelson didn't accumulate their wealth by being stupid, and it's a safe bet they won't make the same mistakes again.

The best counterweights to Citizens United lie in tightening up disclosure rules, to combat a trend that saw donors of as much as 37% of the donations to outside campaign groups remaining unidentified. That's $125 million, contributed mostly through "social welfare" organizations and business leagues that are allowed to keep their donors secret but aren't supposed to engage chiefly in electioneering. Clearly that's a regulation that's been flagrantly flouted.

Another good idea is to magnify the weight of small donations to tip the scale back toward the average voter. That's the goal of the Empowering Citizens Act, sponsored by Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) By providing a public match of 5 to 1 for the first $250 of any individual's contribution to a presidential or congressional candidate, the measure aims to raise incentives for individuals to donate and for candidates to seek small donations.

Without some way of redressing the imbalance between big donors and small, "the great danger of huge contributions buying influence over government decisions at the expense of ordinary Americans is going to be in full play," says Wertheimer, whose organization endorses the Empowering Citizens Act.

"This is just Year One" of the post-Citizens United era, he adds. "Already we saw $1 billion in unlimited contributions raised by super PACs and social welfare organizations. We're going to have an arms race."

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, read past columns at latimes.com/hiltzik, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

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Judge may lower Apple's award in Samsung patent case

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times

December 6, 2012, 8:42 p.m.

SAN JOSE — A federal judge signaled Thursday that she might reduce Apple Inc.'s $1-billion jury award in its patent infringement case with Samsung Electronics Co.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh did not specify by how much she might shave the award, but during a marathon afternoon hearing in federal court in San Jose she said it did appear that the jury had miscalculated damages.

In August, after three days of deliberations in the complex patent case, a jury awarded Apple more than $1 billion.

In the months since the verdict, Samsung has mounted an aggressive campaign to overturn the verdict, raising a host of legal issues including juror misconduct. Apple hotly contested those issues during the hearing Thursday and sought to increase the damage award.

Lawyers for the world's two largest smartphone makers sparred for more than three hours over a bevy of legal issues in the dispute that produced one of the largest damage awards in an intellectual property case. Koh said she would issue rulings in the coming weeks.

Samsung argued that the damage award should be reduced because the jury incorrectly calculated the amount. Apple asked the court to award $535 million more in damages because the jury found that Samsung had willfully infringed Apple's patents.

Both sides seemed to be gearing up for years of legal appeals despite the judge's plea for "global peace." The case is likely to go before the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the Washington court that decides patent disputes, and perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court.

Apple also asked the judge to ban some Samsung products. The judge did not rule on whether the infringing Samsung products should be taken off store shelves.

The products are older models and would not dent Samsung sales, but the ban would give Apple a win in its high-stakes patent war against the South Korean company that is playing out around the globe.

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jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Apple, Samsung spar in court, ruling to come

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics squared off again in court on Thursday, as the iPhone maker tried to convince a U.S. district judge to ban sales of a number of the South Korean company’s devices and defended its $ 1.05 billion jury award.

Apple scored a sweeping legal victory in August at the conclusion of its landmark case against its arch-foe, when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded it damages.

Both sides re-convened on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh listened to a range of arguments on topics from setting aside the jury’s findings on liability to alleged juror misconduct and the requested injunction.

The hearing concluded with Koh promising to rule at a later date.

Twenty-four of Samsung’s smartphones were found to have infringed on Apple’s patents, while two of Samsung’s tablets were cleared of similar allegations.

Koh began by questioning the basis for some of the damages awarded by the jury, putting Apple’s lawyers on the defensive.

“I don’t see how you can evaluate the aggregate verdict without looking at the pieces,” Koh said.

Samsung’s lawyers argued the ruling against it should be “reverse engineered” to be sure the $ 1.05 billion was legally arrived at by the jury and said that on that basis, the amount should be slashed. Apple countered that the ruling was reasonable.

“Assuming I disagree with you, what do I do about Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, and Gem?” Koh asked Apple’s lawyers, referring to the jury’s calculation of damages regarding some of Samsung’s devices.

FIERCEST RIVAL

Samsung is Apple’s fiercest global business rival and their battle for consumers’ allegiance is helping shape the landscape of the booming smartphone and tablet industry — a fight that has claimed several high-profile victims, including Nokia.

While the trial was deemed a resounding victory for Apple, the company has since seen its market value shrink as uncertainty grows about its ability to continue fending off an assault by Samsung and other Google Inc Android gadgets on its home turf.

Apple’s stock has nosedived 18 percent since the August 24 verdict, while Samsung’s has gained around 16 percent.

Most of the devices facing injunction are older and, in some cases, out of the market.

Such injunctions have been key for companies trying to increase their leverage in courtroom patent fights.

In October, a U.S. appeals court overturned a pretrial sales ban against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dealing a setback to Apple’s battle against Google Inc’s increasingly popular mobile software.

Some analysts say Apple’s willingness to license patents to Taiwan’s HTC could convince Koh it does not need the injunction, as the two companies could arrive at a licensing deal.

Apple is also attempting to add more than $ 500 million to the $ 1 billion judgment because the jury found Samsung willfully infringed on its patents. A Samsung lawyer argued against willful damages and said the base amount for calculating any potential willful damages should be just $ 10 million.

Samsung wants the verdict overturned, saying the jury foreman did not disclose that he was once in litigation with Seagate Technology, a company that Samsung has invested in.

“He should have been excused for cause,” said Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven. “Such a juror was a juror in name only.”

The juror misconduct charge is “unlikely to have much traction,” said Christopher Carani, a partner at Chicago-based intellectual property law firm McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.

Both Apple and Samsung have filed separate lawsuits covering newer products, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II. That case is pending in U.S. District Court in San Jose and is set for trial in 2014.

(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Alicia Keys honors Oprah Winfrey at Black Ball

NEW YORK (AP) — Alicia Keys raised more than $1 million for her charity and honored Oprah Winfrey for her humanitarian efforts Thursday night.

Keys' Keep a Child Alive celebrated its annual Black Ball — dubbed Black Ball Redux — at the Apollo Theater. The R&B singer performed alongside Bonnie Raitt, Jennifer Hudson, Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes and Angelique Kidjo, who was also honored.

Keys raised about $1.3 million from pledges and auctions. One million dollars came from billionaire Stewart Rahr.

Keep a Child Alive assists those affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India. Winfrey launched the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in neighboring South Africa in 2007. She says she was honored to receive an award from Keys, and that it confirms she's "moving in the right direction."

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Drug Makers Challenge Pill Disposal Law in California

Brand name drug makers and their generic counterparts rarely find themselves on the same side of an issue, but now they are making an exception. They have teamed up to fight a local law in California, the first in the nation, that makes them responsible for running — and paying for — a program that would allow consumers to turn in unused medicines for proper disposal.

Such so-called drug take-back programs are gaining in popularity because of a growing realization that those leftover pills in your medicine cabinet are a potential threat to public health and the environment.

Small children might accidentally swallow them and teenagers will experiment with them, advocates of the laws say. Prescription drug abusers can, and are, breaking into homes in search of them. Unused pills are sometimes flushed down the toilet, so pharmaceuticals are now polluting waterways and even drinking water. One study found the antidepressant Prozac in the brains of fish.

Most such take-back programs are run by local or other government agencies. But increasingly there are calls to make the pharmaceutical industry pay.

“We feel the industry that profits from the sales of these products should have the financial responsibility for proper management and disposal,” said Miriam Gordon, California director of Clean Water Action, an advocacy group.

In July, Alameda County, Calif., which includes Oakland and Berkeley, became the first locality to enact such a requirement. Drug companies have to submit plans for accomplishing it by July 1, 2013.

But the industry plans to file a lawsuit in United States District Court in Oakland on Friday, hoping to have the law struck down. The suit is being filed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which represents brand-name drug companies, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association and the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

James M. Spears, general counsel of PhRMA, said the Alameda ordinance violated the Constitution in that a local government was interfering with interstate commerce, a right reserved for Congress.

“They are telling a company in New Jersey that you have to come in and design and implement and pay for a municipal service in California,” he said in an interview.

“This program is one where the cost is shifted to companies and individuals who are not located in Alameda County and who won’t be served by it.”

Mr. Spears, who is known as Mit, said that the program would cost millions of dollars a year to run and that pharmaceutical companies were “not in the waste disposal business.” He said it would be best left to sanitation departments and law enforcement agencies, which must be involved if narcotics, like pain pills, were to be transported.

Nathan A. Miley, the president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and the champion of the legislation, said late Thursday, “It’s just unfortunate that PhRMA would fight this because it would be pennies for them.”

“We will win legally and will win in the court of public opinion as well,” Mr. Miley said.

The battle in Alameda could set the direction for other states and localities. Legislators in seven states have introduced bills to require drug companies to pay for take-back programs in the last few years, said Scott Cassel, founder and chief executive of the Product Stewardship Institute, a nonprofit group that advocates such programs. But none of the bills have passed.

Mr. Cassel said about 70 similar “extended producer responsibility” laws have been enacted in 32 states for other products, like electronic devices, mercury-containing thermometers, fluorescent lamps, paint and batteries. He said he was not aware that any had been struck down on constitutional grounds.

The pharmaceutical industry already pays for take-back programs in some other countries. The law in Alameda is modeled partly on the system in British Columbia and two other Canadian provinces. There, the industry formed the Post-Consumer Pharmaceutical Stewardship Association, which runs the programs.

Consumers can take unused drugs back to pharmacies, from which they are periodically collected. Drug companies pay for the program in proportion to their market share, said Ginette Vanasse, executive director of the association. The program for British Columbia, with a population over four million, costs about $500,000 a year, she said.

The extent of the problem of unused pills and how best to handle them are matters of debate.

The United States Geological Survey has found various drugs, including antidepressants, antibiotics, heart medicines and hormones, in waterways it has sampled. Sewage treatment plants and drinking water treatment plants are not meant to remove pharmaceuticals.

Still, it is not known what effect the chemicals might have. “It’s a hard-to-pin-down problem,” said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group. It is thought that trace amounts in drinking water are probably not harmful. But larger amounts found in wastewater could be having an impact on wildlife.

It is also unclear whether take-back programs will help. Experts generally agree that the bigger source of pollution is urine and feces containing the remnants of drugs that are ingested, not the unused pills flushed down the toilet.

PhRMA also argues that take-back programs will not help much with the problem of drug abuse either. Mr. Spears said that it was better to have consumers tie up unused pills in a plastic bag and throw them in the trash. That is more effective, he said, because people would not have to travel to a collection point. Such collection points could become targets for thieves and drug abusers.

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