Ray Briem dies at 82; all-night radio host in L.A.

Ray Briem, the longtime KABC-AM talk show host who ruled all-night radio for nearly three decades with his phone calls to the famous and the quirky and his opinionated banter slamming liberals, championing conservative causes and extolling the big-band music he loved, died Wednesday at his Malibu home. He was 82.

The cause was cancer, said his son Bryan.

Briem spent most of his life on the radio, reaching his largest audience as the host of a popular midnight-to-5 a.m. talk show on KABC from 1967 to 1994. During those 27 years he helped set the mold for what has become a major radio genre.

"We consider him one of the most important radio talk-show hosts of all time," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the main trade publication for the talk radio industry. "There were only a handful of stations in the entire country doing talk then. It hadn't been formulated, researched, standardized and consulted. It was all based on these creative characters … and Ray Briem was one of the originals."

One of the first conservatives to establish a beachhead in radio, Briem dominated the post-midnight hours, consistently attracting the largest ratings of any overnight talk show. The year he left KABC he was drawing 15.7% of the available audience, a remarkable share in any era. He was also one of the station's most effective pitchmen, whose show "brought in more than a million dollars a year in revenue," said former KABC General Manager George Green.

His political crusades also turned tides.

Briem gave Proposition 13 author Howard Jarvis a regular platform during the 1970s and was credited by Jarvis for helping build the public groundswell that led to the anti-tax measure's resounding victory in 1978. Its passage proved that conservative radio did not play "only to the fringe," Briem said, but had mainstream appeal. "We spoke to the people, and the people responded," he told The Times in 1996.

The veteran broadcaster later bolstered the campaign for Proposition 187 led by Harold Ezell, who credited Briem with helping to get the controversial initiative cutting state services for illegal immigrants on the 1994 state ballot.

Briem also defended President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, which so endeared him to one loyal listener that when she died at 100 she left Briem her house.

An avid pilot, Briem sold the house to buy an airplane.

"He was of a different era," said Michael Jackson, another talk-radio icon who was a daily presence on KABC but attracted a more liberal base than Briem. "Politically we disagreed on almost everything, but I liked him — you couldn't help it. He had no affectation. He cared about the caller. He was always fair.... And his audience trusted him."

Briem was born Jan. 19, 1930, in Ogden, Utah, where his mother was a teacher and his father was a railroad engineer. He briefly attended the University of Utah, where he studied chemistry but abandoned his plans for a science career after "he blew up his chemistry set in the house," his son said.

By then Briem already had the radio bug. When he was 15, he and his buddies conceived a 15-minute radio drama called "The Adventures of Vivacious Vicky" that Ogden's tiny radio station agreed to air. When a staffer at the station went on a drunken binge on V-E Day in 1945, Briem was asked to fill in. Later that year, he was hired full time.

He worked with Armed Forces Radio during the Korean War, hosting live shows with big-name bands, including those led by Harry James, Guy Lombardo, Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

In 1953, after completing his military service, Briem moved to Los Angeles to spin records at KGIL-AM. He remained a deejay through the early 1960s, including a stint in Seattle where he worked for King Broadcasting on both its radio and TV outlets. He hosted a popular teen dance show that led fans to call him "the Dick Clark of Seattle."

In 1958, he married Elsie Child. The marriage ended in divorce in 1964. He is survived by their two children, Bryan, of Malibu, and Kevin, of San Diego; and five grandchildren.

In 1960 Briem came to Los Angeles to deejay at KLAC-AM. He was mentored there by Joe Pyne, the abrasive forerunner of confrontational talk show hosts such as Wally George, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. When the station asked Briem to switch to nighttime talk, "I went into it kicking and screaming," and endured a steep learning curve, he told The Times. "I realized what a dumb head I was. I knew very little about politics or the workings of government, and the first year I was an embarrassment."

But he built up a following during his seven-year stint, engaging listeners with straightforward topics, "like cats, frogs and even submarines," he said in a 1966 Times interview, noting that the submarine show elicited a call from a Nazi U-boat commander who had settled in L.A.

Briem also made "Kooky Calls," the most celebrated of which featured a Hogansville, Ga., police chief who regaled L.A. night owls with stories about confiscating and testing Georgia moonshine. When Briem brought the chief to Hollywood for a week of V.I.P. treatment, he was met by a welcoming party of 300 KLAC listeners.

When Briem was hired at KABC in 1967, he continued to fill the hours with unusual phone calls. One of his most memorable long-term phone pals was Vladimir Pozner, the Radio Moscow commentator who went on to become a Western media celebrity.

After thousands of nights helping the lonely and insomniac pass the hours, Briem "pulled the plug" in 1994. KABC threw him a retirement party at the Century Plaza, which drew more than 1,000 Briem listeners who paid $50 apiece to see their idol and listen to some of his favorite musical artists, including Frankie Laine and the Mills Brothers.

"I'm 65 and my body says staying up all night ain't the right thing to do," he told The Times shortly before he retired. "You never get used to it. Your biological clock, your circadian rhythms are always upset. There will be times when I will miss it, but being able to sleep at night — oh, how wonderful! That will more than compensate for the pangs of not having a forum."

His retirement was brief. Less than a year later he was back on the air, anchoring an afternoon drive show for KIEV-AM. He retired for good in 1997.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Dec. 22 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 575 Los Liones Drive, Pacific Palisades.

elaine.woo@latimes.com

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L.A. Reid not returning to 'X Factor' next season

NEW YORK (AP) — L.A. Reid will soon be an ex-judge on "The X Factor."

The veteran music executive is not returning to the Fox singing competition series next season, a representative for Epic Records said Thursday. Reid is currently the chairman and CEO of Epic, a division of Sony Entertainment.

Reid joined the American version of the show last year along with creator Simon Cowell. This season also boasts Britney Spears and Demi Lovato as judges. Its finale is next week.

Last year Reid left his job as chairman and CEO of Island Def Jam Music Group, where he helped launch careers for acts like Rihanna and Justin Bieber. At Epic, his roster includes Sade, Fiona Apple, Karmin, Ciara and "X Factor" season one winner Melanie Amaro.

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Life Expectancy Rises Around World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and infectious diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a report published on Thursday, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases mostly associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

Tony Karumba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Children in Nairobi, Kenya. Sub-Saharan Africa lagged in mortality gains, compared with Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are striking: infant mortality declined by more than half from 1990 to 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

“The growth of these rich-country diseases, like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, is in a strange way good news,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, chairman of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It shows that many parts of the globe have largely overcome infectious and communicable diseases as a pervasive threat, and that people on average are living longer.”

In 2010, 43 percent of deaths in the world occurred at age 70 and older, compared with 33 percent of deaths in 1990, the report said. And fewer child deaths have brought up the mean age of death, which in Brazil and Paraguay jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 30 in 1970, the report said. The measure, an average of all deaths in a given year, is different from life expectancy, and is lower when large numbers of children die.

But while developing countries made big strides the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries’ female populations between 1990 and 2010. American women gained just under two years of life, compared with women in Cyprus, who lived 2.3 years longer and Canadian women who gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. Life expectancy for American women was 80.5 in 2010, up from 78.6 in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organization financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said. American men gained in life expectancy, to 75.9 years from 71.7 in 1990.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which provided estimates of disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

The World Health Organization issued a statement on Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differed substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others were similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries — representing about 15 percent of the world’s population — produce quality cause-of-death data.

Sub-Saharan Africa was an exception to the trend. Infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternity-related causes of death still account for about 70 percent of the region’s disease burden, a measure of years of life lost due to premature death and to time lived in less than full health. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared with a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

Globally, AIDS was an exception to the shift of deaths from infectious to noncommunicable diseases. The epidemic is believed to have peaked, but still results in 1.5 million deaths each year.

Over all, the change means people are living longer, but it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization.

Tobacco use is a rising threat, especially in developing countries, and is responsible for almost six million deaths a year globally. Illnesses like diabetes are also spreading fast.

Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting.

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Retailers scramble to woo shoppers in final days before Christmas

The holiday crunch is on at the mall, and Toys R Us is opening all its stores for 88 straight hours until Christmas Eve. And, for the first time, Macy's is staying open at most stores for 48 hours nonstop the final weekend before Christmas.

In the rush to woo shoppers, merchants this year are upping the ante. Banana Republic is giving away six Fiat cars. Kohl's is picking up the tab for a shopper in each of its stores every day until Christmas Eve. And Sport Chalet will have a scuba-diving Santa at some of its stores Saturday.

Across the nation, retailers are scrambling to draw customers into stores and online in the last days leading up to Christmas, in the hope that shoppers will deliver a last-minute cash infusion at a crucial time for merchants. After a successful Black Friday weekend that netted a record $59.1 billion in sales, stores have seen an unwelcome drop-off in business.

What happens in the next two weeks may be vital not only for merchants but also for the nation's fragile economic recovery, because consumer spending of all kinds makes up about 70% of the U.S. economy.

This weekend and next hold the key to boom or bust. "This holiday, the highs have been higher and the lows lower for retailers," industry analyst Marshal Cohen said. "That means we need a good, strong finish to come out even."

The National Retail Federation is sticking to its prediction of $586.1 billion this year, up 4.1% from last year.

With an extra weekend this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, many stores say that traffic has plummeted in the last few weeks as shoppers gave their credit cards a rest after splurging on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Independent boutiques and national retailers alike are anxiously waiting for a surge of shoppers at the very end.

Liz Williamson and last-minute shoppers like her may dictate the outcome. With a dozen family members and friends on her holiday list, "I have to get started now or I'm going to end up running through the malls on Christmas Eve," said the Los Angeles accountant, who was hunting at the Americana at Brand shopping center. "It's get-it-done time."

Shopper Colleen Chang, 26, hasn't started shopping either. "I've started feeling a little crazy," said the Los Angeles leasing agent, who has budgeted $400. "You have to know exactly what you want because pretty soon there's just nothing left and you have to take what you can get."

"Procrastinators will be the secret weapon for either a ho-ho holiday or a ho-hum one," Cohen said.

With 11 days to go, shipping deadlines loom for online orders. Christmas parties are in full swing. Advertising blares. Last-minute sales scream for attention. Holiday music won't let you alone. Time is running out.

Retailers have plenty of shoppers to win over. Nearly a fifth of consumers have yet to start holiday shopping, while 21% plan to drop into stores again after taking a break from post-Thanksgiving splurging, the research firm NPD Group estimated Thursday.

"Every day feels like a sprint. Across the board we see a lot of traffic right now both online and in store," said Brian Hanover, a spokesman at Sears, which is rolling out another round of door-busters Friday and Saturday.

Despite the looming fiscal cliff in Washington and the prospect of higher taxes next year, retailers expect that people will open their wallets for last-minute gifts.

Kevin Jewelers in the Glendale Galleria is hoping for the traditional surge of procrastinators after a disappointing two weeks, diamond consultant Grace Figues said.

"We're still waiting for the rush," she said. "Lately it's been high-low, high-low just like a normal month. We would welcome the craziness."

At the Best Buy store in Westfield Culver City, general manager Margie Kenney said this weekend is "tremendously important" and will be "one of our busiest weekends after Black Friday."

Both bricks-and-mortar and Web merchants will probably enjoy a boost during the next two Saturdays, which typically hold the No. 3 and No. 2 spots for top shopping days of the year after Black Friday, said Bill Martin of retail technology firm ShopperTrak.

"There's still plenty of shopping left," he said. "Some people are just willing to outlast the retailer and wait for the next wave of serious discounts."

At the Americana at Brand, Stella Yu of Glendale had just begun searching for gifts for her family and close friends. But the 25-year-old graduate student, a veteran last-minute shopper, is already mentally preparing herself for the thick crowds, jammed parking lots and general mall madness as the clock ticks down to Christmas.

"I hate humans during holiday shopping," Yu sighed, "especially the ones with kids."

shan.li@latimes.com

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Jenni Rivera jet linked to troubled company and executive

So far, this much is clear: Jenni Rivera, one of the most celebrated artists in the Latin world, died when her private jet went into a dive. The plane plummeted nose-first, 28,000 feet in 30 seconds, leaving its wreckage — and the remains of Rivera and six others — splayed across the side of the mountain like a wash of pebbles.

The investigation at the remote Mexican crash site is now in full swing, and authorities have not said whether they suspect maintenance problems or pilot error. But scrutiny has fallen on the plane and its pilots, one of whom was 78 years old. Interviews and documents link the jet to a troubled company — and an executive who was once imprisoned for faking the safety records of planes he bought from the Mexican government and sold to private pilots in the United States.

According to federal aviation records, the Learjet 25 carrying Rivera from a performance in Monterrey, Mexico, was built in 1969 and was owned by a Las Vegas company called Starwood Management LLC.

A Starwood executive, Christian E. Esquino Nunez, was accused of conspiring with associates in the 1990s and 2000s to falsify records documenting the history of planes they bought and sold — tail numbers, inspection stamps and logbooks. Esquino's "fraudulent business practices ... put the flying public at risk," federal authorities argued in documents obtained by The Times.

"We had a forewarning that this is what he is," Timothy D. Coughlin, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, said. "Essentially they would manufacture the records ... that would indicate that maintenance was up to date. They would create them out of whole cloth." Once Esquino brought the planes across the border for sale, "it was open season," Coughlin said.

Coughlin prosecuted the case against Esquino in 2005, resulting in a guilty plea that sent Esquino to a federal prison in Lompoc, Calif., for two years.

After his release from prison, Esquino was deported from Southern California to his native Mexico, where he lives today.

For 20 years, Esquino has been embroiled in a briar of legal allegations, many involving airplanes — a bankruptcy and a restraining order, criminal indictments and civil judgments, cocaine-distribution charges, even a role in an alleged conspiracy to airlift relatives of the late Moammar Kadafi out of Libya.

On Wednesday, Esquino told The Times by telephone from Mexico City that the flight was not a charter as authorities have said. Rather, Rivera was in the final stages of buying the plane from Starwood for $250,000; the flight was offered as a free "demo."

Esquino, 50, described himself as Starwood's operations manager, and said he understood why his past would place him under scrutiny in the wake of the accident.

"Obviously my past — there is a story to it," he said. "It's unavoidable that they are going to look at my past.... I think it's fair to bring it up right now and question it."

However, he said, the jet was perfectly maintained. He said the only conceivable explanation for the crash was that pilot Miguel Perez Soto suffered a heart attack or was incapacitated in some way, and that a younger co-pilot, Alejandro Torres, was unable to save the plane. (Authorities stressed that they have not determined a cause of the crash or whether the plane had any problems.)

"We're all grieving," Esquino said. "I'm definitely very sorry that this happened."

Esquino said it was not a mistake to put a 78-year-old pilot at the helm of the flight. Perez had a valid license to fly in Mexico, authorities said Wednesday, but U.S. aviation sources said that in the United States, Perez was licensed to fly only under conditions that didn't require the use of instruments and was not allowed to carry passengers for hire.

Esquino said he had known and trusted Perez for 30 years. "I couldn't think of anyone more qualified," he said.

Rivera, 43, a famed Mexican American performer, mother of five and master of a growing international business empire, was killed Sunday when the private jet carrying her and four members of her entourage crashed near Iturbide, Mexico.

Rivera had sold 20 million albums, lived in a massive estate in Encino, was preparing to make her American network television debut and was at the height of her career.

The same plane, according to U.S. aviation records, sustained "substantial" damage in 2005 when a fuel imbalance left one wing tip weighing as much as 300 pounds more than the other. The unnamed pilot, despite having logged more than 7,000 hours in the air, lost control while landing in Amarillo, Texas, and struck a runway distance marker. No one was injured.

Esquino called that accident "minor" and said the plane had flown without issue for 1,000 hours since then.

Starwood formed in March 2007, two months after Esquino was released from prison. He probably knew, federal officials said Wednesday, that he would be unable to receive a license to buy and sell U.S.-registered aircraft following the federal charges and his deportation. Nevada employment records list Esquino's sister-in-law, Norma Gonzalez, as the sole corporate officer of Starwood. But according to allegations contained in court documents, it was Esquino — who has operated at times under the name Eduardo "Ed" Nunez — who was actually running the show.

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Fandango launches Oscar-themed web series with Dave Karger

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Fandango is elbowing into the Oscar horse race.

The movie-ticket seller launched its first original digital video series Wednesday, “The Frontrunners,” which will cover the major contenders for the top awards. The show will feature conversations with a star-studded group of Oscar hunters that includes Richard Gere (“Arbitrage”), Amy Adams (“The Master”), Hugh Jackman (“Les Miserables”) and Ben Affleck (“Argo”).

During the broadcasts, actors and directors will deconstruct key scenes from their movies, explaining how they crafted a moment of domestic conflict, in the case of Gere, or decided to intercut between a Hollywood script reading and the Iranian Hostage Crisis, as with Affleck.

However, commerce will be mixed in along with the art. Fandango will offer ticketing information along with the digital videos, with the hopes that the clips will inspire users to check out the movie being discussed.

The show, shot at Soho House in Los Angeles, will be hosted by Fandango’s Chief Correspondent Dave Karger, the movie guru the company lured over from Entertainment Weekly in September. It’s part of a bold bet that Fandango is making on original content.

To that in end, the company tapped former Disney digital executive Paul Yanover to serve in the newly created role of president and tasked him with creating a suite of programming for Fandango and its 41 million unique visitors.

“Our goal with Fandango is to make it the definitive movie-going brand across all platforms,” Nick Lehman, the president of digital for NBC Universal Entertainment Networks & Interactive Media, told TheWrap in October. “We want to continue expanding in ways that entertain and inform and video is key to that strategy. Advertisers are clamoring for it because there is a dearth of high quality original video content on the web.”

As TheWrap reported exclusively in October, Karger is also planning programs that will center on box office contenders and one program that will boast both A-List actors and below-the-line talent.

New episodes of “The Frontrunners” will air weekly through the Academy Awards on February 24, 2013. The first three installments will be available Wednesday

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Music, comedy strike defiant tone at Sandy concert

NEW YORK (AP) — Music and comedy royalty struck a defiant tone in a benefit concert for Superstorm Sandy that started Wednesday and stretched into Thursday morning, asking for help to rebuild a New York metropolitan area most of them know well.

The sold-out Madison Square Garden show was televised, streamed online and aired on radio all over the world. Producers said up to 2 billion people could experience the concert live.

"When are you going to learn," comic and New Jersey native Jon Stewart said. "You can throw anything at us — terrorists, hurricanes. You can take away our giant sodas. It doesn't matter. We're coming back stronger every time."

Jersey shore hero Bruce Springsteen set a roaring tone, opening the concert with "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "Wrecking Ball." He addressed the rebuilding process in introducing his song "My City of Ruins," noting it was written about the decline of Asbury Park, N.J., before that city's renaissance over the past decade. What made the Jersey shore special was its inclusiveness, a place where people of all incomes and backgrounds could find a place, he said.

"I pray that that characteristic remains along the Jersey shore because that's what makes it special," Springsteen said.

He mixed a verse of Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" into the song before calling New Jersey neighbor Jon Bon Jovi to join him in a rousing "Born to Run." Springsteen later returned the favor by joining Bon Jovi on "Who Says You Can't Go Home."

Adam Sandler hearkened back to his "Saturday Night Live" days with a ribald rewrite of the oft-sung "Hallelujah" that composer Leonard Cohen never would have dreamed. The rewritten chorus says, "Sandy, screw ya, we'll get through ya, because we're New Yawkers."

Sandler wore a New York Jets T-shirt and mined Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg, the New York Knicks, Times Square porn and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez for laugh lines.

The music lineup was heavily weighted toward classic rock, which has the type of fans able to afford a show for which ticket prices ranged from $150 to $2,500. Even with those prices, people with tickets have been offering them for more on broker sites such as StubHub, an attempt at profiteering that producers fumed was "despicable."

"This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden," Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger said. "If it rains in London, you've got to come and help us."

In fighting trim for a series of 50th anniversary concerts in the New York area, the Stones ripped through "You've Got Me Rockin" and "Jumping Jack Flash" before beating a quick retreat — perhaps not to upstage their own upcoming Pay-Per-View show. Actor Steve Buscemi later made light of that, saying producers made room for him by cutting the Stones short. "I said, 'if they play more than two songs, I'm out of here.'"

Jagger wasn't in New York City for Sandy, but he said in an interview before the concert that his apartment was flooded with 2 feet of water.

The Who weaved Sandy into their set, showing pictures of storm devastation on video screens during "Pinball Wizard." Pete Townshend made a quick revision to the lyrics of "Baba O'Riley," changing "teenage wasteland" to "Sandy wasteland."

New York native Alicia Keys asked the audience to hold their cell phones high for her song, "No One," triggering a sea of light that is the modern version of an earlier generation's holding cigarette lighters in the air. "We love you," Keys said, "and we'll make it through this."

She didn't perform "Empire State of Mind," however, leaving untouched this century's most indelible song about her hometown. Billy Joel did his signature "New York State of Mind," however. Joel's "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" sounded prescient, with new Sandy-fueled lyrics smoothly fitting in.

By the time Joel worked in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the concert was already testing the patience of viewers. Long sets by The Who and Kanye West stretched beyond the point of endurance, and Seth Meyers' "drunk uncle" comedy set fell flat.

An energetic West worked up a sweat in a hoodie, black leather pants and a black skirt. He told the audience that he had friends displaced by Sandy who were staying at his house, before getting the crowd swaying with a version of "Gold Digger." He ended his set by shouting, "I need you right now!" tossing his microphone and stalking off stage.

Besides the Garden, people gathered in theaters across the region and country to watch the show. In Toms River, N.J., mail carrier Jerry Frasco said he was in awe of a lineup that included many of his favorites from 40 years ago.

"We didn't want to go through a hurricane to have it," he said.

Eric Clapton switched from acoustic to electric guitar and sang "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" and "Crossroads." New York was a backdrop for Clapton's personal tragedy, when his young son died after falling out of a window.

Roger Waters played a set of Pink Floyd's spacey rock, joined by Eddie Vedder for "Comfortably Numb." Waters stuck to the music and left the fundraising to others.

"Can't chat," he said, "because we only have 30 minutes."

The sold-out "12-12-12" concert was being shown on 37 television stations in the United States and more than 200 others worldwide. It was to be streamed on 30 websites, including YouTube and Yahoo, and played on radio stations. Theaters, including 27 in the New York region and dozens more elsewhere, were showing it live.

Proceeds from the show will be distributed through the Robin Hood Foundation. More than $30 million was raised through ticket sales alone.

The powerful storm left parts of New York City underwater and left millions of people in several states without heat or electricity for weeks. It's blamed for at least 125 deaths, including 104 in New York and New Jersey, and it destroyed or damaged 305,000 housing units in New York alone.

Many of the artists told personal stories of friends or family affected by the storm, like Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi.

"I had to hold back the tears really," he said about visiting the devastation in New Jersey. "My mom's house (in Point Pleasant, N.J.) got trashed. They had to evacuate her. She's living with me until we fix it up."

E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt said backstage that musicians are often quick to help when they can.

"Yes, it's more personal because literally the Jersey shore is where we grew up," he said. "But we'd be here anyway."

The concert came a day after the death of sitar master Ravi Shankar, a performer at the 1971 "Concert for Bangladesh" considered the grandfather of music benefits. That concert also was in Madison Square Garden.

___

AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in New York and Geoff Mulvihill in Toms River, N.J., contributed to this report.

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Well: Life, Interrupted: My Mother's Cooking

Life, Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.

For many of us, the holiday season triggers memories of food and family. That’s certainly the case for me. I can always tell when my mother, an artist who grew up in Switzerland, starts to feel nostalgic for home. It is the smell of the crispy apple tarts, the ginger cookies, and the creamy muesli full of nuts and fresh berries. The scent alone delivers a rush of childhood memories for me.

Food has always been an important part of my family. But since I was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago, food has taken on an especially central — and complicated — role in my life. My incredible doctors have been in charge of deciding which chemotherapy treatments and medications I will take. Their role has always been clear. But for my mother, who has always been in action to take care of me but often feels powerless against my mysterious disease, the prescription she draws upon is often a remedy from the kitchen.

My mother comes from a small village on the Lac de Neuchâtel where there is one bakery, one butcher and one grocery store. Even after decades in New York, she prefers home cooking to ordering in. So when I fell ill at the age of 22 and had to move back home with my parents, my mother tailored and amended the vaunted Swiss recipes from her childhood to make them as nutritious and immune system-boosting as possible. It wasn’t infrequent that a red lentil soup or zucchini stuffed with risotto was the highlight of a day otherwise spent in bed staring at my childhood bookshelves and pondering my future.

But my relationship with food has been complicated since my cancer diagnosis. Chemotherapy can wipe out the biggest appetite. It can render delectable food not only inedible, but downright unviewable, unsmellable, unthinkable. After my first hospitalization, a six-week stay in isolation, I quickly learned to be careful about which foods I chose to eat when I was in the depths of sickness. Some of my all-time favorites, like my mother’s rice pudding (extra cinnamon, with cardamon and grated almonds, plus my mom’s T.L.C.), no longer represented comfort food but triggered memories of nausea, the beeping of the I.V. machine and the fluorescent lights of the hospital room. Like other dishes, it has become a food casualty of chemo.

Having cancer changed the way I ate and thought about food. My symptoms dictated my eating habits. The sores in my mouth and the bouts of nausea, for instance, stole the pleasure of eating and made it an ordeal. At some points in my treatment, eating wasn’t even an option. During my bone marrow transplant last April, my only food came in the form of yellow-green liquid hanging from an I.V. pouch. It was the first time I considered how the physicality of eating — the cutting with a knife or slurping with a spoon or chewing of tender meat — was a big part of what I enjoyed about food. In the transplant unit, I remember wanting, more than anything, to bite into a stick of celery. I dreamt about the “crunch.”

Now, more than a year and a half since my first chemotherapy treatment, I’ve come up with a plan to preserve the memory and delight of my mother’s favorite recipes. I only eat the very best of her cooking when I am in-between chemotherapy treatments. I try to make sure not to mix nausea and my favorite foods — because I have found that it confuses not only the taste buds, but also the emotion and memory of eating itself.

As I continue to cope with the effects of cancer and treatment, I am determined to preserve one of my favorite things in life — my mother’s cooking and the many childhood memories that go with it. As a result, I have to refuse her cooking once in a while, saving her food for only my best days. I hope there are a lot of those ahead.

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Birchermuesli

The original “muesli” was invented by Dr. Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner (1867-1939), a Swiss physician who fed his patients a small portion of this dish before each meal in his health clinic near Zürich. Derided by his colleagues for his belief in the importance of fresh food for health, he is now considered the guru of the raw food movement. The original recipe has been adapted by muesli lovers all over the world, who have swapped in seasonally available and ripe fruit where appropriate. For individuals with dietary restrictions, oats can be replaced with spelt flakes, millet flakes or other grains. In Switzerland, muesli is simply called “bircher,” after its inventor, and many Swiss eat bircher every day for breakfast or as a light meal. Muesli, a word from the Swiss German dialect which means “little purée,” and mostly known today in its commercialized version, is very different from this homemade recipe. Use whatever fresh ripe fruit you like and is seasonally available to you.

1 cup rolled oats, soaked overnight or for several hours
1 1/2 cups whole, almond, soy or other milk, or orange or apple juice
1/4 cup dried fruit, such as raisins or diced dates
1/4 to 1/2 cup hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds, finely chopped
1 large apple, grated
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup plain yogurt, plus additional to taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or more
Finely grated zest of organic lemon, to taste (optional)
1/4 cup fresh grapes, halved
1/2 cup raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or chopped strawberries, plus a few additional berries to garnish
1/2 orange or peach, chopped
1 apricot or kiwi, chopped
Brown sugar or stevia, to taste (optional)
1 tablespoon flaxseed oil (optional)

1. Soak the oats in milk overnight or for a few hours. In the morning, add the dried fruit, nuts, apple, banana, yogurt, lemon juice and zest, if using, and mix to combine. Add the grapes, berries, the remaining fresh fruit, brown sugar and flaxseed oil, if using, and gently fold the fresh fruit into the mixture. Garnish with a few fresh berries and serve.

Bircher, a raw food recipe, makes a great breakfast or snack, and will keep refrigerated for up to two days, and a day-old bircher is even better.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

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Croûte Aux Champignons (Mushrooms on Toasts)

These mushrooms on toasts are delicious and work with any mix of mushrooms, but if you can find a mix of wild mushrooms, it makes the toasts particularly wonderful. Try serving them with a simple green salad or the “Carrot and Celery Root Salad,” below.

4 to 5 slices country or whole wheat bread, preferably day-old, or more slices from a baguette
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
1/2 medium onion or 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1 pound mixed mushrooms, sliced
1 cup white wine or stock
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup heavy cream (optional)
Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
1/4 cup grated cheese, optional (see below)

1. In a large skillet set over medium high heat, melt the butter until foaming or warm the oil until shimmering. Add the onion or shallot, and cook, stirring, until transparent, about 4 minutes. Add the mushrooms, and cook until the mushrooms have released their liquid and the pan is dry, about 3 minutes. Add the wine or stock and cook until the liquid reduces by half, about 5 to 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the cream and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.

2. While the mushrooms cook, lightly toast the bread in the toaster. Spoon the mushrooms on toasted bread. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Optional: Heat the oven to 400 degrees with the rack positioned in the middle. Place the mushroom toasts on a shallow baking sheet and sprinkle with the grated cheese. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and lightly browned. Garnish with more black pepper to taste, and serve immediately.

Variation: Replace mushrooms with spinach. Or use half spinach and half mushrooms, adding the spinach once mushrooms has softened. Cook until the spinach has wilted before adding wine or stock. Proceed with the rest of the recipe as written above.

Yield: 4 servings

 

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Carrot and Celery Root Salad

This crunchy and delicious salad makes for a great accompaniment to “Mushrooms on Toast.”

1 1/2 cups finely grated carrot (from about 8 ounces of carrots)
1 1/2 cups finely grated celery root (from about 8 ounces of celery root)
Fine sea salt, to taste
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
3 tablespoons olive or toasted sesame oil
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place the carrot and celery root in a large bowl and toss to combine. In a small bowl, add the salt to the vinegar and let sit for 1 minute for the salt to dissolve. Add the mustard and whisk to combine. Add the oil and black pepper, and whisk to combine. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss to combine. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready.

Variation: Add 1 tablespoon grated hazelnuts or almonds, or 1 tablespoon or more of plain yogurt mixed with 1 teaspoon chopped chives.

Yield: 4 servings

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Lentil Soup With Tomato

1 cup red lentils, rinsed
1 dried bay leaf
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon ground coriander, plus additional to taste (see below)
1 teaspoon ground cumin or ginger
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
1 pinch sugar
1 pinch ground cloves
1 (7-ounce) can peeled tomatoes, chopped (or 2 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped)
Fine sea salt, to taste
1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional)

1. Place the lentils in a medium pot set over medium-high heat, add 3 cups water and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer. Cook until the lentils are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. In a large pot set over medium heat, add the butter or oil, coriander, cumin, curry, cayenne, sugar and cloves, and warm the mixture until the spices are fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, with their juices, and 1/2 cup water, and bring everything to a boil. Add the reserved lentils and their liquid, reduce the heat to low, and simmer about 5 minutes. Add salt to taste and purée the soup, in batches, in a blender, until smooth. If you prefer, you can thin the soup out with more water. If you like, mix the sour cream with parsley, and add ground coriander to taste. Serve the soup with a dollop of the herbed sour cream.

Yield: 4 servings

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Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears weekly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.

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Software pioneer John McAfee returns to U.S.

Anti-virus software company founder John McAfee arrived in the U.S. late Wednesday after being deported from Guatemala, where he had sought to evade police questioning in the killing of a man in neighboring Belize.

The American Airlines commercial jet carrying McAfee landed in Miami shortly before 4 p.m. Pacific time, said Miami International Airport spokesman Greg Chin.

A short time later, a posting on McAfee's website announced that he was at a hotel in Miami's upscale South Beach neighborhood. He said he arrived by taxi after a group of customs or immigration agents, he didn't know which, escorted him to an airport taxi stand. McAfee has frequently communicated through the website.

"I have no phone, no money, no contact information," the post said. Reached by telephone at the hotel, the 67-year-old McAfee told the Associated Press that he couldn't talk because he was waiting for a call from his girlfriend, 20-year-old Belizean Samantha Vanegas.

Vanegas had accompanied him when he was on the run, but did not go with him to the U.S.

On a blog he has been posting for the last two weeks, McAfee wrote, "I have been forcibly separated from Sam," but he said she would be coming to the United States later.

McAfee sat in a coach-class seat on the flight, which took off at midafternoon from Guatemala City, according to the airline.

An FBI spokesman in Miami, James Marshall, told the AP in an email that the agency was not involved with McAfee's return to the U.S.

Authorities from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals office and the U.S. attorney's office did not immediately respond to questions about whether McAfee would be questioned or detained in the U.S. They said there was no active arrest warrant for McAfee that would justify taking him into custody.

His expulsion from Guatemala marked the last chapter in a strange, monthlong odyssey to avoid police questioning about the November killing of American expatriate Gregory Viant Faull, who lived a couple of houses away from McAfee's compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize's Caribbean coast.

McAfee has acknowledged that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs were poisoned, but denies killing Faull.

He was in hiding in Belize for weeks after police pronounced him a person of interest in the killing. Belizean authorities have urged him to show up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him. McAfee has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.

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Labor makes Los Angeles' budget analyst a factor in mayoral race

Los Angeles City Hall's top budget analyst, who has succeeded in pushing an array of cost-cutting measures opposed by labor leaders, is becoming a lightning rod in the contest to replace Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Union activists have been pressing top mayoral candidates to stake out positions on City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana and his approach to balancing the budget, which has included employee layoffs and furloughs, cuts in basic services and reductions in pension benefits.

At a labor forum last week, the candidates were asked whether they would keep Santana, who reports to both the mayor and City Council. Only one of them, Councilwoman Jan Perry, said she would. Four others — former prosecutor Kevin James, tech company executive Emanuel Pleitez, City Councilman Eric Garcetti and City Controller Wendy Greuel — declined to say, according to a recording of the event provided to The Times.

James, a Republican running as a City Hall outsider, told the audience it was "too soon" to indicate what he would do. Greuel sidestepped the question, saying she would be accountable as mayor and not use a "good cop, bad cop" approach to budget decisions. Pleitez did not address the question at all.

Garcetti, who was council president when nearly 400 employees were laid off, told the gathering that he would require all of the city's department heads to reapply for their jobs. "Nobody … should assume they have a job at the start of my administration," he told audience members, who belonged to various locals of the Service Employees International Union.

Santana's only defender was Perry, who said the city's elected officials need someone willing to deliver news they don't want to hear. "I can't stand here and tell you, 'Oh yeah, on Day One I'm going to fire him' ... because I'm not going to lie to you," she told the group.

The SEIU is deferring an endorsement until a runoff campaign leading up to a May 21 election. But their members have made no secret of their dislike for Santana, who has been pushing to contract out key city operations now performed by city employees. "Labor relations and collective bargaining are very important issues" in the campaign, said Victor Gordo, an attorney with the Coalition of L.A. City Unions. "And Miguel happens to be in charge of both."

Since being appointed by Villaraigosa in 2009, Santana has recommended the elimination of thousands of jobs and the shift of key operations, such as ambulance billing, to private vendors. He and the mayor are trying to persuade lawmakers to turn the L.A. Zoo and the L.A. Convention Center over to private operators — moves opposed by city unions.

Alan Peshek, a city employee and SEIU member who participated in last week's candidate forum, said in a statement issued by the union that Santana is hurting the city by "always demanding cutbacks and layoffs."

"The next elected mayor should make wiser staffing choices," he added.

Santana said his job is to provide independent advice to the mayor and council. With the city facing a "financial tsunami" in the next two years, layoffs and other cost-saving measures must remain on the table, he said. "Those options won't necessarily make me, or whoever's in this job, popular," he said.

The focus on Santana is reminiscent of the 2001 mayoral race, when candidates were asked if they would keep then-Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, a target of the police officers union. Mayor James K. Hahn removed Parks a year later, prompting a political backlash.

Key differences exist between Santana and Parks, who is now a councilman and a prominent figure in the city's African American community. But an attempt to remove Santana could set off a City Hall political battle similar to one that erupted over Parks' removal as police chief 10 years ago.

Council President Herb Wesson said he would rally his colleagues to block any effort by the next mayor to oust Santana. "They will fight me tooth and nail," Wesson said.

The city administrative officer position was created to provide reliable information to the mayor and the council, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs. He noted that the city administrative officer can appeal to the City Council if the mayor tries to unseat him.

"If people are operating under the assumption that he automatically disappears just because a new mayor comes in, I think they might be wrong," he said.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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