Chick-fil-A's 2011 tax forms show no donations to anti-gay groups

Chick-fil-A Inc.'s most recent tax documents show no donations to groups that oppose gay rights, according to an advocacy group.

The chicken chain last summer was caught up in the debate over gay marriage amid claims that the Atlanta company had donated money to anti-gay groups as recently as 2010 and controversial remarks by Chick-fil-A's president.

But according to gay rights group Campus Pride, the 2011 IRS 990 filings for Chick-fil-A's charity arm WinShape Foundation show no sign of gifts to organizations such as Family Research Council or Exodus International, which advocate against same-sex unions and other privileges for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The documents, filed Nov. 15, instead exhibit nearly $6 million in funding to beneficiaries supporting youth, education, local communities and what Campus Pride called "marriage enrichment."

Quiz: How well do you remember 2012?

The forms may demonstrate a shift in corporate America's attitude toward gay rights — or at least how to address the issue, analysts said.

Even though LGBT customers probably make up a small segment of Chick-fil-A's clientele, there's probably also "a substantial segment of patrons who are sympathetic" to equal rights and same-sex marriage efforts, said Jason Snyder, an assistant professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

"Gays are now able to exert some sort of market pressure," he said. "That's the reason Chick-fil-A is probably responding, because in some ways the market is pushing them this way. This is indicative that there's a tangible threat to the bottom line."

On Monday, LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign said major companies including Marriott International Inc., Aetna Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and EBay Inc. were backing a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

It said the businesses formed a coalition to oppose the law, which denies federal benefits to same-sex couples.

In a statement, Chick-fil-A continued to maintain — as it has for months — that its "intent is to not support political or social agendas." Campus Pride said it believes the company's tax filings now "accurately reflect" that goal.

The fast-food chain said it has contributed more than $68 million over the last three years to more than 700 educational and charitable groups nationwide, focusing on youth and education outfits, leadership and family enrichment organizations and local community support.

"This has been the case for more than 60 years," the company said. "The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect and to serve great food with genuine hospitality."

The chain has also steadily denied accusations that it supports an anti-gay marriage agenda by donating to Christian groups hoping to ban homosexual unions.

A report last year from LGBT advocacy group Equality Matters concluded that Chick-fil-A gave more than $3 million from 2003 to 2009 to such organizations. In 2010, the company donated nearly $2 million to similar groups, according to the report.

But it wasn't until Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy said in July that his company was "very much supportive" of the "biblical definition of the family unit" that the company's name rose to prominence in the gay marriage debate.

The comments sparked months of discussion and demonstrations on both sides of the issue. Gay rights supporters demanded a boycott of the chain. Some politicians threatened to try to ban Chick-fil-A from their cities. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee launched a Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day that drew long lines of customers to the company's locations nationwide.

In September, Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno said in a statement that extended negotiations with Chick-fil-A had resulted in a promise from company executives to stop funding organizations that oppose same-sex marriage.

A day later, Chick-fil-A issued its own statement, saying that its corporate donations had "been mischaracterized" for "many months now."

That may change, according to Campus Pride Executive Director Shane Windmeyer, who believes that Chick-fil-A is trying to draw back the curtain and interact with its detractors.

In addition to being given "access to internal documents," Windmeyer said in an piece on Huffington Post Gay Voices that he has exchanged "months of personal phone calls, text messages and in-person meetings" with Cathy. The piece is titled "Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A."

Windmeyer said he was Cathy's guest at the Chick-fil-A Bowl football game in Atlanta last month and met with company representatives as recently as last week.

"Our mutual hope was to find common ground if possible, and to build respect no matter what," he wrote. "We learned about each other as people with opposing views, not as opposing people."

tiffany.hsu@latimes.com

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Live updates: 'Argo' wins top SAG Award; Day-Lewis, Lawrence win

Ben Affleck's “Argo” seems to be unstoppable. The film about a CIA plot to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980 won the 19th Screen Actors Guild Award on Sunday night for ensemble in a motion picture.

The win came hours after the film, which also stars Affleck, took the Producers Guild Award on Saturday night — an honor that is one of the leading indicators of Oscar gold. Two weeks ago, “Argo” won the Golden Globe for best dramatic motion picture, one of the many honors it has recently picked up this season.

 “Argo” heads into next month's Academy Awards with momentum — and seven nominations, including best picture, supporting actor for Alan Arkin, and adapted screenplay. (Shockingly, Affleck was not nominated for a directing Oscar, even though he received a Directors Guild of America nomination and won the Golden Globe for director.)

PHOTOS: SAG Awards red carpet

The outlook seems equally golden for Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway, whose Golden Globe awards two weeks ago were followed Sunday night with SAG awards.

Day-Lewis won the trophy — and a standing ovation — for lead actor as the nation’s 16th president in “Lincoln.” Lawrence won her award for female actor playing a young widow in the quirky romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.” Hathaway took the SAG award for female actor in a supporting role as the tragic Fantine in “Les Miserables.”

Tommy Lee Jones won his first major award of the season for male supporting actor for “Lincoln.” Jones is also nominated for an Academy Award for supporting actor.

SAG 2013: Winners | Show highlights | Complete list | Red carpet

The SAG movie wins offered a rare moment of clarity as the highly unpredictable awards season enters its final stretch, culminating with the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. 

A SAG win does not guarantee Oscar gold, but history suggests it's nearly impossible to win an Academy Award in the acting categories without a SAG nomination.

 On the television side of the awards ceremony, it was a three-peat night for Claire Danes, Julianne Moore, Kevin Costner and the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.”

FULL COVERAGE: SAG Awards 2013 

The performers made it a clean sweep by winning the Emmy, the Golden Globe and the SAG award.

Danes won for female actor in a drama series for Showtime’s political thriller “Homeland.” Moore’s uncanny performance as 2008 Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin in HBO’s “Game Change” earned her female actor in a television movie or miniseries. And Costner nabbed male actor in a television movie or miniseries for History’s “Hatfields & McCoys.”

“Modern Family,” meanwhile, earned its third consecutive SAG award for ensemble in a comedy series.

PHOTOS: Best & Worst moments

 Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey earned a great parting gift when they won for their lead roles in a comedy series for NBC's “30 Rock.” Fey used the win to ask people to tune in at 8 Thursday night for the series’ one-hour finale, opposite the highly rated CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.”

“Just tape ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for once, for crying out loud!” Fey pleaded.

Bryan Cranston won for male actor in a drama series for “Breaking Bad.” “It is so good to be bad,” purred Cranston as he picked up the honor. And PBS’ “Downton Abbey” won for ensemble in a drama series.

SAG 2013: Winners | Quotes | Photo Booth | Red carpet | Backstage | Best & Worst

One highlight was a spry and chipper 87-year-old Dick Van Dyke, honored for a career that has spanned nearly seven decades.

Van Dyke was met with a standing ovation and cheers. “That does an old man a lot of good,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. He was supposed to receive the life achievement honor from Carl Reiner, who created the seminal 1961-66 CBS series “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” the show that turned Van Dyke into a TV legend. Because Reiner was sick with the flu, Baldwin did the honors.

“I've knocked around this business for 70 years, but I still haven’t figured out what exactly I do,” Van Dyke cracked during his acceptance speech. He noted that it was great to pick a career “full of surprises and a lot of fun” and one that does “not require growing up.”

The awards were telecast live on TBS and TNT from the Shrine Exposition Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

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Providence theater experiments with ‘tweet seats’

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Sarah Bertness slipped into her seat at a recent staging of the musical “Million Dollar Quartet” and, when the lights dimmed, started doing something that’s long been taboo inside theaters: typing away at her iPhone.

The 26-year-old freelance writer from Providence wasn’t being rude. She had a spot in the “tweet seat” section at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

The downtown theater is now setting aside a small number of seats — in the back — for those who promise to live-tweet from the performance using a special hash tag. They might offer impressions of the set, music or costumes, lines of dialogue that resonate with them or anything else that strikes them, really.

At “Million Dollar Quartet,” based on the true story of a 1956 recording session that united music greats Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, PPAC for the first time had cast members tweeting from backstage, too.

A growing number of theaters, including some on Broadway, have been experimenting in recent years with tweet seats and other real-time uses of social media as they try to figure out the relationship between the stage and the smartphone.

Some insist the theater should remain a sacred, technology-free place and that allowing the use of phones during a show — even discreetly — only serves as a potential distraction for other patrons. But others say theaters can’t afford not to engage the digital generation, and that the way performances were once enjoyed, in a vacuum, doesn’t hold up anymore.

“I think that it’s important that PPAC and cultural institutions in general kind of jump on the social media bandwagon and learn to engage a broader audience,” said Bertness, who runs the blog The Rhode Islander and is such a big Johnny Cash fan that she showed up to the performance wearing all black. “I think it’s such a valuable tool.”

Scott Moreau, an understudy for Johnny Cash, hadn’t ever tweeted from backstage during a performance. He tried to provide a glimpse of what life’s like on the tour, which he likened to the special features on a DVD. He said he enjoyed getting instant feedback from the tweeters — feedback he shared with other cast members.

“It makes it feel a lot more personal,” Moreau said.

A picture of Moreau that was tweeted out from backstage — he was tweeting in it himself — prompted someone in the tweet seats to declare that’s what the Man in Black would have looked like, with an iPhone.

Other theaters are also trying different digital ways to engage with patrons. In Boston, the Huntington Theater plans to introduce a “Twittermission” where an artist affiliated with the production, or someone from the theater’s staff, answers questions about the show on Twitter during intermissions. The tweets will also be projected on screens in the theater lobby, according to spokeswoman Rebecca Curtiss.

The theater won’t be introducing tweet seats, though.

“We feel strongly that the experience that an audience member has in our theater should be limited to what they are seeing on the stage,” Curtiss said. “When the lights go down and the show begins, we want the art on stage to speak for itself.”

PPAC isn’t sure yet whether any social media buzz generated by those in the tweet seats will have a measurable effect at the box office. But spokeswoman P.J. Prokop said the theater intends to keep the program through the end of the year, and then evaluate it. Those who sit in the tweet seats get their tickets for free.

Kirsten DiChiappari, who has tweeted three shows there to her nearly 1,400 followers, grew up in New Jersey going to Broadway musicals, plays and the opera. The 41-year-old social media consultant from Bristol sees her live-tweeting as a way to lure people from their living rooms, where many are glued to “horrible reality television.”

“It’s kind of a way to tease people back to support the live arts, the real arts, the original arts,” she said. “I feel like once they go, they’ll go again.”

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'Argo,' Lawrence, Day-Lewis win at SAG

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The CIA thriller "Argo" continues to steamroll through awards season, winning the top honor for overall cast performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

SAG's lead-acting honors Sunday went to Jennifer Lawrence for her role as a troubled widow in a shaky new relationship in the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook" and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War epic "Lincoln."

Anne Hathaway of "Les Miserables" and Tommy Lee Jones of "Lincoln" won the supporting-acting honors.

"It occurred to me — it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln," said Day-Lewis, a solid front-runner to join an exclusive list of three-time acting Oscar winners. "And therefore, somehow it is only so fitting that every now and then an actor tries to bring him back to life again."

It was a brisk, businesslike and fairly bland evening as the actors union handed out honors to a predictable lineup of winners who generally had triumphed at earlier Hollywood ceremonies or past SAG shows.

The SAG cast win came a day after "Argo" claimed the top honor from the Producers Guild of America, whose winner often goes on to claim best picture at the Academy Awards. "Argo" also was a surprise victor two weeks ago at the Golden Globes, where it won best drama and director for Ben Affleck.

The awards momentum positions "Argo" for a rare feat at the Feb. 24 Oscars, where it could become just the fourth film in 85 years to be named best picture without a nomination for its director.

"To me this has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who were in this movie," said Affleck, who also stars in "Argo" and accepted the SAG prize alongside his cast.

Affleck plays CIA agent Tony Mendez, who masterminded the daring rescue of six U.S. embassy workers in Iran after the 1979 hostage crisis erupted. The Americans were brought out of Iran masquerading as crew members of a fake Hollywood sci-fi movie scouting locations.

A directing nomination at the Oscars usually goes hand in hand with a best-picture win. When Affleck was snubbed for a directing slot, awards analysts initially were counting "Argo" out for the best-picture Oscar, along with Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" and Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables," which also missed out on directing nominations.

Only once in modern times has a film won best picture without a directing nomination, with 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy." The other two times came in the show's early years, at the first Oscars in 1929 with "Wings" and for 1932's "Grand Hotel."

But "Argo" has proven a resilient crowd-pleaser, dominating at awards shows since then over Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," which leads the Oscars with 12 nominations.

The cast prize at SAG adds some weight to the Oscar prospects for "Argo," though the guild honor has a spotty record at forecasting eventual best-picture winners. Only eight of 17 times since the guild added the category has the cast winner gone on to take the best-picture Oscar. "The Help" won the guild's cast prize last year, while Oscar voters named "The Artist" as best picture.

The next playoff round before the Oscars is Saturday's Directors Guild of America Awards, where Affleck, Bigelow, Spielberg and Hooper all are nominated, along with Ang Lee for "Life of Pi." The winner there typically goes on to triumph with directing and best-picture Oscars, but only Spielberg and Lee are nominated for both the Directors Guild and Oscar prizes this time, throwing the awards picture into a muddle.

Sunday's acting prizes solidify those categories, though. "Silver Linings" star Lawrence won a Golden Globe and has become one of Hollywood's hottest talents, with part two of her blockbuster franchise, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," due out in November.

"Now I have this naked statue that means some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling," Lawrence said after explaining she earned her SAG card at age 14 by filming a spot for MTV.

Hathaway won for her role as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution in the adaptation of the stage musical based on Victor Hugo's epic novel. Her win came over four past Oscar recipients — Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman and Maggie Smith.

"I'm just thrilled I have dental," Hathaway said. "I got my SAG card when I was 14. It felt like the beginning of the world. I have loved every single minute of my life as an actor. ... Thank you for nominating me alongside incredible women and incredible performances."

Jones, who was not at the show, won for his turn as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens in the Civil War epic. The win improves his odds to become a two-time Academy Award winner. He previously won a supporting-actor Oscar for "The Fugitive."

Day-Lewis, a two-time Oscar winner for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood," could become the fifth actor to earn three Oscars, along with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan. Katharine Hepburn has the acting record with four Oscars.

Backstage at SAG, Day-Lewis was hardly ready to predict a third Oscar win.

"There's a good chance I won't. I feel the same way at all these occasions. Mostly, we're traveling as a group, the fellow nominees, give or take one here or there," Day-Lewis said. "I would happily recognize any single one person whose name is called."

On SAG's television side, with "30 Rock" ending its run, its stars Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin won the SAG awards for best comedy performers. It was Baldwin's seventh-straight win, while Fey earned her fifth SAG prize.

"Oh, my God. It's ridiculous," Baldwin said. "It's the end of our show, which is sad. Everybody is sad about that. It was the greatest experience I've ever had."

Fey gave a plug for the show's finale airing Thursday, noting that it's up against "The Big Bang Theory."

"Just tape 'The Big Bang Theory' for once, for crying out loud," Fey said.

"Modern Family" won for best overall cast in a TV comedy show. Accepting for the cast, "Modern Family" co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson offered thanks to the makers of "30 Rock" and another departing series, "The Office," saying "you all have set the comedy bar so high."

The TV drama acting awards went to Claire Danes of "Homeland" and Bryan Cranston of "Breaking Bad." ''Downton Abbey" won the TV drama cast award.

Julianne Moore's turn as Sarah Palin in "Game Change" earned her the TV prize for best actress in a movie or miniseries. Kevin Costner won for best actor in a movie or miniseries for "Hatfields & McCoys."

Receiving the guild's life-achievement award was Dick Van Dyke, who presented the same prize last year to his "The Dick Van Dyke Show" co-star, Mary Tyler Moore.

After waiting on stage for a prolonged standing ovation to end, Van Dyke said, "That does an old man a lot of good."

___

Associated Press writers Beth Harris, Christy Lemire and Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

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Well: Keeping Blood Pressure in Check

Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.

Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.

But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have blood pressure that remains too high to be healthy. (A normal blood pressure is lower than 120 over 80.) With a plethora of drugs available to normalize blood pressure, why are so many people still at increased risk of disease, disability and premature death? Hypertension experts offer a few common, and correctable, reasons:

¶ About 20 percent of affected adults don’t know they have high blood pressure, perhaps because they never or rarely see a doctor who checks their pressure.

¶ Of the 80 percent who are aware of their condition, some don’t appreciate how serious it can be and fail to get treated, even when their doctors say they should.

¶ Some who have been treated develop bothersome side effects, causing them to abandon therapy or to use it haphazardly.

¶ Many others do little to change lifestyle factors, like obesity, lack of exercise and a high-salt diet, that can make hypertension harder to control.

Dr. Samuel J. Mann, a hypertension specialist and professor of clinical medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, adds another factor that may be the most important. Of the 71 percent of people with hypertension who are currently being treated, too many are taking the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages of the right ones.

Dr. Mann, author of “Hypertension and You: Old Drugs, New Drugs, and the Right Drugs for Your High Blood Pressure,” says that doctors should take into account the underlying causes of each patient’s blood pressure problem and the side effects that may prompt patients to abandon therapy. He has found that when treatment is tailored to the individual, nearly all cases of high blood pressure can be brought and kept under control with available drugs.

Plus, he said in an interview, it can be done with minimal, if any, side effects and at a reasonable cost.

“For most people, no new drugs need to be developed,” Dr. Mann said. “What we need, in terms of medication, is already out there. We just need to use it better.”

But many doctors who are generalists do not understand the “intricacies and nuances” of the dozens of available medications to determine which is appropriate to a certain patient.

“Prescribing the same medication to patient after patient just does not cut it,” Dr. Mann wrote in his book.

The trick to prescribing the best treatment for each patient is to first determine which of three mechanisms, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible for a patient’s hypertension, he said.

¶ Salt-sensitive hypertension, more common in older people and African-Americans, responds well to diuretics and calcium channel blockers.

¶ Hypertension driven by the kidney hormone renin responds best to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as direct renin inhibitors and beta-blockers.

¶ Neurogenic hypertension is a product of the sympathetic nervous system and is best treated with beta-blockers, alpha-blockers and drugs like clonidine.

According to Dr. Mann, neurogenic hypertension results from repressed emotions. He has found that many patients with it suffered trauma early in life or abuse. They seem calm and content on the surface but continually suppress their distress, he said.

One of Dr. Mann’s patients had had high blood pressure since her late 20s that remained well-controlled by the three drugs her family doctor prescribed. Then in her 40s, periodic checks showed it was often too high. When taking more of the prescribed medication did not result in lasting control, she sought Dr. Mann’s help.

After a thorough work-up, he said she had a textbook case of neurogenic hypertension, was taking too much medication and needed different drugs. Her condition soon became far better managed, with side effects she could easily tolerate, and she no longer feared she would die young of a heart attack or stroke.

But most patients should not have to consult a specialist. They can be well-treated by an internist or family physician who approaches the condition systematically, Dr. Mann said. Patients should be started on low doses of one or more drugs, including a diuretic; the dosage or number of drugs can be slowly increased as needed to achieve a normal pressure.

Specialists, he said, are most useful for treating the 10 percent to 15 percent of patients with so-called resistant hypertension that remains uncontrolled despite treatment with three drugs, including a diuretic, and for those whose treatment is effective but causing distressing side effects.

Hypertension sometimes fails to respond to routine care, he noted, because it results from an underlying medical problem that needs to be addressed.

“Some patients are on a lot of blood pressure drugs — four or five — who probably don’t need so many, and if they do, the question is why,” Dr. Mann said.

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First subject: Paying for college

Several websites can give loan and college cost information to parents. Above, Cal State Long Beach students head to classes as the spring semester gets underway. (Christina House, For The Times / January 28, 2013)

By Reid Kanaley

College acceptance letters are starting to arrive, and families now must figure out how to pay the tuition. Here are some sites that offer guidance to the world of financial aid:

•The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A relatively new federal agency, the bureau has a beta site on college finances. One of the bureau's goals is to make students' borrowing costs clearer. Near the top of the page is a college-prep timeline showing the steps from researching schools to repaying college debt. Along the way, one presumably gets an education.

•Federal student aid. The first step in requesting federal aid for school is to fill out the Federal Application for Student Aid. You have to do it only once a year, no matter how many colleges you apply to. And the earlier the better. As soon as you file the electronic form, you'll see what is likely to be a shocking ballpark number for the education expenses you're expected to pay out of pocket.

•U.S. News & World Report college roundup. The section on paying for an education is meant to explain some of the terminology and procedures that students and families will encounter. Take note of the "overlooked ways to pay for college," which include getting an early start on college savings accounts called 529 plans and digging around for otherwise-overlooked community sources of scholarship money.

•College Board. This group, which runs the SAT college-entrance examination system, also offers advice on financing your higher education. This page includes a link to the board's scholarship-search service. Many scholarships have obscure criteria, so how would you even find all the ones that might fit you? Fill out a questionnaire that can help match students to what the board says is $6 billion available in scholarships through 2,200 programs.

Kanaley writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Comments are filtered for language and registration is required. The Times makes no guarantee of comments' factual accuracy. Readers may report inappropriate comments by clicking the Report Abuse link next to a comment. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.

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L.A. mayoral candidates sound off on pot dispensaries

As Los Angeles voters face the possibility of as many as three medical marijuana initiatives on the May ballot, several mayoral candidates have begun to outline their own plans to deal with the proliferation of pot dispensaries — an issue that has ensnared the City Council in countless legal tangles.

At a mayoral forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters last week, four of the five leading candidates argued for paring back the hundreds of pot dispensaries around the city. But Councilman Eric Garcetti said his first goal would be to persuade the federal government to reclassify marijuana as a medicine: "I will advocate that as mayor," he said.

Garcetti, who presided over many of the battles on the issue as council president from 2006 to 2012, said he would also urge state lawmakers to set regulations governing the distribution of medical marijuana.

"The courts say wildly different things because there has not been clear guidance from the state or federal level," he said. At the city level, Garcetti said, he would try to "keep access" while limiting the number of dispensaries. "You charge a fee so you have an enforcement mechanism, and where possible collect taxes" — steps that, he said, would free up law enforcement officers to focus on more serious crime.

City Controller Wendy Greuel called for "compassion" but said her emphasis would be on tightening regulations on the locations of pot shops in the city.

"I think when people voted in the state of California to allow medical marijuana, they thought they would go to their local CVS pharmacy and get it. They didn't think about the impact it would have on neighborhoods," said Greuel, who is targeting many of the more conservative San Fernando Valley voters. "The bottom line is we have a right to regulate where marijuana clinics are in the city of Los Angeles…. The public is demanding that the government actually do their job."

After the forum, aides to Greuel told The Times she also would support classifying marijuana as a medicine at the federal level.

The city has struggled for years to regulate the placement of pot shops. A loophole in the city's 2007 moratorium allowed hundreds of additional shops to open. The council's efforts to limit the proliferation led to more than 100 lawsuits against the city. In response to complaints from neighborhood activists, the council enacted a ban on storefront marijuana sales last July. But it retreated in October, repealing the ban after a well-organized coalition of marijuana activists mounted an effort to overturn it at the ballot box.

Kevin James, a former federal prosecutor and the sole Republican among the major contenders, said the confusion and legal wrangling illustrated the dysfunction of the council.

"More pot clinics than Starbucks? Unbelievable," James said at Thursday night's forum. "Only this City Council could put a moratorium on 180 or so pot clinics — and it skyrockets to over 1,000."

The five mayoral candidates were pressed to say how many dispensaries should be allowed across the city. James said he favored about 10 in each of the 15 council districts. Garcetti said the original number of dispensaries — approximately 100 — was "about right."

Greuel and Councilwoman Jan Perry said they were hesitant to name an exact number, with Perry adding that she would take her policy cues from the voters in May.

Candidate Emanuel Pleitez, a technology executive who read from notes throughout the forum, argued that "politicians shouldn't be in the business of setting numbers" and should "let the market decide."

Last week the City Council advanced a measure for the May ballot that would permit only the dispensaries that opened before the moratorium to operate; the measure would also raise taxes on marijuana sales. Garcetti backed the request by Councilman Paul Koretz and Council President Herb Wesson asking the city attorney to draw up language for a ballot measure. Perry was absent for the vote.

Two additional — and competing — medical marijuana initiatives have qualified for the May ballot.

One, which is largely backed by dispensaries that opened after the moratorium, would allow many pot shops to remain open, but it would set new requirements for their operations — such as limited hours and maintaining a certain distance from schools. It would raise taxes on medical marijuana by 20% to pay for city enforcement.

The other was created by a coalition of medical marijuana advocates and the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which began organizing dispensary workers last year. Like the City Council-sponsored proposal, it would allow only pot dispensaries that opened before 2007 to operate. Koretz and Wesson have criticized the measure for not mandating that the shops be located farther away from schools, churches and parks.

Some advocates for the union-backed measure now say they probably will support the council's proposal because it too would allow older dispensaries to remain open and has a better chance of passing.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

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Facebook founder to host fundraiser for New Jersey Governor Christie

(Reuters) – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla, will host a fundraiser for New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie at their California home on February 13, the social networking site said on Thursday.

Zuckerberg and Christie, a potential presidential contender in 2016, have teamed up before, when the tech guru donated $ 100 million to the struggling public schools in Newark, New Jersey, in 2010.

“Mark and Priscilla … admire his leadership on education reform and other issues and look forward to continuing their important work together on behalf of Newark’s school children,” Facebook said in a statement.

The blunt-spoken Christie is seeking re-election in November to a second term as governor. He took office in 2010.

Right now, he doesn’t seem to need much help as his approval rating skyrocketed after Superstorm Sandy hit the state last October. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday found that three-quarters of New Jersey voters approved of Christie’s performance and nearly seven in 10 say he deserves to be re-elected.

New Jersey Democrats also have not rallied behind a single challenger. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney has said he is considering running, but the poll found that Christie would easily defeat Sweeney.

Christie would also trounce Barbara Buono – who has said she will run against the governor – and possible challenger Richard Codey, the poll found. Both are Democratic state senators.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Hilary Russ in New York; Editing by Eric Beech)

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'Fruitvale,' 'Blood Brother' win Sundance Awards

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The dramatic film "Fruitvale" and the documentary "Blood Brother" won over audiences and Sundance Film Festival judges.

Both American films won audience awards and grand jury prizes Saturday at the Sundance Awards.

"Fruitvale" is based on the true story of Oscar Grant, who was 22 years old when he was shot and killed in a public transit station in Oakland, Calif. First-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler wrote and directed the dramatic narrative.

"This project was about humanity, about human beings and how we treat each other; how we treat the people that we love the most, and how we treat the people that we don't know," the 26-year-old said as he accepted the final prize of the night. "To get this award means that it had a profound impact on the audience that saw it, on the people that were responsible for picking it up. And this goes back to my home, to the Bay Area, where Oscar Grant lived, breathed, slept, loved, fought, had fun, and survived for 22 years."

Fox Searchlight founder and Sundance juror Tom Rothman said "Fruitvale" was recognized for "its skillful realization, its devastating emotional impact and its moral and social urgency — and for anyone out there who thinks for one second that movies don't matter and can't make a difference in the world.

"This will not be the last time you guys walk to a podium," he added.

The U.S. documentary winner, "Blood Brother" follows a young American, Rocky Braat, who moved to India to work with orphans infected with HIV.

"This means so much to so many kids," director Steve Hoover said as he accepted the award.

The Cambodian film "A River Changes Course" won the grand jury prize for international documentary, and a narrative film from South Korea, "Jiseul," claimed the grand jury prize for dramatic world cinema.

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Well: Ask Well: Squats for Aging Knees

You are already doing many things right, in terms of taking care of your aging knees. In particular, it sounds as if you are keeping your weight under control. Carrying extra pounds undoubtedly strains knees and contributes to pain and eventually arthritis.

You mention weight training, too, which is also valuable. Sturdy leg muscles, particularly those at the front and back of the thighs, stabilize the knee, says Joseph Hart, an assistant professor of kinesiology and certified athletic trainer at the University of Virginia, who often works with patients with knee pain.

An easy exercise to target those muscles is the squat. Although many of us have heard that squats harm knees, the exercise is actually “quite good for the knees, if you do the squats correctly,” Dr. Hart says. Simply stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and bend your legs until your thighs are almost, but not completely, parallel to the ground. Keep your upper body straight. Don’t bend forward, he says, since that movement can strain the knees. Try to complete 20 squats, using no weight at first. When that becomes easy, Dr. Hart suggests, hold a barbell with weights attached. Or simply clutch a full milk carton, which is my cheapskate’s squats routine.

Straight leg lifts are also useful for knee health. Sit on the floor with your back straight and one leg extended and the other bent toward your chest. In this position, lift the straight leg slightly off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 10 to 20 times and then switch legs.

You can also find other exercises that target the knees in this video, “Increasing Knee Stability.”

Of course, before starting any exercise program, consult a physician, especially, Dr. Hart says, if your knees often ache, feel stiff or emit a strange, clicking noise, which could be symptoms of arthritis.

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