Seawater desalination plant might be just a drop in the bucket

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Dreamers have long looked to the Pacific Ocean as the ultimate answer to California's water needs: an inexhaustible, drought-proof reservoir in the state's backyard. In the last decade, proposals for about 20 desalting plants have been discussed up and down the coast.

But even with construction about to begin on the nation's largest seawater desalination facility, 35 miles north of San Diego, experts say it is doubtful that dream will ever be fully realized.

"While this Poseidon adventure may work out, I don't look for a lot of that," said Henry Vaux Jr., a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of resource economics who contributed to a 2008 National Research Council report on desalination.

The reasons boil down to money and energy. It takes a lot of both to turn ocean water into drinking water, driving the average price of desalinated supplies well above most other sources.

The purified water produced by the Poseidon Resources plant will cost the San Diego County Water Authority more than twice what it now pays the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for supplies from Northern California and the Colorado River. Over the authority's 30-year contract with Poseidon, San Diego County ratepayers will pay between $3 billion and $4 billion for the desalted water, which is expected to provide no more than a tenth of their overall supply.

Seawater desalination is not new to California. There are number of small coastal plants, used mostly for research or industrial purposes, and a few, such as one on Catalina Island, that provide municipal supplies.

For reasons unique to the region, San Diego County will be the first to stick a big straw into the Pacific. It is at the end of the line for imported water, doesn't have much local groundwater and is perennially battling with Metropolitan, Southern California's wholesaler of imported supplies.

"I do believe it is worth it," said Tom Wornham, board chairman of the county water authority. "I would rather be apologizing to people in 10 years for the rate than the fact they would have no water."

Up the coast, other places have taken a pass on the Pacific. Los Angeles and Long Beach recently shelved seawater desalting plans after concluding that other water sources, such as conservation or recycling, are cheaper and easier to pursue.

Poseidon, a small, privately held company based in Stamford, Conn., started talking about developing a desalination plant in Carlsbad in late 1998. The road to construction has been so long and twisting that Global Water Intelligence, which covers the international water industry, last year listed the project among the "Top 10 Desalination Disasters" of all time.

It took years for the company to get the necessary state and local permits. Environmentalists filed multiple legal challenges, the last of which was only recently resolved in Poseidon's favor. A deal with a number of local water agencies in San Diego County fell apart.

In the end, the Poseidon supplies — up to 56,000 acre-feet a year — will sell for roughly $2,000 an acre-foot, more than double the company's 2004 estimate. (One acre-foot is enough to supply two average homes for a year.) The price will rise with inflation; if energy costs go up, so will the price of water.

On the other side of the Pacific, Australia offers a sobering lesson in the perils of diving too deeply into desalination.

When years of withering drought emptied the country's reservoirs, Australia commissioned six big coastal desalting plants, including some of the world's largest. Then the rains returned. Just as some of the operations were coming on line, they were no longer needed.

Four of the six plants are being idled because cheaper water is available. Australian politicians are bemoaning the desalination binge, complaining that it saddled ratepayers with "hyper-expensive" white elephants they have to pay for regardless of whether the plants are used.

"That's certainly the risk — that we build them when they're not necessary or we build them, frankly, too soon," said Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland think tank.

Santa Barbara had a similar experience in the early 1990s, when it built a desalination plant during a severe statewide drought that ended before the facility was finished. The $34-million plant, with a tenth of the capacity of the Carlsbad facility, was never used beyond the testing phase, though it could still be brought into service in an emergency.

The $954-million Carlsbad project is being financed with $781 million in tax-exempt construction bonds sold by Poseidon and the water authority. The balance is coming from investors who anticipate a return of about 13%. IDE Americas Inc., the subsidiary of an Israeli firm that runs some of the world's largest coastal desalination facilities in the Middle East, has been hired to design and operate the plant, slated for completion in 2016.

The fresh water will be produced through reverse osmosis, an energy-intensive process that separates salts and contaminants from seawater by forcing it through sand filters and tightly coiled, synthetic membranes peppered with billions of tiny holes a fraction of the width of a human hair. The water will then be pumped inland for distribution — the opposite direction that drinking supplies are usually moved — requiring construction of a 10-mile underground pipeline that the water authority will own and operate.

Poseidon chose the Carlsbad location, next to the Encina Power Station, so it could draw from the power plant's cooling water discharge — thus avoiding the environmental harm of operating its own ocean intake.

But new federal and state environmental regulations are pushing coastal power plants to phase out the use of huge volumes of ocean water for cooling, thwarting that strategy. Poseidon expects the Encina station to be replaced within the decade with a new generating facility employing a different cooling system.

That will mean the desalter will have to pump directly from the ocean, sucking 300 million gallons a day. Of that, 100 million gallons will go through the reverse osmosis process, with half converted to fresh water and half to a concentrated brine. The brine, twice as salty as the sea, will be diluted in a mixing pool with the other 200 million gallons of intake and discharged to the ocean.

Destruction of marine life is a major environmental concern of ocean desalination. Raw seawater is full of tiny organisms, including plankton that form a critical part of the food chain and the young stages of fish and invertebrates. When the water they live in is pumped into a plant, they die.

The Coastal Commission is requiring Poseidon to restore 55 acres of marine wetlands in south San Diego Bay to compensate for the plant's projected effects. The State Water Resources Control Board is also developing new seawater desalination regulations that could force Poseidon to change its intake and discharge systems.

"They took a big risk in building this before the rules are finalized," said Joe Geever of the Surfrider Foundation, which tenaciously fought the Carlsbad proposal in court and argues that water agencies should turn to the ocean only as a last resort — after more environmentally benign sources such as recycling and storm-water capture have been aggressively pursued.

Poseidon, which is trying to line up customers for a similar-size desal plant proposed in Huntington Beach, says it is peddling more than water. "What we're selling is ... a reliability premium that's locally controlled, drought-proof," said Carlos Riva, the company's chief executive.

But even Poseidon doesn't predict that the Pacific will become California's dominant water supply. The state has too many other sources.

"We have quite a bit of water to move around," said Peter MacLaggan, the Poseidon executive who is overseeing the Carlsbad project. "I don't think it's ever going to be a majority of supply or anywhere close to that."

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

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Singer Mindy McCready dies in apparent suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Mindy McCready, who hit the top of the country charts before personal problems sidetracked her career, died Sunday in Arkansas in an apparent suicide. She was 37.

The Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that McCready was found dead at a residence in Heber Springs from what appears to be a single, self-inflicted gunshot to the head. An autopsy is pending.

It wasn't the first suicide attempt for the troubled singer, whose list of problems only continued to grow in 2013.

McCready entered court-ordered rehab earlier this month after her father told a judge she was no longer taking care of herself or her children and was abusing drugs and alcohol. Her sons were put in foster care at the time, but it's not clear where Zander and Zayne were at the time of McCready's death.

McCready's longtime boyfriend David Wilson, the father of her younger son, died last month in Arkansas. Authorities found his body on the same porch where they discovered McCready's on Sunday, and his death also was investigated as a suicide.

The front porch light remained on Sunday night at McCready's home in the wooded lakefront community filled with large homes. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the front of the house, and a deputy sat watch over the property, referring questions to the sheriff. A pickup truck remained in the driveway.

Wilson's passing struck McCready hard. She issued a statement last month lamenting his death. She called him her soul mate and a caregiver to her sons in an interview with NBC's "Today." She said she'd never gone through anything as painful as his death.

"I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I'll have," she said, according to a transcript of the interview.

News of McCready's death spread quickly Sunday night on Twitter, with major country stars paying their respects to the onetime Nashville darling.

"Too much tragedy to overcome. R.I.P Mindy McCready," wrote Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks.

And Jason Aldean added: "Just heard about Mindy McCready. My thoughts and prayers are with her 2 boys and her family."

Melinda Gayle McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994 still in her teens with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records.

In 1996, her "Guys Do It All the Time" hit No. 1 and its dig at male chauvinism endeared her to females. Her other hits included "Ten Thousand Angels," also in 1996, and her album by that title sold 2 million copies.

She spent the next 15 years chasing another hit as personal problems began plaguing her. Her problems included a custody battle with her mother over one of her sons, an overdose and discord in her love life.

McCready took her older son, Zander, from her mother and the boy's legal guardian, Gayle Inge, in late 2011. She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears. Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a residence without permission and took the boy into custody.

She and Wilson had a son, Zayne, in April 2012. The older son's father is McCready's former boyfriend Billy McKnight.

In May 2010, she was hospitalized briefly after police responded to an overdose call at a home in North Fort Myers, Fla., owned by her mother. This followed a stint on "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew," where she declared herself to be clean from drugs. She is the fifth celebrity appearing on that show to have died.

But her troubles began earlier. In 2004, she was charged with obtaining the painkiller OxyContin fraudulently at a pharmacy. She pleaded guilty and was placed on three years' probation.

She violated the probation with a drunken driving arrest in May 2005. A few days after that arrest, she was beaten and her boyfriend at the time was charged with attempted criminal homicide. Then she attempted suicide in July 2005, overdosed in September 2005 and slit her wrists in December 2008.

Also that year, McCready was charged in Arizona with hindering prosecution and unlawful use of transportation. Those charges stemmed from an alleged attempt in June 2005 to purchase two high performance boats, but she claimed she was trying to stop a con man.

In July 2007, she was arrested in her hometown of Fort Myers, Fla., on misdemeanor charges of scratching her mother on the face during a scuffle and resisting sheriff's deputies.

She made headlines again in April 2008 when she claimed a longtime relationship with baseball great Roger Clemens. Published reports at the time said she met the pitcher at a Florida karaoke bar when she was 15 and he was 28 and married.

In June 2008, McCready was arrested and charged with violating her probation by falsifying her community service records relating to the 2004 drug charge. A month later, she entered an extended care facility for undisclosed treatment, and followed that with a 60-day jail sentence in the Williamson County jail.

McCready found some peace after her appearance on "Celebrity Rehab" and told The Associated Press in early 2010 she hoped to get her career restarted, write a book about her experiences and begin production on a reality show. She felt she'd finally gained some control over her life.

"It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time," she said. "I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that's really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality."

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Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. Associated Press writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from Tampa, Fla.

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Well: Health Effects of Smoking for Women

The title of a recent report on smoking and health might well have paraphrased the popular ad campaign for Virginia Slims, introduced in 1968 by Philip Morris and aimed at young professional women: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Today that slogan should include: “…toward a shorter life.” Ten years shorter, in fact.

The new report is one of two rather shocking analyses of the hazards of smoking and the benefits of quitting published last month in The New England Journal of Medicine. The data show that “women who smoke like men die like men who smoke,” Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, a professor of health and health care at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

That was not always the case. Half a century ago, the risk of death from lung cancer among men who smoked was five times higher than that among women smokers. But by the first decade of this century, that risk had equalized: for both men and women who smoked, the risk of death from lung cancer was 25 times greater than for nonsmokers, Dr. Michael J. Thun of the American Cancer Society and his colleagues reported.

Today, women who smoke are even more likely than men who smoke to die of lung cancer. According to a second study in the same journal, women smokers face a 17.8 times greater risk of dying of lung cancer than women who do not smoke; men who smoke are at 14.6 times greater risk to die of lung cancer than men who don’t. Women who smoke now face a risk of death from lung cancer that is 50 percent higher than the estimates reported in the 1980s, according to Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto and his colleagues.

After controlling for age, body weight, education level and alcohol use, the new analysis found something else: men and women who continue to smoke die on average 10 years sooner than those who never smoked.

Dramatic progress has been made in reducing the prevalence of smoking, which has fallen from 42 percent of adults in 1965 (the year after the first surgeon general’s report on smoking and health) to 19 percent in 2010. Yet smoking still results in nearly 200,000 deaths a year among people 35 to 69 years old in the United States. A quarter of all deaths in this age group would not occur if smokers had the same risk of death as nonsmokers.

The risks are even greater among men 55 to 74 and women 60 to 74. More than two-thirds of all deaths among current smokers in these age groups are related to smoking. Over all, the death rate from all causes combined in these age groups “is now at least three times as high among current smokers as among those who have never smoked,” Dr. Thun’s team found.

While lung cancer is the most infamous hazard linked to smoking, the habit also raises the risk of death from heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease and other cancers, including breast cancer.

Furthermore, changes in how cigarettes are manufactured may have increased the dangers of smoking. The use of perforated filters, tobacco blends that are less irritating, and paper that is more porous made it easier to inhale smoke and encouraged deeper inhalation to achieve satisfying blood levels of nicotine.

The result of deeper inhalation, Dr. Thun’s report suggests, has been an increased risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or C.O.P.D., and a shift in the kind of lung cancer linked to smoking. Among nonsmokers, the risk of death from C.O.P.D. has declined by 45 percent in men and has remained stable in women, but the death rate has more than doubled among smokers.

But there is good news, too: it’s never too late to reap the benefits of quitting. The younger you are when you stop smoking, the greater your chances of living a long and healthy life, according to the findings of Dr. Jha’s international team.

The team analyzed smoking and smoking-cessation histories of 113,752 women and 88,496 men 25 and older and linked them to causes of deaths in these groups through 2006.

Those who quit smoking by age 34 lived 10 years longer on average than those who continued to smoke, giving them a life expectancy comparable to people who never smoked. Smokers who quit between ages 35 and 44 lived nine years longer, and those who quit between 45 and 54 lived six years longer. Even quitting smoking between ages 55 and 64 resulted in a four-year gain in life expectancy.

The researchers emphasized, however, that the numbers do not mean it is safe to smoke until age 40 and then stop. Former smokers who quit by 40 still experienced a 20 percent greater risk of death than nonsmokers. About one in six former smokers who died before the age of 80 would not have died if he or she had never smoked, they reported.

Dr. Schroeder believes we can do a lot better to reduce the prevalence of smoking with the tools currently in hand if government agencies, medical insurers and the public cooperate.

Unlike the races, ribbons and fund-raisers for breast cancer, “there’s no public face for lung cancer, even though it kills more women than breast cancer does,” Dr. Schroeder said in an interview. Lung cancer is stigmatized as a disease people bring on themselves, even though many older victims were hooked on nicotine in the 1940s and 1950s, when little was known about the hazards of smoking and doctors appeared in ads assuring the public it was safe to smoke.

Raising taxes on cigarettes can help. The states with the highest prevalence of smoking have the lowest tax rates on cigarettes, Dr. Schroeder said. Also helpful would be prohibiting smoking in more public places like parks and beaches. Some states have criminalized smoking in cars when children are present.

More “countermarketing” of cigarettes is needed, he said, including antismoking public service ads on television and dramatic health warnings on cigarette packs, as is now done in Australia. But two American courts have ruled that the proposed label warnings infringed on the tobacco industry’s right to free speech.

Health insurers, both private and government, could broaden their coverage of stop-smoking aids and better publicize telephone quit lines, and doctors “should do more to stimulate quit attempts,” Dr. Schroeder said.

As Nicola Roxon, a former Australian health minister, put it, “We are killing people by not acting.”

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American Airlines, US Airways merger to alter business travel

In the wake of the deal to merge American Airlines and US Airways, many business travelers are asking themselves the same question: What does this mean for me?

Change is the only certain answer.

And change, according to some airline experts, is not good for business travelers who have grown accustomed to their regular airline routes, connecting hubs and frequent flier programs.

"What I can see is 900 pitfalls," said Joe Brancatelli, a business travel expert who writes a regular online column on the subject. "I don't see an upside."

The $11-billion deal announced last week would create the world's largest airline, employing more than 100,000 workers and serving about 187 million passengers a year.

In announcing the merger, US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker said the new airline would probably maintain all of the hubs and destinations of the two carriers.

But Brancatelli is doubtful.

"When an airline tells you they are keeping everything, that is a lie," he said.

Although the two airlines have very few routes that overlap, Brancatelli said American and US Airways have several connecting hubs in the same region, some of which would have to be eliminated.

For example, he noted that US Airways operates a major hub in Phoenix, while American operates a connecting hub in Dallas. Brancatelli said he suspects the merged airline will cut flights to Phoenix, making Dallas the primary hub for the region.

"These guys didn't merge to make our lives better," he said. "They merged for their own purposes."

Still, executives from American and US Airways stress that the merger would primarily benefit frequent business travelers because, under the combined resources of the new carrier, they would be able to choose from 6,700 daily flights to 336 destinations in 56 countries.

Travelers who have acquired frequent flier miles with either airline can carry them over and redeem them on the new, larger carrier, they promise.

"There are only upsides," said Thomas Horton, chief executive for AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines.

American Airlines' loyalty rewards program, AAdvantage, is the nation's largest and has been ranked by several publications and analysts as one of the best.

AAdvantage is a three-tier system that rewards travelers for accumulating miles with such perks as seat upgrades, free checked bags and early boarding. Each tier represents a higher status level, such as AAdvantage Gold, AAdvantage Platinum and AAdvantage Executive Platinum.

Most other airline loyalty programs, including US Airways' Dividend Miles program, have four tiers and require passengers to accumulate more miles to reach elite status, according to travel experts.

But how American Airlines' AAdvantage and US Airways' Dividend Miles programs will be merged has not been decided.

"At some point we will have to look at that," said John McDonald, a spokesman for US Airways. "What I can say is that we are going to do what is right."

Alicia Jao, vice president of Travelnerd, a website that analyzes travel deals, said she suspects the rewards program for the newly merged airline would shift to a four-tier system to match the rewards programs at other airlines.

The change may upset American's frequent fliers, she said, but they would probably understand that change was inevitable.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election.

Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal.

In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count.

In an interview, he emphasized that the underlying thrust is to develop an evaluation that improves the teaching corps and that data is part of the effort.

"The public has been demanding a better evaluation system for at least a decade. And teachers have repeatedly said to me what they need is a balanced way forward to help them get better and help them be accountable," Deasy said. "We do this for students every day. Now it's time to do this for teachers."

Deasy also reiterated that test scores would not be a "primary or controlling" factor in an evaluation, in keeping with the language of an agreement reached in December between L.A. Unified and its teachers union. Classroom observations and other factors also are part of the evaluation process.

But United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher expressed immediate concern about Deasy's move. During negotiations, he said, the superintendent had proposed allotting 30% to test scores but the union rejected the plan. Deasy then pulled the idea off the table, which allowed the two sides to come to an agreement, Fletcher said. Teachers approved the pact last month.

"To see this percentage now being floated again is unacceptable," the union said in a statement.

Fletcher described the pact as allowing flexibility for principals, in collaboration with teachers, first to set individual goals and then to look at various measures to determine student achievement and overall teacher performance.

"The superintendent doesn't get to sign binding agreements and then pretend they're not binding," Fletcher said.

When Deasy settled on 30%, his decision was in line with research findings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has examined teacher quality issues across the country. Some experts have challenged that work.

The test score component would include a rating for the school based on an analysis of all students' standardized test scores. Those "value-added" formulas, known within L.A. Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, can be used to rate a school or a teacher's effectiveness by comparing students' test scores with past performance. The method takes into account such factors as family income and ethnicity.

After an aggressive push by the Obama administration, individual value-added ratings for teachers have been added to reviews in many districts. They make up 40% of evaluations in Washington, D.C., 35% in Tennessee and 30% in Chicago.

But Los Angeles will use a different approach. The district will rely on raw test scores. A teacher's evaluation also may incorporate pass rates on the high school exit exam and graduation, attendance and suspension data.

Deasy's action was met Friday with reactions ranging from guarded to enthusiastic approval within a coalition of outside groups that have pushed for a new evaluation system. This coalition also has sought to counter union influence.

Elise Buik, chief executive of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said weighing test scores 30% "is a reasonable number that everyone can be happy with."

The union and the district were under pressure to include student test data in evaluations after L.A. County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled last year that the system was violating state law by not using test scores in teacher performance reviews.

A lawsuit to enforce the law was brought by parents in Los Angeles, with support from the Sacramento-based EdVoice advocacy organization.

If the "actual progress" of students is taken into account under Deasy's plan, "it's a historic day for LAUSD," said Bill Lucia, the group's chief executive.

All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the upcoming March 5 election. The campaign for three school board seats has turned substantially into a contest between candidates who strongly back Deasy's policies and those more sympathetic toward the teachers union. Deasy supporters praise the superintendent for measures they say will improve the quality of teaching. The union has faulted Deasy for limiting job protections and said he has imposed unwise or unproven reforms.

In the upcoming election, the union and pro-Deasy forces are matched head to head in District 4, with several employee unions behind incumbent Steve Zimmer and a coalition of donors behind challenger Kate Anderson.

Anderson had high praise for Deasy's directive, saying it struck the right balance and that teachers and students would benefit.

Zimmer said that although he understands that principals need guidance, "I worry about anything that would cause resistance or delay in going forward. I hope this use of a percentage won't disrupt what had been a collaborative process."

howard.blume@latimes.com

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TV show with Pistorius' dead girlfriend airs

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Reeva Steenkamp's last wish for her family before she was shot dead at boyfriend Oscar Pistorius' home was for them to watch her in a reality TV show that went on air in South Africa on Saturday night, two days after her killing.

Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, told The Associated Press that the model and law graduate was "proud of being in the show" and reminded them in their last conversation to make sure that they watched it.

The South African Broadcasting Corp. aired the "Tropika Island of Treasure" program, showing the late Steenkamp — the victim of a Valentine's Day shooting at the home of Pistorius, the Olympic star and double-amputee athlete. She is laughing and smiling, and blowing a kiss toward the camera in Jamaica when it was filmed last year.

South Africans also saw her swimming in the ocean and watching people jump off a cliff and into the sea, shaking her head as they leaped.

SABC said it was dedicated to Steenkamp and displayed the words "Reeva Steenkamp 19 August 1983 - 14 February 2013" between images of a rose and a candle in a short tribute before the show aired. She was also seen blowing the kiss as she sat on a Jamaican beach and her name again appeared on screen with the years of her birth and death.

The country was rocked Thursday when news broke of Steenkamp's shooting death at the upscale house of the star athlete. Pistorius was arrested and charged with her murder and remains in custody in a police station. His family has strongly denied prosecutors' claims that he murdered her.

Steenkamp's family said earlier Saturday that it had not been contacted by either the SABC — South Africa's national broadcaster — or the show's producers for permission to air it, but were not opposed to it because Reeva wanted everyone to see it.

"Her last words to us personally were that she wants us to watch it," Sharon Steenkamp said, hours before the program was shown.

SABC aired the reality show on its main channel, which prominently featured Steenkamp.

The show's executive producer, Samantha Moon, said going ahead with the show "is what she would have wanted."

Steenkamp, a 29-year-old blonde model who graduated from law school, died after suffering four gunshot wounds, police said. Officers recovered a 9-mm pistol from Pistorius' house and quickly charged the Olympian with murder for Steenkamp's killing.

Pistorius will appear in court Tuesday for a bail hearing, something police have said they oppose. Prosecutors also say they will pursue upgraded charges of premeditated murder against him, which means the disabled icon and double-amputee runner could face a life sentence.

Steenkamp was known in South Africa for appearing in commercials and as a bikini-clad model in men's magazines.

Pistorius and Steenkamp met Nov. 4 at the Kyalami race track, which sits between Pretoria and Johannesburg and has been used for Grand Prix and Formula 1 races, said Justin Divaris, a mutual friend.

Divaris said his own girlfriend was a close friend to Steenkamp. Pistorius and Steenkamp immediately hit it off and decided in the spur of the moment to attend a sports award ceremony together the same night, Divaris said. At the time, Pistorius had been dating another woman and his personal life was constant fodder for gossip pages.

Later, however, problems may have started, as police have said there were previous domestic altercations at Pretorius' home in a gated community near South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

A Steenkamp family spokesman said late Friday that relatives still faced a long struggle to come to terms with her killing.

"I can't see the family getting over this shortly," said Reeva's uncle, Mike Steenkamp. "It's going to be a long, long-term reconciliation with a lot of things and issues."

Family members plan for a memorial service Tuesday for the model in Port Elizabeth, her hometown on South Africa's southern coast. Pistorius has a court appearance scheduled in Pretoria on the same day for his lawyers to argue that he can be released on bail.

Portions released earlier Saturday of the reality show, sponsored by a milk fruit drink, feature Steenkamp laughing and smiling on the beaches of Jamaica. Another portion shows her swimming with two dolphins, which tap her on the cheek with their snouts.

"I think the way that you go out, not just your journey in life, but the way that you go out and the way you make your exit is so important," Steenkamp says in the video. "You either made an impact in a positive or a negative way, but just maintain integrity and maintain class and just remain true to yourself.

"I'm going to miss you all so much and I love you very, very much."

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this report.

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Gerald Imray can be reached at http://twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP

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Cuomo Bucks Tide With Bill to Lift Abortion Limits

ALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.

Mr. Cuomo, seeking to deliver on a promise he made in his recent State of the State address, would rewrite a law that currently allows abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. The law is not enforced, because it is superseded by federal court rulings that allow late-term abortions to protect a woman’s health, even if her life is not in jeopardy. But abortion rights advocates say the existence of the more restrictive state law has a chilling effect on some doctors and prompts some women to leave the state for late-term abortions.

Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, would also clarify that licensed health care practitioners, and not only physicians, can perform abortions. It would remove abortion from the state’s penal law and regulate it through the state’s public health law.

Abortion rights advocates have welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s plan, which he outlined in general terms as part of a broader package of women’s rights initiatives in his State of the State address in January. But the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups are dismayed; opponents have labeled the legislation the Abortion Expansion Act.

The prospects for Mr. Cuomo’s effort are uncertain. The State Assembly is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights; the Senate is more difficult to predict because this year it is controlled by a coalition of Republicans who have tended to oppose new abortion rights laws and breakaway Democrats who support abortion rights.

New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before it was legalized nationally by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Mr. Cuomo’s proposal would update the state law so that it could stand alone if the broader federal standard set by Roe were to be undone.

“Why are we doing this? The Supreme Court could change,” said a senior Cuomo administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the governor had not formally introduced his proposal.

But opponents of abortion rights, already upset at the high rate of abortions in New York State, worry that rewriting the abortion law would encourage an even greater number of abortions. For example, they suggest that the provision to allow abortions late in a woman’s pregnancy for health reasons could be used as a loophole to allow unchecked late-term abortions.

“I am hard pressed to think of a piece of legislation that is less needed or more harmful than this one,” the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, wrote in a letter to Mr. Cuomo last month. Referring to Albany lawmakers in a subsequent column, he added, “It’s as though, in their minds, our state motto, ‘Excelsior’ (‘Ever Upward’), applies to the abortion rate.”

National abortion rights groups have sought for years to persuade state legislatures to adopt laws guaranteeing abortion rights as a backup to Roe. But they have had limited success: Only seven states have such measures in place, including California, Connecticut and Maryland; the most recent state to adopt such a law is Hawaii, which did so in 2006.

“Pretty much all of the energy, all of the momentum, has been to restrict abortion, which makes what could potentially happen in New York so interesting,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “There’s no other state that’s even contemplating this right now.”

In most statehouses, the push by lawmakers has been in the opposite direction. The past two years has seen more provisions adopted at the state level to restrict abortion rights than in any two-year period in decades, according to the Guttmacher Institute; last year, 19 states adopted 43 new provisions restricting abortion access, while not a single significant measure was adopted to expand access to abortion or to comprehensive sex education.

“It’s an extraordinary moment in terms of the degree to which there is government interference in a woman’s ability to make these basic health care decisions,” said Andrea Miller, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “For New York to be able to send a signal, a hopeful sign, a sense of the turning of the tide, we think is really important.”

Abortion rights advocates say that even though the Roe decision supersedes state law, some doctors are hesitant to perform late-term abortions when a woman’s health is at risk because the criminal statutes remain on the books.

“Doctors and hospitals shouldn’t be reading criminal laws to determine what types of health services they can offer and provide to their patients,” said M. Tracey Brooks, the president of Family Planning Advocates of New York State.

For Mr. Cuomo, the debate over passing a new abortion law presents an opportunity to appeal to women as well as to liberals, who have sought action in Albany without success since Eliot Spitzer made a similar proposal when he was governor. But it also poses a challenge to the coalition of Republicans and a few Democrats that controls the State Senate, the chamber that has in the past stood as the primary obstacle to passing abortion legislation in the capital.

The governor has said that his Reproductive Health Act would be one plank of a 10-part Women’s Equality Act that also would include equal pay and anti-discrimination provisions. Conservative groups, still stinging from the willingness of Republican lawmakers to go along with Mr. Cuomo’s push to legalize same-sex marriage in 2011, are mobilizing against the proposal. Seven thousand New Yorkers who oppose the measure have sent messages to Mr. Cuomo and legislators via the Web site of the New York State Catholic Conference.

A number of anti-abortion groups have also formed a coalition called New Yorkers for Life, which is seeking to rally opposition to the governor’s proposal using social media.

“If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Is there enough abortion in New York?’ no one in their right mind would say we need more abortion,” said the Rev. Jason J. McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which is part of the coalition.

Members of both parties say that the issue of reproductive rights was a significant one in November’s legislative elections. Democrats, who were bolstered by an independent expenditure campaign by NARAL, credit their victories in several key Senate races in part to their pledge to fight for legislation similar to what Mr. Cuomo is planning to propose.

Republicans, who make up most of the coalition that controls the Senate, have generally opposed new abortion rights measures. Speaking with reporters recently, the leader of the Republicans, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, strenuously objected to rewriting the state’s abortion laws, especially in a manner similar to what the governor is seeking.

“You could have an abortion up until the day the child would be born, and I think that’s just wrong,” Mr. Skelos said. He suggested that the entire debate was unnecessary, noting that abortion is legal in New York State and saying that is “not going to be changed.”

The Senate Democratic leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers, who is the sponsor of a bill that is similar to the legislation the governor is drafting, said she was optimistic that an abortion measure would reach the Senate floor this year.

“New York State’s abortion laws were passed in 1970 in a bipartisan fashion,” she said. “It would be a sad commentary that over 40 years later we could not manage to do the same thing.”

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G-20 seeks to allay fear of currency war

WASHINGTON — Top finance officials of the world's 20 largest economies sought Saturday to allay fear of a currency war, pledging not to target exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage in trade.

But the joint statement, issued at the end of a meeting in Moscow of the so-called Group of 20, or G-20, did not single out any country, essentially giving a pass to Japan to keep pursuing its economic policies despite a significant slide in the value of the yen since November.

Japan's new government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will meet with President Obama this week in Washington, had been talking down the yen and has pressed its central bank for more expansive monetary stimulus to break out of its deflationary trap and boost the nation's stagnant economy. A cheaper currency helps a country's exporters sell their goods to foreign markets.

Some analysts said they now expect the yen to dip further, a prospect that could stoke contention over exchange rates and present complications for the United States in its long-running efforts to influence China to make more rapid adjustments in its currency.

"The U.S. could tolerate the yen depreciation, but clearly this is a potential problem in so far as China could interpret it as a possible green light to make its currency weaker," said Domenico Lombardi, a senior scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

American officials were careful not to fault Japan, an important ally in Asia. What's more, the Federal Reserve also has taken extraordinary measures to stimulate its domestic economy, for which the U.S. has come under similar accusations from some G-20 nations that it was aiming to cheapen the dollar to boost exports.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in remarks Friday at a G-20 session with finance ministers and central bankers, said the United States was simply "using domestic policy tools to advance domestic objectives."

The Fed has been aggressively buying Treasury bonds with the aim of pushing down long-term interest rates to stimulate investment and reduce the unemployment rate, but that has contributed to a weakening of the dollar.

Many economists believe that currency manipulation occurs when a government intervenes, for example, by buying up dollars, specifically to devalue its currency. This, they say, is different from what may be an unintended byproduct of large-scale monetary stimulus to support one's domestic economy.

Intended or not, other analysts said the distinction was not so clear when the result was the same.

Aiming to make that more clear, the G-20 statement said monetary policies should be directed at price stability and domestic growth. "We will refrain from competitive devaluation," it said.

The statement said the G-20 would "monitor and minimize the negative spillovers on other countries of policies implemented for domestic purposes," but it did not set any benchmarks or enforcement mechanism.

A weaker Japanese yen isn't likely to have a major effect on the U.S. economy, and certainly not any time soon. American officials are far more interested in the politically sensitive issue of the Chinese currency. Although the Chinese yuan has risen significantly against the dollar in recent years, many in the U.S. still consider it undervalued and harmful to American exporters.

Besides currency fluctuations, G-20 finance officials also took up budget austerity. The Eurozone's debt crisis and deepening recession have prompted some in Europe to rethink the idea of setting tough budget deficit targets.

The Obama administration, fighting at home to avert stringent fiscal cuts that it believes could hurt the nation's economic recovery, has long pressed the G-20 to put more emphasis on pro-growth policies and less on austerity. But Germany and some others have insisted on fiscal consolidation and debt reduction as key pathways to recovery.

A debt-cutting agreement forged at the G-20 in Toronto in 2010 will expire this year, and officials at the Moscow meeting made no announcement on the issue.

Reflecting a reduced sense of urgency as the Eurozone's troubles have eased somewhat and the global outlook has moderately improved, the joint statement noted that risks to the world economy had receded.

Still, it said, growth remains too weak and unemployment too high:

"A sustained effort is required to continue building a stronger economic and monetary union in the euro area and to resolve uncertainties related to the fiscal situation in the United States and Japan, as well as to boost domestic sources of growth in surplus economies."

The G-20 represents the largest industrialized and developing nations, with about 90% of the world's economic output. It was designated in 2009 as the primary international forum for world leaders to address global financial issues and coordinate economic policies.

The finance ministers' gathering, which ended Saturday, was the first with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as this year's chairman of the G-20. Additional sessions are scheduled in the spring and summer before Obama and other heads of G-20 economies meet in September in St. Petersburg, Russia.

don.lee@latimes.com

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'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius weeps as he faces murder charge

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee revered in South Africa for overcoming his disability to compete in the London Games last year, wept in court Friday as he faced a murder charge in connection with the fatal shooting of his girlfriend.

During the proceedings in Pretoria, Gerrie Nel, one of the National Prosecuting Authority’s most senior advocates, said he would argue the killing of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp was premeditated murder, the most serious category of offense under South African law.

Nel is known for prosecuting high-profile cases, including winning the conviction of former police chief and Interpol boss Jackie Selebi on corruption charges.

Pistorius, nicknamed the "Blade Runner" because of the carbon-fiber prosthetic legs he uses to compete, did not enter a formal plea and was remanded into custody at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria until Tuesday, when his bail application is to be heard.

Under South African law, a suspect charged with such a high-level offense would have to prove exceptional circumstances to be granted bail.

In a packed courtroom, members of Pistorius' family struggled to pass through a media scrum and to find seats. The hearing coincided with "Black Friday," a day when people were being urged to wear black to protest rapes and violence against women.

[Updated, 8:35 a.m. Feb. 15: The family and Pistorius' management company later issued a statement denying that the athlete had murdered his girlfriend, saying: "The alleged murder is disputed in the strongest possible terms."

Some details of Pistorius' argument and the state's case are expected Tuesday.]

The famed athlete's court appearance came as South African media reported that he shot Steenkamp, his girlfriend of several months, four times through a bathroom door.

Under South African law, a person who fatally shoots an intruder has to prove he or she had a reasonable fear that the intruder posed a real threat to his or her life.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of gun homicides in the world, with killings of women by intimate partners the leading cause of female homicide in the country. About 57% of female homicide victims were killed by their partners in 2009, according to a report last year by the Medical Research Council.

One-third of female homicides were committed by partners with a history of prior violence against their partners, according to the report.

Friends of Steenkamp and Pistorius mourned the incident on social media.

"Drained, confused, I just can't wrap my head around things," one of Pistorius’ close friends, Alex Pilakoutas, posted on Twitter.

Darren Fresco, who described himself as one of Steenkamp’s best friends said he was hoping to wake from a nightmare and hear her infectious laughter again.

"We were just goofing off the other day talking to each other in only the way that we could to each other. My heart is on the verge of exploding with the pain of such a sudden loss of one of my best friends," Fresco, who said he was one of the last people to exchange tweets with Steenkamp, posted on Facebook.

ALSO:

Oscar Pistorius remains in jail facing murder charge

Mexico finds fire-god figure at top of Pyramid of the Sun

Iranian general reportedly assassinated while traveling from Syria

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

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Judge sets May trial date for Kardashian divorce

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kim Kardashian has a due date for her baby and now a trial date for her divorce from NBA player Kris Humphries.

A judge on Friday set a May 6 trial for the reality TV star who wants to end her marriage before July, when her child with Kanye West is due.

Kardashian filed for divorce on Oct. 31, 2011, after she and Humphries had been married just 72 days. Their lavish, star-studded nuptials were recorded and broadcast by E! Entertainment Television.

The trial is expected to last three to five days and could reveal details about Kardashian's reality show empire, which includes "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" and several spinoffs.

Two judges determined Friday that Humphries' lawyers had adequate time to prepare for the trial.

Humphries wants the marriage annulled based on his claim that Kardashian only married him for the sake of her show.

She denies that allegation and says the case should be resolved through what would be her second divorce.

Humphries' attorney Marshall Waller asked for a delay until basketball season is over.

But Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon refused, saying firefighters, police officers, truck drivers and others have to miss work for trials, and Humphries must do the same if necessary.

Waller filed paperwork Thursday to withdraw from the case but didn't mention that development in court and refused to answer any questions about the document on Friday.

Waller said he was still hoping to obtain and review 13,000 hours of footage from Kardashian's reality shows to try to prove the fraud claim but noted he does not yet have an agreement to receive the footage.

Kardashian's lawyer said her client was ready for trial.

"Let's get this case dispensed with," attorney Laura Wasser said.

Humphries has provided a deposition in the case, as have West and Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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