Sex, love, surrogacy and 'Sessions'

BERKELEY, Calif. — Cheryl Cohen Greene likes to spend weekends close to home with her husband, Bob, a former postal worker. Often, they go hiking in the Berkeley Hills that surround their neighborhood, or watch movies in the living room of their modest duplex.

At 68, Greene is trim for her age and says she'd lose 10 pounds if she didn't love food so much. She's a devoted grandmother who frequently visits with her two children and grandchildren.

No one would guess that more than 900 people have paid to have sex with her.

Greene has worked as a surrogate partner therapist for 40 years. During one-on-one sessions at her home, which doubles as an office, she uses sensual touch to guide those who struggle with sex and intimacy issues. She almost always removes her clothes. And — yes — she sleeps with her patients. In the bed, by the way, that she shares with her spouse.

VIDEO | The Envelope Screening Series: 'The Sessions'

"For a long time, I didn't bring it up at cocktail parties," says Greene, who keeps hand-carved wooden statues of genitalia in the nooks and crannies of her home. A close look at her bookshelves reveals "The Guide to Getting It On" and hundreds of other sex-related titles, along with "Calorie Counting" and "The Big Book of Jewish Humor." A big Tupperware container labeled "Cheryl's Vitamins" rests on a coffee table.

"If people have an attitude about my job," she says, "I just feel sorry for them for not understanding that there's a difference between me and a prostitute."

Greene's career choice is getting newfound attention from "The Sessions," a movie based on the true story of Mark O'Brien, a journalist and poet paralyzed from the neck down. Greene, played in the film by Helen Hunt, was hired by the late O'Brien when he wanted to lose his virginity at age 38.

Not all of the attention is positive. Although some in the country's small community of sex surrogates are hopeful that "The Sessions" might inspire more people to join the profession, others say the movie does not accurately depict the career path and its therapeutic worth.

PHOTOS: Celebrity portraits by The Times

"I would never get naked in my first session with someone like Cheryl's character does in the movie," says Shai Rotem, a 43-year-old male surrogate, who began his career in his native Israel and now practices in Los Angeles. "We have to get to know one another first and develop a safe rapport."

Greene is one of fewer than 40 practicing partner therapists in the U.S. certified by the International Professional Surrogates Assn., a governing body for the industry.

Two decades ago, there were hundreds of surrogates working in the U.S. after sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson popularized the idea in their 1970 book "Human Sexual Inadequacy." With the rise of AIDS in the mid-1980s, many spouses of surrogates insisted their partners quit the profession.

"There's no law against it because the intent is not to exchange sex for money," says IPSA president Vena Blanchard. "These clients are paying tons of money to sit and talk and do breathing exercises and learn about their body. So much of the work has nothing to do with intercourse or arousal."

Greene, who speaks with a thick Boston accent, was born in Salem, Mass., grew up Catholic and converted to Judaism after marrying her first husband, Michael Cohen. She and Cohen had an open marriage, which in the 1970s wasn't unusual among their Bay Area peers. She also worked as a nude art model and walked around her home naked, even with her children in the room.

THE ENVELOPE: Coverage of the awards season

She first considered becoming a surrogate after a friend handed her a copy of the pseudonymous "Surrogate Wife: The Story of a Masters & Johnson Sexual Therapist and the Nine Cases She Treated." The friend told her, "I think you would be good at this work."

She learned to practice conjoint therapy — where two or more people work through issues together — from two therapists who trained with Masters and Johnson. Soon, she began answering calls for the San Francisco Sex Information hotline, and discovered how much she liked helping people with their sex-related questions.

"I wasn't even thinking about the fact that I'd be sleeping with strangers," she says of her decision to become a surrogate. "I just liked the idea of guiding people to be more relaxed about their sexuality."

Greene sits in her bedroom as she talks, and through the window's plantation shutters, her son's home is visible. He and his family live behind Greene's residence.

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Alt Text: How to Tell Real SEALs From Basement-Dwelling Posers

The White House recently congratulated the makers of Troop ID, a service designed to help online merchants securely identify members of the armed forces. This was a significant recommendation, the first software application to be publicly praised by the president since he canceled a 2009 press conference in order to play Doodle Jump.

While I’m happy that troops will be able to claim their 10 percent discount on water bottles and mock turtlenecks, I’m a bit disappointed that the service is apparently only being used in a retail context. After the whole Stolen Valor saga, you’d think there’d be a huge demand for a secure way to vet self-described vets.

Here’s a statistic: While there are only 2,500 active-duty Navy SEALs at any given time, there are approximately 4 million people claiming to be current or former Navy SEALs in various chat rooms and message boards on the internet. This is because any argument is 200 percent more convincing when presented by a Navy SEAL.

A couple of examples:

Unconvincing: “As a mall food court assistant supervisor, I believe that our mission in Afghanistan is necessary to the stability of the Middle East.”
Convincing: “As a Navy SEAL, I believe that our mission in Afghanistan is necessary to the stability of the Middle East.”

Unconvincing: “As a teaching assistant in comparative literature, I believe that The Silmarillion is vastly overrated by Tolkien fans.”
Convincing: “As a Navy SEAL, I believe that The Silmarillion is vastly overrated by Tolkien fans.”

With results like that, it’s no wonder that people are attempting to fraudulently win arguments by pretending to be members of elite military squads like the SEALs, the Green Berets, the Army Rangers and occasionally G.I. Joe. It seems to me that Troop ID could be used to distinguish the Special Forces from the basement-dwelling posers.

Once we have that technology in place, we could easily expand it to ferret out other internet pretenders. For instance, before you claim that you’re going to show up at someone’s house and beat them up, or argue that you’d have a mugger in a headlock before he could say “hand over the cash,” you’d be expected to use the ToughGuy ID service to certify that you have actually, at some point, won a fight that wasn’t against a sibling at least four years younger than you.

Our founding fathers created the First Amendment protections on free speech for a good reason: because it’s freaking hilarious.

Or before you can declare that the solution to the “fiscal cliff” crisis is obvious to anyone who knows anything about economics, you’d be expected to provide proof to Expert ID that your main credentials in economics aren’t limited to having seen both Atlas Shrugged movies.

I say “expected to” because I’m not saying that you would have to sign up for these services. Goodness no, my ludicrous and improbable fantasies aren’t that tyrannical. I believe that our founding fathers created the First Amendment protections on free speech for a good reason: because it’s freaking hilarious. There’s nothing more fun than watching someone weave ever-more-desperate lies to cover up their unwillingness to either put, or shut, up.

However, I do think there’s one vital concern that overrides the right to free speech: Before commenting on a humor column on the web, everyone should be required to take a simple test that would confirm that they have the basic human ability to recognize sarcasm and hyperbole.

- - -

Born helpless, naked and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg overcame these handicaps to become a commando, a commandant and a cormorant.

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Rolling Stones turn back clock with hit-filled comeback

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones turned back the clock in style on Sunday with their first concert in five years, strutting and swaggering their way through hit after familiar hit to celebrate 50 years in business.

Before a packed crowd of 20,000 at London‘s O2 Arena, they banished doubts that age may have slowed down one of the world’s greatest rock and roll bands, as lead singer Mick Jagger launched into “I Wanna Be Your Man”.

More than two hours of high-octane, blues-infused rock later, and they were still going strong with an impressive encore comprising “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.

In between there were guest appearances from American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige, who delivered a rousing duet with Jagger on “Gimme Shelter” and guitarist Jeff Beck who provided the power chords for “I’m Going Down”.

Former Rolling Stones Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor were also back in the fold, performing with the regular quartet of Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards on guitar and Charlie Watts on drums for the first time in 20 years.

“It took us 50 years to get from Dartford to Greenwich!” said Jagger, referring to their roots just a few miles from the venue in southeast London. “But you know, we made it. What’s even more amazing is that you’re still coming to see us…we can’t thank you enough.”

The Sunday night gig was the first of two at the O2 Arena before the band crosses the Atlantic to play three dates in the United States.

The mini-tour is the culmination of a busy few months of events, rehearsals and recordings to mark 50 years since the rockers first took to the stage at the Marquee Club on London‘s Oxford Street in July, 1962.

There has been a photo album, two new songs, a music video, a documentary film, a blitz of media appearances and a handful of warm-up gigs in Paris.

“STYLE AND PANACHE”

The reunion nearly did not happen. One factor behind the long break since their record-breaking “A Bigger Bang” tour in 2007 has been Wood’s struggle with alcohol addiction, while Jagger and Richards also fell out over comments the guitarist made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.

But they eventually buried the hatchet, and Richards joked in a recent interview: “We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!”

Critics were fulsome in their praise of the first comeback gig.

“Keith Richards has said that the beauty of rock and roll is that every night a different band might be the world’s greatest. Well, last night at the O2 Arena, it was the turn of the Rolling Stones themselves to lay claim to the title they invented,” wrote Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph.

“And they did it with some style and panache.”

The big question on every fan’s lips is whether the five concerts lead to a world tour and even new material. The Stones sang their two new tracks “Doom and Gloom” and “One More Shot”, which appeared on their latest greatest hits album “GRRR!”.

Richards has hinted that the five concerts ending at the Newark Prudential Center in the United States on December 15 would not be the last.

“Once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop,” he told Rolling Stone magazine. “So without sort of saying definitely yes – yeah. We ain’t doing all this for four gigs!”

The band has come in for criticism from fans about the high price of tickets to the shows – they ranged from around 95 pounds ($ 150) to up to 950 pounds for a VIP seat.

The flamboyant veterans, whose average age is 68, have defended the costs, saying the shows were expensive to put on, although specialist music publication Billboard reported the band would earn $ 25 million from the four shows initially announced. A fifth was added later.

“Everybody all right there in the cheap seats,” Jagger asked pointedly as he looked high to his left at the arena. “They’re not really cheap though are they? That’s the trouble.”

Among the biggest cheers on the night were for classics including “Wild Horses”, “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and “Start Me Up”.

There was even time for the odd reference to their advancing years.

“Good to see you all,” said Richards with a mischievous grin. “Good to see anybody.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Agency Investigates Deaths and Injuries Associated With Bed Rails

Thomas Patterson for The New York Times

Gloria Black’s mother died in her bed at a care facility.

In November 2006, when Clara Marshall began suffering from the effects of dementia, her family moved her into the Waterford at Fairway Village, an assisted living home in Vancouver, Wash. The facility offered round-the-clock care for Ms. Marshall, who had wandered away from home several times. Her husband Dan, 80 years old at the time, felt he could no longer care for her alone.

Thomas Patterson for The New York Times

Gloria Black, visiting her mother’s grave in Portland, Ore. She has documented hundreds of deaths associated with bed rails and said families should be informed of their possible risks.

But just five months into her stay, Ms. Marshall, 81, was found dead in her room apparently strangled after getting her neck caught in side rails used to prevent her from rolling out of bed.

After Ms. Marshall’s death, her daughter Gloria Black, who lives in Portland, Ore., began writing to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration. What she discovered was that both agencies had known for more than a decade about deaths from bed rails but had done little to crack down on the companies that make them. Ms. Black conducted her own research and exchanged letters with local and state officials. Finally, a letter she wrote in 2010 to the federal consumer safety commission helped prompt a review of bed rail deaths.

Ms. Black applauds the decision to study the issue. “But I wish it was done years ago,” she said. “Maybe my mother would still be alive.” Now the government is studying a problem it has known about for years.

Data compiled by the consumer agency from death certificates and hospital emergency room visits from 2003 through May 2012 shows that 150 mostly older adults died after they became trapped in bed rails. Over nearly the same time period, 36,000 mostly older adults — about 4,000 a year — were treated in emergency rooms with bed rail injuries. Officials at the F.D.A. and the commission said the data probably understated the problem since bed rails are not always listed as a cause of death by nursing homes and coroners, or as a cause of injury by emergency room doctors.

Experts who have studied the deaths say they are avoidable. While the F.D.A. issued safety warnings about the devices in 1995, it shied away from requiring manufacturers to put safety labels on them because of industry resistance and because the mood in Congress then was for less regulation. Instead only “voluntary guidelines” were adopted in 2006.

More warnings are needed, experts say, but there is a technical question over which regulator is responsible for some bed rails. Are they medical devices under the purview of the F.D.A., or are they consumer products regulated by the commission?

“This is an entirely preventable problem,” said Dr. Steven Miles, a professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, who first alerted federal regulators to deaths involving bed rails in 1995. The government at the time declined to recall any bed rails and opted instead for a safety alert to nursing homes and home health care agencies.

Forcing the industry to improve designs and replace older models could have potentially cost bed rail makers and health care facilities hundreds of million of dollars, said Larry Kessler, a former F.D.A. official who headed its medical device office. “Quite frankly, none of the bed rails in use at that time would have passed the suggested design standards in the guidelines if we had made them mandatory,” he said. No analysis has been done to determine how much it would cost the manufacturers to reduce the hazards.

Bed rails are metal bars used on hospital beds and in home care to assist patients in pulling themselves up or helping them out of bed. They can also prevent people from rolling out of bed. But sometimes patients — particularly those suffering from Alzheimer’s — can get confused and trapped between a bed rail and a mattress, which can lead to serious injury or even death.

While the use of the devices by hospitals and nursing homes has declined as professional caregivers have grown aware of the dangers, experts say dozens of older adults continue to die each year as more rails are used in home care and many health care facilities continue to use older rail models.

Since those first warnings in 1995, about 550 bed rail-related deaths have occurred, a review by The New York Times of F.D.A. data, lawsuits, state nursing home inspection reports and interviews, found. Last year alone, the F.D.A. data shows, 27 people died.

As deaths continued after the F.D.A. warning, a working group put together in 1999 and made up of medical device makers, researchers, patient advocates and F.D.A. officials considered requiring bed rail makers to add warning labels.

But the F.D.A. decided against it after manufacturers resisted, citing legal issues. The agency said added cost to small manufacturers and difficulties of getting regulations through layers of government approval, were factors against tougher standards, according to a meeting log of the group in 2000 and interviews.

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DealBook: New Breed of SAC Capital Hire Is at Center of Insider Trading Case

When Mathew Martoma walked onto the trading floor at SAC Capital Advisors six years ago, he represented a new breed of employee at the giant hedge fund.

Steven A. Cohen, SAC’s billionaire founder, had burnished his reputation as a market wizard by surrounding himself with hard-charging traders — many of them former college jocks and frat boys who thrived in the fund’s competitive, testosterone-fueled environment.

But the brainy and unassuming Mr. Martoma, armed with a Stanford business degree and an expertise in biomedicine, was part of a wave of SAC hires in a crack new research unit. They were just as driven but had more distinguished pedigrees, hailing from top investment banks and elite schools. They were drawn to the firm, in part, by the lavish annual bonuses Mr. Cohen bestowed upon his top performers, sometimes reaching into the tens of millions of dollars.

When Mr. Martoma walks into Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday morning, he will represent something else: the latest in a growing list of former SAC employees who find themselves accused of breaking the law.

The case against Mr. Martoma, made in a criminal complaint filed by the government last week, represents a watershed moment in its multiyear investigation of insider trading at SAC. For the first time, prosecutors have linked Mr. Cohen to trading activity that the government contends was illegal.

Mr. Martoma has rebuffed efforts by federal authorities to persuade him to plead guilty and cooperate, said a person briefed on the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the case. But if he were to “flip,” Mr. Martoma could help the government with its investigation of Mr. Cohen.

The government has placed Mr. Martoma, 38, at the center of what it calls the most lucrative insider-trading scheme it has ever uncovered. Mr. Martoma is charged with corrupting a doctor who had access to secret drug data, then using that information to gain profits and avert losses totaling $276 million. Mr. Martoma closely collaborated with Mr. Cohen on the questionable trades, prosecutors contend. Mr. Cohen, 56, of Greenwich, Conn., has not been charged, and there is no allegation that he knew the information was confidential. Through a spokesman, Mr. Cohen said that he had at all times acted appropriately.

Charles A. Stillman, a lawyer for Mr. Martoma, who will appear before a federal magistrate judge Monday, said he expected his client to be exonerated.

But with Mr. Martoma’s arrest last week, the clouds over SAC, which is based in Stamford, Conn., and Mr. Cohen have darkened. The government has now implicated five former SAC employees in its sweeping investigation into insider trading; three have admitted their crimes. Three other SAC alumni have also been charged with illegal trading after they left the firm; two have pleaded guilty.

Former employees of Mr. Cohen, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the case against Mr. Martoma highlighted SAC’s high-stress, pressure-packed culture. They described a ruthless place where those who helped Mr. Cohen make money would earn fortunes, while laggards could be fired abruptly, even for a single wrong-way trade.

Though SAC, with about 1,000 employees, manages about $14 billion in assets and has pushed into more esoteric investment strategies, at its core the firm buys and sells stocks. Mr. Cohen and his staff are known for relentlessly digging for information about publicly traded companies to form a “mosaic,” building a complete picture of the company’s prospects that gives the firm an edge over other investors.

SAC hired Mr. Martoma to help Mr. Cohen gain that edge. The son of Indian immigrants, Mr. Martoma was born Ajai Mathew Mariamdani Thomas, but changed his name in 2003, according to legal records. Raised in Merritt Island, Fla., outside Cape Canaveral, Mr. Martoma graduated summa cum laude from Duke University in 1995, where he studied biomedicine, ethics and public policy. After college, Mr. Martoma worked in Washington at the National Human Genome Research Institute.

He spent a year and a half at Harvard Law School, then dropped out to earn a business degree at Stanford University. He blended his passion for medicine and a desire to work on Wall Street by pursuing a career as a stock analyst covering health care companies. After a stint at a smaller hedge fund, Sirios Capital Management in Boston, Mr. Martoma joined SAC.

He became part of a new unit, CR Intrinsic, which was set up as a research engine of SAC. CR Intrinsic (the CR stands for Cumulative Return) was led by Matthew Grossman, an ambitious young analyst who became Mr. Cohen’s right-hand man. Mr. Grossman had worked at Tiger Management, the hedge fund known for its rigorous research and longer-term investment horizon.

With a deep network of contacts in the pharmaceutical and biotech fields, Mr. Martoma made a mark at CR Intrinsic. The volatile health care stocks in which Mr. Martoma specialized had long been favorites of Mr. Cohen’s, offering the potential for big returns through betting on the outcome of events like clinical trials for promising drugs.

To bolster his knowledge, Mr. Martoma tapped into expert-network firms, which employ consultants who match money managers with industry specialists, including public company employees.

For an information-driven hedge fund like SAC, the temptation to exploit the expert-network relationship was immense, two former employees said.

Two of the former SAC employees who have admitted to insider trading said they used expert-network firms to obtain secret information about public companies. And of the roughly 70 insider trading cases that federal prosecutors in Manhattan have brought in the last three years, more than a dozen have involved expert networks.

Mr. Martoma’s case began in 2006, when the expert-network firm Gerson Lehrman Group connected him to Sidney Gilman, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan and a specialist in Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Gilman, who moonlighted as a consultant for Gerson Lehrman, helped oversee clinical trials for bapineuzumab, or bapi, a new Alzheimer’s drug being jointly developed by Elan and Wyeth.

He also brazenly leaked to Mr. Martoma secret data about the trials throughout 2008, according to the government, violating his duty to the drug companies and breaching his agreement with Gerson Lehrman not to divulge confidential information to money managers. Dr. Gilman earned $108,000 from his work for SAC, the government said.

At first, Dr. Gilman’s positive updates on the Alzheimer’s drug trials emboldened SAC to make big bets on Elan and Wyeth, prosecutors said. Mr. Martoma worked closely with Mr. Cohen on the investments, highlighting the drug companies in his weekly “best ideas” list submitted to Mr. Cohen. SAC accumulated $700 million worth of Elan and Wyeth shares, making it one of the fund’s largest bets.

Prosecutors say that in July 2008 Dr. Gilman received more complete results about bapi showing problems with the drug’s efficacy. He then shared those results with Mr. Martoma, the government contends.

With the public announcement of the data just a week away, Mr. Martoma e-mailed Mr. Cohen on a Sunday, according to the complaint. Within the hour, the two were on the phone and spoke for 20 minutes, prosecutors say.

Over several days, SAC not only sold its entire positions in Elan and Wyeth, but shorted, or bet against, the drug companies’ shares, the government said. On July 29, the companies announced results of the drug trial and their shares sank. SAC avoided about $194 million in losses by selling the stocks and then made $83 million by shorting them, according to court filings. Still, SAC paid Mr. Martoma a $9.4 million bonus in 2008 that was largely attributable to his contributions on the Elan and Wyeth trades, prosecutors said. But the firm fired him in early 2010 after his stock picks flagged. The case against Mr. Martoma stemmed in part from a referral made to federal securities regulators. In 2008, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority observed unusual short-sales in the drug stocks and noted the abnormal activity, regulators said.

Prosecutors recently reached a nonprosecution agreement with Dr. Gilman, meaning they will not charge him. The Justice Department rarely strikes nonprosecution agreements with individuals. The government’s deal with Dr. Gilman, legal experts say, could put pressure on Mr. Martoma to strike a plea deal and cooperate.

Alain Delaquérière contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on 11/26/2012, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: New Breed of SAC Capital Hire Is at Center of Insider Trading Case.

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Attack on Pakistani Shia Muslims kills five, injures 70

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A bomb blast in northwest Pakistan killed five people and injured 70 others Sunday, provincial and local authorities said, the latest in a wave of attacks that have struck the country’s minority Shia Muslim community despite a host of stringent security measures, including wide-scale cellphone service bans and prohibitions on motorcycle riding in several cities.

The attack in Dera Ismail Khan was the second to strike the city of 119,000 this weekend and the fourth in five days directed at Shia Muslims as they commemorate the anniversary of the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad. A remote-controlled bomb planted in a shop exploded as a procession of Shia Muslims passed by, police said.  

On Saturday in Dera Ismail Khan, seven people were killed and 26 others injured by a remote-controlled bomb buried under a pile of garbage that exploded while a Shia Muslim procession moved past. Shia Muslims commemorate Imam Hussein’s death with large processions that wend their way through cramped neighborhoods in dozens of Pakistani cities, creating a formidable challenge for police assigned to provide security for the mourners.

No one had claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, though suspicion immediately focused on the Pakistani Taliban, the country’s homegrown insurgency. The group had previously said it was behind the wave of violence against Shia Muslims earlier in the week. The Shia Muslim community remains a prime target for the Pakistani Taliban and other Sunni militant groups, which regard Shia Muslims as heretics.

In one of the earlier attacks this week, a suicide bomber slipped into a procession of more than 150 Shia Muslims late Wednesday in the garrison city of Rawalpindi and detonated his explosives-filled vest, killing 23 people and injuring 62 others, according to Rawalpindi police. Earlier on Wednesday, militants detonated two bombs outside a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, killing two people and injuring 12 others.

Anticipating a spike in attacks, Pakistani officials late last week announced a series of restrictions aimed at curbing violence against Shia Muslims.

Cellphone service was suspended in dozens of Pakistani cities over the weekend, a measure aimed at preventing the use of cellphones as remote-control detonators. Because assailants often use motorcycles to carry out attacks, motorcycle riding was banned in Islamabad, the capital, and the southern cities of Hyderabad and Quetta. The Pakistani newspaper Express-Tribune reported that the northwest town of Haripur imposed a 15-day ban on the wearing of shawls and coats to prevent would-be attackers from hiding explosives and other weapons.

ALSO:

Suicide bomber kills 3, wounds 90, in Afghanistan attack

Middle East shifts may weaken Iran's influence with Palestinians

Clashes erupt, offices ablaze after Egypt president expands power

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Tracking Mars: Curiosity Makes Its Mark on the Red Planet

Since Curiosity landed on mars on Aug. 6, the rover has traveled hundreds of feet over the Martian surface. In the process, it has tracked up the sandy, dusty terrain, leaving tire marks, scoop divots, Morse code and one tiny piece of itself behind.

Unlike the Apollo astronauts' footprints on the moon, Curiosity's trails will probably be wiped away by the planet's frequent wind and sand storms. But there is still something so incredible about these little ephemeral marks we are making on another world.

Though the physical traces won't last, their impact lives on in the images the rover is sending back to Earth. Here are some of our favorite shots of Curiosity's tracks on Mars.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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Rolling Stones return to mark 50 years in music

LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones take to the stage later on Sunday after a five-year hiatus to celebrate the golden jubilee of one of the most successful and enduring bands in rock and roll history.

Now in their mid-60s to early 70s, lead singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and drummer Charlie Watts will perform five concerts – two at the O2 Arena in London on November 25 and 29 and three in the United States next month.

Joining them at the O2 on Sunday will be former band members Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor, the first time the two ex-Stones have performed with the group in more than 20 years.

And in a fresh announcement on Saturday, American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige and guitar great Jeff Beck have also been added to the lineup as special guests.

The flamboyant veterans behind a string of hits including “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” have promised a “stunning” gig lasting more than two hours.

A sellout crowd of some 20,000 people is expected, in spite of widespread complaints from fans at ticket prices that ranged from 95 pounds ($ 150) to up to 950 pounds for a VIP seat.

Costs went far higher on secondary ticketing websites, although by Friday eBay was offering several seats to Sunday’s show at below face value and there were places still officially available at around 400 pounds apiece.

The band has defended the prices, saying that the shows are expensive to put on, although Billboard, a specialist music publication, reported that the quartet would be paid $ 25 million for the four shows first announced. A fifth was added later.

BURST OF ACTIVITY

The concerts are the culmination of a busy few months of events, rehearsals and recordings to mark 50 years since the blues-infused rockers first took to the stage at the Marquee Club on London‘s Oxford Street in July, 1962.

There has been a photo album, two new songs, a music video, a documentary film, a blitz of media appearances and a handful of warm-up gigs in Paris.

The O2 Arena was where another top band of the 1960s and 70s, Led Zeppelin, staged an eagerly awaited one-off reunion in 2007, and while the Stones have appeared together far more regularly, it is their first arena performance in six years.

One factor behind the long break has been Wood’s struggle with alcohol addition, according to Rolling Stone magazine, while Jagger and Richards also fell out over comments the guitarist made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.

“We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!” joked Richards in a recent interview after apologizing to Jagger.

While the rock and roll excesses of the swinging 60s and 70s are in the past for the band, and their very best songs may be behind them, music critics praised their recent single “Doom and Gloom” from the “GRRR!” greatest hits album just released.

And there have been hints from the band that the five gigs which wind up at the Newark Prudential Center on December 15 may not be the end of their reunion.

“Once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop,” Richards told Rolling Stone. “So without sort of saying definitely yes – yeah. We ain’t doing all this for four gigs!”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Boxer Hector 'Macho' Camacho dies days after being shot in head

Hector “Macho” Camacho, a former three-division boxing champion who had 88 professional fights against a who’s who of legendary opponents stretching from Ray Mancini (whom he defeated in 1989) to Oscar De La Hoya (who beat him by decision in 1997), has died. He was 50.

Camacho was pronounced dead Saturday after being shot in the head four days earlier while seated in a car outside a bar in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Camacho’s condition deteriorated before his family opted to take him off life support.

Another man in the car, who had nine bags of cocaine in his possession, was also shot and immediately declared dead, according to the Associated Press.

PHOTOS: Hector “Macho” Camacho

Camacho, known for wearing outlandish trunks ranging from a leopard loin cloth to others adorned with lights or tassels, well understood the importance of selling a fight and employing some mental warfare.

Before fighting Mancini, he said, “I never did nothing to the character. How can he dislike a good-looking guy like me? It's jealousy. He can't even be in the same room with me because he knows he can't beat me mouth-to-mouth.”

The late Times columnist Jim Murray assessed the crowd-pleasing disparity between De La Hoya and Camacho like this:

“Oscar was winning a gold medal for his country, Macho was stealing one for himself. Oscar plays golf, Macho plays craps. He was a hyperactive child, and he's a hyperactive adult.

“He has a positive flair for rubbing people the wrong way, doing exactly what nobody wants. For instance, in his last fight, he committed the unpardonable sin of beating up Sugar Ray Leonard, no less. That's about as endearing to the public as burning the flag.”

Camacho’s theatrics were combined with an admirable desire to take on the best opponents possible. He faced the likes of Freddie Roach, Cornelius Boza Edwards, Rafael “Bazooka” Limon, Felix Trinidad, Roberto Duran and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. His overall record was 79-6-3.

Camacho was born in Bayamon on May 24, 1962, and moved to New York City with his family. His career launched after he admitted to stealing cars in Spanish Harlem as a youth, with one transgression forcing him to jail in Rikers Island, N.Y. There, he boxed other inmates and was so good, one asked a question that stuck with him: “What are you doing here?”

“When he was young, you couldn’t hit him, that’s why he won his first 50 fights,” veteran boxing publicist Bill Caplan said.

The success emboldened his flair for flamboyance, as former Times boxing writer Richard Hoffer captured in a 1985 story:

“His style of dress … is outlandish enough to make Liberace look reserved. He wears enough jewelry to make Mr. T look like a man who only dabbles in accessories. It must be great fun to watch Camacho walk through a metal detector.”

When Camacho suffered his first loss in a 1991 World Boxing Organization lightweight title bout against Greg Haugen at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, his personable nature shined.

“You’d think the guy would be devastated, but 15 minutes after the loss, he was back in press row for the second fight of the HBO doubleheader, shaking everyone’s hands,” Caplan said. “Just a happy-go-lucky guy who loved people.”

The flash wasn’t a mask to toughness. He was never knocked out.

Camacho’s grit was unmistakable to anyone who observed his 1992 beating in front of a sold-out Las Vegas fight crowd at the hands of Chavez Sr., Mexico’s greatest fighter who was at his peak when he pummeled Camacho with body shots en route to a unanimous decision.

De La Hoya knew the importance of beating up and knocking down Camacho in their 1997 bout:

“Listen, Chavez … and Felix Trinidad couldn't knock him out or drop him,” De La Hoya said afterward. “At least I dropped him.”

Camacho’s love of the sport was evident both in his desire to entertain beyond fisticuffs and instances such as his 1995 fight in the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.

There, recalled promoter Don Chargin, main-event fighter Camacho showing up with his hands wrapped, in a robe and colorful trunks to sit alongside off-night fighters and managers in complimentary seats to watch preliminary matches 90 minutes before his own bout against Tony Rodriguez.

“He just wanted to be with people,” Caplan said.

Camacho’s son, Hector Camacho Jr., is a middleweight boxer with a 54-5-1 record who most recently fought in July.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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How One <em>Myst</em> Fan Made Himself a Real-Life Linking Book

The classic PC game Myst was known for drawing people in to its massive, surreal world. But maker Mike Ando took a little piece of that world and drew it into ours. He made a lovingly authentic replica of the Linking Book that helps the main character — you — navigate the world.

Myst was a ground-breaking point-and-click adventure game created by Cyan Worlds, made of hundreds of beautifully rendered scenes whose combined size made the game so big that it needed a CD-ROM to play, back when many computers didn’t have them. It was the first breakout hit in PC gaming and from its release in 1993 it held the title of best-selling PC game until 2002 when The Sims surpassed it.

The game spawned four sequels, along with novels, music, and an MMO that is still online and being powered by donations from the fan base. The games have been widely ported and the game — once so huge that you needed special hardware to run it — is now available for download on iOS (among other places). In other words, it’s a pretty big deal.

At the core of Myst’s story was a mystical technology called Linking Books that pulled players into other realms, called Ages. They were these beautiful old tomes that, when opened, showed an animated preview of the Age to which you’d be linked.

“Ever since I first played the game, I always wanted my own linking book,” says Ando, “Of course, there was no way my old bulky 486 would fit within a book, but as time marched on technology advanced and computers became smaller. Eventually technology caught up and it was possible to shrink everything down to fit inside the book.”

Ando says his drive to make this project began six years ago when he learned where Cyan got the texture reference for the books — Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volume LIV, Issue 312, December 1876 to May 1877. “My mind hatched all sorts of plans about what I’d do once I had the book,” he says, “and finally I decided to set the bar as high as I could — all the Myst games, all playable, and playable well, even the 3-D ones at 30fps.”

To do this, Ando needed to perform two main feats. First, he needed to find the parts to make a computer that would fit in an extremely limited space. Then, he needed to restore the antique book, customize it to look like the ones from Myst, and gut it to make room for the compact computer that would power the game.

“Research was the main skill involved,” says Ando, “I spent hundreds of hours, literally, trying to find suitable components to meet all my requirements.”

To build the tiny computer that powers the Linking Book, Ando needed to find a X86 board that could fit inside. Most mobile devices run on ARM, but Ando wanted to run the original releases of each game, so porting wouldn’t do. It had to be X86.

“To give you an idea of how uncommon it is to shrink an X86 computer down this small,” he says, “the smallest X86 computer made by Apple, the Mac Mini, is 17 cm — this book is only 12 cm, plus I had to squeeze in my own power source and screen.”

The parts that made up the computer came from specialist vendors that ordinarily sell to aerospace and other niche enterprise customers. Ando ended up ordering a mixture of store-bought parts, and custom PCB layouts, soldering the whole thing together and switching out components between a bunch of boards to get the most efficient versions. He says he designed the touchscreen controller himself.

And as for the touchscreen itself? At one point in his search, he found himself talking to a vendor in China to arrange for a custom design. “His English skills were so poor I suggested we talk in Chinese and I used Google Translate, so I guess you could add that to my skills,” he says. “I suspect he just found one already to size and charged me as if they made it. If so, good for him — I couldn’t find one anywhere.”

For restoration and preparation of the book, Ando turned to Ian Bates, the president of the Australian Bookbinding Association. Bates handled the restoration of the cover, along with cutting the pages and embossing the book with the Myst logotype (but only after Ando had picked which of the several versions of the Myst font they should use).

If you find yourself gasping in horror at the idea that a book restorer would destroy a beautiful old book for a strange electronics project, Ando wants to assure you that nothing of value was lost. “The book I used is basically a cross between a Reader’s Digest & a gossip magazine and many of the articles are incomplete,” he says, “Today, books like this are sold to interior designers literally by the meter without any care given to their contents, author or title. Their main value rests on the aesthetics of their spine.”

Photos courtesy of Mike Ando.

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