AEG, Koreatown developer help fund L.A. sales tax campaign

The developer of a proposed downtown Los Angeles football stadium and the company behind two planned apartment towers in Koreatown have provided about two-thirds of the funds for the group backing a half-cent sales tax increase in the city, according to the first report released in the campaign.

The committee for Proposition A on the March 5 ballot reported that it had raised $185,000 by Jan. 19, with $100,000 coming from stadium developer Anschutz Entertainment Group. The City Council, which is seeking the tax increase to address a $220-million budget shortfall, approved AEG's proposed stadium last year, which involves the demolition and reconstruction of a section of the city's Convention Center.

An additional $25,000 came from 3150 Wilshire, a company created by real estate developer J.H. Snyder Co., which received $17.5 million in financial assistance to build two residential towers in Council President Herb Wesson's district.

Wesson, who launched the sales tax campaign last fall, has been raising money for the measure. Kacy Keys, senior vice president of J.H. Snyder, said Wesson is "a great leader" who has been pivotal in getting her company's Koreatown project off the ground.

"I know this [ballot measure] is Herb's effort, and we wish Herb well," she said.

The city provided a $12.5-million loan for J.H. Snyder's Koreatown development that can be repaid, in part, from new property taxes generated by the project, Keys said. An additional $5-million redevelopment loan does not need to be repaid until the developer sells or refinances the building, she said.

Wesson said he hopes to raise $2 million for the sales tax campaign and secure endorsements from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and others. "I think this is a very good start," he said.

Neighborhood activist Jack Humphreville, who signed the ballot argument opposing the sales tax increase, said Proposition A backers are getting big donations from companies that had received "special treatment" from the City Council.

The campaign contributions are "a cheap price for these special interests to pay."

AEG President and Chief Executive Tim Leiweke said Police Chief Charlie Beck asked him to help with the campaign but did not specify a dollar amount. Leiweke said he contributed out of a fear that the Los Angeles Police Department force would have to be reduced if Proposition A fails.

"I think, quite frankly, that it's difficult to keep on taxing businesses and individuals in the state of California. And if we're not careful, eventually we're going to make it difficult to do business in California and in the city of L.A.," Leiweke said. "That said, I don't see another path."

The Proposition A campaign also received $25,000 from Excel Paving, a company that has received city contracts in recent years, and $25,000 from Crew Knitwear, a Los Angeles-based apparel company.

A $10,000 donation came from a political action committee representing the California Assn. of Realtors. Real estate groups lobbied successfully last fall to stop Wesson and his colleagues from pursuing a ballot measure that would increase the tax on property sales.

Wesson and his colleagues went with the proposed sales tax increase instead.

david.zahniser@latimes.com

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Federal panel advises tighter controls on painkiller Vicodin

In a move to stem the epidemic of prescription drug deaths, a federal advisory panel has recommended tighter controls on a narcotic painkiller best known by the brand name Vicodin. It is the nation's most widely prescribed drug.

By a 19-to-10 vote, an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended Friday that the agency reclassify hydrocodone, the active ingredient in Vicodin, as a Schedule II narcotic, placing it in the same category as other widely abused medications, including OxyContin and fentanyl.

If the FDA approves the change, patients would be able to get fewer hydrocodone pills at one time, and there would be more restrictions on refills. In addition, pharmacies would have to follow stricter procedures for handling and storing the drug.

Schedule II is the government's most restrictive category for pharmaceuticals with accepted medical uses. Hydrocodone is now listed on Schedule III.

The United States consumes 99% of the hydrocodone produced worldwide, and doctors write more prescriptions for it than for the leading antibiotic and hypertension medications.

Prescription drugs — primarily narcotic painkillers such as hydrocodone — cause or contribute to more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. As a result, drug fatalities have surpassed deaths from motor vehicle crashes, long the leading cause of accidental death in this country.

A Los Angeles Times analysis of 3,733 prescription drug-related fatalities in Southern California from 2006 through 2011 found that hydrocodone was involved in 945 of the deaths, more than any other prescription medication.

Doctors have prescribed hydrocodone with few restrictions since it was introduced four decades ago. Because of the perception that it is less risky than other narcotic painkillers, it is widely prescribed by general practitioners and dentists.

Yet drug enforcement officials have long complained that hydrocodone was highly addictive and widely abused.

For years, the FDA resisted tightening the rules on its use out of concern that doing so would make it more difficult for patients with legitimate pain to obtain the drug. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration asked the agency to reconsider in light of the drug's widespread availability on the black market.

Earlier this week, the American Academy of Pain Medicine sent the FDA advisory panel a letter saying that although it had some concern that tighter rules could curtail legitimate prescribing, it did not oppose moving hydrocodone to Schedule II.

Morgan Liscinsky, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said she could not say when the agency would act on the recommendation.

In seeking to stem the increase in fatal drug overdoses, authorities have focused on how addicts and drug dealers obtain prescription narcotics illegally, such as by stealing from pharmacies or relatives' medicine cabinets. Recent articles in The Times, however, reported that many overdoses stem from drugs prescribed for the deceased by a doctor.

In nearly half of the prescription drug fatalities in four Southern California counties, medications prescribed by physicians caused or contributed to the death, according to a Times analysis of coroners' records.

Seventy-one doctors, a tiny fraction of all practicing physicians in the four counties, were associated with a disproportionate number of deaths.

In response to the articles, the Medical Board of California has appealed to the public to report instances of excessive prescribing, and legislative leaders, including the president of the California Senate, have promised to give the board more investigators and greater authority to stop reckless prescribing.

lisa.girion@latimes.com

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Venezuela prison riot leaves dozens dead

A handout photo by El Informador newspaper shows emergency crews tending an injured person at the Barquisimeto city hospital in northeast Venezuela after a prison riot that left dozens dead. (Misael Castro / EPA / January 25, 2013)

From the Associated Press

January 25, 2013, 10:31 p.m.

CARACAS, Venezuela—

Venezuelan media reported Friday that dozens were killed in a bloody prison riot, and the government said it was investigating.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro called the violence tragic early Saturday on television and said the authorities had launched an investigation.

He and other officials did not give a death toll from the riot at Uribana prison in the central city of Barquisimeto.

The newspaper Ultimas Noticias reported on its website that 54 were killed. The television channel Globovision reported about 50 killed. Both cited Ruy Medina, the director of Central Hospital in the city, who also said that dozens were hurt.

Penitentiary Service Minister Iris Varela said earlier on television that the riot broke out when groups of inmates attacked National Guard troops who were attempting to carry out an inspection.

Varela said the violence had affected a number of prisoners and officials, but said the authorities would hold off until control had been re-established at the prison to confirm the toll. She said the government decided to send troops to search the prison after receiving reports of clashes between groups of inmates during the past two days.

The death toll provided by Medina rose late Friday after he had initially reported four killed and dozens injured.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles condemned the government's handling of the country's overcrowded and violent prisons.

"Our country's prisons are an example of the incapacity of this government and its leaders. They never solved the problem," Capriles said on his Twitter account. "How many more deaths do there have to be in the prisons for the government to acknowledge its failure and make changes?"

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Death sentences in Egypt soccer riot spark clashes

CAIRO -- Deadly clashes erupted in the Egyptian city of Port Said after 21 soccer hooligans were sentenced to death for killing rival fans in a riot last year that became a dangerous subplot to the nation's wider unrest and political schisms.

Gunshots and tear gas volleys rang out between security forces and supporters of the Masry soccer club after the verdicts were read. Relatives of the accused attempted to storm the jail where soccer fans and former police officials charged in the 2012 stadium melee are imprisoned.

Two police officers and five protesters were reported killed Saturday. [Updated, 7:01 a.m. Jan. 26: Later reports raised the toll to at least 22 dead, 20 of them protesters.] Mobs ran through the streets chanting, "Oh, you dirty government." Tensions intensified over fears that angry bands of men would take up guns, which have streamed onto Egypt's black market from Libya and other countries.

By late morning, the Egyptian army had deployed to Port Said to protect the prison and other government buildings.

The violence, which followed Friday's deadly protests against the Islamist-led government, revealed how frayed and desperate Egypt has become two years after the toppling of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The verdict in the soccer riot case was nervously anticipated as another flashpoint for bloodshed.

The accused Masry fans were charged in the deaths of 74 fans from Cairo's Ahly soccer club during a match in Port Said last February. Hardcore Ahly supporters, known as Ultras, had in recent days threatened to attack police and government institutions across the country if death penalties were not handed down.

Former police officers charged in the case are expected to be sentenced in March. The Ahly Ultras claim security forces orchestrated the stadium attack as retribution for the group's long resistance to the police state and its role in the uprising that brought down Mubarak. The Ultras said Saturday they would not react until the sentencing of 54 other defendants, including the former officers.

  "We are waiting for the March 9 verdict," said an Ultra fan who asked not to give his name. "This fight was between us and those responsible from the military, police, and government. We vowed retribution or chaos. We will take our revenge."

 The father of one of those killed in the stadium riot was happy with Saturday's sentencing.

"We are satisfied with this verdict and God willing the rest of the defendants will receive the same sentence," said Bassem El Dessouky. "I thank God first and then the Ultras, they are respectful youth who helped us and stood by us every step of the way."

But across Port Said women wailed and men raced through the streets in rage. Many said that that the verdicts made scapegoats of the fans while postponing the fates of former police and security officers. Masry supporters believe former members of the Mubarak regime instigated the soccer riot to destabilize the country.

"The police are thugs!" families yelled inside the courtroom before the verdict was read. 

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com  

 

 

 

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China's smog taints economy, health

BEIJING — When a thick quilt of smog enveloped swaths of China earlier this month, it set in motion a costly chain reaction for the world's No. 2 economy.

Authorities canceled flights across northern China and ordered some factories shut. Hospitals were flooded with hacking patients.

A fire in an empty furniture factory in eastern Zhejiang province went undetected for hours because the smoke was indistinguishable from the haze. In coastal Shandong province, most highways were closed for fear that low visibility would cause motorists to crash. And in Beijing, the local government urged residents to remain indoors and told construction sites to scale back activity.

Photos: Smog in China

"These are emergency measures that have the same economic impact as a strike or severe weather," said Louis Kuijs, a Hong Kong-based economist with the Royal Bank of Scotland and formerly of the World Bank. "They're very painful."

Residents in the capital have taken to mocking their famously filthy air and its attendant health hazards with the expression "Beijing cough." Meanwhile, Shanghai's Environmental Protection Bureau has introduced a cartoon mascot to communicate daily air quality on its website: a pig-tailed girl who bursts into tears when smog reaches hazardous levels.

But economists say China's smog is no joke. As air pollution continues to obscure China's cities, the cost to the nation in lost productivity and health problems is soaring. The World Bank estimates sickness and early death sapped China of $100 billion in 2009, or just under 3% of gross domestic product. China is now home to seven of the 10 most-polluted cities in the world, according to a report by the Asian Development Bank and Beijing's Tsinghua University.

A study by Greenpeace and Peking University's School of Public Health put the cost of healthcare to treat pollution-related ailments in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xian at more than $1 billion last year.

Beijing resident Zhang Jian takes his 2-year-old son to a doctor regularly to treat the toddler's chronic sinus infection.

"It's definitely related to the pollution," said Zhang, 35, who wore a disposable mask at an overcrowded children's hospital recently. "My son snores and his nose is blocked constantly. It's a problem because he's too young to clear his nose like adults."

The doctor's visit and treatment cost Zhang about $320 — nearly a week's pay for the IT professional.

The Beijing government says it's considering a host of emergency measures to clear the air. Among them: limiting vehicle usage, spraying building sites to reduce dust and restricting outdoor barbecue grills.

Even China's next premier, Li Keqiang, weighed in recently on the issue. "This is a problem accumulated over a long period of time, and solving the problem will also require a long time. But we need to take action."

China's smog crisis is not unlike those experienced in London and Los Angeles in the 1950s. Public outcry ultimately led to cleaner air and tougher environmental regulations.

Environmental activists hope the same happens in China. The official response in recent weeks has raised optimism that authorities will begin addressing pollution more openly.

Until recently, state media was loathe to use the word "pollution," opting instead for the euphemism "fog."

But popular pressure is building, making it harder for policymakers to ignore the foul air in many of China's largest cities.

After the staggeringly bad bout of air pollution in the middle of this month, micro-bloggers took to posting pictures of themselves online wearing masks.

Some held handwritten signs that read, "I don't want to be a human vacuum cleaner."

The phrase became the top-trending topic on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo, attracting several million hits.

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Senate approves modest filibuster changes

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WASHINGTON — The Senate approved changes to the filibuster Thursday night, adopting modest limits on the partisan obstruction that has ground action in the chamber to a near standstill.

But the deal reached between the Senate's two leaders — Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — fell far short of sweeping reforms sought by liberal senators and their allies. Left out was the requirement that senators who want to filibuster must remain on the Senate floor, talking the whole time, as Jimmy Stewart's character famously did in Frank Capra's movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

The Senate adopted two packages to alter the procedural rules increasingly employed to thwart legislation and White House nominees. One provision will allow bills to be more quickly brought up for debate. Another will limit discussion on certain White House nominations. The changes were overwhelmingly approved, 78 to 16 and 86 to 9, with dissent mainly from conservative Republicans.

"It's not everything I wanted," said Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who led efforts to change the filibuster with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). "This is a small step, but it's a step that moves us in a better direction."

The last few years have seen skyrocketing numbers of filibusters in what has become an escalating procedural arms race. In recent years, Republicans, seeking to block Democrats from pursuing their agendas, have relied heavily on the tactic. In previous years, Democrats employed the filibuster to obstruct President George W. Bush.

A filibuster ties the chamber in knots because it only comes to an end with a 60-vote supermajority, which has proved difficult to achieve with a closely divided Senate in this partisan era. Even if that supermajority is reached, procedures require at least three days for each filibuster to be overcome.

"Too often over the past four years, a single senator or a handful of senators has been able to unilaterally block or delay bipartisan legislation for the sole purpose of making a political point," President Obama said in a statement after the vote. "I am hopeful that today's bipartisan agreement will pave the way for the Senate to take meaningful action in the days and weeks ahead."

Democrats could have used their Senate majority to ram through a rules change at the start of the new Congress — or any time during this session. But they hesitated to provoke McConnell, a shrewd operator who would surely have retaliated.

"It just would have been thermonuclear war," said Jim Manley, a former top aide to Reid who is now a Democratic strategist.

The agreement forged between Reid and McConnell should help move legislation more swiftly in the ponderous chamber.

Senators gave up their ability to filibuster — or hold endless debate — on the procedural step required to take up legislation on the Senate floor. In exchange, both sides were guaranteed the right to offer two amendments to the bill — a particularly important provision for the minority Republicans, who say they are forced to filibuster because Reid prevents them from trying to amend bills with provisions Democrats dislike.

Although senators can still filibuster the actual bill, eliminating their ability to block this procedural step will cut days off the process.

Over the years, senators, many of whom are senior citizens, have reached a gentlemen's agreement not to press the requirement that they remain on the floor talking to filibuster, as South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond once did for more than 24 hours straight during the battles over civil rights legislation.

One aspect of the "talking filibuster" will be implemented, however: Once the 60-vote threshold is reached to end a filibuster and begin voting on a bill, a senator who refuses to waive the required 30 hours of final debate will need to stay on the floor and keep speaking. But that provision was included as a gentlemen's agreement, rather than an official rules change.

"The incremental 'reforms' in the agreement do not go nearly far enough to deliver meaningful change," said a statement from Fix the Senate Now, a coalition of legal scholars and liberal activists that pushed for reforms. Others had wanted the Senate to do away with the 60-vote threshold completely, pointing to changes in 1975 that dropped the two-thirds supermajority requirement to 60.

Also approved was a provision to speed confirmation of most presidential nominees, who are routinely held up as leverage to extract other concessions from the White House.

If a nominee can clear the 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster, debate time will be reduced from 30 hours to two for district court judges and to eight hours for sub-Cabinet positions. The lower limits would not apply to nominees for the Cabinet or higher courts.

Another provision reduces the number of filibusters that can be used to delay a conference committee, which is needed to reconcile differences between House- and Senate-passed bills.

The filibuster has been a storied part of Senate history, and the ability to cut off debate with a supermajority did not come about until 1917. Veteran senators have been hesitant to change the rules of the Senate, a chamber the forefathers designed to move more slowly than the fiery House.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

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Coachella 2013: Blur, Phoenix, Red Hot Chili Peppers to headline

Last year the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival used technological trickery to make it look as if Tupac Shakur had been brought back to life. So what do you do for an encore to one of pop music's biggest magic shows? Coachella organizers have turned to reunited Brit-pop act Blur and one of L.A.'s longest-running rock acts in the Red Hot Chili Peppers to anchor its 2013 festival. 

Blur will be joined by reunited countrymates the Stone Roses, rock act the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, legend Lou Reed, French pop band Phoenix and Trent Reznor's How to Destroy Angels at the top of the bill for the dual Coachella festivals, set for the weekends of April 12 and April 19 in the desert city of Indio. Other upper-tier artists include Modest Mouse, a double-dose of Nick Cave (performing with Grinderman and the Bad Seeds), Yeasayer and Skrillex project Dog Blood. 

Held at the Empire Polo Grounds since its 1999 inception, Coachella has a reputation for presenting a heavily curated lineup that connects the dots among  hitmakers, underground artists and those on the comeback trail, all within an unique desert setting that's increasingly becoming more resort-like, with upscale options to match (at the highest end of the VIP configurations there are $6,500 air-conditioned tents).   

LINE UP: Closer look at this year's poster

The year's lineup once again features a bundle of veteran artists and beloved cult acts, including the long-awaited return of the Postal Service, the electro-pop act featuring L.A. electronica producer Jimmy Tamborello and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard. The Postal Service released one album 10 years ago, but has been largely dormant since.

Other veteran acts looking for a Coachella victory lap include new wave act New Order, alt-act the Violent Femmes, pop-punk band the Descendents and the return of celebrated local hip-hop group Jurassic 5. Also appearing are Orange County punk heroes Social Distortion and rap act the Wu-Tang Clan, who are appearing at Coachella in celebration of its 20th anniversary. 

For those looking to Coachella as a predictor of future, the lineup is once again rounded out with an assortment of buzz acts. Among the highlights: Wild Belle's dapper, tech-savvy mix of Island grooves and studio gleam, the bluesy hip-hop of Kids These Days, soul singer Allen Stone and the dreamy electronics of Purity Ring.

The appeal for the industry is simple. "They pay you lots of money, and there's a large captive audience," said Laura Ballance, co-founder of North Carolina indie label Merge Records.

Remaining tickets will go on sale Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 10 a.m. via the official Coachella website. The bulk of tickets were sold last May. Those interested in attending the first weekend must also commit to purchasing a shuttle pass. During the May sale, a wristband and a shuttle pass went for $399. Three-day wristbands for the second weekend will start at $349 and VIP options are available for $799 and up.

As in previous years, Goldenvoice will follow its Coachella festival with the country-focused Stagecoach Festival, set for the weekend of April 26. This is the final year of Goldenvoice's contract with the city of Indio.

Goldenvoice, a subsidiary of AEG Live!, is in the process of seeking a long-term agreement with Indio through 2030, and a decision is expected in February. Residents have through Feb. 11 to express whether they support or oppose the contract extension, which would allow Goldenvoice to stage an additional two festivals in the fall.

The company in 2012 doubled its Coachella crowd by expanding to two weekends, and added a third day to the Stagecoach festival. The aggregate attendance at the desert festivals passed half a million for the first time, reaching 650,000.

The dual Coachellas grossed more than $47 million, according to data from Billboard Boxscore, the highest box office total ever for a festival. The industry trade reported that more than 80,000 passes were sold for the first Coachella weekend in 2012 and about 77,000 were sold for the second.

The festival's popularity is such that the act of simply announcing the lineup has become an event unto itself. With an audience already committed to attending long before the lineup is revealed, pre-Coachella questions have shifted.

TIMELINE: Coachella through the years

For instance, it's no longer a mystery as to whether the event will sell out (Coachella has sold out three years running), but rather whom festival-goers will be seeing. It counts as news, for instance, when an artist releases tour dates with a not-so conspicuous hole around the Coachella weekends. Such was the case with the mysteriously moody Bat for Lashes and the finely tuned pop of Grizzly Bear.

Mock Coachella posters have long been an annual ritual – some relatively accurate, and some touting an all "hologram" lineup – and this year the Coachella message boards even birthed a fake news story. This week a hoax article that was said to have originated from this newspaper's website was posted and picked up by other media outlets.

For weeks prior to the announcement it was rumored Coachella would be among the stops on the Rolling Stones' 50th anniversary trek. Speculation began in mid-December when a purported screenshot from the Rolling Stones smartphone app listed Indio among the band's dates. When the official Coachella Facebook page posted what appeared to be a stone on the Empire Polo Grounds, it was taken as a not-so-subtle hint from promoters that the Glimmer Twins were bound for the Colorado Desert in April.

But it wasn't to be. Still, Coachella will be relying on overseas artists to carry its fest. The gleaming Parisian pop band Phoenix, fest veterans, will return in a headlining slot anchoring Coachella's Saturday evenings, and the opening nights will rely on British co-headliners the Stone Roses and Blur. 

Coachella will mark the first U.S. performance by Blur since the band reunited for 2009 shows at London's Hyde Park. Blur leader Damon Albarn has appeared as a Coachella headliner with his other band Gorillaz, but it was Blur that throughout the '90s created the kind of genre-blurring catalog that set the stage for the anything-goes, multiday feel of destination events like Coachella, Outside Lands in San Francisco, and Lollapalooza in Chicago.

The Stone Roses will also be making their first U.S. appearance since they reunited.

Coachella is considered the start of the annual summer festival season and has positioned itself as one of the premier music events in the country. But the festival market is a crowded one. This week New York City's June Governor's Ball revealed a lineup that includes much Coachella overlap, including Grizzly Bear, the xx, the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and Local Natives. 

Coachella launched in October 1999 and has been staged in the spring annually since 2001. In 2007, it was joined by Stagecoach.

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Palmdale woman accused of torturing her children

Neighbors of a Palmdale woman charged with assaulting and torturing two of her children said Thursday that they never even realized she had kids.

The siblings — a boy, 8, and girl, 7 — did not play outside and were rarely seen, said Cynthia Otero, who runs a day care center at a home opposite the house in the 39000 block of Clear View Court where Ingrid Brewer is alleged to have mistreated the youngsters.

Otero said that when she recently spotted the children getting out of a car, she thought Brewer, 50, "might be baby-sitting."

So neighbors in the suburban cul-de-sac were the more shocked when word spread that Brewer was arrested on suspicion of crimes against her children, she said. Brewer is being charged with eight felony counts, including torture, assault with a deadly weapon and cruelty to a child.

According to authorities, Brewer reported the children missing Jan. 15, prompting a search by deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Palmdale Station. The youngsters were found hours later hiding under a blanket near a parked car on a street close to their home. They were without winter clothes in 20-degree weather, authorities said.

Sgt. Brian Hudson, a spokesman for the sheriff's Special Victims Bureau, said the children told investigators they ran away because Brewer deprived them of food, locked them in separate bedrooms when she went to work each day, bound their hands behind their backs with zip ties and beat them with electrical cords and a hammer. The youngsters also said that when they were locked in the bedrooms and needed to use the bathroom, they instead had to use wastebaskets, Hudson said.

They fled because "they were tired of being tied up and beaten," Hudson said.

Hudson said both children had injuries consistent with the alleged abuse, including marks on their wrists indicating they had been restrained and "numerous bruising and abrasions over their bodies." They told investigators the mistreatment had been happening since Halloween.

Neighbors interviewed by authorities said they had never noticed anything suspicious but "hardly ever saw the two children," Hudson said. Otero and another neighbor said Brewer did not make friends on the block.

Otero said Brewer was "unfriendly" and typically ignored verbal greetings and waves.

According to sheriff's officials, Brewer, a certified nursing assistant who works in Los Angeles and has adult children, adopted the young siblings about a year ago from foster care. They were home schooled.

Neil Zanville, a spokesman for the county Department of Children and Family Services, said his agency was legally prohibited from disclosing any case-specific information about past or present clients. But in a written statement, the agency's director, Philip Browning, called the report disturbing.

"While we cannot confirm or deny whether this family is under our supervision, I am personally looking into this situation to determine what role, if any, our department had in these children's lives," Browning said.

Sheriff's officials said Thursday that the children were "doing great" despite their injuries.

Otero lamented that they had been made to suffer.

"It's just so sad," said the neighbor, who has a 5-year-old daughter and 8-year-old twins. "I wish they would have knocked on my door. I would have helped them."

Brewer is in the custody of the Sheriff's Department, with bail set at $2 million. She is scheduled to appear in court Thursday, Hudson said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

Times staff writer Kate Mather contributed to this report.

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Leon Panetta caps a career of toppling barriers

WASHINGTON — Leon E. Panetta was an obscure government lawyer in 1970 when President Nixon's administration forced him to resign for enforcing civil rights and equal education laws too aggressively — an episode that helped launch his political career.

On Thursday, he signed an order at the Pentagon to allow women to serve in ground combat units for the first time in U.S. military history, a goal that aides say he was determined to accomplish before stepping down as secretary of Defense.

In many respects, removing the last legal gender barrier in America's armed forces falls into the same category as the desegregation of the military after World War II. Panetta's order transforms an institution that had excluded women from some of the most dangerous jobs — and thus blocked them from promotion to higher ranks.

"Today, every American can be proud that our military will grow even stronger with our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters playing a greater role in protecting this country we love," President Obama said in a statement.

He said he had called Panetta to express his "strong support for this decision."

At 75, Panetta is perhaps best known as the CIA director who presided over the military raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011. He was memorably portrayed as a foul-mouthed, steely leader by James Gandolfini in the Oscar-nominated film "Zero Dark Thirty." He had been elected to Congress nine times as a Democrat from Monterey, and was a highly regarded budget director and White House chief of staff under President Clinton.

But his decision to stop barring hundreds of thousands of women from combat jobs may be the most personally satisfying for the son of Italian immigrants who talks in almost every speech about expanding opportunities for future generations.

"One of my priorities … has been to remove as many barriers as possible for dedicated and qualified people to be able to serve their country in uniform," he told reporters at the Pentagon minutes before signing the order.

The job of integrating women more fully will fall to Panetta's successor, former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), assuming he wins Senate confirmation after hearings that begin Jan. 31, and especially to the armed services themselves. Although the American public increasingly opposes discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, the task is likely to prove difficult and lengthy.

"This will be a significant change … a bigger impact and a more significant cultural stretch on the services, particularly the Army and Marines," said retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, former commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies, compared the challenge to President Truman's 1948 executive order to desegregate the military. It took the wars in Korea and Vietnam to produce truly integrated fighting units, and it may take a decade or longer for women to crack into elite infantry units.

"There's still a lot to be done, but this is not the America of 1950. It's not the America of 2000, for that matter," Cordesman said. "And you have to say that in both cases it's a better America."

An Army intelligence officer during the 1960s, Panetta represented Ft. Ord in Congress, and one of his sons was in the Naval Reserves. But he had little daily contact with the operational military until he was appointed in 2006 to the Iraq Study Group, a congressionally mandated panel formed to suggest options for turning around the failing war in Iraq.

In briefings and in trips by panel members to Iraq, Panetta noticed the increasing role that female soldiers and Marines played in the conflict, according to an aide. When Obama named him to head the CIA in 2009, women comprised nearly half of the agency's workforce and were playing key roles in many counter-terrorism operations, including the hunt for Bin Laden. Panetta was also deeply affected by a suicide attack on a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan in December 2009 that killed seven officers, including two women, an aide said.

When he arrived at the Pentagon in July 2011, Congress already had repealed the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" law that barred gays and lesbians from serving openly. It fell to Panetta to formally end that ban, which the Marine commandant and several other senior officers initially wanted to preserve.

They came to support the repeal, despite warnings from some Republican lawmakers that it would harm military readiness, especially in combat units. Today, even former critics of the change say those fears have proved unfounded. That encouraged Panetta and his team to push ahead with other sweeping social changes.

In early 2012, Panetta opened about 14,500 combat positions to women, allowing them to be assigned to support jobs at the battalion level in the Army and Marines. His spokesman, George Little, promised publicly that more changes were coming.

When Panetta traveled to U.S. bases in Afghanistan or visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center outside Washington, he saw male and female soldiers side by side.

"Every time I visited the war zone, every time I've met with troops, reviewed military operations, and talked to wounded warriors, I've been impressed with the fact that everyone — everyone, men and women alike — everyone is committed to doing the job. They're fighting and they're dying together," he said Thursday.

Panetta said he began talking about lifting the ban on women in meetings with the Joint Chiefs in the "Tank," the secure conference room one floor below the Defense secretary's third-floor suite in the Pentagon.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who took office in late 2011, said he realized female soldiers were playing a greater role when he climbed into a Humvee as a two-star division commander in Iraq and found a woman at the turret gun.

"I slapped the turret gunner around the leg, and I said, 'Who are you?'" Dempsey said. "And she leaned down and said, 'I'm Amanda.' And I said, 'Ah, OK.' So, female turret-gunner protecting division commander. And it's from that point on that I realized something had changed, and it was time to do something about it."

Late last year, the chiefs formally recommended lifting the ban, with the stipulation that they have until 2016 to open all jobs to women and that they could seek to restrict certain jobs. But the Defense secretary would have to personally approve exceptions.

Panetta accepted the plan a few weeks ago, but delayed a public announcement until Thursday. He is expected to leave office next month and retire to his Carmel Valley walnut farm.

"There have been some tough challenges along the road in facing every barrier, whether it was racial barriers, which we've overcome, the 'don't ask, don't tell,' dealing with women," Panetta said. "I feel very confident that we can make this work."

david.cloud@latimes.com

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Ken Dilanian in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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Obama to name new White House chief of staff

President Barack Obama has chosen trusted adviser and national security expert Denis McDonough as his fifth chief of staff.

By Kathleen Hennessey

January 25, 2013, 7:37 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama will name Denis McDonough as the new White House chief of staff and announce other changes to his staff Friday afternoon, a White House official said.

McDonough is deputy national security advisor and a trusted advisor to the president, particularly on matters of foreign policy. He joined the Obama team during the 2008 presidential campaign after years as a Capitol Hill aide.

The new job will broaden McDonough's role in the White House beyond diplomacy and foreign affairs. He coordinated the president's policy to scale back the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan and was involved in the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. He also dealt with political fallout after the U.S. diplomatic mission was attacked in Libya.

McDonough will replace Jacob Lew, Obama's nominee to lead the Treasury Department.

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McDonough, a Minnesota native, graduated from St. John's University and earned a master's degree in foreign service from Georgetown University. He worked as foreign policy advisor for Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle and was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, before serving as a foreign policy advisor on Obama's first presidential campaign.

Obama will announce the new appointments at shortly after noon in the East Room of the White House.

Rob Nabors, the White House legislative liaison, will be named deputy White House chief of staff for policy. Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer will be named senior advisor, while Jennifer Palmieri will take Pfeiffer's title, the official said.

Staff writer Christi Parsons contributed to this report.

PHOTOS: A look ahead at 2013's political battles

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Kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Twitter: @khennessey

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