Special Time Science

EDITOR'S NOTE: AP reporter Elliot Spagat follows Tijuana's new public safety chief, Julian Leyzaola, for eight months as he launches the city's most aggressive police reform to date, in the middle of a raging drug war.
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TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Behind every crime is a corrupt cop.
That's Public Safety Secretary Julian Leyzaola's mantra as he storms Tijuana with its most aggressive police reform to date, a mix of counterterrorism and community policing. If it works, it could be a model for other hotspots and a huge breakthrough in a drug war in Mexico that has taken more than 14,000 lives in the last three years.
But the job is as monumental as turning around Al Capone's Chicago. Cops in this border city and many others nationwide now serve as the eyes and ears of drug lords. And those who fight the cartels — let alone those who lead that fight — often end up dead.
Leyzaola, 49, wanted to be in Tijuana. After 25 years in the army and stints running Baja California's state prisons and police, he moved to the police department in 2007 to be at the center of the fight against organized crime. A year ago, he became head of the largest police force in Baja, where 90 percent of officers surveyed last year failed federal security checks.
The Associated Press followed Leyzaola for eight months as he rallied troops, consoled officers' widows and appealed to jaded residents for support. The AP joined commanders and officers on patrol, at target practice and in training classes.
"Listen well," the retired military officer says with his trademark certitude. "No delinquent can survive without help from the authorities. If you do not clean up the police, you will never get rid of drug trafficking."
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Leyzaola's march to recapture the city starts in early 2009 and expands to a new district every three months. The plan is to begin in quieter areas and end in 2011 in the east, the city's most violent section, where Teodoro "El Teo" Garcia Simental wages a vicious campaign to take over Tijuana's drug trade from the Arellano Felix family.
Leyzaola draws his strategy from many sources, including French counterterrorism operations in Algeria in the 1950s and Colombia's war against its cartels in the '90s. He has $7 million in federal money this year, part of the $300 million President Felipe Calderon is giving to clean up police nationwide.
The plan for each district: First, a strike force is sent to make a slew of arrests. Then beat cops are replaced by officers who pass intensive background checks, and former military officers take over as commanders.
They patrol small areas in new pickup trucks with radios less vulnerable to interference by drug traffickers. And they are reprimanded before their peers for every unanswered crime.
"If there are drug dealers, prostitutes, illegal immigrants, robberies, if anything happens ... I'm going after that officer," says Leyzaola, a former lieutenant colonel.
First up is downtown Tijuana.
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In March, Felipe Gandara receives the order to show up for the downtown launch of Leyzaola's aggressive community policing.
Gandara is one of about 400 Tijuana officers who passed the new training and background checks, and he begins by introducing himself at every bank, foreign-exchange business and restaurant.

"It's important to lose your anonymity," Leyzaola says. "I believe police abused their positions because no one knew who they were."

The 37-year-old Gandara lost his longtime partner and close friend, Officer Luis Izquierdo, in the reorganization. Izquierdo had yet to go through background checks and was moved to another district.

But they both like Leyzaola's approach.

"It was a complete change, a lot more responsibility," Gandara says. "Every crime is your responsibility."

Victor de la Cruz, the former Air Force officer appointed to oversee the launch, estimates a 40 percent increase in people reporting crimes in little more than a month.

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The same month, Leyzaola continues his anti-corruption spree.

To date, about 130 officers have been jailed. About 250 others have been fired or pressured to resign.

When Leyzaola suspects cops are dirty, he puts them on patrol in the palm trees outside police headquarters — a job that humiliates most into quitting.

He also like confronting them personally — in his office, at their stations, even on patrol. He sometimes drives them himself to the army barracks, where they are held.

Ricardo Omar Medina, Leyzaola's body guard of 18 months, receives a call late one March night to report at 8 a.m. for a new radio. When he arrives, his boss demands his vest, badge and other equipment.

"I've lost trust in you," Leyzaola tells him.

According to court documents, one of the officers arrested said he got $500 a month from El Teo's gang to keep streets clear of cops during murders and kidnappings. If he refused, his family would be killed. Another officer said he was paid $300 to $500 each time he released criminals at El Teo's command.

Families of the officers come forward immediately to say their loved ones were tortured into false confessions — electrocuted genitals, near-suffocation, severe beatings.

"He couldn't even speak, he just held my hand, trembling," Cristina Zapien says after her first visit at an army base with her husband, Jaime Alberto Avila, a commander accused of taking $300 a month.

Leyzaola says he is not responsible for what happened to officers in army custody.

He says he played a wiretap to one woman who came to his office claiming her husband was tortured. A man on the tape is heard taking orders from a criminal to clear an area of patrol cars.

"Do you recognize the voice?" Leyzaola asked her.

"Yes," she says, "I recognize the voice."

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The threats start on April 24, broadcast over Tijuana's old police radios that drug traffickers routinely commandeer: If Leyzaola doesn't resign, cops will die.

Three days later, Officer Izquierdo, Gandara's former partner and mentor, is on the night shift, patrolling the San Diego border with three other cops.

He joined the force in 2002 for the money, after losing his job at an electronics factory. Tijuana pays police more than $13,000 a year, one of highest among Mexico's local departments. Izquierdo promised his family the job was temporary, but he fell in love with it.

He wants to stay under Leyzaola's reform and seems a good candidate. He has graduated high school, a new requirement for the police academy added this year, and he — like his top boss — is a fitness fanatic.

But his wife, Patricia Isaias, often tells him: "The only thing you're going to get is a tombstone."

That night, Izquierdo walks into a convenience store just as a caravan of black SUVs drives by. Men get out of the vehicles and pump him and three others with more than 200 bullets.

The police scanners hum with a "narcocorrido," or a drug ballad. Three more officers go down in synchronized attacks across the city.

Gandara picks up the radio traffic and calls his wife.

"Luis is dead," he says.

She calls Isaias to break the news: Seven officers killed in 45 minutes, including Izquierdo.

It is the department's deadliest day.

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The next day, Leyzaola stops the community policing, less than two months into the program. His officers are too exposed.

They turn to patrolling large areas in convoys of as many as six trucks. Every patrol vehicle gets an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to boost their firepower against the assassins.

But Leyzaola pushes his other reforms.

He has introduced moving target practice to train police on assassination attempts. The artificial turf at his low-budget shooting range is held together with duct tape, and the "patrol car" for the exercise is two folding metal chairs. But it's still a big improvement: As late as 2007, shooting practice was optional, and cops had to pay for their own bullets.

The department's 2,000 officers get two-week courses on securing crime scenes, surveilling suspects and other basic policing techniques.

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The tip comes in early June: Drug trafficker Filiberto Parra Ramos — wanted for killing two federal agents and for his role in one of Tijuana's deadliest shootouts — is spotted in the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood. The army already is out looking.

Leyzaola, who sleeps with a pistol and a rifle and spends his nights on patrol "hunting" for criminals, joins the massive search.

After a false alarm, Parra is cornered at a shopping center near the airport. Leyzaola personally makes the arrest — nabbing one of El Teo's top assassins without firing a single shot.

The hits ramp up in July.

The body of Officer Geronimo Calderon, pumped with bullets, is left with a note: "If you don't resign, Leisaola (sic), I'm going to kill 5 x week."

That night, a Tijuana cop survives an assassination attempt as he stands unarmed outside a grocery store. An officer dies in drive-by shooting the next day while guarding a Mexican Red Cross center, and a third is killed five days later in an ambush.

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By September, funerals are part of Leyzaola's routine.

The memorials look nothing like the display of pomp in the United States when an officer dies in the line of duty — no long motorcades transporting the casket or hundreds of officers attending from departments around the area. In Tijuana, there isn't even money for $200 plaques to add their names to a City Hall police memorial.

Under a blazing midday sun, Leyzaola eulogizes three officers killed in another convenience store hit, this time in Playas de Tijuana, where seafood restaurants and apartment buildings line the Pacific shore.

"We say goodbye to three colleagues — honest colleagues, with unblemished records," he tells the sparse crowd gathered outside police headquarters. "If there's anyone who says otherwise, if there's anyone who insinuates otherwise, they will have problems with the lieutenant colonel."

When the three caskets are moved to City Hall, they draw curious onlookers, including Gabriel Perez.

"Three cops get killed and not even 100 people show up," he says. "It's sad."

Leyzaola is also quietly campaigning to keep his job after his boss, Mayor Jorge Ramos, is forced out by term limits in December 2010. Leyzaola says senior officials in the Calderon administration assure him they will insist he stay under a new mayor. He tells the Constitutional Lawyers Association in one of his many civic talks that his plan needs five years.

"We're really only in our first year," he says. "In two years, Tijuana will see a real difference."

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After the September killings, Leyzaola moves his campaign to Playas de Tijuana three months earlier than scheduled.

The district gets new radios and 58 new Ford F250s. They had 14 patrol vehicles before.

The new commander, Rafael Dominguez, 39, comes from the Leyzaola mold. The son of a bricklayer in a small village in Veracruz, he had 21 years in the military but no police experience.

As he neared retirement, he called an old army buddy in the department to ask for a job.

"If not, I'm going to work for the other side," he joked.

That led to an interview with Leyzaola, who impressed him with his military-like approach to police reform — clear, long-term goals and detailed short-term milestones.

By October, Dominguez is out patrolling with his officers, arresting vagrants and graffiti artists. He runs down a steep canyon called "Smuggler's Gulch" one night and comes back out with six suspected smugglers.

The officers like the new approach. Old commanders ordered them to release suspects, often under threats that something bad would happen if they didn't. But Dominguez tells his ranks to let him know if they are ever intimidated from making an arrest.

"I'll do it," he says. "I'll be the one to show my face."

All over the city, cops are scared. They routinely patrol with their rifles drawn.

Officer Mario Pena, who works in another district, stops wearing his uniform to work and alternates his routes home. He quits meeting officers for coffee on the job, stops socializing with them on weekends for fear they will be recognized and gunned down.

But he says the killings are a sign that Leyzaola is succeeding.

"We are finishing off the mafia," he says.

El Teo has other plans:

By the end of September, the Mexican army gets another tip: U.S. authorities say a weapons purchase north of the border indicates a plot is afoot to kill Leyzaola.

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The intelligence leads soldiers in October to a Tijuana shoe shop, where they arrest Edgar Zuniga, one of El Teo's men. Zuniga leads them to a ranch on the eastern outskirts, where the plot is being hatched. Among other preparations, the assassins' vehicles are being painted in camouflage to trick the career military man as they approach.

The plan calls for 12 men to approach Leyzaola in a fake military convoy as one takes him out with a .50-caliber rifle. The execution would be videotaped, set to a narcocorrido and posted on the Internet.

Soldiers surprise the planners Oct. 31 in a shootout at the ranch, arresting 13 suspects. They seize more than 3,400 bullets, plus the camouflaged vehicles.

The foiled hit had been personally ordered by El Teo — for the next day.

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In Leyzaola's first year as public safety secretary, 32 officers died, more than in the previous five years total. Dozens went to jail and the department shrunk from about 2,200 to 2,000 — forcing him to extend patrol shifts from eight to 12 hours.

His community policing plan is still on hold.

But Leyzaola already is looking to next year, telling officers he would 150 new hires, send 50 at a time to train with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and issue new bulletproof vests, each backed by a manufacturer's $50 million guarantee.

Six more people are arrested in the assassination plot in November. Leyzaola is feeling confident enough to perhaps resume community policing early in 2010.

He avoids speculating on what would have happened if the plot had gone through.

He says, "God protects me."

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A teenage Dutch sailor who made headlines when she went to court to fight for the right to sail solo around the world has gone missing, police said Sunday.
Laura Dekker's boat, Guppy, is still moored at its usual berth and the 14-year-old appears to have left her father's home on her own, Utrecht police spokesman Bernhard Jens told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
"We do not believe this is a crime," Jens said.
Utrecht District Court refused in October to let Dekker embark on her attempt to become the youngest person to sail alone around the world, and placed her under the supervision of child care authorities.
Jens said Dutch authorities have alerted neighboring countries to monitor airports.
"That happens with missing minors — if she is seen somewhere else or tries to leave via an airport or something like that, authorities know we are looking for her," he said.
Dekker has joint Dutch and New Zealand citizenship because she was born on a yacht in New Zealand waters. She said earlier this year she might try to go there if Dutch authorities refused to let her sail.
Jens would not comment on a report in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that Dekker withdrew euro3,500 ($5,000) from her bank account a few days ago.
"We are doing everything we can to make sure we can get her back," Jens said. "We are certainly concerned about her health — we are talking about an underage girl."
Dekker's spokeswoman Mariska Woertman did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

WASHINGTON – Have your checkbooks and credit cards ready. There's a price for health care security.
President Barack Obama's overhaul — now looking like it really will happen — should give uninsured Americans options they've never had before. But it won't be a free ride.
As with the Medicare prescription drug benefit that passed when Republicans ran Washington, consumers will face a dizzying lineup of health plan choices — with different costs and benefits.
"People who need to buy coverage as individuals and small employers are going to have a lot more in the way of attractive health insurance options, and they won't have to worry about whether their medical condition precludes them from being covered," said policy expert Paul Ginsburg, who heads the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change.
The downside: "Sticker shock is going to come to some."
Get ready for a whole new set of trade-offs.
For example, people in their 50s and early 60s, when health problems tend to surface, are likely to pay less than they would now. Those in their 20s and 30s, who get the best deals today, will face higher premiums, though for better coverage.
Obama on Wednesday hailed a tentative deal by Democratic senators to give millions of Americans the option of signing up for private plans sponsored by the federal employee health system, which covers some 8 million including members of Congress. The compromise, which also offers people age 55 to 64 the option of buying into Medicare, appears to have given Democrats a way around the dealbreaker issue of a new government plan to compete with private carriers. Senators continued to debate for a 10th day, with Democrats pushing to pass the bill by Christmas.
The 2,074-page Senate bill will grow even longer as amendments are considered, but the basic outlines of the legislation most likely to pass are becoming clearer.
The overhaul will be phased in slowly, over the next three to four years. But eventually all Americans will be required to carry coverage or face a tax penalty, except in cases of financial hardship. Insurers won't be able to deny coverage to people with health problems, or charge them more or cut them off.
Most of the uninsured will be covered, but not all. As many as 24 million people would remain uninsured in 2019, many of them otherwise eligible Americans who still can't afford the premiums. Lawmakers propose to spend nearly $1 trillion over 10 years to provide coverage, most of the money going to help lower-income people. But a middle-class family of four making $66,000 would still have to pay about 10 percent of its income in premiums, not counting co-payments and deductibles.
No dramatic changes are in store for most people who get coverage through their jobs — about 60 percent of those under age 65. The Congressional Budget Office says the bill wouldn't have a major effect on premiums under employer plans, now about $13,000 a year. Parents would be able to keep dependent children on their coverage longer, age 27 in the House bill.
One benefit for people with employer coverage is hard to quantify: It should be easier to get health insurance if they're laid off.
The real transformation under the legislation would come for those who now have the most trouble finding and keeping coverage: people who buy their own insurance or work for small businesses. About 30 million could pick from an array of plans through new insurance supermarkets called exchanges.
Some people's taxes would go up.
To pay for expanded coverage, the House bill imposes a 5.4 percent income tax surcharge on individuals making more than $500,000 and families earning more than $1 million. The Senate slaps a 40 percent tax on insurance plans with premiums above $8,500 for individual coverage, and $23,000 for family plans, among other levies.
The rest of the financing would come mainly from cuts in federal payments to insurers, hospitals, home health care agencies and other medical providers serving Medicare.
Preventive benefits for seniors would be improved. So would prescription coverage. But people enrolled in private plans through the Medicare Advantage program are likely to see higher out-of-pocket costs and reduced benefits as overpayments to insurers are scaled back.

The latest big wrinkles in the debate involve intriguing opportunities for consumers. But even there, it may be less than meets the eye.

Lawmakers have been talking for years about giving average Americans the option of coverage through the federal employee system, "just like members of Congress." The compromise among Senate Democrats would make plans certified by the federal employee system available nationwide, bringing competition to states in which one or two large insurers now control the market.

The other big new idea is to allow people age 55 to 64, one of the groups now most at risk for losing coverage, to buy into Medicare.

Yet from the inside, the federal employee health benefits plan isn't looking all that great these days. Federal workers do have a wide choice of insurance plans, but they're looking at hefty premium increases next year. Individual coverage under the most popular plan is going up 15 percent.

"I don't think you'll ever find someone satisfied with the price," said Jacqueline Simon, policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees. "And you've got people who are priced out." The union estimates that 250,000 federal workers are uninsured, mostly because they can't afford the premiums.

And what about Medicare? It is widely accepted, with 74 percent of doctors saying in a recent survey that they're taking most or all new Medicare patients. But buying into Medicare won't be cheap, about $7,600 a year not counting out-of-pocket costs for deductibles and copayments.

Ginsburg, the policy expert, says he's puzzled as to why anyone in their late 50s would want to buy into Medicare instead of picking a plan offered in the new exchanges, the insurance supermarkets. His reasoning: The exchange plans should have lower premiums since they would also include younger people who don't go to the doctor that often.

"The legislation already solved the problem by offering them coverage through the exchange," he said. "A Medicare buy-in based on the older age group is going to cost a lot more."

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
The ruckus over MTV's "Jersey Shore" is getting as intense as the hot-headed dramatics on the show.

The controversial new reality series chronicling a spirited group of self-described "guidos" living in a New Jersey beach house has drawn protests of increasing volume. Now it appears that calls for a boycott are having an impact.

The Italian-American group UNICO (which also protested HBO's "The Sopranos") has asked members to complain to MTV's advertisers. In the past couple of days, two advertisers on the show -- Domino's Pizza and American Family Insurance -- have pulled out of the series.

In addition, one major media outlet reported that MTV New York offices were receiving death threats because of the show. The network has denied the report.

"('Jersey Shore' furthers) the popular TV notion that Italian-Americans are gel-haired, thuggish ignoramuses with fake tans, no manners, no diction, no taste, no education, no sexual discretion, no hairdressers (for sure), no real knowledge of Italian culture and no ambition beyond expanding steroid- and silicone-enhanced bodies," blasted New York Post critic Linda Stasi on Monday. "Would that programing ever have been allowed if the group were African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Jewish people?"

MTV president of programing Tony DiSanto, an Italian-American, has remained largely mum on the subject, though he told one group, "The cast takes pride in their ethnicity. In fact, it is a key driver of how they bond with each other and self-identify. They refer to themselves as 'guidos' in a positive manner."

Former "Hills" cast member Spencer Pratt defended the network on Twitter: "Linda Stasi you should change your name to Linda Boring if you can't be entertained by young Italian-Americans enjoying youth and partying!"

The initial round of criticism didn't seem to help "Jersey Shore," which debuted Thursday to a relatively modest 1.4 million viewers.

Adding to the drama is a clip from an MTV teaser for an upcoming episode of the show that's making the rounds online. It shows a man punching out one of the female housemates. But it's unclear if any of the conflict -- onscreen or off -- will improve the show's ratings.

LONDON – Britain believed Iraq had dismantled its chemical and biological weapons in the run-up to the 2003 invasion but thought it was possible they could be reassembled, the former head of the country's Joint Intelligence Committee said Tuesday.
John Scarlett, who chaired the committee from 2001 to 2004 before moving to MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, told a panel of inquiry that it had long been believed that Iraq had been dismantling weapons in order to conceal them.
On March 7, 2003, Scarlett said an intelligence report revealed that "Iraq had no missiles which could reach Israel and none which could carry germ or biological weapons. The leadership had ordered the dismantlement of the missiles known as al-Hussein ... to avoid discovery, and they thought they could be quickly reassembled."
A second report, made a few days later, said intelligence had been received that chemical weapons "had been disassembled and dispersed and would be difficult to reassemble."
Scarlett made the comments to a panel probing Britain's role in the Iraq war. The inquiry is most extensive look yet at the conflict, which was deeply unpopular in Britain, triggered huge protests and left 179 British soldiers dead.
Scarlett said the March assessments didn't contradict or change the earlier belief that Saddam had access to weapons and that the regime was dismantling them. He said the reports didn't say the weapons didn't exist — but that they might be difficult to find.
Asked if the reports were a "game-changing moment," Scarlett said no. "They were not," he said.
Britain joined in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a few days later.
The five-person panel, led by former civil servant John Chilcot, is expected to report late next year on lessons learned. It will not to apportion blame or hold anyone liable for the conflict.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.
In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.
The effort is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that's the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.
"Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more," the 38-year-old married father of two said.
Marcotte said he has collected dozens of signatures, including one from his wife of seven years. The initiative's Facebook fans have swelled to more than 11,000. Volunteers that include gay activists and members of a local comedy troupe have signed on to help.
Marcotte is looking into whether he can gather signatures online, as proponents are doing for another proposed 2010 initiative to repeal the gay marriage ban. But the odds are stacked against a campaign funded primarily by the sale of $12 T-shirts featuring bride and groom stick figures chained at the wrists.
Marcotte needs 694,354 valid signatures by March 22, a high hurdle in a state where the typical petition drive costs millions of dollars. Even if his proposed constitutional amendment made next year's ballot, it's not clear how voters would react.
Nationwide, about half of all marriages end in divorce.
Not surprisingly, Marcotte's campaign to make divorce in California illegal has divided those involved in last year's campaign for and against Proposition 8.
As much as everyone would like to see fewer divorces, making it illegal would be "impractical," said Ron Prentice, the executive director of the California Family Council who led a coalition of religious and conservative groups to qualify Proposition 8.
No other state bans divorce, and only a few countries, including the Philippines and Malta, do. The Roman Catholic Church also prohibits divorce but allows annulments. The California proposal would amend the state constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced while allowing married couples to seek an annulment.
Prentice said proponents of traditional marriage only seek to strengthen the one man-one woman union.
"That's where our intention begins and ends," he said.
Jeffrey Taylor, a spokesman for Restore Equality 2010, a coalition of same-sex marriage activists seeking to repeal Proposition 8, said the coalition supports Marcotte's message but has no plans to join forces with him.
"We find it quite hilarious," Taylor said of the initiative.
Marcotte, who runs the comedy site BadMouth.net in his spare time, said he has received support from across the political spectrum. In addition to encouragement from gay marriage advocates, he has been interviewed by American Family Association, a Mississippi-based organization that contributed to last year's Yes on 8 campaign.
He was mentioned by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's "Countdown" during his "World's Best Persons" segment for giving supporters of Proposition 8 their "comeuppance in California."
Marcotte, who is Catholic and voted against Proposition 8, views himself as an accidental activist. A registered Democrat, he led a "ban divorce" rally recently at the state Capitol in Sacramento to launch his effort and was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. About 50 people showed up, some holding signs that read, "You too can vote to take away civil rights from someone."

Marcotte stopped dozens of people during another signature drive in downtown Sacramento. Among them was Ryan Platt, 32, who said he signed the petition in support of his lesbian sister, even though he thinks it would be overturned if voters approved it.

"Even if by some miracle this did pass, it would never stand up to the federal government," Platt said. "And if it did, there's something really wrong with America."

Other petition signers said they were motivated by a sincere interest to preserve marriages. One was Ervin Hulton, a 47-year-old dishwasher who said he believes in making it harder for couples to separate.

"The way I feel, why go out and spend all these tons of money for marriage, the photography and all that? And along down the line, it's going to shatter," said Hulton, who is single.

The U.S. divorce rate is 47.9 percent, according to data provided by the National Center for Health Statistics reports. That figure, however, does not include California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana and Minnesota because those six states no longer report their divorce rates to the center.

California stopped because of budget problems, said Ralph Montano, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health.

While most people would not support banning divorce, it does make sense for couples to be educated about the financial and emotional commitments of marriage, said Dan Couvrette, chief executive and publisher of Toronto-based Divorce Magazine. The publication has a circulation of 140,000, including a regional edition in Southern California.

"It's a worthwhile conversation to have," said Couvrette, who started the magazine in 1996 after going through his own divorce. "I don't think it's just a frivolous thought."

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On the Net:

2010 California Marriage Protection Act: http://www.rescuemarriage.org

THE HAGUE (AFP) –
The legality of Kosovo's secession from Serbia takes centre stage on Tuesday as the International Court of Justice opens hearings into Pristina's controversial decision to break away.

Serbia, Kosovo and 29 nations, including Russia and the United States, will unveil so far confidential arguments to The Hague-based ICJ, which will then hand down an opinion on whether Kosovo's actions were legal.

The hearings, to run until December 11, will address the question of the "accordance with international law of the unilateral declaration of independence by the provisional institutions of self-government of Kosovo."

Kosovo's decision to break away from Serbia on February 17, 2008, sparked an outcry from Belgrade, which still considers the ethnic Albanian majority southern territory to be an integral part of its history and culture.

Russia warned the move would set a dangerous precedent for separatists around the world, and its echoes resonated in Moscow's backing for two rebel regions in Georgia last August.

More than 60 nations have recognised Kosovo's statehood, including 22 of the 27 members of the European Union, which launched a massive justice and police mission to help chaperone the poverty-stricken region to independence.

Serbia, which has strong backing from its ally Russia, won agreement on October 8, 2008 from the United Nations General Assembly for Kosovo's actions to be heard by the court in the Netherlands.

Neither side has made public their planned arguments, but Belgrade does hope the hearings will provide it with enough leverage to force open negotiations once again with Kosovo on its status.

Frustration over that long and apparently unreconcilable process led the United States and most of the European Union to commit to backing Kosovo, which is home to some two million people, 90 percent of them of Albanian origin.

Serbia and others who refuse to recognise Kosovo are likely to underline to the judges the fact that international law does not allow a country's borders to be modified, as Pristina did by breaking away, said Steven Blockmans, from the Asser Institute, which specialises in international law.

Kosovo's suppoers are likely to argue that "people in Kosovo were so oppressed by the Serbian government -- which did not respect their right for self determination, which did not respect their human rights -- that you can not have this situation of internal colonisation," he said.

Until last year, Kosovo had been under UN supervision, following a NATO bombing campaign in 1999 against former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic to stop his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

The ICJ was set up to rule on disputes between sovereign states, but can also be asked by the UN to give an advisory opinion on legal questions.

It has issued 25 such advisory opinions since it started work in April 1946, but such opinions are not binding.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) –
Drew Brees threw five touchdown passes as the New Orleans Saints pounded the New England Patriots 38-17 on Monday and improved to a perfect 11-0.

Brees finished with 371 passing yards and threw for three scores in the second quarter where New Orleans took command.

The Saints joined the Indianapolis Colts at 11-0, the first time two teams have opened with that many wins in the same season.

(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Former Black Spades gang member Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music. The first use of the term in print was in the Village Voice, by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.

Hip hop arose during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, especially in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music. DJs, realizing its positive reception, began isolating the percussion breaks of popular songs. This technique was then common in Jamaican dub music and had spread to New York City via the substantial Jamaican immigrant community. A major proponent of the technique was the "godfather" of hip hop, the Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc.

NY Hip Hop Classes

MELBOURNE, Australia – Formerly conjoined Bangladeshi twins spent their first night in separate beds and were in serious but stable condition Wednesday following a marathon surgery to separate the toddlers, who were joined at their heads.
Trishna and Krishna, who turn 3 next month, shared skull, blood vessels and brain tissue. They were separated Tuesday after 25 hours of delicate surgery and reconstruction by a team of 16 surgeons and nurses.
"It was amazing to see," said Leo Donnan, chief of surgery at Royal Children's Hospital. "The girls look very different."
He said the girls are in serious but stable condition in the intensive care unit.
It is too early to know whether the girls suffered any brain damage during the marathon operation — an outcome doctors said was a 50-50 chance. The girls will remain in an induced coma for monitoring for several days.
"Their bodies have to recover from this, and we've got a lot of unknown territory we're moving into," Donnan said. "All I can say is that everything is in place for the best possible outcome. The main thing is that the girls are healthy."
During the surgery, doctors said that the girls improved as their bodies began to work individually for the first time.
Before the surgery, doctors had said there was a 50 percent chance the girls could suffer brain damage and a 25 percent chance one of the sisters would die.
Trishna and Krishna were found in an orphanage in Bangladesh in 2007 by a representative from the Children First Foundation, who brought to them to Australia.

LONDON (AFP) –
Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard is on course for a return to action against Manchester City in the Premier League on Saturday after recovering from a groin injury.

The England midfielder used the international break last weekend to further rest the injury and he now believes that he has put it behind him.

"I felt very tired after the (Birmingham) game as I wasn't really ready to return. I'd done very little training in the three weeks beforehand," Gerrard said.

"It took me two or three days to recover from that game but I have spent the past week doing strengthening work.

"I'm feeling a lot better now. I'm looking forward to the weekend. There's no mental hurdle to cross.

"I've had a problem in my groin that has taken a while to get over, but I'm just relieved the second injection seems to have done the trick.

"It's a case of so far so good and the aim now is to make sure I get a good week's training under my belt so I'm ready for the game with City."

Gerrard is anxious to help Liverpool reignite their campaign.

"Some of the lowest points in my career have come about when I have had to miss big games for Liverpool and England through injury," he told the club website.

"It's never easy when you have to sit out games against Manchester United or trips away from home in the Champions League.

"If the lads are winning games and doing well, it makes the pain a bit easier so obviously the last couple of weeks have been extra frustrating.

"But I'm feeling good now, a lot stronger than before and it's just a question of getting my match sharpness back now. That is the most important thing."

What's at stake in Tuesday's election:
GOVERNORS:
Voters in two states, New Jersey and Virginia, are electing governors.
_The New Jersey race has centered on the economy and the state's highest-in-the-nation taxes. Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, the billionaire former Wall Street executive, is fighting to earn a second term. His opponents are Republican former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie and an independent candidate, former state environmental official Chris Daggett.
_In Virginia, where Democrats last year handed the GOP its first presidential defeat in 44 years, the GOP is trying to stage a comeback. Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator who narrowly lost the attorney general's race to McDonnell four years ago, are running to replace the term-limited Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine.
MAYORS:
Mayors are being elected in several major cities.
_In Atlanta, six candidates are seeking to succeed term-limited Mayor Shirley Franklin in an election that is expected to lead to a December runoff. The top contenders include City Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who was trying to become the city's first white mayor in a generation.
_In New York, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg is expected to spend more than $100 million of his fortune in a bid for a third term, the most expensive self-financed campaign in American history.
_In Houston, four candidates were competing to succeed three-term Mayor Bill White, including city Controller Annise Parker, who would be the city's first openly gay mayor.
_The mayors of Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh are up for re-election.
U.S. HOUSE:
Two special elections, one in northern California and one in upstate New York, won't change the balance of power of the 435-member House, where Democrats hold 256 seats. Both seats were vacated when the incumbent took a job in the Obama administration.
_A special election in New York's rural and strongly Republican 23rd Congressional District highlighted divisions in the GOP when some prominent Republicans, including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, backed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. The defections lead the GOP candidate, Dierdre Scozzafava, to bow out and support Democrat Bill Owens.
_Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi faced off with Republican attorney Dave Harmer for a Northern California congressional seat.
BALLOT MEASURES:
_Voters in Maine have the opportunity to make it the first state to approve gay marriage at the ballot box with a referendum on whether to accept or reject a same-sex marriage law approved by legislators in May.
_In Washington, voters will be deciding whether to keep a Legislature-approved "everything but marriage" domestic partnerships law, which grants registered partners the same legal rights as married couples.

_Ohio voters will decide whether to bring casinos to the state.

here

Facials stimulate the skin, relax the client, energize the face and restore the skin to top condition after daily exposure to the elements. Manicure refers to a treatment for the hands, incorporating the fingernails and cuticles and often involving the application of nail polish.

The term spa salon refers to a salon where spa treatments are done. Spa treatments are also offered in some beauty salons. Treatments may include holistic theraphy or Reiki Treatments alongside hair removal techniques like electrolysis and waxing.

Often benches are simply called after the place they are used, regardless whether this implies a specific design Garden benches are very similar to public park benches set outdoors, but the former offer usually only two or three -, the latter mostly up to five persons sitting places. Picnic tables, or catering buffet tables have long benches as well as a table. These tables may have table legs which are collapsible, in order to expedite transport and storage. Church pews inside places of worship are equipped with an additional kneeling bench.

Various types of benches are specifically designed for and/or named after specific uses, such as a Bench (weight training) is used for fitness exercises, such as the bench press which is named after its use of a bench a Communion bench is not used as a seat Piano benches offer usually one person seating and are height adjustable. a spanking bench, such as a caning bench, is specifically designed for a spankee to lie upon, possibly strapped down, while submitting to paining of the posterior Swing seats are independently movable, suspended benches, used for play or as a relaxing porch swing. a courting bench (or kissing bench, or tête-à-tête): a two-seater with the seats pointing in opposite directions, thus almost facing each other. A friendship bench in a school playground is where a child can go when they want someone to talk to. The bench in a courtroom, behind which the judge is seated.

Garden Chairs

BRUSSELS – Cod is slipping closer to disappearing from key European fishing grounds, officials warned Friday, saying that only steep catch cuts will prevent the disappearance of a species prized for centuries for its flaky white flesh.
The European Union's executive body called for sharp cuts in the amount of cod fisherman can catch next year — up to 25 percent in some areas. The European Commission said recent studies showed cod catches in some areas are far outstripping the rate of reproduction of a fish that fed coastal communities for centuries.
Scientists estimated that there were more than 250,000 tons of cod in important fishing grounds in the North Sea, eastern British Channel and Scandinavia's Skagerrak strait in the 1970s but stocks have dropped to 50,000 tons in recent years.
"We are not that far away from a situation of complete collapse," said Jose Rodriguez, a marine biologist with the environmental group Oceana.
The European Commission said it will seek to cut the catch in some fishing grounds around Britain, France, Spain and much of Scandinavia from 5,700 tons this to 4,250 tons in 2010.
Rodriguez and other environmentalists said political pressure from the fishing industry meant quotas were too high to sustain a viable population of cod in the waters around Europe. Lack of enforcement meant illegal fishing made the problem far worse.
In the Mediterranean, the bluefin tuna has been overfished for years to satisfy the world's increasing demand for sushi and sashimi. Its population is a fraction of stocks of what it was a few decades ago but the EU's Mediterranean nations refused last month to back even a temporary ban on catching bluefish tuna.
Oceana estimated that illegal fishing doubled the amount of tuna caught.
Cod is consumed by the ton as salt cod and fish-and-chips, and once sustained vibrant fishing communities from Portugal to Britain to Canada.
"People don't ask for fish and chips, they ask for cod and chips," said Mike Guo, 26, a manager at Great Fish and Chips in Essex, England. "It's a traditional dish."
The depletion of the species has caused the decay and disappearance of hundreds of fishing villages on both sides of the Atlantic.
Overfishing off Canada's maritime provinces exhausted the world's richest cod grounds and forced the government to impose a fishing moratorium. The collapse wiped out more than 42,000 jobs, and 18 years later the fish have still not returned. Some Canadian scientists believe the collapse of cod stocks off Newfoundland and Nova Scotia changed the marine ecosystem so dramatically that it may be impossible for cod to recover.
The harvest and biomass of Atlantic cod off New England have fallen sharply over the decades, but there are signs of recovery after years of conservation efforts.
In the 15 nations that were part of the EU in 1995, the fleet has declined from 104,000 vessels to 81,000 in 2006. In Britain, employment in the sector sank from 21,600 in 1990 to 16,100 in 2006.
The EU Commission's demand for cod cuts will be discussed by the bloc's 27-member states in a Dec. 14-15 meeting, when the fishing quotas for 2010 will be finalized.
"The scientific prognosis for most stocks is not encouraging, with many in a worse state than last year," Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said Friday. "This, combined with the difficult economic climate, will mean that the negotiations will be even more challenging this time around."
Keeping fishermen in port with excessive quotas will add to their economic woes, said Bertie Armstrong of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation.
Norway and the EU jointly oversee cod stocks in North Sea, with each party regulating the stocks in its waters.

Norway and the EU will begin annual negotiations on cod stock management in November, and Ann Kristin Westberg, deputy director-general of Norway's Fishery Ministry, who will serve as Norway's chief negotiator in those talks, said her country was unlikely to accept a 25 percent quota.

"We probably want to have it lower," she said. "We would like to point out that stock the EU are involved in managing are in terrible shape."

The cod harvest from the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine fishing grounds, the two primary New England fishing grounds, in 2007 totaled 3,868 metric tons, the biggest catch since 2003 but far under the landings of the 1980s when fishermen often caught more than 20,000 tons annually.

"The Gulf of Maine stock is responding to the recovery plan, and the Georges Bank stock is recovering but not as much," said Teri Frady of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass.

Scott Cantin, a spokesman for Canada's Fisheries and Oceans Department, said that after many years of effort and commitment, international regulators have reopened some areas off Canada for limited fishing.

Some fishing zones that have a healthy cod fishery, but in most areas the stock is so low the government doesn't permit fishing, he said.

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Associated Press writers Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine, Rob Gillies in Toronto, Karl Ritter in Stockholm and Rachel Leamon and Maresa Patience in London contributed to this report.