Royal pregnancy highlights succession issues

LONDON (AP) — The business of monarchy has always been stacked in favor of men. Not any more — or so the British government promises.

The first child of Prince William and his wife Kate will be born a king or a queen in waiting, under changes to succession rules designed to overturn centuries of tradition and give royal daughters the same rights as sons.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg pledged Tuesday that the law on succession would be changed at the "earliest opportunity." He said "whether the baby is a boy or a girl, they will have an equal claim to the throne."

"Born to rule, be it a boy or a girl" proclaimed the Daily Mail, which noted that the baby had "already made royal and constitutional history" even before it is born.

Not so fast, caution others.

A royal saga needs a touch of uncertainty, and experts point out that despite politicians' promises, the law giving males primacy in succession has not yet been changed — and the clock is ticking.

"We know that the wishes of politicians are written in water," said royal historian Robert Lacey. "Law only becomes law when the law is made — and the law has not been made."

Meanwhile, the Duchess of Cambridge — the former Kate Middleton — was "continuing to feel better" Tuesday as she spent a second day in a London hospital being treated for acute morning sickness, St. James's Palace said. Photographers and camera crews from around the world camped outside, eager for news on the royal pregnancy. Officials said earlier the duchess was not yet 12 weeks pregnant.

Congratulations poured in from around the world at the good news, which follows Kate and William's lavish royal wedding in 2011 and Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year.

Officials say Kate and William's baby will displace Prince Harry, William's younger brother, as third in line to the throne — and the child will stay there, even if she is a princess who later acquires a younger brother.

For centuries, preference was given to male heirs, so a first-born princess would be leapfrogged in the succession by a younger brother. As a result, there have been some 40 kings of England since the Norman Conquest in 1066, but only seven queens.

Last year, the leaders of Britain and the 15 former colonies that have the queen as their head of state informally agreed to establish new rules giving female children equal status with males in the order of succession — something that will require legal changes in each country.

"Put simply, if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were to have a little girl, that girl would one day be our queen," Prime Minister David Cameron said at the time.

Months passed with little progress. But the prospect of a royal birth next year seems to have focused political minds, at least somewhat: Clegg announced Tuesday that all 16 nations had now formally agreed to change their laws.

Clegg also said a Succession to the Crown Bill would be introduced in Britain's House of Commons as soon as the parliamentary schedule permits.

"Notwithstanding a few parliamentary turns of the wheel, this is now going to happen," Clegg said, adding that "the old-fashioned rules ... have been swept aside."

In Britain, implementing the new rule means changing bits of several key constitutional documents, including the Bill of Rights and Coronation Oath Act of 1688, the 1701 Act of Settlement and the 1706 Act of Union with Scotland.

Lacey said if it is not done by the time the baby is born, uncertainty is bound to remain. A first-born girl could find her younger brother challenging her for the throne on the grounds that the law had not been changed at the time of her birth.

And what if Kate has twins? Experts say the firstborn will be the heir — but things could get complicated if the succession rules are not changed before the birth.

"Say they have twins and a girl comes out first and 20 years later the boy turns out to be the more attractive character," Lacey said. "People will say that at the time the law meant the boy should have inherited."

Rebecca Probert, a professor at the University of Warwick's school of law, said there are other issues that the law should address to bring the monarchy up to date.

British monarchs are banned from marrying Roman Catholics, but not members of other faiths — something Clegg said the new law would change.

An heir also cannot marry without the monarch's permission, and can't marry in a civil ceremony — even though Prince Charles, William's father, did just that when he wed his second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, in 2005.

Probert said it's important "to have a clause in there confirming that monarchs are able to marry in the same ways that are open to their subjects."

But she thinks that may prove too complicated for lawmakers in the short term.

"They might decide in the interests of time to stick to the single issue of gender and leave the rest to a more convenient time — which tends to be never," she said.

___

Jill Lawless can be reached on http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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Sign Language Researchers Broaden Science Lexicon

Science in Sign:
Lydia Callis, a sign language interpreter, translates a shortened version of an article by Douglas Quenqua, explaining how new signs are being developed that may enhance scientific communication.

Imagine trying to learn biology without ever using the word “organism.” Or studying to become a botanist when the only way of referring to photosynthesis is to spell the word out, letter by painstaking letter.

For deaf students, this game of scientific Password has long been the daily classroom and laboratory experience. Words like “organism” and “photosynthesis” — to say nothing of more obscure and harder-to-spell terms — have no single widely accepted equivalent in sign language. This means that deaf students and their teachers and interpreters must improvise, making it that much harder for the students to excel in science and pursue careers in it.

“Often times, it would involve a lot of finger-spelling and a lot of improvisation,” said Matthew Schwerin, a physicist with the Food and Drug Administration who is deaf, of his years in school. “For the majority of scientific terms,” Mr. Schwerin and his interpreter for the day would “try to find a correct sign for the term, and if nothing was pre-existing, we would come up with a sign that was agreeable with both parties.”

Now thanks to the Internet — particularly the boom in online video — resources for deaf students seeking science-related signs are easier to find and share. Crowdsourcing projects in both American Sign Language and British Sign Language are under way at several universities, enabling people who are deaf to coalesce around signs for commonly used terms.

This year, one of those resources, the Scottish Sensory Centre’s British Sign Language Glossary Project, added 116 new signs for physics and engineering terms, including signs for “light-year,”  (hold one hand up and spread the fingers downward for “light,” then bring both hands together in front of your chest and slowly move them apart for “year”), “mass” and “X-ray” (form an X with your index fingers, then, with the index finger on the right hand, point outward). 

The signs were developed by a team of researchers at the center, a division of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland that develops learning tools for students with visual and auditory impairments. The researchers spent more than a year soliciting ideas from deaf science workers, circulating lists of potential signs and ultimately gathering for “an intense weekend” of final voting, said Audrey Cameron, science adviser for the project. (Dr. Cameron is also deaf, and like all non-hearing people interviewed for this article, answered questions via e-mail.)

Whether the Scottish Sensory Centre’s signs will take hold among its audience remains to be seen. “Some will be adopted, and some will probably never be accepted,” Dr. Cameron said. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Ideally, the standardization of signs will make it easier for deaf students to keep pace with their hearing classmates during lectures. “I can only choose to look at one thing at a time,” said Mr. Schwerin of the F.D.A., recalling his science education, “and it often meant choosing between the interpreter, the blackboard/screen/material, or taking notes. It was like, pick one, and lose out on the others.”

The problem doesn’t end at graduation. In fact, it only intensifies as new discoveries add unfamiliar terms to the scientific lexicon. “I’ve had numerous meetings where I couldn’t participate properly because the interpreters were not able to understand the jargon and they did not know any scientific signs,” Dr. Cameron said.

One general complaint about efforts to standardize signs for technical terms is the idea that, much like spoken language, sign language should be allowed to develop organically rather than be dictated from above.

“Signs that are developed naturally — i.e., that are tested and refined in everyday conversation — are more likely to be accepted quickly by the community,” said Derek Braun, director of the molecular genetics laboratory at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which he said was the first biological laboratory designed and administered by deaf scientists.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 4, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the origin of the ASL-STEM Forum.  It was developed by researchers at the University of Washington, not Gallaudet University.  Researchers at Gallaudet and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology work with the University of Washington to provide content and help the forum grow.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 4, 2012

An earlier version of a correction with this article misstated the name of an institute that works on the ASL-STEM Forum. It is the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology not the National Institute for the Deaf. 

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Federal mediation in port strike agreed upon by both sides

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is now taking an active role in negotiations

By Stuart Pfeifer

December 4, 2012, 10:35 a.m.

Both sides in the strike that has crippled the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have agreed to federal mediation, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Tuesday at a news conference.

Villaraigosa said the agreement was an encouraging sign and could help bring an end to the strike, now in its eighth day. He said the parties negotiated throughout the night and there had been some recent movement.

“I’m hopeful that the mediator will be here today,” Villaraigosa told reporters. “We’ve got to get a deal and get a deal as soon as possible.”

Workers belonging to the 800-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit have been on strike since Nov. 27 against a 14-employer group of shipping lines and terminal owners. The picket lines are being honored by the 10,000 regional members of the ILWU. Add in local truckers, and some 20,000 workers are affected, Villaraigosa estimated.

Quiz: How much do you know about California's economy?

The strike has shut down 10 of the 14 cargo container terminals at the nation's busiest seaport complex. The clerical workers had been without a contract since June 30, 2010.

The strike is considered potentially disastrous for the Southern California economy because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the leading contributors to the region's goods-movement industry, which employs nearly 600,000 people.

The dispute centers on the charge by the union that employers — large shipping lines and terminal operators — have steadily outsourced jobs through attrition. The union says the employers have transferred work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other states and countries.

The employers dispute that claim, saying they've offered the workers full job security and generous wage and pension increases.

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Follow Stuart Pfeifer on Twitter

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Supreme Court keeps California in suspense on gay marriage

By Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times

December 3, 2012, 7:27 a.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the California gay-marriage case on Monday morning. The next time they can consider it is on Friday.

The case against Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative that banned gay marriage in California, had been discussed by justices last Friday, but was not on the list of cases the court said it would review.

Many speculated that the court might have decided not to take the case, which would let an appeals court ruling on the matter stand. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found earlier this year that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, clearing the way for same-sex marriage in California unless the Supreme Court decides to get involved.

But the matter will remain in suspense for a while longer. The court could continue to discuss the case at conferences this year and early next year in advance of possibly hearing the case in June. They could also hold the matter over for the fall. 

Gay-marriage activists expressed disappointment that there was no news Monday.

"We understand that it is a complex case, and if they need another week to reach the right decision, we're fine with that," said Adam Umhoefer, executive director of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which is fighting to overturn Proposition 8.

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Obama Is Taking Himself and #My2K to Twitter This Afternoon

What a day for Twitter! First the Pope, then the Royal Baby, and now President Obama will come online to answer questions about the fiscal cliff. A @WhiteHouse tweet with the distincitive “-bo” signature, announced not long ago that the big guy himself will be taking questions online, starting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Good to see lots of folks on twitter speaking out on extending middle class tax cuts. I’ll answer some Qs on that at 2ET. Ask w/ #My2k –bo

— The White House (@whitehouse) December 3, 2012

Unfortunately, he’s sticking with the troublesome #My2K hashtag that conservatives have already seized upon in a back-and-forth battle for messaging. Trying to mobilize your supporters through social media is all well and good, but the problem with any genuinely open town hall, is that anyone can invite themselves—even those who disagree with you and might be louder than your friends. (Plus, any reasonably popular hashtag moves much to fast for anyone to follow it or have an actual conversation on Twitter anyway.)

RELATED: Don’t Expect Too Much From Social Media Town Halls

But ask away! Maybe you’ll get luck and get RT’d by the President himself. And then find yourself becoming the next conservative meme as soon as the hashtag-averse pundits start making fun of your question. Should be a fun afternoon.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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A bachelorette no more: Ashley Hebert weds beau

NEW YORK (AP) — Ashley Hebert (AY'-behr) is no longer a "Bachelorette."

The 28-year-old Maine native got hitched over the weekend in Pasadena, Calif., to 35-year-old J.P. Rosenbaum of Long Island, who proposed to her on the seventh season of the ABC dating reality show "The Bachelorette." Hebert tweeted that "12/1/12 goes down in history as the best day of my life!!"

Natalia Desrosiers, spokeswoman for Warner Bros. Television, which produces the show, said the wedding will be aired on Dec. 16 on ABC.

Hebert, who also competed on the 15th season of "The Bachelor," grew up in Madawaska, Maine, and is a dentist. The couple now resides in the New York City area.

Only one other couple that met on the TV show has married. Bachelorette Trista Rehn married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

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Quest to Eliminate Diagnostic Lapses

SAN FRANCISCO — The man on stage had his audience of 600 mesmerized. Over the course of 45 minutes, the tension grew. Finally, the moment of truth arrived, and the room was silent with anticipation.

At last he spoke. “Lymphoma with secondary hemophagocytic syndrome,” he said. The crowd erupted in applause.

Professionals in every field revere their superstars, and in medicine the best diagnosticians are held in particularly high esteem. Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal, 39, a self-effacing associate professor clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is considered one of the most skillful clinical diagnosticians in practice.

The case Dr. Dhaliwal was presented, at a medical  conference last year, began with information that could have described hundreds of diseases: the patient had intermittent fevers, joint pain, and weight and appetite loss.

To observe him at work is like watching Steven Spielberg tackle a script or Rory McIlroy a golf course. He was given new information bit by bit — lab, imaging and biopsy results. Over the course of the session, he drew on an encyclopedic familiarity with thousands of syndromes. He deftly dismissed red herrings while picking up on clues that others might ignore, gradually homing in on the accurate diagnosis.

Just how special is Dr. Dhaliwal’s talent? More to the point, what can he do that a computer cannot? Will a computer ever successfully stand in for a skill that is based not simply on a vast fund of knowledge but also on more intangible factors like intuition?

The history of computer-assisted diagnostics is long and rich. In the 1970s, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh developed software to diagnose complex problems in general internal medicine; the project eventually resulted in a commercial program called Quick Medical Reference. Since the 1980s, Massachusetts General Hospital has been developing and refining DXplain, a program that provides a ranked list of clinical diagnoses from a set of symptoms and laboratory data.

And I.B.M., on the heels of its triumph last year with Watson, the Jeopardy-playing computer, is working on Watson for Healthcare.

In some ways, Dr. Dhaliwal’s diagnostic method is similar to that of another I.B.M. project: the Deep Blue chess program, which in 1996 trounced Garry Kasparov, the world’s best player at the time, to claim an unambiguous victory in the computer’s relentless march into the human domain.

Although lacking consciousness and a human’s intuition, Deep Blue had millions of moves memorized and could analyze as many each second. Dr. Dhaliwal does the diagnostic equivalent, though at human speed.

Since medical school, he has been an insatiable reader of case reports in medical journals, and case conferences from other hospitals. At work he occasionally uses a diagnostic checklist program called Isabel, just to make certain he hasn’t forgotten something. But the program has yet to offer a diagnosis that Dr. Dhaliwal missed.

Dr. Dhaliwal regularly receives cases from physicians who are stumped by a set of symptoms. At medical conferences, he is presented with one vexingly difficult case and is given 45 minutes to solve it. It is a medical high-wire act; doctors in the audience squirm as the set of facts gets more obscure and all the diagnoses they were considering are ruled out. After absorbing and processing scores of details, Dr. Dhaliwal must commit to a diagnosis. More often than not, he is right.

When working on a difficult case in front of an audience, Dr. Dhaliwal puts his entire thought process on display, with the goal of “elevating the stature of thinking,” he said. He believes this is becoming more important because physicians are being assessed on whether they gave the right medicine to a patient, or remembered to order a certain test.

Without such emphasis, physicians and training programs might forget the importance of having smart, thoughtful doctors. “Because in medicine,” Dr. Dhaliwal said, “thinking is our most important procedure.”

He added: “Getting better at diagnosis isn’t about figuring out if someone has one rare disease versus another. Getting better at diagnosis is as important to patient quality and safety as reducing medication errors, or eliminating wrong site surgery.”

Clinical Precision

Dr. Dhaliwal does half his clinical work on the wards of the San Francisco V. A. Medical Center, and the other half in its emergency department, where he often puzzles through multiple mysteries at a time.

One recent afternoon in the E.R., he was treating a 66-year-old man who was mentally unstable and uncooperative. He complained of hip pain, but routine lab work revealed that his kidneys weren’t working and his potassium was rising to a dangerous level, putting him in danger of an arrhythmia that could kill him — perhaps within hours. An ultrasound showed that his bladder was blocked.

There was work to be done: drain the bladder, correct the potassium level. It would have been easy to dismiss the hip pain as a distraction; it didn’t easily fit the picture. But Dr. Dhaliwal’s instinct is to hew to the ancient rule that physicians should try to come to a unifying diagnosis. In the end, everything — including the hip pain — was traced to metastatic prostate cancer.

“Things can shift very quickly in the emergency room,” Dr. Dhaliwal said. “One challenge of this, whether you use a computer or your brain, is deciding what’s signal and what’s noise.” Much of the time, it is his intuition that helps figure out which is which.

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Auto sales set November records at Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and BMW

New vehicles sold like gangbusters last month, with several brands setting all-time records for November.

Foreign nameplates generally reported stronger gains than domestic brands, helped by new products such as the new-generation Honda Accord and a new Nissan Pathfinder sport-utility vehicle.

Some analysts also said the import makes offered bigger discounts and other incentives on their passenger cars, which appear to be the hottest segment of the market.

American Honda Motor Co. reported that sales jumped 39% in November compared with the same month last year, reaching 116,580 vehicles, an all-time record for the month.

"We are now surpassing sales records set pre-recession, a true sign that our business has recovered," said John Mendel, executive vice president of sales at American Honda.

Likewise, Nissan North America reported record November U.S. sales of 96,197 vehicles, up 13%

"Nissan's significant portfolio refresh of five new models in 15 months is showing results with the new Pathfinder driving sales of the model up nearly 250%," said Al Castignetti, vice president, Nissan Division.

BMW reported the best U.S. sales month ever in November with sales of 31,213, an increase of 45%.

Hyundai Motor America said its sales rose 8% to 53,487 vehicles, also a U.S. record for the brand.

“The Black Friday sales period once again provided a strong boost for Hyundai in the back half of the month and helped break our all-time November sales record,” said Dave Zuchowski, executive vice president of sales. “We were also very encouraged by the strong sales recovery experienced in those northeastern regions that were ravaged by Superstorm Sandy and expect continued momentum there for the balance of the year.”

Indeed, Ken Czubay, vice president of U.S. sales at Ford Motor Co., estimates that 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles were purchased last month industrywide to replace vehicles destroyed by Sandy.

Edmunds.com estimates that the superstorm damaged or destroyed as many as 250,000 vehicles, an amount Edmunds said would boost sales of new cars and trucks by 65,000 to 80,000.

Analysts estimate that automakers sold more than 1.1 million vehicles last month for a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 15 million.

It appeared to be the highest annual sales rate since February 2008, said Jesse Toprak, an analyst for auto information company TrueCar.com.

General Motors Co. reported its highest November U.S. sales volume since 2007, with deliveries up 3% from a year earlier to 186,505 vehicles.  

Ford said its sales rose 6.5% to 177,673 vehicles last month.

Chrysler Group said its sales rose 14% to 122,565 units, it’s best November sales since 2007.

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. said its sales rose 17% to 161,695 vehicles.

Volkswagen Group said sales of its VW brand rose 29% to 36,728 vehicles. It was VW's best November since 1973.

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Follow me on Twitter (@LATimesJerry), Facebook and Google+.

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Egypt's top court postpones ruling amid pressure

CAIRO -- Egypt's highest court postponed ruling on a case against the constitutional assembly after Islamist supporters of President Mohamed Morsi blocked judges Sunday from entering their chambers in an escalating struggle over the nation’s political charter.

Protesters rallied in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court, which was expected to rule on the legitimacy of the constitutional assembly in defiance of Morsi’s decree that the assembly was not subject to judicial oversight. The case has heightened the political divisions and created a backlash against judges connected to the deposed regime of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The judges announced the "suspension of court sessions until the time when they can continue their message and rulings without any psychological and material pressures," according to a statement released by the court.

TIMELINE: Revolution in Egypt

The protest against the court was the latest skirmish in a separation-of-powers battle over the nation's constitution. The assembly approved a rushed draft constitution on Friday to preempt a court decision that was expected to rule against the body. Morsi ordered that the proposed constitution be voted on in a national referendum on Dec. 15, essentially sidelining the court.

Opposition movements across the country have been protesting Morsi's power grab for more than a week, reviving the revolutionary fervor that brought down Mubarak in February 2011. The opposition says Morsi, who was elected in June, has made a sham of democracy and that the constitution raises the prospect that Islamic law could jeopardize civil rights.

Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood have stressed that the president'’s expanded powers were necessary to blunt attempts by Mubarak-era courts from derailing Egypt’s political transition. If the constitution is passed, a new parliament -- the court dissolved an earlier Islamist-led legislature in April -- will be voted in early next year.

The Ahram Online news website reported that the constitutional court blamed Morsi and Islamists for the "lies" in a smear campaign to "taint the court’s image." The court added that it was operating in a "climate filled with hatred."

PHOTOS: Pro-Morsi protests in Cairo

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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

 

 

 

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Apple to sell new iPads, iPhone 5 in China in Dec.

CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple Inc. on Friday said its latest iPad models will go on sale in China on Dec. 7, followed by the iPhone 5 a week later.

China is one of Apple‘s largest and fastest-growing markets. Analyst Brian White at Topeka Capital Markets said iPhone 5 is launching roughly when he expected it, but he hadn’t expected the iPad mini and the fourth-generation, full-size iPad to go on sale in China this year.

“Our conversations during our meetings and casual consumer interactions during our China trips tell us that the iPad Mini will take off like wildfire in China,” White wrote in a research report Friday morning. “The smaller form factor and lower price point, we believe Apple will be able to sell the iPad mini in meaningful volumes.”

White said uptake of the iPhone 4S was relatively slow in China, because the signature new feature, voice-recognition-powered virtual assistant Siri, did not understand Mandarin Chinese. With this year’s software update, Siri now does understand the language, which should encourage upgrades, he said.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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