In burglary-plagued Oakland, it's easy to pick on this workshop

OAKLAND — Burglaries have plagued just about every corner of this beleaguered city of late: Last year, Oakland averaged one break-in every 42 minutes — a 44% increase over 2011.

So when Mayor Jean Quan recently included a workshop on lock-picking in the "Something for Everyone" section of her newsletter, it didn't go over well.

"Of all the incredibly unbelievable things I've witnessed in my life, this tops the list," one resident wrote in a letter that asked Quan to cancel the class. "What next?" another wrote on a neighborhood chat forum. "The fundamentals of armed robbery?"

In a hasty apology, Quan said she regretted the "inappropriate listing," which was part of a 20-page cut-and-pasted newsletter of local events assembled by volunteers. "It strikes the wrong note when we're doing everything we can to bring down crime," she said.

The Introduction to Lock-Picking class, to be held Saturday evening, is part of a downtown Workshop Weekend that includes more than 40 offerings, including Build a Robot, Electroluminescent Wire Projects, DNA Sequencing and Telescope Making.

The event was launched two years ago by a pair of brothers eager to help residents of all ages find their passion and learn how things work. But now Gil and J.D. Zamfirescu have found themselves doing damage control while giving this city a primer in the subculture of "sport-picking."

"We recognize there is a lot of community concern," Gil Zamfirescu said in an interview. "But the best way to combat crime is to educate yourself, to understand locks so you know how to protect yourself better."

Or, in the words of the 19th century locksmith and lock-picker Alfred Charles Hobbs: "Rogues knew a good deal about lock-picking long before locksmiths discussed it … the spread of the knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance."

Hobbs is a legend to the hobbyist lock-picker community. His quote graces the website of the Open Organisation of Lockpickers — or TOOOL — a group that started in the Netherlands and expanded to the U.S. in 2004.

In light of the Oakland brouhaha, the organization — which is hosting the Saturday class — has agreed not to offer the lock-pick kits normally sold at workshops and competitions. And just to ensure that all goes well, U.S. TOOOL co-founder Babak Javadi (a Philadelphia security consultant) and fellow board member Brian Rea (a security expert known in lock-picking circles as Deviant) are making a special trip to Oakland.

TOOOL has a strict code of ethics that association members and workshop participants must follow, including, of course, no lawbreaking.

And instructors abide by guidelines on what they will and won't teach. Rea said they dispense lock-pick kits but don't sell bump keys — which are used to quickly and forcefully open a lock. (They do explain bumping and discuss ways to make locks bump-proof.)

Though Javadi and Rea do provide know-how on covert entry, or the secret sexy stuff of James Bond movies, to their private clients, largely law enforcement and security officials, "we temper how we disseminate information, depending on who the audience is," Javadi said.

As for the risk of educating burglars, he said most can find guidance online without having to "pay $40 and come to an event where you have to use your real name." Besides, he said, the vast majority of burglars enter through open doors, kick them in or are lucky enough to find a key hidden under a rock.

Saturday's workshop description beckons: "In many cases, opening a lock without a key is easier than you think!" Open to participants ages 10-101, it has sold out.

"Sometimes a 12-year-old will come to a meeting and they're great. They just get it," said Michael Fitzhugh, a member of San Francisco's TOOOL chapter, who will be teaching the workshop. "For most people, it takes a lot of time and practice."

As for Quan, she called the class "part of a do-it-yourself, garage-science sort of event, and those are popular in our creative community." Still, she promised to "do a better job reviewing these listings in the future."

lee.romney@latimes.com

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Comings and goings at 'Downton Abbey' next season

NEW YORK (AP) — Shirley MacLaine will be returning to "Downton Abbey" next season, and opera star Kiri Te Kanawa is joining the cast.

MacLaine will reprise her role as Martha Levinson, Lord Robert Crawley's freewheeling American mother-in-law, Carnival Films and "Masterpiece" on PBS said Saturday. MacLaine appeared in episodes early last season.

New Zealand-born soprano Te Kanawa will play a house guest. She will sing during her visit.

Other new cast members and characters include:

— Tom Cullen as Lord Gillingham, described as an old family friend of the Crawleys who visits the family as a guest for a house party (and who might be the one to mend Lady Mary Crawley's broken heart).

— Nigel Harman will play a valet named Green.

— Harriet Walter plays Lady Shackleton, an old friend of the Dowager Countess.

— Joanna David will play a guest role as the Duchess of Yeovil.

— Julian Ovenden is cast as aristocrat Charles Blake.

"The addition of these characters can only mean more delicious drama, which is what 'Downton Abbey' is all about," said "Masterpiece" executive producer Rebecca Eaton.

Meanwhile, the producers have confirmed that villainous housemaid Sarah O'Brien won't be back. Siobhan Finneran, who played her, is leaving the show.

These announcements come shortly after the third season's airing in the United States. It concluded with the heartbreaking death of popular Matthew Crawley in a car crash, leaving behind his newborn child and loving wife, Lady Mary Crawley.

Matthew's untimely demise was the result of the departure from the series by actor Dan Stevens, who had starred in that role.

The third season also saw the shocking death of Lady Sybil Branson, who died during childbirth. She was played by the departing Jessica Brown Findlay.

Last season the wildly popular melodrama, set in early 20th century Britain, was the most-watched series on PBS since Ken Burns' epic "The Civil War," which first aired in 1990. The Nielsen Co. said 8.2 million viewers saw the "Downton" season conclusion.

"Downton Abbey," which airs on the "Masterpiece" anthology, won three Emmy awards last fall, including a best supporting actress trophy for Maggie Smith (the Dowager Countess), who also won a Golden Globe in January.

In all, the series has won nine Emmys, two Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the ensemble cast, which is the first time the cast of a British television show has won this award.

Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Elizabeth McGovern, Jim Carter and Brendan Coyle are among its other returning stars.

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Online:

http://www.pbs.org/downton

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U.S. Judges Offer Addicts a Way to Avoid Prison

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Emily Leitch of Brooklyn, with her son, Nazir, 4, was arrested for importing cocaine but went to “drug court” to avoid prison.

Federal judges around the country are teaming up with prosecutors to create special treatment programs for drug-addicted defendants who would otherwise face significant prison time, an effort intended to sidestep drug laws widely seen as inflexible and overly punitive.

The Justice Department has tentatively embraced the new approach, allowing United States attorneys to reduce or even dismiss charges in some drug cases.

The effort follows decades of success for “drug courts” at the state level, which legal experts have long cited as a less expensive and more effective alternative to prison for dealing with many low-level repeat offenders.

But it is striking that the model is spreading at the federal level, where judges have increasingly pushed back against rules that restrict their ability to make their own determination of appropriate sentences.

So far, federal judges have instituted programs in California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington. About 400 defendants have been involved nationwide.

In Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Thursday, Judge John Gleeson issued an opinion praising the new approach as a way to address swelling prison costs and disproportionate sentences for drug trafficking.

“Presentence programs like ours and those in other districts mean that a growing number of courts are no longer reflexively sentencing federal defendants who do not belong in prison to the costly prison terms recommended by the sentencing guidelines,” Judge Gleeson wrote.

The opinion came a year after Judge Gleeson, with the federal agency known as Pretrial Services, started a program that made achieving sobriety an incentive for drug-addicted defendants to avoid prison. The program had its first graduate this year: Emily Leitch, a Brooklyn woman with a long history of substance abuse who was arrested entering the country at Kennedy International Airport with over 13 kilograms of cocaine, about 30 pounds, in her luggage.

“I want to thank the federal government for giving me a chance,” Ms. Leitch said. “I always wanted to stand up as a sober person.”

The new approach is being prompted in part by the Obama administration, which previously supported legislation that scaled back sentences for crimes involving crack cocaine. The Justice Department has supported additional changes to the federal sentencing guidelines to permit the use of drug or mental health treatment as an alternative to incarceration for certain low-level offenders and changed its own policies to make those options more available.

“We recognize that imprisonment alone is not a complete strategy for reducing crime,” James M. Cole, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement. “Drug courts, re-entry courts and other related programs along with enforcement are all part of the solution.”

For nearly 30 years, the United States Sentencing Commission has established guidelines for sentencing, a role it was given in 1984 after studies found that federal judges were giving defendants widely varying sentences for similar crimes. The commission’s recommendations are approved by Congress, causing judges to bristle at what they consider interference with their judicial independence.

“When you impose a sentence that you believe is unjust, it is a very difficult thing to do,” Stefan R. Underhill, a federal judge in Connecticut, said in an interview. “It feels wrong.”

The development of drug courts may meet resistance from some Republicans in Congress.

“It is important that courts give deference to Congressional authority over sentencing,” Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, a member and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. He said sentencing should not depend “on what judge happens to decide the case or what judicial circuit the defendant happens to be in.”

At the state level, pretrial drug courts have benefited from bipartisan support, with liberals supporting the programs as more focused on rehabilitation, and conservatives supporting them as a way to cut spending.

Under the model being used in state and federal courts, defendants must accept responsibility for their crimes and agree to receive drug treatment and other social services and attend regular meetings with judges who monitor their progress. In return for successful participation, they receive a reduced sentence or no jail time at all. If they fail, they are sent to prison.

The drug court option is not available to those facing more serious charges, like people accused of being high-level dealers or traffickers, or accused of a violent crime. (These programs differ from re-entry drug courts, which federal judges have long used to help offenders integrate into society after prison.)

In interviews, the federal judges who run the other programs pointed to a mix of reasons for their involvement.

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Brazil is trying to restart its economic growth spurt

SAO PAULO, Brazil — The Brazilian government is hoping to get South America's largest economy kicking again.

It has yanked down interest rates to record lows and kept the value of the real, the Brazilian currency, in check. The government has even doled out tax cuts in attempts to boost growth.

But so far, there's not much evidence those strategies are working — and key economic data released Friday probably won't change things.

The government reported the economy grew less than 1% for 2012, which was slightly below what economists expected. That expansion in gross domestic product was well below the 4.5% the country had been recently averaging, presenting a challenge for a government that needs growth to continue its social progress.

"We're suffering from a hangover from growing too fast, and the slowdown in 2011 and 2012 has been worse than we expected," said Caio Megale, an economist at the Brazilian bank Itau Unibanco. "We're waiting to get back on track in 2013 and 2014, but still, because of structural limitations we think that for the time being we'll grow slower than we did from 2005 to 2010."

Brazilians are living better than ever, enjoying record-low unemployment and still-rising wages. But more social gains depend on how — and whether — the country rebounds, economists say.

In Latin America, countries such as Mexico and Colombia are sucking in some of the investment that used to come to Brazil when it was still an investors' darling. After overtaking the UK as the world's sixth-largest economy last year, Brazil slid back into seventh place, ahead of France.

Investors have been startled by stubborn inflation, low productivity and onerous taxes that have reappeared as the country attempts to get back on track. Stocks have slid, and the Brazilian government hasn't done much to make it easy for foreign investors.

"Investing in Brazil is less of a no-brainer now," Megale said. "You have to know what stock or asset you're investing in. It's not just that you bring your money in and automatically make more money, like it was before."

For much of the 21st century so far, two factors propelled the previously long-suffering Brazilian economy forward.

First, Asian demand for commodities such as iron ore and soy pushed up prices, and money poured into Brazil. From 2000 to 2011, Brazilian exports to China increased more than fortyfold.

Second, governments put the country's previously crisis-ridden financial system on track, enabling Brazilians to go on a credit-fueled spending spree, often for basic (and Asian-made) consumer items such as refrigerators, cars and washing machines.

The resulting boom, combined with moderate social programs put in place by the government of Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, has lifted almost 40 million Brazilians out of poverty and reduced the often shocking inequality among the country's residents. Investors got some nice returns, and Brazil emerged on the world stage — winning the rights to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

But a recent slowdown in China, not to mention the European economic crisis, has taken its toll. Banks say Brazilian consumers are reaching the limit of debt they can take on.

After the economy averaged 4% to 5% GDP growth per year in 2005-10, growth dropped to 2.7% in 2011, and in 2012 it is expected to have been less than 1%.

"We think the growth from 2005 to 2010 was an exceptional period, owing to factors that won't be repeated," said Tony Volpon, an economist with Nomura in New York. He expects Brazil to grow 3.5% this year. "The government is waiting for the measures taken in 2012 to sooner or later cause growth, but those measures may have simply failed."

From 2011 to 2012, Brazil's central bank brought interest rates down to 7.25% from as high as 12.5% — around where they had long hovered as some of the highest in the world. The government also granted ad hoc tax breaks to stimulate industry and continued intervening in the foreign exchange markets.

The much-feared threat of inflation has also reared its head again. Inflation may be approaching the official upper limit of 6.5%.

That's still much lower than problematic levels in neighboring Argentina, but Brazil is especially averse to price rises after going through years of hyperinflation. Some parts of the market want the central bank to change course and raise rates again.

"Growth will stay slow unless there are structural changes, and that really means reform. There is some low-hanging fruit for easy changes, such as with the tax code, which is very silly in places," Volpon said. "But unlike in Mexico, there is no political consensus here for reform at the moment."

This may be because in the streets of Brazil, normal people are feeling great, and the government is confident. While investors have taken a hit, high wages and low unemployment have gone hand in hand with approval ratings for President Dilma Rousseff as high as 78%. With most people happy, there is little incentive to make changes.

But all will not stay rosy if growth doesn't return, Volpon and Megale said.

Many Brazilian industries are in dire need of skilled laborers, having already snapped up everyone available. Economists believe a scarcity of productive workers is one of a few obstacles to getting the country back on track, along with huge infrastructure bottlenecks long in need of investment.

"If we can't get investment up to 25% of our GDP, we'll never be able to grow at the rates we had going recently," said Paulo Sandroni, professor of economics at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas, an elite business school. Poor infrastructure could also be a headache during the World Cup and Olympics.

The worst-hit part of the economy, however, has been industrial production, undercut by competition from China, high costs, and an overvalued real.

"So far a consumer boom has counteracted drops in manufacturing output," Sandroni said. "But the weakening of the dollar really hurt us."

After the real climbed against the dollar, making Brazilian exports less competitive, Brazil Finance Minister Guido Mantega in 2010 blamed loose monetary policy in the United States, then put in place a shifting regime of capital controls that made it harder to invest in the country.

The real eventually came down, but as with low interest rates and the fiscal stimulus, the expected benefits have not yet materialized.

business@latimes.com

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Bell jurors ordered to begin anew after panelist is dismissed

After nearly five days of deliberations, jurors in the Bell corruption trial were ordered Thursday to begin anew after a member of the panel was dismissed for misconduct and replaced by an alternate.

The original juror, a white-haired woman identified only as Juror No. 3, told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy she had gone onto a legal website to look up jury instructions and then asked her daughter to help find a definition for the word "coercion."

Although all but one defense attorney requested that the woman stay, Kennedy said the juror needed to be removed. "She has spoken about the deliberations with her daughter, she has conducted research on the Internet, and I've repeatedly, repeatedly throughout this trial — probably hundreds of times — cautioned the jury not to do that," the judge said.

The removal came after jurors notified the judge that they were deadlocked and that continued deliberations seemed fruitless.

It was unclear how to interpret the day's events, whether the dismissed juror had been a lone holdout or an indication of a fractured jury.

The juror started to tell the judge which way she was leaning in the case, saying she had gone online "looking to see at what point can I get the harassment to stop.... How long do I have to stay in there and deliberate with them when I have made my decision that I didn't think there was —"

Kennedy cut her off before she could finish.

The woman clasped her hands over her mouth and said, "I'm sorry."

Two defense attorneys thought she was leaning toward acquittal and wanted her to stay. "I would have preferred the deadlock to a guilty verdict," said Alex Kessel, the attorney for George Mirabal, one of six former council members charged with misappropriation of public funds.

The council members are charged with inflating their salaries in what prosecutors contend was a far-reaching web of corruption in which fat paychecks were placed ahead of the needs of the city's largely immigrant, working-poor constituents.

When attorneys and defendants were summoned to the courtroom Thursday morning, they were initially told that the jury appeared to be deadlocked.

"Your honor, we have reached a point where as a jury we have fundamental disagreements and cannot reach a unanimous verdict in this case," read a note signed by two jurors, including the foreman, that was given to Kennedy.

A note from another juror alerted the judge that Juror No. 3 had consulted an outside attorney. That did not appear to be the case, but her other actions were revealed under questioning from the judge.

The same juror made a tearful request Monday to be removed from the panel because she felt others were picking on her. Kennedy told the woman that although discussions can get heated, it was important to continue deliberating.

On Thursday, however, the juror again broke into tears and said she had spoken with her daughter about "the abuse I have suffered." She said her daughter told her, "Mom, they're trying to find the weak link."

The woman said she had turned to the Internet to better understand the rules about jury deliberations and came across the word "coercion." After her daughter helped her look up the word's definition, she wrote it down on a piece of paper and brought it with her to court. When the judge asked to see the paper she went into the jury room to retrieve it.

The woman later left the courtroom in tears.

With an alternate in place, Kennedy told the panel to act as if the earlier deliberations had not taken place. The alternate had sat in the jury box during the four-week trial but did not take part in deliberations.

Former council members Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and Mirabal are accused of drawing annual salaries of as much as $100,000 a year by serving on boards that did little work and seldom met, part of a scandal that drew national attention to the small city in 2010.

Prosecutors said that Bell's charter follows state law regarding council members' compensation. In a city the size of Bell, council members should be paid no more than $8,076 a year.

The trial began in late January, and the case went to the jury last Friday.

As the jury resumed deliberations in downtown Los Angeles, the verdict was clearly in on the streets of Bell.

One resident unfurled old protest banners and signs from the days when the pay scandal was first exposed and then called former members of an activist group that had led the charge for reform in the city.

"We're holding our breaths and waiting," Denise Rodarte, a member of the grassroots group Bell Assn. to Stop the Abuse, said in regard to a verdict.

"It's cut and dry: Local elected officials were supposed to make a certain amount of money, and they made a lot more."

corina.knoll@latimes.com

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.

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The New Old Age Blog: Why Can’t I Live With People Like Me?

“Aging in place” is the mantra of long-term care. Whether looking at reams of survey data, talking to friends or wishing on a star, who among us wouldn’t rather spend the final years — golden or less so — at home, surrounded by our cherished possessions, in our own bed, no cranky old coot as a roommate, no institutional smells or sounds, no lukewarm meals on a schedule of someone else’s making?

That works best, experts tell us, in dense cities, where we can hail a cab at curbside, call the superintendent when something breaks and have our food delivered from Fresh Direct or countless takeout restaurants. We’d have neighbors in the apartment above us, below us, just on the other side of the wall. Hearing their toilets flush and their children ride tricycles on uncarpeted floors is a small inconvenience compared to the security of knowing they are so close by in an emergency.

Urban planners, mindful that most Americans live in sprawling, car-reliant suburbs, are designing more elder-friendly, walkable communities, far from “real” cities. Houses and apartments are built around village greens, with pockets of commerce instead of distant strip malls. Some have community centers for congregate meals and activities; others share gardens, where people can get their hands in the warm spring dirt long after they can push a lawn mower.

All of this is a step in the right direction, despite the Potemkin-village look of so many of them. But it doesn’t take into account those who are too infirm to stay at home, even in cities or more manageable suburban environments. Some are alone, others with a loving spouse who by comparison is “well” but may not be for long, given the rigors of care-taking. It doesn’t take into account people who can’t afford a home health aide, who don’t qualify for a visiting nurse, who have no adult children to help them or whose children live far away.

But by now, aging in place, unrealistic for some, scary or unsafe for others and potentially very isolating, has become so entrenched as the right way to live out one’s life that not being able to pull it off seems a failure, yet another defeat at a time when defeats are all too plentiful. Are we making people feel guilty if they can’t stay at home, or don’t want to? Are we discouraging an array of other solutions by investing so much, program-wise and emotionally, in this sine qua non?

Regular readers of The New Old Age know that I am single, childless and terrified of falling off a ladder while replacing a light bulb, breaking a hip and lying on the floor, unattended, until my dog wails so loudly a neighbor comes by to complain. A MedicAlert pendant is not something that appeals to me at 65, but even if I give in to that, say at 75, I’m not sure my life will be richer for digging my heels in and insisting home is where I should be.

So I spend a lot of time thinking about the alternatives. I know enough to distinguish between naturally-occurring-retirement communities, or NORCs (some of which work better than others); age-restricted housing complexes (with no services); assisted living (which works fine when you don’t really need it and not so fine when you do); and continuing care retirement communities (which require big upfront payments and extensive due diligence to be sure the place doesn’t go belly up after you get there).

What I find so unappealing about all these choices is that each means growing old among people with whom I share no history. In these congregate settings, for the most part, people are guaranteed only two things in common: age and infirmity. Which brings us to what is known in the trade as “affinity” or “niche” communities,” long studied by Andrew J. Carle at the College of Health and Human Services at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

Mr. Carle, who trains future administrators of senior housing complexes, was a media darling a few years back, before the recession, with the first baby boomers approaching 65 and niche communities that included services for the elderly — not merely warm-weather developments adjacent to golf courses — expected to explode. In newspaper interviews as recently as 2011, Mr. Carle said there were “about 100 of them in existence or on the drawing board,” not counting the large number of military old-age communities.

Mr. Carle still believes that better economic times, when they come, will reinvigorate this sector of senior housing, after the failure of some in the planning stages and others in operation. In an e-mail exchange, Mr. Carle said there were now about 70 in operation, with perhaps 50 of those that he has defined as University Based Retirement Communities, adjacent to campuses and popular with alumni, as well as non-alumni, who enjoy proximity to the intellectual and athletic activities. Among the most popular are those near Dartmouth, Oberlin, the University of Alabama, Penn State, Notre Dame, Stanford and Cornell.

At the height of the “affinity” boom, L.G.B.T.-assisted living communities and nursing homes were all the rage, seen as a solution to the shoddy treatment that those of different sexual orientations in the pre-Stonewall generation experienced in generic facilities. A few failed, most never got built and, by all accounts, the only one to survive is the pricy Rainbow Vision community in Sante Fe, N.M.

A handful of nudist elder communities, and ones for old hippies, also fell by the wayside, perhaps too free-spirited for the task. According to Mr. Carle, despite the odds, at least one group of RV enthusiasts has added an assisted-living component to what began as collections of transient elderly, looking only for a parking spot and necessary water and power hook-ups for their trailers. Native Americans have made a go of an assisted-living community in Montana, and Asians have done the same in Northern California.

But professional affinity communities, which I find most appealing, are few and far between.

The storied Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, a sliding-scale institution in the San Fernando Valley since 1940, survived near-closure in 2009 as a result of litigation, activism by the Screen Actors Guild and the local chapter of the Teamsters, and news media pressure. Among film legends who died there — along with cameramen, back-lot security guards and extras — were Mary Astor, Joel McCrea, Yvonne De Carlo and Stepin Fetchit.

New York State’s volunteer firefighters are all welcome to a refurbished facility in the Catskill region that offers far more in the way of care and activities, including a state-of-the-art gym, than when I visited there five years ago. At that time, the residents amused themselves by activating the fire alarm to summon the local hook and ladder company, which didn’t mind a bit.

Then there is Nalcrest, the retirement home for unionized letter carriers. Even as post offices nationwide are preparing to eliminate Saturday service, and snail mail becomes an artifact, the National Association of Letter Carriers holds monthly fees around the $500 mark, is located in central Florida so its members no longer have to brave rain and sleet to complete their appointed rounds, and bans dogs, the bane of their existence.

So why not aged journalists? We surely have war stories to embroider as we rock on the porch. Perhaps a mimeograph machine to produce an old-fashioned, dead-tree newspaper, which some of us will miss once it has given way to Web sites like this one. Pneumatic tubes, one colleague suggested, to whisk our belongings upstairs when we can no longer carry them. Other colleagues wondered about welcoming both editors and reporters. How can these two groups, which some consider natural adversaries, complain about each others’ tin ears or missed deadlines if we’re not segregated?

I disagree. The joy of this profession is its collaboration. We did the impossible day after day when young. We belong together when old.

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Airports big and small may feel effects of federal budget feud

Get ready for longer lines at Los Angeles International Airport, slower delivery of packages and the possible shutdown of small Southern California airport control towers if a resolution isn't reached on federal budget cuts.

The good news is that the biggest effects probably will not take hold until April, giving President Obama and congressional leaders time to hammer out a deal to resolve the budget feud.

But if no agreement is reached, the Federal Aviation Administration will be forced to cut its budget about $600 million. That could force the FAA to close more than 100 air traffic control towers across the country, primarily at smaller regional airports, including in Santa Monica, Victorville and Oxnard.

The night shift for air traffic controllers could also be eliminated at about 70 larger airports, including LA/Ontario International.

The federal agency has also put out the option of furloughing FAA employees for one or two days per two-week pay period, beginning in mid-April.

At Los Angeles International Airport, officials say it is too early to gauge how much of an effect the budget cuts would have on the average air traveler.

But Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole said lines at security gates at major airports across the country could grow longer during the peak spring and summer travel seasons if he is forced to cut overtime pay, which would reduce the number of screening officers.

"The longer it goes, the greater the potential impact," he said of the budget battle.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Assn. expects the cuts to lead to fewer flights and increased delays of as long as 90 minutes during peak hours.

"Safety will remain the top priority, but in order to maintain the appropriate level of safety with fewer controllers, fewer planes will be allowed in the sky, as well as in and out of airports," the group said in a statement.

The FAA has announced plans to shut down towers at airports with fewer than 150,000 landings and takeoffs a year. Santa Monica Airport, which is on the FAA closure list, operates about 105,000 landings and takeoffs a year. Van Nuys Airport, which is not on the list, has more than 250,000 landings and takeoffs.

Still, the effect on smaller airports on the FAA cut list may not be severe because pilots can land and depart without the help of an air traffic controller by keeping track of each other through radio communications.

Joe Justice, who operates Justice Aviation, a company that offers flying lessons at Santa Monica Airport, said he doesn't expect his business to face major changes if the tower is closed.

"We would continue to give flying lessons," he said. "There would be no reason not to. We would depart here and practice at a place where there is an open tower."

Private jet charter companies said they may even get more business if sequestration increases delays on commercial airlines, forcing passengers to charter a jet.

"People who are sitting on the fence about wanting to hire a private jet may spend the extra money so they won't be caught in a situation where they have no idea how long their delays will be," said Ben Schusterman, founder of Los Angeles-based ElJet.

The closure of overnight shifts at the control tower in Ontario could eliminate 12 passenger flights, or 9% of operations, but a bigger effect would be the loss of 73 cargo flights, or 36% of all cargo operations.

Cargo operators at Ontario said they were still unsure of the effect of budget cuts on their businesses.

"UPS is closely monitoring the sequestration proceedings," United Parcel Service Inc. spokesman Mike Mangeot said. "And while we are in communications with the FAA regarding the effects of the possible cuts, it is premature to speculate at this time."

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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DNA science points to better treatment for acne

Ancient Egyptians were vexed by it, using sulfur to dry it out. Shakespeare wrote of its "bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o' fire."

Today, acne plagues us still. Doctors can cure some cancers and transplant vital organs like hearts, but they still have trouble getting rid of the pimples and splotches that plague 85% of us at some time in our lives — usually, when we're teenagers and particularly sensitive about they way we look.

But new research hints that there's hope for zapping zits in the future, thanks to advances in genetic research.

Using state-of-the-art DNA sequencing techniques to evaluate the bacteria lurking in the pores of 101 study volunteers' noses, scientists discovered a particular strain of Propionibacterium acnes bacteria that may be able to defend against other versions of P. acnes that pack a bigger breakout-causing punch.

As best as dermatologists can tell, zits occur when bacteria that reside in human skin, including P. acnes, feed on oils in the pores and prompt an immune response that results in red, sometimes pus-filled bumps. But the study subjects who had the newly discovered bacterial strain weren't suffering from whiteheads or blackheads, according to a report published Thursday in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Someday, the realization that "not all P. acnes are created equal" might help dermatologists devise treatments that more precisely target bad strains while allowing beneficial ones to thrive, said Dr. Noah Craft, a dermatologist at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute who conducted the study with colleagues from UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis.

Doctors might prescribe probiotic creams that deliver "good" P. acnes to the face the same way a daily serving of yogurt helps restore healthy bacteria in the digestive tract.

"There are healthy strains that we need on our skin," Craft said. "The idea that you'd use a nuclear bomb to kill everything — what we're currently doing with antibiotics and other treatments — just doesn't make sense."

The research is part of a broad effort backed by the National Institutes of Health to characterize the so-called human microbiome: the trillions of microbes that live in and on our bodies and evolve along with us, sometimes causing illness and often promoting good health.

Most of the microbiome attention so far has gone to studying species in the gut, said study leader Huiying Li, an assistant professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine. But the NIH's Human Microbiome Project, which funds her research, also looks at microbial communities in the nasal passages, the mouth, the urogenital tract and the skin.

Li said she became interested in studying acne because the skin microbiome seemed particularly understudied.

The research team recruited 101 patients in their teens and 20s from dermatology clinics in Southern California. Among them, 49 had acne and 52 had "normal skin" and were not experiencing breakouts but had come to the clinics for other problems.

Doctors used adhesive pore strips to remove skin bacteria from patients' noses. The researchers then collected the waxy plugs — a combination of bacteria, oils, dead skin cells and other stuff — and used DNA to figure out which bacteria were present.

They found that the P. acnes species accounted for about 90% of the bacteria in pores, in both healthy patients and acne sufferers. Digging a little deeper into the DNA, they found that two particular strains appeared in about 20% of acne sufferers, while a third strain was found only in acne-free patients.

"Dogs are dogs, but a Chihuahua isn't a Great Dane," Craft said. "People with acne had pit bulls on their skin. Healthy people had poodles."

The team then sequenced the complete genomes — about 2.6 million base pairs apiece — of 66 of the P. acnes specimens to explore in more depth how the good and bad strains differed.

The two notable bad strains had genes, probably picked up from other bacteria or viruses, that are thought to change the shape of a microbe to make it more virulent. The researchers hypothesized that the foreign DNA, perhaps by sticking more effectively to human host tissues, may help trigger an inflammatory response in the skin: acne.

The good strain, on the other hand, contained an element known to work like an immune system in bacteria, Li said. Perhaps it allows this P. acne to fight off intruders and prevent pimples from forming.

Li said the researchers did not know why some people had the bad P. acnes strains and others did not, and whether genetics or environment played a bigger role.

Dr. Vincent Young, who conducts microbiome research at the University of Michigan Medical School but wasn't involved in the acne project, said advances in sequencing technology and analysis made the new study possible. In the past, he said, scientists wouldn't have tried to sequence dozens of genomes in a single species.

"They'd say, why waste the money?" he said. "Now you can do this in a couple of days."

Li and Craft — neither of whom suffered bad acne as teens — plan to keep up the work.

More research is needed to come up with super-targeted anti-microbial therapies, or to develop a probiotic cream for acne sufferers.

Craft continues collecting samples from patients' pores. He hopes to study whether twins share the same microbial profiles, how acne severity is reflected in bacteria populations, and how things change in a single patient over the course of a treatment regimen.

One of the study volunteers, 19-year-old UC Santa Cruz student Brandon Pritzker, said he would have loved to have treated his acne without affecting the rest of his body. When he took Accutane, he suffered back pain and mood shifts.

Now off the drug, Pritzker said he is at peace with his pimples. "I still have breakouts, but I figure I'm 19, that's the way it's going to be," he said.

But, he added, "it hindered my confidence at the time. Kids with clear skin are probably a little happier."

eryn.brown@latimes.com

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Glamorous Diana dresses up for auction

LONDON (AP) — If dresses could talk, this dark navy, figure-hugging velvet number would have the best stories to tell.

Princess Diana wore it on state visits, at royal banquets and most memorably to a gala dinner at the White House in 1985, when she took to the dance floor with Hollywood star John Travolta.

The Victor Edelstein gown will go under the hammer at a vintage fashion auction in London in March, along with nine other of Diana's lavish evening dresses. In total, Kerry Taylor Auctions say the sale is expected to raise more than 800,000 pounds ($1.2 million.)

The dresses, all in the signature 1980s look — padded shoulders, puffed sleeves, crushed velvet — are snapshots in the princess's glamorous, jet-setting life.

The sale is set for March 19.

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The New Old Age Blog: For the Elderly, Lists of Tests to Avoid

The Choosing Wisely campaign, an initiative by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation in partnership with Consumer Reports, kicked off last spring. It is an attempt to alert both doctors and patients to problematic and commonly overused medical tests, procedures and treatments.

It took an elegantly simple approach: By working through professional organizations representing medical specialties, Choosing Wisely asked doctors to identify “Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question.”

The idea was that doctors and their patients could agree on tests and treatments that are supported by evidence, that don’t duplicate what others do, that are “truly necessary” and “free from harm” — and avoid the rest.

Among the 18 new lists released last week are recommendations from geriatricians and palliative care specialists, which may be of particular interest to New Old Age readers. I’ve previously written about a number of these warnings, but it’s helpful to have them in single, strongly worded documents.

The winners — or perhaps, losers?

Both the American Geriatrics Society and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine agreed on one major “don’t.” Topping both lists was an admonition against feeding tubes for people with advanced dementia.

“This is not news; the data’s been out for at least 15 years,” said Sei Lee, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, and a member of the working group that narrowed more than 100 recommendations down to five. Feeding tubes don’t prevent aspiration pneumonia or prolong dementia patients’ lives, the research shows, but they do exacerbate bedsores and cause such distress that people often try to pull them out and wind up in restraints. The doctors recommended hand-feeding dementia patients instead.

The geriatricians’ list goes on to warn against the routine prescribing of antipsychotic medications for dementia patients who become aggressive or disruptive. Though drugs like Haldol, Risperdal and Zyprexa remain widely used, “all of these have been shown to increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular death,” Dr. Lee said. They should be last resorts, after behavioral interventions.

The other questionable tests and treatments:

No. 3: Prescribing medications to achieve “tight glycemic control” (defined as below 7.5 on the A1c test) in elderly diabetics, who need to control their blood sugar, but not as strictly as younger patients.

No. 4: Turning to sleeping pills as the first choice for older people who suffer from agitation, delirium or insomnia. Xanax, Ativan, Valium, Ambien, Lunesta — “they don’t magically disappear from your body when you wake up in the morning,” Dr. Lee said. They continue to slow reaction times, resulting in falls and auto accidents. Other sleep therapies are preferable.

No. 5: Prescribing antibiotics when tests indicate a urinary tract infection, but the patient has no discomfort or other symptoms. Many older people have bacteria in their bladders but don’t suffer ill effects; repeated use of antibiotics just causes drug resistance, leaving them vulnerable to more dangerous infections. “Treat the patient, not the lab test,” Dr. Lee said.

The palliative care doctors’ Five Things list cautions against delaying palliative care, which can relieve pain and control symptoms even as patients pursue treatments for their diseases.

It also urges discussion about deactivating implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, or ICDs, in patients with irreversible diseases. “Being shocked is like being kicked in the chest by a mule,” said Eric Widera, a palliative care specialist at the San Francisco V.A. Medical Center who served on the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine working group. “As someone gets close to the end of life, these ICDs can’t prolong life and they cause a lot of pain.”

Turning the devices off — an option many patients don’t realize they have — requires simple computer reprogramming or a magnet, not the surgery that installed them in the first place.

The palliative care doctors also pointed out that patients suffering pain as cancer spreads to their bones get as much relief, the evidence shows, from a single dose of radiation than from 10 daily doses that require travel to hospitals or treatment centers.

Finally, their list warned that topical gels widely used by hospice staffs to control nausea do not work because they aren’t absorbed through the skin. “We have lots of other ways to give anti-nausea drugs,” Dr. Widera said.

You can read all the Five Things lists (more are coming later this year), and the Consumer Reports publications that do a good job of translating them, on the Choosing Wisely Web site.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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