'Identity Thief' grabs $34.6M to debut at No. 1

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy's "Identity Thief" has made off with the weekend box-office title with a $34.6 million debut.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Identity Thief," Universal, $34,551,025, 3,141 locations, $11,000 average, $34,551,025, one week.

2. "Warm Bodies," Lionsgate, $11,356,090, 3,009 locations, $3,774 average, $36,481,172, two weeks.

3. "Side Effects," Open Road Films, $9,303,145, 2,605 locations, $3,571 average, $9,303,145, one week.

4. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $6,425,271, 2,809 locations, $2,287 average, $89,519,510, 13 weeks.

5. "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," Paramount, $5,753,165, 3,285 locations, $1,751 average, $43,836,018, three weeks.

6. "Mama," Universal, $4,229,665, 2,677 locations, $1,580 average, $63,951,810, four weeks.

7. "Zero Dark Thirty," Sony, $4,006,860, 2,562 locations, $1,564 average, $83,567,450, eight weeks.

8. "Argo," Warner Bros., $2,375,344, 1,405 locations, $1,691 average, $123,608,957, 18 weeks.

9. "Django Unchained," Weinstein Co., $2,303,495, 1,502 locations, $1,534 average, $154,516,627, seven weeks.

10. "Bullet to the Head," Warner Bros., $2,078,192, 2,404 locations, $864 average, $8,269,214, two weeks.

11. "Top Gun" in 3-D, Paramount, $1,965,737, 300 locations, $6,552 average, $1,965,737, one week.

12. "Lincoln," Disney, $1,873,537, 1,517 locations, $1,235 average, $173,621,006, 14 weeks.

13. "Parker," FilmDistrict, $1,867,411, 2,004 locations, $932 average, $15,848,064, three weeks.

14. "Life of Pi," Fox, $1,745,744, 924 locations, $1,889 average, $108,530,249, 12 weeks.

15. "Les Miserables," Universal, $1,555,550, 1,447 locations, $1,075 average, $143,983,705, seven weeks.

16. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," Warner Bros., $1,468,374, 1,001 locations, $1,467 average, $298,333,426, nine weeks.

17. "Parental Guidance," Fox, $1,071,766, 1,219 locations, $879 average, $74,344,256, seven weeks.

18. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $1,065,817, 757 locations, $1,408 average, $184,414,532, 15 weeks.

19. "The Impossible," Summit, $957,594, 739 locations, $1,296 average, $16,668,338, eight weeks.

20. "Quartet," Weinstein Co., $940,930, 244 locations, $3,856 average, $5,000,417, five weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Personal Health: Getting the Right Addiction Treatment

“Treatment is not a prerequisite to surviving addiction.” This bold statement opens the treatment chapter in a helpful new book, “Now What? An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery,” by William Cope Moyers, a man who nonetheless needed “four intense treatment experiences over five years” before he broke free of alcohol and drugs.

As the son of Judith and Bill Moyers, successful parents who watched helplessly during a 15-year pursuit of oblivion through alcohol and drugs, William Moyers said his near-fatal battle with addiction demonstrates that this “illness of the mind, body and spirit” has no respect for status or opportunity.

“My parents raised me to become anything I wanted, but when it came to this chronic incurable illness, I couldn’t get on top of it by myself,” he said in an interview.

He finally emerged from his drug-induced nadir when he gave up “trying to do it my way” and instead listened to professional therapists and assumed responsibility for his behavior. For the last “18 years and four months, one day at a time,” he said, he has lived drug-free.

“Treatment is not the end, it’s the beginning,” he said. “My problem was not drinking or drugs. My problem was learning how to live life without drinking or drugs.”

Mr. Moyers acknowledges that treatment is not a magic bullet. Even after a monthlong stay at a highly reputable treatment center like Hazelden in Center City, Minn., where Mr. Moyers is a vice president of public affairs and community relations, the probability of remaining sober and clean a year later is only about 55 percent. (Hazelden also published his book.)

“Be wary of any program that claims a 100 percent success rate,” Mr. Moyers warned. “There is no such thing.”

“Treatment works to make recovery possible. But recovery is also possible without treatment,” Mr. Moyers said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What I needed and what worked for me isn’t necessarily what you or your loved one require.”

As with many smokers who must make multiple attempts to quit before finally overcoming an addiction to nicotine, people hooked on alcohol or drugs often must try and try again.

Nor does treatment have as good a chance at succeeding if it is forced upon a person who is not ready to recover. “Treatment does work, but only if the person wants it to,” Mr. Moyers said.

Routes to Success

For those who need a structured program, Mr. Moyers described what to consider to maximize the chances of overcoming addiction to alcohol or drugs.

Most important is to get a thorough assessment before deciding where to go for help. Do you or your loved one meet the criteria for substance dependence? Are there “co-occurring mental illnesses, traumatic or physical disabilities, socioeconomic influences, cultural issues, or family dynamics” that may be complicating the addiction and that can sabotage treatment success?

While most reputable treatment centers do a full assessment before admitting someone, it is important to know if the center or clinic provides the services of professionals who can address any underlying issues revealed by the assessment. For example, if needed, is a psychiatrist or other medical doctor available who could provide therapy and prescribe medication?

Is there a social worker on staff to address challenging family, occupational or other living problems? If a recovering addict goes home to the same problems that precipitated the dependence on alcohol or drugs, the chances of remaining sober or drug-free are greatly reduced.

Is there a program for family members who can participate with the addict in learning the essentials of recovery and how to prepare for the return home once treatment ends?

Finally, does the program offer aftercare and follow-up services? Addiction is now recognized to be a chronic illness that lurks indefinitely within an addict in recovery. As with other chronic ailments, like diabetes or hypertension, lasting control requires hard work and diligence. One slip need not result in a return to abuse, and a good program will help addicts who have completed treatment cope effectively with future challenges to their recovery.

How Families Can Help

“Addiction is a family illness,” Mr. Moyers wrote. Families suffer when someone they love descends into the purgatory of addiction. But contrary to the belief that families should cut off contact with addicts and allow them to reach “rock-bottom” before they can begin recovery, Mr. Moyers said that the bottom is sometimes death.

“It is a dangerous, though popular, misconception that a sick addict can only quit using and start to get well when he ‘hits bottom,’ that is, reaches a point at which he is desperate enough to willingly accept help,” Mr. Moyers wrote.

Rather, he urged families to remain engaged, to keep open the lines of communication and regularly remind the addict of their love and willingness to help if and when help is wanted. But, he added, families must also set firm boundaries — no money, no car, nothing that can be quickly converted into the substance of abuse.

Whether or not the addict ever gets well, Mr. Moyers said, “families have to take care of themselves. They can’t let the addict walk over their lives.”

Sometimes families or friends of an addict decide to do an intervention, confronting the addict with what they see happening and urging the person to seek help, often providing possible therapeutic contacts.

“An intervention can be the key that interrupts the process and enables the addict to recognize the extent of their illness and the need to take responsibility for their behavior,”Mr. Moyers said.

But for an intervention to work, Mr. Moyers said, “the sick person should not be belittled or demeaned.” He also cautioned families to “avoid threats.” He noted that the mind of “the desperate, fearful addict” is subsumed by drugs and alcohol that strip it of logic, empathy and understanding. It “can’t process your threat any better than it can a tearful, emotional plea.”

Resource Network

Mr. Moyer’s book lists nearly two dozen sources of help for addicts and their families. Among them:

Alcoholics Anonymous World Services www.aa.org;

Narcotics Anonymous World Services www.na.org;

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration treatment finder www.samhsa.gov/treatment/;

Al-Anon Family Groups www.Al-anon.alateen.org;

Nar-Anon Family Groups www.nar-anon.org;

Co-Dependents Anonymous World Fellowship www.coda.org.

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This is the second of two articles on addiction treatment. The first can be found at “Effective Addiction Treatment.”

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American-US Airways merger talks reportedly close to completion

Merger talks between the parent company of American Airlines and US Airways continued Monday, with sources suggesting an announcement could be made later this week.

The union of Fort Worth-based American and Phoenix-based US Airways would create the nation's largest airline, with a mainline fleet of nearly 1,000 planes.

The boards of the two airlines are expected to meet in the next few days to vote on the proposed merger, sources have told Reuters News.

According to the sources, US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker would become CEO, while AMR Corp.' chief Tom Horton would serve as non-executive chairman of the board until next year.

In 2011, American Airlines became the latest of several major carriers in the last decade to file for bankruptcy. US Airways, a smaller but more profitable carrier, has publicly advocated a merger with American to better compete against larger carriers such as Delta and United.

Sources have told Reuters and other news outlets that a merger between the two is in the works, pending negotiations to appoint a new board and management. Also delaying a final decision has been a decision on how to split the value of the new carrier among creditors and shareholders of the existing airlines.

Analysts have estimated that the two companies could generate up to $1 billion in savings and added revenue by combining forces.

"In our view, we have held that an eventual merger between American and US Airways was in the best long-term interest of both carriers," Jeff Kauffman, an analyst at Sterne Agee, said in a report Monday.

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Ambitious makeover planned for old housing project

Denise Penegar puts a little extra effort into the teenage girls, the ones who've dropped out of high school to care for their firstborns.

Don't be afraid, the outreach worker tells them. Come down to the housing project's community center, get your GED and some job skills. Change your life.

"I was one of those girls," said Penegar, now 51 and still living in Jordan Downs, the Watts housing project where she was born.

Sometimes, she imagines how different her life might have been if someone had knocked on her door when she was 17, caring for her first baby. What would it have meant just to have "someone who is here who can help pick me up"?

Penegar is on the front lines of a bold social experiment underway at Jordan Downs, a project notorious to outsiders for its poverty, blight and violence but seen by many longtime residents, for all its problems, as a close-knit community worth preserving.

In the last year, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles has begun an effort to transform Jordan that could cost more than $600 million. The plan is to turn the complex of 700 aging units into a mixed-income community of up to 1,400 apartments and condominiums, with shops and restaurants and fancy touches such as native plant gardens. The city hopes to draw in hundreds of more-affluent residents willing to pay market rate to live side by side with the city's poorest.

Spurred by changes in federal funding and policy, such "mixed use" developments have sprung up in place of infamous housing projects all over the country. But experts say Jordan is taking an approach that has not been tried on this scale.

Typically, public housing residents are moved out ahead of the bulldozers, scattered to search for new shelter. In Los Angeles, the housing authority has promised that any of the 2,300 Jordan residents "in good standing" can stay in their old units until the day they move into new ones. The project is to be built in phases, beginning with units on 21 acres of adjacent land purchased by the authority in 2008 for $31 million.

To ease the transition, the city has dispatched "community coaches" like Penegar, along with teachers, social workers, therapists — even police officers whose charge is not to make arrests but to coach youth football and triathlon teams.

In essence, officials intend to raze the buildings, not the community — and radically change its character.

It will be an enormous challenge, with success likely to be measured in tiny increments.

Only 47% of adults at Jordan reported any wages to the housing authority last year. As in many urban projects, poverty and social ills have multiplied through the generations, leaving some residents unfamiliar with opportunities and expectations beyond the neighborhood. Some rarely leave the area.

Before inviting in new neighbors with expectations of safety and comfort, the housing authority has begun flooding Jordan Downs with social services. Many of the programs are focused on women, because more than 60% of Jordan Downs' tenants live in households headed by single mothers. But men are targeted too — for job training and lessons in parenting, for instance.

By December, 10 months into the effort, more than 450 families had been surveyed by intake workers and 280 signed up for intensive services.

"Most people would say it's ambitious, but I think it's essential," said Kathryn Icenhower, executive director of Shields for Families, the South Los Angeles nonprofit that is running many of the new programs under a more than $1-million annual contract with the housing authority.

It is unknown, however, how effective the social services will be, how easy it will be to draw in wealthier residents and how many millions of dollars the federal government — a major source of funding — will provide.

Already, the housing authority has picked a development team — the for-profit Michaels Organization and the nonprofit Bridge Housing, both with respectable track records in other cities. But with financing still uncertain, it is unclear exactly how many units will be built or how much various occupants would pay.

Ultimately, a working family could pay hundreds of dollars more in rent than unemployed tenants next door for a nearly identical unit. Officials say they do not expect Watts to draw the same kind of high-income residents as the former Cabrini Green project in Chicago, which sat on prime real estate near downtown. But Jordan is in a convenient location, near the intersection of the 105 and 110 Freeways; and in a high-rent city like Los Angeles, even the steepest rates at Jordan are likely to seem a bargain.

Despite the onslaught of social services and some palpable changes — including a 53% plunge in the violent crime rate at Jordan last year — financial risks abound.

Later this spring, the authority plans to put in an application for $30 million from the federal government's Choice Neighborhoods Program as seed money. Without it, the project could be delayed.

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Kanye West, Jay-Z take early lead at Grammy Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Everybody's thinkin' about Frank Ocean — but his main competition Kanye West and Jay-Z took home two early Grammy Awards.

They won best rap song and best rap performance in the pre-telecast awards Sunday for the song "N----s in Paris" from their "Watch the Throne" collaboration, joining Skrillex, Esperanza Spalding, Chick Corea and Matt Redman atop the pre-telecast awards show toteboard.

Other early winners included Rihanna, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Mumford & Sons.

Ocean is a cause celebre and the man with the momentum as Sunday's Grammy Awards. One of six top nominees with six nominations apiece, Ocean — the 25-year-old R&B singer turned cultural talking point — will have the music world's attention.

It remains to be seen if it will be the "Thinkin Bout You" singer's night, but there's no question he's dominated the discussion so far. Already a budding star with a gift for building buzz as well as crafting songs, Ocean was swept up by something more profound when he told fans his first love was a man last fall as he prepared to release his major-label debut, "channel ORANGE."

It was a bold move and one that could have submarined his career before it really even got started. Instead, everyone from Beyonce to the often-homophobic R&B and rap communities showed public support. It was a remarkable moment.

"It speaks to the advancements of our culture," renowned producer Rick Rubin said. "It feels like the culture's moving forward and he's a representative of the new acceptance in the world for different ideas, which just broadens (our experience), makes the world a better place."

A recent altercation in a parking lot with Chris Brown only focused more attention on Ocean. Ocean says Brown was the aggressor; both are competing against each other in one of the Grammy categories.

Ocean is up for the major awards best new artist, album of the year and record of the year when the show airs live on CBS at 8 p.m. EST from the Staples Center, sharing top-nominee billing with fun., Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z and West.

The Grammy pre-telecast awards had 70 trophies up for grabs, including rock, pop, rap and country categories. Skrillex won three early awards for dance music, while former best new artist winner Esperanza Spalding, jazz man Chick Corea and Christian singer-songwriter Matt Redman had two wins apiece.

Spalding had one of the most touching moments of the pre-telecast awards show, taking the stage with her longtime jazz teacher Thara Memory for their win in the best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocalist category. She also won for best jazz vocal album for her "Radio Music Society."

Corea, who competed against himself in two categories, won best improvised jazz solo for "Hot House" with Gary Burton and best instrumental composition for "Mozart Goes Dancing."

And Redman won best gospel/contemporary Christian music performance and best contemporary Christian music song (in a tie) for "10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)."

Other early winners included Rihanna, who won short form music video for "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris, and Taylor Swift won her seventh Grammy for best song written for visual media for "Safe & Sound," her collaboration with The Civil Wars on "The Hunger Games" soundtrack. It was Swift's seventh Grammy and the third for Joy Williams and John Paul White of The Civil Wars.

"I think it's appropriate that Taylor thanks us because we've been carrying her for a while and it's getting really tiring," White joked.

Beyonce won for best traditional R&B performance. Mumford & Sons took their first Grammy, winning along with Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros for their long form video documentary "Big Easy Express."

Celebrities rolled down the red carpet in the early afternoon, but it remained to be seen if any would try to skirt CBS's mandate that stars dress appropriately with butts, breasts and other sensitive areas covered adequately.

"''I think it's just, you know, we should always stay classy and dress according to the event that's being held," Ashanti said on the red carpet, where she showed off a thigh-baring gown. "So I don't think people should be limited so much and told what you can and cannot do. But, you know, you do have to have a certain class and prestige about yourself."

Ocean might be riding a wave toward some of the night's biggest honors, but limiting Ocean's chances for a clean sweep are his fellow top nominees. Fun. became just the second act to sweep nominations in all four major categories with a debut album, equaling Christopher Cross' 1981 feat. Like Cross' "Sailing," the New York-based pop-rock band has ridden along on the crest of an inescapable song: "We Are Young," featuring Janelle Monae.

Cross won five Grammys, sweeping the major awards. Fun. likely will have a much harder time piling up that number of victories because of the buzz surrounding the group's competitors. It's not just Ocean who has people talking.

London-based folk-rockers Mumford & Sons had one of the top-selling albums of the year with "Babel" and already has a history with The Recording Academy's thousands of voters, having been nominated for major awards the year prior. Also, The Black Keys have a winning track record at the Grammys.

And don't count out West and Jay-Z, who were shut out of the major categories but remain very much in voters' minds.

Jack White's "Blunderbuss" competes with fun.'s "Some Nights," Ocean's "channel ORANGE," Mumford's "Babel" and The Keys' "El Camino" for the night's top award, album of the year.

Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know," featuring Kimbra, Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" join the fun., Ocean and Black Keys entries in record of the year.

Fun. and Clarkson also are nominated for song of the year along with Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Miguel's "Adorn."

And rounding out the major categories, fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes, Hunter Hayes and The Lumineers are up for best new artist.

Those major nominees figure prominently on the 3 1/2-hour telecast, broadcast live on CBS.

Swift will kick things off with a show-opening performance. Fun. and Ocean will take the stage. Others scheduled to perform include Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Clarkson, White and Juanes.

There will be no shortage of mashups the Grammys have become famous for, either. Elton John, Mavis Staples, Mumford, Brittany Howard, T Bone Burnett and Zac Brown are saluting the late Levon Helm, who won the Americana Grammy last year a few months before his death. The Keys will join Dr. John and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on stage. Sting, Rihanna and Bruno Mars will perform together. Other team-ups include Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley, and Alicia Keys and Maroon 5.

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AP writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Online:

http://grammy.com

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help?

Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

In her 20s, after a more serious suicide attempt, her parents sent her to a residential psychiatric treatment center, and from there to another. It was the treatment of last resort. When she was discharged from the second center last August after slapping another resident, her mother, Elisa Klump, was beside herself.

“I was banging my head against the wall,” the mother said. “What do I do next?” She frantically called support groups, therapy programs, suicide prevention lines, anybody, running down a list of names in a directory of mental health resources. “Finally,” she said, “somebody told me, ‘The person you need to talk to is Carolyn Wolf.’ ”

That call, she said, changed her life and her daughter’s. “Carolyn has given me hope,” she said. “I didn’t know there were people like her out there.”

Carolyn Reinach Wolf is not a psychiatrist or a mental health professional, but a lawyer who has carved out what she says is a unique niche, working with families like the Klumps.

One in 17 American adults suffers from a severe mental illness, and the systems into which they are plunged — hospitals, insurance companies, courts, social services — can be fragmented and overwhelming for families to manage. The recent shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., have brought attention to the need for intervention to prevent such extreme acts of violence, which are rare. But for the great majority of families watching their loved ones suffer, and often suffering themselves, the struggle can be boundless, with little guidance along the way.

“If you Google ‘mental health lawyer,’ ” said Ms. Wolf, a partner with Abrams & Fensterman, “I’m kinda the only game in town.”

On a recent afternoon, she described in her Midtown office the range of her practice.

“We have been known to pull people out of crack dens,” she said. “I have chased people around hotels all over the city with the N.Y.P.D. and my team to get them to a hospital. I had a case years ago where the person was on his way back from Europe, and the family was very concerned that he was symptomatic. I had security people meet him at J.F.K.”

Many lawyers work with mentally ill people or their families, but Ron Honberg, the national director of policy and legal affairs for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said he did not know of another lawyer who did what Ms. Wolf does: providing families with a team of psychiatrists, social workers, case managers, life coaches, security guards and others, and then coordinating their services. It can be a lifeline — for people who can afford it, Mr. Honberg said. “Otherwise, families have to do this on their own,” he said. “It’s a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job, and for some families it never ends.”

Many of Ms. Wolf’s clients declined to be interviewed for this article, but the few who spoke offered an unusual window on the arcane twists and turns of the mental health care system, even for families with money. Their stories illustrate how fraught and sometimes blind such a journey can be.

One rainy morning last month, Lance Sheena, 29, sat with his mother in the spacious family room of her Long Island home. Mr. Sheena was puffy-eyed and sporadically inattentive; the previous night, at the group home where he has been living since late last summer, another resident had been screaming incoherently and was taken away by the police. His mother, Susan Sheena, eased delicately into the family story.

“I don’t talk to a lot of people because they don’t get it,” Ms. Sheena said. “They mean well, but they don’t get it unless they’ve been through a similar experience. And anytime something comes up, like the shooting in Newtown, right away it goes to the mentally ill. And you think, maybe we shouldn’t be so public about this, because people are going to be afraid of us and Lance. It’s a big concern.”

Her son cut her off. “Are you comparing me to the guy that shot those people?”

“No, I’m saying that anytime there’s a shooting, like in Aurora, that’s when these things come out in the news.”

“Did you really just compare me to that guy?”

“No, I didn’t compare you.”

“Then what did you say?”

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Apple developing wristwatch device that runs on iOS, reports say

The cycle of speculation that Apple plans to build some kind of wristwatch or other wearable computing device kicked into high gear this weekend after a pair of reports claimed to confirm that such a device was under development. 

First, the New York Times reported that it had confirmed with multiple sources that Apple "is experimenting with wristwatch-like devices made of curved glass."

That story was followed by another report from the Wall Street Journal saying it had also confirmed that Apple "is experimenting with designs for a watch-like device that would perform some functions of a smartphone."

QUIZ: Test your Apple knowledge

There were no additional confirmed details about what such a gadget might do, what features it would specifically offer, how much it would cost, or even when it might hit the market. 

Speculation about a possible iWatch has been ebbing and flowing for several years now. In December, a Chinese blog claimed it had confirmation that such a device was under development. And this week, former Apple designer Bruce Tognazzini wrote an expansive blog post suggesting what such a device might do. 

He believed Apple was the perfect company to address the numerous design flaws, such as bulkiness and short battery life, that have made adoption of other such devices slow. 

"The first thing Apple has to do is address traditional drawbacks in smartwatch design, something they are qualified to do," he wrote. 

One other notable nugget from the New York Times story: Steve Jobs had told another reporter that he had very much wanted Apple to build a car:

"In a meeting in his office before he died, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former chief executive, told John Markoff of The New York Times that if he had more energy, he would have liked to take on Detroit with an Apple car."

The idea of dueling Apple and Google cars battling it out for the future of our roadways may be the stuff nerd dreams are made of. 

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Follow me on Twitter @obrien.

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A delicate new balancing act in senior healthcare

When Claire Gordon arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, nurses knew she needed extra attention.

She was 96, had heart disease and a history of falls. Now she had pneumonia and the flu. A team of Cedars specialists converged on her case to ensure that a bad situation did not turn worse and that she didn't end up with a lengthy, costly hospital stay.

Frail seniors like Gordon account for a disproportionate share of healthcare expenditures because they are frequently hospitalized and often land in intensive care units or are readmitted soon after being released. Now the federal health reform law is driving sweeping changes in how hospitals treat a rapidly growing number of elderly patients.

The U.S. population is aging quickly: People older than 65 are expected to make up nearly 20% of it by 2030. Linda P. Fried, dean of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said now is the time to train professionals and test efforts to improve care and lower healthcare costs for elderly patients.

"It's incredibly important that we prepare for being in a society where there are a lot of older people," she said. "We have to do this type of experiment right now."

At Cedars-Sinai, where more than half the patients in the medical and surgical wards are 65 or older, one such effort is dubbed the "frailty project." Within 24 hours, nurses assess elderly patients for their risk of complications such as falls, bed sores and delirium. Then a nurse, social worker, pharmacist and physician assess the most vulnerable patients and make an action plan to help them.

The Cedars project stands out nationally because medical professionals are working together to identify high-risk patients at the front end of their hospitalizations to prevent problems at the back end, said Herb Schultz, regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"For seniors, it is better care, it is high-quality care and it is peace of mind," he said.

The effort and others like it also have the potential to reduce healthcare costs by cutting preventable medical errors and readmissions, Schultz said. The federal law penalizes hospitals for both.

Gordon, an articulate woman with brightly painted fingernails and a sense of humor, arrived at Cedars-Sinai by ambulance on a Monday.

Soon, nurse Jacquelyn Maxton was at her bedside asking a series of questions to check for problems with sleep, diet and confusion. The answers led to Gordon's designation as a frail patient. The next day, the project team huddled down the hall and addressed her risks one by one. Medical staff would treat the flu and pneumonia while at the same time addressing underlying health issues that could extend Gordon's stay and slow her recovery, both in the hospital and after going home.

To reduce the chance of falls, nurses placed a yellow band on her wrist that read "fall risk" and ensured that she didn't get up on her own. To prevent bed sores, they got her up and moving as often as possible. To cut down on confusion, they reminded Gordon frequently where she was and made sure she got uninterrupted sleep. Medical staff also stopped a few unnecessary medications that Gordon had been prescribed before her admission, including a heavy narcotic and a sleeping pill.

"It is really a holistic approach to the patient, not just to the disease that they are in here for," said Glenn D. Braunstein, the hospital's vice president for clinical innovation.

Previously, nurse Ivy Dimalanta said, she and her colleagues provided similar care but on a much more random basis. Under the project, the care has become standardized.

The healthcare system has not been well designed to address the needs of seniors who may have had a lifetime of health problems, said Mary Naylor, gerontology professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. As a result, patients sometimes fall through the cracks and return to hospitals again and again.

"That is not good for them and that is not good for society to be using resources in that way," Naylor said.

Using data from related projects, Cedars began a pilot program in 2011 and expanded it last summer. The research is continuing but early results suggest that the interventions are leading to fewer seniors being admitted to the intensive care unit and to shorter hospital stays, said Jeff Borenstein, researcher and lead clinician on the frailty project. "It definitely seems to be going in the right direction," he said.

The hospital is now working with Naylor and the University of Pennsylvania to design a program to help the patients once they go home.

"People who are frail are very vulnerable when they leave the hospital," said Harriet Udin Aronow, a researcher at Cedars. "We want to promote them being safe at home and continuing to recover."

In Gordon's case, she lives alone with the help of her children and a caregiver. The hospital didn't want her experiencing complications that would lengthen the stay, but they also didn't want to discharge her before she was ready. Under the health reform law, hospitals face penalties if patients come back too soon after being released.

Patients and their families often are unaware of the additional attention. Sitting in a chair in front of a vase of pink flowers, Gordon said she knew she would have to do her part to get out of the hospital quickly. "You have to move," she said. "I know you get bed sores if you stay in bed."

Gordon said she was comfortable at the hospital but she wanted to go back to her house as quickly as she could. "There's no place like home," she said.

Two days later, that's where she was.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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Snoop Dogg blazes one during BMI songwriting panel

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Music fans who turned out to BMI's annual pre-Grammy Awards "How I Wrote That Song" discussion got a little more than they expected thanks to Snoop Dogg — a contact high.

The rapper smoked marijuana during Saturday's panel discussion, lighting up a large, Kush-filled blunt on stage at The Roxy. He briefly passed it off to B.o.B before methodically reducing it to ash over a 15-minute period. The panel also included Busta Rhymes and songwriters Luke Laird and Evan Bogart, all of whom abstained — at least on stage.

Fittingly, the conversation eventually turned to Snoop's groundbreaking work on "The Chronic."

Laird recalled growing up at the end of a dirt road 10 miles outside Conneaut Lake, a small town of 700 in rural Pennsylvania. Yet Snoop's work with Dr. Dre still infiltrated his world and that of all the other country kids around him.

"Let me just say, the album everyone was listening to was 'The Chronic,'" Laird said, noting how surreal it was to be sitting on stage with Snoop.

With acoustic guitar in hand, he played a bit of his Blake Shelton hit "Hillbilly Bone" in its original form: a rap song. The Nashville-based songwriter had everyone bobbing their heads to the beat.

"Now I feel like more than ever you see these influences crossing genres," Laird said.

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott at http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott .

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In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said.

The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio.

Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head, local reports said.

A four-day vaccination drive had just ended in Kano State, where the killings took place, and the vaccinators were in a “mop-up” phase, looking for children who had been missed, said Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, one of the agencies running the eradication campaign.

Dr. Mohammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s minister of state for health, said in a telephone interview that it was not entirely clear whether the gunmen were specifically targeting polio workers or just attacking the health centers where vaccinators happened to be gathering early in the morning. “Health workers are soft targets,” he said.

No one immediately took responsibility, but suspicion fell on Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group that has attacked police stations, government offices and even a religious leader’s convoy.

Polio, which once paralyzed millions of children, is now down to fewer than 1,000 known cases around the world, and is endemic in only three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Since September — when a new polio operations center was opened in the capital and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, appointed a special adviser for polio — the country had been improving, said Dr. Bruce Aylward, chief of polio eradication for the World Health Organization. There have been no new cases since Dec. 3.

While vaccinators have not previously been killed in the country, there is a long history of Nigerian Muslims shunning the vaccine.

Ten years ago, immunization was suspended for 11 months as local governors waited for local scientists to investigate rumors that it caused AIDS or was a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls. That hiatus let cases spread across Africa. The Nigerian strain of the virus even reached Saudi Arabia when a Nigerian child living in hills outside Mecca was paralyzed.

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who tracks vaccine issues, said the newest killings “are kind of mimicking what’s going on in Pakistan, and I feel it’s very much prompted by that.”

In a roundabout way, the C.I.A. has been blamed for the Pakistan killings. In its effort to track Osama bin Laden, the agency paid a Pakistani doctor to seek entry to Bin Laden’s compound on the pretext of vaccinating the children — presumably to get DNA samples as evidence that it was the right family. That enraged some Taliban factions in Pakistan, which outlawed vaccination in their areas and threatened vaccinators.

Nigerian police officials said the first shootings were of eight workers early in the morning at a clinic in the Tarauni neighborhood of Kano, the state capital; two or three died. A survivor said the two gunmen then set fire to a curtain, locked the doors and left.

“We summoned our courage and broke the door because we realized they wanted to burn us alive,” the survivor said from her bed at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

About an hour later, six men on three-wheeled motorcycles stormed a clinic in the Haye neighborhood, a few miles away. They killed seven women waiting to collect vaccine.

Ten years ago, Dr. Larson said, she joined a door-to-door vaccination drive in northern Nigeria as a Unicef communications officer, “and even then we were trying to calm rumors that the C.I.A. was involved,” she said. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars had convinced poor Muslims in many countries that Americans hated them, and some believed the American-made vaccine was a plot by Western drug companies and intelligence agencies.

Since the vaccine ruse in Pakistan, she said, “Frankly, now, I can’t go to them and say, ‘The C.I.A. isn’t involved.’ ”

Dr. Pate said the attack would not stop the newly reinvigorated eradication drive, adding, “This isn’t going to deter us from getting everyone vaccinated to save the lives of our children.”

Aminu Abubakar contributed reported from Kano, Nigeria.

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