Hamilton agrees to $125M, 5-year deal with Angels

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Josh Hamilton is heading to the Los Angeles Angels, lured with a $125 million, five-year contract that steps up the migration of high-profile stars to Southern California.

The Angels persuaded the free-agent outfielder to leave the Texas Rangers with their third big-money offseason signing in as many years. Hamilton heads to Anaheim after first baseman Albert Pujols came West for $240 million last December along with pitcher C.J. Wilson — Hamilton's Texas teammate — for $77.5 million.

Still, the Angels failed to make the playoffs for the third straight year.

They had bulked up their pitching staff earlier in the offseason with the additions of pitchers Joe Blanton and Tommy Hanson, along with relievers Sean Burnett and Ryan Madson.

General manager Jerry Dipoto had said Wednesday that he didn't think a major move was "imminent or required."

But owner Arte Moreno pulled off another coup by getting Hamilton. The 2010 AL MVP, Pujols and AL Rookie of the Year Mike Trout combined for 103 home runs and 316 RBIs last season.

"It's a great day to be an Angel/Angel fan!" Wilson said on his Twitter account.

Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said Hamilton had reached a deal with the AL West rival Angels. Two people familiar with the talks disclosed the amount and length of the contract, speaking on condition of anonymity because the agreement was not yet final.

Hamilton's $25 million average salary matches Philadelphia first baseman Ryan Howard for the second-highest in baseball, trailing only Alex Rodriguez's $27.5 million average with the New York Yankees.

Since the contract wasn't final, the Angels didn't comment publicly. The team said in a statement, "We continue to look for ways to improve our team. As soon as we have something formal to announce, we will do so."

Moreno and manager Mike Scioscia didn't immediately respond to phone messages.

The Angels allowed free agent outfielder Torii Hunter to sign with Detroit, and he reacted to his former team's latest move on his Twitter account.

"I was told money was tight but I guess the Arte had money hidden under a Mattress. Business is business but don't lie," Hunter wrote.

He followed up with the comment, "Great signing for the Angels. One of the best players in baseball."

Texas had hoped to re-sign Hamilton, who led the Rangers to consecutive World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011. They made a $13.3 million qualifying offer at the Nov. 2 deadline, ensuring the team draft-pick compensation if Hamilton signed elsewhere. The Rangers will receive an extra selection immediately following the first round of June's amateur draft. The deal cost the Angels a first-round selection in the draft.

Speaking Thursday after a Rangers' holiday luncheon, Daniels said he had just been informed of the decision by Hamilton's agent, Michael Moye.

Daniels said he was disappointed "to some degree," especially since the Rangers never got a chance to match any offer during the process, as they had expected. Or at least get contacted before Hamilton agreed with another team.

"I never expected that he was going to tell us to the dollar what they had, and a chance to offer it. Our full expectation, the phone call was going to be before he signed, and certainly not after," Daniels said. "Everybody's got to make their own calls.

"He's a tremendous talent and I think that they've shown they're going to be in on a lot of the best players out there. No sugarcoating it, we wanted the player back. And he signed with the Angels. They're better," Daniels said.

The agreement came days after the Los Angeles Dodgers added pitchers Zack Greinke and Ryu Hyun-jin, boosting their payroll over $200 million. Greinke, another offseason target, said he chose the Dodgers over the Rangers.

Hamilton's addition to the Angels outfield means Mark Trumbo could be moved to third base or traded. Peter Bourjos and Vernon Wells also are among the outfielders competing for time unless a trade is made.

Scioscia will have an interesting decision to make on where in the batting order to slot in Pujols, Trout and Hamilton, a five-time All-Star. He has a .260 career average at Angel Stadium with five home runs and 19 RBIs in 150 at-bats.

Daniels met with Moye last week at the winter meetings in Nashville, Tenn., and had talked about the parameters of a new contract along with numbers. While Daniels wouldn't get into any specifics, he said his understanding is the deal with the Angels "is certainly more guaranteed money."

The move keeps Hamilton in the same division with plenty of opportunities to play against his team — the first one coming fast next season. After the Rangers open with three games at new division foe Houston, they play their first home series April 5-7 against the Angels.

The 31-year-old slugger was considered a risk by some teams because of his history of alcohol and substance abuse, which derailed his career before his surge with the Rangers over the past five seasons.

"Josh has done a lot for the organization, the organization has done a lot for Josh, a lot of things that aren't public and things of that nature," Daniels said. "I'm a little disappointed how it was handled, but he had a decision to make and he made it."

Hamilton had a career-high 43 home runs with 128 RBIs in 148 games last season, when the Rangers struggled down the stretch and lost the division to Oakland on the final day of the regular season.

Texas then lost in the winner-take-all wild-card game against Baltimore, and Hamilton was lustily booed by Rangers fans while going 0-for-4 — twice striking out on three pitches, including an inning-ending out in the eighth with a runner in scoring position when it was still a 3-1 game.

That came two days after Hamilton dropped a routine popup in the regular-season finale, a two-out tiebreaking miscue that allowed the A's to score two runs and go ahead to stay. He missed five games on a September trip because of a cornea problem he said was caused by too much caffeine and energy drinks — and had one homer with 18 strikeouts in the final 10 regular-season games after returning.

Hamilton hit .304 with 161 homers in his six major league seasons, the first with Cincinnati. In May against Baltimore, he became only the 16th major league with a four-homer game as part of a 5-for-5 night that included a double.

"Josh had indicated recently ... told us that he felt it might be time to move on, but that we were still talking," said Daniels, who wouldn't elaborate on the reasons. "We had additional conversations this week that I thought had moved it along in a positive direction, but apparently not."

___

AP Sports Writers Stephen Hawkins in Fort Worth, Texas, and Ronald Blum in New York contributed to this report.

Read More..

APNewsBreak: Texas cancer probe draws NCI scrutiny

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The National Cancer Institute confirmed Friday that federal officials are taking a closer look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas that is under a criminal investigation over a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant awarded by the state agency.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has coveted status as an NCI-approved funding entity — an exclusive group headlined by the nation's most prominent cancer organizations. The list is fewer than two dozen and includes the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and federal entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies. Yearlong turmoil within the Texas institute, or CPRIT, reached a new peak this week when the agency's beleaguered chief executive asked to resign and prosecutors opened cases following an $11 million grant to a private company that was revealed to have bypassed an independent review.

NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT. She said officials have not made decisions or contacted the agency directly.

Members of CPRIT's governing board did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

NCI designation is not required for CPRIT to continue running the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, Khan said. But jeopardizing that status — and especially losing it — would be a severe blow to CPRIT's reputation, which already has been battered by sweeping resignations, internal accusations of politics trumping science and now a criminal investigation.

A recent internal audit at CPRIT discovered an $11 million funding request from Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics was approved without the agency ever scrutinizing the proposal's merits. The revelation came only months after two Nobel laureates and other top scientists left the agency in protest over a $20 million grant some accused of being rushed to approval without a proper peer review.

While CPRIT is funded by taxpayers, donors to cancer nonprofits might look to an NCI designation for assurance that their money is in good hands.

"It says, 'If I'm donating money to this agency, if NCI is approving them, that means NCI says it's handling its money well,'" Khan said.

Khan added that CPRIT's inclusion on the list does not mean all of its funding mechanisms are NCI-approved.

An entire page of CPRIT's website is devoted to boasting its NCI designation. The agency says the status is important because it means cancer centers in Texas seeking its own NCI designation — so as to reassure patients or bolster recruitment — can include CPRIT research dollars in their calculations to maintain levels needed to be NCI approved.

"This enhances Texas' ability to leverage additional federal funding for cancer research and raises Texas' profile as a center for cancer research," according to the website.

Executive Director Bill Gimson submitted his resignation letter Tuesday but offered to stay on through January. He has described Peloton's improper funding as an honest mistake and said no one associated with CPRIT stood to personally profit from the company's award.

Prosecutors have not made any specific criminal allegations. Launching separate investigations into CPRIT are the Texas attorney general's office and the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit, which investigates criminal misconduct within state government.

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Read More..

Final celebrity burglary defendant enters plea

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The final defendant in a group charged with burglarizing celebrities' homes pleaded no contest Friday to receiving a jacket stolen from Paris Hilton.

Courtney Leigh Ames entered the plea and is expected to be sentenced on Feb. 1 to three years of supervised probation and 60 days of community service.

Prosecutors dropped felony residential burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary charges and another count of receiving stolen property in exchange for the plea.

Ames, who had been charged with breaking into Hilton's home, had also been accused of wearing a necklace stolen from Lindsay Lohan's home to court.

Authorities arrested most of the group in October 2009 and accused them of a months-long crime spree that netted more than $3 million in clothes, jewelry and art from the homes of stars such as Lohan, Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green.

All the stars have agreed not to seek restitution for their losses.

One of the defendants, Alexis Neiers, quickly ended her case and starred in the short-lived E! Entertainment Television reality show "Pretty Wild," which prominently featured the court case. Lifetime created a television movie inspired by the case and Oscar-winner Sofia Coppola has filmed a movie based on the burglaries and their fallout.

Coppola's film was aided by the lead investigator on the case, Los Angeles police office Brett Goodkin, who failed to disclose his paid work and appearance in the film. That became an issue in recent months and prompted Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to call Goodkin's actions "stupid" and a gift to defense attorneys, but not egregious enough to warrant an outright dismissal of the charges against Ames and two other defendants.

Had the case against the trio gone to trial, jurors would have heard directly from one of the group's ringleaders, Nicholas Frank Prugo. The 21-year-old pleaded no contest in March to burglarizing the homes of Lohan and reality star Audrina Patridge and is scheduled be sentenced to two years in prison in in January.

Another accused ringleader, Rachel Lee, pleaded no contest to burglarizing Patridge's home and is serving a four year state prison sentence.

A Louis Vuitton bag full of jewelry was returned to Hilton after several members of the group were arrested, but much of the stolen property hasn't been recovered.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

Read More..

Push for minimum wage hike intensifies

NEW YORK — Before the recession, Amie Crawford was an interior designer, earning $50,000 a year patterning baths and cabinets for architectural firms.

Now, she's a "team member" at the Protein Bar in Chicago, where she makes $8.50 an hour, slightly more than minimum wage. It was the only job she could find after months of looking. Crawford, now 56, says she needed to take the job to stop the hemorrhaging of her retirement accounts.

In her spare time, Crawford works with a Chicago group called Action Now, which is staging protests to raise the minimum wage in a state where it hasn't been raised since 2006.

"Thousands of workers in Chicago, let alone in the rest of the country, deserve to have a livable wage, and I truly believe that when someone is given a livable wage, that is going to bolster growth in communities," she said.

If it seems that workers such as Crawford are more prevalent these days, protesting outside stores including Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Wendy's to call for higher wages, it may be because there are more workers in these jobs than there were a few years ago.

Quiz: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'?

Of the 1.9 million jobs created during the recovery, 43% of them have been in the low-wage industries of retail, food services and employment services, whose workforces include temporary employees who often work part time and without benefits or health insurance, according to a study by Annette Bernhardt, policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project in New York.

At the same time, many workers such as Crawford who have been displaced from their jobs are experiencing significant earnings losses after getting a new job. About one-third of the 3 million workers displaced from their jobs from 2009 to 2011 and then reemployed said their earnings had dropped 20% or more, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"What these protests are signaling are that working families are at breaking point after three decades of rising inequality and stagnant wages," Bernhardt said.

The rise of low-paying jobs in the recovery, experts said, has cut the spending power of workers who once worked in middle-class occupations. Construction workers who made $30 an hour, for example, during the housing boom may now find themselves working on a temporary basis.

"You see workers trading down their living standards," said Joseph Brusuelas, a senior economist for Bloomberg who studies the U.S. economy.

Now, Brusuelas said, there's an oversupply of workers and they're willing to take any job in a sluggish economy, even if they're overqualified. That includes temporary jobs without benefits, and minimum wage positions such as the one Crawford took.

Although the 2012 election might have brought the idea of income inequality to the forefront of voters' minds, efforts to increase wages for these workers are sputtering in an era of austerity when businesses say they are barely hiring, much less paying workers more.

The New Jersey state legislature handed Gov. Chris Christie a bill to raise the state's minimum wage to $8.50 an hour from the federal minimum of $7.25 this month, but he hasn't signed it and has signaled he might not. An earlier effort in New Jersey to tie the minimum wage to the consumer price index was vetoed by the governor.

Democratic lawmakers in Illinois are also trying to push a bill that would increase the minimum wage — an earlier effort this year failed. The Legislature last voted to raise its minimum wage in 2006, before the recession, and the governor agreed.

"A higher minimum wage means a person has to pay more for each worker," said Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, which opposes raising the minimum wage. "Companies have a few choices — increase prices, reduce the number of people they hire, cut employee hours or reduce benefits. When employees become too expensive, they have no choice but to reduce the number of workers."

The Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., however, says there is little indication from economic research that increases in the minimum wage lead to lower employment, and, because higher wages mean workers have more money to spend, employment can actually increase.

A bill to raise the federal minimum wage was introduced to the U.S. Senate by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in July and referred to committee, where it has sat ever since.

"Business lobbyists are aware of the campaign and are aggressively working to stop it," said Madeline Talbott, the former lead organizer of Chicago's Action Now. "We've had a hard time getting our legislature to approve it."

But Talbott and other advocates say that the protests that have spread throughout Illinois and the country in recent weeks might force the issue to its head.

"You saw it happening 18 months ago when Occupy started — workers are now realizing that they have rights too in the workplace," said Camille Rivera, executive director of United NY, one of the groups working to raise the minimum wage in New York. "It's a good time for us to be fighting these issues, when companies are making millions of dollars in profits."

The protests are bringing out people who might not usually participate, including Marcus Rose, 33. Rose, who has worked the grill at a Wendy's for 21/2 months, was marching outside that Wendy's in Brooklyn recently on a day of protests, responding as organizers shouted lines such as "Wendy's, Wendy's, can't you see, $7.25 is not for me."

"If you don't stand up for nothing, you can't fall for anything," he said.

Talbott, the Action Now organizer, says that people such as Rose may make a difference in whether lawmakers at the state and national level will listen to the protests. The Obama victory energized the working class to believe that they could fight against big-money interests and win, she said.

"It comes down to the traditional situation — whether the power is in the hands of organized money or of organized people," she said. "The organized money side tends to win, but it doesn't have to win. The more people you are, the more chance you have against money."

alana.semuels@latimes.com

ricardo.lopez2@latimes.com

Semuels reported from New York and Lopez from Los Angeles

Read More..

Supporters say they're close to passing gay marriage in Illinois

SPRINGFIELD — Gay marriage supporters said today they have moved to “within striking distance” of collecting enough votes to pass a bill in early January.

Sen. Heather Steans and Rep. Greg Harris unveiled plans to take up the measure in the closing days of the current General Assembly before a new set of lawmakers are sworn in Jan. 9.

The legislation would allow same-sex marriage and protect the right of religious institutions to either consecrate or not consecrate such weddings, but church leaders from a variety of faiths have rallied staunch opposition.

Nine states allow gay marriage, including three states --- Maine, Maryland and Washington --- that approved legalizing gay marriage.

Both Steans and Harris said the ballot-box victories elsewhere last month represent a “sea change” that they are seeing among colleagues in Illinois. The two Chicago Democrats said they plan to put up the same-sex marriage bill for a vote and indicated they wouldn’t do that without believing it would pass. Still, they remained cautious.

Steans said the two “don’t want to lose the momentum” and “we want to do it now.”

“Public sentiment is moving fast on this,” Steans said, pointing out support from Gov. Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and President Barack Obama. “It’s just a wave now. It’s moving very quickly.”

The two have to muster 60 House votes and 30 Senate votes. If that happens, Quinn has indicated he would sign the bill into law. Such a measure would take effect in the summer, the lawmakers said. The measure also would recognize gay marriages performed in other states, they said.

Harris said constituents have made arguments to a growing number of lawmakers, raising questions like, “Why would our state treat our lesbian granddaughter with less respect than our straight grandson?”

The gay marriage push comes after the state first allowed civil unions for same-sex and heterosexual partners in 2011. Opponents of civil unions predicted that fight would open the door to making gay marriage legal in only a matter of time, but the timetable for action is moving quicker than many foes may have anticipated.

Opponents cite religious concerns, saying the sanctity of marriage should be protected and the institution be defined as between a man and a woman. But Harris has said the question for Illinois has turned from whether the state would pass gay marriage to when.

On Monday, Quinn said he hopes lawmakers would send him the gay marriage bill in January. But Harris had cautioned that the legislative agenda is filling up with so many big-ticket items like pension reform and casino expansion proposals that there might not be enough time and room for gay marriage to be taken up. Harris also wanted to make sure he had the votes to pass the bill before going forward on such a contentious issue.

But with dozens of lame-duck lawmakers available to cast votes more freely as they prepare to walk out the door, they may be able to provide enough support to pick up the final votes needed to pass the gay marriage bill.

Quinn called the House the “key arena at this time” and urged lawmakers sitting on the fence to “vote their conscience.”

rlong@tribune.com

Twitter @RayLong

Read More..

Jury says Apple iPhone violated three patents, damages unclear

(Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Thursday found that Apple's iPhone infringed three patents owned by holding company MobileMedia Ideas, though damages have not yet been determined.

The verdict was delivered after a week-long trial in Delaware federal court, said Larry Horn, chief executive of MobileMedia. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

The three patents, which cover features like camera phone technology, were acquired from Nokia and Sony Corp in 2010, Horn said. Those two companies hold a minority interest in MobileMedia, he said.

Representatives for Nokia and Sony could not immediately be reached for comment.

The trial only concerned liability, and a damages proceeding has not yet been scheduled, Horn said. MobileMedia also has litigation pending against HTC Corp and Research in Motion Ltd.

"Our goal is really to license these patents broadly to the market," Horn said.

In court filings, Apple has asked a judge to rule that MobileMedia's patents are invalid as a matter of law, and that there is no "legally sufficient" basis to find MobileMedia has proven infringement.

The case in U.S. District Court, District of Delaware is MobileMedia Ideas LLC vs. Apple Inc, 10-258.

(Reporting By Dan Levine in San Francisco; editing by Andrew Hay)

Read More..

Watson returns as Ryder Cup captain

NEW YORK (AP) — The Americans are bringing back Tom Watson as Ryder Cup captain with hopes of ending two decades of defeats in Europe.

"We're just really tired of losing Ryder Cup," PGA of America President Ted Bishop said Thursday during a news conference at the Empire State Building.

Watson faces a tall order.

The Americans have lost seven of the last nine Ryder Cups and have not won away from home since 1993, when Watson was the captain at The Belfry in England. They are coming off a staggering loss this year at Medinah, where Europe strung together a remarkable rally from a 10-6 deficit going into the final day to win by one point.

Watson is the first repeat captain for the U.S. team since Jack Nicklaus in 1987, when the Ryder Cup was played on his home course of Muirfield Village in Ohio. Watson, one of the most respected figures in golf worldwide, becomes the seventh U.S. captain to get more than one shot.

His selection received an immediate endorsement from Tiger Woods, whom Watson has strongly criticized because of Woods' behavior.

"I'd like to congratulate Tom Watson on his selection as Ryder Cup captain," Woods said in a statement. "I think he's a really good choice. Tom knows what it takes to win, and that's our ultimate goal. I hope I have the privilege of joining him on the 2014 United States Team."

Watson had said Woods needs to "clean up his act" in the months after Woods' personal life fell apart after being caught in multiple extramarital affairs, though the Stanford alums have never been particularly close.

Watson went out of his way Thursday to praise Woods as "the best player maybe in the history of the game."

"My relationship with Tiger is fine," he said. "Whatever has been said before is water under the bridge. No issues."

Watson breaks the PGA of America's prototype in a big way. The eight-time major champion will be 65 when the 2014 Ryder Cup is played at Gleneagles in Scotland, making him the oldest captain in Ryder Cup history. Sam Snead was 57 when he was captain in 1969, and the oldest European captain was John Jacobs (56) in 1981.

Watson has not been back to the Ryder Cup since that '93 victory at The Belfry, though he sounded as if he couldn't wait to get started.

The PGA of America first contacted him more than a year ago about the job, Watson, with that familiar gap-tooth grin, replied: "Boy, I've been waiting for this call for a long time."

The matches will be played in Scotland, contributing to Watson's selection. As much as he is beloved around the world for his timeless game, epic duels with Nicklaus and graciousness in any outcome, the Scots consider him one of their own. Watson won his first major at Carnoustie in 1975 when he quickly understood how to play links golf. He won five British Open titles, the most of any American, with four of those in Scotland.

He nearly made it six claret jugs three years ago, when at 59, he came within an 8-foot par putt on the last hole from winning at Turnberry. Watson missed the putt, and then lost to Stewart Cink in a playoff.

The ovation he heard that week in Turnberry might be different at Gleneagles.

"They're going to be cheering against me," he said during a brief appearance on the "Today" show to announce his captaincy.

The PGA of America broke from its model of taking former major champions in their late 40s who still play the PGA Tour and are in touch with the players. Watson last played a full schedule in 1998, though the PGA of America had to wonder if perhaps the young captains were too close to the players.

As for the pressure of bringing back the Ryder Cup?

"This responsibility is a challenge," Watson said. "But I've been there before, and I love it."

__

AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson contributed to this report.

Read More..

Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.

With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.

"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.

The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.

The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.

— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.

— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).

— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.

Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.

While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.

"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.

Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.

Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.

"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.

"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.

___

Online:

www.lancet.com

http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org

Read More..

Documents: Prisoner plotted to kill Justin Bieber

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — An imprisoned man whose infatuation with Justin Bieber included a tattoo of the pop star on his leg has told investigators in New Mexico he hatched a plot to kill him.

Court documents in a New Mexico district court say Dana Martin told investigators he persuaded a man he met in prison and the man's nephew to kill Bieber, Bieber's bodyguard and two others not connected to the pop star.

He told investigators that Mark Staake and Tanner Ruane headed east, planning to be near a Bieber concert scheduled in New York City. They missed a turn and crossed into Canada from Vermont. Staake was arrested on an outstanding warrant. Ruane was arrested later.

The two men face multiple charges stemming for the alleged plot.

Read More..

Illinois foreclosures up for 11th month

Foreclosure activity in Illinois posted the 11th straight year-over-year increase in November, but compared with a month earlier, filings are trending in the right direction, according to new data released Thursday.

RealtyTrac said the 13,520 properties within the state that received a foreclosure notice last month was a decrease of 9 percent from October but up 9 percent from November 2011. last month's activity, which equated to one out of every 392 homes in the state receiving a notice, gave Illinois the nation's third-highest state foreclosure rate, surpassed by only Florida and Nevada.

In the Chicago-area counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake and Will, almost 11,000 homes received a foreclosure notice in November, a decrease of 10.5 percent from October's level of activity but up 1.6 percent from November 2011

Most of that activity was in Cook County, where about 2,299 homes received initial notices of default, another 2,651 homes were scheduled for court-ordered sales and 2,086 homes were repossessed by lenders.

Among the nation's metropolitan areas, Rockford and Chicago ranked 11th and 13th, respectively, in terms of their foreclosure rates.

Nationally, the number of homes that were repossessed by lenders and became bank-owned rose on a year-over-year basis for the first time  since October 2010, the company said. In November, more than 59,000 homes across the country were repossessed, an increase of 11 percent from October and 5 percent from November 2011.

"The drop in overall foreclosure activity in November was caused largely by a 71-month low in foreclosure starts for the month, more evidence that we are past the worst of the foreclosure problem brought about by the housing bubble bursting six years ago," said Daren Blomquist, a company vice president. "But foreclosures are continuing to hobble the U.S. housing market as lenders finally seize properties that started the process a year or two ago, and much longer in some cases."

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

Read More..