U.N. Panel Votes to Help Mali’s Army Oust Extremists

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Thursday that will send thousands of African troops into the desert nation of Mali to help oust Islamist extremists who have turned its northern half into a vast Qaeda enclave and training ground, menacing the stability of neighboring states and posing a potent new international terrorism threat.

But the resolution also makes it clear that such a military intervention will not happen until Mali’s own dysfunctional army is adequately trained and a framework for political stability and elections is restored in the country, which has been in turmoil since a military coup in March.

The resolution, which was sponsored by France, the former colonial power in Mali, does not specify a time frame for the first deployment of foreign troops, to be supplied by a group of West African nations that are eager to see calm restored in Mali. United Nations officials and diplomats who worked on the resolution said that a 3,300-soldier force would be sent, and that any attempt to drive the Islamists from northern Mali would not happen before September or October at the earliest.

The resolution does not explain precisely how the military expedition, which is to last for an initial period of one year, will be financed, although diplomats said they expected the cost to exceed $200 million. The resolution calls for voluntary contributions from member states into a trust fund to be created by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Despite the caveats, the Security Council’s vote authorizing military force, which it is empowered to do by the United Nations Charter, represented a rare moment of decisive unanimity among its 15 member states and in particular its 5 permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — in a year punctuated by bitter disagreements, mostly over the Syrian conflict.

“Everyone knows the complexity of the task facing the international community to restore the territorial integrity of Mali and to put an end to terrorist activities in the north of the country,” Gérard Araud, France’s ambassador, told reporters after the vote. The resolution, he said, “provides a reasonable answer.”

Ideally, Mr. Araud said, the mere threat of military intervention would persuade Islamist militia leaders to negotiate a peaceful restoration of control by Mali’s central government. “It is premature to indicate when the military operation will take place,” he said. “In fact, the question is even whether the military operation will take place. Our goal would be to have a real political process which will allow the Malian Army to go back to its barracks in the northern part of the country without fighting.”

The final version of the resolution reflected what diplomats called some compromises between France and the United States, which had been skeptical that the Malian Army could be made capable of participating in a potentially long and violent struggle to retake the country’s northern area, roughly twice the size of Germany.

The resolution specifies that the European Union will be responsible for training the Malian forces, described as “vital to ensure Mali’s long-term security and stability.” It also specifies that the secretary general must regularly inform the Council on political and military-training progress, and “confirm in advance the Council’s satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation.”

Language was also included specifically intended to guard against human rights abuses by the Malian military in any operation in the north, where ethnic tensions linked to the occupation by Islamist militants are known to be on the rise. A report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch enumerated instances of abuses in Mali committed by security forces and others since the military coup.

Tens of thousands of Malians have fled the north since Islamist militias seized control there after the coup, which left a power vacuum that has yet to be resolved. Just last week, military generals forced the resignation of Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra, in office since April.

The principal Islamist militia, known as Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, has imposed harsh Shariah law based on strict Islamic tenets and enforced it with public killings, stonings and amputations. The group has also welcomed Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the affiliate of Al Qaeda in northern Africa, which has recruited child soldiers, established training camps and reached out to other militant Islamist organizations, including Boko Haram, a particularly violent group in northern Nigeria.

Rights activists monitoring the Mali crisis had a mixed reaction to the Security Council resolution. While they welcomed action against abuses by the Islamists, some expressed concern that the Malian Army, humiliated by the loss of half the country, would be bent on revenge.

Michael Quinn, country director of the aid group Oxfam in Mali, said the Security Council “must make sure that any military planning includes humanitarian consideration to minimize harm to civilians at all stages.”

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RIM shares dive as fee changes catch market off guard

(Reuters) – Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd dropped 20 percent on Friday on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.

The shares were still more than 80 percent above the year’s low, which was hit in September. They started to rally in November as investors began to bet that RIM’s long-awaited new BlackBerry 10 phones, to be launched in January, would turn the company around.

The services segment has long been RIM’s most profitable and accounts for about a third of total revenue. Some analysts said there was a risk that the fee changes could endanger its service ecosystem and leave the Canadian company as just another handset maker.

The fee changes, which RIM announced on Thursday after the close, overshadowed stronger-than-expected quarterly results. The company said the new pricing structure would be introduced with the BlackBerry 10 launch, expected on January 30.

RIM said some subscribers would continue to pay for enhanced services such as advanced security. But under the new structure, some other services would account for less revenue, or even none at all.

Chief Executive Thorsten Heins tried to reassure investors in a television interview with CNBC on Friday, saying RIM’s “service revenue isn’t going away”.

He added: “We’re not stopping. We’re not halting. We’re transitioning.”

Since taking over at RIM in January, Heins has focused on shrinking the company and getting it ready to introduce its new BB10 devices, which RIM says will help it claw back ground it has lost to competitors such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

But the news of the new services pricing strategy came as a shock to markets, and some analysts cut their price targets on RIM stock.

RIM will not be able to sustain profitability by relying on its hardware business alone, said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson, whom Thomson Reuters StarMine has rated the top RIM analyst based on the accuracy of his estimates of the company’s earnings.

Thompson downgraded RIM’s stock to “underperform” from “sector perform” and cut his price target to $ 10 from $ 15.

Forrester Research analyst Charles Golvin said the move was likely about stabilizing market share: “At the moment, they need to stem the bleeding.”

He said the tiered pricing might line up better with RIM’s subscriber base as it expands in emerging economies.

RIM’s Nasdaq-listed shares were down 19.8 percent at $ 11.32 on Friday afternoon. The stock was down 19.6 percent to C$ 11.21 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH

The success of the BB10 will be crucial to the future of RIM, which on Thursday posted its first-ever decline in total subscribers. Heins said on CNBC that the company expected to ship millions of the new devices.

He cautioned that this will require heavy investment, which will reduce RIM’s cash position in its fourth and first quarters from $ 2.9 billion in its fiscal third quarter. He said, however, it would not go below $ 2 billion.

Still, doubts remain about whether RIM can pull off the transformation. Needham analyst Charlie Wolf said the BB10 would have to look meaningfully superior to its competitors for RIM to stage a comeback.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley said it was highly unlikely that the market would support RIM’s new mobile computing ecosystem, and he remained skeptical about the company’s ability to survive on its own.

“We believe RIM will eventually need to sell the company,” said Walkley, who cut his price target on RIM shares to $ 9 from $ 10.

Baird Equity Research analysts said BB10 faced a daunting uphill battle against products from Apple, as well as those using Google Inc’s Android operating system, and, increasingly, phones with Microsoft Corp’s Windows 8 operating system.

Baird maintained its “underperform” rating on the stock, while Paradigm Capital downgraded the shares to “hold” from “buy” on uncertainty around the services revenue model.

“RIM has gone from having one major aspect of uncertainty – BlackBerry 10 adoption – to two, given an uncertain floor on services revenue,” William Blair analyst Anil Doradla said.

RIM will have to discount BB10 devices significantly to maintain demand, Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said.

The BlackBerry, however, still offers the security features that helped it build its reputation with big business and government, a selling point with some key customers.

Credit Suisse maintained its “neutral” rating on the stock, but not because it expected BB10 to be a big success.

“Only the potential for an outright sale of the company or a breakup keeps us at a neutral,” Credit Suisse analysts said.

Separately on Friday, ailing Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia said it had settled its patent dispute with RIM in return for payments. Nokia did not disclose detailed terms, but said the deal included a one-time payment to be booked in the fourth quarter, as well as ongoing fees, all to be paid by RIM. [ID:nL5E8NL22K]

($ 1=$ 0.98 Canadian)

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Allison Martell in Toronto. Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Ted Kerr, Dale Hudson, Janet Guttsman,; Lisa Von Ahn and Peter Galloway)

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Ashton Kutcher Files for Divorce from Demi Moore

People Exclusive

By Ken Lee

12/21/2012 at 03:55 PM EST

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore

Amanda Edwards/WireImage

After more than a year with their marriage in legal limbo, Ashton Kutcher has filed for divorce from Demi Moore.

The papers were filed Friday Los Angeles Superior Court. Kutcher, 34, citing irreconcilable differences, isn't seeking any spousal support nor is he asking the court to deny Moore any. The documents also show that because the couple had no children together, child support and visitation are not an issue.

Back in Nov. 2011, the couple announced they were ending their 6-year marriage.

"As a woman, a mother and a wife there are certain values and vows that I hold sacred, and it is in this spirit that I have chosen to move forward with my life," Moore, 50, said at the time, following reports of Kutcher's infidelity.

Added Kutcher: "I will forever cherish the time I spent with Demi. Marriage is one of the most difficult things in the world and unfortunately sometimes they fail."

The actor has been dating That '70s Show costar Mila Kunis.

The documents reveal that Kutcher has hired A-list divorce attorney Laura Wasser to represent him, whose past or current clients include Britney Spears, Kim Kardashian, Heidi Klum and Angelina Jolie, among others.

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.

But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying the effects of aging.

From 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent, according to an AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data collected by the research firm IMS Health. Sales of the average prescription drug rose just 12 percent in that same period.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

___

Unlike other prescription drugs, HGH may be prescribed only for specific uses. U.S. sales are limited by law to treat a rare growth defect in children and a handful of uncommon conditions like short bowel syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome, a congenital disease that causes reduced muscle tone and a lack of hormones in sex glands.

The AP analysis, supplemented by interviews with experts, shows too many sales and too many prescriptions for the number of people known to be suffering from those ailments. At least half of last year's sales likely went to patients not legally allowed to get the drug. And U.S. pharmacies processed nearly double the expected number of prescriptions.

Peddled as an elixir of life capable of turning middle-aged bodies into lean machines, HGH — a synthesized form of the growth hormone made naturally by the human pituitary gland — winds up in the eager hands of affluent, aging users who hope to slow or even reverse the aging process.

Experts say these folks don't need the drug, and may be harmed by it. The supposed fountain-of-youth medicine can cause enlargement of breast tissue, carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of hands and feet. Ironically, it also can contribute to aging ailments like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Others in the medical establishment also are taking a fat piece of the profits — doctors who fudge prescriptions, as well as pharmacists and distributors who are content to look the other way. HGH also is sold directly without prescriptions, as new-age snake oil, to patients at anti-aging clinics that operate more like automated drug mills.

Years of raids, sports scandals and media attention haven't stopped major drugmakers from selling a whopping $1.4 billion worth of HGH in the U.S. last year. That's more than industry-wide annual gross sales for penicillin or prescription allergy medicine. Anti-aging HGH regimens vary greatly, with a yearly cost typically ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 for three to six self-injections per week.

Across the U.S., the medication is often dispensed through prescriptions based on improper diagnoses, carefully crafted to exploit wiggle room in the law restricting use of HGH, the AP found.

HGH is often promoted on the Internet with the same kind of before-and-after photos found in miracle diet ads, along with wildly hyped claims of rapid muscle growth, loss of fat, greater vigor, and other exaggerated benefits to adults far beyond their physical prime. Sales also are driven by the personal endorsement of celebrities such as actress Suzanne Somers.

Pharmacies that once risked prosecution for using unauthorized, foreign HGH — improperly labeled as raw pharmaceutical ingredients and smuggled across the border — now simply dispense name brands, often for the same banned uses. And usually with impunity.

Eight companies have been granted permission to market HGH by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reviews the benefits and risks of new drug products. By contrast, three companies are approved for the diabetes drug insulin.

The No. 1 maker, Roche subsidiary Genentech, had nearly $400 million in HGH sales in the U.S. last year, up an inflation-adjusted two-thirds from 2005. Pfizer and Eli Lilly were second and third with $300 million and $220 million in sales, respectively, according to IMS Health. Pfizer now gets more revenue from its HGH brand, Genotropin, than from Zoloft, its well-known depression medicine that lost patent protection.

On their face, the numbers make no sense to the recognized hormone doctors known as endocrinologists who provide legitimate HGH treatment to a small number of patients.

Endocrinologists estimate there are fewer than 45,000 U.S. patients who might legitimately take HGH. They would be expected to use roughly 180,000 prescriptions or refills each year, given that typical patients get three months' worth of HGH at a time, according to doctors and distributors.

Yet U.S. pharmacies last year supplied almost twice that much HGH — 340,000 orders — according to AP's analysis of IMS Health data.

While doctors say more than 90 percent of legitimate patients are children with stunted growth, 40 percent of 442 U.S. side-effect cases tied to HGH over the last year involved people age 18 or older, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. The average adult's age in those cases was 53, far beyond the prime age for sports. The oldest patients were in their 80s.

Some of these medical records even give explicit hints of use to combat aging, justifying treatment with reasons like fatigue, bone thinning and "off-label," which means treatment of an unapproved condition

Even Medicare, the government health program for older Americans, allowed 22,169 HGH prescriptions in 2010, a five-year increase of 78 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to an AP public records request.

"There's no question: a lot gets out," said hormone specialist Dr. Mark Molitch of Northwestern University, who helped write medical standards meant to limit HGH treatment to legitimate patients.

And those figures don't include HGH sold directly by doctors without prescriptions at scores of anti-aging medical practices and clinics around the country. Those numbers could only be tallied by drug makers, who have declined to say how many patients they supply and for what conditions.

First marketed in 1985 for children with stunted growth, HGH was soon misappropriated by adults intent on exploiting its modest muscle- and bone-building qualities. Congress limited HGH distribution to the handful of rare conditions in an extraordinary 1990 law, overriding the generally unrestricted right of doctors to prescribe medicines as they see fit.

Despite the law, illicit HGH spread around the sports world in the 1990s, making deep inroads into bodybuilding, college athletics, and professional leagues from baseball to cycling. The even larger banned market among older adults has flourished more recently.

FDA regulations ban the sale of HGH as an anti-aging drug. In fact, since 1990, prescribing it for things like weight loss and strength conditioning has been punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison.

Steve Kleppe, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant entrepreneur who has taken HGH for almost 15 years to keep feeling young, said he noticed a price jump of about 25 percent after the block on imports. He now buys HGH directly from a doctor at an annual cost of about $8,000 for himself and the same amount for his wife.

Many older patients go for HGH treatment to scores of anti-aging practices and clinics heavily concentrated in retirement states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California.

These sites are affiliated with hundreds of doctors who are rarely endocrinologists. Instead, many tout certification by the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, though the medical establishment does not recognize the group's bona fides.

The clinics offer personalized programs of "age management" to business executives, affluent retirees, and other patients of means, sometimes coupled with the amenities of a vacation resort. The operations insist there are few, if any, side effects from HGH. Mainstream medical authorities say otherwise.

A 2007 review of 31 medical studies showed swelling in half of HGH patients, with joint pain or diabetes in more than a fifth. A French study of about 7,000 people who took HGH as children found a 30 percent higher risk of death from causes like bone tumors and stroke, stirring a health advisory from U.S. authorities.

For proof that the drug works, marketers turn to images like the memorable one of pot-bellied septuagenarian Dr. Jeffry Life, supposedly transformed into a ripped hulk of himself by his own program available at the upscale Las Vegas-based Cenegenics Elite Health. (He declined to be interviewed.)

These promoters of HGH say there is a connection between the drop-off in growth hormone levels through adulthood and the physical decline that begins in late middle age. Replace the hormone, they say, and the aging process slows.

"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," said Dr. Tom Perls, a leading industry critic who does aging research at Boston University. "It's a marketing dream come true."

___

Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso reported from New York and AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Plymouth, Mass. AP Writer Troy Thibodeaux provided data analysis assistance from New Orleans.

___

AP's interactive on the HGH investigation: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/hgh

___

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

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18,000 'horrendously' abused rodents found inside business

Animal control officials have euthanized the entire inventory of an animal dealer in Lake Elsinore that were kept in “horrendous” conditions,  including more than 600 reptiles and 18,000 rodents.

Authorities raided Global Captive Breeders after receiving information from a two-month undercover operation at the facility conducted by PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

VIDEO: Undercover investigation of animal abuse

“It was the largest rodent seizure in the United States,’’ said Willa Bagwell, executive director of  Animal Friends of the Valley, a private nonprofit agency contracted to provide animal control services to Lake Elsinore and other southwest Riverside County cities.

The snakes were so emaciated that their ribs bulged out. Freezers filled with dead rats were also found.

“It was horrible. It was horrendous,’’ Bagwell said. “There were dead animals. They were in filth. The suffering that was going on in that building was horrible.’’

Veterinarians and animal control officers have been at the facility for the last week assessing the health of the reptiles and rodents, and documenting the alleged abuse, she said. The animals were in such poor condition, and the conditions so “toxic,” that the veterinarians decided to euthanize all the creatures found at the facility.

Bagwell said the case is being investigated by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office.

--Phil Willon in Riverside

Photos: A severely dehydrated rat found in a tub at the Lake Elsinore business, and the flooded warehouse where rats were stored. Source: PETA

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At Benghazi Hearing, State Dept. Concedes Errors

WASHINGTON — State Department officials promised on Thursday to carry out quickly the recommendations of a review board to beef up security for the foreign service and urged Congress to provide more money to protect American diplomats.

The promises came during a Senate hearing into the handling of diplomatic security in Benghazi, Libya, before a deadly attack on a diplomatic outpost there that led to the deaths of four Americans, including the American ambassador.

“We have to do better,” Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns said in prepared testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee. On Tuesday, one department official resigned and three others were relieved of their duties after a scathing report was released by an inquiry panel led by Thomas R. Pickering, a retired diplomat.

In an opening statement, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s chairman, said that Congress “also bears some responsibility” to provide adequate financing for diplomatic security. He noted that the board’s report called for spending $2.3 billion a year in the coming decade to protect American Embassies and offices abroad.

Mr. Kerry and Mr. Burns said it was important to find ways for diplomats to get out among the people, even in dangerous countries.

“We do not want to concertina-wire America off from the world,” Mr. Kerry said.

Mr. Burns said that “diplomacy, by its very nature, must sometimes be practiced in dangerous places.”

“Chris Stevens understood that as well as anyone,” he said, referring to the ambassador to Libya who was killed along with the three others in the Sept. 11 attack. “Chris also knew that every chief of mission has the responsibility to ensure the best possible security and support for our people.”

Mr. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, another deputy secretary of state, told the committee in prepared testimony that the department had “already begun to fix” the “serious, systemic problems” identified in the Pickering report. The two men testified in place of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is recovering from a concussion.

Mr. Nides said the department accepted “every one” of the report’s 29 specific recommendations. He mentioned, for example, the addition of hundreds of Marines to protect foreign missions. His office is leading an effort to put them into effect “quickly and completely — and to pursue steps above and beyond the board’s report,” he said.

Dozens of specific actions are already under way, several will be completed within weeks, and all will be in motion “by the time the next secretary of state takes office,” he said.

Mr. Kerry is the leading candidate to be replace Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, after the withdrawal from consideration of Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, after criticisms of statements she made following the attack on the Benghazi outpost.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, was skeptical about claims of progress, saying that rarely are the recommendations of review boards like the Pickering panel fully implemented.

“The culture of the State Department is one that needs to be reformed,” he said.

But Senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat of New Jersey, said one reason for weak security was that Congress had not provided as much money as the administration has sought and the Pickering panel recommended.

Pleas for more money come as Congress and the administration face broad spending cuts next year, whether or not a resolution is reached soon in the continuing fiscal impasse.

At a second hearing on Thursday afternoon, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, scoffed at the calls for additional spending, saying that poor decisions rather than a lack of money were the problem in Benghazi.

“If the State Department intends to blame its long string of failures on inadequate funding, then perhaps it should take a closer look at the money that is being lavished on global climate change, culinary diplomacy programs and other favored projects,” she said. “This money could have been used for providing diplomatic security, including hiring additional personnel and providing them with adequate equipment and training.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 20, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of State Department officials who resigned after the release of a report investigating the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. One official resigned, not three.

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Acer will beat Google to market with its own $99 tablet

Title Post: Acer will beat Google to market with its own $99 tablet
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Shiri Appleby Expecting Her First Child

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/20/2012 at 03:00 PM ET

Charley Gallay/Getty

Shiri Appleby is going to be a mom.

The actress and fiancé Jon Shook are expecting their first child this spring, PEOPLE confirms.

“Thank you for all the well wishes,” Appleby, 34, says. “We can’t wait to meet our little Baby Shook!”

Shook, a chef and owner at Los Angeles restaurant Animal, proposed to the actress in Italy in July.

Appleby, who recently had guest-starring roles on Chicago Fire and Franklin & Bash, is best known for playing Liz on Roswell.

She’ll next appear on the second season of Girls as a new love interest for Adam.

– Sarah Michaud

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football

WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.

Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid policy can face a team whose players have repeatedly tested positive.

An investigation by The Associated Press — based on interviews with players, testers, dealers and experts and an analysis of weight records for more than 61,000 players — revealed that while those running the multibillion-dollar sport say they believe the problem is under control, that control is hardly evident.

The sport's near-zero rate of positive steroids tests isn't an accurate gauge among college athletes. Random tests provide weak deterrence and, by design, fail to catch every player using steroids. Colleges also are reluctant to spend money on expensive steroid testing when cheaper ones for drugs like marijuana allow them to say they're doing everything they can to keep drugs out of football.

"It's nothing like what's going on in reality," said Don Catlin, an anti-doping pioneer who spent years conducting the NCAA's laboratory tests at UCLA. He became so frustrated with the college system that it was part of the reason he left the testing industry to focus on anti-doping research.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.

___

While other major sports have been beset by revelations of steroid use, college football has operated with barely a whiff of scandal. Between 1996 and 2010 — the era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong — the failure rate for NCAA steroid tests fell even closer to zero from an already low rate of less than 1 percent.

The AP's investigation, drawing upon more than a decade of official rosters from all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, found thousands of players quickly putting on significant weight, even more than their fellow players. The information compiled by the AP included players who appeared for multiple years on the same teams.

For decades, scientific studies have shown that anabolic steroid use leads to an increase in body weight. Weight gain alone doesn't prove steroid use, but very rapid weight gain is one factor that would be deemed suspicious, said Kathy Turpin, senior director of sport drug testing for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, which conducts tests for the NCAA and more than 300 schools.

Yet the NCAA has never studied weight gain or considered it in regard to its steroid testing policies, said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's associate director of health and safety.

The NCAA attributes the decline in positive tests to its year-round drug testing program, combined with anti-drug education and testing conducted by schools.

The AP's analysis found that, regardless of school, conference and won-loss record, many players gained weight at exceptional rates compared with their fellow athletes and while accounting for their heights.

Adding more than 20 or 25 pounds of lean muscle in a year is nearly impossible through diet and exercise alone, said Dan Benardot, director of the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University.

In nearly all the rarest cases of weight gain in the AP study, players were offensive or defensive linemen, hulking giants who tower above 6-foot-3 and weigh 300 pounds or more. Four of those players interviewed by the AP said that they never used steroids and gained weight through dramatic increases in eating, up to six meals a day. Two said they were aware of other players using steroids.

"I ate 5-6 times a day," said Clint Oldenburg, who played for Colorado State starting in 2002 and for five years in the NFL. Oldenburg's weight increased over four years from 212 to 290.

Oldenburg told the AP he was surprised at the scope of steroid use in college football, even in Colorado State's locker room. "There were a lot of guys even on my team that were using." He declined to identify any of them.

The AP found more than 4,700 players — or about 7 percent of all players — who gained more than 20 pounds overall in a single year. It was common for the athletes to gain 10, 15 and up to 20 pounds in their first year under a rigorous regimen of weightlifting and diet. Others gained 25, 35 and 40 pounds in a season. In roughly 100 cases, players packed on as much 80 pounds in a single year.

In at least 11 instances, players that AP identified as packing on significant weight in college went on to fail NFL drug tests. But pro football's confidentiality rules make it impossible to know for certain which drugs were used and how many others failed tests that never became public.

Even though testers consider rapid weight gain suspicious, in practice it doesn't result in testing. Ben Lamaak, who arrived at Iowa State in 2006, said he weighed 225 pounds in high school. He graduated as a 320-pound offensive lineman and said he did it all naturally.

"I was just a young kid at that time, and I was still growing into my body," he said. "It really wasn't that hard for me to gain the weight. I love to eat."

In addition to random drug testing, Iowa State is one of many schools that have "reasonable suspicion" testing. That means players can be tested when their behavior or physical symptoms suggest drug use. Despite gaining 81 pounds in a year, Lamaak said he was never singled out for testing.

The associate athletics director for athletic training at Iowa State, Mark Coberley, said coaches and trainers use body composition, strength data and other factors to spot suspected cheaters. Lamaak, he said, was not suspicious because he gained a lot of "non-lean" weight.

But looking solely at the most significant weight gainers also ignores players like Bryan Maneafaiga.

In the summer of 2004, Bryan Maneafaiga was an undersized 180-pound running back trying to make the University of Hawaii football team. Twice — once in pre-season and once in the fall — he failed school drug tests, showing up positive for marijuana use but not steroids.

He'd started injecting stanozolol, a steroid, in the summer to help bulk up to a roster weight of 200 pounds. Once on the team, he'd occasionally inject the milky liquid into his buttocks the day before games.

"Food and good training will only get you so far," he told the AP recently.

Maneafaiga's former coach, June Jones, said it was news to him that one of his players had used steroids. Jones, who now coaches at Southern Methodist University, believes the NCAA does a good job rooting out steroid use.

On paper, college football has a strong drug policy. The NCAA conducts random, unannounced drug testing and the penalties for failure are severe. Players lose an entire year of eligibility after a first positive test. A second offense means permanent ineligibility for sports.

In practice, though, the NCAA's roughly 11,000 annual tests amount to a fraction of all athletes in Division I and II schools. Exactly how many tests are conducted each year on football players is unclear because the NCAA hasn't published its data for two years. And when it did, it periodically changed the formats, making it impossible to compare one year of football to the next.

Even when players are tested by the NCAA, experts like Catlin say it's easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.

Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don't think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.

Doping is a bigger deal at some schools than others.

At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don't automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame's student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.

The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn's student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.

At UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.

At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users.

Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use. As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.

"We can't tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; David Brandt in Jackson, Miss.; David Skretta in Lawrence, Kan.; Don Thompson in Sacramento, Calif., and Alexa Olesen in Shanghai, China, and researchers Susan James in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.

Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.

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Executive accused of dumping dead wife on Mexico border free on bail

A man accused of
killing his wife at their Newport Coast home and leaving her body on the U.S.
side of the Mexican border was released from jail Wednesday, court records
show.

Peter Gregory
Chadwick, 48, who is charged with murder, posted bail and was released from
jail at 1:47 a.m., jail records show.

One of the
sentencing enhancements against him, murder for financial gain, was dropped,
according to court records. The charge carried "special circumstance
enhancements," meaning his penalty could have been enhanced upon
conviction.

"At this
point we felt it was appropriate to proceed on one felony count of
murder," district attorney spokeswoman Farrah Emami told the Daily Pilot.

She said the
investigation was ongoing and a special circumstance enhancement could be added
later.

Authorities were
first alerted that something was amiss between Chadwick and his wife, Quee Choo
Chadwick, 46, when no one picked up their children from school Oct. 10,
prosecutors have said.

When police
searched their Newport Coast home, they saw blood and signs of a struggle. A
neighbor told the Daily Pilot she heard screaming about the time of the crime.

Chadwick was
arrested after contacting authorities in San Diego County, near the border with
Mexico, according to prosecutors.

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Dec. 21, 2012: Fearful "end of world" callers flood NASA

Hollywood's ArcLight theater evacuated as popcorn burns

Temperatures expected to rise after record-setting cold its SoCal

-- Lauren Williams, Times Community News

Photo: Peter Chadwick. Credit: Orange County district attorney's office

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