Alabama to End Isolation of Inmates With H.I.V.

Jamie Martin/Associated Press

The H.I.V. ward of an Alabama women's prison in 2008. The state was ordered to stop segregating inmates with the virus.

A federal judge on Friday ordered Alabama to stop isolating prisoners with H.I.V.

Alabama is one of two states, along with South Carolina, where H.I.V.-positive inmates are housed in separate prisons, away from other inmates, in an attempt to reduce medical costs and stop the spread of the virus, which causes AIDS.

Judge Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama ruled in favor of a group of inmates who argued in a class-action lawsuit that they had been stigmatized and denied equal access to educational programs. The judge called the state’s policy “an unnecessary tool for preventing the transmission of H.I.V.” but “an effective one for humiliating and isolating prisoners living with the disease.”

After the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, many states, including New York, quarantined H.I.V.-positive prisoners to prevent the virus from spreading through sexual contact or through blood when inmates tattooed one another. But most states ended the practice voluntarily as powerful antiretroviral drugs reduced the risk of transmission.

In Alabama, inmates are tested for H.I.V. when they enter prison. About 250 of the state’s 26,400 inmates have tested positive. They are housed in special dormitories at two prisons: one for men and one for women. No inmates have developed AIDS, the state says.

H.I.V.-positive inmates are treated differently from those with other viruses like hepatitis B and C, which are far more infectious, according to the World Health Organization. Inmates with H.I.V. are barred from eating in the cafeteria, working around food, enrolling in certain educational programs or transferring to prisons near their families.

Prisoners have been trying to overturn the policy for more than two decades. In 1995, a federal court upheld Alabama’s policy. Inmates filed the latest lawsuit last year.

“Today’s decision is historic,” said Margaret Winter, the associate director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the inmates. “It spells an end to a segregation policy that has inflicted needless misery on Alabama prisoners with H.I.V. and their families.”

Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, said the state is “not prejudiced against H.I.V.-positive inmates” and has “worked hard over the years to improve their health care, living conditions and their activities.”

“We will continue our review of the court’s opinion and determine our next course of action in a timely manner,” he wrote.

During a monthlong trial in September, lawyers for the department argued that the policy improved the treatment of H.I.V.-positive inmates. Fewer doctors are needed if specialists in H.I.V. focus on 2 of the 29 state’s prisons.

The state spends an average of $22,000 per year on treating individual H.I.V.-positive inmates. The total is more than the cost of medicine for all other inmates, said Bill Lunsford, a lawyer for the Corrections Department.

South Carolina has also faced legal scrutiny. In 2010, the Justice Department notified the state that it was investigating the policy and might sue to overturn it.

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Naomi Gleit helps keep Facebook growing

The gig: As senior director of Facebook Inc.'s growth, engagement and mobile team, Naomi Gleit helps grow the social network's 1-billion-plus user base.

Facebook employee No. 29: Few people outside Facebook have heard of Gleit, but she's the second-longest-serving Facebook employee, after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Gleit, 29, talked her way into a job at Facebook on July 18, 2005 — her birthday. She was Facebook's 29th employee, coming on board shortly after the company hit 1 million users and before anyone had an inkling of the colossus it would become.

Dogged spirit: Unlike most other early employees who eventually dispersed to seek new fortunes, Gleit says she has no intention of leaving Facebook. She gets that tenacity from her "tiger mom," a computer programmer who ferried her to ballet, piano, karate and Chinese lessons, and her Jewish father, an immigration lawyer who took her to Hebrew school, she said. "I know it sounds completely irrational, but I had no doubt in 2005 that Facebook would be something incredible in the future," she said.

Rival social networks: Her passion for Facebook began before she was hired, when she was a Stanford undergraduate studying science, technology and society, an interdisciplinary major. She wrote her senior thesis on why Facebook beat out rival college social networking site Club Nexus at Stanford. (Club Nexus was started by Stanford student and Turkish software engineer Orkut Büyükkökten, who went on to create Orkut, Google's first attempt at a social network.) Getting in on the ground floor at Facebook made her feel like she was taking part in something bigger than herself, the same feeling she got volunteering for six months in a refugee camp in Botswana, she said.

Growing with Facebook: Gleit helped Facebook push beyond colleges to high schools and eventually to everyone. In late 2007, when the torrid growth pace temporarily cooled, Zuckerberg tapped a team of five to reignite it and asked Gleit to lead product management. It fell to the growth team to identify the obstacles to the company's momentum. In a company ruled by engineers, Gleit, who never studied programming, earned respect with her analytical approach and intuitive understanding of people. "I always believed that growth was the most important thing, the most important way to impact the company," she said. There are now more than 150 people on the team. "It's been an incredible learning experience," she said. "Each year is different."

That magic moment: Those who work closely with Gleit say part of her success early on was her ability to seize on the "magic moment" that makes users fall in love with Facebook. She made it simpler to sign up, and she helped people find friends as soon as they joined. She also helped Facebook spread quickly to new countries by enlisting users to translate the service into more than 80 languages. Gleit helps her team parachute into new markets and traverse less-familiar languages and cultures. It's something that comes from her own passion to see the world and have new experiences. She has taught on a Navajo reservation and lived in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand.

One billion users: Around noon Sept. 14, Zuckerberg gathered with Gleit and dozens of employees in front of a big screen as the number of Facebook users crossed 1 billion. "The scale was insane," she said. "But that is not the goal. When Mark talks about his vision for Facebook, he talks about being able to connect everyone in the world to the people that they care about and provide some value for them every single day."

A problem solver: Zuckerberg calls on Gleit for high-profile projects. In May 2010, when Facebook was under siege because of how it was handling users' personal information, he put Gleit in charge of simplifying privacy settings. Last year she worked on a popular feature that lets users subscribe to a News Feed without having to become Facebook friends.

Betting on mobile: Now Gleit is focused on the future: mobile devices and how they can unlock emerging markets. Gleit knew back in 2011 that people would begin to log on to Facebook from mobile devices in greater numbers than from desktops, particularly in the developing world. So she traveled to Tel Aviv to buy Snaptu, which makes software that helps people on low-tech phones access Facebook, and she brought the whole team back to Silicon Valley with her. Now Facebook is surging in popularity on mobile devices in Tokyo and Nairobi, Kenya. "I have always been interested in technology and how it can be used to improve lives," Gleit said.

jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Boehner's 'fiscal cliff' plan fails

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John A. Boehner abruptly canceled a vote on his Plan B tax proposal late Thursday after failing to find enough GOP support, a stunning political defeat that effectively turned resolution of the year-end budget crisis over to President Obama and the Democrats.

The speaker had spent the last few weeks negotiating one-on-one with the president, establishing himself as the second-most powerful figure in Washington. But with his strategy imploding, Boehner conceded that he would play a lesser role.

"Now it is up to the president," he said, to work with a fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, "to avert the fiscal cliff."

The proposal the speaker had hoped to bring to a vote would have prevented a year-end tax increase for all but those earning more than $1 million a year.

But the Ohio Republican said in a statement, "It did not have sufficient support from our members to pass."

The unexpected turn of events caused an immediate reaction on Wall Street, where after-hours investors began to yank money out of U.S. stocks. Futures that track the Standard & Poor's 500 fell 1.5%, and the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 1.6%.

Now, Obama faces a crucial test of his leadership, with little time left to craft a deal.

Obama's most recent offer is likely to be the starting point. He made a substantial concession: raising taxes only on household income above $400,000, rather than the $250,000 threshold he campaigned on for reelection.

As he pursues votes in Congress, the president will need to face down Democrats, particularly the liberal wing that may feel emboldened to demand that a deal be tilted toward their views — perhaps with additional spending on infrastructure or unemployment benefits.

Any compromise will need substantial Democratic support. Although the president needs the speaker to allow legislation to come to a vote in the GOP-controlled House, Boehner emerges in a weakened position and has little leverage to demand further concessions. His Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), will need to decide whether to become a final line of defense against Obama or step aside for a Democratic-led plan.

"The president's main priority is to ensure that taxes don't go up on 98% of Americans and 97% of small businesses in just a few short days," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said after Boehner canceled the vote. "The president will work with Congress to get this done, and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly."

Without a compromise, most Americans will see their taxes automatically rise and spending cuts ripple across the economy in the new year. The White House and the speaker had been closing in on a broad deficit-reduction deal to steer around the coming "fiscal cliff," but Boehner suddenly changed course this week to gauge the sentiment of House Republicans.

The support expressed by top Republicans for new taxes has cracked the party's anti-tax orthodoxy and opened the door to a compromise that would have been unthinkable before the November election.

Mindful that his own job as speaker comes up for a vote in two weeks, Boehner must make a difficult choice: whether to allow a plan to come to the House floor without support from his majority, or play a key role in sending the nation over the fiscal cliff and raising taxes on most Americans.

As the speaker and his lieutenants trolled for votes earlier Thursday, buttonholing lawmakers in scenes like those in the movie "Lincoln," Carney dismissed Boehner's Plan B as a "multi-day exercise in futility."

"Instead of taking the opportunity that was presented to them to continue to negotiate what could be a very helpful large deal for the American people, the Republicans in the House have decided to run down an alley that has no exit," he said.

Late in the evening, as the time for voting neared, the House took an unscheduled recess — a sign that the tally had come up short. With Democrats almost unanimously against the bill, Boehner could afford to lose only two dozen Republican defectors.

The speaker and his top lieutenants then convened a late-night meeting of rank-and-file lawmakers and announced they were pulling the bill.

"We don't have the votes," the speaker said, according to a lawmaker in the room.

Conservatives split over Plan B, complicating Boehner's quest. He received a major assist when anti-tax stalwart Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform declared that the bill was a vote for lower taxes and did not violate the pledge most Republicans had signed not to raise taxes. But other leading conservative groups opposed it, including FreedomWorks, which is extremely influential with tea party supporters.

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Insiders steal a march in leak prone Asian markets

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – When South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co announced last month it had overstated the fuel efficiency levels on around one million of its cars in the United States and Canada some investors were left fuming more than others.

Some had already sold their shares before the announcement on November 2. The stock fell 4 percent on November 1 with about 2.2 million shares changing hands, the highest trading volume of the year at that point.

“This smells pretty bad,” said Robert Boxwell, director of consulting firm Opera Advisors in Kuala Lumpur who has studied insider dealing patterns.

“It would have fallen into our suspect trading category,” he added.

Boxwell spots suspect trading by looking at how much the volume diverges from the average level in the days before a market moving announcement. In the Hyundai instance, the volume was more than five standard deviations, a measure of variation, away from the daily average of 598,741 shares over the past year.

A Hyundai spokeswoman declined to comment.

Research from the Capital Markets Co-operative Research Centre (CMCRC), an academic centre in Sydney that studies financial market efficiency, found that 26 percent of price-sensitive announcements in Asia Pacific markets showed signs of leakage in the first quarter of this year, the most recent period for which data was available.

That compared with 13 percent in North American markets.

The CMCRC says it looks for suspected information leaks by examining abnormal price moves and trading volumes ahead of price-sensitive announcements.

Investors say one reason for leaks in Asia has been low enforcement rates for insider trading and breaches of disclosure rules. Enforcement in some markets is virtually non-existent.

There are also misconceptions about whether trading on non-public information is a crime.

“The idea that insider trading is wrong rather than smart is only being ingrained in the current generation of Asian players, not the older generation who are often still in the driving seat,” said Peter Douglas, founder of GFIA, a hedge fund consultancy in Singapore.

LOSS OF CONFIDENCE

Japan’s largest investment bank Nomura Holdings was embarrassed this year after regulatory investigations found it leaked information to clients ahead of three public share offerings.

Nomura has acknowledged that its employees leaked information on three share issues it underwrote in 2010. In June, it published the results of an internal investigation that found breaches of basic investment banking safeguards against leaking confidential information and announced a raft of measures to prevent recurrence.

The bank was also fined 200 million yen ($ 2.37 million) by the Tokyo Stock Exchange and 300 million yen by the Japan Securities Dealers Association.

Such leaks hurt companies’ share prices in the long run because investors put in less money if they feel they are not on a level playing field.

“It is very damaging. You may not know how much money you’ve lost but if there is not confidence that the regulators are prosecuting and enforcing the rules on this then it undermines investor confidence and liquidity,” said Jamie Allen, secretary general of the Asian Corporate Governance Association.

The issue isn’t being ignored. Many Asian markets such as Hong Kong and China have tightened their rules on insider trading over the past decade.

Indeed some investors feel that while leaks and insider dealing are unfair, regulators in the region have more serious issues they should be tackling.

“I would like to see the regulators spend more resources on investigating and prosecuting fraud against listed companies, which severely damages shareholder value,” said David Webb, a corporate governance activist in Hong Kong, arguing insider dealing as less of an impact on a company’s long-term share price.

HTC AND APPLE

A week after Hyundai’s announcement about its problems in the United States, there was an unexpected move on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Shares in smartphone maker HTC Corp jumped almost seven percent on Friday, November 9, hitting the daily upper trading limit. On Sunday came the surprise announcement that the company was ending its long-running patent dispute with Apple Inc , a move seen as a positive for the stock.

The Taiwan bourse announced it was investigating the trading patterns to see if there was a possible leak.

When asked for comment, HTC referred back to a November 13 statement in which the company said it had kept the Apple settlement process confidential and has strict controls on insider trading.

Michael Lin, a spokesman for the Taiwan Exchange, told Reuters on Friday that the bourse is still working with the regulator on the case.

‘ENORMOUS LOSSES’

Michael Aitken, who oversees research at the CMCRC, said many other Asian markets lack tough enough rules to force information to be released as efficiently and timely as possible, a primary reason for the prevalence of leaks.

“Poor regulation hampers enforcement efforts,” he said pointing out that few markets have the “continuous disclosure” rules used in Australia which require listed companies to release material information as soon as possible.

In Korea, when Hyundai shares started to fall, rumours began swirling that news about a problem with some of its cars was on its way, but investors say it took the company too long to disclose what exactly was happening.

“Hyundai at that time did not confirm the rumours. We suffered enormous losses because of this,” said one fund manager, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

An official from Korea Exchange declined to comment on whether it was investigating this case, saying only that the exchange looks carefully into possible cases of insider trading.

Across Asia, regulators concede that many company executives and insiders still do not appreciate that leaking or trading on material, non-public information is an offence.

“People don’t even know they are engaging in insider trading, for example if their friends are talking about it on the golf course,” said Tong Daochi director-general for international affairs at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, during a regulation conference last month.

“We try to tell society, what are the criminal issues, what are the insider trading issues? For example we have held 27 press conferences to tell the public what kind of activities are involved in insider trading and to let people know that this is an active crime.” ($ 1 = 84.2600 Japanese yen) ($ 1 = 0.6147 British pounds)

(Reporting by Rachel Armstrong; additional reporting by Nishant Kumar in HONG KONG and Hyunjoo Jin in SEOUL; Editing by Emily Kaiser)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Marilyn Monroe subway grate photo on view in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) — A famous image of Marilyn Monroe with her skirt billowing atop a New York City subway grate is on display in a picture-perfect spot: outside the Times Square subway station.

The supersized version of Sam Shaw's well-known picture is part of an exhibit. The exhibit also features eight of Shaw's other Monroe pictures, on view inside the 42nd Street-Bryant Park station on the B, D, F, M and 7 lines.

The show opened Thursday. It'll be up for a year.

Shaw shot the subway grate photo for the 1955 film "The Seven Year Itch." He took the other pictures in 1957.

The exhibit is part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Arts for Transit program. Manager Lester Burg says matching a mass transit setting with a popular figure from mass culture seemed a good fit.

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Recipes for Health: Marinated Olives

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Marinated olives.

These are inspired by Patricia Wells’ “Chanteduc Rainbow Olive Collection” in her wonderful book “The Provence Cookbook.” It is best to use olives that have not been pitted.

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

5 bay leaves

2 large garlic cloves, peeled, green shoots removed, thinly sliced

Strips of rind from 1 lemon (preferably organic)

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

2 cups imported olives (black, green or a mix) (about 3/4 pound)

 

1. Combine the olive oil, vinegar, bay leaves and garlic in a small saucepan and heat just until warm over low heat. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon rind, thyme, rosemary and fennel seeds.

2. Place the olives in a wide mouthed jar and pour in the olive oil mixture. Shake the jar to coat the olives. Refrigerate for two hours or for up to two weeks. Shake the jar a few times a day to redistribute the seasonings.

Yield: 2 cups, serving 12

Advance preparation: These will keep for about two weeks in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per ounce (does not include marinade): 43 calories; 4 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 1 gram carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 468 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 0 grams protein

 

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Hedge fund manager alleges Herbalife is 'pyramid scheme'

Herbalife Ltd. is girding for a fight against a Wall Street money man who's betting $1 billion that the company is nothing more than what he called a "pyramid scheme."

The Los Angeles maker of nutritional products rushed to defend itself Thursday against a hedge fund manager's accusation.

Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman accused Herbalife of paying its sales staff far more money to recruit new distributors than to actually sell its products.

That results in the roughly 2.6 million distributors at the bottom of the sales pyramid making little or no income, while a handful at the top hauls in millions, he said.

"This is the best-managed pyramid scheme in the history of the world," Ackman said.

The company denied the allegation and accused Ackman of trying to manipulate the stock. Herbalife shares slumped 10% on Thursday and are off 21% in the two days since Ackman announced that the company is in his sights.

"Today's presentation was a malicious attack on our business model based largely on outdated, distorted and inaccurate information," Herbalife said in a statement. "We are not an illegal pyramid scheme."

Herbalife, which bills itself as a so-called multilevel marketer, has beaten back similar accusations in the past. But the company has rarely faced a nemesis such as Ackman.

The 46-year-old billionaire has fashioned a career on high-stakes gambits in controversial companies. His fund firm, Pershing Square Capital Management, manages $12 billion.

Showdowns between companies and skeptical investors historically play out behind closed doors, especially in the normally sleepy pre-holiday period.

But in a measure of the aggressive tactics favored by an emerging breed of activist investors, Ackman launched a public blitzkrieg Thursday. He gave a flashy multimedia presentation to a packed conference room in New York that was streamed live on the Internet.

"I've never seen anything quite like it," said Timothy Ramey, an analyst at D.A. Davidson & Co. "I've never seen an investor spend 31/2 hours of time at a major venue being webcast and then make TV appearances to make his point. It's the largest orchestrated bull or bear case that I've ever seen."

The brawl has potential repercussions for both sides.

Ackman claimed to have spent one year doing intensive research on Herbalife's operations, an unusually extended period given Wall Street's thirst for immediate results.

Earlier this year, Ackman began betting that Herbalife's stock would fall sharply.

His fund is "shorting" more than 20 million shares of the company. In a short sale, an investor borrows stock and sells it immediately, hoping to later buy the shares at a reduced price and return them to their actual owner.

Ackman promised to donate all profit from his Herbalife bet to charity, and portrayed his public diatribe as intended for the public good.

"I'm very fortunate to have the means to pursue this," he said. "I am independently wealthy. When I believe in something, I can say what I want and do what is right."

For Herbalife, the fight threatens to damage its credibility among investors who have always been sensitive to claims that its business is illegitimate.

Herbalife, which was founded in 1980, sells a line of diet powders, bars, drinks and vitamins through a network of independent distributors in more than 80 countries. The company reported sales of $3.5 billion in 2011.

Its chief executive, Michael O. Johnson, was the highest paid executive in the United States last year, hauling in more than $89 million in salary, exercised stock options and other compensation, according to GMI Ratings, a corporate governance firm.

The company has fought criticism of its business model throughout its existence.

In 2008, for example, self-proclaimed fraud buster Barry Minkow shorted Herbalife's stock and then accused the company of a host of misdeeds. The company survived those accusations and Minkow ultimately went to prison on unrelated charges.

This was the second time this year that investors punished Herbalife because of questions about its business practices. Herbalife shares fell 20% in May after hedge fund operator David Einhorn asked pointed questions during an earnings call.

"We operate at the highest ethical and quality standards, and our management and our board are constantly reviewing our business practices and products," Herbalife said. "We also hire independent, outside experts to ensure our operations are in full compliance with laws and regulations."

Ackman and Herbalife engaged in a bitter and bizarre war of words, with Johnson saying the United States will "be better when Bill Ackman is gone."

Ackman interpreted the statement as a threat and said he has hired a security firm to protect him.

stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

walter.hamilton@latimes.com

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Family, fans say goodbye to Jenni Rivera

Jenni Rivera was remembered in death the same way she was celebrated in life: on an illuminated stage, with thousands of fans chanting her name.

The singer, who was killed in a plane crash earlier this month, was honored Wednesday with what her family called a "celestial graduation," a musical memorial that packed the Gibson Amphitheatre with 6,100 people and drew hundreds more outside.

The more than two-hour farewell could have been mistaken for a concert, if not for the crowd's tears and the ruby-red casket on stage. In front of it was a cluster of white roses, the type of flower Rivera's family asked fans to bring. Behind it was a single microphone, left unused.

Family members — clad head-to-toe in white — praised Rivera as a "perfectly imperfect" mother and a guerrera, Spanish for "female warrior." Her father, Pedro Rivera, a noted singer of the Mexican ballads known as corridos, said goodbye by performing a song he wrote about her, "La Diva de la Banda."

Rivera's 11-year-old son, Johnny Lopez, addressed the sea of mourners in a white suit and red bow tie. His father died a few years ago.

"Mama, I've been crying so much these last few days. I miss you so much," he said, his voice breaking. "I hope you're taking care of my dad and I hope he's taking care of you, too."

He added: "I want to thank everyone for loving my mom."

Rivera, a Long Beach native, first gained fame via her banda music, a Mexican regional style heavy on machismo and brass instruments. A rare woman in the genre, Rivera often sang — in Spanish and English — about her chaotic personal life: three husbands, five children and struggles with her weight and domestic violence.

Rivera sold more than 20 million albums and, in recent years, had started to expand her business empire. She had a weekly radio program, clothing and cosmetics lines and a hand in several reality shows, including "I Love Jenni."

She and six others were killed Dec. 9 when a private jet that had departed Monterrey, Mexico, nose-dived 28,000 feet in 30 seconds and smashed into mountainous terrain. Rivera was 43.

"My sister, Jenni, died in a plane accident, but it was not an accident," Pedro Rivera Jr., a pastor and Rivera's brother, told the crowd in Spanish. "God has a purpose for all of us and God let us borrow her for 43 years and enjoy her."

It was clear how deeply Rivera had touched her legion of fans.

At the memorial, several well-known Latino singers performed, including Ana Gabriel, Olga Tanon and Joan Sebastian.

Outside, her fan base arrived early, blasting her music from cars decorated with tributes: "Jenni, we love you" and "We are going to miss you." They wore Jenni Rivera T-shirts and Jenni Rivera pins and waved handmade posters. One woman said Rivera was now performing "in a concert with God."

Lidia Farrias and her husband, Jose, drove three hours from Santa Maria. They didn't have tickets — the event sold out within minutes — so they shivered outside, eyes fixed on two jumbo screens streaming the memorial. Farrias said Rivera's frank lyrics had encouraged her to be a stronger woman.

"Whenever I listened to her songs, I felt like I could tackle anything," she said.

Denise Montalvo, 15, had left San Diego at 1 a.m. with her mother, aunt and two family friends. She admired Rivera for striving to obtain a better life, just like Denise's family. The teenager said Rivera wanted her funeral to be a celebration, reflecting her song "Cuando Muere una Dama" — "When a Lady Dies."

"We're trying not to be sad," she said.

That was hard for fans, particularly as the memorial wound down. One by one, each of Rivera's family members placed a white rose on her casket. Some whispered to it. Some kissed it. Then they walked away.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

Times staff writer Ashley Powers contributed to this report.

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Brazilian company releases the ‘IPHONE’ after trademarking the name back in 2000

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Miss USA Olivia Culpo is crowned Miss Universe

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A 20-year-old Boston University sophomore and a self-described "cellist-nerd" brought the Miss Universe crown back to the United States for the first time in more than a decade when she won the televised contest Wednesday.

Olivia Culpo beat out 88 other beauty queens from six continents at the Planet Hollywood casino on the Las Vegas Strip to take the title from outgoing champion Leila Lopes of Angola.

Culpo wore a tight navy blue mini-dress with a sequined bodice as she walked on stage for the competition's opening number. Later in the night, she strutted in a purple and blue bikini, and donned a wintery red velvet gown with a plunging neckline.

Culpo's coronation ends a long losing spell for the U.S. in the competition co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC. An American had not won the Miss Universe title since Brook Lee won in 1997.

No one seemed more surprised than Culpo's family, who "looked at her like she had three heads" when told them she was entering the Miss Rhode Island contest last year, her father Peter recalled.

"We didn't know a thing about pageants," he said.

She won that contest in a rented $20 dress with a hole in it and then began working out, dieting, and studying current events on flashcards to compete for the Miss USA crown.

Culpo was good enough during preliminary Miss Universe contests to be chosen as one of 16 semifinalists who moved on to compete in the main show. Her bid lasted through swimsuit, evening wear, and interview competitions that saw cuts after each round.

She won over the judges even after tripping slightly during the evening gown competition. Telecasters pointed it out but also noted her poised recovery.

Moments before she won, Culpo was asked whether she had she had ever done something she regretted.

"I'd like to start off by saying that every experience no matter what it is, good or bad, you'll learn from it. That's just life," she said. "But something I've done I've regretted is probably picking on my siblings growing up, because you appreciate them so much more as you grow older."

One of those siblings, 17-year-old Gus, was cheering from the front row with his sister's glittering Miss Rhode Island sash wrapped around his shoulders

Miss Philippines, Janine Tugonon, came in second, while Miss Venezuela, Irene Sofia Esser Quintero, placed third. All the contestants spent the past two weeks in Sin City, where they posed in hardhats at a hotel groundbreaking, took a painting lesson, and pranked hotel guests by hiding in their rooms.

After the show, Culpo appeared wearing a white gold crown atop her long brown hair and told a group of reporters she hoped to bring the country some good news in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Connecticut.

"It's such an honor to be representing the USA in an international beauty contest in spite of all the tragedy that's happened in this country lately," she said. "I really hope that this this will raise everybody's spirits a little."

The daughter of two professional musicians, Culpo grew up in Cranston and spent her summers at band camp. She has played the cello alongside world-renowned classical musician Yo-Yo Ma, and followed in her parents' footsteps with performances at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Her father called her the "nerdiest" of her siblings, and her brother recalled that she was "really chubby and sort of weird when she was younger."

They speculated that the same single-mindedness that helped her master the cello in second grade propelled her rapid rise through the beauty pageant ranks.

With her promotion, Miss Maryland Nana Meriwether becomes the new Miss USA.

The Miss Universe pageant was back in Las Vegas this year after being held in Sao Paulo in 2011. It aired live on NBC and was streamed to more than 100 countries.

The panel of 10 judges included singer Cee Lo Green, "Iron Chef" star Masaharu Morimoto and Pablo Sandoval of the San Francisco Giants.

Asked on the red carpet whether he found playing in the World Series or judging the beauty pageant to be more difficult, Sandoval said both were hard.

As Miss Universe, Culpo will receive an undisclosed salary, a wardrobe fit for a queen, a limitless supply of beauty products, and a luxury apartment in New York City.

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