At least 16 hurt in blast and fire at Kansas City restaurant

At least 16 people were hurt and a popular wine bar was destroyed by an apparent natural gas explosion and ensuing fire at an upscale shopping district in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday evening.

Residents reported smelling natural gas and seeing utility crews in the area before the conflagration. A strong scent of gas hung in the air afterward.

“Early indications are that a contractor doing underground work struck a natural gas line, but the investigation continues,” Missouri Gas Energy, a natural-gas provider, said in a statement.

The Kansas City Fire Department said the incident was under investigation. “It does seem to be an accident,” Fire Chief Paul Berardi said during a late-night news briefing.

JJ's Restaurant and wine bar, just off Country Club Plaza, had apparently been partially evacuated before the blast occurred about 6 p.m.

"This was happy hour at the restaurant. There were patrons in the restaurant," Berardi said.

No fatalities were reported, but officials brought in cadaver dogs to check the rubble. The Kansas City Star reported that one JJ's employee was missing.

The fire raged for two hours, with thick smoke visible for miles. Victims streamed to hospitals; at least four people were in critical condition.

Initially, police said a car had hit a gas main, but officials later discounted that explanation.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene. 

"I was sitting in my living room folding laundry, and felt in my chest -- and heard -- an explosion," said Jamie Lawless, who lives about two blocks from JJ's. "I started freaking out, and I was looking around, and then I saw other people walking outside. You could see giant black smoke billowing up from the plaza area, and nobody really knew what it was."

Sally McVey, who lives across the street from JJ's, said the fire "was growing exponentially, incredibly quickly. It was not like a fire I’ve seen before, where it takes a long time to spread.”

A crowd gathered to watch firefighters battle the blaze. At an apartment building on JJ's block, a woman on a top-floor balcony called down to onlookers.  "'Is my building on fire?' and everybody says, 'Yes, come down!' " McVey said. "She’s like, 'Oh my gosh,' and a lot of people come out of that building with their computers and dogs. She did too.”

JJ's owner, Jimmy Frantze, was out of town, said Kansas City Mayor Sly James, who used to be a fixture at the restaurant. The business, which boasted a selection of 1,800 bottles, had been on the site for 28 years.

“It was 28 years of a great restaurant, and then it has to end like this,” Frantze told the Kansas City Star while driving back from Oklahoma. “I want to make sure to check on my employees to make sure they are all right.”

Kansas City Police Department's bomb squad and officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were expected to investigate the accident after the search dogs finished looking for victims, Berardi said.

 matt.pearce@latimes.com

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Police say NY TV anchor threatened wife with death

A New York City TV anchorman issued a death threat against his wife as he was being arrested on charges of attacking her at their Connecticut home, according to a court document released Tuesday.

New York City police, meanwhile, disclosed that they were called 11 times to the couple's home when they lived in Manhattan. One call resulted in an arrest, but the case was sealed, they said.

In the Connecticut case, a Darien police officer wrote that Rob Morrison, who works for WCBS-TV, "threatened that if he was released from police custody, he would kill his wife."

The document was offered in Superior Court in Stamford, in support of an order of protection against Morrison. Judge Kenneth Povadator ordered Morrison to stay 100 yards away from Ashley Morrison except when they're both at work.

She works for "CBS Moneywatch."

Rob Morrison, 44, was charged Sunday with strangulation, threatening and disorderly conduct. Officers had been called by his mother-in-law to the couple's home in Darien. They said Morrison had been belligerent toward his wife throughout the night and had wrapped his hands around her neck, leaving red marks.

Morrison's lawyer, Robert Skovgaard, did not enter a plea at the arraignment. He said afterward a plea would come "at the appropriate time."

Skovgaard said Monday that the allegations had been exaggerated and on Tuesday he referred to his previous statement.

Outside the courthouse, Morrison said: "I did not choke my wife. I've never raised my hands to my wife."

The NYPD said it was called 11 times between 2004 and 2009 to the couple's home on West 90th Street. In the 10 cases that did not result in an arrest, the calls involved verbal disputes and harassment, with no allegations of physical violence, the police said.

It was not clear if violence was alleged in the case that was sealed. Skovgaard did not immediately return a call about the New York incidents.

Morrison was released Tuesday on the $100,000 bond he posted Sunday. He is due back in court in Stamford on March 26.

Morrison, who has been a combat correspondent and was a reporter and anchor for WNBC-TV, anchors WCBS-TV's news programs "This Morning" and "News at Noon." Ashley Morrison worked for Bloomberg Television before joining "CBS MoneyWatch."

The couple has a young son.

Skovgaard said that because of the order of protection, Morrison "will not be going home tonight."

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Long in New York contributed to this report.

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Well: No Consensus on Plantar Fasciitis

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

There are more charismatic-sounding sports injuries than plantar fasciitis, like tennis elbow, runner’s knee and turf toe. But there aren’t many that are more common. The condition, characterized by stabbing pain in the heel or arch, sidelines up to 10 percent of all runners, as well as countless soccer, baseball, football and basketball players, golfers, walkers and others from both the recreational and professional ranks. The Lakers star Kobe Bryant, the quarterback Eli Manning, the Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney all have been stricken.

But while plantar fasciitis is democratic in its epidemiology, its underlying cause remains surprisingly enigmatic. In fact, the mysteries of plantar fasciitis underscore how little is understood, medically, about overuse sports injuries in general and why, as a result, they remain so insidiously difficult to treat.

Experts do agree that plantar fasciitis is, essentially, an irritation of the plantar fascia, a long, skinny rope of tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot, attaching the heel bone to the toes and forming your foot’s arch. When that tissue becomes irritated, you develop pain deep within the heel. The pain is usually most pronounced first thing in the morning, since the fascia tightens while you sleep.

But scientific agreement about the condition and its causes ends about there.

For many years, “most of us who treat plantar fasciitis believed that it involved chronic inflammation” of the fascia, said Dr. Terrence M. Philbin, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at the Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Center in Westerville, Ohio, who specializes in plantar fasciitis.

It was thought that by running or otherwise repetitively pounding their heels against the ground, people strained the plantar fascia, and the body responded with a complex cascade of inflammatory biochemical processes that resulted in extra blood and fluids flowing to the injury site, as well as enhanced pain sensitivity.

But instead of lasting only a few days and then fading, as acute inflammation usually does, the process can become chronic and create its own problems, causing tissue damage and continuing pain.

This progression is also what experts believed was happening when people developed chronic Achilles tendon pain, tennis elbow or other lingering, overuse injuries.

But when scientists actually biopsied fascia tissue from people with chronic plantar fasciitis, “they did not find much if any inflammation,” Dr. Philbin said. There were virtually none of the cellular markers that characterize that condition.

“Plantar fasciitis does not involve inflammatory cells,” said Dr. Karim Khan, a professor of family practice medicine at the University of British Columbia and editor of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, who has written extensively about overuse sports injuries.

Instead, plantar fasciitis more likely is caused by degeneration or weakening of the tissue. This process probably begins with small tears that occur during activity and that, in normal circumstances, the body simply repairs, strengthening the tissue as it does. That is the point of exercise training.

But sometimes, for unknown reasons, this ongoing tissue damage overwhelms the body’s capacity to respond. The small tears don’t heal. They accumulate. The tissue begins subtly to degenerate, even to shred. It hurts.

By and large, most sports medicine experts now believe that this is how we develop other overuse injuries, like tennis elbow or Achilles tendinopathy, which used to be called tendinitis. The suffix “itis” means inflammation. But since the injury isn’t thought to involve chronic inflammation, its name has changed.

This has not yet happened with plantar fasciitis, and may not, given what a mouthful fasciopathy would be.

The evolving medical opinions about plantar fasciitis matter, beyond nomenclature, though, because treatments depend on causes. At the moment, many physicians rely on injections of cortisone, a steroid that is both a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory, to treat plantar fasciitis. And cortisone shots do reduce the soreness. In a study published last year in BMJ, patients who received cortisone injections reported less heel pain after four months than those whose shots had contained a placebo saline solution.

But whether those benefits will last is unknown, especially if plantar fasciitis is, indeed, degenerative. In studies with people suffering from tennis elbow, another injury that is now considered degenerative, cortisone shots actually slowed tissue healing.

We need similar studies in people with plantar fasciitis, Dr. Khan said. “They have not been done.”

Thankfully, most people who develop plantar fasciitis will recover within a few months without injections or other invasive treatments, Dr. Philbin said, if they simply back off their running mileage somewhat or otherwise rest the foot and stretch the affected tissues. Stretching the plantar fascia, as well as the Achilles tendon, which also attaches to the heel bone, and the hamstring muscles seems to result in less strain on the fascia during activity, meaning less ongoing trauma and, eventually, time for the body to catch up with repairs.

To ensure that you are stretching correctly, Dr. Philbin suggests consulting a physical therapist, after, of course, visiting a sports medicine doctor for a diagnosis. Not all heel or arch pain is plantar fasciitis. And comfort yourself if you do have the condition with the knowledge that Kobe Bryant, Eli Manning and Ryan Hall have all returned to competition and Mr. Romney still runs.

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Macy's seeks to block Martha Stewart Living's pact with Penney

Macy's Inc., the second-largest U.S. department store chain, will go to court in New York on Wednesday to try to persuade a judge to permanently block Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc.'s pact with J.C. Penney Co.

Macy's sued Martha Stewart Living in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan in January 2012 to stop it from proceeding with an agreement announced with J.C. Penney the previous month. Macy's claims that it has an exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart-branded products in categories such as bedding and cookware.

Opening statements in the nonjury trial will be before state Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey K. Oing.

J.C. Penney Chief Executive Ron Johnson and Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren probably will testify next week, as will Martha Stewart, her company's nonexecutive chairwoman, Macy's spokesman Jim Sluzewski said Tuesday.

In July, Oing granted Cincinnati-based Macy's a preliminary injunction blocking Martha Stewart Living from taking any steps with J.C. Penney on products in the exclusive categories.

In August, Macy's sued J.C. Penney in the same court, seeking to block it from proceeding with the Martha Stewart Living agreement. Oing denied Macy's request in that case.

Macy's said J.C. Penney and Martha Stewart Living "made a conscious business decision" not to disclose their talks to Macy's until the contract was signed to avoid the risk of a restraining order that would bar the agreement.

"Macy's contracted with [Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia] at a time when the MSLO brand was associated with the significantly downscale Kmart and Ms. Stewart was just being released from prison," lawyers for Macy's said in a pretrial memorandum. "Taking losses at first, Macy's moved the brand in soft home goods upscale, a herculean task under the circumstances.

"Now defendants, in complete disregard of the Macy's agreement, seek to reap the rewards of Macy's work and to usurp the benefits of Macy's contract."

Martha Stewart Living has defended its agreement with J.C. Penney, accusing Macy's of breach of contract and saying the retailer stocked and priced Martha Stewart products in a manner that favors private-label brands. Martha Stewart Living also said Macy's couldn't have exercised a five-year renewal option on the agreement because of the breach.

Martha Stewart Living has argued that its original 2006 contract with Macy's allows Martha Stewart Living to design and sell products within the exclusive categories as long as they are sold through the Internet, television or at any retail store branded with the Martha Stewart name that's operated by the company or its affiliates or "prominently" features the brand, according to court filings in the case.

The agreement "gives Macy's the exclusive right, with important exceptions, to sell Martha Stewart-branded products in certain exclusive product categories," Martha Stewart Living said in a pretrial memorandum. "The agreement does not, however, give Macy's any exclusivity — as to design, promotion, sale or anything else — with respect to products that are not Martha Stewart-branded."

J.C. Penney acquired a 17% stake in Martha Stewart Living for $38.5 million in December 2011. The Plano, Texas, department store chain is seeking to revive sales with new mini-stores dedicated to Martha Stewart and other brands.

Martha Stewart Living said in July that J.C. Penney agreed to pay at least $282.9 million in sales commissions over a 10-year period under an amended agreement, a $110.5-million increase from the terms disclosed in December. The amended pact also adds new products.

For Martha Stewart Living, selling its goods to multiple retailers is important to reversing declining sales. The company, which also publishes magazines, has posted losses and decreasing revenue for four straight years, hurt by a drop in advertising demand, and analysts estimate the same for 2012. Its stock lost 44% of its value last year. The New York company announced in November that it was cutting publishing jobs as it focuses on the Web.

Macy's Lundgren has revived the department store partly by adding more exclusive merchandise including Martha Stewart's cookware, kitchen utensils and bed and bath items.

The judge said he has scheduled the trial to run through March 8.

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Complaint alleges racial bias in Palmdale elections

Latinos and African Americans make up about two-thirds of the population of Palmdale. But since the city's incorporation in August 1962, not a single black resident and only one Latino has ever served on the City Council.

That's the backdrop of a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Antelope Valley civil rights activists alleging racial bias in city elections in this High Desert locale. The complaint argues that Palmdale's system of at-large council seats dilutes the influence of minority voters.

"Latinos and African Americans are locked out of the political system in the city of Palmdale," said Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who is representing plaintiff Juan Jauregui, a Palmdale resident. Three local black activists and the NAACP have also said they will join the case, scheduled to go to trial in May.

The litigation is the latest in a series of racially themed conflicts in the Antelope Valley as blacks and Latinos have moved into once mostly white areas. Housing programs and police practices have been flash points as activists have challenged policies they perceive as unfairly targeting minority residents.

Plaintiffs say the city's at-large election system violates the state's 2001 Voting Rights Act, which guards against disenfranchisement of minorities. They seek a change to district-by-district voting.

Palmdale is fighting back. In court documents, city attorneys argue that because blacks and Latinos are a majority of registered voters in the city, they are "in a position, numerically" to elect the mayor and City Council members.

The lawyers also insist that district voting would not have helped minority candidates who lost. "They simply had very little support from voters, and no drawing or gerrymandering of districts would have resulted in a district which would have elected them," the attorneys said.

Moreover, in November 2001 Palmdale's residents voted against a measure to introduce district voting. City Atty. Wm. Matthew Ditzhazy said via email that "ultimately it was the community's decision to make."

In a recent deposition, James Ledford, who has been elected the city's mayor 11 times since 1992, said he did not even know the race of his fellow council members and was not aware that all but one had been white.

Asked whether it bothered him "in any way that racial minorities in Palmdale might feel that they are not being represented in the City Council," Ledford said no.

Ledford declined to be interviewed for this article, although in the past he has said he favored district voting.

Traditionally, low voter turnout among blacks and Latinos in Palmdale's municipal elections has shrunk their voting power compared with that of whites, who turn out in greater numbers, statistics show.

The majority of Palmdale Latinos voted yes for district elections in 2001, but the measure was defeated because 66% of whites opposed it, according to data compiled by a city consultant and cited by Shenkman.

Similarly, in 2009, when V. Jesse Smith, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP, ran for City Council, he split the Latino vote 49% to 51% with Steve Fox, who is white. But neither won a council seat. The spots went to white candidates Tom Lackey and Laura Bettencourt, who scored heavily among whites, although neither got a single Latino vote, Shenkman said.

Shenkman acknowledged the poor voting record of minority groups, but he blamed the system of at-large voting. Blacks and Latinos didn't vote because they had "grown to understand that their vote doesn't matter," he said.

At least a dozen government entities in California, including cities, school districts and county boards, have been sued under the state's Voting Rights Act, said Shenkman. Some cases are still pending, others have ended in settlements resulting in district elections, he said.

One of those was Compton, which placed the issue on the ballot last June to settle a lawsuit. Voters approved the switch from at-large to district voting. The change may give Latinos — who make up a majority of the city's population but a minority of eligible voters — a greater chance of putting the first Latino on the City Council in April.

For supporters of district voting in Palmdale, the claim represents a new effort to shake up the political status quo in the Antelope Valley. They say it will make city representatives more accountable to voters.

But Richard Loa, an attorney who in 2001 became the only Latino ever to win a council seat in Palmdale, said that although he supported Latinos' push for representation, he opposes resolving the issue through litigation.

"The important thing is to have effective leadership," said Loa, who has said he will run again.

Race isn't everything, agreed Darren Parker, who as chairman of the California Democratic Party's African American caucus helps recruit potential minority candidates to run for local office, but he said High Desert cities need black voices in leadership.

"I don't believe that anyone who doesn't get up in the morning and look like me can really walk in my shoes," Parker said.

Among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs is attorney R. Rex Parris, mayor of neighboring Lancaster, which uses at-large elections but is weighing a change.

Lancaster's population is about 40% Latino and 20% African American, but the City Council has four white men and one Latina. The city has also faced charges of racial bias, but Lancaster has a track record of minority representation on its council, including an African American who twice served as mayor.

Lilia Galindo, who has used her Palmdale-based Café Con Leche radio talk show to encourage Latinos to get out and vote, said High Desert Latinos were eager to find their political voice. District elections would help, she said.

"We've started to realize how important it is to express our rights as citizens," Galindo said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

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Nudes check out nudes at Austrian museum

VIENNA (AP) — These museum goers didn't just leave their outerwear at the coat check. They handed over their shirts, trousers, underwear — everything, except their shoes and socks.

The occasion Monday at Vienna's Leopold Museum was a special after-hour showing of "Nude Men from 1800 to Today" — an exhibit of 300 paintings, photographs, drawings and sculptures focused on the bare male.

For many, the evening was a goose-bump raising instance of life imitating art.

"I can't say I'm sweating," said office worker Herbert Korvas, as he stood in the atrium with other young men wearing no more than socks and a smile and waiting for the tour to start. Still, he said he was drawn to the idea of naked museum viewing "because it was something different."

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National Briefing | South: Abortion Curbs Clear Senate in Arkansas

The State Senate voted 25 to 7 on Monday to ban most abortions 20 weeks into a pregnancy. The measure goes back to the House to consider an amendment that added exceptions for rape and incest. The legislation is based on the belief that fetuses can feel pain 20 weeks into a pregnancy, and is similar to bans in several other states. Opponents say it would require mothers to deliver babies with fatal conditions. Gov. Mike Beebe has said he has constitutional concerns about the proposal but has not said whether he will veto it.

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Audit of Fed's gold finds it's safe, more pure than expected

NEW YORK — Turns out the Federal Reserve's gold is secure and a bit more pure than previously thought — or so the government says.

Auditors spent weeks last year in a vault five stories beneath Manhattan counting, weighing and drilling small holes into gold bars owned by the U.S. Treasury.

It was the first time the Treasury's inspector general had audited the department's gold held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which has captured the imagination of Hollywood as well as government skeptics.

The audit's results are in: The New York Fed's operations and controls are up to snuff, and the U.S. gold on deposit is a bit finer than Treasury records had indicated.

Still, the audit probably will not lay to rest questions over whether the New York Fed has secretly lent the gold or otherwise encumbered it in a swap transaction with another government or bank.

"There's no way to prove there's not a secret agreement," said Ted Truman, a former assistant Treasury secretary and top Fed official.

The audit of the Fed gold came after 2012 presidential contender and former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) questioned the central bank's gold holdings.

While he was in Congress, Paul questioned whether the Fed had lent or otherwise encumbered U.S. gold in financial arrangements. At a congressional hearing in 2011, the Treasury Department's inspector general, Eric Thorson, assured Paul that "not one troy ounce is encumbered."

Paul has called for a full, independent audit and assay of the country's gold reserves. But as part of its audit, the Treasury tested a sample — not all — of the government's 34,021 gold bars in the New York Fed's vault.

In three of the 367 tests, the gold was more pure than Treasury records indicated, according to the inspector general. As a result, the government notched up the value of its gold holdings by approximately 27 fine troy ounces — or about $43,500, based on gold's market price Monday.

The assaying process consumed 10 ounces of gold, and the remaining 69 ounces removed for sampling were returned to the Treasury, according to the inspector general's office.

The U.S. gold at the New York Fed has been placed under so-called Official Joint Seals, attesting to the results of the audit.

"At this point, we do plan to conduct this audit annually," the inspector general's office said in emailed responses to questions. "However, since the gold is now under Official Joint Seal, we would not anticipate weighing, counting and assaying unless the seal shows signs of tampering."

The audit also examined internal controls, security and operations at the New York Fed. "Our audit disclosed no material weaknesses and no instances of reportable noncompliance with laws and regulations," the Treasury's audit report said.

The New York Fed holds 99.98% of the U.S.-owned gold bars and coins in the custody of the Federal Reserve. The rest of the gold is on display at Fed banks in cities such as Richmond, Va.; Kansas City, Mo.; and San Francisco.

As of Sept. 30, when the market price of gold was $1,776 an ounce, the Fed banks held $23.9 billion in U.S. gold. (Gold has since declined in value, and on Monday the precious metal was hovering around $1,610 an ounce.) The vast majority — about 95% — of the country's gold reserves is held elsewhere, in Ft. Knox, Ky.; West Point, N.Y.; and Denver.

Truman, the former Treasury and Fed official, was not surprised by the audit's findings.

"I would be flabbergasted if they found some huge discrepancy or even a substantial discrepancy between what they said they had and what they found," Truman said.

Still, the audit won't end conspiracy theories that involve the government's gold held by the Fed, he said.

"I would surprised if anyone's convinced of anything," he said. "They'll conspire now about whether the audit was aboveboard."

andrew.tangel@latimes.com

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Seawater desalination plant might be just a drop in the bucket

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Dreamers have long looked to the Pacific Ocean as the ultimate answer to California's water needs: an inexhaustible, drought-proof reservoir in the state's backyard. In the last decade, proposals for about 20 desalting plants have been discussed up and down the coast.

But even with construction about to begin on the nation's largest seawater desalination facility, 35 miles north of San Diego, experts say it is doubtful that dream will ever be fully realized.

"While this Poseidon adventure may work out, I don't look for a lot of that," said Henry Vaux Jr., a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of resource economics who contributed to a 2008 National Research Council report on desalination.

The reasons boil down to money and energy. It takes a lot of both to turn ocean water into drinking water, driving the average price of desalinated supplies well above most other sources.

The purified water produced by the Poseidon Resources plant will cost the San Diego County Water Authority more than twice what it now pays the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for supplies from Northern California and the Colorado River. Over the authority's 30-year contract with Poseidon, San Diego County ratepayers will pay between $3 billion and $4 billion for the desalted water, which is expected to provide no more than a tenth of their overall supply.

Seawater desalination is not new to California. There are number of small coastal plants, used mostly for research or industrial purposes, and a few, such as one on Catalina Island, that provide municipal supplies.

For reasons unique to the region, San Diego County will be the first to stick a big straw into the Pacific. It is at the end of the line for imported water, doesn't have much local groundwater and is perennially battling with Metropolitan, Southern California's wholesaler of imported supplies.

"I do believe it is worth it," said Tom Wornham, board chairman of the county water authority. "I would rather be apologizing to people in 10 years for the rate than the fact they would have no water."

Up the coast, other places have taken a pass on the Pacific. Los Angeles and Long Beach recently shelved seawater desalting plans after concluding that other water sources, such as conservation or recycling, are cheaper and easier to pursue.

Poseidon, a small, privately held company based in Stamford, Conn., started talking about developing a desalination plant in Carlsbad in late 1998. The road to construction has been so long and twisting that Global Water Intelligence, which covers the international water industry, last year listed the project among the "Top 10 Desalination Disasters" of all time.

It took years for the company to get the necessary state and local permits. Environmentalists filed multiple legal challenges, the last of which was only recently resolved in Poseidon's favor. A deal with a number of local water agencies in San Diego County fell apart.

In the end, the Poseidon supplies — up to 56,000 acre-feet a year — will sell for roughly $2,000 an acre-foot, more than double the company's 2004 estimate. (One acre-foot is enough to supply two average homes for a year.) The price will rise with inflation; if energy costs go up, so will the price of water.

On the other side of the Pacific, Australia offers a sobering lesson in the perils of diving too deeply into desalination.

When years of withering drought emptied the country's reservoirs, Australia commissioned six big coastal desalting plants, including some of the world's largest. Then the rains returned. Just as some of the operations were coming on line, they were no longer needed.

Four of the six plants are being idled because cheaper water is available. Australian politicians are bemoaning the desalination binge, complaining that it saddled ratepayers with "hyper-expensive" white elephants they have to pay for regardless of whether the plants are used.

"That's certainly the risk — that we build them when they're not necessary or we build them, frankly, too soon," said Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland think tank.

Santa Barbara had a similar experience in the early 1990s, when it built a desalination plant during a severe statewide drought that ended before the facility was finished. The $34-million plant, with a tenth of the capacity of the Carlsbad facility, was never used beyond the testing phase, though it could still be brought into service in an emergency.

The $954-million Carlsbad project is being financed with $781 million in tax-exempt construction bonds sold by Poseidon and the water authority. The balance is coming from investors who anticipate a return of about 13%. IDE Americas Inc., the subsidiary of an Israeli firm that runs some of the world's largest coastal desalination facilities in the Middle East, has been hired to design and operate the plant, slated for completion in 2016.

The fresh water will be produced through reverse osmosis, an energy-intensive process that separates salts and contaminants from seawater by forcing it through sand filters and tightly coiled, synthetic membranes peppered with billions of tiny holes a fraction of the width of a human hair. The water will then be pumped inland for distribution — the opposite direction that drinking supplies are usually moved — requiring construction of a 10-mile underground pipeline that the water authority will own and operate.

Poseidon chose the Carlsbad location, next to the Encina Power Station, so it could draw from the power plant's cooling water discharge — thus avoiding the environmental harm of operating its own ocean intake.

But new federal and state environmental regulations are pushing coastal power plants to phase out the use of huge volumes of ocean water for cooling, thwarting that strategy. Poseidon expects the Encina station to be replaced within the decade with a new generating facility employing a different cooling system.

That will mean the desalter will have to pump directly from the ocean, sucking 300 million gallons a day. Of that, 100 million gallons will go through the reverse osmosis process, with half converted to fresh water and half to a concentrated brine. The brine, twice as salty as the sea, will be diluted in a mixing pool with the other 200 million gallons of intake and discharged to the ocean.

Destruction of marine life is a major environmental concern of ocean desalination. Raw seawater is full of tiny organisms, including plankton that form a critical part of the food chain and the young stages of fish and invertebrates. When the water they live in is pumped into a plant, they die.

The Coastal Commission is requiring Poseidon to restore 55 acres of marine wetlands in south San Diego Bay to compensate for the plant's projected effects. The State Water Resources Control Board is also developing new seawater desalination regulations that could force Poseidon to change its intake and discharge systems.

"They took a big risk in building this before the rules are finalized," said Joe Geever of the Surfrider Foundation, which tenaciously fought the Carlsbad proposal in court and argues that water agencies should turn to the ocean only as a last resort — after more environmentally benign sources such as recycling and storm-water capture have been aggressively pursued.

Poseidon, which is trying to line up customers for a similar-size desal plant proposed in Huntington Beach, says it is peddling more than water. "What we're selling is ... a reliability premium that's locally controlled, drought-proof," said Carlos Riva, the company's chief executive.

But even Poseidon doesn't predict that the Pacific will become California's dominant water supply. The state has too many other sources.

"We have quite a bit of water to move around," said Peter MacLaggan, the Poseidon executive who is overseeing the Carlsbad project. "I don't think it's ever going to be a majority of supply or anywhere close to that."

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

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Singer Mindy McCready dies in apparent suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Perhaps there was one heartbreak too many for Mindy McCready.

The former country star appears to have taken her own life Sunday afternoon in Heber Springs, Ark. Authorities say McCready died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head and an autopsy is planned. She was 37, the mother of two young sons.

If confirmed, it was at least her fourth suicide attempt since 2005, ending a series of tumultuous public events that marked much of the singer's adult life.

Speaking to The Associated Press in 2010, McCready smiled wryly while talking about the string of issues she'd dealt with over the last half-decade.

"It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time," she said of her life. "I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that's really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality."

This time it seems the whirlwind overwhelmed McCready.

Her death comes a month after that of David Wilson, her longtime boyfriend and the father of her youngest son. He is believed to have shot himself on the same porch of the home they shared in the small wooded community of large lakefront houses about 65 miles north of Little Rock, Ark., and his death also was investigated as a suicide.

It was the most difficult moment in a life full of them. McCready issued a statement last month lamenting his death. And she called him her soul mate and a caregiver to her sons in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

"I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I'll have," she said, according to a transcript of the interview.

Like so many times before, McCready showed a little toughness in the midst of a personal storm, again endearing herself to her fans. But as usual, the brave face for the camera hid a much more complicated internal struggle that surfaced publicly time and again over the last 10 years.

This time, along with her remembrances of finding Wilson as he lay dying, she also answered questions about whether they'd argued earlier that evening about an affair and if she'd shot him.

"Oh, my God," the "Today" transcript reads. "No. Oh, my God. No. He was my life. We were each other's life."

It's unclear what circumstances led to McCready taking her own life, but it appears she was struggling again with twin issues that have persisted for years — substance abuse and the custody of her children. She checked into court-ordered rehab and gave her children up to foster care earlier this month after her father asked a judge to intervene, saying she'd stopped taking care of herself and her sons and was abusing alcohol and prescription drugs.

It's not clear where her sons, 6-year-old Zander and infant Zayne, were Sunday.

A deputy stationed outside McCready's home Sunday night referred questions to the Cleburne County sheriff, who was unavailable. Yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the front yard and a dark-colored pickup truck sat in the driveway.

News of McCready's death spread quickly Sunday night on Twitter, with major country stars paying their respects to the onetime Nashville darling.

"Too much tragedy to overcome. R.I.P Mindy McCready," wrote Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks.

And Carrie Underwood added: "I grew up listening to Mindy McCready...so sad for her family tonight. Many prayers are going out to them..."

Melinda Gayle McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994 still in her teens with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records. She had a few memorable moments professionally, scoring her first No. 1 hit almost immediately.

"Guys Do It All the Time," a self-assured dig at male chauvinism, endeared her to female fans in 1996. She also scored a hit with "Ten Thousand Angels," and her album of that title sold 2 million copies.

Beyond that, though, she's mostly remembered for a string of dramatic moments as she spent the next 15 years chasing another huge hit. Her problems included a custody battle with her mother over one of her sons, an overdose and discord in her love life.

She made headlines in April 2008 when she claimed a longtime relationship with baseball great Roger Clemens. Published reports at the time said she met the pitcher at a Florida karaoke bar when she was 15 and he was 28 and married. Clemens denied the relationship. A decade earlier she was engaged to actor Dean Cain, but the two never married.

She also had a turbulent relationship with Billy McKnight, a country singer who is the father of her oldest son. McKnight was arrested in 2005 on charges of attempted murder after authorities say he beat and choked her.

During this period she also pleaded guilty to obtaining the painkiller OxyContin fraudulently at a pharmacy and got probation. She violated the probation with a drunken driving arrest in May 2005, a few days before McKnight was arrested. And in July 2007, she was arrested in her hometown of Fort Myers, Fla., on misdemeanor charges of scratching her mother, Gayle Inge, on the face during a scuffle and resisting sheriff's deputies.

Less than a year later, McCready was arrested and charged with violating her probation by falsifying her community service records relating to the 2004 drug charge. A month later, she entered an extended care facility for undisclosed treatment, and followed that with a 60-day jail sentence. Inge took custody of Zander.

There were at least three suicide attempts between July 2005 and December 2008.

She tried to get help in an unusual way, joining the cast of "Celebrity Rehab 3" with Dr. Drew Pinsky. McCready came off as a sympathetic figure during the show's run. Pinsky called her an "angel" and in an interview in 2010 said it appeared McCready was doing "rather well."

Pinsky helped treat McCready for love addiction on the show and said he'd referred her to professionals who could continue to help her afterward.

"A love addict basically is somebody that really didn't have a good model for intimacy in their childhood, often times traumatized in one way or another, thereby intimacy becomes a risk place, becomes an intolerable place," Pinsky said. "And so what they tend to do is attach themselves to idealized, bigger than life, unavailable others, specifically go after some public figure that's married or go after some rock star who is himself a sex addict and not interested in a relationship, and then idealize that person and actively pursue them to the point of obsession."

McCready is the fifth celebrity to pass away since appearing on Pinsky's show and the third from Season 3. Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr and "Real World" participant Joey Kovar both died due to overdose. In the months after her stint, she said she found some peace and told The Associated Press in early 2010 she hoped to get her career restarted, write a book about her experiences and begin production on a reality show with her brothers. She'd just met Wilson and talked openly about their relationship, though the producer and musician declined to speak on the record.

With a publicist, reporters, cameras, makeup artists and musicians swirling around her during a press day for her last album "I'm Still Here," McCready fended off questions about a sex tape and said she and Wilson started out as friends.

"And I've never had a relationship like that before where we started completely as friends," she said. "It turned into friends really caring about each other and then it turned into love and I've never had that happen before."

At the time, Pinsky thought the relationship was on the right track: "She's an easy person to like and to care about and we hope she does well," Pinsky said. "So far so good as far as I can tell."

McCready said her main goal in 2010 was to pull her family back together: "I would like my son back with me and for my brothers and I and he to be able to go and do this (TV reality show), and I think after that I will be a pretty happy girl."

The new album debuted at No. 71 and failed to gain radio airplay. McCreary's plans never materialized and she soon was in legal trouble again, this time fighting for custody.

McCready took her older son from her mother, the boy's legal guardian, in late 2011. She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears. Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a home without permission and took the boy into custody.

She and Wilson had their son in April 2012.

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Music Writer Chris Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. Associated Press writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from Tampa, Fla.

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