Sweet and Lowe: How a captivating Twitter feed sealed Rob Lowe’s comeback

By Virginia Heffernan

@RobLowe follows 135 people on Twitter. Among them is not @HilaryASwank, the Oscar-winning ex-wife of his brother, @ichadlowe.

@RobLowe does, however, follow @ikimlowe, the new wife of his brother, who helpfully identifies herself on the site as “wife of @ichadlowe.” Would @HilaryASwank, a formidable actor who does not use Twitter very often, have consented to live in her lesser-known husband’s Twitter shadow? Perhaps not. Perhaps that’s why they div—

But what am I doing? This is where Twitter can lead a person: to deranged, speculative pointless nosiness. To mindlessly customizing a version of Us Weekly magazine by reading between the Twitter lines of who follows whom, who tags whom, who seeks whose attention with tags and hashtags.

So forget that. I’m just going to keep following @RobLowe. His Twitter feed is one for the ages, and he’s on a tear, having just hit half a million followers. And I swear I follow Rob Lowe for the epigrams and jokes—why else?—though, yes, I once had a poster of the matinee idol from “St. Elmo’s Fire” on my wall. (But only because I learned that science had proven that he and Jaclyn Smith were the most perfectly symmetrical, beautiful humans ever to exist—and who ever would exist. It was a duty of citizenship in the human race to have a poster!)

Not long after “St. Elmo’s Fire,” @RobLowe, the record reflects, had a speedy fall after an early-adopter DIY sex tape (1988! Paris Hilton’s was not ’til 2003!). As Lowe’s first-rate autobiography reports, this was part of a bigger personal unraveling into promiscuity and dissipation on an NBA/Lohan scale. Eventually Lowe found deliverance in sobriety (which he names as one of his interests on Twitter) and the love of a good woman, @Sheryl_Lowe (business) or @Sheryllowe61 (personal).

Lowe also evidently found something in Twitter. As his career has done more than rebound—it has fully realized itself, with his comic-stilted-earnest-inimitable performances on “The West Wing,” “Brothers & Sisters” and, now, “Parks and Recreation”—he has built a sturdy and complementary Twitter feed.

Lowe’s Twitter presence seals his comeback. It is freewheeling, wide-ranging and among his best work. The onetime incorrigible gadfly, who might have died outside the Viper Room like River Phoenix or been left howling at the moon like Charlie Sheen, now knows who he is, has a gift for observational humor and lives his life with something that looks like joy.

Lowe recently retweeted this observation from the Telegraph’s Damian Thompson:

More:

Another Lowe tweet:

Which of us–especially those of us who were born in the 1960s–doesn’t feel like saying that aloud every year?

And speaking of Lowe’s vintage, it’s appealing that he’s not afraid to use our generation’s corny locutions on young-skewing Twitter. As he put it recently:

The merciless “pumped” kills me. Do people never leave the slang (or bands?) of their 20s? Lowe is big on “dude,” too.

At the same time, Lowe seems to enjoy aging:

He wrote this last month, referring to Chris Traeger, his character on “Parks and Recreation,” who exercises without cease, gunning for eternal life. In Traeger’s intense specificity—his needs in beverages, for example, are so idiosyncratic as to require paragraphs of instructions—he is a perfect new-sitcom archetype. One thing he is not is cool.

And neither is Lowe cool in his Twitter feed. Often he is sending out blessings to his followers or his family, or reveling in mere existence, with the hashtag #LoveLife. Lowe’s autobiography makes clear that the Handsome Man, a cultural slot in which he found himself early on, invites way too much resentment if he doesn’t start spoofing himself with gusto. It’s imperative he find the joke in life, and the dignity in himself, or he’ll yield to prettiness and silliness, as well as drugs and sex tapes.

Look on that @RobLowe Twitter feed, and learn from it, ye handsome millennials!

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Chris Pratt Loves Anna Faris's Post-Baby Booty

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/13/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

CL/Splash News Online

For actor Chris Pratt, bigger is better — at least when it comes to his wife’s body after baby.

Since welcoming their first child, Jack, the actress has been taking her time to shed the pregnancy pounds, attributing any weight loss to carrying around the couple’s 3-month-old son.

“I think it’s from hauling around the little guy,” Faris tells E!, adding she prefers to “cherish” her baby boy rather than hitting the gym. “I’m trying to do it without help. So it’s been a lot of lifting.”

But according to the new mom, the pressure from Pratt is off … or rather on — to keep some of her curves! “I have the sweetest husband. He makes me feel good at any weight,” Faris, 36, shares.

“In fact, I kinda think that he likes it when my butt is a little bit bigger.”

And just in case there’s any doubt to the Zero Dark Thirty star loving her backside assets, Pratt, 33, quips, “I’ll take it. I like it. Don’t work too hard.”

– Anya Leon

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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State population rises in sign of economic recovery

California's population has grown to 37.8 million, continuing the state's trend of slowing but steady growth — about 1% annually — over the last decade, according to new population estimates released by the state Department of Finance.

The population increased by 256,000 people since July 2011, a growth rate of 0.7%. It's roughly the same growth rate as last year, but some experts pointed to an uptick in the number of people moving in and out of California and between counties as a sign of economic recovery.

"We've been mired in this deep slump, economically and demographically, and we're all looking for signs of revival," said USC demography and urban planning professor Dowell Myers. "During the recession, everyone froze. People didn't move as fast as normal."

In Los Angeles County, more people moved out than into the county in 2011, but at a significantly slower rate than in 2010, the state numbers show.

"Overall, movements are speeding up in both directions, but L.A.'s attraction is winning the war," said Myers, who also noticed an increase in movement in the entire western region, particularly among young adults. "It means the system is unfreezing, it's loosening up....This is the beginning."

Recent estimates by the American Community Survey showed that about 100,000 more Californians left the state than moved here. Most of those who left headed to Texas, Arizona and Oregon.

But state demographers cautioned that the out-of-state migration numbers may appear misleading because immigrants often enter through California before settling in other states.

"People see that so many people are leaving the state, and they think 'oh, it's because California business is bad,' " said Bill Schooling, chief of demographics research for the state Department of Finance. "It's more that California, particularly with counties like L.A., is a huge gateway state."

Los Angeles remains the state's most populous county, with more than 9.9 million residents. More than 26% of the state's entire population lives within the Los Angeles County limits.

Schooling noted that much of the state's population growth was concentrated in coastal counties, where people tend to be younger and more mobile.

Economists also said that job growth has been much stronger along the coast, particularly with growth in foreign trade, technology and tourism.

"The state recovery really started in the Bay Area, spread to Orange County and San Diego, and in the last six months, has spread to L.A. County," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. "Slow population growth is consistent with the early phase of recovery."

Births helped maintain the population growth, with 503,000 babies born in California between July 2011 and July 2012. There were 234,000 deaths in the state during the same time, a slight increase from past years, according to the state estimates.

Until the state becomes more stable economically, it is difficult to make long-term population projections, experts said.

"This is a step in the right direction," Myers said. "And we will, we should, have much better news next year."

rosanna.xia@latimes.com

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Moscow Journal: Russian Web Site Roszkh Fights Corruption Through Housing

MOSCOW — Not since Joe the Plumber have contractors taken on such political overtones.

In a city where it is often impossible to get a plumber or any other repairman, somebody just figured out how to fix the pipes — and replace light bulbs, scrub off graffiti and patch leaky roofs. Throughout Moscow and other Russian cities, such elementary building repairs are suddenly in full swing as the city’s craftsmen, their reputations for surliness, laziness and drunkenness undiminished, are hurrying from one appointment to another.

Delighted Muscovites are crediting a new Web site for the unaccustomed Calvinist work ethic. Called Roszkh, it streamlines the process for filing complaints about maintenance of the communal areas of apartment buildings, like hallways and entryways, that remained public property after post-Soviet privatizations.

Stymied by a loss of momentum after street protests, Russian opposition leaders had been casting about for other approaches to remain relevant through what promises to be a long tenure for President Vladimir V. Putin. Aleksei Navalny, a blogger and political activist, hit upon the idea of the Web site, which is run under the auspices of his Foundation for Fighting Corruption.

“It’s difficult to say when the next wave of protests will come,” Mr. Navalny said in an interview about his new site, named after an acronym Russians use for their combined utility and building maintenance bills, ZhKKh.

Roszkh was an instant sensation. Since the site went up on Nov. 8, 28,354 users have filed 45,835 complaints, mostly in Moscow and other large cities. So far, repairmen have fixed about 2,600 reported problems. That may not sound like much, but in Russia it qualifies as extraordinary.

“I live in an old five-story building where the hallway has no light and no windows,” one Muscovite, Boris Frantskevich, wrote in a post. It seemed it would be that way forever. But on a lark, he tried logging a complaint on the Web site.

“Just today, I walk out of my apartment and an electrician is digging in the wires,” Mr. Frantskevich wrote. “Wow, he’s fixed the light.”

Mr. Navalny attributes the site’s success to official sensitivities to a deep vein of public anger over the deplorable state of housing in Russia, and particularly in Moscow. In a leaked letter, Russia’s chief housing inspector issued an order that the complaints on Mr. Navalny’s Web site be addressed immediately.

The inspector, Nikolai Vasyutin, clarified the government response in a letter to subordinates: Applicants needed to be helped immediately, not in spite of the site’s political character, but because of it.

“It’s become obvious this is a policy by the opposition to discredit all levels of the government,” the letter said. “But this shouldn’t confuse the organs of the state housing inspection.” It instructed city officials to counteract the tactic by fixing problems quickly.

Public opinion surveys indicate that the steady rise in ZhKKh fees is the issue that upsets Russians most; a planned increase was delayed during presidential elections last winter, only to kick in this year.

The fees have been rising faster than inflation. Many Russians are incensed about paying more — currently about $130 a month in Moscow, and less in other cities — while hallways, even in upscale buildings, are often yawning black tunnels, splattered with graffiti and reeking of septic odors.

These problems have become a vulnerability for Mr. Putin, but one largely of his own making. The governing political party, United Russia, went to great pains to ensure that it dominated not only national but also regional and local politics, often suppressing opponents to do so. The party also dominates city councils.

As Mr. Navalny, a former real estate lawyer, has been gleefully pointing out, this means that every broken light bulb and burst pipe is now the party’s problem.

“We are trying to attract people who can fight corruption together with us,” Mr. Navalny said. “It’s clear that an ordinary person has a hard time helping us fight corruption at Gazprom,” the big state energy company. “But unfortunately in Russia, corruption surrounds a person everywhere. We are trying to create a mechanism for people to fight corruption themselves.”

The site asks users to enter their address and choose from a menu of common Russian repair problems: water flowing a rich orange color from rusted pipes, say, or a boiler failing in midwinter.

The program then automatically pastes on a lengthy legal text composed by Mr. Navalny and his volunteer group of lawyers for the benefit of the receiving bureaucrat, citing ordinances that mandate a response or repair, usually within 45 days.

The site automatically routes complaints to the appropriate municipal authority in thousands of cities in Russia’s 83 regions. So far, though, Muscovites and residents of a few other large cities where Internet use is high have filed most of the complaints.

The site is easy to use. It saves profiles, allowing angry Russians to return whenever they have another leaky pipe or a new buildup of filth in a hallway.

In St. Petersburg, building inspectors initially declined to respond to several thousand complaints generated on the site. Whether that was for political reasons or out of laziness remains unclear.

But by early December, the office was working overtime to fix communal areas, and a housing maintenance official had been arrested for mismanagement, one of several moves by the government in an apparent effort to get ahead of the issue.

Even as complaints pile up, site moderators urge users to keep on filing.

One man, Sergei Sadko, wrote that an entire delegation of city officials promptly visited his apartment after he complained about a leaky roof.

“They said they would fix it in the spring,” he wrote. “Should I change my status to ‘problem solved’?”

The response: “File another complaint. They are required to fix everything immediately.”

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John McAfee Deported from Guatemala, Back in U.S.

By Tim Nudd

12/13/2012 at 07:50 AM EST

John McAfee in Guatemala

Guatemala's National Police/AP

The latest chapter in the John McAfee saga was written Wednesday, as the anti-virus software pioneer was released from Guatemalan custody and flown to Miami, where he was met by federal officials.

"It was the most gracious expulsion I've ever experienced," McAfee, 67, told ABC News. "Compared to my past two wives that expelled me, this isn't a terrible trip."

He added: "They took me out of my cell and put me on a freaking airplane. I had no choice in the matter."

McAfee is wanted for questioning in the November gunshot murder of a neighbor in Belize. He has denied any wrongdoing, yet fled Belize – going undercover in disguise for several weeks – and sought asylum in Guatemala.

Authorities there arrested him for entering the country illegally. But after an eventful detention, in which McAfee was briefly hospitalized after suffering a nervous collapse, the country evidently felt it prudent to return McAfee to his home soil.

It was not clear Wednesday whether authorities in Miami escorted McAfee away to shield him from the media or because they wanted to question him.

McAfee said he has retained a lawyer in the U.S. and plans to seek a visa for his 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend.

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Dozens sue pharmacy, but compensation uncertain

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dennis O'Brien rubs his head as he details ailments triggered by the fungal meningitis he developed after a series of steroid shots in his neck: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, exhaustion and trouble with his speech and attention.

He estimates the disease has cost him and his wife thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses and her lost wages, including time spent on 6-hour round trip weekly visits to the hospital. They've filed a lawsuit seeking $4 million in damages from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the steroid injections, but it could take years for them to get any money back and they may never get enough to cover their expenses. The same is true for dozens of others who have sued the New England Compounding Center.

"I don't have a life anymore. My life is a meningitis life," the 59-year-old former school teacher said, adding that he's grateful he survived.

His is one of at least 50 federal lawsuits in nine states that have been filed against NECC, and more are being filed in state courts every day. More than 500 people have gotten sick after receiving injections prepared by the pharmacy.

The lawsuits allege that NECC negligently produced a defective and dangerous product and seek millions to repay families for the death of spouses, physically painful recoveries, lost wages and mental and emotional suffering. Thirty-seven people have died in the outbreak.

"The truth is the chance of recovering damages from NECC is extremely low," said John Day, a Nashville attorney who represents several patients who have been sickened by fungal meningitis.

To streamline the process, attorneys on both sides are asking to have a single judge preside over the pretrial and discovery phases for all of the federal lawsuits.

This approach, called multidistrict litigation, would prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings and conserve resources of all parties. But unlike a class-action case, those lawsuits would eventually be returned to judges in their original district for trial, according to Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville.

Even with this approach, Fitzpatrick noted that federal litigation is very slow, and gathering all the evidence, records and depositions during the discovery phase could take months or years.

"Most of the time what happens is once they are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, there is a settlement, a global settlement between all the lawyers and the defendants before anything is shipped back for trial," he said.

A lawyer representing NECC, Frederick H. Fern, described the consolidation process as an important step.

"A Boston venue is probably the best scenario," Fern said in an email. "That's where the parties, witnesses and documents are located, and where the acts subject to these complaints occurred."

Complicating efforts to recover damages, attorneys for the patients said, NECC is a small private company that has now recalled all its products and laid off its workers. The company's pharmacy licenses have been surrendered, and it's unclear whether NECC had adequate liability insurance.

Fern said NECC has insurance, but they were still determining what the policy covers.

But Day says, "It's clear to me that at the end of the day, NECC is not going to have sufficient assets to compensate any of these people, not even 1 percent."

As a result, many attorneys are seeking compensation from other parties. Among the additional defendants named in lawsuits are NECC pharmacist and co-founder Barry Cadden; co-founder Greg Conigliaro; sister company Ameridose and its marketing and support arm, Medical Sales Management.

Founded in 2006 by Cadden and Conigliaro, Ameridose would eventually report annual revenue of $100 million. An NECC spokesman didn't respond to a request for the pharmacy's revenue.

While Federal Drug Administration regulators have also found contamination issues at Westborough, Mass.-based Ameridose, the FDA has said it has not connected Ameridose drugs to infection or illness.

Under tort law, a lawsuit has to prove a defendant has a potential liability, which in this case could be anyone involved in the medical procedure. However, any such suit could take years and ultimately may not be successful.

"I would not be surprised if doctors, hospitals, people that actually injected the drugs, the people that bought the drugs from the compounding company, many of those people will also be sued," said Fitzpatrick.

Plaintiffs' attorneys said they're considering that option but want more information on the relationships between the compounding pharmacy and the hundreds of hospitals and clinics that received its products.

Day, the attorney in Tennessee, said the clinics and doctors that purchase their drugs from compounding pharmacies or manufacturers could be held liable for negligence because they are in a better position to determine the safety of the medicine than the patients.

"Did they use due care in determining from whom to buy these drugs?" Day said.

Terry Dawes, a Michigan attorney who has filed at least 10 federal lawsuits in the case, said in traditional product liability cases, a pharmaceutical distributor could be liable.

"We are looking at any conceivable sources of recovery for our clients including pharmaceutical supply places that may have dealt with this company in the past," he said.

Ten years ago, seven fungal meningitis illnesses and deaths were linked to injectable steroid from a South Carolina compounding pharmacy. That resulted in fewer than a dozen lawsuits, a scale much smaller than the litigations mounting up against NECC.

Two companies that insured the South Carolina pharmacy and its operators tried unsuccessfully to deny payouts. An appellate court ruled against their argument that the pharmacy willfully violated state regulations by making multiple vials of the drug without specific prescriptions, but the opinion was unpublished and doesn't set a precedent for the current litigation.

The lawsuits represent a way for patients and their families recover expenses, but also to hold the pharmacy and others accountable for the incalculable emotional and physical toll of the disease.

A binder of snapshots shows what life is like in the O'Briens' rural Fentress County, Tenn., home: Dennis hooked up to an IV, Dennis in an antibiotics stupor, bruises on his body from injections and blood tests. He's had three spinal taps. His 11-day stay in the hospital cost over $100,000, which was covered by health insurance.

His wife said she sometimes quietly checks at night to see whether her husband of 35 years is still breathing.

"In my mind, I thought we were going to fight this and get over it. But we are not ever going to get over it," said Kaye O'Brien.

Marjorie Norwood, a 59-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Ethridge, Tenn., has spent just shy of two months total in the hospital in Nashville battling fungal meningitis after receiving a steroid injection in her back. She was allowed to come home for almost a week around Thanksgiving, but was readmitted after her symptoms worsened.

Family members are still dealing with much uncertainty about her recovery, but they have not filed a lawsuit, said their attorney Mark Chalos. He said Norwood will likely be sent to a rehabilitation facility after her second stay in the hospital rather than return home again.

Marjorie Norwood's husband, an autoworker, has taken time off work to care for her and they depend on his income and insurance.

"It doesn't just change her life, it changes everyone else's life around her because we care about her and want her to be happy and well and have everything that she needs," said her daughter, Melanie Norwood.

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The Voice: Team Blake Goes Two-For-Two

TV Watch

The Voice

By Julia Haskins

12/12/2012 at 07:40 AM EST

From left: Judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton

Trae Patton/NBC

And then there were three – thanks to Tuesday night's episode of The Voice.

Team Blake's Cassadee Pope and Terry McDermott and Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte and Nicholas David all awaited their fates during the elimination round to decide the top three, with the coaches seeming to be relieved that they would not have a role in the challenging decision.

McDermott was the first to learn that America's votes had guaranteed him another round of competition. To their coach's delight, Team Blake went two-for-two when Pope joined her teammate in celebration.

While Shelton's team remained intact, Green waited for his contestants' moment of truth. The coaches struggled to say goodbye to either one of the beloved singers.

Christina Aguilera advised Hunte and David to soak up all the lessons they learned on The Voice and move forward no matter what happened. Adam Levine opened up about his own regrets, having not turned his chair around the first time for the singers.

"I have grown to love you as people and love your talent so much," Levine said. "I was wrong not to turn around."

Their coach was also upset. "It's very disheartening and very difficult to see two of my best people on this show being pinned against each other," Green said.

David was the last contestant saved, while Hunte was sent home. "Thank you for pushing and motivating me." Hunte told his coach. "I love you, Cee Lo."

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.

No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.

That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.

"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.

His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."

Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.

Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.

Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.

"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.

Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.

Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.

Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.

The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.

"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.

Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.

Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.

Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.

Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.

Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.

"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.

Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.

___

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

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Brazen N.Y. killing of L.A. man leaves puzzling questions

NEW YORK — Brandon Woodard checked out of his midtown Manhattan hotel room Monday afternoon and emerged onto 58th Street a block from Columbus Circle.

As the 31-year-old Playa Vista man walked down the street, a man standing near a Lincoln sedan pulled a hood over his head as Woodard passed. A short time later, the two passed each other a second time. The man turned, pulled out a gun and shot Woodard at close range in the back of the head with a 9-millimeter pistol. He got back into the Lincoln, which pulled away.

The shooting has riveted New York and made for tabloid headlines. New York police have described the killing as an assassination-style attack.

But it has also reverberated in Los Angeles, where Woodard was raised and made his home.

Woodard grew up in Ladera Heights, played basketball at the exclusive Campbell Hall private high school in Studio City and graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2003. His stepfather, Rod Wellington, said in an interview Tuesday that Woodard was pursuing a law degree at the University of West Los Angeles School of Law (school officials would not confirm if he was enrolled).

His stepfather described Woodard as a "loving son, a loving father and a loving brother." Woodard had a 4-year-old daughter and had a "great relationship" with the girl and her mother, he said.

"He was a good young man," Wellington said.

But court records revealed a more complex picture. Woodard has been arrested at least 20 times, according to New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

In 2004, Woodard was cited by Las Vegas police and summoned to court after a backstage scuffle with a security guard at an Usher concert at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. Police said Woodard had entered a restricted area and refused orders to leave.

He failed to appear in court in connection with the citation and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was arrested in 2008 on that bench warrant but police could not immediately say how the matter was resolved.

Los Angeles authorities allege that in February 2008 he stole items from a Whole Foods Market and a Gelson's. He was sentenced to nine days in county jail and 200 hours of community service.

In December 2009, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor hit-and-run driving charge in Torrance. He received three years and a day in county jail.

Prosecutors said that he came back to court in 2010 and 2011 for probation violation hearings related to arrests for grand theft and battery against a former spouse as well as a spousal battery arrest in January. In April, prosecutors said his probation was completed.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office said there was a hearing related to the September 2010 spousal abuse allegation and noted that a bench warrant had been issued for Woodard's arrest as recently as July 3. It was not immediately clear how the warrant was resolved.

Officials with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Woodard was due in Beverly Hills Superior Court on Jan. 22 for a hearing in connection with a single charge of cocaine possession. He was originally charged in June.

Court records also indicated that Woodard's mother had been involved in multiple civil lawsuits related to her real estate business dealings. When Woodard was arrested in January, he listed his occupation as real estate.

Neither police nor family members said they have any idea for a motive.

On Tuesday, Kelly said detectives had made progress in their investigation from ballistics evidence and video surveillance footage that captured the shooting and the suspected getaway vehicle.

He added that investigators were pursuing all leads, including Woodard's criminal history and his family's real estate dealings.

Kelly said Woodard, who carried three cellphones, was believed to be a promoter of some kind, but did not elaborate.

It was not clear what brought Woodard to New York after he purchased a one-way ticket from California, Kelly said, or where he was going when he left the hotel. Woodard checked into the hotel Sunday and checked out about 1:15 p.m. the next day.

Kelly said it was clear the gunman lay in wait for Woodard and didn't act alone.

The suspect had a driver who, after the hit, pulled a silver or gray Lincoln onto 58th Street, Kelly said. Once the gunman was in the car, the vehicle headed south on 7th Avenue and disappeared. A short time later, a car "similar in description" was seen heading through the midtown tunnel eastbound into Queens, where the driver paid the toll with cash.

Investigators had the license plate of the vehicle, but Kelly declined to release the information, citing the ongoing investigation.

Kelly also said ballistics analysis linked the weapon to a 2009 shooting in Queens. The gun was fired at a residence, he said — no one was hurt and no arrests were made.

Kelly said Monday's crime was particularly surprising, given such a public setting.

"You can characterize it as either being brazen or foolhardy," he said.

tina.susman@latimes.comkate.mather@latimes.comandrew.blankstein@latimes.com

Times staff writers Adolfo Flores, Jeff Gottlieb and Frank Shyong contributed to this report. Susman reported from New York, Mather and Blankstein from Los Angeles.

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