Protests Erupt After Egypt’s Leader Seizes New Power

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians in central Cairo ran from tear gas during clashes with the police on Friday. Protesters took to the streets in several cities. More Photos »

CAIRO — Protests erupted across Egypt on Friday, as opponents of President Mohamed Morsi clashed with his supporters over a presidential edict that gave him unchecked authority and polarized an already divided nation while raising a specter, the president’s critics charged, of a return to autocracy.  

In an echo of the uprising 22 months ago, thousands of protesters chanted for the downfall of Mr. Morsi’s government in Cairo, while others ransacked the offices of the president’s former party in Suez, Alexandria and other cities.

Mr. Morsi spoke to his supporters in front of the presidential palace here, imploring the public to trust his intentions as he cast himself as a protector of the revolution and a fledgling democracy.

In a speech that was by turns defensive and conciliatory, he ultimately gave no ground to the critics who now were describing him as a pharaoh, in another echo of the insult once reserved for the deposed president, Hosni Mubarak.

“God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship,” Mr. Morsi said.

The battles that raged on Friday — over power, legitimacy and the mantle of the revolution — posed a sharp challenge not only to Mr. Morsi but also to his opponents, members of secular, leftist and liberal groups whose crippling divisions have stifled their agenda and left them unable to confront the more popular Islamist movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The crisis over his power grab came just days after the Islamist leader won international praise for his pragmatism, including from the United States, for brokering a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.

On Friday, the State Department expressed muted concern over Mr. Morsi’s decision. “One of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in the hands of any one person or institution,” said the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland.

She said, “The current constitutional vacuum in Egypt can only be resolved by the adoption of a constitution that includes checks and balances, and respects fundamental freedoms, individual rights and the rule of law consistent with Egypt’s international commitments.”

But the White House was notably silent after it had earlier this week extolled the emerging relationship between President Obama and Mr. Morsi and credited a series of telephone calls between the two men with helping to mediate the cease-fire in Gaza.

For Mr. Morsi, who seemed to be saying to the nation that it needed to surrender the last checks on his power in order to save democracy from Mubarak-era judges, the challenge was to convince Egyptians that the ends justified his means.

But even as he tried, thousands of protesters marched to condemn his decision. Clashes broke out between the president’s supporters and his critics, and near Tahrir Square, the riot police fired tear gas and bird shot as protesters hurled stones and set fires.

Since Thursday, when Mr. Morsi issued the decree, the president and his supporters have argued that he acted precisely to gain the power to address the complaints of his critics, including the families of protesters killed during the uprising and its aftermath.

By placing his decisions above judicial review, the decree enabled him to replace a public prosecutor who had failed to win convictions against senior officers implicated in the killings of protesters.

The president and his supporters also argued that the decree insulated the Constituent Assembly, which is drafting the constitution, from meddling by Mubarak-era judges.

Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, courts have dissolved Parliament, kept a Mubarak loyalist as top prosecutor and disbanded the first Assembly.

But by ending legal appeals, the decree also removed a safety valve for critics who say the Islamist majority is dominating the drafting of the constitution.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Helene Cooper from Washington.

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Larry Hagman Dies

TV Watch

TV News

By Aaron Parsley

UPDATED
11/24/2012 at 06:00 AM EST

• Originally published 11/24/2012 at 12:00 AM EST

Larry Hagman, a larger-than-life TV personality best known for his role as J.R. Ewing on the primetime soap Dallas, died Friday of complications from throat cancer.

The star, who was the son of Broadway legend Mary Martin (South Pacific, Peter Pan) and Texas attorney Benjamin Hagman, was 81. He is survived by his wife of 54 years years, Maj Hagman, their two children and their grandchildren.

"When he passed, he was surrounded by loved ones," his family said in a statement to the Dallas Morning News. "It was a peaceful passing, just as he had wished for. The family requests privacy at this time."

"This is so sad. Larry was really someone who was loved by everyone," his agent Joel Dean tells PEOPLE. "Me especially. He was the most loving, wonderful, generous man. And he was a true trouper."

In late 2011, Hagman, who had undergone a liver transplant in 1995, announced he had stage 2 throat cancer but had also signed on to star in the TNT reboot of Dallas (which recently started filming its second season). The show originally aired on CBS from 1978 to 1991.

"Larry was back in his beloved Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved most," said the family statement. According to the Morning News, Hagman's Dallas costars Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy were by his side at Medical City Dallas Hospital when he died.

In addition to portraying J.R. – a lovable, scheming, villainous oilman, whose shooting was a topic of international water-cooler discussion in 1980 – Hagman costarred with Barbara Eden as the astronaut Major Anthony Nelson on NBC's I Dream of Jeannie, which ran for five seasons starting in 1965.

"My deepest condolences go out to his wife Maj, his son and daughter and his grandchildren, as well as his friends in this time of his passing," Eden posted on her Facebook page. "I can honestly say that we've lost not just a great actor, not just a television icon, but an element of pure Americana."

Added Eden: "Goodbye Larry, there was no one like you before and there will never be anyone like you again."

• Additional reporting by STEPHEN M. SILVERMAN

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Program opens door to citizenship for immigrants

Ricardo Sepida gets emotional when he sees his son-in-law in a Navy uniform. Even aircraft carriers make him misty-eyed. There is no better country than the United States, says Sepida, an immigrant from the Philippines.

Yet despite possessing a green card for 40 years, Sepida has never become an American citizen. Life got in the way, as he raised two children, worked a full-time job as a biomedical technician and ran side businesses on the weekends.

"I was so busy at work, I had so many things to do and I'd forget about it," said Sepida, 61, of Sylmar. "I regret it now. I should have done it a long time ago."

Sepida is among the millions of immigrants who are eligible for citizenship but have postponed the milestone, whether because of the $680 fee, a busy schedule or fear of the English and civics exams. In 2011, about 750,000 immigrants applied for naturalization out of the 8.5 million who were eligible.

A $20-million effort is now under way to get more permanent residents to become citizens so they can vote, have access to a wider range of jobs and become fully American. The money for the New Americans Campaign comes from major foundations and is going mainly to nonprofits that have already been doing citizenship work. Two former commissioners of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have signed on as advisors.

"We're going to just grow the number of people who aren't really completely part of the American fabric, who aren't pitching their tent, unless we get them off the sideline and into the game," said Eric Cohen, executive director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which is the campaign's main coordinator.

The campaign is being touted as bipartisan — Doris Meissner and James Ziglar, the two former INS leaders, served under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively. Organizers chose to launch the effort after the November presidential election to avoid any association with partisan voter registration drives, Meissner said.

With the growing clout of Latinos and Asian Americans, who voted for Democrat Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by a ratio of nearly three to one, an increase in naturalization rates could have an effect on local and national politics.

Los Angeles is among eight cities targeted by the New Americans drive, which will last three to five years. The cities, which also include Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Miami, New York and San Jose, are home to about 40% of those who qualify for citizenship.

The money will pay for more workshops to help immigrants fill out the 10-page application and prepare for the exams. The New Americans project will also fund outreach efforts like the CitzenshipWorks website, which provides application guidance in English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese.

Separately, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes applications and is a successor agency to INS, has worked with Los Angeles officials to install a "citizenship corner" in each of the city's 73 public libraries.

"It's one of those things where you don't know how good it is unless you experience it," said Phyllis Coven, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' Los Angeles office. "It's a great gift, an honor and a privilege to hold a U.S. passport and become a full member of this society."

At the Chinatown library, the most pressing issue is English fluency, said Shan Liang, the branch manager. Elderly Chinese immigrants flock to the library's free English and civics classes, but some have a long way to go before they can answer such questions as, "Why did the colonists fight the British?" The cost can also be an issue for retirees living on a fixed income, Liang said.

"It is an intimidating process. It is quite a lot of questions," said Joyce Noche, head of the citizenship and immigration project at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, one of the groups conducting workshops under the program. "Our attorneys can't actually answer all the questions themselves. It is not a walk in the park."

Typically, the naturalization process takes about five months from submitting the initial application to reciting an oath of allegiance at a group swearing-in ceremony.

On a recent Saturday morning, Sepida attended a New Americans workshop in North Hills with his wife, Sally, who has been a citizen for decades. Among a group of procrastinators, Sepida stood out.

Tony Lu, who coordinates the CitizenshipWorks project for the Immigration Advocates Network, examined Sepida's permanent resident card. The pale blue document, dating from 1972, was so old that Lu had never seen that version of it. (Most versions are beige or pink; the agency returned to its original green hue in 2010).

Sepida sat down at a computer to work on his application. Others got one-on-one help with pen and paper, leaving with a completed application and free flashcards to practice English vocabulary and civics.

Elizabeth Lopez Perez, 45, who was brought across the Mexican border when she was 2, got her green card more than 25 years ago. As a single mother raising three children, she hardly had a spare moment.

Now, the impediment is the $680 application fee. The former nursing assistant, who has been unemployed for the last six years, hoped to qualify for a fee waiver for low-income applicants.

"Before, I didn't have the time, and I had the money," said Lopez Perez, of North Hills. "Now I have the time, and I don't have the money."

cindy.chang@latimes.com

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Jake Owen Welcomes a Daughter

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

11/22/2012 at 08:30 PM ET

Courtesy Jake Owen

It’s a Thanksgiving baby!

Jake Owen and his wife Lacey welcomed their first child, daughter Olive Pearl Owen, on Thursday, Nov. 22 in Nashville, Tenn., his rep confirms to PEOPLE.

Pearl, as she will be called after Owen’s late godmother, weighed in at 6 lbs., 3 oz. and is 19½ inches long.

“Lacey and I are so excited to start our own family,” Owen, 31, tells PEOPLE. “We are looking forward to teaching Pearl everything we learned from our parents and also learning from her.”

Sharing a photo of his newborn daughter on Twitter, the musician wrote, “Today is the greatest day of my life. Turkey baby!!! Happy Thanksgiving.”

It’s been a whirlwind year for Owen and his wife, 22. After getting engaged on stage in April, the couple wed on the beach in May and announced the pregnancy in July.

– Sarah Michaud with reporting by Julie Dam

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Voting, California-style

The lessons of the 2012 election are still being learned, but here's one we already know: We need to do more to increase voter participation.

In many battleground states, the intense and highly partisan presidential campaign bumped up turnout percentages from 2008. But in most states, where the outcome of the presidential contest was predictable, voter participation fell from the historically high levels of four years ago.

On top of that, there were embarrassingly long lines at the polls in many locations, something that hardly reflected positively on the nation's commitment to democracy. Several states with Republican-controlled governments engaged in questionable practices to limit voting hours and impose other burdensome restrictions on people's ability to register and vote that led to inhumanly long lines, most notably in Ohio and Florida.

Whether by design or campaign neglect, it is time, as President Obama said in his victory speech, "to fix that" and other participation problems.

A starting point could be found in California. Once the election results are certified here, in mid-December, the total number of voters will come close to 2008's high, although the turnout percentage will be lower.

That's because California added to its voter rolls, which is the first "fix that" step. This year, California made it easier to join the electorate, passing a law permitting online voter registration. More than 1 million people took advantage of the new system, 61% of whom were under 35. This expansion of the eligible electorate in California was accomplished with minimal administrative cost and helped get millions of new voters to the polls.

Of course, without a corresponding plan to make voting easy, such a large expansion in the number of those registered to vote could have been chaotic. But California requires local election officials to provide a mail-in ballot to anyone who requests one. More than 9.2 million such ballots were sent out for the Nov. 6 election, and in the June primary election, 65% of the votes cast came from people who skipped the lines and hassle of going to the polls and used the mail instead. (California also offered in-person "early voting," but it wasn't as convenient as mailing a ballot: In Los Angeles County this year, you had to go to Norwalk.)

And plenty of Californians did vote this year — more than 12 million and counting. Remarkably, the demographic group known as millennials (voters 18 to 30 years old), who are often incorrectly accused of voting at far lower rates than older generations, participated in California at rates greater than their presence in the population. Millennials make up 24% of the adult population of California, but according to exit polling data, they made up 27% of those who voted. By contrast, nationally, millennials were about 19% of the electorate.

One of the incentives for these young voters was the presence on the ballot of Proposition 30, which was designed, in part, to halt or at least postpone tuition increases at all three levels of the state's higher-education system. There were a series of on-campus registration drives and a blizzard of campaign appearances on campuses across the state by Gov. Jerry Brown, and polling data show that awareness of what was at stake was very high among millennials, two-thirds of whom helped pass the governor's initiative.

In California, the triple combination of a simple, online registration process, the convenience of voting by mail and the presence on the ballot of issues that directly related to the self-interest of a significant sector of voters brought newcomers to the polls, kept the state's turnout at a high level (even when California's electoral vote result was a foregone conclusion) and resulted in no reports of major problems at the polls.

If we want to "fix" voting in America, California could be the model.

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are the coauthors of "Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America" and "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics."

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Egypt Leader and Obama Forge Link in Gaza Deal

Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press

Israelis in the town of Sderot watched a Palestinian missile on Wednesday, before a cease-fire.

WASHINGTON — President Obama skipped dessert at a long summit meeting dinner in Cambodia on Monday to rush back to his hotel suite. It was after 11:30 p.m., and his mind was on rockets in Gaza rather than Asian diplomacy. He picked up the telephone to call the Egyptian leader who is the new wild card in his Middle East calculations.

Over the course of the next 25 minutes, he and President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt hashed through ways to end the latest eruption of violence, a conversation that would lead Mr. Obama to send Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the region. As he and Mr. Morsi talked, Mr. Obama felt they were making a connection. Three hours later, at 2:30 in the morning, they talked again.

The cease-fire brokered between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday was the official unveiling of this unlikely new geopolitical partnership, one with bracing potential if not a fair measure of risk for both men. After a rocky start to their relationship, Mr. Obama has decided to invest heavily in the leader whose election caused concern because of his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, seeing in him an intermediary who might help make progress in the Middle East beyond the current crisis in Gaza.

The White House phone log tells part of the tale. Mr. Obama talked with Mr. Morsi three times within 24 hours and six times over the course of several days, an unusual amount of one-on-one time for a president. Mr. Obama told aides he was impressed with the Egyptian leader’s pragmatic confidence. He sensed an engineer’s precision with surprisingly little ideology. Most important, Mr. Obama told aides that he considered Mr. Morsi a straight shooter who delivered on what he promised and did not promise what he could not deliver.

“The thing that appealed to the president was how practical the conversations were — here’s the state of play, here are the issues we’re concerned about,” said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “This was somebody focused on solving problems.”

The Egyptian side was also positive about the collaboration. Essam el-Haddad, the foreign policy adviser to the Egyptian president, described a singular partnership developing between Mr. Morsi, who is the most important international ally for Hamas, and Mr. Obama, who plays essentially the same role for Israel.

“Yes, they were carrying the point of view of the Israeli side but they were understanding also the other side, the Palestinian side,” Mr. Haddad said in Cairo as the cease-fire was being finalized on Wednesday. “We felt there was a high level of sincerity in trying to find a solution. The sincerity and understanding was very helpful.”

The fledgling partnership forged in the fires of the past week may be ephemeral, a unique moment of cooperation born out of necessity and driven by national interests that happened to coincide rather than any deeper meeting of the minds. Some longtime students of the Middle East cautioned against overestimating its meaning, recalling that Mr. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood constitutes a philosophical brother of Hamas even if it has renounced violence itself and become the governing party in Cairo.

“I would caution the president from believing that President Morsi has in any way distanced himself from his ideological roots,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But if the president takes away the lesson that we can affect Egypt’s behavior through the artful use of leverage, that’s a good lesson. You can shape his behavior. You can’t change his ideology.”

Other veterans of Middle East policy agreed with the skepticism yet saw the seeds of what might eventually lead to broader agreement.

“It really is something with the potential to establish a new basis for diplomacy in the region,” said Tamara Cofman Wittes, who was Mr. Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of state for the Middle East until earlier this year and now runs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “It’s just potential, but it’s particularly impressive potential.”

The relationship between the two leaders has come a long way in just 10 weeks. Mr. Morsi’s election in June as the first Islamist president of Egypt set nerves in Washington on edge and raised questions about the future of Egypt’s three-decade-old peace treaty with Israel. Matters worsened in September when Egyptian radicals protesting an anti-Islam video stormed the United States Embassy in Cairo.

Peter Baker reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 21, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She is Tamara Cofman Wittes, not Teresa.

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Samsung wins U.S. court order to access Apple-HTC deal details

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge has ordered Apple Inc to disclose to rival Samsung Electronics details of a legal settlement the iPhone maker reached with Taiwan’s HTC Corp, including terms of a 10-year patents licensing agreement.

The Korean electronics giant had earlier filed a motion to compel its U.S. rival — with whom it is waging a bitter legal battle over mobile patents across several countries — to reveal details of the settlement that was reached on November 10 with HTC but which have been kept under wraps.

In August, the iPhone maker won a $ 1.05 billion verdict against Samsung after a U.S. jury found that certain Samsung gadgets violated Apple’s software and design patents.

Now, legal experts say the question of which patents are covered by the Apple-HTC settlement, and licensing details, could be instrumental in Samsung’s efforts to thwart Apple’s subsequent quest for a permanent sales ban on its products.

The Asian company has argued it is “almost certain” that the HTC deal covers some of the same patents involved in its own litigation with Apple.

The court on Wednesday ordered Apple to produce a full copy of the settlement agreement “without delay”, subject to an Attorneys-Eyes-Only designation.

Representatives for the U.S. company could not immediately be reached for comment.

Samsung also requested the California court to add three newly released Apple products — the iPod Touch 5, the iPad 4 and the iPad mini — to the list of devices that it claims to have infringed on some of its patents, according to court documents.

The settlement of Apple and HTC ended their worldwide litigation and brought to a close one of the first major flare-ups in the global smartphone patent wars.

Apple first sued HTC in 2010, setting in motion a legal conflagration that has since circled the globe and engulfed the biggest names in mobile technology, from Samsung to Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility unit.

(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Additional reporting by Miyoung Kim in SEOUL; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mayim Bialik and Michael Stone Divorcing

By Mike Fleeman

11/21/2012 at 05:00 PM EST

After "much consideration and soul-searching," Mayim Bialik announced Wednesday that she and husband Michael Stone are divorcing after nine years of marriage.

The Big Bang Theory star, who has sons Miles, 7, and Fred, 4, with Stone, cites "irreconcilable differences" for the split, which she revealed in a statement on her Kveller.com parenting blog.

"Divorce is terribly sad, painful and incomprehensible for children. It is not something we have decided lightly," she writes.

The former star of TV's Blossom, 36, also says that the split is not due to the attachment parenting she discusses in her book Beyond the Sling. "Relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose," she says.

"The main priority for us now is to make the transition to two loving homes as smooth and painless as possible," Bialik continues. "Our sons deserve parents committed to their growth and health and that’s what we are focusing on. Our privacy has always been important and is even more so now, and we thank you in advance for respecting it as we negotiate this new terrain."

She concludes by saying, "We will be ok."

The couple were married in August 2003 in Pasadena, Calif.

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New California legislators get a warm welcome — from lobbyists

SACRAMENTO — The day after being elected to the state Assembly, several incoming lawmakers were in AT&T's luxury suite at the Sacramento sports arena, watching the Kings with the company's top Capitol executive.

The next day, the California Dental Assn. feted the state's freshman legislators. That was before more than 20 legislators jetted off to Hawaii, China, Brazil, New Zealand and other locales — with some trips paid for in large part by healthcare, energy and communications companies.

"It's the start of lobbyists inculcating them, saying 'Hey guys, line up and receive your gifts,' " said Bob Stern, former chief counsel to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

It's a new day in Sacramento, with one of the largest-ever freshman classes elected in districts drawn for the first time by an independent, bipartisan commission.

And the lobbying campaign to shape their minds has begun.

The intent of the redistricting — as well as a rule change that allows lawmakers to serve up to 12 years in either legislative house — was to make the Capitol more accountable. In theory, the changes would reduce the influence of lobbyists and give lawmakers more time to gain expertise and independence.

But old traditions die hard.

Following the example of veteran legislative leaders, including Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles), more than a dozen Democratic freshmen headed off to AT&T's suite at the Sleep Train Arena.

Lawmakers are not allowed to take more than $420 in gifts per year, and they are supposed to report what they receive. But sidestepping the rules is hardly a challenge.

The freshmen who joined Pérez didn't have to report the value of their tickets because the gathering was hosted by the state Democratic Party.

Jose Medina, a newly elected assemblyman from Riverside, said the event was totally appropriate. Spending time with lobbyists is "part of my job,'' he said.

"At the end of the day, I'll make my decision based on what is best for the people I represent," he said.

Jim Frazier, a freshman assemblyman from Oakley, called the evening "a great opportunity to start meeting the people who worked so hard to represent their districts."

Other freshman Democrats in the suite included Ken Cooley of Rancho Cordova, Marc Levine of San Rafael, Phil Ting of San Francisco, Kevin Mullin of South San Francisco, Rudy Salas of Bakersfield, Bill Quirk of Hayward and Reggie Jones-Sawyer of Los Angeles.

Jones-Sawyer was one of 15 legislators who flew a few days later to Maui for a five-day conference at the Fairmont Kea Lani organized by the California Independent Voter Project.

The group, which paid some of the legislators' travel expenses, has been funded over the years by tobacco giant Altria Group Inc., Southern California Edison, Eli Lilly & Co., Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the California Beer & Beverage Distributors, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Assn., Chevron Corp. and the state prison guards union.

In between rounds of golf and poolside lounging, the sponsors talked with lawmakers.

"I was learning about the issues," said Jones-Sawyer, the only freshman on the trip. "There were some things I didn't know — such as how businesses really need help to flourish here in California."

Phillip Ung, an advocate with California Common Cause, said he found the explanations bewildering.

"They have obviously convinced themselves that the people's business is best solved poolside with mai tais in hand," he said. "Congress banned this type of travel years ago."

Other lawmakers went to China, Australia, New Zealand or Brazil this month, in some cases paid for by special interests.

Those in Brazil were sponsored by the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, which is bankrolled by Chevron, PG&E, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Southern California Edison, among others.

The sponsors sent representatives to accompany Assemblyman Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), who is chairman of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, as well as Sens. Anthony Cannella (R-Ceres), Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Niguel), Bill Emmerson (R-Hemet) and Michael Rubio (D-East Bakersfield).

The group paid for airfare, hotels, meals and ground transportation, said P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for the nonprofit foundation.

The lawmakers were there to meet with government and business leaders in Brazil to discuss reducing pollution, setting low-carbon fuel standards, transportation projects and other issues, Johnston said.

"Brazil provides real-world insight into issues California's decision-makers are grappling with, putting them in a larger perspective and offering lessons learned from a country with a rich history of challenges and successes in these areas," he said.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Times staff writer Anthony York contributed to this report.

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