Senate Democrats huddle on gun measures

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden met Thursday with Senate Democrats to brief the caucus about the rationale behind the administration’s recommendations on guns, arguing that, in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting, the nation “will not understand if we don’t act.”

Biden seemed intent to emphasize that the most politically challenging of the initiatives he has  recommended – an assault weapons ban – was still a priority for the administration, mentioning it first in remarks to reporters afterward.

“My message was to lay out for my colleagues what our game plan was, what we thought needed to be done,” Biden said after the more than hourlong meeting. “I made the case for not only assault weapons but for the entire set of recommendations the president laid out.”

Biden said he also asked to sit down with the key parties on Capitol Hill to plot strategy going forward.

All 23 of President Obama's gun policy proposals

A day after the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on guns, the vice president said there has been a “sea change” in public opinion since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, calling it the “straw that broke the camel’s back” to get the public behind gun measures for the first time in decades.

“I’m not saying there’s an absolute consensus on all these things,” he said. “But there is a sea change in attitudes of the American people. And I believe that the American people will not understand – and I know everyone in that caucus agrees with me – will not understand if we don’t act.”

Participants in the meeting said the vice president indicated he will continue to travel to make the administration’s case, as will the president. A week ago Biden traveled to Richmond, Va., to focus on the call for universal background checks, which is seen as the most likely of the slate of proposals to pass.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

At that time, Biden did not mention the assault weapons ban in remarks to reporters afterward, though aides said it did come up in the private discussion with officials present.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Biden told the caucus Thursday that the administration is still behind the ban, a priority of her California colleague, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

“He said this is something that they support. And that the reports that he’s seen have shown that it did make a difference,” Boxer said.

That remains a challenge though, even in the Democratic-controlled Senate because the Democrats must defend 21 seats in 2014.

“Until I see the bills and the language, the only thing I’m going to say is I’m a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. We’ve got to find a balanced approach, and I will take each amendment and bill as it comes,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who will be seeking reelection next year in a deeply Republican state.

Biden maintained that while there is no way to eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting, “there are things that we can do … that have virtually zero impact on your 2nd Amendment right to own a weapon for both self-defense and recreation that can save some lives.”

“I’ve always been confident we can reach a consensus on a broad cross-section of issues that can reduce some of this violence, even knowing it will be imperfect,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

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Is PlayStation 4 Nearly Here? Sony Plans Mysterious Feb. 20 Press Conference

Is the next next-generation console almost here? Wired just received an invitation to “PlayStation Meeting 2013,” a press briefing to be held in New York City on Feb. 20, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern time. It was accompanied by the cryptic video above and contained no further information.

With Sony heavily rumored to be announcing (and possibly releasing) its next-generation game machine this year, and with absolutely no details being offered on this out-of-the-ordinary press conference, it seems quite likely that Sony is about to debut PlayStation 4. But of course, we won’t know for sure until the day of the show.

“Sony is inviting investors and media to the Feb 20 event; that means console announcement,” wrote Wedbush game industry analyst Michael Pachter on Twitter immediately following the news.

In March of last year, Kotaku reported that Sony’s next console had the development name “Orbis,” which has been repeatedly confirmed by additional reports over the past year. At the time, it reported that Orbis was on track for a holiday 2013 release. Rival Microsoft is also said to be close to announcing and releasing its next Xbox game machine, codenamed “Durango.”

There have been many purported leaks of the design and specification of Orbis, including one recent story from January 28. But it’s not likely that the raw processing power of the next PlayStation will be what truly defines it as a product. In an app-driven age, software — the interface and functionality of the device — is key. So that’s what Sony is likely to spend a lot of time discussing on February 20: What can PS4 do for you?

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Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace in talks for Soviet thriller

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace are in talks to star in “Child 44,” a thriller that Ridley Scott and Michael Costigan are producing for Scott Free Productions, individuals with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap. “Safe House” filmmaker Daniel Espinosa will direct from a script by Richard Price, who is adapting Tom Rob Smith‘s novel.

Set in Josef Stalin‘s Soviet Union, the story follows Leo Demidov, a disgraced intelligence agent investigating a series of child murders. The paranoid Soviet government then becomes suspicious of his investigation.

The book, the first in a trilogy, is based on the true story of Ukrainian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo.

Hardy will play the officer and Rapace his wife.

The actors will first shoot “Animal Rescue,” a drama that Michael Roskam is directing for Fox Searchlight. Hardy, fresh off a year in big films such as ‘The Dark Knight Rises,” just wrapped “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Rapace, who appeared in 2012′s “Prometheus,” will next be seen in “Dead Man Down.”

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.

I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common in menopausal women. I can always find my car in the parking lot, although lots of “normal” folk can’t.

Rather, I suddenly can’t remember the name of someone with whom I’ve worked for years. I cover by saying “sir” or “madam” like the Southerner I am, even though I live in Vermont and grown people here don’t use such terms. Better to think I’m quirky than losing my faculties. Sometimes I’ll send myself an e-mail to-do reminder and then, seconds later, find myself thrilled to see a new entry pop into my inbox. Oops, it’s from me. Worse yet, a massage therapist kicked me out of her practice for missing three appointments. I didn’t recall making any of them. There must another Nancy.

Am I losing track of me?

Equally worrisome are the memories increasingly coming to the fore. Magically, these random recollections manage to circumnavigate my imagined build-up of beta-amyloid en route to delivering vivid images of my father’s first steps down his path of forgetting. He was the same age I am now, which is 46.

“How old are you?” I recall him asking me back then. Some years later, he began calling me every Dec. 28 to say, “Happy birthday,” instead of on the correct date, Dec. 27. The 28th had been his grandmother’s birthday.

The chasms were small at first. Explainable. Dismissible. When he crossed the street without looking both ways, we chalked it up to his well-cultivated, absent-minded professor persona. But the chasms grew into sinkholes, and eventually quicksand. When we took him to get new pants one day, he kept trying on the same ones he wore to the store.

“I like these slacks,” he’d say, over and over again, as he repeatedly pulled his pair up and down.

My dad died of Alzheimer’s last April at age 73 — the same age at which his father succumbed to the same disease. My dad ended up choosing neurology as his profession after witnessing the very beginning of his own dad’s forgetting.

Decades later, grandfather’s atrophied brain found its way into a jar on my father’s office desk. Was it meant to be an ever-present reminder of Alzheimer’s effect? Or was it a crystal ball sent to warn of genetic fate? My father the doctor never said, nor did he ever mention, that it was his father’s gray matter floating in that pool of formaldehyde.

Using the jarred brain as a teaching tool, my dad showed my 8-year-old self the difference between frontal and temporal lobes. He also pointed out how brains with Alzheimer’s disease become smaller, and how wide grooves develop in the cerebral cortex. But only after his death — and my mother’s confession about whose brain occupied that jar — did I figure out that my father was quite literally demonstrating how this disease runs through our heads.

Has my forgetting begun?

I called my dad’s neurologist. To find out if I was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have to look for proteins in my blood or spinal fluid and employ expensive neuroimaging tests. If he found any indication of onset, the only option would be experimental trials.

But documented confirmation of a diseased brain would break my still hopeful heart. I’d walk around with the scarlet letter “A” etched on the inside of my forehead — obstructing how I view every situation instead of the intermittent clouding I currently experience.

“You’re still grieving your father,” the doctor said at the end of our call. “Sadness and depression affect the memory, too. Let’s wait and see.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that two people at my father’s funeral made some insensitive remarks.

“Nancy, you must be scared to death.”

“Is it hard knowing the same thing probably will happen to you?”

Maybe the real question is what to do when the forgetting begins. My dad started taking 70 supplements a day in hopes of saving his mind. He begged me to kill him if he wound up like his father. He retired from his practice and spent all day in a chair doing puzzles. He stopped making new memories in an all-out effort to preserve the ones he already had.

Maybe his approach wasn’t the answer.

Just before his death — his brain a fraction of its former self — my father managed to offer up a final lesson. I was visiting him in the memory-care center when he got a strange look on his face. I figured it was gas. But then his eyes lit up and a big grin overtook him, and he looked right at me and said, “Funny how things turn out.”

An unforgettable moment?

I can only hope.

---

Nancy Stearns Bercaw is a writer in Vermont. Her book, “Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory,” will be published in April 2013 by Broadstone.

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Food Companies Meet to Weigh Federal Label for Gene-Engineered Ingredients

Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Demonstrators from Safe Food Activists and Concerned Consumers at a protest in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

With Washington State on the verge of a ballot initiative that would require labeling of some foods containing genetically engineered ingredients and other states considering similar measures, some of the major food companies and Wal-Mart, the country’s largest grocery store operator, have been discussing lobbying for a national labeling program.

Executives from PepsiCo, ConAgra and about 20 other major food companies, as well as Wal-Mart and advocacy groups that favor labeling, attended a meeting in January in Washington convened by the Meridian Institute, which organizes discussions of major issues. The inclusion of Wal-Mart has buoyed hopes among labeling advocates that the big food companies will shift away from tactics like those used to defeat Proposition 37 in California last fall, when corporations spent more than $40 million to oppose the labeling of genetically modified foods.

“They spent an awful lot of money in California — talk about a lack of return on investment,” said Gary Hirshberg, co-chairman of the Just Label It campaign, which advocates national labeling, and chairman of Stonyfield, an organic dairy company.

Instead of quelling the demand for labeling, the defeat of the California measure has spawned a ballot initiative in Washington State and legislative proposals in Connecticut, Vermont, New Mexico and Missouri, and a swelling consumer boycott of some organic or “natural” brands owned by major food companies.

Mr. Hirshberg, who attended the January meeting, said he knew of roughly 20 states considering labeling requirements.

“The big food companies found themselves in an uncomfortable position after Prop. 37, and they’re talking among themselves about alternatives to merely replaying that fight over and over again,” said Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University who attended the meeting.

“They spent a lot of money, got a lot of bad press that propelled the issue into the national debate and alienated some of their customer base, as well as raising issues with some trading partners,” said Mr. Benbrook who does work on sustainable agriculture.

For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — like cereals, snacks and salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants with DNA that has been manipulated in a laboratory. The Food and Drug Administration, other regulators and many scientists say these foods pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated.

Impending F.D.A. approval of a genetically modified

salmon and the Agriculture Department’s consideration of genetically engineered apples have further intensified the debate.

“We’re at a point where, this summer, families could be sitting at their tables and wondering whether the salmon and sweet corn they’re about to eat has been genetically modified,” said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs at PCC Natural Markets in Seattle. “The fish has really accelerated concerns.”

Mr. Hirshberg said some company representatives wanted to find ways to persuade the Food and Drug Administration to proceed with federal labeling.

“The F.D.A. is not only employing 20-year-old, and we think obsolete, standards for materiality, but there is a general tendency on the part of the F.D.A. to be resistant to change,” he said. “With an issue as polarized and politicized as this one, it’s going to take a broad-based coalition to crack through that barrier.”

Morgan Liscinsky, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, said the agency considered the “totality of all the data and relevant information” when forming policy guidance. “We’ve continued to evaluate data as it has become available over the last 20 years,” she said.

Neither Mr. Hirshberg nor Mr. Benbrook would identify other companies that participated in the talks, but others confirmed some of the companies represented. Caroline Starke, who represents the Meridian Institute, said she could not comment on a specific meeting or participants.

Proponents of labeling in Washington State have taken a somewhat different tack from those in California, arguing that the failure to label will hurt the state’s fisheries and apple and wheat farms. “It’s a bigger issue than just the right to know,” Ms. Bialic said. “It reaches deep into our state’s economy because of the impact this is going to have on international trade.”

A third of the apples grown in Washington State are exported, many of them to markets for high-value products around the Pacific Rim, where many countries require labeling. Apple, fish and wheat farmers in Washington State worry that those countries and others among the 62 nations that require some labeling of genetically modified foods will be much more wary of whole foods than of processed goods.

The Washington measure would not apply to meat or dairy products from animals fed genetically engineered feed, and it sharply limits the ability to collect damages for mislabeling.

Mr. Benbrook and consumer advocates say the federal agencies responsible for things like labeling have relied on research financed by companies that make genetically modified seeds.

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High-end home sales on a roll in state

California's luxury housing market is booming.

In activity reminiscent of real estate's bubble years, the number of homes statewide selling at more than $5 million reached an all-time high last year, while those selling at $1 million or more rose to the highest level since 2007, a real estate information service has reported.

Sales are up because well-heeled U.S. and international buyers, confident that the housing recovery is solid, are looking for places to park their cash, real estate experts said. Also playing a role was a rush among the very wealthy to take advantage of lower capital gains taxes by selling before year end.

"Last year was gangbusters," said Dave Fratello, an agent with the Real Group in Manhattan Beach, the busiest Southern California community for $1-million-plus sales in 2012. "We flipped very quickly from a buyer's market to a seller's market."

Across California, 697 homes sold for more than $5 million, beating the previous high of 491 in 2011, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The 2012 sales mark was the highest since DataQuick began tracking such sales in 1988.

The 26,993 homes sold at $1-million-plus represented a 26.9% jump from 2011, DataQuick said. In comparison, 42,502 home sales exceeded the million-dollar mark in 2007, before the mortgage meltdown dragged down prices across the housing market.

The record was set in 2005, when 54,773 homes sold for $1 million or more. The luxury market outpaced overall sales, which were up 8.2% statewide.

"The very top, it is a record level — well beyond what it was in the bubble period," said John Karevoll, analyst for DataQuick.

Hillsborough, in the San Francisco Bay Area, claimed the top spot with 422 sales at $1 million-plus. Like many neighborhoods in Silicon Valley and environs, Hillsborough's sales growth was driven by a wave of buyers from the technology sector.

Southern California communities with the most $1-million-plus sales included Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, La Jolla, Brentwood, Beverly Hills and Laguna Beach.

"We're hitting that perfect storm of buyer demand, low inventory and attractive housing prices," said Paul Habibi, who teaches real estate at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Gary Painter, director of research and an economist with the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, said the high-end niche is more likely to be driven by the international economy rather than what is going on in the U.S. — which suffered an unexpected economic contraction during the last three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

As a result, the luxury market is benefiting from a continued influx of wealthy international buyers who are betting on the potential of prime housing to appreciate and view luxury home prices in the U.S. as bargains versus other parts of the world.

Foreign buyers spent 24% more on U.S. real estate last year than in 2011, according to an annual survey by the National Assn. of Realtors. These buyers represented 8.9% of all housing spending. Asian shoppers are particularly interested in California homes, the study said.

Sandra Miller of Engel & Volkers, a broker who specializes in international buyers and luxury properties, said that "the money is really coming from everywhere."

While her office is dealing with an onslaught of Italians, buyers are coming from London and Germany. Chinese buyers are snapping up homes in the $1-million to $5-million range for their children, she said, but not ultra-luxurious estates.

"The very, very large sales last year were done with Russian money," Miller said.

DataQuick's Karevoll cautioned that the boom at the luxury level doesn't automatically translate to continued sales and price improvement for all homes.

"As a bellwether for a market as a whole, however, it is really hard to read what it means," he said. "The broader market and what we call the 'prestige' market — homes from about $2 million to $3 million and up — seem to dance to two different tunes."

In Manhattan Beach, most homes are priced at more than $1 million, said Fratello, who is also a housing market blogger at MB Confidential. "The days of little cottages for under $1 million are mostly behind us."

A low supply of homes for sale kept a lid on sales in the sought-after beach community, Fratello added. Bidding wars returned.

"With another 10% in sales our volume would have matched all the bubble years," he said, referring to 2004 to 2006.

A tear-down in the so-called Tree Section of Manhattan Beach drew 20 offers in March, selling for $1.352 million — $250,000 above the asking price. A 2,600-square-foot Midcentury-style house in need of work in the same block attracted 15 bidders. Listed at $1.6 million, it sold for $1.88 million.

"Everybody is shaking their heads," Fratello said. "This is crazy."

Cash buyers accounted for a record 7,791 of the million-dollar home sales, up from 5,802 in 2011. Many of those presumably are investors looking for better places to put their money than the stock market or other investments.

The most expensive transaction to appear in public records was the $117.5-million sale of an 8,930-square-foot mansion on nine acres in the Northern California community of Woodside.

Among top sales in the Los Angeles area was billionaire Larry Ellison's purchase of a three-structure compound in Malibu for $36.9 million. "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest paid $36.5 million for talk show host Ellen DeGeneres' three-property spread in Beverly Hills, and the family of the late philanthropist Max Palevsky sold his Malibu mansion for $36.5 million just before the end of last year.

Almost all home sales were in $1-million-plus territory in the communities of Ross in Marin County; San Marino and Santa Monica in Los Angeles County; Los Altos in Santa Clara County; Atherton and Hillsborough in San Mateo County; and Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County.

lauren.beale@latimes.com

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Boeing's Batteries Draw Criticism as Dreamliner Probe Continues

Boeing’s chief executive said the company is working around the clock investigating a battery problem that has grounded 787 Dreamliners worldwide, saying the company “will get to the bottom of it.” The comments come two weeks after the fleet was grounded, and concern is growing on the cost to airlines with earth-bound airplanes, and to the reputation of the airplane and Boeing itself.

Company president and CEO Jim McNerney was predictably optimistic, even upbeat, during a quarterly earnings call that focused heavily on the investigation by Boeing, the FAA and others. Hundreds of experts from around the world are working with Boeing to determine just what led to two battery fires aboard Dreamliners earlier this month. Although the problem prompted the grounding of all 50 Dreamliners in service, and many — including Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — have been critical of Boeing’s use of lithium-ion batteries, the company continues building Dreamliners even as investigators work around the clock to find the root cause of the problem.

“We will get to the bottom of it, and in so doing will restore confidence in the 787,” McNerney said Wednesday. He added that the company continues to believe in the use of lithium-ion batteries that are critical to the design of 787, the most electric airliner to ever fly. “We feel good about the battery technology and the fit for the airplane.”

McNerney remains confident the company will determine just what led to “thermal runaway” events aboard two Dreamliners. The first occurred in Boston on January 7 when a battery caught fire after passengers had deplaned. The second came one week later when smoke from a burning battery forced a pilots to make an emergency landing in Japan. The result has been the first grounding of a U.S. airplane commercial airline fleet since 1979. And despite the optimism from Boeing, there is no indication from investigators or the Federal Aviation Administration that the grounding will be lifted any time soon.

Outside of Boeing, some are less optimistic that Boeing used the right design for its lithium-ion batteries, which the aircraft manufacturer chose for their energy density. Musk, whose companies use lithium-ion batteries extensively, has been among the most vocal.

“Unfortunately, the pack architecture supplied to Boeing is inherently unsafe” Musk wrote in an email to Flightglobal. “Large cells without enough space between them to isolate against the cell-to-cell thermal domino effect means it is simply a matter of time before there are more incidents of this nature.”

Boeing uses a 63-pound Li-ion battery largely as a backup power source for several systems within the Dreamliner, which is among the most technologically advanced passenger aircraft ever built. The batteries, like those in the Tesla Roadster and Model S automobiles and aboard SpaceX rockets, use cobalt oxide chemistry for maximum power density. But Tesla and SpaceX use battery packs comprised of thousands of cylindrical 18650 cells, each roughly the size of a AA battery. The cells have been refined through more than 15 years of manufacturing and use in consumer products such as laptops and power tools. Tesla and SpaceX closely control the charging, output and temperature of the cells using a sophisticated power management system.

The lithium-ion battery used by Boeing is comprised of just eight cells housed in a single container. Musk says Tesla and SpaceX engineers isolate the cells to prevent a fire in one from spreading to others. He is critical of Boeing’s design, saying the size and packaging of the cells makes thermal runaway in one or more cells much more likely to result in the entire pack catching fire.

Musk is not alone in raising these issues. The relatively simple looking design of the Boeing battery, manufactured by the Japanese firm GS Yuasa, immediately caught the attention of lithium-ion battery expert Dr. K.M. Abraham. Abraham has been researching and producing lithium-ion batteries since 1976 and says proper design is critical for both power output and safety.

“It did not look like a sophisticated battery pack to me” Abraham said of his first impression after seeing a photo of a Dreamliner battery. The 32-volt Boeing battery uses eight 3.7 volt cells housed in a single metal container.

The manufacturing process is also a major concern, according to Abraham. The 18650 cells used by Tesla and others experienced quality control problems early on, and it was more than a decade before the design and manufacturing was refined. These days, failure rates are extremely low — less than one in a million, said Abraham. He agrees the design used by Tesla reduces the chance of a thermal runaway resulting in a larger event.

“They use a smaller cell approach, but I think it is a much safer way of doing that,” he said of Tesla. “They use a modular construction. Once a cell goes, it is isolated, there is no large runaway.”

The National Transportation Safety Board released more information about its investigation and examination of the batteries aboard the plane that caught fire in Boston. Last week the agency said it found evidence of a short in the charred remains of the battery that caught fire. This week, the NTSB is continuing its examination with a microscopic look at the region affected by the internal short circuit and thermal damage. The agency is also looking at a second undamaged battery in the plane. It is looking for any evidence of “in-service damage and manufacturing defects.”

The NTSB did say it found no problems with charger unit used with the batteries on the Boston 787 or the auxiliary power unit.

All Nippon Airways, which was the first to buy Dreamliners, says it replaced 10 of the batteries on its fleet of 17 Dreamliners in the months leading up to the Dreamliner’s grounding. The airline says it notified Boeing of the battery replacements, but did not tell safety regulators because the bad batteries showed low charge and other performance issues and were not considered a safety issue according to The New York Times.

McNerney acknowledged today that the replacement rate of Dreamliner batteries was “slightly higher” than anticipated, but emphasized the batteries were replaced for maintenance reasons, not safety concerns. The comment was largely a response to a story in the Seattle Times that said Boeing had to return more than 100 of the lithium-ion batteries to GS Yusasa. The $16,000 batteries were returned because they had been run down and could not be recharged. Some of the batteries had exceeded their expiration date, but many were losing capability much earlier than expected according to the Times. It is unclear how many batteries needed to be replaced because of quality problems, or how many were replaced due to the design which shuts down the battery in the event it is drained too far.

The 32-volt batteries have a cutoff system that effectively shuts down the battery if the charge falls below 15 percent. Normally the system is designed to prevent this from happening, but as is the case with a flashlight or car door, if something is accidentally left on in a 787 and is drawing battery power, the 63 pound batteries can reach that critical 15 percent cutoff.

Boeing continues to assuring customers and shareholders that the problem will be resolved soon. It said production on both 787 assembly lines continues, and the company believes it will increase production to its scheduled rate of 10 airplanes monthly by year’s end.

The eight airlines with grounded Dreamliners continue to shuffle other aircraft to try and make up for the missing seats in their fleet. ANA is using 777s for some of its 787 routes, while United has brought in 737s for domestic flights that were using the Dreamliner and is also using 777s on longer international flights.

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Despite previous beating, Rihanna back with Chris Brown

NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s official: R&B diva Rihanna says she is back together with Chris Brown, who is still on probation for assaulting her in 2009, saying “It’s different now.”

“I decided it was more important for me to be happy,” Rihanna told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview published on Wednesday on its website.

“I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of that. Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake,” she said of her renewed romance with singer Brown, 23, that has prompted consternation from fans and celebrity media because of their history.

“After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I’d rather just live my truth and take the backlash,” said Rihanna, 24, adding, “I can handle it.”

The couple’s reconciliation had been rumored for months, even before the pair unveiled a duet, “Nobody’s Business,” in November. That track was included on Rihanna’s latest album “Unapologetic.”

Brown pleaded guilty in 2009 to beating and punching Rihanna. He was sentenced to community service, anger management classes, given a restraining order and is still on probation.

The Barbadian singer told Oprah Winfrey in an emotional interview in August that she and Brown now had a “very close friendship,” and that she still loved him.

“When you add up the pieces from the outside, it’s not the cutest puzzle in the world,” Rihanna admitted to Rolling Stone, which hits newsstands this week with her gracing the cover above the headline, “Rihanna Crazy In Love.”

“You see us walking somewhere … and you think you know. But it’s different now. We don’t have those types of arguments anymore. We talk,” she said. “We value each other.”

But she noted that Brown is on probation with her as well, saying, “He doesn’t have the luxury of (messing) up again.”

“That’s just not an option … And I wouldn’t have gone this far if I ever thought that was a possibility.”

The interview was published three days after Brown’s latest dustup, which involved fellow musician Frank Ocean, over a parking space at a West Hollywood recording studio. Ocean has said he wants Brown prosecuted following the Sunday brawl.

In 2012 Rihanna was rated by Time and Forbes magazines as among the world’s and celebrity arena’s most powerful people.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Philip Barbara)

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Illness Walks the Runway

A top fashion designer quarantines a sneezing underling, forcing her to work in a closet. An industry P.R. executive makes colleagues douse their hands with Purell. Germ-phobic magazine editors are powerblasting offices with antiseptic wipes and Lysol.

Such is the dread gripping the fashion world as it prepares for New York Fashion Week, beginning Feb. 7, with a killer flu and a stomach-bug norovirus on the loose.

The eight-day event, when fashionistas from around the world pack into small spaces to attend runway shows and parties — only to cram onto the same flights and repeat the process in London, Milan and Paris — is always an occasion for sickness paranoia. In past years, sniffles in the front row could prompt icy stares and social ostracism.

But with this season’s flu panic, the fear is approaching hysteria. Stressed-out designers recoil in horror if someone coughs within earshot. Frail models shiver their way between fittings, terrified someone will spy their runny noses. And frenemies everywhere are reconsidering the wisdom of the double-cheek kiss, the standard greeting of the global fashion tribe. Air kissing seems safe for now.

“This will be the season where everyone in fashion becomes mysteriously nonaffectionate,” said Laura Brown, executive editor of Harper’s Bazaar. Staff members in her West 57th Street offices, she added, have been scouring doorknobs with sanitizing wipes. “We can give a nudge and a wink instead.”

To be fair, much of the paranoia is founded. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from the current flu season reached “epidemic” levels, in part because of an unusually severe flu strain. Adding to the flulike epidemic is a surging new strain of norovirus, which can cause sudden diarrhea and projectile vomiting, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years.

And while there is some evidence that the flu season has peaked almost everywhere in the country, except for the West Coast, flu activity continued to be high in New York through the week ending Jan. 19, as tracked by the C.D.C., and on the rise in parts of Europe including Italy. (Milan hosts a fashion week starting Feb. 20.)

Norovirus also seems to be surging abroad; it has reached epidemic levels in France, according to the latest report from the country’s doctor network Réseau Sentinelles, with more than one million French people visiting doctors for it in the past five weeks.

Yet even as flu season appears to be ebbing in New York, it remains a worry inside the fashion bubble. With sleep-deprived colleagues huddled in close quarters day and night, things can go viral quickly, especially in the petri dish that is Fashion Week.

“Fashion people are at risk for a variety of viral syndromes because they work long hours and they move in a pack,” said Dr. Robert Glatter, known in fashion circles for making house (or studio) calls.

Dr. Barry Cohen, whose primary-care office on Spring Street faces Marc Jacobs’s studios, says he has been bombarded with rheumy-eyed industry divas begging for quick fixes. “Fashion people touch each other all day, so they get exposed over and over,” he said.

And when the pack is moving fast and furious, it can’t slow down for the weak. “Fashion Week season is a nonstop assault on the immune system,” said Derek Blasberg, an editor at large for Harper’s Bazaar. “Early shows, late dinners, crammed into tents and airplanes: you don’t want to sit next to anyone coughing, because if you get sick, you’re screwed.”

The viral assault does not end with New York. “By the time we finish the New York shows, we’re already a wreck, because New York simply has too many shows,” said Mickey Boardman, editorial director of Paper magazine. “Then you get on a plane and hit the ground running in London, where there’s always fun parties. You’re eating French fries for dinner and drinking Cokes from your minibar, and your sleep patterns are messed up.”

“You’re putting your life at risk,” he added.

WHILE KEEPING THE WORLD trendy has its hazards, fashionistas have developed stylish tactics to avoid getting the bug. Many have dutifully gotten their flu shots. (It’s not too late, though it takes about two weeks to build up immunity — just in time for London Fashion Week.)

Others follow variations of what could be called the standard fashion-world starvation diet, whether it’s drinking large quantities of SmartWater fortified with packets of the vitamin supplement Emergen-C, or force-feeding themselves nothing but raw greens, like koalas munching eucalyptus leaves. Dr. Glatter says he has even treated some fashion people for diarrhea from eating too much kale.

Then there are the juicers. The designer Cynthia Rowley swears by Juice Press, the three-year-old Manhattan chain popular with fashion insiders for its 17-ounce $10 bottles of cold-pressed fruits and vegetables. “I’m addicted,” said Ms. Rowley, who added that she chugged the stuff with staff members when they were not taking spin classes en masse at SoulCycle.

“Nobody’s sick at my office,” she bragged dangerously. “We work in one room, so if one person drops, they take down the whole team.”

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BlackBerry Maker Unveils Its New Line

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Thorsten Heins, the chief executive of BlackBerry, which was known as Research in Motion, introduces the company's new phones.

BlackBerry’s maker unveiled a new operating system and a new line of phones on Wednesday, along with a new corporate name, with the hope of restoring its products’ status as a symbol of executive cool.

Analysts, technology reviewers and app developers with advance access to the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry 10 operating system have said it is the company’s first competitive touch-screen phone. But BlackBerry 10 arrives long after Apple’s iPhone and phones using Google’s Android operating system have come to dominate the smartphone market that the BlackBerry effectively created. According to IDC, BlackBerry now holds just 4.6 percent of that market, about one-tenth of its historic peak.

To emphasize the changes brought by the new operating system, Thorsten Heins, who took over as chief executive a year ago, said the company, known until now as Research In Motion, had adopted BlackBerry as its corporate name. Its Nasdaq trading symbol will become BBRY, and it will trade as BB in Toronto.

In addition to the BlackBerry Z10 phone, there will be a second model, the Q10, that includes one of the line’s signature physical keyboards. Verizon Wireless announced that it would price the Z10 at $200 with a two-year contract. BlackBerry 10 phones will also be carried by AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

“Today represents a new day in the history of BlackBerry,” Mr. Heins said. “These BlackBerry 10 devices are absolutely the best typing experiences in the industry.”

BlackBerry said the Z10 would be available in the United States in March and in Canada on Feb. 5.

There were few surprises in the initial portion of Mr. Heins’s presentation at an event in New York. The company began demonstrating the touch-screen phone and operating system in May and also made prototypes available to app developers at the time. In recent weeks, photographs of the final version of the phones have made their way to various American and European technology Web sites.

Physically, the Z10 resembles an iPhone 5 with its corners snipped off.

But unlike its competitors, the Z10 lacks a button to take users back to a home page and relies entirely on users swiping their fingers across the 4.2-inch screen from different directions to summon features or menus.

While the Z10 lacks a physical keyboard, the main attraction of BlackBerrys for many current users, the company said that it had developed software which should alleviate some of the inadequacies of on-screen typing. According to BlackBerry, its software studies users’ common typing mistakes over time and then starts automatically correcting them. It will also build up a list of commonly used words and offer them as suggestions that can be selected with a flick of a finger.

While developing the new operating system, the company took great pains to improve its strained relationship with app developers. The operating system was also designed in a way that allows them to adapt Android apps for BlackBerry 10 by making some relatively minor modifications.

BlackBerry said Wednesday that more than 70,000 BlackBerry 10 apps were now available.

For corporate and government users, BlackBerry 10 server software will allow them to divide employees’ BlackBerry 10 phones into separate work and personal spheres and give I.T. managers complete control over the former.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 30, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the plans of major American carriers to offer the two new BlackBerry models. While Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will all carry new BlackBerrys, not all will offer the Z10; Sprint has so far announced plans only to offer the other model, the Q10.

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