LAPD plans major presence for Black Friday

Black Friday is a day for burning off those Thanksgiving calories with some intense Christmas shopping. But for the Los Angeles Police Department, it's become a day of surveillance, crowd control and crime-suppression tactics.

Helicopters will buzz above some shopping centers, and below, a cavalry of LAPD officers will patrol on bikes and horses. From store rooftops, officers will scan the crowds below looking for unruly behavior. Electronic signs near stores will warn customers about becoming victims of theft as they navigate the mass of humanity looking for bargains.

The deployments are part of a new strategy by the LAPD to deal with the retail roller derby that comes after Thanksgiving. In addition to stationing officers around shopping centers, the LAPD has been visiting stores across the city this week, talking to managers about the psychology of the frantic shopper.

Officials said the push was prompted by a series of incidents at Black Friday sales, notably one last year at a Porter Ranch Wal-Mart in which two dozen people were injured when a woman unleashed pepper spray during a frantic battle for some discounted video games.

LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said he hopes people will behave. But "like Chief [Charlie] Beck says, we are not in the optimism business."

The LAPD would not say exactly how many officers it will deploy Friday, but the number is expected to be considerable. In the Valley division, for example, officials have put together detailed tactical plans for each major shopping center, using mobile command posts and both officers and cadets.

"For some people, shopping is a competitive sport," Smith said. "But it should not be a contact sport."

Even some big retailers — which for years fueled the shopping frenzy with aggressive marketing and deep discounts — are trying to rein in some of the excitement they create this year.

Fernando Reyes, manager of the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch where the pepper spray incident occurred, said his main goal is to avoid a repeat of the chaos. He has met with the LAPD and plans new crowd-control strategies, including setting up special check-out lines for some sales items.

The store also plans to give out vouchers to shoppers for "door buster" merchandise to avoid people jockeying for the limited supplies. If a customer did not get such a voucher, Reyes said there should be a "reasonable expectation" that they won't get the sales item.

The LAPD has talked to other retailers about creating "time-specific entry passes" that would stagger the number of shoppers who are inside the store at any given time. In a flier the department is handing out to store managers, officials note that "this process has been very successful at many of the major theme parks and can help to ensure organized, safe entry into your business."

The LAPD has also suggested that retailers avoid stacking sales items on pallets "to mitigate crowd aggression."

Despite all the headlines, Black Friday misbehavior is still relatively rare. Police report a scattering of brawls, assaults and various larcenies each year. But it's the headlines that people remember. A few years ago, gunfire erupted in a crowded Palm Desert Toys R Us, killing two people. Four years ago, a Long Island, N.Y., Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by a crush of customers who toppled large glass doors.

Aimee Drolet Rossi, a consumer psychologist at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, said it should not be surprising that some people act out on Black Friday. Research on rats and monkeys has shown that they become more aggressive when placed in a crowded situation, and Rossi said humans are no different.

"Crowding leads people to behave less altruistically, in part because people's sense of responsibility lags when a lot of other people are around," she said. "People assume that other people will step up to help someone who is in distress."

She also said research shows that people are less likely to make eye contact with people in crowded situations, and this can cause them to make bad decisions.

Retailers bear some of the responsibility for what's happened, she said.

"They set up this environment that encourages this competitive shopping ...." Rossi said. "They offer only 10 TV sets at the ridiculously low price. It's really no surprise people get upset when they don't get one."

This year, some stores are actually opening on Thanksgiving Day, and people are already lined up.

Tony Juarez, a 30-year-old North Hollywood resident, has been camping outside the Porter Ranch Best Buy for a week. It's been an eight-year tradition for Juarez and his friends, who set up a makeshift campsite with portable chairs, blankets and a heater. A few feet away, other campers actually brought tents.

This year, Juarez is hoping to score some cut-priced TVs and laptops. A few years ago, he got a $200 Toshiba laptop and is still crowing about the bargain.

He was at the Best Buy when the pepper spray incident occurred at the Wal-Mart next door. He watched, stunned, as a stampede of shoppers streamed out of the store and scores of police arrived.

This year, he's definitely noticed more police presence at the shopping center, and that has been comforting.

"We are seeing an LAPD car every five minutes. It's definitely safer," he said.

But more police isn't enough for South L.A. resident Lynnette Jordan, who plans to stay away from the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall on Friday.

"You are still going to deal with folks basically fighting to get into the door to get the item they so desperately want," Jordan said. "No matter what, some people will act the fool because that's what they do."

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

hector.becerra@latimes.com

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Video: Watch the World's Oldest Digital Computer Get a Reboot

It runs using gas-filled tubes, mechanical relays, and paper tape. It’s a giant, and it’s slow. But it runs, dammit.

On Tuesday, volunteers at Britain’s National Museum of Computing rebooted the Harwell Dekatron — a 2.5-metric-ton monster from the early 1950s — making it the oldest working digital computer in existence.

It took about half an hour to warm the machine up. Then the volunteers — who’d spent the past two-and-a-half years rebuilding the machine — fed in a program via paper tape. Gas-powered tubes lit up. There was some clicking and clunking. Lights flashed. And then the 61-year-old printer typed out the answer to a simple multiplication problem — its first job since the 1970s.

Two of the Dekatron’s original designers and a few of its former operators were on-hand yesterday at the National Museum of Computing’s Bletchley Park home to catch the reboot. “The machine worked perfectly,” says Kevin Murrell, who’s led the restoration effort.

The machine was built in 1951, and it served for six years as a number-cruncher for the U.K.’s main atomic research facility at Harwell. “This was used in the very early days of modeling atomic power plants,” Murrell says. It could do complex equations flawlessly, at about the speed of two mathematicians armed with mechanical calculators.

In 1957, the giant computer was shipped of to the nearby Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Technical College, where it served as a comp-sci teaching tool for a couple of more decades. That’s where it picked up the name the WITCH (Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell). Then, in 1973, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed it the world’s most durable computer. It was eventually mothballed in a museum.

About three years ago, Kevin Murrell was looking through photos of computer components the National Museum of Computing had in storage. Something popped out. “In the corner of one picture was a little control panel,” he remembers. “I looked at this an thought I know this control panel. That’s the machine I remembered from all those years ago.”

Amazingly, about 95 percent of the machine was still in the collection. So after a few years of cleaning the machine’s 4,000 connectors, and 828 Dekatron tubes, rewiring and repairing power supplies, the historic computer was good to go.

It uses gas-filled Dekatron counting tubes instead of the transistors you’d find in modern computers. As the six-person restoration team discovered, these tubes held up amazingly well after more than 60 years.

The clear tubes store values in one of 10 cathodes, grouped in a circle around a central node, so you can actually see what’s in memory. This combined with the Dekatron’s plodding pace, makes it a remarkable computer teaching tool, Murrell says.

“You can look at the memory location and say, ‘Yes, that contains the number three.’”

Watch the Harwell Dekatron in action here:

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McCartney, Houston, Dylan lead Grammy Hall of Fame inductees

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Music by Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Elton John and late singers Whitney Houston and James Brown will be inducted into the 2013 Grammy Hall of Fame, The Recording Academy said on Wednesday.

Paul McCartney & Wings‘ 1973 album “Band on the Run,” long credited with reigniting McCartney’s career following the Beatles’ split in 1970, was one of the 27 new inductees into the Grammy Hall of Fame, on display at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles.

Houston‘s self-titled 1985 debut album was also named an inductee, following the singer’s sudden death aged 48 in February this year. Australian hard-rock band AC/DC’s top-selling 1980 “Back in Black” album was also named a new entry.

The Recording Academy, which also runs the Grammy awards, picks songs and albums from all genres that are at least 25 years old, with either “qualitative or historical significance” to be considered annually for the Grammy Hall of Fame by a committee.

“Memorable for being both culturally and historically significant, we are proud to add (the 2013 inductees) to our growing catalog of outstanding recordings that have become part of our musical, social and cultural history,” The Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said in a statement.

As well as albums, the Grammy Hall of Fame also includes songs of historic and cultural significance and the inductees for 2013 see a range of classic American songs.

Iconic Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changing” from 1964, R&B singer Ray Charles’ 1961 tune “Hit the Road Jack,” Rat Pack star Frank Sinatra’s 1980 “Theme from ‘New York, New York’”, and ‘Godfather of soul’ James Brown‘s 1965 classic “I Got You (I Feel Good)” were all honored.

Other 2013 inductees include Elton John‘s 1970 self-titled second album and American debut, Billy Joel’s 1973 hit “The Piano Man” and Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton’s 1953 R&B classic “Hound Dog,” later covered by Elvis Presley.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

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Well: Officials Warn Against Baby Sleep Positioners

Health officials are warning parents not to use a special device designed to help keep babies in certain positions as they sleep. The device, called a sleep positioner, has been linked to at least 13 deaths in the last 15 years, officials with two federal agencies said on Wednesday.

“We urge parents and caregivers to take our warning seriously and stop using these sleep positioners,” Inez Tenenbaum, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a statement.

The sleep positioner devices come primarily in two forms. One is a flat mat with soft bolsters on each side. The other, known as a wedge-style positioner, looks very similar but has an incline, keeping a child in a very slight upright position.

Makers of the devices claim that by keeping infants in a specific position as they sleep, they can prevent several conditions, including acid reflux and flat head syndrome, a deformation caused by pressure on one part of the skull. Many are also marketed to parents as a way to help reduce a child’s risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, which kills thousands of babies every year, most between the ages of 2 months and 4 months.

But the devices have never been shown in studies to prevent SIDS, and they may actually raise the likelihood of sudden infant death, officials say. One of the leading risk factors for sudden infant death is placing a baby on his or her stomach at bedtime, and health officials have routinely warned parents to lay babies on their backs. They even initiated a “Back to Sleep” campaign in the 1990s, which led to a sharp reduction in sudden infant deaths.

With the positioner devices, if an infant rolls onto the stomach, the child’s mouth and nose can press up against a bolster or some other part of the device, leading to suffocation. Even if placed on the back, a child can move up or down in the positioner, “entrapping its face against a bolster or becoming trapped between the positioner and the crib side,” Gail Gantt, a nurse consultant with the Food and Drug Administration, said in an e-mail. Or the child might scoot down the wedge in a way that causes the child’s mouth and nose to press into the device.

“The baby’s movement may also cause the positioner to flip on top of the baby, trapping the baby underneath the positioner or between the positioner and the side of the crib,” she said.

Of the 13 babies known to have suffocated in a sleep positioner since 1997, most died after they rolled from their sides onto their stomachs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has also received dozens of reports of babies who were placed on their sides or backs, “only to be found later in hazardous positions within or next to the product,” the F.D.A. said in a statement.

Many baby books for new parents specifically urge against using sleep positioners, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not support their use for SIDS prevention. Though the F.D.A. has never approved the positioners for the prevention of SIDS, it has in the past approved a number of the devices for the prevention of gastroesophageal reflux disease and flat head syndrome. But the agency said that in light of the new safety data, it believed any benefits from using the devices were outweighed by the risk of suffocation.

As of Wednesday, the agency is explicitly advising parents to stop using sleep positioners, and it has asked manufacturers of the devices to submit clinical data showing that the benefits of their products outweigh the risk of serious harm. In addition to avoiding the devices, experts say, parents should keep things like pillows, comforters, quilts and bumpers away from their infants and their cribs. Soft bedding can increase the likelihood of a baby suffocating.

“The safest crib is a bare crib,” Dr. Susan Cummins, a pediatric expect with the F.D.A., said in a statement. “Always put your baby on his or her back to sleep. An easy way to remember this is to follow the ABC’s of safe sleep – Alone on the Back in a bare Crib.”

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DealBook: Judge Approves Hostess Brands' Plan to Close Down

A federal bankruptcy judge approved Hostess Brands’ plans to wind itself down, officially putting the Twinkies brand on the auction block.

In granting Hostess’s motion, Judge Robert D. Drain of the Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York cited the need for a quick and orderly shuttering of the company to avoid letting its assets molder. The alternative, a less-structured Chapter 7 liquidation would be far worse.

“This estate will suffer substantial diminution if this wind-down plan is not quickly implemented,” he said. “It appears to me that the debtors have taken the right course.”

Judge Drain’s motion spells the almost certain end of Hostess, an 82-year-old bakery that survived the Great Depression, numerous wars and countless low-carb diets. But the company, whose stable of sugary confections also include Ho Hos and Ding Dongs, struggled for more than a decade with the public’s increasing fondness for lower-calorie, less-processed snacks.

During a hearing that stretched for more than four hours, company executives and advisers espoused a simple message: expedited sales of the company’s brands will raise the maximum amount of money possible. And letting Hostess begin shutting its doors for good sooner would be kinder to employees.

Advisers sounded confident that the liquidation process, which is expected to take about a year, could yield big recoveries for creditors.

“Since we filed motion, we have received a flood of inquiries and think there can be a healthy competition,” Heather Lennox, a lawyer for the company, said at Wednesday’s hearing.

Hostess’ chief executive, Gregory Rayburn, testified in court on Wednesday that he needed to lay off 15,000 of the company’s 18,500 employees that afternoon, so that they could begin applying for unemployment benefits. Such speed, he said, was necessary for maximizing the value of what remained of the 82-year-old company.

“From this point forward, I need two things to happen,” he said. “I need to maximize the value of the estate, and I need to do the best thing for the employees.”

He also asked the court to quickly approve Hostess’s plans to liquidate, given that the value of its brands and assets had begun deteriorating since factory production lines shut down on Friday.

“The longer you’re off the shelf, the less value you’re going to get,” Mr. Rayburn said.

An investment banker for Hostess contended that, at this point, the company could fetch significant sums for its host of sugary treats. Joshua Scherer of Perella Weinberg Partners testified that over the course of the 10-month-old Chapter 11 case, he had received six takeover bids — though none were acceptable.

Since Hostess announced its intentions to liquidate, it has received expressions of interest from a wide range of potential buyers. Without naming names, Mr. Scherer said that they included regional bakeries. national competitors and retail customers along the lines of Wal-Mart Stores and Kroger.

The banker added that his firm plans to reach out to approximately 145 financial firms, including private equity shops and liquidators, to gauge their interest. Investment concerns like Sun Capital Partners and C. Dean Metropoulos & Company, the owner of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, have already said that they were interested in buying some or all of Hostess’s remains.

(Sun Capital has said that it would like to buy all of Hostess, not only preserving the company but also improving its toxic relationship with employee unions.)

Mr. Scherer said that he expected asset sales to reap “significant values,” perhaps more than $1 billion.

The hearing followed a last-minute mediation session between Hostess and its bakery employees union on Tuesday. That gathering, convened at the behest of Judge Drain, was meant to resolve a nearly two-week-old strike that company executive said fatally crippled its operations.

But after several hours of negotiations, the mediation talks collapsed.

“I wanted to acknowledge the tragedy that’s taking place here,” Richard Seltzer, a lawyer for the Teamsters, one of the company’s major unions, said in court.

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Feds charge former hedge fund manager in big insider-trading case

WASHINGTON -- Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a former hedge fund portfolio manager with securities fraud in connection with what they said was the most lucrative insider-trading case ever prosecuted.

In complaints filed in New York, authorities said investment advisors and hedge funds made more than $276 million in illegal profits or avoided losses by trading before the announcement in 2008 of negative results from clinical trials for an Alzheimer's disease drug being developed by Elan Corp. and Wyeth.

Prosecutors charged Mathew Martoma, a former portfolio manager at CR Intrinsic, an unregistered investment adviser, with securities fraud for allegedly illegally using information about the clinical trial results that he obtained from a neurologist at a hospital involved in the testing.

The criminal complaint did not name the neurologist, which it said was a cooperating witness in the case.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a a related civil suit Tuesday against Martoma, CR Intrinsic and Dr. Sidney Gilman, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan Medical School. The SEC suit said Gilman was chairman of the safety monitoring committee overseeing the clinical trials of the Alzheimer's drug.

Martoma met Gilman some time between 2006 and 2008 through paid consultations, the SEC complaint says. "During these consultations, Gilman provided Martoma with material, nonpublic information about the ongoing trial," the SEC complaint said.

In mid-July 2008, "Gilman provided Martoma with the actual, detailed results of the clinical trial" before an official announcement on July 29, 2008, the SEC said.

The FBI, SEC and U.S. attorney's office in New York scheduled a 12:30 p.m. EST news conference to discuss the case.

"The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going – specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent," said Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for Manhattan.  "As alleged, by cultivating and corrupting a doctor with access to secret drug data, Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefited from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time."

Follow Jim Puzzanghera on Twitter and Google+.

Also:

Senate moves insider trading bill to Obama's desk.

Baseball star Eddie Murray settles insider-trading investigation.

Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta guilty of insider trading.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/17/business/la-fi-sec-murray-20120818

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Camembert to clocks: Dali’s genius on show in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) – The broadest-ever retrospective of Salvador Dali, opening in Paris this week, seeks to move beyond the shameless self-promotion that the 20th century Surrealist was often derided for and stress his indelible influence on artists today.

Once dubbed “Avida Dollars” for his love of money, Dali is regarded by some as little more than a marketing product, his Spanish home an obligatory tourist stop, his trademark melting watches the inspiration for money-spinning souvenirs.

But a new show at the Pompidou Centre lays bare the extent of his creative genius, exploring how his experiments with painting, cinema, advertising and installations influenced movements from Pop Art to today’s performance art.

The show, which runs from November 21 to March 25, is set to be a blockbuster of the Parisian art calendar. The last Dali retrospective at the Pompidou in 1979 remains the most visited exhibition in the museum’s history.

“There’s this vision we have of there being a good Dali, the Surrealist, and then the one who came after, who made money,” said exhibition curator Jean-Michel Bouhours.

“We needed to go beyond this distinction between the good and the bad and show how the experimental Dali was extraordinarily important in the history of art and the artistic models that developed in the 60s and 70s.”

The exhibition features some 200 works by the Spanish master, including the famous 1931 “The Persistence of Memory” with melting pocket watches, which Dali said was inspired by watching camembert cheese liquefying in the sun.

Also on show are dozens of works on paper, projects for stage and screen, photographs and films such as the 1929 “Un Chien Andalou“, written with Spanish director Luis Bunuel.

His designs for ballet, decorative arts and even a pavilion for the 1939 New York World Fair earned him the derision of fellow Surrealists such as Andre Breton.

But Dali saw mass media as a more efficient way than painting of getting across his “paranoid critique” of the world.

His 1935 installation, “Mae West’s Face Which May be Used As An Apartment” with its lip-shaped sofa showed an obsession with celebrity that would later influence the Pop Art of Andy Warhol.

Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali in 1904 in the Catalan town of Figueres, Spain, Dali remains a controversial artist, loved for his creative genius but dismissed by some as a madman and hated for his at times grotesque artistic vision.

Although an anarchist in his youth and deeply attached to his native Catalonia, he was criticized for later declaring himself a monarchist, turning to religion and moving closer to the post-war authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco.

His love of show business and manic declarations such as “Surrealism is me”, alienated many. But he is cited as an influence for many artists such as Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons.

Dali died of heart failure in Figueres in 1989, seven years after the death of his wife and muse Gala.

(Reporting By Vicky Buffery, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Global Update: Meningitis Vaccine Gets Longer Window Without Refrigeration

In what may prove to be a major advance for Africa’s “meningitis belt,” regulatory authorities have decided that a new meningitis vaccine could be stored without refrigeration for up to four days.

The announcement was made last week at a conference in Atlanta of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. While a few days may seem trivial, the hardest part of protecting poor countries is often keeping a vaccine cold while moving it from electrified cities to villages with no power. In antipolio drives, for example, the freezers, generators and fuel needed to make ice for the shoulder bags of vaccinators can cost more than the vaccine.

The new vaccine, MenAfriVac, made in India for 50 cents a dose, was introduced in 2010. In bad years, epidemics during the hot harmattan winds have killed as many as 25,000 Africans and disabled 50,000 more. In Chad this year, vaccination drove down cases to near zero in districts where it was used, while others nearby had serious outbreaks.

Experts decided that the vaccine is safe for four days as long as it stays below 104 degrees.

While temperatures get higher than that in Africa, said Dr. Godwin Enwere, medical director for the Meningitis Vaccine Project, teams normally get the vaccine out of coolers at dawn, drive to villages and finish before the day heats up. Other experts said it should be kept in the shade and monitored with colored paper “dots” that darken after hours in the heat.

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DealBook: Ex-Trader Charged in $276 Million Insider Scheme

Federal prosecutors brought what they called “the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever charged,” filing a criminal case on Tuesday against a former trader at a unit of the hedge fund SAC Capital.

Mathew Martoma, a former trader at CR Intrinsic, a division of SAC Capital, was charged with making about $276 million in combined profits and avoided losses by obtaining confidential information about a drug trial for an Alzheimer’s drug developed by the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth.

The case is the latest to put the billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen and his hedge fund, SAC Capital, in the spotlight over insider trading crimes committed by former employees.

Mr. Martoma received the information from Sidney Gilman, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan, a leading expert in Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Gilman is cooperating with the government and has entered into a nonprosecution agreement with the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Mr. Gilman connected with Mr. Martoma through an expert network firm based in New York. Expert networks became popular on Wall Street in the last decade, linking Wall Street money managers to specialists in various industries to help give them an edge on their investments. Expert networks have been a focus of the government’s widespread crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds.

His consulting work at the expert network firm earned Mr. Gilman more than $100,000, according to a parallel civil complaint against Mr. Martoma and Mr. Gilman filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

According to the complaint, between 2006 and 2008, Mr. Martoma consulted with Mr. Gilman on dozens of occasions about the preliminary results of the drug trial and accumulated a roughly $700 million position in the stocks of Wyeth and Elan. Mr. Gilman was chairman of the safety committee overseeing the drug trial.

In June 2008, the complaint says, Mr. Martoma received secret information about negative data relating to the drug trials. After receiving that information, Mr. Martoma caused SAC Capital to sell its entire inventory of roughly 10.5 million shares in Elan and about 7 million shares of Wyeth before the public release of the data.

The day after the study was announced, Elan stock lost about 42 percent of its value and Wyeth dropped about 12 percent. The inside information allowed SAC Capital to make about $276 million in illegal gains.

Mr. Martoma left SAC Capital in 2010, according to a spokesman at the hedge fund. A lawyer for Mr. Martoma could not be reached immediately for comment.

In a statement, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney, said: “The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going – specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent. As alleged, by cultivating and corrupting a doctor with access to secret drug data, Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefited from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time.”

Mr. Martoma is the latest person to have worked at SAC to be ensnared in an insider trading investigation. Jon Horvath, a former technology industry analyst at SAC, pleaded guilty in September to participating in a conspiracy that illegally traded in the shares of Dell computer. His boss, the former portfolio manager Michael Steinberg, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator but has not been charged in the case. Mr. Steinberg’s lawyer, Barry Berke, declined to comment.

Last year, two former SAC portfolio managers – Donald Longueuil and Noah Freeman – admitted to trading on illegal tips about publicly traded technology companies. Mr. Longueuil is serving a two-and-a-half-year term at a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y.; Mr. Freeman, who is cooperating with prosecutors, has yet to be sentenced.

SAC CAPITAL UNDER A MICROSCOPE The firm has been under a cloud since a former employee, Richard Choo-Beng Lee, pleaded guilty in 2009 to insider trading and began helping the government in its investigation. The crimes he confessed to were committed after he left SAC, but he agreed to provide information about his five years at the firm, which ended in 2004.

NAMES	THE CASES
Jonathan Hollander	The former analyst paid more than $220,000 to settle civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing him of trading in his personal account on confidential information about the 2006 takeover of the Albertsons grocery store chain.
Jon Horvath and Michael Steinberg	Mr. Horvath, right, a former technology industry analyst, pleaded guilty in September to participating in a conspiracy that illegally traded in the shares of Dell computer. His boss, the former portfolio manager Mr. Steinberg, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator but has not been charged in the case. Federal prosecutors contend they were part of a seven-person conspiracy — a “circle of friends” — that earned about $62 million in illegal gains trading on secret tips from executives at publicly traded technology companies.
Donald Longueuil and Noah Freeman	The two former portfolio managers admitted in 2011 to trading on illegal tips about publicly traded technology companies. Mr. Longueuil, right, was swept up in a crackdown on so-called expert networks. He is one of roughly a dozen implicated in the case. Mr. Longueuil is serving a two-and-a-half-year jail term at a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y.; Mr. Freeman, who is cooperating with prosecutors, has yet to be sentenced.
Mathew Martoma	The former trader at CR Intrinsic, a unit of the hedge fund, was charged with making about $276 million in combined profits and avoided losses by obtaining confidential information about a drug trial for an Alzheimer’s drug developed by the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth.

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An ethics debate over embryos on the cheap

Dr. Ernest Zeringue was looking for a niche in the cutthroat industry of fertility treatments.

He seized on price, a huge obstacle for many patients, and in late 2010 began advertising a deal at his Davis, Calif., clinic unheard of anywhere else: Pregnancy for $9,800 or your money back.

That's about half the price for in vitro fertilization at many other clinics, which do not include money-back guarantees. Typically, insurance coverage is limited and patients pay again and again until they give birth — or give up.

Those patients use their own eggs and sperm — or carefully select donors when necessary — and the two are combined in a petri dish to create a batch of embryos. Usually one or two are then transferred to the womb. Any embryos left over are the property of the customers.

Zeringue sharply cuts costs by creating a single batch of embryos from one egg donor and one sperm donor, then divvying it up among several patients. The clinic, not the customer, controls the embryos, typically making babies for three or four patients while paying just once for the donors and the laboratory work.

People buying this option from Zeringue must accept concessions: They have no genetic connection to their children, and those children will probably have full biological siblings born to other parents.

Inside the industry, Zeringue's strategy for making embryos on the cheap has spurred debate about the ethical boundaries of creating life.

"I am horrified by the thought of this," said Andrew Vorzimer, a Los Angeles fertility lawyer alarmed that a company — not would-be parents — controls embryos. "It is nothing short of the commodification of children."

Other experts say they see no problem with the arrangement, although the business model and the issues it raises are to be discussed at a meeting in January of the ethics committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Zeringue said the concerns are overblown.

Most of his customers have run out of money and patience by the time they come to his clinic, he said: "They're kind of at the end of the line."

::

Natosha Dukart and her husband, Brad, an oil field worker, spent more than $100,000 without producing a child. They ran up credit cards, flipped houses and moved four times to help finance round after round of IVF.

It was never clear if the problem was her eggs or his sperm.

After eight unsuccessful attempts, Natosha took to the Internet and found Zeringue's clinic, California IVF: Davis Fertility Center Inc., and its embryo program, California Conceptions. With no financial risk, there was nothing to lose.

"It was an easy choice," Natosha said.

She sent their photographs to the clinic and filled out a form saying they wanted a Caucasian baby. Two months later, they received a profile of an embryo the clinic had frozen in storage. Both donors had brown eyes and healthy family histories.

The Dukarts liked the description and this February traveled from their home near Calgary to Davis in an attempt to get Natosha pregnant.

"It was just as emotional as it was with our own embryos," she said.

Last month, at age 39, she gave birth to a healthy 7-pound girl with blue eyes and dark hair. The couple named her Milauna.

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