Fire at Hemet police site is probed for link to attacks

The blaze broke out about 2 a.m. Monday at a police shooting range. Since January there have been four incidents targeting gang task force officers and city property.

By David Kelly

April 13, 2010

Authorities are investigating whether an early morning fire Monday at a Hemet police shooting range was yet another attack on the department, which has been hit with repeated booby traps over the last three months.

The fire at the remote training facility off Warren Road broke out shortly after 2 a.m.

Much of the building was destroyed in the blaze.

"In light [of] the incidents involving our department over the past three months, we are investigating the possibility that this is related, but we will not speculate at this point until the investigators are able to complete their work," said Hemet Police Capt. Dave Brown.

Police have been on high alert after four attacks on the department and city property since January. The City Council is expected to vote Tuesday on a resolution to help fortify local buildings against assault.

The first attempted attack came on New Year's Day when someone scaled the offices of the Hemet-San Jacinto Valley Gang Task Force and redirected natural gas lines inside the building in hopes of causing an explosion. It didn't work.

Next, a homemade firearm was rigged to go off when gang officers opened the gate to their parking lot. The bullet narrowly missed an officer.

The third incident involved what police said was a deadly device affixed to the bottom of an unmarked police car.

The device fell off before it could activate.

On March 22 someone threatened to burn a police car, and the next day four code-enforcement trucks were torched behind City Hall.

The council resolution, if approved, would declare an emergency so that fences, barriers, security glass and other defensive measures could be installed more quickly without the need for a lengthy bidding process.

The resolution cites law enforcement intelligence as saying city-owned buildings are likely targets in the future. Topping the list is the Police Department, which already has closed off some sidewalks around the building and increased surveillance of the area.

"Intelligence reports indicate that the police facility is the likely focus of future criminal acts," Brown wrote in a memo to council members. "Immediate action is required to harden these facilities."

Police formally have named no suspects in the attacks, though they suspect that they are the work of gang members upset over crackdowns in the last few months.

There is a $200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is behind the attacks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hemet-attack13-2010apr13,0,1822520,print.story

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More moving and shaking, but why?

The number of earthquakes greater than magnitude 4.0 in Southern California and Baja California has increased significantly in 2010. Scientists are studying the uptick but cannot fully explain it.

By Cara Mia DiMassa

April 12, 2010

If you've been feeling more shaking this year, it's not your imagination.

The number of earthquakes greater than magnitude 4.0 in Southern California and Baja California has increased significantly in 2010. There have been 70 such quakes so far this year, the most of any year in the last decade. And it's only April. There were 30 in 2009 and 29 in 2008.

Seismologists said they are studying the uptick but cannot fully explain it. Major earthquakes tend to occur in cycles, and experts have said the region in recent years has been in a quiet cycle when it comes to sizable temblors.

The string of quakes this year raises the possibility that Southern California might again be entering a more active seismic period. Scientists said the increase does not mean the Big One is any more imminent, but it could mean more significant quakes are on the way.

Egill Hauksson, a geophysicist at Caltech, said the rate of quakes in the region is "probably . . . picking up again" after a relative lull that lasted more than a decade. "What it means is that we are going to have more earthquakes than in the average year. With more earthquakes, we're bound to have more bigger ones. But there are always fewer of those than the smaller ones."

Scientists, however, have not been able to identify reasons that fully explain the increase.

"We would like to be able to explain it," said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at Caltech. "But there's no real correlation with any cause."

Many of the earthquakes this year have been aftershocks to the 7.2 temblor that rattled the Mexicali area earlier this month. The border region had experienced a swarm of smaller quakes before the big one. And there have been more than 1,000 aftershocks, including more than a dozen that registered higher than 5.0.

The Mexicali quake was the region's largest in nearly two decades -- since the 7.3 Landers quake in the Mojave Desert in 1992. Despite their size, neither temblor did catastrophic damage because they occurred in relatively remote areas far from major population centers.

The Landers quake occurred during a particularly active seismic period in the Los Angeles area. Between 1987 and 1994, the region experienced five major quakes. In addition to Landers, there were the Whittier Narrows quake (which killed eight people), temblors in Big Bear and Joshua Tree, and the Northridge quake, which killed 57 people, injured 4,500 and caused about $40 billion in damage.

Beginning in the late 1990s, however, the number of memorably large quakes subsided. Experts are not sure about the reason for the cycles; they say one possibility is that the ups and downs are random. Another possibility: a "cascade effect" in which a quake on one fault changes the stresses on another.

"If that fault is ready to produce an earthquake anyway, it might do something. But it would have to be pretty close" for that to happen, Hutton said.

Earthquakes have been in the public consciousness this year after January's devastating temblor in Haiti, which killed tens of thousands and was followed weeks later by another destructive quake in Chile. That was followed by the Mexicali quake, which was larger than the one in Haiti but much less destructive.

Experts said there is no evidence the world is experiencing more large earthquakes. A quake the size of the one that hit Baja erupts somewhere on the planet roughly every three weeks, said David D. Jackson, a professor of geophysics at UCLA.

But the Chile and Haiti temblors occurred in heavily populated areas, so the damage was far greater -- and the attention they received much more intense -- than that caused by big quakes in more remote areas.

The Mexicali quake was centered in a less populated area, and Mexico has stronger building codes than Haiti, so the structural damage was much less.

After a quake strikes a populated area, "I guess it's easy to get the perception that a lot has happened because those are the ones you notice," Jackson said.

The public's awareness of quakes around the globe also has increased with technology. Individuals on Twitter, for example, often first hear about a major quake from fellow users.

And the details of earthquakes, including location and size, have been much better distributed through e-mail, blogs and Twitter feeds. Earthquakes in remote oceans, say, were once noted only by scientists at academic and government institutions. Now, quake enthusiasts can have the details of such a quake delivered to their cellphones minutes after it occurs.

In California, scientists say one of their biggest concerns remains the San Andreas fault, which has produced some of the state's largest earthquakes. Experts have said the San Andreas is overdue for a major event. State officials have also often noted that only about one in six Californians has , with the high cost and large deductibles deterring many homeowners from buying policies.

"As we are building along the San Andreas fault, our exposure to the shaking hazard increases," said Mark Benthien, director of communication, education and outreach for the Southern California Earthquake Center. "And the losses we get in earthquakes increase as well. That's part of the equation."

Hauksson, the Caltech geophysicist, said it's easy to read too much into the upsurge of quakes this year.

Though it comes after several more quiet years, he noted that it's not uncommon for one large quake to produce months -- if not years -- of increased seismic activity. So in that sense, 2010's quake pattern is fairly typical.

The 7.3 Landers quake was followed a few hours later by a 6.5 temblor in Big Bear. Scientists now believe those two quakes were related. And aftershocks from Landers continued for several years.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-quake13-2010apr13,0,5203905,print.story

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UCLA police release sketch of suspect in sexual assaults

Anyone with information regarding the attacks is asked to call detectives at (310) 825-9371.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Federal authorities thwart smuggling efforts by sea

Federal authorities thwarted three separate sea smuggling attempts from Friday through Sunday, arresting 21 illegal immigrants and four suspected smugglers, including a female U.S. citizen who had allegedly stashed five immigrants aboard a cabin-style vessel .

In the first incident Friday morning, federal agents arrested nine people who had apparently beached their panga boat near San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. A man suspected of being the driver for the group was also arrested, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Saturday morning, U.S. Border Patrol agents boarded a boat docking near San Diego's Mission Bay and arrested the driver, a female U.S. citizen, and five illegal immigrants from Mexico. On Sunday, agents intercepted a 24-foot Bayliner near San Diego's Ocean Beach with eight immigrants aboard. One member of the group was charged with alien smuggling.

The interdictions signal traffickers' continuing efforts to smuggle illegal immigrants into California by sea to avoid increased enforcement over land.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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State lawmaker proposes stricter penalties on sex offenders

People convicted of sex crimes against minors would face longer prison sentences and more time on parole with electronic monitoring under a proposal made Monday in response to the murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway.

The man charged with killing King was on parole after serving five years in prison for molesting a 13-year-old girl.

“We are standing here today because our precious daughter Chelsea has inspired us, and thousands of others, to galvanize together to create a law that denies a convicted sexual predator a second chance to harm or take the life of another child,” said Kelly King, Chelsea's mother. “Chelsea is our beacon.”

Kelly and Brent King joined Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R-San Diego) in announcing a bid to change existing laws governing sex offenses. Fletcher wants to establish a new penalty of a life sentence without the possibility of parole for forcible sex crimes against those younger than 18 when there are aggravating circumstances such as torture and "kidnapping that substantially increases risk of harm to the victim."

He also wants to increase the penalty from a minimum 15 years to at least 25 years for a forcible sex crime life that includes any one of several "minor" aggravating circumstances, including use of a weapon, simple kidnapping or drugging of the victim.

Fletcher also proposes that registered sex offenders be barred from visiting parks where children regularly gather without the offender first getting approval from a parole agent.

And the parole for a person convicted of a forcible sex crime against a minor would be increased from five to 10 years. Those convicted of such a crime against a child younger than 14 would face lifetime parole that included electronic monitoring of their location by parole officials, Fletcher said.

“Violent sexual predators that prey upon children cannot be rehabilitated, and with Chelsea's Law, we will have a criminal justice system that reflects this reality,'' the lawmaker said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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Why we should worry about political violence

In "American Homicide," a historian links homicide rates to the way people feel about their government.

Gregory Rodriguez

April 12, 2010

The recent spike in violent political rhetoric coupled with last week's arrest of two men who threatened the lives of two Democratic House members has a lot of commentators worried about a surge in domestic political terrorism.

Those fears are misplaced. Not because there won't be violence, but because politically inspired violence won't necessarily be aimed at politicians.

A few months ago, Ohio State University historian Randolph Roth published a groundbreaking book, "American Homicide," that offers something like a unified theory of why Americans kill each other at such a high rate and what can be done about it.

After meticulously tracing trends in violence and political power in the U.S. from colonial times to the present, Roth concludes that high homicide rates "are not determined by proximate causes such as poverty, drugs, unemployment, alcohol, race, or ethnicity, but by factors ... like the feelings that people have toward their government and the opportunities they have to earn respect without resorting to violence."

Roth's analysis in fact puts politics at the very root of the highest homicide rate of any First World democratic nation. He points to the Civil War as the genesis of even peacetime unrest. It was not simply a case of violence begetting violence. Rather, high homicide rates were the symptom of low overall political confidence. The Civil War, Roth says, was "a catastrophic failure in nation building," when a large percentage of the population lost faith in government and eyed their countrymen with distrust.

"Our high homicide rate started when we lost faith in ourselves and in each other," he says.

Conservative writers like to argue that distrust for government is part of our birthright as Americans. And they're right. It's built into the system and can be found in the writings of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. But there's a difference between distrust and disdain. The tradition of truly hating government began with the Civil War and a nation literally torn apart by contrasting visions and mores.

Roth essentially believes that that antagonism plays out today when elections leave half the nation feeling empowered and the other half feeling disenfranchised. The more people who feel empowered, the lower the homicide rate. If people feel their government shares their values and acts on their behalf, they have greater trust and confidence in their dealings with others. Conversely, those who feel out of power and mistrustful of government carry those attitudes into everyday relationships with murderous results.

As Roth sees it, even activists and politicians -- from the right or the left -- who sew bitter disdain for government are indirectly encouraging the mistrust that breeds violent behavior.

"The extent that people feel dispossessed affects how they deal with other people," Roth told me. "They carry that anger ... to a discussion in a tavern or a property dispute. That anger can cause us to lose our temper more quickly."

Roth's research compares the trends in "political trust" and murder statistics. For example, white homicide peaked in 1980, the final year of the Carter administration, when people angry over school busing, the Iran hostage crisis, and the defeat in Vietnam were uhappy in large enough numbers to bring white trust in government to its post-war low.

Does this suggest that Barack Obama's election will cause a shift in rates of violence? Absolutely. According to Roth, FBI data released in December bear that out. In the first six months of 2009, urban areas that Obama carried saw the steepest drop in the homicide rate since the mid-1990s.

During that period, the states with the largest percentage of counties that voted more heavily Republican in 2008 than they did in 2004 saw an 11% rise in homicide in cities of over 100,000 residents.

I asked Roth to speculate on what could happen if the right continued its violent rhetoric and didn't gain seats in November or 2012. He suggested looking back at the 1960s and 1970s, when left-wing activists were preaching their own disdain for government. As trust of government evaporated, the murder rate doubled.

As my grandmother would say, "God Bless America."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez12-2010apr12,0,6990799,print.column

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OPINION

Getting the state out of juvenile justice

Shifting responsibility for youth correctional facilities to the counties could cut the budget deficit and move young offenders out of a system that 'is broken almost everywhere you look.'

By Daniel Macallair

April 12, 2010

With California in the midst of the worst fiscal crisis in 80 years, most of us expect elected officials to be scouring the state budget for ways to cut all unnecessary spending. Few areas of state government are more suitable for elimination than the five state-run youth correctional facilities that comprise the old California Youth Authority, now called the Division of Juvenile Justice.

Yet despite recent reports by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, the Little Hoover Commission and the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice calling for the system's closure and the reallocation of its $322.7 million budget to other spending priorities, the state Legislature has taken no action.

Maintaining the five facilities is a waste of precious resources. Because the system is the subject of a lawsuit brought by the nonprofit Prison Law Office over the horrific conditions within the state's youth correctional facilities and the consent decree that resulted from it, the state spends an average of $228,715 a year for each of the 1,400 youths in its custody. Acknowledging the system's failures, the Schwarzenegger administration agreed to try to restructure it by changing the management organization, reducing the institutional population and infusing it with more resources for rehabilitation.

In spite of this enormous expense, there is little evidence that youths are being well served. Those committed to these state-run facilities enter a world in which gang membership is considered necessary for survival. Those who are not gang-affiliated when they enter the system become gang members soon after arrival to avoid isolation and exploitation.

The deplorable conditions led one team of neutral court-appointed correctional experts to conclude in March 2006 that the system "is broken almost everywhere you look."

The reality of pervasive violence and scant rehabilitation was fully acknowledged by the Schwarzenegger administration when it agreed to fix the problems and entered into the consent decree in November 2004.

Along with their limited public safety value, four of the five state-run institutions are more than 40 years old and in a state of near collapse. State officials and independent experts estimate that California will need to spend nearly $265 million for capital improvements and necessary repairs to "obsolete and decrepit facilities." The state has allocated only $15 million for these purposes, and that figure does not include the building of any new facilities. Since the state has agreed that replacing the facilities is necessary to comply with the current lawsuit, Californians will have to invest more than $1 billion more for new construction.

Retaining the state-run youth corrections system is no longer necessary because the requisite institutional facilities now exist at the county level. Over the last 12 years the state and federal governments invested millions of dollars to expand and modernize county juvenile justice facilities across the state. According to the reports from the Legislative Analyst's Office and the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, California counties now have 2,000 to 3,000 surplus high- and medium-security institutional beds that could more than absorb the majority of the youths remaining in state facilities at less than half the cost.

There are several benefits to closing the state youth institutions. It would eliminate the state's financial obligations under the lawsuit, since there would no longer be a system for the state to maintain.

Taking just half of the Division of Juvenile Justice budget would provide unprecedented additional resources to county probation systems, which already handle 99% of California's juvenile justice cases. The additional resources would allay county concerns about handling the youths now confined in state facilities, most of whom would become the counties' responsibility.

The change would end the disparity that exists between counties in their reliance on state correctional institutions. The decision to send youths to state facilities is often more a function of county politics and practices than the crime committed. Many counties have high-performing juvenile justice systems that send few youths to the state, but other counties do not. Taking away the option of committing youths to state institutions would spur innovation and better practices statewide.

Finally, the approximately 1,500 staffers in the youth correctional facilities can easily be absorbed into the adult corrections system, relieving the chronic understaffing in prisons and actually saving money by reducing overtime costs.

The state can no longer afford to prop up a failed system that will continue to drain the California treasury to the detriment of other spending priorities, especially when a viable alternative exists.

Daniel Macallair is executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and serves on the faculty of the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University. He served on the Little Hoover Commission state advisory panel on reforming California's youth corrections system.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-macallair12-2010apr12,0,871771,print.story

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From the Daily News

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California taxpayers missing out on more than $1 billion

WHAT if I were to tell you that, each year, we stand idly by while one billion dollars sits in vaults in Washington, D.C. - money that is meant for households across California, but is never claimed? That each year, 1 billion dollars earmarked directly to California families, in allocations ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, remain unclaimed and out of the pockets of our workers?

Every year, 20 to 25 percent of eligible people and families don't claim the Earned Income Tax Credit. In California that amounts to 800,000 households losing out on 1.2 billion dollars of unclaimed tax money, according to a recent report by the New America Foundation. In fact, Los Angeles County is at the epicenter of this crisis, with a quarter million eligible EITC filers who are missing out on $370 million.

This is money that is not getting into the hands of families who are struggling to make ends meet and not going into the California economy, where it will be recycled two to three times over.

The EITC is a refundable tax credit for workers who make low wages. The credit relieves much of the federal tax burden for low-income earners, especially those with dependent children. This year, the credit is more important than ever, as President Barack Obama has made tax relief a central focus of his economic recovery plan. In fact, almost one-third of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars are targeted for some type of tax relief.

These thousands of dollars could make the difference between a family being able to cover their rent or going homeless, the difference between affording health insurance or going without or just being able to feel more secure about providing for their family.

The Earned Income Tax Credit is money promised to our citizens by the federal government - they've earned it. But unless we act boldly, it is estimated that this year we will once again lose over one billion dollars in EITC money because so many taxpayers do not know they are eligible for this credit.

The city, county, state and many nonprofits have outreach programs to inform our communities of the EITC. This is important work, and something that we must keep up and work to increase. However, we also must think bigger.

Two years ago, New York City's Department of Finance took the then-radical step of deciding to outreach aggressively to those who forgot to claim the EITC. They did this by using their tax information to pre-fill forms that were sent to those who were eligible, but did not claim the EITC, asking them only to sign and mail the forms. As a direct result, they netted more than $14 million additional EITC dollars for New York City residents who had previously filed their taxes, but failed to claim the credit. And they did this for the cost of only a few hundred thousand dollars - a great return on their investment.

Encouraged by the city program, the state of New York followed suit.

In November, as chairman of the Los Angeles City Council Jobs and Business Development Committee, I held a hearing with the assistant finance commissioner of New York, the area director of the Internal Revenue Service, and others to discuss how we can bring a similar plan to California. Unfortunately, because we do not have a city income tax like New York City, we cannot use the exact model.

However, with the help of the State Franchise Tax Board, we could replicate a similar program that, for a very small cost, could put hundreds of millions of dollars back into our economy.

We must make a strong commitment to ensure our taxpayers are receiving the full amount of taxes to which they're entitled. An aggressive EITC program in the state will not only help working families, but it will help the California economy and ensure that President Obama's plan for economic recovery is fully actualized.

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_14870783

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L.A. preparing for nuclear attack

As world leaders gathered Monday in Washington, D.C., to discuss the threat of nuclear terrorism, local officials said they are gearing up for an exercise in June that simulates the detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear device in Los Angeles.

Mike Contreras, director of emergency operations for the county Department of Public Health, said the county and city are preparing for "Golden Phoenix" to test the ability of police, fire and other agencies to respond to a catastrophic incident.

"We in Los Angeles County are working hard to try to prepare for such an event and have a response in place," Contreras said. "This exercise, Golden Phoenix, is really our first step in taking a look at this problem and seeing what kinds of things we need to do to be ready for this."

The exercise, involving emergency operations officials from cities countywide, will give local agencies a chance to learn when it's necessary to evacuate areas of the Los Angeles basin that are not affected by initial radioactive fallout.

After the detonation of a nuclear bomb, the wind would carry the plume in a certain direction. Through the exercise, officials hope to learn how to best notify the public of whether to evacuate or to shelter in place.

"We're working to see what tactics we would need to apply to save lives," Contreras said. "That's the big thing - looking at it from the perspective of `It's a catastrophic event and what can we do to minimize the impact'."

The exercise comes as President Obama meets with world leaders through today for the first-ever Nuclear Security Summit to focus securing nuclear weapons and related raw materials worldwide to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.

President Obama has labeled nuclear terrorism a "threat that rises above all others in urgency."

A report issued Monday by Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs predicted that unless the world acts with great urgency there is a greater than 50 percent chance that terrorists will use a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world by 2013. The report noted that al Qaeda has threatened to kill 4 million Americans and has sought nuclear weapons for more than a decade.

Michael Intriligator, a terrorism expert and a professor of economics, political science and public policy at UCLA, said al Qaeda has named Los Angeles as one of its top two targets. Intriligator said the detonation of an improvised nuclear device at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports could kill 1 million people and cripple the nation's economy.

"They are trying to outdo 9-11," Intriligator said. "They are looking for weapons of mass destruction - whether it's nuclear, chemical or biological - that would be more spectacular and kill more people than 9-11."

Sheriff's Department Sgt. Scott Anger, a terrorist expert, said local, state and federal officials in Los Angeles are working on plans and taking steps to try to prevent terrorists from ever using a weapon of mass destruction here.

"To that end, we do have radiological as well as nuclear detection capability and interdiction capabilities," Anger said.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14870647

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From the New York Times

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Op-Ed Contributor

What We Learned From H1N1's First Year

Richmond, Va.

ONE year ago today, a government worker in Oaxaca, Mexico, became the first person to die of swine flu. At the bedsides of other men and women struggling to stay alive in Mexican critical care units, we clinicians noticed early on that this novel H1N1 flu virus diverged from influenza's usual pattern of activity in striking ways. It began in the Northern Hemisphere, not in Asia, and in mid-spring, not late fall or winter. It also had a worrying predilection for children and young adults, not the elderly and newborns.

In the months after those first deaths, the virus ignited a global pandemic. While the epidemic never became as deadly as we initially feared, it was not as mild as some experts now believe. What's more, it exposed some serious shortcomings in the world's public health response.

Those who now describe the pandemic as mild base their conclusion primarily on what, at first, seems like a mortality rate in the United States similar to those seen after seasonal influenza. But my colleagues in developing countries would strongly object.

Though we lack reliable death rates from country to country, certainly no one who helped care for the large number of critically ill patients in Mexico could conclude that the flu in the United States was as severe as in developing countries that lacked our resources.

Here, the vaccine arrived later than estimated, and only about 80 million Americans received it — not nearly enough, but a far higher proportion of the population than in many developing countries. In fact, only 26 of 94 poor countries in need of the protective H1N1 vaccine have even received it so far.

We also cannot count as mild any virus that was so devastating for young adults, along with pregnant women, obese patients and minorities.

Worse yet, this virus made itself particularly hard for clinicians to identify. Whereas doctors associate fever and cough with outbreaks of influenza, one-third of patients admitted to hospitals and up to half of infected outpatients in this pandemic had no fever, yet they were infectious.

And because it is likely that only patients with fever were tested for the presence of the virus, we greatly underestimated the number of people infected. A telling report from Britain showed that when children were tested in cross sectional surveys after the first wave of infection, one in three had antibodies to the virus, meaning that they had been infected — this was 10 times more people than estimated from clinical surveillance.

H1N1 posed huge infection-control problems, especially in hospitals. This was because it was found not only on hard surfaces in the environment, which is common to all influenza strains, but in the stool of patients, a feature of avian influenza.

Public health groups emphasized the necessity of frequent hand-washing, which surely helped reduce transmission. But those groups also disagreed on other preventatives: for instance, the World Health Organization and Society for Health Care Epidemiologists of America recommended the relatively inexpensive surgical mask, whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argued for the N-95 respirator mask.

In our own country, the virus struck at a time when Americans seemed particularly skeptical about our government and large institutions. The C.D.C. faced an uphill battle to characterize the trajectory of the pandemic, to define its impact, to offer suggestions and to convince a wary public to get vaccinated.

At times, health officials erred in their recommendations. C.D.C. authorities often said that ill children and adults could go back to school or work 24 hours after their fever disappeared — even though young children are contagious for up to three weeks and adults for 5 to 7 days.

It is not an easy task, but our public health authorities need to become clearer about the lexicon of uncertainty — what they know and don't know about a pandemic. They also need to be transparent about how they devise their recommendations, which often have to balance between infection control and the daily activities of offices and schools. And we need to identify which social distancing techniques truly help control pandemics — for example, does the closing of schools and malls minimize the spread of viruses from infected children to adults?

One year after its appearance, we continue to have many unanswered questions about the virus. Will the novel H1N1 agent become a persistent seasonal virus? Can we produce vaccine more quickly by moving to a cell-based rather than egg-based method? Can we possibly identify the Holy Grail of influenza vaccination, finding a virus target common to all influenza A strains so that we can administer a single vaccination at 10-year intervals?

Even as we work to solve these enigmas, we can try to prepare better for future pandemics. First, we need to approach disease control not as individual nations, but as a global community. In this, Mexico has already set an excellent example. Only 10 days passed between Mexican health authorities' recognition of a possible new epidemic and their announcement of it, a sharp contrast to the many months in 2003 between the outbreak of SARS in China and its public declaration.

Mexico's transparency was a policy decision made with full recognition of the unfavorable economic consequences from H1N1, now estimated to have cost almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product. Thanks to that decision, we had an edge in fighting this virus. We should find ways to financially reward early reporting of novel infectious agents, while doing a better job of sharing resources and agreeing on common containment strategies.

Second, we should rely not just on governments for reporting but on the cooperative efforts of international health organizations as well. These groups should set up better sentinel reporting systems in places where new swine or avian variants are most likely to occur — wherever people and pigs or birds live closely together — so that they can identify new virus progeny quickly.

Eventually, we'll also need to encourage farmers in developing countries to follow agricultural and safety practices that make it less likely that viruses will jump species.

One predicts influenza at his own peril, but it is likely that H1N1 will continue to cause sporadic cases. In some highly susceptible, unvaccinated populations it may even produce local outbreaks.

But the struggle between people and pathogens is a part of life itself. We cannot continue to be surprised every time a new virus emerges. Instead, we must use the lessons we've learned during the year since H1N1 arrived to develop more effective public health responses.

Richard P. Wenzel is a professor of internal medicine and a specialist in infectious diseases at Virginia Commonwealth University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/opinion/13wenzel.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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Deaths Draw Attention to Dangers of Oil Tanks

CARNES, Miss. — When an oil tank exploded on a neighboring property early on the morning of Halloween last year, Phillip White immediately raced through his house, checking on his family's safety. But he could not find his 18-year-old son, Wade.

Outside, Mr. White found the family's pickup truck parked in the driveway next door, a forest fire on the property — and then, near the site of the explosion, the bodies of Wade and another teenager, Devon Byrd.

Investigators could not officially identify the cause of the explosion, but a cigarette lighter was found at the site. Local teenagers told the police that the unfenced, unguarded property and other oil tank sites were popular hangouts for partying, shooting deer, riding four-wheelers and smoking cigarettes.

In the months since the explosion, this tiny, oil-producing town in southern Mississippi has turned its attention to raising public awareness and lobbying for stricter safety regulations at oil tank sites. In the past 27 years, 42 teenagers and young adults have died in oil tank explosions across the country, mostly in rural areas in the South and the West, according to the United States Chemical Safety Board , a federal agency.

The accidents usually happen when a spark — from a cigarette, a firework or a gun — meets the oil and natural gas vapors released through a hatch in a tank's roof. The ensuing explosions are so violent that victims' bodies are often thrown up to 200 feet from the tanks.

“We can't do anything to bring my son back,” Wade's mother, Wanda White, said tearfully, standing near the site of the accident. “But hopefully we can save somebody else's.”

There are few local and state regulations, and no federal laws, to require basic safety precautions like fences or warning signs around oil tanks. The American Petroleum Institute , an industry association, said it has many rules about worker safety at tank sites but could not identify regulations intended to keep the general public off the sites.

In Carnes, the explosion occurred within sight of the Whites' house, at a clearing in the woods. Mississippi has no laws governing security at tank sites, state lawmakers said. But because of the accident, State Senator Billy Hudson plans to introduce a bill requiring tank owners to erect fences and warning signs.

For now, the accident has served primarily to raise public awareness. On Tuesday in Hattiesburg, Miss., the Chemical Safety Board will release a documentary video that defies the stuffy conventions of government safety videos. Titled “No Place to Hang Out: The Danger of Oil Sites,” the 11-minute film, which the board hopes to incorporate into physical science classes in rural schools across the country, features area high school students asking law enforcement officials tough questions about the danger of the sites.

“Two people who were very close to me and the ones I love died in an instant,” Shawn-Ashlee Davis, an 18-year-old classmate of Mr. White and Mr. Byrd, says at the video's opening. “Why? How? We wanted answers, we wanted the truth, and now we want to make a difference.”

Cody Hunt, an 18-year-old junior, adds: “When we go hang out at an oil site, a bunch of friends and I would usually get a pack of cigarettes and talk about what's been going on through the week. It's like our own little sanctuary where we could be away from everybody.”

In interviews, many teenagers here in Forrest County acknowledged going to the dozens of oil tanks in the area on weekends, to shoot deer from the roof or jump off the ledge into mud pits. Most said they did not think twice about the risks before the explosion.

Judging by the long history of similar accidents, they were not alone. In 2006, a 14-year-old boy was killed in Springtown, Tex., after dropping a piece of burning paper inside an active tank. The next year, three teenagers were killed in an explosion in Mercedes, Tex., and a cigarette lighter was blamed. The next month, two young adults were killed at a party in a Colorado national forest after jumping on top of a tank.

“These tanks are just the tallest, most interesting things in the middle of nowhere, and so kids go there,” said Anton Riecher, the editor of Industrial Fire World, a fire safety magazine. “They invite boredom.”

The families of Mr. White and Mr. Byrd, 16, are suing the tank's owner, Delphi Oil; the property's caretaker, Red Horse Pumping Service; and the president of the pumping service, John Lowe. The Whites' lawsuit seeks $5 million for emotional and punitive damages.

Lawyers for the defendants deny their clients' liability . “These young men were trespassers on the property,” said L. Clark Hicks Jr., the lawyer for Red Horse and Mr. Lowe. “Their actions were the ones that were responsible for the unfortunate explosion.”

A spokesman for Delphi , which is based in Baton Rouge, La., did not respond to requests for an interview but said questions about safety regulations should be directed to the Mississippi Legislature.

Mr. Byrd was buried in his football jersey, and Mr. White's body was driven to the cemetery in his truck while friends played the Hank Williams Jr. song “A Country Boy Can Survive.”

For Phillip White, Wade's father, that painful moment was made worse because Delphi began drilling at another nearby well that morning. So after burying his son, Mr. White walked to the drill and posted an acerbic sign: “Thank you Delphi Oil for showing your respect.”

This winter, he sold his house to move farther from the site of the explosion. “That tank was something I never thought about when I lived next door,” he said. “But after this happened, I couldn't come or go without looking down there — it was just too close.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/us/13tank.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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Expanding the Effort to Achieve Nuclear Security

Last week saw marked progress on one of the President's key long-term foreign policy objectives to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and to secure vulnerable nuclear materials.  On April 8th, President Obama signed the New START Treaty  which will require the United States and Russia to reduce -- by 30 percent below the levels in a treaty signed in 2002 -- the number of nuclear warheads they have deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based ballistic missiles, and bombers.  A year in the making, this treaty marked an important step towards the goal of eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons to humanity, a goal the President recognizes may not be reached in his lifetime but which will never happen if we do not strive for it.  The New Start Treaty was signed two days after the Department of Defense released the new  Nuclear Posture Review , which establishes as a goal of America's foreign policy "to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and focus on reducing the nuclear dangers of the 21st century, while sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent for the United States and our allies and partners as long as nuclear weapons exist," as the President put it in his statement.

This morning the President arrived at the Nuclear Security Summit with leaders from around the world to pursue a comprehensive nuclear security agenda to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world within four years. As Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes explained in previewing the summit , "Obviously no one nation is capable of taking the actions necessary to secure vulnerable nuclear materials that are in many different countries and in many different regions of the world.  Similarly, no one nation is capable of pursuing the kind of nuclear security measures that can prevent the transit, illicit transit, of those types of materials."  The summit will focus on collective action to achieve these goals, and as the largest gathering of countries by an American President dedicated to a specific issue in decades, it represents a recognition by the President and so many other leaders of the seriousness of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism.

The work of the summit began yesterday with a number of bilateral meetings, with more scheduled today with King Abdullah of Jordan, Prime Minister Mohamed Najib Abdul Razak of Malaysia, President Serzh Sargsian of Armenia, and President Hu Jintao of China.  The President will welcome each head of delegation late this afternoon, and the summit will begin in earnest with a working dinner tonight to be followed with much more tomorrow. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/04/12/effort-achieve-nuclear-security-0

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Secretary Napolitano Announces Enhancements to Protect Federal Facilities

April 12, 2010

New ISC Standards and Improved Information Sharing for FPS Will Strengthen Security

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced two enhancements to federal facility security—initiatives that further strengthen the Department's ability to protect thousands of government buildings across the United States one week prior to the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The DHS-led Interagency Security Committee (ISC) released new standards establishing baseline physical security measures for all federal buildings and facilities—bolstering protection against terrorist attacks and other threats based on ongoing risk assessments.

“Protecting our federal facilities against evolving threats requires setting and implementing robust, risk-based security standards,” said Secretary Napolitano. “These standards leverage over a decade of collaboration and research by experts across the federal government to establish adaptable security measures that will better secure our federal infrastructure.”

ISC was created on Oct. 19, 1995—six months after the Oklahoma City bombing—to enhance the quality and effectiveness of efforts to secure and protect the more than 300,000 civilian federal facilities across the United States. The committee, led by the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection, includes high-level security representation from 45 federal agencies.

The standards announced today include the Physical Security Criteria for Federal Facilities , which establishes comprehensive standards to address site, structural, interior and system security, as well as security operations and administration; and the Design-Basis Threat Report , designed to inform these customizable standards with current threat-based intelligence.

The Physical Security Criteria for Federal Facilities also provides for the customization of security measures to address unique risks at every U.S. building and facility occupied by federal employees for non-military activities—ensuring the flexibility necessary to adapt to the circumstances surrounding individual facilities.

The Design-Basis Threat Report complements the Physical Security Criteria for Federal Facilities by utilizing timely and reliable intelligence information, Intelligence Community reports and assessments, and current crime statistics to help calculate estimated risks to federal facilities and appropriate levels of protection.

The new standards will undergo a 24-month validation period of field testing and implementation by the federal security community. The ISC will publish final editions of the standards following this period.

The Physical Security Criteria for Federal Facilities supersedes physical security standards in the ISC Security Standards for Leased Space , ISC Design Criteria for New Federal Office Buildings and Major Modernization Projects , and the 1995 DOJ Report .

In addition, DHS' Federal Protective Service (FPS) today announced the next deployment phase for the new Risk Assessment and Management Program (RAMP)—a computer-based tool that enhances access for FPS Inspectors to information about security threats and risks associated with more than 9,000 facilities owned and leased by the General Services Administration (GSA).

“Our Inspectors and Protective Security Officers provide law enforcement and security services to more than one million tenants and daily visitors to GSA-owned and leased federal facilities throughout the United States,” said FPS Director Gary W. Schenkel. “RAMP makes our work processes more efficient by reducing the time FPS Inspectors spend on repetitive, manual tasks and allowing them to focus on threat awareness and customer service.”

RAMP is a secure and comprehensive computer-based tool developed by FPS to improve and standardize collection and management of information at every step of the federal facility security planning and oversight process. The system allows FPS Inspectors to access, review, revise and upload facility information using ruggedized mobile computers on a single platform and produce complete reports at any time and location.

A critical component of RAMP's development was a series of town hall meetings between the FPS workforce and leadership, which provided a forum for FPS personnel and stakeholders to assess the effectiveness of the program in the field, provide recommendations to improve RAMP, and lay the groundwork for additional enhancements to future iterations of the program.

To date, 750 rugged mobile computers have been issued for field operations; more than 56,000 documents, images and other files related to federal facility protection have been entered into RAMP; and more than 1,000 inspections have been conducted using the system.

For more information, please visit www.dhs.gov/isc or www.dhs.gov/fps .

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1271098574316.shtm

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From the Department of Justice

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Good afternoon, I invite you all to stand for the singing of the National Anthem by our own Rhea Walker from the Office of Justice Programs.

Thank you Rhea, and thank you all for joining us today. I am Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli and I want to welcome you this afternoon as we commemorate Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Today's event is part of our year-long effort to commemorate the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act. Without a doubt, VAWA never would have happened, from creation to passage, without the steadfast commitment and work of the countless advocates, coalitions and community partners who advocated tirelessly for federal legislation to mark the importance of this issue and to back it up with vital resources.  Many of you are in the room today. I applaud you for your work then and now to keep the momentum going. 

But I also know that sexual assault has not always been given the attention it deserves by the Department. I would be remiss if I did not point out that in the 15 years since the Department's Office on Violence Against Women was created, this is in fact the first Great Hall event recognizing this month. This is due in no small part to the leadership within this Department, and especially this Attorney General, to ensure that sexual assault survivors and victim service providers have a place – and a voice – in this Department. This Department of Justice and this Administration are committed to ensuring that sexual assault is fully elevated in importance in matters of policy and funding resources. 

As part of my job, I oversee our grant-making programs for state, local and tribal law enforcement.  That includes the the Office on Violence Against Women, which administers critical funding to victim service providers and programs across the country.  As I noted, last September September marked the 15 year anniversary of President Clinton signing VAWA into law.  As the date approached, it became clear that we needed to do more than a press release or event.  This was a moment in time for the Department and Administration to send a clear signal that the issue of violence against women is a priority.  That is why we at the Department launched a year-long initiative to raise public awareness, build stronger coalitions among federal, state, local and tribal communities, and redouble efforts to end sexual assault, domestic and dating violence, and stalking for men, women and children across the country.

But as we said from the beginning, this year is not merely a commemoration of an anniversary. It is a time to recommit ourselves to ending sexual and domestic violence. Our government and this Department have a responsibility to speak out and act on issues of violence against women. Far too many communities in the United States and around the world are affected by this issue and it must stop. One of the messages that we have sought to carry throughout the 15th anniversary of VAWA is that sexual and domestic violence are not just issues for the victim, or his or her family. They are everyone's problem.  It cannot be the work of the Department of Justice alone, or the criminal justice system, or state government.  Leaders at all levels in the public and private sectors and each community must take an active role in defining their response to sexual assault and domestic violence. Communities must do a better job of educating themselves about the motives behind domestic and sexual violence, the prevalence of rape, the need for services and support to victims, and the necessary criminal justice response to these crimes.

We are committed to this cause and will work with state, local and tribal partners to ensure that all communities – particularly those that have been chronically neglected – are given the resources and support they need. This includes as a priority dealing with the prevalence of sexual violence in tribal communities, which has had a devastating affect on families for generations. 

I have said that I believe that we are at a critical point to make a real and significant difference on this issue. And for me, that has been marked this year by a number of “firsts.” Our Great Hall event is only one of a number of “firsts” we have taken to elevate the issue of sexual assault and violence against women. 

Our first-ever public awareness campaign has created new alliances and partnerships, and engaged nearly every Justice Department official and U.S. Attorney. For the first time, we have reached out to celebrities, including more than 100 sports figures, musicians and actors in a “Join the List” campaign to help raise awareness through popular culture.

For the first time last month, the Department launched a nationwide college campus tour by top department officials to raise awareness of violence against women and especially the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. Throughout the month of March, nine members of the Department's leadership – including myself – visited 11 universities around the nation, including public, private and faith-based institutions, a Historically Black College and University and East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, home to the Choctaw Nation. I know not all of these officials were able to join us today, but I'd like to ask those who have to please stand and be recognized.

This is an issue I personally care deeply about, and I have been so impressed to see and hear from so many other administration officials about their level of commitment. Looking out in the audience today, I know that many of you may hear things in our program for the first time and be confronted with alarming realities that others in the audience deal with on a daily basis. That we are all here together, joined by the Attorney General, is a testament to the fact that this issue is about every single one of us. And with that, I'd like to introduce the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder.

[Attorney General speaks]

Thank you Mr. Attorney General. Your leadership and support in our efforts to raise the profile and level of awareness on this issue have been absolutely critical to our work.

I'd like to share a few more “firsts” with you. As many of you know, President Obama became the first American President to proclaim April 2009 as National Sexual Assault Awareness Month, as he did again this year. The President has also undertaken an unprecedented effort in our nation's history to bring the concerns of women and girls to the forefront of U.S. government policies and decisions through the creation of the White House Council on Women Girls. The Council involves 23 cabinet-level agencies and the White House to ensure that all policies factor in how they affect women and girls.  We at the Department are an active partner in the Council, and we bring with us your stories, your concerns and your strategies as we look forward to elevate critical issues of sexual violence.

Last summer, the Vice President also announced the appointment of Lynn Rosenthal as the first-ever White House Advisor on Violence Against Women. Lynn is with us today, and I want to thank her for bringing the weight of the White House with her to the many VAWA events she has attended at the Department. Lynn has been at the table with us as we work to strengthen our partnerships with federal agencies such as the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and others. We know that only by working together and coordinating within the federal family, can we truly make a change across the country. 

That brings me to our next speaker. This is the first Great Hall event for our new Director of the Office on Violence Against Women.  We have been so excited to welcome Sue Carbon to the Department and to OVW.  Sue brings with her not only an impressive level of enthusiasm, but a wealth of knowledge from her years on bench.  I am so glad that Sue is here to help steer OVW's future. And with that, I give you Susan Carbon.

[Sue Carbon speaks]

But wait – I have more “firsts!” Under Catherine Pierce's leadership as Acting Director of OVW, the office created a new Sexual Assault Demonstration Project to enhance sexual assault services in primarily rural areas throughout the nation this year. This is the first-ever demonstration project that deals exclusively with providing sexual assault victim services. Demonstration initiatives have a special significance for OVW and the Department as a whole. They are generated by input from the field and are designed to respond to the needs of communities and find ways to strengthen their partnerships. In this case, the Sexual Assault Demonstration Initiative will enable an effective model program for dual service providers to provide comprehensive victim services to both victims of domestic and sexual violence. And most importantly, the Initiative will provide the most promising practices for replication and much-needed services to survivors throughout the country. 

As the Attorney General mentioned, Catherine has been with the Office on Violence Against Women since its creation. She has been an advocate, a leader, and a friend to me personally and to this department.  And while those of you in the field know what an asset she is to the sexual assault community, I want to take a minute to thank her for everything she has done to help us steer our year-long campaign, and to ensure that the sexual assault community has a front row seat at the table as we work to deal with issues around violence against women. May I introduce Catherine Pierce.

[Catherine Pierce speaks, survivor testimonials to follow]

I want to thank all of our presenters for having the strength to share your stories and help us understand the devastating impact that sexual assault has on men, women, boys and girls throughout the country.

I know this has been a hard journey for victims and advocates in the sexual assault community. I know how hard you all are still working – for funding, for recognition, and for a voice. Know that we are continuing efforts to ensure funding for grant programs while recognizing the challenges of our economic climate.  We at the Department share your vision where men, women, boys, girls and communities can live in a world without the fear of sexual violence. We are not done fighting for you and with you.

Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/asg/speeches/2010/asg-speech-100412.html

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Thank you, Tom [Perrelli].  I appreciate your kind words, and, more importantly, your outstanding leadership. Your talent for bringing people together has enabled this administration, and this Department, to deliver on last year's promise to address the causes and consequences of sexual assault with renewed focus, purpose, and urgency.

Of course, these achievements would not be possible without our Office on Violence Against Women , which leads the Justice Department's efforts to raise awareness about sexual assault and to combat these devastating crimes. Since opening its doors 15 years ago, OVW has awarded more than $3.5 billion in grants to some of our nation's most effective victim service providers and programs. This office has been instrumental in helping victims of sexual assault find assistance and empowering survivors to seek justice. It's also created a forum for providers and advocates from across the field to come together and to share cutting-edge research, best practices, and innovative strategies. to heal and empower survivors, to provide hope, to raise awareness, and to improve lives.

Catherine Pierce has been a part of this work from the start. Although she often says that she's witnessed the great progress OVW has made over the years, Catherine has actually helped lead this progress. I'm grateful to her, and I know that OVW's enthusiastic new director, Sue Carbon, looks forward to building on all that this office has achieved. As a former judge myself, I know that, after nearly two decades of service on the bench, Sue will bring a unique and insightful perspective to OVW's work. Her experience and expertise will allow the department to reach new communities, strengthen current partnerships and provide enhanced support for OVW grantees.

I'm glad that so many of our grantees are here with us today. We are honored to support the work you do

Let me also welcome our other special guests who have joined us to share their experiences facing and fighting sexual assault. Their courage inspires us all. And their stories illustrate – far better than I possibly could – the reasons why ending sexual assault must be a priority across this department, this administration and this nation.

We all know what we're up against. Our own research shows that nearly 19 million women and 3 million men have experienced at least one incident of sexual assault. Confronting this reality is difficult. It's often painful. But it's also important. Acknowledging and discussing the prevalence of sexual assault creates opportunities to act, to assist, to educate, and to collaborate.

We should all be encouraged by President Obama's historic commitment to shining a light on this problem and to seeking new pathways toward help, healing and justice. Many of you in this room made the commitment we celebrate, and the progress we've seen, possible. For years, you've given voice to this problem. You've stood up for victims in crisis and communities in need. And you've called for the resources – as well as the leadership – necessary to address and to end sexual assault.

The President's most recent budget is a testament to your efforts -- and to his focus on reversing current trends. For Fiscal Year 2011, an increase of nearly $30 million was requested for our Office on Violence Against Women. The budget doubles funding – from $15 million to $30 million – for our Sexual Assault Services Program, which provides crisis intervention, criminal justice advocacy and support during forensic exams. Funding for civil legal assistance for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault would be increased by $9 million. And, for the first time, the Office for Victims of Crime would set aside $100 million in funds specifically to address violence against women.

These investments are critical. And I will ensure that this department and our partners have the resources necessary to combat sexual assault and bring offenders to justice. This issue is deeply important to me. During a career spent as a prosecutor, a judge and a United States Attorney, I have seen the effects of sexual violence -- in the courtroom and far beyond. I understand how these crimes can devastate lives, families and communities. But I've never been more hopeful about our ability to make meaningful progress in ending sexual assault.

I know this progress won't come as easily or as quickly as we would like. But there's no question that this work is a priority for this administration and for this department. In fact, over the last two months, a dozen members of the department's leadership team have traveled to college campuses across the country to discuss the problem of sexual assault. Not only are they raising awareness about the problem, they're increasing our odds of eliminating it. I'm proud of this work, and I'm encouraged by the new investments we'll make this year. But I also recognize that the Justice Department can't tackle such a challenge on its own. The federal government can't either. Progress will depend on our ability to work together -- with those serving in the field and with our state, local, tribal and community partners.

I'm committed to this progress. I'm proud to count you all as partners in this work of prevention and healing. And I look forward to what we will accomplish together.

Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2010/ag-speech-100412.html

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