Stocks Open Lower on Wall Street

Stocks opened lower Monday on Wall Street as investors waited for another round of corporate earnings.

The early downturn came after the Dow Jones industrial average rose above 14,000 last week and the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index moved within 60 points of its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09.

In early trading Monday, the S.&P. 500 fell 0.6 percent, the Dow was off 0.7 percent and the Nasdaq composite was down 0.6 percent.

“We are coming off an economic data hangover from Friday and the market was on a bullish spree,” said Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at Lek Securities in New York. “This is an opportunity for investors to take advantage of the bull run.”

The Dow’s march above 14,000 was the highest since October 2007. The S.&P. 500 is up more than 6 percent for the year, with nearly half of the gains coming in the session after Congress successfully sidestepped the so-called fiscal cliff of tax increases and spending cuts that threatened to derail the economic recovery.

“With an early year run of better than 6 percent, investors are already behind in performance and pullbacks should be shallow and well contained, giving the underweighted investors the opportunity to move into equities,” Mr. Bakhos said.

Investors will look to December factory orders data Monday morning for signs of economic improvement. Economists in a Reuters survey expect a rise of 2.2 percent.

Economic data has pointed to a modest United States recovery, but the data has not been strong enough to upset investor expectations the Federal Reserve will continue its stimulus policy that has buoyed stocks.

Earnings are due from a number of companies including Yum! Brands, the owner of fast-food chains.

According to Thomson Reuters data, of the 239 companies in the S.&P. 500 that have reported earnings through Friday, 68 percent have reported earnings above analyst expectations compared with the 62 percent average since 1994 and the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

S.&P. 500 fourth-quarter earnings are expected to rise 3.8 percent, according to the data. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season, but well below the 9.9 percent fourth-quarter earnings forecast on Oct. 1.

European shares were off sharply in afternoon trading as a near-term risk of a technical sell-off and political uncertainty in the euro zone prompted a bout of profit taking with indexes hovering near multiyear highs. The FTSE 100 in London was off 1.2 percent, the DAX in Frankfurt was down 1.4 percent, and the CAC 40 in Paris declined 1.6 percent.

Asian shares climbed to 18-month highs after United States data showed some promise of a credible recovery but not strong enough to threaten the Federal Reserve’s easing plans, while momentum also gained on firmer manufacturing data from Europe and China.

Japan Airlines said it would talk to Boeing about compensation for the grounding of the 787 Dreamliner, adding that the idling of its jets would cost it nearly $8 million from its earnings through to the end of March.

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L.A. County removing metal detectors from some hospital facilities

It was typically chaotic in the emergency room at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center that February day in 1993. Richard May was treating patients in the triage area when a disgruntled man started ranting about the long wait. Then, without warning, the man pulled a gun and started shooting, hitting May in the head, chest and arm and seriously wounding two other doctors.

The carnage, coming after a series of violent incidents, prompted a wave of safety improvements, including the installation of metal detectors at hospital entrances, bulletproof enclosures in emergency rooms and the addition of more security guards.

Now, 20 years after the attack, officials want the metal detectors removed from parts of county hospitals to make them more welcoming to patients in the newly competitive marketplace being created by the Obama administration's healthcare overhaul. The machines in the emergency rooms will remain, but the others are to be taken out by summer. The proposal comes at a time when high-profile shootings have put the nation on edge and prompted emotionally charged debates about the availability of assault weapons and the presence of armed officers in schools.

The county's director of Health Services, Mitchell Katz, says metal detectors stigmatize poor patients and visitors and give the impression that the county facilities are dangerous. Security is paramount, but metal detectors aren't the best way to ensure that, he argues. Most other urban hospitals in L.A. County do not have the machines, relying on guards to provide safety, he said.

"It is a different moment to look and ask ourselves, 'What is the best way to do security?'" Katz said.

But the proposed changes have patients, nurses and doctors worried and are drawing opposition from law enforcement and union members.

May, 67, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, is among those asking administrators to reconsider. He works part-time at the county's Hudson Comprehensive Health Center south of downtown, where he says the metal detector gives patients and staff peace of mind.

"I feel angry, frustrated and resentful," he said of the proposal to remove the devices. "We wouldn't have been shot if they were there then."

Paul Kaszubowski, 64, another doctor shot in 1993, said the bullet shattered his arm and grazed his head. He still suffers problems with his arm and has occasional flashbacks. Removing the metal detectors doesn't make sense, he said. Providing compassionate and high-quality care is the best way to attract and retain patients, he said.

Beginning next year, uninsured patients will be eligible for Medi-Cal coverage and have more options outside of the county's healthcare system. That is driving safety-net hospitals to improve their customer service so they are no longer the providers of last resort.

But that push is running headlong into a record of violence at urban medical facilities, where healthcare workers are often the victims of assault. Hospitals are intrinsically high-risk places, and metal detectors can help prevent violent attacks, said Jane Lipscomb, a University of Maryland professor who has studied hospital safety.

The county's largest public hospital workers' union is trying to stop the removal of the scanners and sent a letter to Katz saying the action is a "huge decision" that could put patients and staff in harm's way.

Longtime County/USC nurse Sabrina Griffin, a union representative, vividly remembers the 1993 shooting and fears something similar could happen again if the screening equipment is removed. She particularly worries about gang retaliation spilling into the hospital after a shooting or stabbing.

"I just feel safer having the scanners," she said.

Sheriff's Department Capt. Chuck Stringham, who oversees security at the county healthcare facilities, said late Friday that the department is opposed to the wholesale removal of the metal detectors without another plan for weapons screening.

County hospitals mirror the crime and violence of surrounding communities, he said, and the scanners serve as the first line of defense — finding guns, knives, box cutters and other weapons.

The county removed the metal detector equipment from the outpatient building at County/USC in July, and no violent incidents have been reported there since doing so, according to the Sheriff's Department. By June 30, the county plans to remove 26 more machines from County/USC, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Olive View Medical Center and the Martin Luther King and Hudson centers.

Patients and visitors entering another County/USC facility last week emptied their pockets of cellphones, keys and wallets before stepping through the scanners. In a period of a few hours, guards confiscated two pocketknives.

Walter Johnson, 59, who had an eye appointment, said removing the machines is "crazy." "How would they know if anyone is coming in with a gun, or an AK-47, or a knife?" he said. "The minute you take these out, you are gonna give some idiot some excuse to do something."

Michelle Mendez, an ER nurse, said metal detectors are needed in the emergency room but not elsewhere. "I think [visitors] would feel more comfortable when visiting their loved ones, knowing we aren't so concerned about violence and crime and weapons," she said.

Tammy Duong, a medical resident in the psychiatric unit, said the machines can be intimidating. But she worries about what might happen without them.

"Just because it is a hospital," she said, "doesn't mean violence can't spill over."

anna.gorman@latimes.com

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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Wheatley Crater on Venus

Magellan radar image of Wheatley crater on Venus. This 72 km diameter crater shows a radar bright ejecta pattern and a generally flat floor with some rough raised areas and faulting. The crater is located in Asteria Regio at 16.6N,267E.

Image: NASA/GSFC [high-resolution]

Caption: NASA

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NBC News President Capus to leave network

(Reuters) – NBC News President Steve Capus will be leaving the network in the coming weeks after struggles at the unit, including lower ratings for its flagship morning TV show, “Today.”

No replacement has been named for Capus, president of NBC News since 2005, according to a company memo obtained by Reuters. In a statement, Capus said it was “now time to head in a new direction.”

Three sources close to NBC said his departure had been rumored around the halls after parent Comcast Corp reorganized the news division in July, bringing in Patricia Fili-Krushel to head the news unit’s business operations. After that change, these sources said, Capus’ departure became a matter of when, not if.

Prior to Comcast’s takeover, the three heads of NBC‘s news operations — Mark Hoffman at CNBC, Phil Griffin at MSNBC and Capus — all reported directly to Jeff Zucker, who was not only NBC’s chief executive but also well-versed in hard news.

“There was a natural flow to the news division under Zucker. They all spoke the same language,” said one of these sources. “No disrespect to Pat, but she’s not viewed as a news person.”

Indeed, both Capus and Zucker basically grew up with each other at NBC, spending about 20 years together at the network. Capus did not say what his next move would be. Zucker, the executive who promoted him seven years ago at NBC, is now the worldwide president of CNN, owned by Time Warner Inc.

The sources said it would not be a surprise if Capus eventually resurfaced in a new position under Zucker at CNN. Earlier this week, Mark Whitaker, the managing editor at CNN, announced his resignation to make room for Zucker to install his own team. Prior to his joining CNN, Whitaker worked at NBC News under both Capus and Zucker.

Fili-Krushel said in a memo to staff on Friday that until a replacement for Capus is found, NBC News will operate under an interim structure with various executives reporting to her. She will start the search for a successor in coming weeks, with Capus helping with the transition.

Two other sources said that the recent view internally has been that Antoine Sanfuentes, an executive who oversees NBC News‘ Washington bureau and the Sunday political talk program “Meet the Press,” was being groomed to replace Capus. Fili-Krushel said in her memo that Sanfuentes will report to her and serve as interim managing editor responsible for editorial decision-making.

The first three sources said they had expected Capus to announce his departure at the end of last year to coincide with the announcement that Jim Bell was leaving as executive producer of the “Today” show to assume the newly created role of full-time executive producer of the Olympics.

Ultimately, Capus decided to trigger his departure by exercising an “out” clause built into his most recent contract, according to one of the first three sources.

Capus commanded the loyalty of NBC News staff, particularly the on-air talent and producers, all of the five sources agreed. Some of the major news events he worked on included the September 11 attacks, the discovery of anthrax in the NBC newsroom, the death of Britain’s Princess Diana and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His resignation came as an unexpected blow to NBC News staff, despite the apparent grooming of Sanfuentes.

Savannah Guthrie, installed by Capus as “Today” show host after the departure of Ann Curry, tweeted on Friday that Capus was “a great leader and tireless advocate for NBC News” who will be missed.

NBC News made deep job cuts in 2006 after wider layoffs at the parent company. Rivals ABC News and CBS News have also made hundreds of layoffs in the past few years.

Capus said in his memo that he “tried to shield journalists from the tough economic pressures hoping that would give each of you the running room to focus solely on a commitment to outstanding journalism.”

RECENT STRUGGLES

NBC News has been the one part of the network’s news operations to show slippage in the last year. CNBC is far and away the leading business news network, as measured in ratings. MSNBC has not only surpassed CNN to become a strong No. 2 among general cable news networks, but has also closed the gap with long-time leader Fox News, owned by News Corp.

“Pat Fili-Krushel has a strong vision of the integration that is required to make the full array of NBC programming fire on all cylinders in unison. She also understands the need to complement both the owned station and Comcast cable group goals to leverage all to best advantage,” said Magid & Associates consultant Steve Ridge.

NBC News has ranked as the leader among network news broadcasts in both the morning and evening for much of Capus’ eight-year run as president. Two of the first three sources said he deserves credit for maintaining the “Today” show as the dominant morning news program, “NBC Nightly News” as the leading evening news broadcast, and “Meet the Press” as the marquee Sunday news program. But over the last year, Capus’ fiefdom has taken a few hits, most notably at the “Today” show.

NBC News, for example, was criticized for ousting Ann Curry as “Today” co-host after only one year.

The “Today” show has been in a back-and-forth ratings war with ABC’s “Good Morning America” ever since ABC snapped NBC’s 16-year unbeaten streak last year. “NBC Nightly News” is averaging 8.76 million total viewers, ahead of “ABC World News” and “CBS Evening News.” It has seen less ratings success with the news magazine “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” which debuted in 2011 and after being bounced around the schedule, will move to Friday nights on Feb 8.

NBC News also came under fire last spring when it decided to edit a call to police from George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin. The editing made it appear that Zimmerman told police, without being prompted, that Martin was black when, in fact, the full tape revealed that the neighborhood watch captain did so only when responding to a question posed by a dispatcher.

NBC has since been sued for defamation by Zimmerman.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Andrew Hay and Matthew Lewis)

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 3, 2013

An earlier version of a quote appearing with the home page presentation of this article misspelled the name of a medication. It is Adderall, not Aderall.

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Iceland, Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns

Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

"Greed is not a crime. But the question is: where does greed lead?" said Olafur Hauksson, a special prosecutor in Reykjavik.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — As chief of police in a tiny fishing town for 11 years, Olafur Hauksson developed what he thought was a basic understanding of the criminal mind. The typical lawbreaker, he said, recalling his many encounters with small-time criminals, “clearly knows that he crossed the line” and generally sees “the difference between right and wrong.”

Today, the burly, 48-year-old former policeman is struggling with a very different sort of suspect. Reassigned to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, to lead what has become one of the world’s most sweeping investigation into the bankers whose actions contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Hauksson now faces suspects who “are not aware of when they crossed the line” and “defend their actions every step of the way.”

With the global economy still struggling to recover from the financial maelstrom five years ago, governments around the world have been criticized for largely failing to punish the bankers who were responsible for the calamity. But even here in Iceland, a country of just 320,000 that has gone after financiers with far more vigor than the United States and other countries hit by the crisis, obtaining criminal convictions has proved devilishly difficult.

Public hostility toward bankers is so strong in Iceland that “it is easier to say you are dealing drugs than to say you’re a banker,” said Thorvaldur Sigurjonsson, the former head of trading for Kaupthing, a once high-flying bank that crumbled. He has been called in for questioning by Mr. Hauksson’s office but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Yet, in the four years since the Icelandic Parliament passed a law ordering the appointment of an unnamed special prosecutor to investigate those blamed for the country’s spectacular meltdown in 2008, only a handful of bankers have been convicted.

Ministers in a left-leaning coalition government elected after the crash agree that the wheels of justice have ground slowly, but they call for patience, explaining that the process must follow the law, not vengeful passions.

“We are not going after people just to satisfy public anger,” said Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, Iceland’s minister of industry, a former finance minister and leader of the Left-Green Movement that is part of the governing coalition.

Hordur Torfa, a popular singer-songwriter who helped organize protests that forced the previous conservative government to resign, acknowledged that “people are getting impatient” but said they needed to accept that “this is not the French Revolution. I don’t believe in taking bankers out and hanging them or shooting them.”

Others are less patient. “The whole process is far too slow,” said Thorarinn Einarsson, a left-wing activist. “It only shows that ‘banksters’ can get away with doing whatever they want.”

Mr. Hauksson, the special prosecutor, said he was frustrated by the slow pace but thought it vital that his office scrupulously follow legal procedure. “Revenge is not something we want as our main driver in this process. Our work must be proper today and be seen as proper in the future,” he said.

Part of the difficulty in prosecuting bankers, he said, is that the law is often unclear on what constitutes a criminal offense in high finance. “Greed is not a crime,” he noted. “But the question is: where does greed lead?”

Mr. Hauksson said it was often easy to show that bankers violated their own internal rules for lending and other activities, but “as in all cases involving theft or fraud, the most difficult thing is proving intent.”

And there are the bankers themselves. Those who have been brought in for questioning often bristle at being asked to account for their actions. “They are not used to being questioned. These people are not used to finding themselves in this situation,” Mr. Hauksson said. They also hire expensive lawyers.

The special prosecutor’s office initially had only five staff members but now has more than 100 investigators, lawyers and financial experts, and it has relocated to a big new office. It has opened about 100 cases, with more than 120 people now under investigation for possible crimes relating to an Icelandic financial sector that grew so big it dwarfed the rest of the economy.

To help ease Mr. Hauksson’s task, legislators amended the law to allow investigators easy access to confidential bank information, something that previously required a court order.

Parliament also voted to put the country’s prime minister at the time of the banking debacle on trial for negligence before a special tribunal. (A proposal to try his cabinet failed.) Mr. Hauksson was not involved in the case against the former leader, Geir H. Haarde, who last year was found guilty of failing to keep ministers properly informed about the 2008 crisis but was acquitted on more serious charges that could have resulted in a prison sentence.

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Doctor who admitted dealing drugs to get his license back

A West Hollywood psychiatrist who pleaded guilty to felony drug dealing after pills he prescribed turned up for sale on Craigslist will be able to get his medical license back in a year under an agreement announced Friday by the Medical Board of California.

The sanction, though harsh by board standards, allows Nathan Kuemmerle, 40, a former methamphetamine user, to treat patients again as soon as next February.

As a result of the criminal charges, Kuemmerle had lost his privilege to prescribe controlled substances and must apply to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration if he wants it restored. Kuemmerle agreed to undergo random drug testing, enroll in a physician ethics class and seek psychological counseling, among other conditions.

Kuemmerle was featured in a Dec. 30 Times report on the state's failure to use its vast prescription drug database to identify reckless prescribing by physicians.

In 2009, Kuemmerle was the state's most prolific prescriber of Adderall, a widely abused stimulant, records show. His prescribing drew scrutiny only after Redondo Beach narcotics detectives arrested a suspected drug dealer peddling Adderall pills on Craigslist. The suspect identified Kuemmerle as the source of the prescriptions.

Two months later, a second suspected drug dealer arrested in Arizona also pointed authorities to Kuemmerle. When drug agents checked the state's prescription drug database, known as CURES, they discovered that in 2009 Kuemmerle prescribed nearly four times as many of the highest-dose Adderall pills as the No. 2 doctor on the list, records show. Additionally, records show, he was the state's No. 2 prescriber of the most highly controlled narcotic painkillers.

Kuemmerle was arrested and pleaded guilty in 2011 to drug dealing and was sentenced to three years' probation.

Federal agents had alleged that Kuemmerle was selling prescriptions to people he had never seen, much less examined, records show. Kuemmerle wrote an average of 15 prescriptions per day for controlled substances over a four-year period, a figure a medical expert described as "remarkably high," records show.

Narcotics detectives said they were amazed that Kuemmerle was able to prescribe so many drugs undetected for so long, even though state authorities had access to a database that collected a record every time a pharmacy dispensed one.

Kuemmerle could not be reached for comment.

The types of drugs Kuemmerle prescribed are fueling an epidemic of overdose deaths that has drawn the attention of drug enforcement agencies, lawmakers and medical authorities. The response has largely focused on illicit sources of prescription drugs, such as pharmacy robberies and teens stealing from home medicine cabinets.

But a Times investigation of more than 3,700 prescription drug deaths in Southern California found that nearly half of the decedents had a doctor's prescription for one or more of the medications that caused or contributed to their deaths.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged states to mine prescription drug monitoring databases to identify and stop reckless prescribers. At least six states do so. California does not.

lisa.girion@latimes.com

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The World's Tweets Light Up the Globe in Stunning Live Visualization

It’s simple, but lovely. Web designer Franck Ernewein‘s real-time Twitter visualization, Tweetping, drops a bright pixel at the location of every tweet in the world, starting as soon as you open the page.

The result is a constantly changing image that grows to look like a nighttime satellite shot, bright spots swarming over the most developed areas. But Ernewein has packaged it all in a subtly interactive visualization that avoids distracting the viewer while still imparting a great amount of information.

Meanwhile, a selection of tweets are projected, along with latest hashtags and mentions, all while tracking total tweets, words, and characters. The length of the two gray lines on the display represent the number of characters and words in each tweet.

Though it’s one of the most beautiful, Tweetping is far from the first to display geotagged tweet information; coders have built sites to display election tweets, adjustable parameter maps, and even 3-D visualizations.

Tweetping even represents Antarctica, but not the ISS. And there’s no pause button; like Twitter itself, Tweetping’s data accrues incessantly; there’s no off switch but the back button.

Nathan Hurst is learning how to make some things, knows how to fix some others, and is already pretty good at breaking everything else. He has written for Outside and Wired, traveled in Africa, and tweets as @NathanBHurst.

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Washington wins 3 trophies at NAACP Image Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kerry Washington was a triple threat at the NAACP Image Awards.

The star of ABC’s “Scandal” picked up a trio of trophies at the 44th annual ceremony: outstanding actress in a drama series for “Scandal,” supporting actress in a motion picture for “Django Unchained” and the President’s Award, which is given in recognition of special achievement and exceptional public service.

“This award does not belong to me,” said Washington, who plays a slave separated from her husband in “Django Unchained,” as she picked up her first trophy of the evening for her role in the film directed by Quentin Tarantino. “It belongs to our ancestors. We shot this film on a slave plantation, and they were with us along every step of the way.”

Washington, who plays crisis management consultant Olivia Pope on “Scandal,” serves on President Barack Obama‘s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

Don Cheedle was awarded the outstanding actor in a comedy series trophy for his role as a slick management consultant in Showtime’s “House of Lies.”

“This doesn’t belong just to me, but I am taking it home tonight,” joked Cheedle.

A few winners weren’t present at the Shrine Auditorium to pick up their trophies, including Denzel Washington for outstanding actor in a motion picture for “Flight,” Viola Davis for outstanding actress in a motion picture for “Won’t Back Down” and Omar Epps for supporting actor in a drama series for Fox’s “House.”

“Red Tails,” the drama about the Tuskegee Airmen, was honored as outstanding motion picture.

“Look! I beat Quentin Tarantino,” beamed “Red Tails” executive producer George Lucas as he accepted the award.

LL Cool J, who was honored as outstanding actor in a drama series for CBS’ “NCIS: Los Angeles,” dedicated his trophy to fellow nominee Michael Clarke Duncan, “The Green Mile” and “The Finder” actor who died last year.

“I wish his family well,” said LL. “Let’s give it up for him.”

Gladys Knight sang during the in memoriam segment, but the beginning of her performance wasn’t heard on the live NBC broadcast because of a technical glitch.

Sidney Poitier presented Harry Belafonte with the Spingarn Award, which honors outstanding achievement by an African American. His honor was followed by a serenade from Wyclef Jean and Common.

Other winners at the ceremony hosted by talk show host Steve Harvey included Loretta Devine as supporting actress in a drama series for “Grey’s Anatomy,” Cassi Davis as outstanding actress in a comedy series and Lance Gross as outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for TBS’ “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.”

The Image Awards are presented annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the group’s members select the winners.

___

Online:

http://www.naacpimageawards.net

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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