Pop art “godfather” Blake still the outsider at 80

LONDON (Reuters) – Pop music loves him. The art establishment shuns him. At the age of 80, British artist Peter Blake is revered for his celebrated “Sgt. Pepper” Beatles album cover yet at the same time dismissed as too “cheerful” to be one of the greats.

Regularly stroking his wispy silver beard, and supported around a central London gallery by a walking cane, the man dubbed the “godfather of Pop art” still struggles to come to terms with his place in the world of contemporary culture.

“It’s a cross I bear,” he said of the fact that his art is not taken as seriously as that of some contemporaries.

“Perhaps it’s surprising that at my kind of age and with my infirmities I’m still cheerful,” he told Reuters at the Waddington Custot Galleries where his latest show, “Rock, Paper, Scissors” has just opened.

Surrounding him are works ranging from some of his earliest watercolours executed in 1948 when he was 16 to “The Family”, a sculpture he completed just a few days ago.

What is striking is just how lively they are – plastic figures of Snow White and 30 dwarves crowd outside a model of a Swiss chalet in one humorous work, and the six-foot-long “A Parade for Saul Steinberg” is a model bursting with color and references to popular culture.

Blake concedes that he is often left having to defend his work in a world where “serious” art is cherished above all.

“Painters all have a different reason to paint – it could be politics, it could be angst, it could be anger. My reason to paint is to make magic and to make cheerful things.”

He has compared himself to contemporaries like Frank Auerbach, 81, whose dark oil paintings are increasingly sought after by collectors.

“Compared to that I am light, I have to accept that,” Blake said, adding that he is a great admirer of Auerbach. “It is the reason I am quite often aesthetically undervalued.”

TELLING OFF THE TATE

The art market clearly ranks his peers above Blake, including Auerbach and David Hockney, whose “Beverly Hills Housewife” fetched $ 7.9 million at auction in 2009.

But more of a bugbear is being overlooked by Tate Modern, the most important British gallery for modern and contemporary art which, ironically, gave a major retrospective this year to a much younger artist whom Blake helped nurture – Damien Hirst.

After uttering a few choice words in what he himself called a “rant” to a newspaper against the influential Tate director Nicholas Serota, he sought to strike a more conciliatory tone.

“Oddly enough Serota came in earlier to see the show,” Blake recalled. “I said, ‘Look it’s not personal. You’re the director of the Tate … and if I don’t fit into your scheme I’m not that bitter about it. It’s a fact. I don’t hate you.

“I think he was slightly embarrassed because I have been quite voluble about it. He accepted it.”

What Serota would have seen at the exhibition was an artist still bursting with ideas in a phase of life he describes as an “encore” to the main acts of his career.

Blake named the show after the children’s game “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, and the childlike runs throughout.

“Rock” represents sculptures, some of which are occupied by superheroes, Boy Scouts, toy soldiers and knights alongside the more sobre “Army” consisting of human figures made up of wooden blocks topped by bowling balls for heads.

“Paper” covers works on paper that include Blake’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth commissioned by the Radio Times for the cover of its 2012 Diamond Jubilee souvenir issue.

“Scissors” stands for collage, and the works range from abstract 1950s creations to a series of scenes of prominent London landmarks like Westminster Abbey and Piccadilly Circus populated by comic characters, animals, skeletons or horses.

Asked how his recent work compared to earlier “acts”, he replied: “It’s not a development, it’s a leaping about.

“I describe my working methods as being like a big oak tree and the trunk is and has always been that I am a figurative painter of a certain kind of realist style – I was when I was 16 and I still am. But the branches of the tree are these excursions into other art.”

MUSIC’S MOST FAMOUS SLEEVE

Blake was producing art by 1945, aged just 13, and in the 1950s and “swinging 60s” emerged as one of the frontrunners of pop art which drew on popular culture and advertising to subvert the traditions of mainstream art.

He is best known for designing the album sleeve for the 1967 Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, featuring a collage of famous figures behind the band members dressed in bright military-style regalia.

It is one topic Blake is keen to avoid.

“Best if you don’t,” he replied with a grin, when asked if he was willing to talk about a design for which he was paid a reported 200 pounds. “I’d much rather talk about this work.”

That album has led to a lifelong association with British pop music, including designing sleeves for charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in 1984 and Madness’s latest album as well as the BRIT Award statuettes earlier this year.

Blake, it is clear, is still going strong, but only recently the outlook was far less rosy.

“All last year I wasn’t very well, and I was talking often about the fact that I was working on this show and I hoped I would live long enough to go to it,” he said.

“The question is there in the background, of mortality, but I’ve cheered up a bit and I’m not so unwell and I’m not forecasting my own death yet.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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More than 350 African migrants intercepted off Italy

ROME (Reuters) – Italian coastguards said they had intercepted and picked up 358 African migrants attempting to reach Italy in two overcrowded vessels on Saturday.

Two hundred and thirty-five of the migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were travelling in a rickety wooden boat and the other 123 were spotted on a rubber dinghy, said the coastguards.

A coastguard spokesman, who was unable to give any information on where the vessels departed from, said the migrants were all in decent health and were being transported to reception centres.

Italy has borne the brunt of clandestine seaborne migration to southern Europe that has ebbed and flowed for several years. Migrants say they are attracted by the prospect of a better life in Europe.

Most migrants risk the voyage across the Mediterranean Sea in small and overcrowded fishing boats. Thousands have died as a result of shipwreck, harsh conditions at sea or a lack of food and water.

(Reporting By Catherine Hornby; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

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Massachusetts natural gas explosion damaged 42 buildings

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — Preliminary investigations show more than 40 buildings were damaged in a natural gas explosion in Massachusetts that injured 18 people, building inspectors said Saturday.

A strip club was flattened and a day care center was heavily damaged in the massive explosion Friday night in Springfield, one of New England's biggest cities.

No one was killed in the explosion.

Investigators were trying Saturday to figure out what caused the blast that could be heard for miles, left a large hole in the ground where the multistory brick building housing Scores Gentleman's Club once stood and scattered debris over several blocks.

Officials already had evacuated part of the entertainment district after responding to a gas leak and odor reported about an hour before the explosion. Gas workers venting a gas leak got indications that the building was about to explode and they ducked for cover behind a utility truck — along with firefighters and police officers — just before the blast, said Mark McDonald, president of the New England Gas Workers Association.

Most of the injured were in that group, and the truck that saved their lives was essentially demolished, he said.

"It really is a miracle and it's an example of our public safety officials, each and every day, putting themselves in harm's way, taking what could have been considered a very routine call of an odor of gas, but they took the proper precautions," State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said. "And thanks to God that they did."

Officials also marveled how the 5:30 p.m. blast occurred when a day care center next door was closed. The center's building was heavily damaged.

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno were attending a tree-lighting ceremony when the explosion occurred. Sarno said some people mistakenly thought the boom was part of the holiday event.

The explosion blew out windows in a three-block radius, leaving at least three buildings irreparably damaged and causing emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling, police said. Pieces of broken glass littered streets and sidewalks. It was unclear how many residents had been evacuated. A shelter was set up at a school, but city officials said no one stayed there overnight.

Omar Fermin, manager of the Punta Cana Restaurant two blocks from the explosion site, found the floor-to-ceiling windows blasted out when he came to check on the property Saturday morning.

"It looks like an earthquake hit," said Fermin, a native of the Dominican Republic. "I've never seen anything like it."

He said he was waiting for someone to come and assess the damage. He worried the restaurant would remain closed for weeks while the owner seeks to replace the massive custom-made windows.

Authorities cordoned off the center of the explosion Saturday as building inspectors worked to identify unsafe structures. Anxious residents gathered at the perimeter, waiting for permission to visit their buildings.

Preliminary reports show the blast damaged 42 buildings housing 115 residential units, said Thomas Walsh, spokesman for Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno.

Three buildings were immediately condemned, and 24 others require additional inspections by structural engineers to determine whether they are safe, Walsh said.

Dogs trapped in abandoned buildings barked loudly Saturday as building inspectors fanned out across the area. One inspector said he wished he could get a ladder and permission to retrieve a dog that was barking in the upper floor of one building sealed off from residents.

Authorities are opening an animal shelter for pets affected by the explosion, Walsh said.

Coan, the fire marshal, said his office is investigating the cause of the blast and its possible origin. The state's Department of Public Utilities was also investigating.

Sheila Doiron, a spokeswoman for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, said the company will continue to monitor for any potential leaks within several blocks of the blast site. So far, she said, the company hadn't yet found any measurable readings.

The utility will keep at least 30 workers at the scene, along with a so-called sniffing car mounted with sophisticated gadgets capable of detecting low levels of gas leaks, Walsh said.

Doiron said the company also didn't find in its records any gas odor calls to the area where the strip club was located.

Authorities also deployed police officers throughout the area to prevent looting, Walsh said.

The victims were taken to two hospitals in the city. Those injured were nine firefighters, two police officers, four Columbia Gas workers, two civilians and another city employee.

Springfield, which is 90 miles west of Boston and has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not near the blast site.

The city has been rebuilding from damage caused by a tornado in June 2011.

Wayne Davis, who lives about a block from the destroyed building, said he felt his apartment shake.

"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.

The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.

The blast was so loud it was heard in several neighboring communities. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.

___

Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi, Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston and Jessica Hill in Springfield contributed to this report.

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Beijing’s S. China Sea rivals protest passport map

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has enraged several neighbors with a few dashes on a map, printed in its newly revised passports that show it staking its claim on the entire South China Sea and even Taiwan.

Inside the passports, an outline of China printed in the upper left corner includes Taiwan and the sea, hemmed in by the dashes. The change highlights China’s longstanding claim on the South China Sea in its entirety, though parts of the waters also are claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.

China’s official maps have long included Taiwan and the South China Sea as Chinese territory, but the act of including them in its passports could be seen as a provocation since it would require other nations to tacitly endorse those claims by affixing their official seals to the documents.

Ruling party and opposition lawmakers alike condemned the map in Taiwan, a self-governed island that split from China after a civil war in 1949. They said it could harm the warming ties the historic rivals have enjoyed since Ma Ying-jeou became president 4 1/2 years ago.

“This is total ignorance of reality and only provokes disputes,” said Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the Cabinet-level body responsible for ties with Beijing. The council said the government cannot accept the map.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters in Manila that he sent a note to the Chinese Embassy that his country “strongly protests” the image. He said China’s claims include an area that is “clearly part of the Philippines’ territory and maritime domain.”

The Vietnamese government said it had also sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, demanding that Beijing remove the “erroneous content” printed in the passport.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said the new passport was issued based on international standards. China began issuing new versions of its passports to include electronic chips on May 15, though criticism cropped up only this week.

“The design of this type of passports is not directed against any particular country,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily media briefing Friday. “We hope the relevant countries can calmly treat it with rationality and restraint so that the normal visits by the Chinese and foreigners will not be unnecessarily interfered with.”

It’s unclear whether China’s South China Sea neighbors will respond in any way beyond protesting to Beijing. China, in a territorial dispute with India, once stapled visas into passports to avoid stamping them.

“Vietnam reserves the right to carry out necessary measures suitable to Vietnamese law, international law and practices toward such passports,” Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said.

Taiwan does not recognize China’s passports in any case; Chinese visitors to the island have special travel documents.

China maintains it has ancient claims to all of the South China Sea, despite much of it being within the exclusive economic zones of Southeast Asian neighbors. The islands and waters are potentially rich in oil and gas.

There are concerns that the disputes could escalate into violence. China and the Philippines had a tense maritime standoff at a shoal west of the main Philippine island of Luzon early this year.

The United States, which has said it takes no sides in the territorial spats but that it considers ensuring safe maritime traffic in the waters to be in its national interest, has backed a call for a “code of conduct” to prevent clashes in the disputed territories. But it remains unclear if and when China will sit down with rival claimants to draft such a legally binding nonaggression pact.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled to meet Dec. 12 to discuss claims in the South China Sea and the role of China.

___

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam, and researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.

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Rejected Beatles audition tape appears at auction

LONDON (Reuters) – The Beatles audition tape rejected by a record label executive in arguably the biggest blunder in pop history has resurfaced and will go on sale at a London auction next week.

Ted Owen of The Fame Bureau, an auction house specializing in pop memorabilia, said the 10-song tape was recorded on New Year’s Day, 1962, at label Decca‘s studios in north London.

Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Pete Best – who would later be replaced on drums by Ringo Starr – performed up to 15 songs at the session, 10 of which appear on the tape to be sold on November 27.

The band members had been driven from Liverpool to London the night before, and, despite getting lost on the way managed to get to the studios in time for the infamous session paid for by their manager Brian Epstein.

Decca’s senior A&R (artists and repertoire) representative Dick Rowe, who later became known as “the man who turned down the Beatles“, decided against signing them in favor of Brian Poole & The Tremeloes who also auditioned that day.

“Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein,” he is widely quoted as saying.

Rowe did, however, sign the Rolling Stones, who went on to become one of the biggest acts in British rock, and experts dispute whether it was him or a more junior colleague who passed the Beatles over.

There are bootleg versions of the session in existence, but the “safety master”, or back-up tape, on offer at auction is unique, Owen said.

“The most important thing about this is the quality,” he told Reuters. “There are bootlegs out there, horrible bootlegs — some are at the wrong speed, others are crackily and taken from a cassette off an acetate (disc).

“This quality we have never heard.”

Despite its rarity, the tape has been estimated to fetch 18-20,000 pounds ($ 29-32,000), which Owen said had been set by the owner and was a “sensible” starting point.

He added that only a handful of collectors were likely to bid for the piece of pop history, and, given that the Beatles own the copyright through their company, a commercial record release based on the tape was extremely unlikely.

Marked as the “Silver Beatles”, which the “Fab Four” were briefly called, the tape comes with a hand-written track list and black-and-white photograph of the musicians posing in leather jackets that would be been used for the record sleeve.

Also on offer at the Popular Culture auction is a guitar used by Jimi Hendrix to play the bulk of his breakthrough set at the Monterey festival in California in 1967. The black Fender Stratocaster is expected to fetch 120-180,000 pounds.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Bullied, Institutionalized for Tourettes

From the age of 7, Frank Bonifas has endured the most severe form of Tourette syndrome, and it started long before the medical community even had a name for the neurological disorder.

Doctors convinced his parents that he could control his tics and outbursts, which had him grunting, jerking and swearing with impunity. They blamed his mother for coddling him and, in 1968, as a young teen, they sent him to a psychiatric hospital for 18 months.

Bonifas, now 58 and living in Coldwater, Ohio, experienced assaults by school bullies and was forced to take high-dose medications that made him so listless one year, he lost two months of school.

Even in hospital wards, he was tortured by staff members who thought his outbursts were deliberate. He even had to fight with Social Security to get disability payments because Tourette syndrome was not listed in the medical journals.

“I resented all psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers,” he said. “They had no idea what was wrong with me and blamed me, my mom, dad and sister for my problems.”

Now, in a self-published memoir, “Fu-Fu-Fu Frank,” he writes about his wrenching childhood and the determination he had to overcome the odds of living with a misunderstood disorder.

Bonifas prefaced his Thanksgiving day telephone interview with ABCNews.com in anticipation of his uncontrollable use of the “F word,” punctuated with grunts and screams.

“I am not a violent person,” he said. “I am a loving person who just has Tourette’s.”

Despite severe physical handicaps, Bonifas was able to write the book because of Marilyn Kanney, a former nurse and friend of his late mother who has loved and supported him since he was in high school. He calls her “a second mother.”

“She took my thoughts and put them into sentences and wrote them into paragraphs and chapters,” he said. “They were all my words, but she allowed me to make it a reality … It took us 15 years to finish it.”

Bonifas decided to go public with his story after friends encouraged him to write. His first goal was to educate others about Tourette syndrome. But the second was to be financially independent and get off disability assistance and Medicaid.

The turning point in his life was in 1973, when a husband-wife psychiatric team, Drs. Arthur and Elaine Shapiro of New York Hospital, gave his condition a name.

At 18, Bonifas was one of the first people in the United States to be diagnosed with Tourette syndrome.

“I taught my doctor everything he knows about Tourette,” said Bonifas. “Dr. Shapiro said to me at the time, ‘Frank, to your credit, you haven’t blown your brains out by now.

“I put my trust in doctors and nurses for the first time in my life,” he said.

According to the Tourette Syndrome Foundation, the disorder is defined by multiple motor and vocal tics lasting for more than one year. The verbal tics can include grunting, throat clearing, shouting and barking.

It was named for a French neuropsychiatrist, Gilles de la Tourette, who assessed the disorder in the late 1800s. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that it was widely recognized in the U.S., where it was thought to be exceptionally rare.

In 1980, the condition was broadened to include milder cases of tics. Fewer than 10 percent of all patients swear or use socially inappropriate words, which makes Bonifas’s condition so socially isolating.

The first symptoms, usually before the age of 18, are involuntary movements of the face, arms, limbs or trunk, such as kicking or stomping. They are frequent, repetitive and rapid. The patient cannot control these movements and they can involve the whole body.

ADD and OCD Can Accompany Tourette Syndrome

According to Dr. Jonathan Mink, chief of pediatric neurology at Rochester University, who sits on the board of the Tourette association, the disorder is still poorly understood and likely has a genetic link.

Many patients, like Bonifas, also have symptoms associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

“The majority of kids, even those bad enough to seek treatment, are likely to have their tics diminish or go away,” said Mink.

Habit reversal therapy — teaching a person with Tourette to hold his or her breath, for example, instead of saying the repeated word, can sometimes help. Antidepressants are used to treat associated anxiety.

Today, several medications have helped Bonifas manage his symptoms, but his early years were spent in torment, in and out of mental institutions, hospitals and experimental programs.

In the introduction to his memoir, doctors attest to the “exorcisms” that Bonifas underwent to rid him of his “demons.” He claims he was exploited and abused, even sexually, by many who were entrusted to care for him.

A devote Catholic and former altar boy, Bonifas once considered entering the seminary. Strangely, his first outburst of profanity occurred in the seventh grade when looking at a church spire.

The thought — “The Blessed Virgin Is a F***er” — just burst into his mind. He was convinced he would burn in hell.

But Bonifas had no control over that or other obsessive-compulsive habits, such as dressing, washing and brushing his teeth in a particular sequence.

His behavior in school was problematic, too. Teachers saw his outbursts as an attention-seeking device. He was “barking, snorting, sniffing, hissing and more.”

By high school, he was badly bullied. Seniors pulled down his pants, taunting: “Now we’ll see if he is a dog or a human being.”

Another time, he was pushed into a large garbage can and rolled down the steps to the first floor.

After being sent to a local hospital ward for treatment, he got “special care” more than a half dozen times. Orderlies confined Bonifas to a locked steel cell with a pillow and a pad. After that, he developed lifelong claustrophobia.

In exercise classes in a swimming pool, he claimed the leader seemed to enjoy dunking his head underwater until his lungs “nearly burst.”

But eventually, Bonifas found New York Hospital, where modern treatments and an educated and understanding medical team, gave him hope. He was the 35th patient Dr. Shapiro had ever treated.

His roommate was Dr. Orrin Palmer, a Maryland doctor who overcame Tourette and now practices psychiatry.

“Frank and I went through hell on these protocols,” Palmer wrote in one of the forwards in the book.

Doctors experimented with an array of high-dose medicines that caused side effects, such as insomnia, motor restlessness, mood swings and even Parkinson’s symptoms.

“I had to sign papers that I was a guinea pig,” said Bonifas. “If the medicine made me incompetent or I lost my mind or was comatose or died, they were not responsible.”

His response to his doctor’s orders was, “Just tell my small town that I am not the devil, not doing this on purpose and that I have a mind.”

After five months, his mother brought him home and things started to get better. Were it not for her, “they would have institutionalized me for life,” he said.

Today, Bonifas works as a part-time mail clerk at a local bank. He said life is still “incredibly difficult.”

But since the publishing his book, he said, “Many people have a better understanding of what I go through on a daily basis, and I have been treated much better.”

He takes a low dose of haldol, ativan, cogentin and many natural vitamins. Bonifas also has taken up yoga with a trainer.

Bonifas cares for his 88-year-old father who lives upstairs. His beloved mother died of Alzheimer’s disease in 2004.

“I just wish she were alive to read it, but my faith tells me that she is in Heaven and is proud of everything I’m trying to accomplish,” he said.

More recently, cultural attitudes toward those with Tourette syndrome have begun to change, according to Bonifas.

“Most people who have become familiar with it are more understanding,” he said. “However, many are not aware of how serious the disease is, still feel that anyone afflicted with it should be able to control all of its symptoms.”

Much still needs to be done, according to Bonifas.

“Parents and teachers can be more supportive and understanding of people who are different,” he said. “Children learn at a very early age how to treat others, and there are too many bullies today as a result of the prejudices of all who teach them.”

Bonifas volunteers in schools and organizations to help change attitudes.

With all the hurdles he has overcome, the dark shadow of growing up in a world ignorant of his needs still haunts Bonifas.

“I have tried to put my past behind me, but every day is challenging and difficult,” he said. “I’m working on it.”

“I think that all people should accept those who are different or handicapped,” he said. “They should have to spend one day in their shoes, and see how it feels.

His faith and the encouragement he has received from readers of his memoir keep him going.

“It just comes down to this: There is you and God,” he said. “I have a lot of faith and a lot of determination.”

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Shopping like a Democrat, or Republican

Black Friday: It’s a day in which most American citizens put aside politics in pursuit of shopping bargains. But in Washington we can sort almost anything in the US in terms of partisan proclivity, and temples of commerce are no exception. Want to know whether the big box store where you’re waiting in line leans Democratic or Republican? The folks at the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics have compiled a handy guide based on campaign contributions.

Toys R Us, for instance, seems a solidly blue store. Self-identified employees of the store gave $39,000 to political candidates in the 2012 election cycle, and $36,000 of that went to Democrats.

Dig into the numbers though, and you’ll see that Toys R Us is not so much Democratic as Klobucharian. All that $36,000 went to one candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) of Minnesota. (That’s kind of odd, isn’t it? The retailer’s corporate headquarters are in New Jersey.) Other than that, Mitt Romney got $1,750 from Toys R Us workers. President Obama got zilch, according to CRP’s Open Secrets blog.

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Macy’s employees, on the other hand, were big Obama fans. They donated $28,870 to the president’s reelection campaign, as opposed to $16,390 to GOP nominee Mr. Romney. This Democratic lean was counterbalanced to a certain extent by the store’s corporate political action committee, however. (Toys R Us doesn’t appear to have a central PAC.) Macy’s PAC gave $12,000 to Republicans, and $4,000 to Democrats.

Best Buy seems more of a red retailer. Both it s employees and the company’s PAC had a slight preference for Republicans, according to CRP. Store employees gave $17,662 to Democrats and $22,419 to the GOP, for instance.

But there’s Senator Klobuchar again – she’s the individual candidate to whom Best Buy-related entities donated the most. Yes, she’s chairperson of a Senate Commerce subcommittee on competitiveness, so that might have something to do with it. Maybe the money comes due to her political affiliation with Minnesota’s Gov. Mark Dayton? Governor Dayton is the scion of the Dayton retail empire, which among other things founded Target.

Hmm, we see that Target leaned GOP as well, so maybe that theory isn’t right. Of the store’s $483,777 in individual and PAC contributions, the majority went to the right side of the aisle, according to Open Secrets. And the top recipient is not Sen. Klobuchar, but Rep. Eric Paulsen – a Twin Cities Republican.

Then there’s Wal-Mart. Sam Walton’s empire has a major presence in politics compared with its big box brethren. Its employees and PAC gave $2.7 million to candidates in the 2012 cycle.

Employee donations skewed Republican – which might not be surprising, since Wal-Mart is a big employer in the exurban/rural areas where Romney ran strongly. The firm’s PAC gave roughly equal amounts to candidates of both parties, however. That might be because Wal-Mart lobbies hard in Washington and needs relationships on both sides of the aisle.

In fact, Wal-Mart has spent more than $12 million on lobbyists in the past two years. It has its own Washington office, with 15 employees, and pays hundreds of thousands of dollars in retainers to such top outside lobby firms as Patton Boggs and the Podesta Group.

The firm’s No. 1 issue is sales taxes – specifically, getting states to slap sales taxes on web retail. Rep. Steven Womack (R) of Arkansas, whose district includes Wal-Mart’s Bentonville headquarters, has long pushed national legislation that would force out-of-state online retailers to collect sales tax. He’s one of the top recipients of Wal-Mart campaign contributions.

“The traditional brick and mortar retailer is not asking for special treatment. They know they have to compete against a number of consumer criterion. What they don’t want – and should not compete against – is a disadvantage based on a tax loophole,” said Congressman Womack earlier this year during a Judiciary Committee hearing on the issue.

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Former Ivory Coast leader’s wife wanted by ICC

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court unsealed an indictment Thursday against former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo‘s wife on charges including murder, rape and persecution. It was the first time in the court’s 10-year history it has charged a woman.

The world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal said the arrest warrant was issued on Feb. 29 for former first lady Simone Gbagbo for crimes against humanity.

Her husband, Laurent Gbagbo, is already in custody at the court’s detention unit in The Hague facing similar charges stemming from his fight to retain power after losing a 2010 presidential election. If his wife is extradited, they could face justice together in an unprecedented husband-wife trial.

But a senior member of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara‘s government, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said Ivory Coast has already informed the ICC that the nation will not let her go.

“We informed them of this a long time ago,” he said.

The court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, urged Ivory Coast to extradite Gbagbo.

“The type of crimes committed in the aftermath of the 2010 elections did not happen by chance — they were planned and coordinated at the highest political and military levels and all those bearing the greatest responsibility must be held to account,” Bensouda said in a statement.

She said prosecutors continue to investigate crimes committed by both sides in Ivory Coast’s bloody power struggle and expect to issue further arrest warrants in the future.

“The investigations are objective, impartial and independent, and are conducted in strict accordance with the law,” she said.

Ivory Coast officials are holding the 63 year old under house arrest in the northwest town of Odienne. Last week, Ivorian prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau said lawyers had questioned Simone Gbagbo there for two days and that the domestic charges against her remained the same: genocide, blood crimes and economic crimes.

Unsealing the ICC arrest warrant issued nearly nine months ago appears to be a tactic by the court to put pressure on Ouattara’s administration to hand over Ms. Gbagbo.

If authorities in Ivory Coast want to prosecute her, they have to convince judges at The Hague tribunal that their case involves the same crimes she is charged with at the ICC. It is a court of last resort, meaning it only takes cases from countries unwilling or unable to prosecute them.

The international court said in the warrant that there is evidence pro-Gbagbo forces deliberately attacked perceived supporters of Ouattara in the aftermath of the election.

Judges who reviewed evidence supporting the charges against Ms. Gbagbo said they found “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms. Gbagbo bears individual criminal responsibility for the crimes … as ‘an indirect co-perpetrator.’”

The warrant called Gbagbo an “alter ego for her husband” with the power to make state decisions. It said there is evidence to suggest she “instructed the pro-Gbagbo forces to commit crimes against individuals who posed a threat to her husband’s power.”

Her husband was the first former head of state to be taken into custody by the court when he was extradited to The Hague by the Ivory Coast government last year.

Prosecutors say about 3,000 people died in violence by both sides after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat following the election. Ouattara finally took power in April 2011 with the help of French and U.N. forces.

Ivory Coast is not a member state of the court, but has voluntarily accepted its jurisdiction.

It is very rare for a woman to be charged by an international war crimes court. In the past, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic of persecution and sentenced her to 11 years imprisonment.

The announcement of the arrest warrant and Ivory Coast’s refusal to hand over Gbagbo appeared likely to raise tensions between supporters of her husband and those who back Ouattara.

Moussa Toure Zeguen, a leader of the Gbagbo allies in exile in Ghana, said by phone from Accra that the former president’s supporters had no faith in the Ivorian authorities to give Simone Gbagbo a fair trial.

“We don’t trust them. The only thing that Ouattara is doing is revenge,” Zeguen said. “He wants to try us without trying any of the fighters from his side who also committed crimes. It is not fair, and this cannot bring reconciliation.”

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Associated Press writers Rukmini Callimachi in Dakar, Senegal, and Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, contributed to this report.

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Ex-’Price is Right’ model gets $8.5M in damages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.

The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $ 777,000 in actual damages.

Cochran, 41, said she was rejected when she tried to return to work in early 2010 after taking maternity leave. The jury agreed and determined that FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions owed her more than $ 8.5 million in all.

“I’m humbled. I’m shocked,” Cochran said after the jury announced its verdict. “I’m happy that justice was served today not only for women in the entertainment industry, but women in the workplace.”

FremantleMedia said it was standing by its previous statement, which said it expected to be “fully vindicated” after an appeal.

“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant,” and further “important” evidence, FremantleMedia said.

In their defense, producers said they were satisfied with the five models working on the show at the time Cochran sought to return.

Several other former models have sued the series and its longtime host, Bob Barker, who retired in 2007.

Most of the cases involving “Barker’s Beauties” — the nickname given the gown-wearing women who presented prizes to contestants — ended with out-of-court settlements.

Comedian-actor Drew Carey followed Barker as the show’s host.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

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Do drunks have to go to the ER?

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – With the help of a checklist, ambulance workers may be able to safely reroute drunk patients to detoxification centers instead of emergency rooms, according to a new study.

Researchers in Colorado found no serious medical problems were reported after 138 people were sent to a detox center to sleep it off, instead of to an ER.

In 2004, according to the researchers, it’s estimated that 0.6 percent of all U.S. ER visits were made by people without any problems other than being drunk. Those visits ended up costing about $ 900 million.

“Part of the issue has been – as it is in many busy ER departments – there’s a lot of chronic alcoholics that are brought in by ambulance, police or just come in. Often they are brought in because they have not committed a crime or there is limited space in our detoxification center. So the majority were brought to the ER department,” said Dr. David Ross, the study’s lead author from Penrose-St. Francis Health Services in Colorado Springs.

Ross said the ambulance company where he serves as medical director created the checklist with the help of the local detox center, which provided limited medical care by a nurse, and the local hospitals to reduce the number of drunks without medical needs being sent to the local ERs.

They created a checklist with 29 yes-or-no questions, such as whether the patient is cooperating with the ambulance worker’s examination and if the patient is willing to go to the detox center.

The patient was sent to the ER if the ambulance worker checked “no” on any question.

The researchers then went back to look at the patients they transported between December 2003 and December 2005 to see whether or not any of them ended up having serious medical problems at the detox center.

During that two year period, the ambulance workers transported 718 drunks. The detox center received 138 and the local ERs got 580.

Overall, 11 of the patients who were taken to detox were turned away because there was no room, their blood alcohol level exceeded the limit, their family came to pick them up or they were combative.

Another four patients at the detox center were taken to the ER because of minor complications, including chest and knee pain. However, there were no serious complications reported.

“We really believe that we did not miss anybody with a serious illness and injury that didn’t go to the ER as they should have,” said Ross.

But the researchers write in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that their study did have some limitations.

Specifically, the researchers did not plan in advance to do a study when they were creating the checklist, which means their findings are limited to whatever information was collected at the detox center and ERs.

Also, the number of people who were sent to the detox center in their study is relatively small, so it’s hard to tell how many serious complications they’d see among a larger group of people.

“We tried to estimate how likely we would have been to encounter a serious event… We estimated at most we’d encounter three serious adverse events (in 748 patients),” Ross told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/QgPCT5 Annals of Emergency Medicine, online November 9, 2012.

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