DealBook: Latest Slip for H.P. Forces a New Write-Down

Hewlett-Packard‘s already troubled history with deal-making just got worse.

The technology giant said on Tuesday that it had taken an $8.8 billion accounting charge, in part related to accounting problems at Autonomy, the British software company it bought for $10 billion last year. The announcement comes just one quarter after another large write-down by H.P. in relation to Electronic Data Systems, which itself follows a string of deal-making missteps by the company.

“I’m speechless,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst at the ISI Group, which downgraded H.P. to “neutral” from “buy” following the news on Tuesday.

The charge contributed to a quarterly loss of $6.9 billion for H.P., compared with a $200 million profit in the quarter a year earlier. H.P. said it had discovered “serious accounting improprieties” and “outright misrepresentations” at Automony that took place prior to the acquisition.

The company’s shares fell more than 11 percent on Tuesday to around $11.74.

The latest setback comes as H.P. has struggled to revive its business. For years, H.P. has turned to deal-making to help it grow, buying of E.D.S., Palm and Compaq. Since 2001, the company has spent at least $67 billion on acquisitions, according to Robert W. Baird & Company. That’s more than H.P.’s current market capitalization of about $23.4 billion.

“If you think about the companies they’ve acquired over the last several years,” Mr. Marshall said, “it’s just unbelievable how much value has been destroyed.”

In August, H.P. said it would take an $8 billion charge related to E.D.S., which it acquired for $13.9 billion four years earlier. The business, which provides consulting services to enterprise clients, had been losing ground to rivals.

Last year, H.P. announced a $1.7 billion charge when it said it would close its webOS device business — just a year after picking up the handset maker Palm for $1.2 billion.

The deal-making engine, however, has recently slowed as its cash pile has dwindle. The company reported about $11.3 billion of cash in the recent quarter. While that an improvement over the quarter last year, it is lower than the $13 billion of cash in 2009.

The takeover of Autonomy was criticized as too expensive when it was announced in the summer of 2011. Léo Apotheker, the chief executive at the time, soon resigned. He was replaced by Meg Whitman, a former head of eBay.

Ms. Whitman said on Tuesday that the company was “starting to see progress in key areas.” The company said in a statement that it remained “100 percent committed” to Autonomy, despite being “extremely disappointed” by its findings.

Some analysts had been skeptical of Autonomy before Tuesday’s announcement. But the size of the write-down was largely unexpected. And the language H.P. used — “improprieties” and “misrepresentations” — came as a surprise.

“That’s not something I expected to hear,” said Jayson Noland, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company.

The ISI analyst, Mr. Marshall, described the company as being in “free fall.”

“There has been perhaps irreparable damage to the franchise,” Mr. Marshall said. “A lot of people in the tech industry are pretty sad about that.”

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Judge denies bid for Nativity displays in Santa Monica

A person jogs by last year's Nativity scene in Palisades Park. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / November 19, 2012)

By Martha Groves

November 19, 2012, 1:40 p.m.

The city of Santa Monica can bar seasonal displays, including a Nativity scene that has appeared in Palisades Park for nearly 60 years, a federal judge ruled Monday.

In a closely watched case that has attracted national attention, Judge Audrey B. Collins denied a request from the Santa Monica Nativity Scenes Committee to erect multiple large displays depicting the story of the birth of Jesus in the park overlooking the ocean. The coalition of churches has erected the displays every December since the 1950s.

But last year, after requests for display spots exceeded the space allotted, the city held a lottery to allocate spaces. Atheists won 18 of 21 spots. A Jewish group won another. The traditional Nativity story that used to take up 14 displays was crammed into two.

Controversy erupted, and as a result, the city decided the lottery would become increasingly costly. Last June, the City Council voted to ban all private unattended displays.

In October, Nativity scene proponents filed suit in federal court to allow the traditional Christian displays to continue. In a 27-page tentative ruling, Collins denied the group permission to erect their displays this year while the case is pending.

"The atheists won," said William Becker, attorney for the Nativity group. He then went on to compare the city to Pontius Pilate, the judge at Jesus' trial, saying: "It's a shame about Christmas. Pontius Pilate was exactly the same kind of administrator."

Santa Monica's attorney, Barry A. Rosenbaum, said the city is "very pleased" with the ruling. The judge, he said, "understood the government interests and that [groups wanting to put up displays] have a number of alternatives to erect displays." 

All the parties are due back in court Dec. 3, when the judge will hear additional arguments in the case.

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Report: Over 1 Million Apps Have Been Submitted to iOS App Store

Mobile app development hit a major milestone today when Apple accepted its one-millionth — yes, one-millionth — app for sale in the App Store, further underscoring Cupertino’s lead in the apps space.

Yes, the number of apps accepted differs from the number of apps available in the App Store, since not every application can stick it out over the long haul. Still, it highlights the remarkable staying power of the majority of iOS apps and the overwhelming popularity of the iOS platform.

“It really shows how popular iOS has been with software developers,” Gartner analyst Brian Blau told Wired. “And [Apple] really has attracted quite a few more software developers. It’s relatively easy to start developing for iOS — you can get up and running pretty quickly.”

Appsfire, an app that lets you track, discover, and find deals on new apps, arrived at the number by following and disseminating Apple’s official feed of iTunes information. The one million figure reflects apps that have been approved and gone live in the App Store since it opened to developers in 2008.

“I think it’s pretty plausible, but it’s hard to tell,” Blau said of Appsfire’s calculations. “If it’s not a million apps, it’s probably pretty close.”

According to Apple’s latest publicly released numbers, the total number of apps currently available in the App Store tops 700,000. Some of those apps, like Chomp, eventually were purchased by other companies and integrated into the buyer’s products. Others, like event discovery app RAVN, eventually decide to close down and shut their doors for one reason or another.

The number of apps Apple has in its ecosystem has long been a bonus over competitors like Android and Windows Phone, but Android’s Google Play Store is catching up in terms of numbers. Officially, it houses over 600,000 apps and games, with 20 billion installs so far. But quality is not necessarily an indicator of quality.

“In general, the Apple app ecosystem is far ahead of Google Play,” Appsfire co-founder Ouriel Ohayon told Wired via email. “There are more apps (not a lot more), more money that flows in that business too. Google still is behind in terms of billing experience, piracy, and quality of apps in general.”

Indeed, just this weekend a bundle of fake Apple apps like iMovie and GarageBand popped up in Play Store, only to be removed a few hours later. Google’s policy of openness plays against it in this respect, whereas Apple’s strict set of guidelines and conditions for apps to get accepted in the App Store are largely better at preventing scams like that from being approved. “Apple is also ahead in terms of apps specifically made for tablets — over 275,000,” Ohayon said.

The total number of apps accepted into the App Store is not a stat publicly announced from Apple thus far, so it’s unlikely we’ll see official confirmation of this number at any future earnings calls or media events.

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GetGlue Acquired by Viggle for $25million, Stock

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Viggle Inc. has purchased GetGlue for $ 25 million in cash and 48.3 million shares in stock, with the goal of making the merged companies the dominate force in social TV. Together, the two companies will have more than 4 million users.

Viggle stock was up 10.81 percent in early trading Monday, to $ 1.23 a share. That makes the value of GetGlue’s stock payout nearly $ 60 million.

Viggle Inc., a reward-based site that launched in January, will operate both brands. GetGlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold will join Viggle in a senior executive position on its management team and as a member of its Board of Directors. Viggle will also hire all 34 GetGlue employees.

“With this deal, we are combining very experienced and creative product, engineering and management teams that will continue to build great user experiences and provide industry leading platforms for consumers, networks and advertisers,” said Viggle CEO Robert F.X. Sillerman. “We will also be vastly increasing the Viggle user base and quadrupling our network partnerships.”

“We are very excited to join forces with Viggle! GetGlue has built a Social TV product that people love, and Viggle has become their favorite loyalty program for TV,” Iskold said. “Together we are positioned to deliver the next generation second screen experiences that delight and benefit users, networks and major brands.”

New York City-based GetGlue, founded in 2007, enables users to tell friends what they’re watching, track their favorite shows, and find videos, images, and links. It has more than 3.2 million registered users.

Viggle has 1.2 million registered users who receive points for loyalty and engagement. They can redeem points from businesses including Best Buy, Amazon, Fandango, Hulu Plus and iTunes.

The deal is only the latest for Sillerman, whose SFX Entertainment also recently purchased the electronic dance music companies Disco Donnie Presents and Life in Color. He said SFX expects up to 50 additional deals to come to fruition in the near future.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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News Analysis: Tainted-Drug Deaths Spawn Heated Debate Over F.D.A.’s Powers

If she kept being defensive, Mr. Dingell warned, “I would assure you that you are putting your head in the noose.”

Hearings like this may be partly theater, a chance for politicians to strut their righteous indignation and threaten tough new laws. But a public health disaster had occurred on Dr. Hamburg’s watch, one about which she has been mostly silent, and the hearing was a chance for her to show leadership and mastery. Instead, her answers were vague and long-winded, and it was clear by the reactions of the panel members that they brought more frustration than clarity.

The hearing was titled “The Fungal Meningitis Outbreak: Could It Have Been Prevented?” But the question was never really answered, and hours of testimony left the ominous impression that the country has few safeguards to prevent an outbreak like that from happening again.

Democrats on the committee wanted to quickly pass new legislation to strengthen the F.DA.’s ability to police rogue drug makers, but Republicans seemed less eager. It was not clear whether the hearing would actually accomplish anything.

So far, 33 people have died and 447 others have become ill from injections of a fungus-contaminated steroid drug made by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. The number of cases is still rising. Inspections of the drug maker have revealed a stunning array of dangerous practices and unclean equipment, as well as vials of medicine with visible blobs of fungal matter floating in it. The center has been shut down.

Joyce Lovelace, a white-haired woman with a soft voice and a Southern accent, addressed the committee from a wheelchair. She described the illness and death of her husband, Eddie, who at 78 had still been serving as a judge in Kentucky.

“It was not an easy death we witnessed,” Mrs. Lovelace said. She added, “These committees, the F.D.A., the N.E.C.C., whoever is responsible, I want them to know their lack of attention to their duties cost my husband his life.”

The next witness was Barry Cadden, the chief pharmacist and an owner of the New England Compounding Center. Flanked by his lawyers, he invoked the right to avoid incriminating himself and did not answer any questions.

Mr. Cadden’s company was shipping a huge array of drugs to clinics and hospitals around the country, including some of the nation’s most prestigious medical centers. The business, which opened in 1998, had several run-ins with the F.D.A. and with health officials in Massachusetts over the years, and pharmacy boards in other states had complained about its practices. But it kept operating.

Dr. Hamburg came in for a grilling because a deadly outbreak from a contaminated drug is exactly the kind of public health tragedy that her agency is meant to prevent.

She used much of her testimony to insist that the agency’s authority over the New England Compounding Center and other companies like it was not clear, and that new laws were required. Currently, she said, companies like New England Compounding could thwart oversight by suing the F.D.A. if it tried to regulate them, and by refusing to allow inspections without search warrants.

But the lawmakers said that existing laws gave the agency all the power it needed, and that it had simply failed to use that power.

“Commissioner, two agencies here have dropped the ball,” Mr. Dingell said, referring to the F.D.A. and the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy.

The issue is that New England Compounding identified itself as a compounding pharmacy, a practice that is supposed to involve making unusual drug formulations to fill prescriptions for individual patients with special needs. Compounding is legal on a small scale, and does not have to follow the strict rules that apply to mass-produced drugs. It is generally regulated by states rather than the federal government, which has jurisdiction over manufacturers.

But the company was mass-producing drugs and shipping them all over the country, without the manufacturing standards or inspections imposed on big drug makers. It shipped 16,676 vials of the contaminated steroid, methylprednisolone, to 23 states, and 14,000 people were injected with it.

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News Corporation Looks at Potential Acquisitions

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Rupert Murdoch, second from left, with his sons, Lachlan, left, and James, second from right, and Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, in July in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The media conglomerate, which had been on its heels for more than a year because of the phone hacking scandal in Britain, is looking to make acquisitions again. First on the list could be a 49 percent stake in the Yes Network in New York, a purchase that could become the foundation for a new nationwide sports network to compete with ESPN.

News Corporation’s stock has reached highs as the company prepares to transfer its underperforming publishing assets, including newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post, into a separate publicly traded entity.

One of the crucial factors in the decision was that the split would allow Rupert Murdoch, the company’s chairman and chief executive, to buy into the businesses he loves without upsetting investors who are more interested in cable and broadcast. Potential targets include The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and more education companies.

“Rupert has his mojo back,” said Todd Juenger, a media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “The stock is up, investors are happy with the company’s recent decisions.”

“He is definitely rubbing his hands together,” a person with knowledge of News Corporation’s deal-making discussions said of Mr. Murdoch.

In the last several weeks, Mr. Murdoch has exuded a satisfaction and sure-footedness that people close to the company said they had not seen since before Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper unit became embroiled in a phone hacking scandal. That is in part because hacking has been overtaken in the press by an unfolding scandal at the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The BBC, which Mr. Murdoch and his son James have frequently criticized, is accused of canceling a news program’s segment about serial child molesting committed by longtime host Jimmy Savile, and broadcasting false reports of pedophilia about a member of Margaret Thatcher’s administration.

People close to Mr. Murdoch said he considered the BBC scandal karmic justice for months of negative coverage of News Corporation, and he has provided almost daily commentary via Twitter. “BBC getting into deeper mess,” he wrote on Nov. 10. “After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as pedophile.”

And the BBC scandal touches another Murdoch rival — The New York Times, whose parent company’s new chief executive, Mark Thompson, served as director general at the BBC. Mr. Thompson’s replacement at the BBC, George Entwistle, resigned on Nov. 11 after just 54 days on the job. “Look to new CEO to shape up NYT unless recalled to BBC to explain latest scandal,” Mr. Murdoch wrote on Twitter last month.

As News Corporation sank into its hacking scandal last year, it delayed new acquisitions. In September, Britain’s Office of Communications, known as Ofcom, said that British Sky Broadcasting, 39.1 percent owned by News Corporation, was “fit and proper” to hold a broadcast license. The decision removed a cloud of uncertainty at News Corporation’s Manhattan headquarters and cleared the company to revisit deals, analysts said.

“The internal narrative at the company is that the boss is in shopping mode,” said one person close to News Corporation who could not discuss Mr. Murdoch’s thinking publicly.

Dropping its $12 billion bid for the portion of BSkyB that it did not already own gave News Corporation ample cash to complete share buybacks and consider other acquisitions. The company had $9.6 billion in cash at the end of its 2012 fiscal year and in September borrowed another $1 billion.

On a recent earnings call, Chase Carey, News Corporation’s president and chief operating officer, said: “We always seem to be the topic of the day when it comes to a rumor of some transaction.” Still, he added: “There are places where we think we should kick the tires on things.”

Last week News Corporation neared a deal with Yankees Global Enterprises to buy a 49 percent stake in the Yes Network, a regional New York sports network, with a valuation of about $3 billion. A stake in Yes would add to News Corporation’s lineup of regional sports channels and contribute to its reported plans to introduce a national cable sports channel that could take on the Walt Disney Company’s ESPN.

“It’s one of the only businesses where there’s no No. 2,” said Michael Nathanson, a media analyst at Nomura Securities. “In our view, sports is the safest asset in media.”

This month the company paid an estimated $250 million for the portion of ESPN Star Sports that it did not already own. ESPN Star Sports, based in Singapore, operates 17 sports networks in five languages around Asia.

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Feinstein has 'concern' about Rice's Benghazi talking points

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday that she has initiated a review of talking points used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on the attack on the American diplomatic facility in Libya, with the goal of determining why the public comments appeared to conflict with the initial assessment of U.S. intelligence sources.

Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, defended Rice against what she called the “politicization” of her comments on the battery of Sunday news shows in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack that led to the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

But the California senator also said she had “some concern” with the process that produced the unclassified “speaking points” that Rice worked off of, in which she said it was the administration’s preliminary view that the attacks were a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islamic video, rather than a planned terrorist attack.

Feinstein, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said that the now-former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, had “very clearly said that it was a terrorist attack” in a meeting with lawmakers the day after the attack in Benghazi.

PHOTOS: U.S. ambassador killed in Libya

Asked then why Rice would not call the attack "terrorism" days later, Feinstein said it was because Petraeus’ view was based on information that was not yet cleared for public review.

“She could speak publicly only on unclassified speaking points. I have some concern with those speaking points,” Feinstein said. “We gave the direction yesterday that this whole process is going to be checked out. We are going to find out who made changes in the original statement. Until we do, I really think it's unwarranted to make accusations.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, stopped short of saying information was withheld from initial talking points for political reasons.

Still, he said, “I know the narrative was wrong, and the intelligence was right.”

“The narrative, as it went from at least the CIA and other intelligence agencies, was accurate,” he said. “There were some policy decisions made based on the narrative that was not consistent with the intelligence that we had. That's my concern, and we need to say hey, we need to figure out how that happened.”

The episode involving Rice’s testimony on the Sept. 14 news shows is at the heart of Republicans’ questioning the administration’s handling of the Benghazi attack. More recently, it has become the basis for some lawmakers vowing to block the potential nomination of Rice to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of State in President Obama’s second term.

Feinstein said it was not right for Rice to be “pilloried” for comments that were consistent with the approved statement she was given to speak off of. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) said that in considering a possible Rice nomination he was “not going to give her a plus for passing on a narrative that was misleading to the American people.”

PHOTOS: 2016 presidential possibilities

“I am very disappointed in Susan Rice … telling a story that was disconnected from reality that did make the president look good at a time when, quite frankly, the narrative should have been challenged not reinforced that Al Qaeda was dismantled,” he said.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said that before appearing on the television shows, Rice should have had a fuller understanding of events.

“She certainly could have gotten the classified briefings. She would have sat down with the National Security Council, and she would have known that those talking points had been watered down, and she could have caveated that in her statement, which she didn't,” King said on ABC’s “This Week.” “President Obama said, don't blame Susan Rice because she had nothing to do with Benghazi. Then why did they send her out as the representative to the American people?”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that Rice has “a lot of explaining to do,” and should explain her comments if she is nominated.

“They said they wanted to not give classified assessment of what happened because they didn’t want to betray sources. Well if the classified assessment changed the unclassified assessment, then why in the world would you keep that information from the American people,” McCain said.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said it would be “totally unfair” to hold Rice responsible for simply relaying information she was given. He also accused McCain and Graham of hypocrisy for using the incident to potentially block a Rice nomination.

“Eight years ago when President Bush suggested Condoleezza Rice for secretary of State, some people said, ‘Well wait a minute, wasn’t she part of misleading the American people about intelligence information that led to our invasion of Iraq?’ And it was Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham who stood up and said, ‘Don’t hold her accountable for the intelligence that was given to her,’” Durbin said.

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michael.memoli@latimes.com

Twitter: @mikememoli

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Amazing Time-Lapse Video Features Ever-Changing Earth and Sky

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Heaven meets the Earth in this moving time-lapse video showing gorgeous landscapes underneath an ever-changing night sky.

“Within Two Worlds” was created by photographer Brad Goldpaint. The film features shooting comets, a giant tilting Milky Way, and glowing purple and pink auroras peeking over the horizon. Stunning sequences watch day turn to night and night to day, as overhead stars shine their beautiful light above mountains, forests, and waterfalls.

“This time-lapse video is my visual representation of how the night sky and landscapes co-exist within a world of contradictions. I hope this connection between heaven and earth inspires you to discover and create your own opportunities, to reach your rightful place within two worlds,” Goldpaint wrote on his Vimeo page.

Below you can see some of striking images from the movie, including screenshots of the Geminid meteor shower over Castle Lake in California and auroras over Crater Lake National park in Oregon.

Geminid meteor shower over Castle Lake

The Milky Way soars over Crater Lake as a Lyrid meteor flies overhead.

Star trails over Mount Shasta in California

Pink auroras over Crater Lake

Images and Video: Copyright Goldpaint Photography

Music composed by Serge Essiambre entitled, ‘Believe in Yourself’

Adam is a Wired reporter and freelance journalist. He lives in Oakland, Ca near a lake and enjoys space, physics, and other sciency things.

Read more by Adam Mann

Follow @adamspacemann on Twitter.

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One Direction top British single and album charts

LONDON (Reuters) – Boy band One Direction topped Britain’s singles and album charts on Sunday, outselling new releases from rock veterans Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, the Official Charts Company said.

The English-Irish quintet shot to number one in the album charts with “Take Me Home”, with one of its tracks, “Little Things”, also taking first place in the singles rankings.

Singer Rod Stewart had to settle for number two for his new collection of seasonal classics “Merry Christmas Baby”, while the Rolling Stones were third with their 50th anniversary compilation “GRRR!”.

Also new in the album lists were British tenor Alfie Boe at number six with “Storyteller”, while American punk band Green Day entered in tenth place with “¡Dos!”.

American singer Bruno Mars took second place in the singles charts with “Locked Out Of Heaven”, just ahead of “DNA” at number three from British girl group Little Mix.

(Reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by Will Waterman)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ashlyn Blocker, the Girl Who Feels No Pain

Jeff Riedel for The New York Times

Ashlyn Blocker, who feels no pain, at home in Patterson, GA.

The girl who feels no pain was in the kitchen, stirring ramen noodles, when the spoon slipped from her hand and dropped into the pot of boiling water. It was a school night; the TV was on in the living room, and her mother was folding clothes on the couch. Without thinking, Ashlyn Blocker reached her right hand in to retrieve the spoon, then took her hand out of the water and stood looking at it under the oven light. She walked a few steps to the sink and ran cold water over all her faded white scars, then called to her mother, “I just put my fingers in!” Her mother, Tara Blocker, dropped the clothes and rushed to her daughter’s side. “Oh, my lord!” she said — after 13 years, that same old fear — and then she got some ice and gently pressed it against her daughter’s hand, relieved that the burn wasn’t worse.

Tara Blocker

When Ashlyn was 2, her mother had to wrap her hands to keep her from biting them.

“I showed her how to get another utensil and fish the spoon out,” Tara said with a weary laugh when she recounted the story to me two months later. “Another thing,” she said, “she’s starting to use flat irons for her hair, and those things get superhot.”

Tara was sitting on the couch in a T-shirt printed with the words “Camp Painless But Hopeful.” Ashlyn was curled on the living-room carpet crocheting a purse from one of the skeins of yarn she keeps piled in her room. Her 10-year-old sister, Tristen, was in the leather recliner, asleep on top of their father, John Blocker, who stretched out there after work and was slowly falling asleep, too. The house smelled of the homemade macaroni and cheese they were going to have for dinner. A South Georgia rainstorm drummed the gutters, and lightning illuminated the batting cage and the pool in the backyard.

Without lifting her eyes from the crochet hooks in her hands, Ashlyn spoke up to add one detail to her mother’s story. “I was just thinking, What did I just do?” she said.

Over six days with the Blockers, I watched Ashlyn behave like any 13-year-old girl, brushing her hair, dancing around and jumping on her bed. I also saw her run without regard for her body through the house as her parents pleaded with her to stop. And she played an intense game of air hockey with her sister, slamming the puck on the table as hard and fast as she could. When she made an egg sandwich on the skillet, she pressed her hands onto the bread as Tara had taught her, to make sure it was cool before she put it into her mouth. She can feel warmth and coolness, but not the more extreme temperatures that would cause anyone else to recoil in pain.

Tara and John weren’t completely comfortable leaving Ashlyn alone in the kitchen, but it was something they felt they had to do, a concession to her growing independence. They made a point of telling stories about how responsible she is, but every one came with a companion anecdote that was painful to hear. There was the time she burned the flesh off the palms of her hands when she was 2. John was using a pressure-washer in the driveway and left its motor running; in the moments that they took their eyes off her, Ashlyn walked over and put her hands on the muffler. When she lifted them up the skin was seared away. There was the one about the fire ants that swarmed her in the backyard, biting her over a hundred times while she looked at them and yelled: “Bugs! Bugs!” There was the time she broke her ankle and ran around on it for two days before her parents realized something was wrong. They told these stories as casually as they talked about Tristen’s softball games or their son Dereck’s golf skills, but it was clear they were still struggling after all these years with how to keep Ashlyn safe.

A couple of nights after telling me the story about putting her hand in the boiling water, Ashlyn sat in the kitchen, playing with the headband that held back her long brown hair. We had all been drawing on napkins and playing checkers and listening to Ashlyn and Tristen sing “Call Me Maybe,” when all of a sudden Tara gasped and lifted the hair away from her daughter’s ears. She was bleeding beneath it. The headband had been cutting into her skin entire time we were sitting there.

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