London copter crash kills 2

LONDON — A helicopter smashed into a crane atop a high-rise building in central London and plummeted to the ground during the morning rush hour Wednesday, killing the pilot and a person on the ground, police and witnesses said.

More than a dozen people were injured in the shower of debris, but "it is probably miraculous that this wasn't much, much worse," Cmdr. Neil Basu of Scotland Yard told the BBC.

Video footage showed flaming wreckage on the ground where the chopper came down shortly before 8 a.m. in the Vauxhall district south of the Thames, close to MI6, Britain's spy agency. The site is also near the Nine Elms neighborhood where the U.S. is planning to build a large new embassy.

PHOTOS: London helicopter crash

The crash occurred on a gloomy morning with thick clouds or fog low in the sky. The nearby London Heliport said in a statement that the pilot had requested, via air traffic controllers at Heathrow Airport, to divert to the heliport and land there because of bad weather. But the chopper and the heliport never established direct contact.

Helicopters are a common sight over London, particularly around the financial district, where many high-rises are clustered.

Witness Patrick Gartland said he heard "an almighty crash" overhead and "a lot of yelling" from around the building, which is under construction.

"The helicopter had just plowed into the top of the crane. Rotors and debris sort of exploded, and then the helicopter had just gone into this massive sort of cart-wheeling," Gartland told Sky News. "It careered just over the flower market and just exploded when it hit Wandsworth Road."

The helicopter charter company RotorMotion identified the pilot as Peter Barnes, 50, a highly experienced flyer who had accumulated more than 12,000 flying hours.

Police said the chopper was not carrying any passengers. Seven people were treated at the scene for minor injuries, and six were taken to local hospitals, all for minor wounds except for one person who suffered a broken leg.

henry.chu@latimes.com

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When Time Is Short, Go Aerobic to Slim Down

It’s the time of year when we promise ourselves that we’re going to eat better (and less), exercise more and drop some weight. Turns out you might want to skip the weight bench and hit the treadmill if you want to keep that last resolution but don’t have a lot of time to work out.

Researchers at Duke University have examined the impact of aerobic and resistance training on body and fat mass in overweight and obese adults and concluded that when it comes to losing weight, aerobic exercise has an edge.

“If you’re overweight, it’s good to lose fat and body weight,” Dr. Leslie Willis, an exercise physiologist at Duke and lead author of the study, said of aerobic exercise. “Spend time doing cardio training if that’s your main goal.”

She noted, however that she isn’t saying that resistance training is by any means a bad thing, and in fact remains vital because it promotes lean body mass — which becomes more important as we age.

The study, published last month in the Journal of Applied Physiology, surveyed 234 adults aged 18 to 70 who were overweight or obese. They participated in one of three eight-month programs consisting of aerobic training, resistance training and a combination of the two. The aerobic training group exercised at 70 to 85 percent maximum heart rate for 45 minutes three times a week. The resistance training group did eight to 12 repetitions on resistance machines, increasing weight as time progressed so they’d remain challenged. The remaining group combined the regimens of both groups. When they were done, each participant was weighed, measured and tested for cardio fitness, body composition and strength.

The study found the aerobic training group and combination groups lost the most weight, around 4 pounds. Those who did resistance training alone actually gained a similar amount of weight in lean body mass. While the cardio group lost weight, they also lost lean body mass. The cardio and combination groups also saw a reduction in waistline, the cardio group losing 1 and combination group losing 1.66 square centimeters. These groups also lost 1 and 2 percent body fat, respectively, whereas the resistance group saw little to no change. However, in the aerobic group, there was no alteration of lean body mass like there was in the groups that had some sort of resistance regimen.

Read this way, the study suggests that if you only have a few hours a week to work out and your goal is losing weight, concentrate your energy on aerobic workouts. It also shows that if you have the time, resistance training plus cardio is best to build lean body mass.

A problem, however, is that sometimes studies like this are taken too literally, said Dr. Abbie Smith-Ryan, an exercise and sports scientist at UNC. Although the science behind the study is “flawless” and adds great data to the body of knowledge on the subject, she said, it’s also important to consider additional practical factors before changing your workout routine.

“When I look at the changes in body fat alone,” she said, “it was just 4 pounds. While statistically significant, we would hope to see a larger change in body fat and weight with such a comprehensive training program.”

Much of Smith-Ryan’s research is in high-intensity interval training, where she noted that over less time performed a week, they are seeing some large changes. She agrees, though, that you shouldn’t tell people to stop resistance training, which can directly and indirectly influence metabolism by breaking down our muscles. The repair process is where the caloric demand arises, and the more intense the workout, the more calories we burn rebuilding those muscles.

“This to me doesn’t say, ‘Don’t do resistance training training, or just do aerobic training,’” she said. “They are both important. This study also highlights the importance of nutrition. Exercise is not only the important part of weight loss; nutrition is a big factor. The subjects were on a 2,000-calorie diet, which is practical, but there was such a small change in body fat and weight over a six-month period.

The main takeaway, then, is to find something that fits your goals (losing pounds, changing your shape, improving your cardio fitness) that you will stick with. Chances are if you only lose a few pounds and a percent or two in body fat in eight weeks, you won’t stick with it. Those looking to change their overall look need to up the ante with intensity and frequency. Oh, and eat less.

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Obama calls for research on media in gun violence

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood and the video game industry received scant attention Wednesday when President Barack Obama unveiled sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

The White House pressed most forcefully for a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

No connection was suggested between bloody entertainment fictions and real-life violence. Instead, the White House is calling on research on the effect of media and video games on gun violence.

Among the 23 executive measures signed Wednesday by Obama is a directive to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scientific agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. The order specifically cited “investigating the relationship between video games, media images and violence.”

The measure meant that media would not be exempt from conversations about violence, but it also suggested the White House would not make Hollywood, television networks and video game makers a central part of the discussion. It’s a relative footnote in the White House‘s broad, multi-point plan, and Obama did not mention violence in media in his remarks Wednesday.

The White House plan did mention media, but suggested that any effort would be related to ratings systems or technology: “The entertainment and video game industries have a responsibility to give parents tools and choices about the movies and programs their children watch and the games their children play.”

The administration is calling on Congress to provide $ 10 million for the research.

The CDC has been barred by Congress to use funds to “advocate or promote gun control,” but the White House order claims that “research on gun violence is not advocacy” and that providing information to Americans on the issue is “critical public health research.”

Since 26 were killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary in December, some have called for changes in the entertainment industry, which regularly churns out first-person shooter video games, grisly primetime dramas and casually violent blockbusters.

Hollywood, in turn, has suggested willingness for self-reflection. Motion Picture Association of America chairman and CEO Christopher Dodd — a former longtime U.S. senator from Connecticut — earlier said the MPAA stands “ready to be part of the national conversation.”

After the Newtown massacre, Wayne Pierre, vice-president of the National Rifle Association, attacked the entertainment industry, calling it “a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people.” He cited a number of video games and films, most of them many years old, like the movies “American Psycho” and “Natural Born Killers,” and the video games “Mortal Kombat” and “Grand Theft Auto.”

President Obama‘s adviser, David Axelrod, had tweeted that he’s in favor of gun control, “but shouldn’t we also question marketing murder as a game?”

Others have countered that the same video games and movies are played and watched around the world, but that the tragedies of gun violence are for other reasons endemic to the U.S.

Several R-rated films released after Newton have been swept into the debate. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor and action film star, recently told USA Today in discussing his new shoot-em-up film “The Last Stand”: “It’s entertainment. People know the difference.”

Quentin Tarantino, whose new film “Django Unchained” is a cartoonish, bloody spaghetti western set in the slavery-era South, has often grown testy when questioned about movie violence and real-life violence. Speaking to NPR, Tarantino said it was disrespectful to the memory of the victims to talk about movies: “I don’t think one has to do with the other.”

In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. The decision claimed that video games, like other media, are protected by the First Amendment. In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer claimed previous studies showed the link between violence and video games, concluding “the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children.”

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government can’t regulate depictions of violence, which he said were age-old, anyway: “Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed.”

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Study Confirms Benefits of Flu Vaccine for Pregnant Women

While everyone is being urged to get the flu vaccine as soon as possible, some pregnant women avoid it in the belief that it may harm their babies. A large new study confirms that they should be much more afraid of the flu than the vaccine.

Norwegian researchers studied fetal death among 113,331 women pregnant during the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009-2010. Some 54,065 women were unvaccinated, 31,912 were vaccinated during pregnancy, and 27,354 were vaccinated after delivery. The scientists then reviewed hospitalizations and doctor visits for the flu among the women.

The results were published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The flu vaccine was not associated with an increased risk for fetal death, the researchers found, and getting the shot during pregnancy reduced the risk of the mother getting the flu by about 70 percent. That was important, because fetuses whose mothers got the flu were much more likely to die.

Unvaccinated women had a 25 percent higher risk of fetal death during the pandemic than those who had had the shot. Among pregnant women with a clinical diagnosis of influenza, the risk of fetal death was nearly doubled. In all, there were 16 fetal deaths among the 2,278 women who were diagnosed with influenza during pregnancy.

Dr. Marian Knight, a professor at the perinatal epidemiology unit of the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the research, called it “a high-quality national study” that shows “there is no evidence of an increased risk of fetal death in women who have been immunized. Clinicians and women can be reassured about the safety of the vaccine in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.”

The Norwegian health system records vaccinations of individuals and maintains linked registries to track effects and side effects. The lead author, Dr. Camilla Stoltenberg, director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said that there are few countries with such complete records.

“This is a great study,” said Dr. Denise J. Jamieson, an obstetrician and a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was not involved in the work. “It’s nicely done, with good data, and it’s additional information about the importance of the flu vaccine for pregnant women. It shows that it’s effective and might reduce the risk for fetal death.”

In Norway, the vaccine is recommended only in the second and third trimesters, so the study includes little data on vaccination in the first trimester. The C.D.C. recommends the vaccine for all pregnant women, regardless of trimester.

“We knew from other studies that the vaccine protects the woman and the newborn,” Dr. Stoltenberg said. “This study clearly indicates that it protects fetuses as well. I seriously suggest that pregnant women get vaccinated during every flu season.”

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Supreme Court Hears Argument on Cellphone Towers

WASHINGTON — In June, two Texas cities asked the Supreme Court to decide a practical question and an abstract one, both concerning how quickly local zoning authorities have to respond to applications from telecommunications companies to build wireless towers.

The practical question was whether the Federal Communications Commission was authorized to set time limits. But the Supreme Court, which includes four former law professors with an interest in administrative law, agreed to decide only the abstract question of whether an administrative agency like the commission may determine the scope of its own jurisdiction.

At the argument of the case on Wednesday, some of the justices seemed content to tease apart the semantic distinctions posed by the second question, though there did not seem to be much enthusiasm for adding further complexity to an already tangled area. Others appeared frustrated that the court had gone out of its way to avoid having to give real-world guidance about a concrete and consequential issue.

The case, City of Arlington v. Federal Communications Commission, No. 11-1545, concerns a 1996 federal law that requires state and local authorities to act “within a reasonable period of time” after receiving applications to build or alter wireless facilities. In response to a request from a trade association for the wireless industry, the commission made two decisions.

First, it found that it had jurisdiction to define what a reasonable time was. Second, it said that 90 or 150 days were generally appropriate deadlines, depending on the circumstances.

The Texas cities, Arlington and San Antonio, said Congress had not authorized the commission to act in the first place, pointing to a part of the law that said it was not meant to limit the power of state and local governments.

The general rules in this area were set out in 1984 in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which said that judges should defer to an administrative agency’s views when Congress itself has not spoken clearly.

The additional question in the new case was whether Chevron’s general framework applies to an agency’s determination of whether it has the power to act in the first place. Several justices said it did.

“The jurisdictional question, like any other question,” Justice Antonin Scalia said, “is to be decided with deference to the agency.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared to agree, adding that it was hard to tell the two kinds of questions apart. “It’s almost impossible to talk about what’s jurisdictional and what’s an application of jurisdiction,” she said.

A lawyer for the cities, Thomas C. Goldstein, responded that there are times when courts should draw distinctions between an agency’s general authority to interpret a law and its specific authority to interpret a particular provision of the law based on the text of the statute.

Justice Elena Kagan said that was slicing things too fine. “Mr. Goldstein, at one level you are right,” she said. “It’s just a level that doesn’t help you very much.”

At the end of the day, she said, it is all the same question. “We’ve just had some very simple rules about what gets you into the box where an agency is entitled to deference,” she said.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., representing the commission, said that a uniform approach was workable. The alternative proposed by the cities, he said, would “open a Pandora’s box” because there was no “clear, neat dividing line” between the two kinds of questions.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer said the court should generally defer to agencies with expertise that lawmakers lack. “Congress, which is not expert, would have wanted the F.C.C. to figure this one out,” he said.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said there might be a special reason not to defer to the commission in this case because it concerned a conflict between federal and state powers. Federal courts, he said, are better suited to policing that boundary than “an agency of unelected bureaucrats.”

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N.Y. OKs gun law; gun victims demand Wal-Mart drop assault weapons

NEW YORK -- The state of New York on Tuesday approved legislation to curb the sale of assault weapons and ammunition, as victims of gun violence joined other protesters at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Connecticut to demand the retailer stop selling guns similar to the type used by a man who killed 20 children in Newtown, Conn.

The Democratic-controlled Assembly in Albany, N.Y., approved the bill after the Republican-majority Senate passed it about 11 p.m. Monday, making the state the first to take legislative action against gun violence since the Newtown massacre a month ago. Among other measures, the bill, which was signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, will crack down on ammunition sales and broaden the definition of assault weapons in New York to make it harder to legally possess them.

The bill also will require therapists to report patients diagnosed as mentally ill who threaten to use guns illegally, and it will outlaw online sales of assault weapons and the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines. In addition, it will require the revocation or suspension of gun licenses from individuals who are subjects of orders of protection.

It passed the Assembly 104 to 43.

"Passing today's legislation was the least my colleagues and I could do to honor the memory of those lost in 2012," said Rep. Daniel O'Donnell, who voted for the so-called SAFE Act and who said New York and Connecticut were "still reeling" from the shootings in Newtown and a Christmas Eve shooting in the New York town of Webster that killed two firefighters.

"Even one injury or death from gun-related violence is too many, and last year our country felt the shock and grief these events bring all too frequently," he said.

In  Danbury, Conn., about five miles from the Newtown school where 26 people were killed Dec. 14, the Wal-Mart protest drew together people directly affected by gun violence.  They  included a woman whose 6-year-old daughter was killed in the January 2011 shooting that targeted former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon and another woman who was shot but survived that attack.

"Millions of people we've heard from have said the American people have had enough," said Roxanna Green, whose 9-year-old daughter, Christina-Taylor, was the youngest of the six who died when a gunman opened fire in a parking lot where Giffords was speaking. Giffords was shot in the head and critically wounded but survived.

Green described herself as a Wal-Mart customer but said the retailer bears a responsibility to shoppers to remove from shelves the sorts of weapons now in the cross hairs of activists looking for ways to prevent more mass shootings.

"I'm very hopeful. Most of us here today are Wal-Mart shoppers. I think they'll listen to their customers, if they want to help save lives and make their customers happy," Green said shortly after the store's manager was handed a box full of petitions.

Anthony Mercurio, spokesman for the group SumofUs.org, which helped launch the petition drive, said the box contained more than 291,000 petitions. He placed it on the ground in front of the store manager, John Ruggieri, who stood quietly as those at the front of the cluster of protesters appealed to Wal-Mart to take assault weapons off its shelves.

"You have to join us in this effort," said Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily was shot and wounded in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, where 32 students and instructors were slain. "We would like the assault weapons ... these are military-style people-killers ... off the shelves today."

"Ma'am, I'm with everybody in the community," said Ruggieri, who said he had no authority to comment on Wal-Mart policy as a whole.

"We'll take this thing and move it up to the right people," he added before heading inside the store with the box.

The Danbury store does not stock weapons, but hundreds of other Wal-Marts in the U.S. do. The retailer's inventory includes the same type of weapons used by 20-year-old Adam Lanza when he burst into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and opened fire on first-graders. In addition to the 20 children slain, six school employees died that day. Lanza also shot his mother to death and committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Law enforcement officials say Lanza used a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle to kill the children. He shot himself with a Glock 10-millimeter handgun, and also carried a Sig Sauer pistol. 

Like other retailers, Wal-Mart stopped selling many weapons from 1994 to 2004, when a federal assault weapons ban was in effect. When the ban was allowed to expire, weapons returned to many store shelves. Protesters accused Wal-Mart of reneging on a vow to keep assault weapons off its shelves after the ban expired.

“We have been purposeful about striking the right balance between serving our customers that are hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that we sell firearms in the most responsible manner possible,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie in response to the protesters’ demands. She said the company, for instance, does not sell handguns in the continental U.S., does not sell high-capacity magazines as an accessory, does not sell firearms online, and sells only sporting rifles at less than one-third of Wal-Mart stores, “primarily where there are large concentrations of hunters and sportsmen.”

The retailer also has cameras to videotape sales of firearms in its stores and “exceeds the current legal requirements” on background checks of arms purchasers, among other measures, said Hardie.

“This is an issue we take seriously and have taken a number of steps above and beyond what the law requires to help ensure we are being responsible,” she said.

Wal-Mart's vice president of corporate communications, David Tovar, has said Wal-Mart leaders were among those who had spoken with Vice President Joe Biden as he sought input for recommendations given to President Obama this week on combating gun violence.

Obama will announce "concrete proposals" on gun policy based on Biden's recommendations Wednesday.

In a suburb east of New York City, meanwhile, a high school in the city of Elmont was closed for several hours Tuesday after someone called 911 to report a possible gun on campus. A search turned up the suspicious item, which was a toy weapon.

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Sandy Hook group calls for 'real change,' but what does that mean?

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<em>X-Men</em> to Relaunch as All-Female Superhero Team

 The Marvel Comics superhero title X-Menwill be relaunching in April with an all-new #1 issue, and while comic book reboots may be a dime a dozen these days, this one has something far more interesting inside its pages: an all-female team of characters.

The new title will be scripted by Brian Wood, the creator of DMZ and writer of the new Star Wars comic from Dark Horse, and illustrated by Olivier Coipel (Thor). Wood told Wired that while the gender makeup of the team offers an interesting creative opportunity, he doesn’t see it as the only thing that defines the book.

“Everyone is really excited at the idea of an all-female team, but we’re not trying to make it all about that. It’s an X-Men book, first and foremost… Last year, when I had a team of four women and one man, they were all called X-Men back then, you know?  …It seems like a no-brainer to me, now, or last year, or ten years ago.  The female X-Men are amazing characters, they always have been, everyone knows that.  They’ve been the best thing about the franchise.”

The X-Men have long been notable in the superhero world as a team with a larger-than-average cast of distinct, relatable heroines, and the new comic will feature fan-favorite characters including Storm (who historically served as the erstwhile team leader of the X-Men) Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Psylocke, Rachel Grey and Jubilee.

Wood believes that the X-Men comics not only have a large cast of female characters in comparison to many other superhero books, but “a demographically larger number of female readers, too… I think a big part of the appeal is the flawed nature of the characters, in a human sense, in a relatable sense.  If you compare to the DC [Comics] characters, [those] are the jocks and cheerleaders, but on the Marvel side, and especially the X-Men side, they are the freaks and geeks and misfits and weirdos and outcasts and anyone who doesn’t fit into some mold.”

While Marvel and Wood remained vague about the exact details about the creation of the new team, USA Today reported that plot developments in the relaunched book will involve “Jubilee bringing home an orphaned baby who might be key to mankind’s survival… Sentinels, a potential alien invasion and an ancient war between siblings.”

Wood, who is also well-known for his work on independent, creator-owned comics with female leads, like Local, Channel Zero and Mara, sees this book as an opportunity to write a high-profile group of female characters in a way that addresses a lot of the cultural criticism about how superheroines are often presented as eye-candy, often in the guise of “empowerment.”

“There’s too much cheesecake out there that is sold, or at least marketed, as a ‘strong female’ character or book when its anything but, and it just reinforces the worst opinions of the most sexist fans, and we gain no new ground.  We probably lose ground.  I’m not approaching this new X-Men as a ‘female book,’ but I’m writing it as a high action X-Men comic, and with some luck that will nullify some of these poisonous critics who go looking for something to feel angry/uncomfortable/threatened by.”

The key to writing good female character, says Wood, is simply to try to understand them on a human level first, and then consider the character from the perspective of gender.

“I approach the page with the belief that, as people, we all have universal reactions on a basic level to things and that’s where the truth lies, where primal human emotions can be found.  With that as a foundation, you can tweak the details according to character and gender and personality.  So what you get here, if done well, is a very relatable character that should transcend gender lines and have mass appeal. When you approach the page with the thought, ‘Okay, so what should this woman do now,’ you start off from a place of stereotype and bad writing, and there’s no fixing it because that is now your foundation. It’s not complicated, but it does require the writer to see the characters as people first and sex later.”

Not that the new book will shy away from sexual elements in the lives of its characters. Romantic drama and relationships have always been a hallmark of X-Men stories, and Wood not only plans to keep those classic elements, but also to deal directly with the sexuality of his characters in way that he hopes will avoid the typical double standard — treating the liaisons of male superheroes as unremarkable while labeling female characters “promiscuous” for the same behavior.

The writer also hopes that the new X-Men will address — and perhaps shatter — the perception in superhero comics that female characters typically lack the iconic power or broad appeal to anchor a major hit.

“I think this title here will be an interesting test case, to see if a high-profile book with an high-profile artist and marquee characters can indeed overcome what often happens to books starring female heroes.  I think we have a good shot, but even now, based only off the accouncement, there’s all sorts of negative feedback that ranges from generic sexism, to open hostility, and to lame charges of reverse sexism,” said Wood.

“Chances are this book will launch very high, but if we can keep it high and resist the typical decline that happens to female-led superhero comics, we’ll have proved something and maybe even set a precedent, and that would be fantastic.”

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes of life’s struggles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a memoir to be published on Tuesday, Sonia Sotomayor writes of the chronic disease, troubled family relationships and failed marriage that accompanied her rise from a housing project in the Bronx to a seat on America’s highest court.

The first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, the 58-year-old justice, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, describes the insecurities she has felt as a minority who benefited from racial remedies.

She signed on to write the sweeping, 315-page book, “My Beloved World,” early in her tenure. She received a $ 1.175 million book advance in 2010 from publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, according to financial disclosure records.

Sitting down for a rare interview in her Supreme Court chambers, Sotomayor said that after being thrust into the public limelight with her nomination to the court, she felt the need for introspection to hold onto her identity.

The court’s nine justices, appointed for life, typically decline to sit for interviews or offer any personal observations related to cases. Book tours offer rare opportunities to draw them out on issues, even if only a little.

“I began to realize that if I didn’t stop and take a breath and figure out who this Sonia was, I could be in danger of losing the best in me,” she said. She didn’t want the memoir to be a retelling of her public persona, but rather to reveal who she is as a person, she said.

The interview was part of an orchestrated media blitz to promote the book, which included appearances on Sunday night’s popular CBS News program “60 Minutes” and in People Magazine.

In the coming-of-age story, Sotomayor paints a picture of her young self as a boisterous child, once rescued by a fireman neighbor when she got her head stuck in a bucket, trying to hear what her voice sounded like.

TROUBLED FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

She exudes the same energy when speaking on the phone or talking through the door to her assistant, often calling people “sweetie.” Her chambers are spacious, bright and elegant, decorated with modern art on the walls.

Her environs have not always been so pristine. She describes the difficulty of growing up with a father who was an alcoholic and a mother who was frequently absent. Diagnosed with diabetes at a young age, she wet the bed, fainted in church and learned to inject daily doses of insulin to regulate her blood sugar.

Her father died when Sotomayor was nine, leaving a room full of drained liquor bottles hidden under his mattress, in jacket pockets and closets. While his death sent Sotomayor’s mother into a state of grief, it was also a relief. Until then, her mother had worked long hours as a nurse to stay out of the house and avoid conflict.

At her Supreme Court nomination, Sotomayor ascribed her success to her mother. In the book, Sotomayor portrays a more complicated relationship, describing the pain caused by her mother’s absence and lack of affection. Sotomayor told Reuters that the part in the book about her relationship with her mother, who is still alive, was the most difficult to write.

The justice is open about her insecurities. At Princeton, which admitted her in 1972 under an affirmative action program, Sotomayor questioned her right to be there at times. Other students could be hostile to minorities, and the college newspaper routinely published letters bemoaning the presence of students on campus through racial remedies known as affirmative action.

It gave her the sense that vultures were “circling, ready to dive when we stumbled,” she writes.

VESTIGES OF DISCRIMINATION

The book comes out as the Supreme Court is weighing a landmark case about the role of race in college admissions. Sotomayor was careful in the Reuters interview not to discuss current cases, but said there was value to affirmative action programs.

“It’s impossible to not recognize that the vestiges of discrimination take a long time to erase,” she said. “It just doesn’t happen overnight.”

But she also called affirmative action a “double-edged sword.” She said some people still attribute her position on the court to affirmative action, based on her identity as a Latina justice.

“That’s hurtful. To have your accomplishments naysaid is not something you welcome, and not something that makes you feel good,” she said.

Sotomayor’s book is not the first literary window into a justice’s personal life. Justice Clarence Thomas described his experience with poverty, racism and affirmative action in “My Grandfather’s Son,” and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote about her early life growing up on an Arizona cattle ranch in “Lazy B.” Sotomayor’s self-portrait is the most revealing, down to the references to the old-lady underwear a friend persuaded her to abandon.

She describes the blow of being denied a job offer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison after working there as a summer associate while she was at Yale Law School. That disappointment hung over her like a cloud until she became a judge, she writes. The firm declined to comment.

She also opens up about her marriage to her high school sweetheart, Kevin Noonan, which ended with an amicable divorce. On their wedding night, she insisted that he flush down the toilet Quaaludes that were given as a gift by his friends, showing her respect for the law. She says the marriage failed, in part, because of her self-reliance, but that she is still open to finding a happy relationship.

(Editing by Howard Goller and Lisa Shumaker)

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Well: How to Go Vegan

When I first heard former President Bill Clinton talk about his vegan diet, I was inspired to make the switch myself. After all, if a man with a penchant for fast-food burgers and Southern cooking could go vegan, surely I could too.

At the grocery store, I stocked up on vegan foods, including almond milk (that was the presidential recommendation), and faux turkey and cheese to replicate my daughter’s favorite sandwich. But despite my good intentions, my cold-turkey attempt to give up, well, turkey (as well as other meats, dairy and eggs) didn’t go well. My daughter and I couldn’t stand the taste of almond milk, and the fake meat and cheese were unappealing.

Since then, I’ve spoken with numerous vegan chefs and diners who say it can be a challenge to change a lifetime of eating habits overnight. They offer the following advice for stocking your vegan pantry and finding replacements for key foods like cheese and other dairy products.

NONDAIRY MILK Taste all of them to find your favorite. Coconut and almond milks (particularly canned coconut milk) are thicker and good to use in cooking, while rice milk is thinner and is good for people who are allergic to nuts or soy. My daughter and I both prefer the taste of soy milk and use it in regular or vanilla flavor for fruit smoothies and breakfast cereal.

NONDAIRY CHEESE Cheese substitutes are available under the brand names Daiya, Tofutti and Follow Your Heart, among others, but many vegans say there’s no fake cheese that satisfies as well as the real thing. Rather than use a packaged product, vegan chefs prefer to make homemade substitutes using cashews, tofu, miso or nutritional yeast. At Candle 79, a popular New York vegan restaurant, the filling for saffron ravioli with wild mushrooms and cashew cheese is made with cashews soaked overnight and then blended with lemon juice, olive oil, water and salt.

THINK CREAMY, NOT CHEESY Creaminess and richness can often be achieved without a cheese substitute. For instance, Chloe Coscarelli, a vegan chef and the author of “Chloe’s Kitchen,” has created a pizza with caramelized onion and butternut squash that will make you forget it doesn’t have cheese; the secret is white-bean and garlic purée. She also offers a creamy, but dairy-free, avocado pesto pasta. My daughter and I have discovered we actually prefer the rich flavor of butternut squash ravioli, which can be found frozen and fresh in supermarkets, to cheese-filled ravioli.

NUTRITIONAL YEAST The name is unappetizing, but many vegan chefs swear by it: it’s a natural food with a roasted, nutty, cheeselike flavor. Ms. Coscarelli uses nutritional yeast flakes in her “best ever” baked macaroni and cheese (found in her cookbook). “I’ve served this to die-hard cheese lovers,” she told me, “and everyone agrees it is comparable, if not better.”

Susan Voisin’s Web site, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, offers a nice primer on nutritional yeast, noting that it’s a fungus (think mushrooms!) that is grown on molasses and then harvested and dried with heat. (Baking yeast is an entirely different product.) Nutritional yeasts can be an acquired taste, she said, so start with small amounts, sprinkling on popcorn, stirring into mashed potatoes, grinding with almonds for a Parmesan substitute or combining with tofu to make an eggless omelet. It can be found in Whole Foods, in the bulk aisle of natural-foods markets or online.

BUTTER This is an easy fix. Vegan margarines like Earth Balance are made from a blend of oils and are free of trans fats. Varieties include soy-free, whipped and olive oil.

EGGS Ms. Coscarelli, who won the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars with vegan cupcakes, says vinegar and baking soda can help baked goods bind together and rise, creating a moist and fluffy cake without eggs. Cornstarch can substitute for eggs to thicken puddings and sauces. Vegan pancakes are made with a tablespoon of baking powder instead of eggs. Frittatas and omelets can be replicated with tofu.

Finally, don’t try to replicate your favorite meaty foods right away. If you love a juicy hamburger, meatloaf or ham sandwich, you are not going to find a meat-free version that tastes the same. Ms. Voisin advises new vegans to start slow and eat a few vegan meals a week. Stock your pantry with lots of grains, lentils and beans and pile your plate with vegetables. To veganize a recipe, start with a dish that is mostly vegan already — like spaghetti — and use vegetables or a meat substitute for the sauce.

“Trying to recapture something and find an exact substitute is really hard,” she said. “A lot of people will try a vegetarian meatloaf right after they become vegetarian, and they hate it. But after you get away from eating meat for a while, you’ll find you start to develop other tastes, and the flavor of a lentil loaf with seasonings will taste great to you. It won’t taste like meat loaf, but you’ll appreciate it for itself.”

Ms. Voisin notes that she became a vegetarian and then vegan while living in a small town in South Carolina; she now lives in Jackson, Miss.

“If I can be a vegan in these not-quite-vegan-centric places, you can do it anywhere,” she said. “I think people who try to do it all at once overnight are more apt to fail. It’s a learning process.”

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What are your tips for vegan cooking and eating? Share your suggestions on ingredients, recipes and strategies by posting a comment below or tweeting with the hashtag #vegantips.

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Media Decoder: The Atlantic Apologizes for Scientology Ad

The Atlantic on Tuesday issued a simple three-word apology for publishing an advertisement by the Church of Scientology that resembled a normal article from the acclaimed magazine: “We screwed up.”

The Web page, published around lunchtime on Monday, was labeled as “sponsor content,” but otherwise looked like a sunny blog post about the church’s expansion. The page was titled “David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year.” It was noticed by reporters at other news organizations on Monday evening and was stripped from The Atlantic’s site by midnight.

“It shouldn’t have taken a wave of constructive criticism — but it has — to alert us that we’ve made a mistake, possibly several mistakes,” The Atlantic said in a statement. “We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way.”

In other words: The Web site published Scientology’s ad without considering all the consequences.

The Atlantic is far from the only digital publisher pitching advertisers on what is known as sponsored content. Gawker and BuzzFeed are among the other Web sites that have gained attention for the practice, which places an advertiser’s words and visuals (the content) within the frame of the site. The Huffington Post has a whole section front for sponsored content.

But no instance of sponsored content has come under as much criticism as this one. Gawker called the sponsored Web page “bizarre, blatant propaganda for Scientology.” Others raised questions about why all the comments on the page were supportive of the church, indicating that critical comments were being deleted. A spokeswoman for The Atlantic said that the comments were moderated by its marketing team, not by the editorial team that moderates comments on normal articles.

At the same time, others defended the arrangement as a smart business move. The church’s ad buy comes at a time when it is trying to blunt the impact of a new book about the secretive religion by Lawrence Wright, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief.” The book will be published on Thursday.

On the same day, the NBC newsmagazine “Rock Center with Brian Williams” will broadcast an interview with the writer and director Paul Haggis, described by the network as “the most famous Scientologist to leave Scientology and speak out against it.”

The Atlantic said on Tuesday that it deleted the Scientology ad “until we figure all of this out,” meaning the policies that govern sponsored content.

“It’s safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand,” the magazine said.

The magazine indicated that it was not backing away from sponsored content altogether, far from it: “We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge — sheepishly — that we got ahead of ourselves.” The statement concluded, ”We are sorry, and we’re working very hard to put things right.”

The Atlantic spokeswoman said that the handling of comments on sponsored content is one of the issues it is going to review.

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