The Queen's New Gambit: Chess as a Great American Spectator Sport

Julian Schuster first heard the rumor a year and a half ago. Susan Polgar, the legendary grand master known to journalists as “the Queen,” was unhappy in her current position as Texas Tech’s chess coach. She was feeling unappreciated. She had made this known to certain people in the tight-knit world of chess, and the news had traveled from one of these confidants, a foreign grand master living in Texas, to the ears of Schuster, a passionate fan of the game, in St. Louis.

He knew her story, of course; it had achieved the status of legend. Her father raised her and her two sisters to be chess prodigies. In the 1980s, the three Polgar sisters began showing up at tournaments and crushing all comers, men and women alike. At age 21, Susan, the eldest of the three, became the first woman to earn the title of grand master in the way men always had, by proving she could hold her own in competition against other grand masters. Once, over the course of 16 hours and 30 minutes, she played 326 chess games simultaneously, winning 309 of them—a world record at the time. She blazed a trail for women in the game.

Beyond her career at the board, Polgar had made a name for herself as a dominant coach—arguably the dominant coach—in the thriving if mostly invisible world of American collegiate chess. In 2007, at the age of 38, she took her first coaching job, at Texas Tech, whose team was then unranked. By 2010 she had led the Knight Raiders’ all-male squad to the President’s Cup, known as “the Final Four of college chess”; the following two years the Raiders won it all, topping not just Yale and Princeton but the two traditional chess powerhouses, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

But the conflicts between Polgar and Texas Tech over the kind of issues usually associated with big-time football programs—scholarships, resources, the future of the team—were real, as Schuster, provost of Missouri’s Webster University, would soon learn. A small private school with an unusually dense network of international campuses, Webster lacked a chess team, despite the fact that its main campus was located just outside the city limits of America’s new chess capital. St. Louis is home to the top-ranked player in the US, 25-year-old Hikaru Nakamura, as well as one of the game’s most deep-pocketed benefactors, 68-year-old multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield, who stepped up to build the most opulent chess venue in the country and probably the world, the 6,000-square-foot, $1 million-plus Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.

In the summer of 2011, Schuster, a native of the former Yugoslavia who grew up hearing tales of the Polgar sisters’ heroics, invited Susan to St. Louis. He gave her a tour of the Webster campus and, later, talked to her about the resources the school could provide if she decided to coach there. Polgar liked what she heard. In February 2012, she announced that she would be transferring to Webster as its new chess coach. But not only that; eight of her players would be transferring too. Webster would be picking up their scholarships. It was unprecedented: A college chess coach was shifting allegiance from one university to another and bringing a significant chunk of her team with her. No volleyball coach, no tennis or baseball coach, had ever done anything close. News of the deal made The New York Times, USA Today, National Public Radio, and even that custodian of the sporting zeitgeist, ESPN.com.

Polgar’s sudden departure from Texas Tech surprised her fellow collegiate chess coaches, but they couldn’t deny that the move made sense for Webster; they knew how useful chess could be for a school looking to boost its intellectual reputation. Today’s collegiate game is dominated by a slate of elite squads at schools most people have never heard of. Places like UT Dallas, which has no football stadium but does have a Chess Plaza where graduating players get their pictures taken next to enormous chess pieces, and UMBC, which uses money from the school’s beverage contract with Pepsi-Cola to offer hefty Pepsi-Cola Chess Fellow scholarships to students with extraordinarily high chess ratings. The coaches for these and other top-ranked teams regularly travel abroad to recruit talented young players from Eastern Europe; they identify high schools in the US and elsewhere that can serve as feeder programs; they take calls from hedge funds wanting to offer jobs to their best players.

But among the top coaches in collegiate chess, Polgar has established herself in just five years as the most aggressive: a flamboyant personality, a fierce competitor, and a dogged recruiter. All told, her team at Webster now includes eight grand masters, who hail from the US, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and the Philippines. This is an unheard-of concentration of talent for a single team. The next strongest squad, at UT Dallas, has only four grand masters. (To put that in context, there are nine grand masters in the entire country of Canada.) As soon as Polgar’s new team began competing, it was ranked number one in the country; no wonder that in the national championships of collegiate chess, which will be decided next month, Webster goes in as the top seed. But Polgar has set her sights beyond dominance of the collegiate game.

It’s been a long time since Americans really cared about chess. The last big spike of interest came in 1972, when one of our own, Bobby Fischer, faced down the Soviets’ top gun over a board in Iceland. Inspired by Fischer’s victory, a generation of smart, shy kids hurried out to buy chess manuals. Then Fischer went nuts. The Cold War ended. Chess was still, fundamentally, a game where two people sat at a table and thought a lot, and America was still a culture without a deep legacy of chess appreciation. Polgar wants to change that. She wants to win the hearts of soccer-addled adolescents and cable TV executives; she wants Americans to think of chess as a sport every bit as legitimate as golf or poker. All chess needs to break through, she believes, are some compelling public faces—and her all-star team of collegians might fit the bill. Engineered from childhood to be a grand master, Susan Polgar is trying to engineer an unlikely chess resurgence in the US.

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In Reversal, Florida to Take Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion

MIAMI — Gov. Rick Scott of Florida reversed himself on Wednesday and announced that he would expand his state’s Medicaid program to cover the poor, becoming the latest — and, perhaps, most prominent — Republican critic of President Obama’s health care law to decide to put it into effect.

It was an about-face for Mr. Scott, a former businessman who entered politics as a critic of Mr. Obama’s health care proposals. Florida was one of the states that sued to try to block the law. After the Supreme Court ruled last year that though the law was constitutional, states could choose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover the poor, Mr. Scott said that Florida would not expand its programs.

Mr. Scott said Wednesday that he now supported a three-year expansion of Medicaid, through the period that the federal government has agreed to pay the full cost of the expansion, and before some of the costs are shifted to the states.

“While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost, I cannot in good conscience deny Floridians that needed access to health care,” Mr. Scott said at a news conference. “We will support a three-year expansion of the Medicaid program under the new health care law as long as the federal government meets their commitment to pay 100 percent of the cost during that time.”

He said there were “no perfect options” when it came to the Medicaid expansion. “To be clear: our options are either having Floridians pay to fund this program in other states while denying health care to our citizens,” he said, “or using federal funding to help some of the poorest in our state with the Medicaid program as we explore other health care reforms.”

Mr. Scott said the state would not create its own insurance exchange to comply with another provision of the law.

His reversal sent ripples through the nation, especially given the change in tone and substance since the summer, when he said he would not create an exchange or expand Medicaid.

“Floridians are interested in jobs and economic growth, a quality education for their children, and keeping the cost of living low,” Mr. Scott said in a statement at the time. “Neither of these major provisions in Obamacare will achieve those goals, and since Florida is legally allowed to opt out, that’s the right decision for our citizens.”

Mr. Scott now joins the Republican governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio, who have decided to join the Medicaid expansion. Some, like Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, were also staunch opponents of Mr. Obama’s overall health care law.

Shortly before his announcement, the governor received word from the federal government that it planned to grant Florida the final waiver needed to privatize Medicaid, a process the state initially undertook as a pilot project. Mr. Scott, who is running for re-election next year, has heavily lobbied for the waiver, arguing that Florida could not expand Medicaid without it.

Mr. Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion is significant, but is far from the last word. The program requires approval from Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature, which has been averse to expanding Medicaid under the health care law. The Legislature’s two top Republican leaders said that before making a decision they would consider recommendations from a select committee, which has been asked to review the state’s options.

“The Florida Legislature will make the ultimate decision,” Will Weatherford, the state House speaker, said. “I am personally skeptical that this inflexible law will improve the quality of health care in our state and ensure our long-term financial stability.”

Medicaid, which covers three million people in Florida, costs the state $21 billion a year. The expansion would extend coverage to one million more people.

Mr. Scott’s reversal is sure to anger his original conservative supporters.

The governor “was elected because of his principled conservative leadership against Obamacare’s overreach,” said Slade O’Brien, state director for Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative advocacy organization. “Hopefully our legislative leaders will not follow in Governor Scott’s footsteps, and will reject expansion.”

During his announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Scott said his mother’s recent death and her lifetime struggle to raise five children “with very little money” played a role in his decision.

“Losing someone so close to you puts everything in a new perspective, especially the big decisions,” he said.

Michael Cooper contributed reporting from New York.

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The Trade: A Revolving Door in Washington With Spin, but Less Visibility

Obsess all you’d like about President Obama’s nomination of Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Who heads the agency is vital, but important fights in Washington are happening in quiet rooms, away from the media gaze.

After a widely praised stint as a tough United States attorney, Ms. White spent the last decade serving so many large banks and investment houses that by the time she finishes recusing herself from regulatory matters, she may be down to overseeing First Wauwatosa Securities.

Ms. White maintains she can run the S.E.C. without fear or favor. But the focus shouldn’t be limited to whether she can be effective. For lobbyists, the real targets are regulators and staff members for lawmakers.

Ms. White, at least, will have to sit for Congressional testimony, answer occasional questions from the media and fill out disclosure forms. Staff members, however, work in untroubled anonymity for the most part. So, while everyone knows there’s a revolving door — so naïve to even bring it up! — few realize just how fluidly it spins.

Take what happened late last month as Washington geared up for more fights about the taxing, spending and the deficit. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, decided to bolster his staff’s expertise on taxes.

So on Jan. 25, Mr. Reid’s office announced that he had appointed Cathy Koch as chief adviser to the majority leader for tax and economic policy. The news release lists Ms. Koch’s admirable and formidable experience in the public sector. “Prior to joining Senator Reid’s office,” the release says, “Koch served as tax chief at the Senate Finance Committee.”

It’s funny, though. The notice left something out. Because immediately before joining Mr. Reid’s office, Ms. Koch wasn’t in government. She was working for a large corporation.

Not just any corporation, but quite possibly the most influential company in America, and one that arguably stands to lose the most if there were any serious tax reform that closed corporate loopholes. Ms. Koch arrives at the senator’s office by way of General Electric.

Yes, General Electric, the company that paid almost no taxes in 2010. Just as the tax reform debate is heating up, Mr. Reid has put in place a person who is extraordinarily positioned to torpedo any tax reform that might draw a dollar out of G.E. — and, by extension, any big corporation.

Omitting her last job from the announcement must have merely been an oversight. By the way, no rules prevent Ms. Koch from meeting with G.E. or working on issues that would affect the company.

The senator’s office, which declined to make Ms. Koch available for an interview, says that she will support the majority leader in his efforts to close corporate tax loopholes. His office said in a statement that the senator considered her knowledge of the private sector to be an asset and that she complied with “all relevant Senate ethics rules and disclosures.”

In a statement, the senator’s spokesman said, “The impulse in some quarters to reflexively cast suspicion on private sector experience is part of what makes qualified individuals reluctant to enter public service.”

Over in bank regulatory land, meanwhile, January was playing out like a Beltway remake of “Freaky Friday.”

Julie Williams, chief counsel for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and a major friend of the banks for years, had been recently shown the door by Thomas J. Curry, the new head of the regulator. Banking reform advocates took that to be an omen that a new era might be dawning at the agency, which has often been a handmaiden to large banks.

Ms. Williams, of course, landed on her feet. She’s now at the Promontory Financial Group, a classic Washington creature that is a private sector mirror image of a regulatory body. Promontory is the Shadow O.C.C. The firm was founded by a former head of the agency, Eugene A. Ludwig, and if you were to walk down the halls swinging a copy of the Volcker Rule, you would be sure to hit a former O.C.C. official. Promontory says only about 5 percent of its employees come from the O.C.C., but concedes that more than a quarter are former regulators.

Promontory, as the firm explains on its Web site, “excels at helping financial companies grapple with and resolve critical issues, particularly those with a regulatory dimension.” But it plays for the other team, too, by helping the O.C.C. put into effect regulatory reviews. The dreary normality of this is a Washington scandal in the Michael Kinsley sense: a perfectly legal one.

Promontory, which demurred on a request to talk with Ms. Williams, has a different view. The firm doesn’t lobby or help in litigation. It argues that after banks stop fighting regulators and lobbying against rules, then they come to Promontory to figure out how to fix their problems and comply.

“We are known in the industry as the tough-love doctors,” said Mr. Ludwig, the chief executive of Promontory. “I am deeply committed to financial stability, and the only way to have stability is to do the right thing in both the spirit and letter of the law.”

Hmm. Remember the Independent Foreclosure Review, the program that the O.C.C. and other federal bank regulators trumpeted as the largest effort to compensate victims of big banks’ foreclosure abuses? As my colleague at ProPublica, Paul Kiel, detailed last year, that review involved consultants like Promontory essentially letting banks decide who was victimized. How well did that work? So well that the regulators had to scuttle the program because it hadn’t given one red cent to homeowners but somehow, I don’t know how, managed to send more than $1.5 billion to consultants — including Promontory.

Promontory maintains that it complied with the conditions set out by the O.C.C. And the review was replaced by a settlement, which the regulators say will compensate victims — though the average payout is small beer.

Who, exactly, makes the rules at the O.C.C.? I mentioned “Freaky Friday.” That’s because at the agency, Ms. Williams is being replaced by Amy Friend. And where is Ms. Friend coming from? Wait for it … Promontory. In March, maybe they’ll do the switcheroo back.

The O.C.C. didn’t make Ms. Friend available but said that her “talent, integrity and commitment to public service are beyond reproach” and would be subject to the rule requiring her to recuse herself for a year on matters specifically relating to her former employer.

I spoke with people who said she was a smart and dedicated public servant, an expert on the Dodd-Frank Act who can help complete the scandalously long list of unfinished rules and expedite its adoption.

“Amy Friend is absolutely rowing in the right direction,” said a Senate staff member who worked on efforts to push for stronger financial regulation.

Let’s hope so.

But people also described Ms. Friend as pragmatic. In Washington, that’s the ultimate compliment. Sadly, that has come to mean someone who seeks compromise and never pushes for an overhaul when a quarter-measure will do.

Washington today resembles something like the end of “Animal Farm.” People move from one side of the table to the other and up and down the Acela corridor with ease. An outsider looking at a negotiating table would glance from lobbyist to staff member, from colleague to former colleague, from pig to man and from man to pig and find it impossible to say which is which.

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At least 16 hurt in blast and fire at Kansas City restaurant

At least 16 people were hurt and a popular wine bar was destroyed by an apparent natural gas explosion and ensuing fire at an upscale shopping district in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday evening.

Residents reported smelling natural gas and seeing utility crews in the area before the conflagration. A strong scent of gas hung in the air afterward.

“Early indications are that a contractor doing underground work struck a natural gas line, but the investigation continues,” Missouri Gas Energy, a natural-gas provider, said in a statement.

The Kansas City Fire Department said the incident was under investigation. “It does seem to be an accident,” Fire Chief Paul Berardi said during a late-night news briefing.

JJ's Restaurant and wine bar, just off Country Club Plaza, had apparently been partially evacuated before the blast occurred about 6 p.m.

"This was happy hour at the restaurant. There were patrons in the restaurant," Berardi said.

No fatalities were reported, but officials brought in cadaver dogs to check the rubble. The Kansas City Star reported that one JJ's employee was missing.

The fire raged for two hours, with thick smoke visible for miles. Victims streamed to hospitals; at least four people were in critical condition.

Initially, police said a car had hit a gas main, but officials later discounted that explanation.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene. 

"I was sitting in my living room folding laundry, and felt in my chest -- and heard -- an explosion," said Jamie Lawless, who lives about two blocks from JJ's. "I started freaking out, and I was looking around, and then I saw other people walking outside. You could see giant black smoke billowing up from the plaza area, and nobody really knew what it was."

Sally McVey, who lives across the street from JJ's, said the fire "was growing exponentially, incredibly quickly. It was not like a fire I’ve seen before, where it takes a long time to spread.”

A crowd gathered to watch firefighters battle the blaze. At an apartment building on JJ's block, a woman on a top-floor balcony called down to onlookers.  "'Is my building on fire?' and everybody says, 'Yes, come down!' " McVey said. "She’s like, 'Oh my gosh,' and a lot of people come out of that building with their computers and dogs. She did too.”

JJ's owner, Jimmy Frantze, was out of town, said Kansas City Mayor Sly James, who used to be a fixture at the restaurant. The business, which boasted a selection of 1,800 bottles, had been on the site for 28 years.

“It was 28 years of a great restaurant, and then it has to end like this,” Frantze told the Kansas City Star while driving back from Oklahoma. “I want to make sure to check on my employees to make sure they are all right.”

Kansas City Police Department's bomb squad and officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were expected to investigate the accident after the search dogs finished looking for victims, Berardi said.

 matt.pearce@latimes.com

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SwiftKey 4 Offers Satisfying Swiping and Almost Perfect Predictions

SwiftKey 4 is one of the best gesture keyboard apps ever. It is so good at predicting what you type, it borders on being creepy. I can rattle off e-mails, tweets and text messages to friends about sports, movies, tech, music — and based on what I’ve typed, SwiftKey occasionally finishes sentences word by word.

It does this by collecting data on what is typed as it’s typed. The data is collected anonymously, feeding the app’s learning algorithm to predict what you’ll type next, based on what you’ve typed in the past. This means it does a scary-good job anticipating what you want to type. It’s not perfect, but it always offers suggestions, right above its keyboard. More often than not, I find those suggestions are spot-on. But the keyboard app’s prediction capabilities are just a part of the story.

SwiftKey 4, which officially hit Google Play on Wednesday, is a top-notch gesture keyboard app, replacing the stock keyboard on whatever version of Android you’re using. I’ve been using a beta version of the app for about three weeks and it’s among the first third-party keyboards I’ve actually enjoyed using.

My main handset is a Nexus 4. I use it daily and I’m a huge fan of its Android Jelly Bean keyboard, which has gesture typing built-in. On the Nexus 4’s stock keyboard, as you’re swiping along keys on-screen, Android does a solid job of predicting what word you’re typing. It’s so good in fact, that it makes going to an iPhone or iPad almost painful due to the lack of gesture typing in iOS. But SwiftKey 4 one-ups the Nexus’ keyboard by allowing you to type out entire sentences without having to lift your finger off the display between words.

As you’re swiping across your phone’s display, SwiftKey guesses what you’re typing. Those guesses change as you type more letters; when you see the word you want, just lift your finger. Or, keep swiping the letters of that word and then swipe down to the spacebar for a space, then start a new word — SwiftKey calls this feature Flow. If you’re not into gesture typing, simply type as normal. The app still throws out predictions.

Last year, SwiftKey’s app sat atop Google Play’s Top Paid Apps list for more than 20 weeks. It’s been installed by millions of people, and offers a keyboard for 60 different languages. Samsung used the company’s SDK to build SwiftKey Flow into the keyboard of its Galaxy S III and Note II smartphones, and its prediction technology is baked into the keyboards shipping on smartphones from a handful of Samsung’s competitors as well. If you’re already using SwiftKey, the upgrade to the 4th generation of the app is free. Otherwise, SwiftKey 4 is a $3.99 download. It’s not cheap, but it is worth it if you’ve got an Android and you’re into gesture typing.

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‘Good Day to Die Hard’ debuts with $28.6M take

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bruce Willis’ action sequel “A Good Day to Die Hard” hauled in $ 28.6 million to lead the box office over the long President’s Day weekend.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Monday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Tuesday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “A Good Day to Die Hard,” Fox, $ 28,640,657, 3,553 locations, $ 8,061 average, $ 36,879,773, one week.

2. “Identity Thief,” Universal, $ 27,456,470, 3,165 locations, $ 8,675 average, $ 74,744,255, two weeks.

3. “Safe Haven,” Relativity Media, $ 24,469,155, 3,223 locations, $ 7,592 average, $ 33,298,073, one week.

4. “Escape from Planet Earth,” Weinstein Co., $ 21,101,976, 3,288 locations, $ 6,418 average, $ 21,101,976, one week.

5. “Warm Bodies,” Lionsgate, $ 10,550,103, 2,897 locations, $ 3,642 average, $ 51,770,634, three weeks.

6. “Beautiful Creatures,” Warner Bros., $ 8,945,261, 2,950 locations, $ 3,032 average, $ 11,487,578, one week.

7. “Silver Linings Playbook,” Weinstein Co., $ 7,413,756, 2,202 locations, $ 3,367 average, $ 99,788,228, 14 weeks.

8. “Side Effects,” Open Road Films, $ 7,299,145, 2,605 locations, $ 2,802 average, $ 20,119,981, two weeks.

9. “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” Paramount, $ 4,176,456, 2,103 locations, $ 1,986 average, $ 50,405,251, four weeks.

10. “Zero Dark Thirty,” Sony, $ 3,602,315, 1,522 locations, $ 2,367 average, $ 88,530,983, nine weeks.

11. “Mama,” Universal, $ 3,081,765, 1,648 locations, $ 1,870 average, $ 68,561,940, five weeks.

12. “Argo,” Warner Bros., $ 2,625,357, 903 locations, $ 2,907 average, $ 127,288,409, 19 weeks.

13. “Life of Pi,” Fox, $ 2,074,617, 647 locations, $ 3,207 average, $ 111,376,518, 13 weeks.

14. “Lincoln,” Disney, $ 2,063,120, 1,007 locations, $ 2,049 average, $ 176,651,047, 15 weeks.

15. “Django Unchained,” Weinstein Co., $ 1,857,164, 1,017 locations, $ 1,826 average, $ 157,350,147, eight weeks.

16. “Quartet,” Weinstein Co., $ 1,624,647, 333 locations, $ 4,879 average, $ 7,200,664, six weeks.

17. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” Warner Bros., $ 1,276,940, 605 locations, $ 2,111 average, $ 300,161,285, 10 weeks.

18. “Wreck-It Ralph,” Disney, $ 1,102,070, 506 locations, $ 2,178 average, $ 185,835,929, 16 weeks.

19. “Les Miserables,” Universal, $ 1,098,445, 676 locations, $ 1,625 average, $ 145,764,425, eight weeks.

20. “Amour,” Sony Pictures Classics, $ 858,412, 306 locations, $ 2,805 average, $ 4,081,541, nine weeks.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Well: No Consensus on Plantar Fasciitis

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

There are more charismatic-sounding sports injuries than plantar fasciitis, like tennis elbow, runner’s knee and turf toe. But there aren’t many that are more common. The condition, characterized by stabbing pain in the heel or arch, sidelines up to 10 percent of all runners, as well as countless soccer, baseball, football and basketball players, golfers, walkers and others from both the recreational and professional ranks. The Lakers star Kobe Bryant, the quarterback Eli Manning, the Olympic marathon runner Ryan Hall and the presidential candidate Mitt Romney all have been stricken.

But while plantar fasciitis is democratic in its epidemiology, its underlying cause remains surprisingly enigmatic. In fact, the mysteries of plantar fasciitis underscore how little is understood, medically, about overuse sports injuries in general and why, as a result, they remain so insidiously difficult to treat.

Experts do agree that plantar fasciitis is, essentially, an irritation of the plantar fascia, a long, skinny rope of tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot, attaching the heel bone to the toes and forming your foot’s arch. When that tissue becomes irritated, you develop pain deep within the heel. The pain is usually most pronounced first thing in the morning, since the fascia tightens while you sleep.

But scientific agreement about the condition and its causes ends about there.

For many years, “most of us who treat plantar fasciitis believed that it involved chronic inflammation” of the fascia, said Dr. Terrence M. Philbin, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon at the Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Center in Westerville, Ohio, who specializes in plantar fasciitis.

It was thought that by running or otherwise repetitively pounding their heels against the ground, people strained the plantar fascia, and the body responded with a complex cascade of inflammatory biochemical processes that resulted in extra blood and fluids flowing to the injury site, as well as enhanced pain sensitivity.

But instead of lasting only a few days and then fading, as acute inflammation usually does, the process can become chronic and create its own problems, causing tissue damage and continuing pain.

This progression is also what experts believed was happening when people developed chronic Achilles tendon pain, tennis elbow or other lingering, overuse injuries.

But when scientists actually biopsied fascia tissue from people with chronic plantar fasciitis, “they did not find much if any inflammation,” Dr. Philbin said. There were virtually none of the cellular markers that characterize that condition.

“Plantar fasciitis does not involve inflammatory cells,” said Dr. Karim Khan, a professor of family practice medicine at the University of British Columbia and editor of The British Journal of Sports Medicine, who has written extensively about overuse sports injuries.

Instead, plantar fasciitis more likely is caused by degeneration or weakening of the tissue. This process probably begins with small tears that occur during activity and that, in normal circumstances, the body simply repairs, strengthening the tissue as it does. That is the point of exercise training.

But sometimes, for unknown reasons, this ongoing tissue damage overwhelms the body’s capacity to respond. The small tears don’t heal. They accumulate. The tissue begins subtly to degenerate, even to shred. It hurts.

By and large, most sports medicine experts now believe that this is how we develop other overuse injuries, like tennis elbow or Achilles tendinopathy, which used to be called tendinitis. The suffix “itis” means inflammation. But since the injury isn’t thought to involve chronic inflammation, its name has changed.

This has not yet happened with plantar fasciitis, and may not, given what a mouthful fasciopathy would be.

The evolving medical opinions about plantar fasciitis matter, beyond nomenclature, though, because treatments depend on causes. At the moment, many physicians rely on injections of cortisone, a steroid that is both a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory, to treat plantar fasciitis. And cortisone shots do reduce the soreness. In a study published last year in BMJ, patients who received cortisone injections reported less heel pain after four months than those whose shots had contained a placebo saline solution.

But whether those benefits will last is unknown, especially if plantar fasciitis is, indeed, degenerative. In studies with people suffering from tennis elbow, another injury that is now considered degenerative, cortisone shots actually slowed tissue healing.

We need similar studies in people with plantar fasciitis, Dr. Khan said. “They have not been done.”

Thankfully, most people who develop plantar fasciitis will recover within a few months without injections or other invasive treatments, Dr. Philbin said, if they simply back off their running mileage somewhat or otherwise rest the foot and stretch the affected tissues. Stretching the plantar fascia, as well as the Achilles tendon, which also attaches to the heel bone, and the hamstring muscles seems to result in less strain on the fascia during activity, meaning less ongoing trauma and, eventually, time for the body to catch up with repairs.

To ensure that you are stretching correctly, Dr. Philbin suggests consulting a physical therapist, after, of course, visiting a sports medicine doctor for a diagnosis. Not all heel or arch pain is plantar fasciitis. And comfort yourself if you do have the condition with the knowledge that Kobe Bryant, Eli Manning and Ryan Hall have all returned to competition and Mr. Romney still runs.

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Boeing Engineers Approve Pact, but Tech Workers Say No

SEATTLE (AP) — The union representing Boeing Co.'s engineers and technical workers delivered a split decision on a new contract Tuesday, with the engineers accepting their offer and the technical workers rejecting theirs and authorizing a future strike.

The union had recommended that both units reject the contract offer because it would not provide pensions to new employees. They would have a 401k retirement plan instead.

The union called that unacceptable, but the Chicago-based airplane-maker said the change was important to the company's future.

The vote came as the company is trying to solve battery problems that have grounded its new 787s. The engineers and technical workers in the union work on plans for new planes and solve problems that arise on the factory floor.

While a strike by the technical workers is not imminent, the vote means the negotiating team can call one at any time, said Bill Dugovich, spokesman for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace.

The engineers' vote means those 15,500 employees have a new four-year contract in place, Dugovich said. Union negotiators hope to resume contract talks soon on behalf of the 7,400 technical workers, he said.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Ray Conner said in a statement that the company was pleased with the engineers' vote but "deeply disappointed" in the technical workers' rejection of what he called the company's "best and final" offer.

"The realities of the market require us to make changes so we can invest in new products and keep winning in this competitive environment ..." Conner said in his statement. "That's why our proposal to move future hires to an enhanced 401(k)-style retirement plan is so important, as we have repeatedly emphasized over the course of these negotiations."

Union members rejected one previous contract offer in October. SPEEA last went on strike for 40 days in 2000.

"With this second rejection by technical workers of Boeing takeaways, it's time for the company to stop wasting resources and improve its offer to reflect the value and contributions technical workers bring to Boeing," SPEEA Executive Director Ray Goforth said in a statement. "That way, we can avoid a strike and focus on fixing the problems of the 787 and restoring customer confidence in Boeing."

The latest labor unrest is happening as U.S. regulators launch an open-ended review of the 787's design and construction. Last month, a battery on a parked 787 caught fire in Boston. On Jan. 16, another 787 made an emergency landing in Japan after another battery problem.

All 50 787s that Boeing had delivered so far are grounded until the issue is resolved.

The union's nearly 23,000 employees are mostly in the Puget Sound region. Union leaders believe a strike would shut down Boeing production lines in Everett, Wash., where its big planes are made, as well as in Renton, Wash., where it cranks out the widely used 737.

The factory-floor assembly work is done by the members of the International Association of Machinists. The Machinists approved a new, four-year contract in December 2011, after a walkout in 2008 that contributed to a 3½-year delay in delivering the first 787.

It was also a factor in Boeing opening a plant in South Carolina, where laws make it more difficult to unionize.

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Complaint alleges racial bias in Palmdale elections

Latinos and African Americans make up about two-thirds of the population of Palmdale. But since the city's incorporation in August 1962, not a single black resident and only one Latino has ever served on the City Council.

That's the backdrop of a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Antelope Valley civil rights activists alleging racial bias in city elections in this High Desert locale. The complaint argues that Palmdale's system of at-large council seats dilutes the influence of minority voters.

"Latinos and African Americans are locked out of the political system in the city of Palmdale," said Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who is representing plaintiff Juan Jauregui, a Palmdale resident. Three local black activists and the NAACP have also said they will join the case, scheduled to go to trial in May.

The litigation is the latest in a series of racially themed conflicts in the Antelope Valley as blacks and Latinos have moved into once mostly white areas. Housing programs and police practices have been flash points as activists have challenged policies they perceive as unfairly targeting minority residents.

Plaintiffs say the city's at-large election system violates the state's 2001 Voting Rights Act, which guards against disenfranchisement of minorities. They seek a change to district-by-district voting.

Palmdale is fighting back. In court documents, city attorneys argue that because blacks and Latinos are a majority of registered voters in the city, they are "in a position, numerically" to elect the mayor and City Council members.

The lawyers also insist that district voting would not have helped minority candidates who lost. "They simply had very little support from voters, and no drawing or gerrymandering of districts would have resulted in a district which would have elected them," the attorneys said.

Moreover, in November 2001 Palmdale's residents voted against a measure to introduce district voting. City Atty. Wm. Matthew Ditzhazy said via email that "ultimately it was the community's decision to make."

In a recent deposition, James Ledford, who has been elected the city's mayor 11 times since 1992, said he did not even know the race of his fellow council members and was not aware that all but one had been white.

Asked whether it bothered him "in any way that racial minorities in Palmdale might feel that they are not being represented in the City Council," Ledford said no.

Ledford declined to be interviewed for this article, although in the past he has said he favored district voting.

Traditionally, low voter turnout among blacks and Latinos in Palmdale's municipal elections has shrunk their voting power compared with that of whites, who turn out in greater numbers, statistics show.

The majority of Palmdale Latinos voted yes for district elections in 2001, but the measure was defeated because 66% of whites opposed it, according to data compiled by a city consultant and cited by Shenkman.

Similarly, in 2009, when V. Jesse Smith, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP, ran for City Council, he split the Latino vote 49% to 51% with Steve Fox, who is white. But neither won a council seat. The spots went to white candidates Tom Lackey and Laura Bettencourt, who scored heavily among whites, although neither got a single Latino vote, Shenkman said.

Shenkman acknowledged the poor voting record of minority groups, but he blamed the system of at-large voting. Blacks and Latinos didn't vote because they had "grown to understand that their vote doesn't matter," he said.

At least a dozen government entities in California, including cities, school districts and county boards, have been sued under the state's Voting Rights Act, said Shenkman. Some cases are still pending, others have ended in settlements resulting in district elections, he said.

One of those was Compton, which placed the issue on the ballot last June to settle a lawsuit. Voters approved the switch from at-large to district voting. The change may give Latinos — who make up a majority of the city's population but a minority of eligible voters — a greater chance of putting the first Latino on the City Council in April.

For supporters of district voting in Palmdale, the claim represents a new effort to shake up the political status quo in the Antelope Valley. They say it will make city representatives more accountable to voters.

But Richard Loa, an attorney who in 2001 became the only Latino ever to win a council seat in Palmdale, said that although he supported Latinos' push for representation, he opposes resolving the issue through litigation.

"The important thing is to have effective leadership," said Loa, who has said he will run again.

Race isn't everything, agreed Darren Parker, who as chairman of the California Democratic Party's African American caucus helps recruit potential minority candidates to run for local office, but he said High Desert cities need black voices in leadership.

"I don't believe that anyone who doesn't get up in the morning and look like me can really walk in my shoes," Parker said.

Among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs is attorney R. Rex Parris, mayor of neighboring Lancaster, which uses at-large elections but is weighing a change.

Lancaster's population is about 40% Latino and 20% African American, but the City Council has four white men and one Latina. The city has also faced charges of racial bias, but Lancaster has a track record of minority representation on its council, including an African American who twice served as mayor.

Lilia Galindo, who has used her Palmdale-based Café Con Leche radio talk show to encourage Latinos to get out and vote, said High Desert Latinos were eager to find their political voice. District elections would help, she said.

"We've started to realize how important it is to express our rights as citizens," Galindo said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

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Tony Sheridan, early Beatles supporter, dies aged 72: media

BERLIN (Reuters) – Singer-songwriter Tony Sheridan, an early supporter of the Beatles, has died in Hamburg aged 72 following a long illness, German media reported.

Sheridan used the Beatles, then known as the Silver Beatles, as his back-up band when they played in seedy nightclubs in Hamburg’s red light district in the 1960s well before numerous No. 1 hits made the British band famous.

Sheridan died on Saturday, Feb 16, Hamburg-based magazine Der Spiegel reported on its website, citing a post by the musician’s family on social media website facebook. A search by Reuters found no such post.

The Beatles, then playing as “The Beat Brothers” also backed Sheridan on his song “My Bonnie” and Sheridan last year played at the 50th anniversary of the legendary Hamburg Star club, Der Spiegel reported.

A 1962 performance including Ringo Starr on the drums at the Star Club with songs such as “Roll Over Beethoven” was a watershed performance that helped catapult the Beatles to fame. They were Sheridan’s warm-up act that night.

“Tony was a good guy who we knew and worked with from the early days in Hamburg,” former Beatle Paul McCartney said in a statement on his website on Monday.

“We regularly watched his late night performances and admired his style. He will be missed.”

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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