County official calls car leasing contract procedure 'embarrassing'

Auditors reviewing a $1.75-million car leasing contract given to a company with a politically connected lobbying firm found that Los Angeles County officials had failed to create a "truly competitive" process, but that there was no evidence of improper influence.

Investigators with the county auditor-controller's office reviewed the Enterprise Rent-a-Car contract at the request of Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. A report by KCET-TV had raised questions about the way the business was awarded.

Enterprise was given a sole-source, five-year deal in March to provide 60 leased  vehicles to the county's Community Development Commission and to maintain the agency's existing fleet. Commission staff projected that outsourcing the fleet services would save about $300,000 a year.

The Nov. 28 report on KCET's "SoCal Connected" focused on the lobbying firm Englander Knabe & Allen and questioned whether its clients — including Enterprise — got an unfair advantage because partner Matt Knabe is the son of county Supervisor Don Knabe, who voted along with all the other supervisors to award the contract.

Both Knabes have said that their relationship has never posed a conflict, and a spokesman for the Englander firm has said Matt Knabe never lobbies his father directly.

The auditor-controller found no evidence of attempts to influence the rental car award. Matt Knabe told investigators that no one from his firm had lobbied on the contract, and the commission's executive director said he was "100% confident" the supervisor's son did not influence the process.

"The report shows that Matt acted professionally and used no undue influence in his dealings with the county," said Englander partner Eric Rose.

But the review did find that county staff did an "inadequate" job of trying to find other potential bidders.

Asked by KCET what vendors had been contacted and given a chance to compete for the business, a county analyst created a list to make it appear the department had reached out to 50 companies. In fact, only 16 firms had been contacted, auditors found. Enterprise was the only company that responded to the email request, and staff made no follow-up attempt to contact the other firms.

According to the auditor's report, the count of 50 vendors was originally used as a "place holder" in a template document and never corrected. By the time the contract was awarded, the contract analyst "felt he could not correct the number without embarrassment."

Investigators also found that the agency violated its own policy by not advertising the contract on the commission's or the county's websites, and that the contract should have gone through a full bidding process.

In addition, several vendors that contract officials emailed to invite interest had no "realistic potential" to provide a leased fleet to the county in the first place, the review concluded.

Investigators wrote that they couldn't determine whether the commission could have gotten a better deal but said "the potential for greater savings from a more competitive process appears to be plausible."

County auditor-controller Wendy Watanabe called the situation "embarrassing" but chalked up the issues to incompetence rather than intentional steering.

"I think they got lazy, they took a shortcut, and they didn't think it was that big of a deal," she said.

Watanabe said the investigation had focused on the Enterprise contract, so she could not say whether there was a broader issue with the agency's contracting process.

Commission representatives could not be reached Monday. The commission was slated to respond to the report's findings within 30 days.

abby.sewell@latimes.com

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Insurgents Attack Police Unit in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan — In the second brazen attack on the capital in less than a week, five Taliban suicide bombers stormed the headquarters of the traffic police early on Monday, setting off a fierce nine-hour gun battle that raged into the afternoon and claimed the lives of at least three traffic officers.

The attack began around 5 a.m., when insurgents shot and killed officers manning the checkpoint in front of the headquarters, which is on the same road as the Parliament building.

After the firefight began, insurgents wearing suicide vests remotely detonated a huge car bomb and rushed into the compound. Throughout the day, rocket explosions and gunfire erupted in intermittent bursts, as an array of Afghan security forces attempt to dislodge the insurgents.

The battle ended shortly after 2 p.m. with all of the insurgents dead. Only two of the bombers detonated their vests, officials said at the scene. The other three fighters were gunned down by the security forces.

In addition to the three dead officers, six security members of the security forces were wounded in the attack, said Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahman, a deputy minister at the Interior Ministry. At least eight civilians were also wounded, mostly from the bombing.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault, the second it has carried out in less than a week. On Wednesday, heavily armed bombers blew up the gate to an Afghan intelligence facility, killing at least one security officer and injuring numerous civilians.

The consecutive attacks have rattled the relative security Kabul has experienced compared with other areas of the country. The group has promised to continue its fight against government targets in Kabul and elsewhere, creating unease among many Afghans as they prepare for coalition forces to withdraw troops from the country by 2014 or sooner.

“Our target was a special police training unit where foreign instructors and trainers train,” said a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid. “We inflicted heavy casualties to the enemy so far and that is a part of our routine operations against the enemy.”

Unlike the facilities of the security services, which are heavily armed and protected by mountainous blast walls and coils of razor wire, the traffic police headquarters offered a softer target. Traffic police are not typically armed in the streets of Kabul, and the headquarters doesn’t have the same level of security as the intelligence installations.

Still, within half an hour of the blast, the area was cordoned off by an array of Afghan security forces, as onlookers listened to the firefight from beyond the security perimeter. Periodically, debris from rocket-propelled grenades rained down on the street.

Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting.

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Notre Dame hoax tip was emailed: Deadspin.com editor

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The tip that led to the revelation that one of the most widely recounted U.S. sports narratives of the past year was a hoax came to the editors of an online sports blog as many of their news tips do: an unsolicited email.

That email led Deadspin.com assignment editor Timothy Burke on the hunt of a story that exposed the heart-wrenching tale of standout Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend as a fabrication, Burke said on CNN on Thursday.

Te’o sprang to national prominence last fall when the senior co-captain was seen heroically leading the Fighting Irish to an underdog victory against the Michigan State Spartans within days of learning his grandmother had died. Moreover, it was widely reported, Te’o's girlfriend had died of leukemia just hours after his grandmother’s death.

From that point, Te’o's narrative was a prominent feature in coverage of the team, which has a dedicated following and whose games are televised nationally each week.

Notre Dame went on to an undefeated regular season, culminating in a berth in the national championship game, which the Fighting Irish lost to the Alabama Crimson Tide on January 7.

“We got an email last week at Deadspin.com that said ‘Hey, there’s something real weird about Lennay Kekua, Manti Te’o's allegedly dead girlfriend. You guys should check it out,’” Burke said.

The email prompted Burke and co-author Jack Dickey to begin searching online for background on Kekua. “So we start Googling the name Lennay Kekua. We can’t find any evidence of this person that wasn’t attached to stories about her being Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend.”

Their investigation led about a week later to a 4,000-word expose, published Wednesday under the headline “Blarney,” that painstakingly debunked the story of Kekua’s existence. The story went viral online.

Within hours of its publication, officials at Notre Dame, one of the most powerful institutions in college football and U.S. collegiate athletics overall, held a hastily organized press conference to assert that Te’o had been duped in a hoax perpetrated by a friend of his.

The girlfriend, who called herself Kekua and claimed to be a Stanford University graduate, was merely an online persona who “ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia,” university spokesman Dennis Brown said in a statement.

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said the university learned of the hoax from Te’o on December 26. Te’o answered questions forthrightly and private investigators uncovered several things that pointed to Te’o being a victim in the case, Swarbrick said.

Deadspin’s Burke said he remains skeptical of this being a hoax perpetrated on Te’o rather than by Te’o.

“Ask yourself why and what incentive a person would have to execute such a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive con that would involve multiple people and essentially consume his entire life just to screw around with a guy that he knows?” Burke said on CNN.

Deadspin.com said the woman whose photograph was frequently shown on TV and in news reports about Kekua was actually a young California woman who had never met or communicated with Te’o. The website declined to identify her by name.

On Thursday, TV newsmagazine “Inside Edition” said the woman in the photograph was a 23-year-old marketing professional in Los Angeles named Diane O’Meara. Inside Edition, which is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution, said O’Meara was a former classmate of one of Te’o's friends. It Aredid not give the friend’s name.

In the expose published Wednesday, Deadspin.com said a friend of Te’o's named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo was “the man behind” the hoax.

Outside Tuiasosopo’s home in Palmdale, California on Thursday, a member of his family who did not identify himself told reporters, “Please, we have no comment. Please respect that.”

The Te’o hoax is the latest black eye Notre Dame’s legendary football program has suffered in recent years.

In 2011, the school was fined $ 42,000 by an Indiana agency over the death of football videographer Declan Sullivan, 20, who died in October 2010 after a hydraulic lift he was using to record practice toppled over in high winds.

In 2010, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Seeberg, a freshman at nearby St. Mary’s College, killed herself ten days after accusing a Notre Dame football player of sexual battery. Her family began questioning the campus police department’s reluctance to gather evidence and a 15-day delay in interviewing the accused.

After a federal investigation into the matter, the school agreed to revise its policies on sexual misconduct.

(Additional reporting by Dan Burns, Dana Feldman, David Bailey and Mary Wisniewski.; Editing by Vicki Allen, Greg McCune and Andrew Hay)

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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For the record

Dreamliner batteries: An article in the Jan. 19 Section A on lithium ion battery safety and the grounding of Boeing 787s said the battery in a Chevrolet Volt automobile burst into flames seemingly spontaneously. The battery ignited after a crash test damaged the vehicle's cooling system and the test car was left parked with the battery fully charged, eventually causing it to overheat.

Teacher evaluations: A caption that accompanied an article in the Jan. 20 California section about members of United Teachers Los Angeles approving the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations misspelled Lisa Karahalios' name as Karahahlios.

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Hostages Dead in Bloody Climax to Siege in Algeria

BAMAKO, Mali — A day after the four-day hostage crisis in the Sahara reached a bloody conclusion, government leaders around the world struggled on Sunday to grasp what precisely had happened as Britain called for a “global response” lasting “years, even decades” to counter the deep-rooted presence of Islamist militants in North Africa.

Louafi Larbi/Reuters

A freed Norwegian hostage was escorted to a police station in the town of In Amenas on Saturday, near the gas field complex.

The confrontation at a remote gas field taken over by militants ended Saturday as the Algerian Army carried out a final assault, killing most of the remaining kidnappers and raising the total of hostages killed to at least 23, Algerian officials said.

A senior Algerian official was quoted on Sunday as saying that figure “may be revised upward.”

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron also revised earlier estimates of fatalities, saying on Sunday that three British nationals were killed and three more were believed to have died along with one resident of Britain.

On Saturday, the government said five Britons and one British resident had died or were unaccounted for after the final rescue attempt.

In a televised address from his official country retreat on Sunday, Mr. Cameron said: “We have had successes in recent years in reducing the threat from some parts of the world, but the threat has grown particularly in North Africa.”

“This is a global threat and it will require a global response. It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months. It requires a response that is patient and painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will deliver over these coming years,” he said.

He added: “What we face is an extremist, Islamist, Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in North Africa.”

The group “wants to destroy our way of life, it believes in killing as many people as it can. We need to work with others to defeat the terrorists and to close down the ungoverned spaces where they thrive with all the means that we have,” he said, reprising a theme he has struck with increasing passion as the attack in Algeria unfolded.

The details of the desert standoff and the final battle for the plant remained murky — as did information about which hostages died and how — with even the White House suggesting late Saturday that it was unclear what had happened. In a brief statement President Obama said his administration would “remain in close touch with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of what took place.”

The British defense minister, Philip Hammond, called the loss of life “appalling and unacceptable” after reports that up to seven hostages were killed in the final hours of the hostage crisis, and he said that the leaders of the attack would be tracked down. The Algerian government said that 32 militants had been killed since Wednesday, although it cautioned that its casualty counts were provisional. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who appeared with Mr. Hammond at a news conference in London, said he did not yet have reliable information about the fate of the Americans at the facility, although a senior Algerian official said two had been found “safe and sound.”

What little information trickled out was as harrowing as what had come in the days before, when some hostages who had managed to escape told of workers being forced to wear explosives. They also said that there were several summary executions and that some workers had died in the military’s initial rescue attempt.

On Saturday, Algerian officials reported that some bodies found by troops who rushed into the industrial complex were charred beyond recognition, making it difficult to distinguish between the captors and the captured. Two were assumed to be workers because they were handcuffed.

Most of the hundreds of workers at the plant, who come from about 25 countries, appear to have escaped sometime during the four days.

The Algerian government has been relatively silent since the start of the crisis, releasing few details. The government faced withering international criticism for rushing ahead with its first assault on the militants on Thursday even as governments whose citizens were trapped inside the plant pleaded for more time, fearing that rescue attempts might lead to workers dying. The Algerians responded by saying they had a better understanding of how to handle militants after fighting Islamist insurgents for years.

Mr. Cameron said on Sunday:“Now of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched a vicious and cowardly attack.”

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Steven Erlanger and Scott Sayare from Paris; Elisabeth Bumiller and John F. Burns from London; Manny Fernandez and Clifford Krauss from Houston; and Michael R. Gordon from Washington.

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10 awesome new (and old) things you need to know about in 2013

We’re just three weeks into 2013 and it’s surprising what a difference a year can make. RIM (RIMM) is on the rise as Apple (AAPL) is getting crushed, Samsung (005930) is supposedly generating Apple-like hype, and connected home appliances outshined smartphones at CES. It’s a brave new world indeed, but here are 10 awesome new (and old) things to keep you grounded in 2013 while you put 2012 behind you and try to forget Gangnam Style ever happened.

[More from BGR: Samsung’s latest monster smartphone will reportedly have a 5.8-inch screen]

1. Digg: Digg? In 2013? Yup — it’s back and it’s awesome.

[More from BGR: Paid apps are history]

The old Digg is dead and a fantastic river of curated news can now be found in its place. The site has done away with user submissions and the unending sea of obnoxious comments, leaving behind a platform that is infinitely better than its predecessor.

Topics covered range from technology and business to world events and interesting morsels people are unlikely to dig up on their own.

The redesigned site is fantastic and clean, the iOS app is terrific, and I consistently discover great stories there long before they being to gain steam elsewhere on the web.

http://digg.com

2. Evernote: There are a few Web services that I regularly recommend to friends and family where after I do, I get a note a few weeks later with the question, “How did I ever live with this?” Evernote is among those services.

In a nutshell, Evernote is a Web-based service that lets users create and organize notes that automatically sync across all their computers, smartphones and tablets. Despite its popularity on tech blogs, I still find a lot of people who have never heard of the service.

The beauty of Evernote is that everyone uses it in his or her own unique way. It can be used to house Web page clippings, store ideas as they come to you, keep recipes in order, hold to-do lists, make grocery lists, or perform any number of other functions.

http://evernote.com/

3. BlackBerry 10: Whether it ends up being RIM’s comeback catalyst or its last hurrah, BlackBerry 10 is going to be a big deal in 2013. Investors are excited, BlackBerry fans are excited, and we’re excited.

The show kicks off on January 30th and BGR will be there live to cover all the action as it unfolds.

http://global.blackberry.com/

4. Outgrow.me: Kickstarter and Indiegogo are great crowd-funding sites for entrepreneurs, but they’re also very trendy right now. For every awesome product on each site there are dozens of, well, not-so-awesome products.

Outgrow.me makes it easy to view the best products these two sites have to offer using a great design that is easy to navigate.

As an added bonus, Outgrow.me addresses one of the biggest problems among crowd-funded products. Since a lot of great (and well-funded) products don’t ship on time, the site has an option to only view items that are “orderable” today.

http://outgrow.me/

5. Windows Phone: Look, Microsoft (MSFT) has been giving it the old college try for more than two years now, but things are getting serious in 2013. Maybe.

Windows Phone 8 is a supercharged version of Microsoft’s initial reimagining of the smartphone experience. It’s faster, smoother, more versatile and it supports better hardware.

There are two great flagship Windows Phones on the market right now — Nokia’s Lumia 920 and HTC’s Windows Phone 8X — as well as a number of solid low- and mid-range options.

http://www.windowsphone.com/

6. Jawbone UP: Fitness gadgets are getting trendy now, but I’ve yet to see anything that looks more appealing than Jawbone’s second iteration of the “UP” bracelet.

The simple device is worn on your wrist at all times (it’s waterproof, so you can even shower with it) and it tracks your daily activity including your sleep. It’s paired with a fantastic app that features a gorgeous UI and plenty of great functionality.

UP’s companion app tracks your steps, calorie burn and sleep to create a “Lifeline.” You can also track the food you eat by scanning barcodes, taking pictures or inputting items manually, which helps you keep tabs on your calorie intake.

The kicker for the Jawbone UP over rivals is the fact that it doesn’t include wireless connectivity, believe it or not. Yes, that means you have to take the band off, pop the cap and connect it to your iPhone’s audio jack to sync, but it also means the battery lasts between nine and ten days on a charge.

UP is only compatible with iOS for the time being, but Jawbone says it’s working on an Android app.

http://jawbone.com/up

7. Republic Wireless: Did you know you can get unlimited smartphone service for $ 19 a month? Really, truly unlimited calling, messaging and data for $ 19 a month?

We’ve been testing Republic Wireless’ $ 19 unlimited smartphone service for several weeks now and so far we’re impressed. The service is not for power users — there’s only one smartphone available right now (Motorola’s Defy XT) and you won’t have access to 4G data speeds — but anyone looking for basic smartphone service at a ridiculously low price would be remiss to not give Republic Wireless a look.

http://www.republicwireless.com/

8. HTC: It’s time to get acquainted with the little smartphone vendor that could.

HTC (2498) took a beating in 2012 while Samsung and Apple grew bigger than most could have imagined. HTC might not have billions of marketing dollars to constantly slap consumers in the face with ads, but it has a ridiculously talented team that churns out one gorgeous smartphone after another.

With hardware that is second to none and handsets ranging from affordable low-end phones to premium flagship devices, HTC is a brand to watch in 2013.

http://htc.com/

9. Wirecutter: Founded by former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam, Wirecutter is “a list of great technology.”

The site is basically a gadget buying guide without the stomach-turning, Google-gaming, SEO machine aspect. Instead, it’s simply a collection of technology products the site’s staff enjoys. Imagine that!

Wirecutter is definitely a site worth checking out and this is a good place to start.

http://thewirecutter.com/

10. Skype: Sure, everyone knows about Skype on computers and smartphones. I never use it on either. Instead, there’s another aspect of Skype not everyone knows about: Home phone service.

Using compatible handsets, Skype can be set up to work just like any other VoIP home phone service. The only difference is that Skype is much, much cheaper than comparable offerings. Unlimited calling within the U.S. and Canada can be had for less than $ 2.60 a month plus $ 30 each year for a phone number.

In other words, a year of Skype service costs a little less than two months of Vonage or cable company phone service.

I’ve been using Skype for my home phone since last May and I couldn’t be happier. The quality is excellent, on par with similar offerings from Time Warner Cable and Cablevision, and the price can’t be beat.

I should note, though, that dealing with one of Skype’s retail partners — eBuyNow — was an awful, awful experience. They took forever to get back to me when one of my handsets died and after two months of trying to get a replacement, they just ended up refunding my entire purchase. If you choose Skype for home phone service, buy your handsets elsewhere.

http://skype.com/

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Five Things to Know About The Lumineers

By Marisa Laudadio

01/19/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

From left: Wesley Schultz, Neyla Pekarek and Jeremiah Fraites

Alan Poizner/PictureGroup

You already know their hit song "Ho Hey" with its catchy shout-it-out chant that sticks in your head – but what's behind Denver-based band The Lumineers' cool blend of indie rock and Americana?

Here are five things to know about the trio – Wesley Schultz (lead vocals, guitar), 30; Jeremiah Fraites (guitar), 27; and Neyla Pekarek (cello, piano), 26 – who are up for two Grammys (best new artist and best Americana album) and are also performing on Saturday Night Live this week alongside host Jennifer Lawrence.

1. Most people think that 'Ho Hey' – which reached No. 1 on three different charts – is about a romantic relationship, but that's not the whole story.
"The essence of the song was that I was really struggling to make ends meet in the big city when I was living in Brooklyn and working in New York. It was a myth, this idea that you'd go there and get discovered and it would be this great place for music," explains Schultz, who, like Fraites, hails from New Jersey and moved to Denver in recent years, where they met Pekarek.

"It's about a lost love in some ways, but it's also a lost dream. It's funny that a lot of people play it at their weddings because it was written from a different place. But it's kind of a beautiful thing, actually, that people can take something I was feeling really, really down about and turn it into a message of hope."

2. They've only recently been able to quit their day jobs.
"I was working as a busser, a bartender, a barista, a guitar teacher, caterer – a lot of service industry jobs, because it allows you to get away and tour if you need to or take a night off to play," explains Schultz.

"Jer was bussing tables right along beside me. And Neyla was a hostess and a substitute teacher. She'd been offered a full-time teaching position while we were in the midst of touring – and losing a lot of money – and she still stuck with it. Somehow she chose this over that, which is absurd, but we're glad she did!"

3. They named their hit song carefully.
Were they ever concerned people might call it "Hey Ho" in a derogatory way? "Yeah, at some point we laughed about it," says Schultz. "We specifically named it 'Ho Hey' instead of 'Hey Ho' [for that reason]. If people searched for it online, we'd rather it not be something that takes you in that direction."

Do they mind when people get the title wrong? "Oh no, that would be a little pretentious!" says Schultz with a chuckle. "It's kind of a silly name to begin with."

4. That's Schultz's mom on the cover of their debut, self-titled album.
"It's my mom, Judy, as a child, and her mother," he explains. "I'd asked my mom if she had any old photos that I could look through a while back, and I fell in love with it. You know if you set up a child for a picture then can't get out of the frame in time? My mom had a funny take on it: It's our first album, kind of our baby, like this child."

Schultz thanked his mom for all her years of emotional support with some heavy metal when their album went gold. "I had the plaque sent to my mom, because she'd been really supportive of us and believed in us when a lot of people were pretty concerned. And now she's got a platinum one!"

5. Their band name has more than one meaning.
While Schultz and Fraites have been playing music together for more than eight years (previous band names include Free Beer, 6Cheek, and Wesley Jeremiah), they've only been known as The Lumineers for the last four thanks to a mistake.

"We were playing a small club in Jersey City, N.J.," explains Schultz, "and there was a band out there at the time called Lumineers who were slotted for the same time, same day, the next week. The person running the show that night [mistakenly] announced us as The Lumineers."

The name stuck. "It doesn't mean anything literally. It's a made-up word," says Schultz. Another strange coincidence they learned? "It's also the name of a dental veneer company," he adds.

So how are Schultz's teeth? "I have a pretty good smile," he says with a big laugh. "I won 'Best Smile' in high school. It's a pretty big deal."

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study

Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.

The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.

Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.

"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.

In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.

Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

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Online:

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

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Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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For the record

Navajo power plant: In the Jan. 18 LATExtra section, an article about proposed modifications to the Navajo Generating Station said that the coal-fired power plant would be retrofitted with "scrubbers." That is not the correct term; the technology should have been described as Selective Catalytic Reduction. The article also said the goal was to reduce the plant's emissions to 28,500 tons per year. The goal is to reduce total emissions by 84%, an amount equal to 28,500 tons a year.

Singapore travel: In the Dec. 30 Travel section, the "If You Go" box with an article about Pulau Ubin in Singapore should have included EVA Air in a list of carriers offering connecting service to Singapore.

Chadwick Boseman: An article in the Jan. 13 Calendar section about actor Chadwick Boseman said that he was born in Brooklyn. The actor, who will portray Jackie Robinson in the film "42," was born in South Carolina and is currently based in Brooklyn.

Jane Yolen: A review of Jane Yolen's book "Curse of the Thirteenth Fey" in the Dec. 30 Arts & Books section said that Yolen has won the Caldecott medal. Her book "Owl Moon" did win a Caldecott, but it was for the illustrations by John Schoenherr.

Madonna mansion: A Hot Property item in the Jan. 13 Business section about Madonna putting her mansion in Beverly Hills up for sale said that the estate was 1.17 acres. The property was listed as 1.17 acres in the Multiple Listing Service, but that did not include additional land that was purchased separately, bringing the total to 1.25 acres.

V Squared Labs: In the Dec. 30 Arts & Books section, an article about the digital design firm V Squared Labs should have noted that Heather Shaw and her firm Vita Motus collaborated with V Squared Labs on design work in the stage sets of Amon Tobin and "American Idol," among others.

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