Air travel in 2012 was the safest since 1945, group says

Airfares grew and airline seats shrunk, but much more important was the good news about flying in 2012: It was the safest year for air travel since 1945.

The world's airlines reported only 23 accidents — including passenger and cargo flights — resulting in 475 fatalities last year, compared with the 10-year average of 34 accidents and 773 fatalities a year, according to Aviation Safety Network, a private online research group in the Netherlands.

The declining accident numbers are the result of several efforts by international aviation groups to require audits of airlines around the world to comply with safety standards, said Harro Ranter, president of the network.

"I think all of these efforts combined are paying off," he said.

The International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations, has not released its 2012 statistics but it previously noted that airline accidents have been on the decline.

The network's database shows only two fatal commercial airline accidents in the U.S. last year, resulting in two deaths.

The worst accident of the year took place June 3 when an MD-83 jetliner flown by Nigeria-based Dana Air crashed on approach to Lagos, killing 153 onboard and 10 people on the ground.

In fact, 22% of all fatal airline accidents last year occurred in Africa, even though the continent generates about 3% of the world's airline departures, according to Aviation Safety Network.

Hotel chains targeted by NRA critics

National Rifle Assn. opponents are criticizing two of the world's biggest hotel companies because they give discounts to NRA members.

Global advocacy site Avvaz.com has urged its followers to go on Facebook and sound off against Best Western International and Wyndham Hotel Group for affiliating with the NRA. (Avvaz means "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages.)

Wyndham operates the Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Travelodge and Howard Johnson hotels, among others. Best Western is one of the world's largest hotel chains, with more than 4,000 hotels in about 100 countries.

"It's time for mainstream companies like Wyndham Hotels to get out of bed with the extremist NRA," said Joseph Huff-Hannon, a senior campaigner at Avvaz.

On Facebook, Wyndham has responded to negative comments about its connection to the NRA with the following statement:

"Wyndham Worldwide is a hospitality company focused on our service promise to be responsive, be respectful and deliver great experiences to our customers, guests, partners and communities, as well as to each other. As part of our company's core values, we serve diverse individuals and organizations."

Best Western has not responded to the Facebook criticism, but it has received some comments of support for its NRA connections.

"Thanks for supporting the Constitution and the NRA," one person wrote on the hotel's Facebook page.

TSA defends airport screeners

The Transportation Security Administration says airport screeners are not sitting around giggling at naked images of travelers.

Such unprofessional behavior by officers who look at images made by full-body scanners is unlikely because screeners sit alone in private rooms, trying to spot weapons hidden beneath clothes of screened passengers, the TSA said.

"The resolution room is used only for the viewing of the images and is not a gathering place or break room for other officers as the officer viewing the images has to be focused in order to prevent any dangerous items from entering the airport," the TSA said in an online post last week.

The TSA made the statement in response to a post supposedly written by a former TSA screener on the blog Taking Sense Away.

The author of the blog said he had witnessed "a whole lot of officers laughing and clowning in regard to some of your nude images, dear passenger."

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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NHL, union reach tentative agreement

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, right, and deputy commissioner Bill Daly speak to reporters in New York last month. (Mary Altaffer / AP Photo / January 6, 2013)

From the Associated Press

January 6, 2013, 3:29 a.m.

NEW YORK—

The NHL and the players' association said they reached a tentative agreement early Sunday to end a nearly four-month-old lockout that threatened to wipe out the season.

A marathon negotiating session that lasted more than 16 hours, stretching from Saturday afternoon until just before dawn Sunday, produced a 10-year deal that still must be ratified by the players.

After the sides stayed mostly apart for two days, following late-night talks that turned sour, federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh worked virtually around the clock to get the sides back to the bargaining table.

This time it worked — on the 113th day of the work stoppage.

Time was clearly a factor, with the sides facing a deadline of Thursday or Friday to reach a deal that would allow for a 48-game season to start a week later. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman had said the league could not allow a season of fewer than 48 games per team.

All games through Jan. 14, along with the All-Star game, have been canceled, claiming more than 50 percent of the original schedule.

It is expected that teams will only play opponents within their conference this season.

Without an agreement, the NHL faced the embarrassment of losing a season due to a labor dispute for the second time, something that has never happened in another North American sports league. The 2004-05 season was wiped out while the sides negotiated hockey's first salary cap.

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News Summary: Tablet-tailored search engine debuts

TAILORED FOR TABLETS: Izik is billed as the first search designed especially for iPads and tablet computers running on Google Inc.‘s Android software. Free Izik apps for those devices were released Friday.

CAPSULE CATERING: For the more visual format of tablets, Izik displays search results in rows of capsules that can be easily scrolled with the swipe of a finger. This contrasts to showing a stack of blue links, the industry standard for laptops and desktops.

GOODBYE GOOGLE? Blekko, the maker of Izik, hopes people will break the Google search habit as tablets supplant traditional computers for Web surfing.

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Rare color photos of The Beatles to go up for sale

LONDON (AP) — Unpublished early color photographs of The Beatles' first U.S. tour will be sold at a U.K. auction.

The photos were taken during the rock band's 1964 visit to the U.S., when color film was expensive and most images of the group were in black and white.

The collection of 65 slides contains many stage shots, including George Harrison with his legendary red Rickenbacker guitar and close-up portraits from a Las Vegas Sahara Hotel press conference and Las Vegas Convention Centre gig.

The images were taken by Dr. Robert Beck, who died in 2002 and left them in an archive of photographs and slides in his Hollywood home.

Omega Auctions said Sunday the images will be sold March 22 — exactly 50 years after The Beatles released their first album.

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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Don't let mortgage debt wreck retirement

Dear Liz: I have a first mortgage with a current balance of $32,000 at 5.625% interest. This will be paid off in about 24 months, based on regular payments plus $200 a month extra I am paying on principal. I have a home equity line of credit with a balance of $200,000 at 3% interest on which I am paying interest only ($490) monthly with an occasional principal payment when I can afford it. Between the two mortgages I am making payments of about $1,950 per month.

I am about to retire and want to reduce my payments to a more manageable amount. I do not intend to move in the near future. Income is $145,000 annually now but will be reduced to about $76,000 annually upon retirement. Should I just hold on, pay off the first mortgage and then begin making interest plus principal payments on the credit line? Or should I refinance both mortgages now into a 30-year fixed mortgage?

Answer: Ideally, you would retire your mortgage debt before you retire from your job. That's not possible in your case, so you should focus on making sure this debt doesn't wreck your retirement.

A spike in interest rates could play havoc with your budget. Mortgage interest rates have been extremely low for some time, but that won't continue indefinitely. Inflation may pick up as the economy improves, which means that 3% variable rate on your home equity line of credit could march considerably higher.

Consider locking in today's low mortgage rates with a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. You could get an even lower rate on a 15-year mortgage, but the payment would be significantly higher — about $1,600 a month on a $232,000 mortgage, compared with about $1,000 a month for the 30-year loan. You may prefer the flexibility of the 30-year loan, which would still allow you to make extra principal payments to pay off the loan faster without locking you into a higher monthly payment.

Where to seek help with debt

Dear Liz: My husband and I are in a huge amount of debt. I understand that there are nonprofit agencies that can sit down with us and help us develop repayment plans and strategies. How do I find a reputable one?

Answer: Contact the National Foundation for Credit Counseling at (800) 388-2227 for a referral to a legitimate, accredited, nonprofit credit counseling agency in your area. A counselor can review your financial situation, help you with budgeting and see whether you're a candidate for a debt management plan, which would allow you to pay off your credit card debt over time, perhaps at a lower interest rate.

You also should consider making an appointment with an experienced bankruptcy attorney. You can get referrals from the National Assn. of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys at http://www.nacba.org. A credit counselor may try to steer you away from bankruptcy, whereas an attorney can let you know if it might be a better option.

Unfortunately, many people wait too long before they contact a credit counselor. They may be approved for a debt management plan but find themselves unable to stick with the plan long enough to pay off their debt. In other words, they continue to struggle with debt that they ultimately can't pay. Understanding all your options, including bankruptcy, can help you make a better choice about what to do next.

Can phone affect credit scores?

Dear Liz: I recently heard that not having a land-line home phone number can hurt your credit score because it indicates instability. Is this true? I, like many people, use only my cellphone and no longer have a land line.

Answer: The answers to most credit scoring questions are complex because the formulas are complex. In this case, though, the answer is simple. What kind of phone you use is not a factor in your credit scores.

Credit scores are based on the information in your credit reports, which typically doesn't include information from telephone companies unless you're applying for a new account (in which case a credit inquiry may appear) or seriously delinquent in paying your bills (in which case a collection account may appear).

Lenders typically use other criteria in addition to your credit score to evaluate your application. Those criteria may include your income, your debt-to-income ratio, how long you've worked for your current employer and other information that's not part of the credit scoring formulas. So it's conceivable a lender might prefer people who have land lines, but with so many people using cellphones only, that lender would certainly be behind the times.

Questions may be sent to 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604 or by using the "Contact" form at asklizweston.com. Distributed by No More Red Inc.

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Tsunami warning canceled for Alaska, Canada

JUNEAU, Alaska—

A powerful earthquake sparked a tsunami warning for hundreds of miles of Alaskan and Canadian coastline, but the alert was canceled when no damaging waves were generated.

The magnitude 7.5 quake did generate a tsunami, but the Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said the waves didn't pose a threat.

The temblor struck at midnight Friday (1 a.m. PST Saturday) and was centered about 60 miles west of Craig, Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The tsunami followed minutes later and was eventually expanded to include coastal areas from Cape Fairweather, Alaska, to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, Canada — an area extending more than 700 miles.

A center had warned that “significant widespread inundation of land is expected,” adding that dangerous coastal flooding was possible.

In its cancellation statement, the center said that some areas were seeing just small sea level changes.

“A tsunami was generated during this event but no longer poses a threat,” the center said.

After one community reported seeing just a small wave, the police in the coastal town of Cordova said they had no reports of any problems.

The Alaska Earthquake Information Center said the quake was widely felt but it received no reports of any damage.

In addition to the warning, a tsunami advisory was briefly in effect for some Alaska coastal areas to the north of the warning zone, as well as to the south of the zone, from the Washington state border to the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

A tsunami warning means an area is likely to be hit by a wave, while an advisory means there may be strong currents, but that widespread inundation is not expected to occur.

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Cricketer Herath alive and bowling despite death rumors

SYDNEY (Reuters) – As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.

Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.

The most prolific wicket-taker in test cricket last year, the 34-year-old leg spinner claimed two Australian wickets to seal a haul of four for 95 and then contributed nine runs with the bat.

Team mate Dimuth Karunaratne told reporters at the conclusion of the day’s play that the team had been dumbfounded by the rumors.

“I heard about it when we having breakfast but I had no idea where that came from,” he said with a laugh.

“Guys from Sri Lanka were calling us asking ‘when is the funeral?’ and stuff like that.

“Rangana is alive,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

Herath’s efforts were not enough to prevent Australia taking an iron grip on the third test match on Saturday and move to the brink of a 3-0 series sweep.

That could all change, however, if he and Dinesh Chandimal, who finished the third day unbeaten on 22, are able to dig in on Sunday, inflate their lead beyond the current 87 and give Sri Lanka a decent target to bowl at.

The Sydney track has traditionally offered a lot of turn for spinners in the last couple of days of a test and, as Herath’s 60 wickets last year showed, there are few better spinners operating in test cricket at the moment.

“The wicket is turning a lot now and the Aussie guys are playing the fourth innings, so I think Rangana… can do something,” said Karunaratne.

Vaas has no position with the test team and remains, also unharmed, in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan reporters said.

(Editing by John O’Brien)

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'McDreamy' says he beat Starbucks for coffee chain

SEATTLE (AP) — "Grey's Anatomy" star Patrick Dempsey may be the real "McSteamy."

The actor, who was dubbed "McDreamy" as a star of the hospital drama while his co-star was called "McSteamy," may soon be serving hot, steaming cups of Joe.

Dempsey won a bankruptcy auction to buy Tully's Coffee, a small coffee chain based in Seattle. Among those he beat out is Tully's much bigger Seattle neighbor, Starbucks Corp., which is known for its ubiquitous white cups with a circular green mermaid logo.

Dempsey, whose company Global Baristas LLC plans to keep the Tully's name, declared victory on the social media site Twitter: "We met the green monster, looked her in the eye, and...SHE BLINKED! We got it! Thank you Seattle!

The win for Dempsey deals a rare setback for Starbucks on its home turf. Starbucks has long been both praised for bringing "coffeehouse culture" to the U.S. and criticized for crushing smaller chains. The coffee giant, which had planned to convert the Tully's cafes to its own brand, last month announced plans to expand its global footprint to 20,000 cafes over the next two years, up from the current 18,000.

Dempsey said in an interview on Friday that as the underdog in Seattle, Tully's will need to find its identity.

"It's a much smaller chain that has a lot of potential that hasn't been given the proper care," he said.

But in a statement shortly after the auction on Thursday, Starbucks insinuated that Dempsey shouldn't celebrate just yet.

Starbucks, which wanted to convert the Tully's cafes to its own brand, said that a final determination on the winning bid won't be made until a court hearing on Jan. 11. Starbucks said it's in a "backup" position" to buy 25 of the 47 Tully's cafes, with another undisclosed bidder making an offer for the remainder.

The combined bids of Starbucks and the undisclosed bidder come to $10.6 million, above the $9.2 million Dempsey's company is offering to pay through his company, which was formed in order to purchase Tully's. The other investors in Global Baristas aren't being disclosed.

Tully's Coffee, which is known for serving Joe with a milder taste than Starbucks brand, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October, citing lease obligations and underperforming stores. Tully's wholesale business, which includes Tully's Coffee in bags and single serve K-cup packs that are sold in supermarkets and other stores, is owned separately by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.

TC Global Inc., the parent company of Tully's, said in a release Friday that it was "encouraged and excited" about Dempsey's commitment to the chain.

Tully's President and CEO Scott Pearson called the deal a "great match" and that the goal is to make sure creditors get paid and to keep as many people employed as possible.

A bankruptcy court document signed late Friday by Pearson and Dempsey said TC Global had determined that Global Baristas submitted the successful bid.

"With this court filing, it's official - our group has been chosen as the successful bidder," Dempsey said in a statement. "We look forward to the court's final approval on Jan. 11."

Earlier in the day, Dempsey said he planned to be very involved in the running of the company, adding that the immediate challenges were to address bookkeeping issues, staff morale and sprucing up the coffee shops. Once the business is stabilized, Dempsey said the long-term goal would be to take the chain national.

"We can pull this off. We just have to take steps that are slow and smart," he said. "I'm going to get behind the counter. I'm going to serve coffee...I'm going to give the company a boost of energy."

Although Dempsey lives in Los Angeles, he plans to spend more time in Seattle, the city where "Grey's Anatomy" is set in. Dempsey said he believed there is room in the city for Tully's and the much larger Starbucks; he noted there might be people who are rooting for the underdog.

"In a society where there are so many big corporations that swallow the little guy, we thought, let's not let this happen to this company," he said.

Dempsey made an appearance Friday morning at a Tully's near Pike Place Market, shaking hands with workers and greeting customers before visiting other stores. Several dozen people, mostly women, came into the store.

Patrease Estelle, 45, works nearby, and came in with a small group from her office.

"I will take whatever I can get. A photo, a hug, a 'hey, how you doing,' a wink," said Estelle, who got a picture and handshake with the actor.

___

Blankinship reported from Seattle and Choi from New York.

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Can CEO Meg Whitman save Hewlett-Packard?

SAN FRANCISCO — Had things gone differently, Meg Whitman might today be governor of California, fighting to turn around one of the country's most financially troubled state governments.

Instead, having lost her bid for that office in November 2010, she finds herself head of Hewlett-Packard Co., struggling to fix one of the high-tech industry's most troubled giants.

Save HP or California. It's hard to say which is the tougher job.

It sometimes seems as if just about everything that could go wrong at HP has gone wrong in recent years. HP went from being a high-tech juggernaut three years earlier to a company in steep decline, a trajectory that Whitman inherited in September 2011 and so far has been able to slow, but not stop.

"It's a huge company," said Jayson Noland, an analyst at R.W. Baird & Co. "And they are not clicking at all right now."

Just when it seemed every possible shoe had dropped, HP announced in November that it had uncovered what it contended was massive accounting fraud at Autonomy, a British software company it acquired in 2011.

In turning over evidence to U.S. and British regulators, Whitman has triggered a war of words with Autonomy's brash founder and a fresh round of lawsuits from shareholders who have watched their investment continue to hit once unthinkable lows.

Even as the unfolding legal drama threatens to become a distraction, Whitman insists that she has every intention of staying at HP's helm for the next few years, which is what she believes it will take to restore this Silicon Valley icon to greatness.

"I knew this turnaround was not a one- to two-year program," Whitman said. "Even before I took this job, I knew it was a bigger undertaking."

Sitting in a conference room at HP's Palo Alto headquarters during a recent interview, Whitman seemed to wear lightly the burden of representing the hopes that better days lie ahead for the company's 331,800 employees. She managed to laugh and smile at times while also delivering detailed responses displaying a technical grasp of HP's massive product line and a staunch defense of her decisions and vision for the company.

For the moment, Whitman, 56, also seems to be remarkably comfortable sitting in a place she could have never imagined being two years ago, after the state's voters delivered an underwhelming verdict on her quest to become governor.

"It was not part of my plan," she said. "I said many times my last CEO job was going to be EBay."

Despite spending millions of dollars on her failed gubernatorial campaign, Whitman's stint as chief executive of EBay Inc. from 1998 to 2008 had left her wealthy, and there remained plenty of goodwill toward her in Silicon Valley. She seemed headed toward the role of elder stateswoman, becoming a part-time advisor at the prestigious venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and joining corporate boards such as Procter & Gamble and Zipcar.

In January 2011, Whitman was asked to join the board at HP. Nine months later, the company fired Chief Executive Leo Apotheker. He had been running HP for less than 11 months following the departure of former CEO Mark Hurd, who resigned after a female contract employee accused him of sexual harassment.

Seeking a steadier hand, the board turned to Whitman.

"I thought I could make a difference," Whitman said. "But I thought about it long and hard, because it was a big commitment."

The list of problems she inherited was daunting.

Amid the CEO turmoil, HP, one of the largest makers of personal computers in the world, was forced to abandon its TouchPad tablet — developed in response to Apple Inc.'s iPad — when the device failed to catch on with consumers. HP's hardware sales suffered as customers shifted to cloud-based services. And although it had made some massive acquisitions, such as Palm and EDS, both companies experienced problems that resulted in billions of dollars in write-downs.

Then HP faced a backlash over its announcements in August 2011 that it was considering selling its PC business and that it was buying Autonomy for the steep price of $11 billion, controversies that helped lead to Apotheker's ouster a month later.

What happened after Whitman took charge at HP seemed remarkable to those who followed her gubernatorial campaign. Criticized for being aloof and remote during her run for governor, a narrative she says was untrue, Whitman was suddenly everywhere — talking on CNBC, granting numerous interviews. She appeared relaxed, personable, confident. Here, suddenly, was the real Meg Whitman that her friends and supporters insisted that California voters didn't get a chance to see during the campaign.

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