Ethics

In the annals of wrongheaded things done with the best intentions, the California stem cell program has always been in a category of its own. The $6-billion program was enacted by voters in 2004 as Proposition 71 after a campaign of exceptional intellectual dishonesty, featuring vignettes of sufferers from diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other heartbreaking diseases for which it seemed to promise imminent cures through research into embryonic stem cells.

A few weeks ago, the chairman of online auction site Bidz.com forecast good news ahead. The company was headed for another blowout quarter, David Zinberg said, with sales topping the already-rosy projections made in November. The announcement was designed partly to quell questions that had been swirling around the Culver City-based company for months.

This is a critical moment for TMZ, the celebrity website overseen by lawyer and former KCBS-TV Channel 2 reporter Harvey Levin. The 4-year-old website last week broke its biggest story yet -- the death of Michael Jackson -- following up with scoops and rumors about the singer's alleged drug habit, audio of the initial 911 call from his rented mansion, and news of what it suggested was a brewing fight over custody of his children.

With Sabbath candles burning and 14 guests seated around her dinner table, Joanna Arch held up a cup of kosher red wine and chanted the kiddish prayer in Hebrew: "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all his creative work."

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno declined Monday to include President Clinton in an investigation into whether campaign contributions influenced an administration decision rejecting a casino license for three Chippewa tribes in Wisconsin. "At this time, there is no legitimate basis" for doing so, Reno said in a letter to Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, whose Republican members asked for the broadened probe a month ago.

tulsa, okla. -- Twenty years ago, televangelist Oral Roberts said he was reading a spy novel when God appeared to him and told him to raise $8 million for Roberts' university, or else he would be "called home." Now, his son, Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts, says God is speaking again, telling him to deny allegations in a lawsuit that threatens to engulf this 44-year-old Bible Belt college in scandal.

Ethics, one of those soft words that few people believe business really cares about, is suddenly a growth industry. The study of behavior -- right and wrong -- has become the focus of curricula at leading business schools around the country and a source of full employment for lawyers and business consultants in the wake of legislation that followed the corporate scandals of two years ago.

In a direct challenge to Congress and the way it does business, the White House on Wednesday unveiled an online list of all the pet spending projects lawmakers tucked in the federal budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year.

A Los Angeles County panel considering rules requiring financial disclosure by groups that lobby on municipal secession issues barred the public from its discussions, drawing criticism from politicians and ethics experts. A subcommittee of the Los Angeles County Local Agency Formation Commission took testimony from the head of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission on Thursday, then asked that city official and the public to leave. The discussion then continued behind closed doors.

In the winter chill last January, a mountain goat named Celia was wandering through the rocky highlands of northern Spain when a tree fell and crushed her to death. With that, another species vanished from the Earth. Celia was the last remaining bucardo, a goat known for thick fur and extravagant horns, which had dwindled because of hunting, habitat destruction and landslides in its home high in the Pyrenees.

At least 26 state legislators are being fined for failing to disclose that they accepted gifts from lobbying groups. The fines are the first penalties revealed as part of a month-old investigation by the state's political watchdog agency into suspicions that 38 state lawmakers -- including Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) -- and 15 staff members failed to make the required disclosures. FOR THE RECORD: Ethics probe: The headline on an article in Thursday's Section A on at least 26 California lawmakers being investigated by the state's political watchdog, the Fair Political Practices Commission, said they were fined for taking gifts.

Some of the most dramatic television images beamed from Haiti's quake-ravaged communities have shown harried doctors frantically tending the wounded with rudimentary tools. "To say it's primitive is an understatement," CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said Saturday on "The Early Show." "This is analogous to Civil War medicine." Ashton would know. As she spoke, the network aired footage of her in scrubs and a face mask, assisting in the nighttime surgery of a 15-year-old girl in shock from a hasty amputation.

California's political watchdog agency announced it has found "probable cause" to accuse a two-term board member at the California Public Employees' Retirement System of violating the state's Political Reform Act. Priya Mathur, the chairwoman of CalPERS' health benefits committee and vice-chairwoman of the investment committee, allegedly failed to file a statement of economic interests for 2007, the California Fair Political Practices Commission said...

The California Public Employees' Retirement System board, responding to allegations of past conflicts of interest, has adopted a new ethics policy to govern contacts with outside sales intermediaries and investment fund managers. The policy, unveiled Tuesday, requires the 13 board members to refer all communications on existing or potential investments to CalPERS' professional staff. Members also are counseled not to advocate on behalf of any particular investment outside of a board meeting.

The top development official for the city of Long Beach has been demoted after coming under scrutiny for going on junkets with a lobbyist with business before his office, officials announced Friday afternoon. Director of Development Services Craig Beck has been reassigned as a manager of the Oil and Gas Department's Business Operations Bureau. He will start the new post Monday, earning a salary of $140,000 a year -- a 20% pay cut -- said Debbie Mills, the city's acting human resources director.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Saturday defended recommending his girlfriend and former staffer to become a U.S. attorney, arguing that she was a "highly qualified prosecutor" who would have served his home state well. One of the most influential figures in the ongoing healthcare overhaul effort, Baucus acknowledged that he has had a romantic relationship with Melodee Hanes since the summer of 2008. In a statement, the senator said that he and Hanes, who live together on Capitol Hill, were both separated from their spouses at the time.

The state's political ethics agency has launched an investigation into whether state Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood) violated campaign law when he formed a legal defense fund without reporting the legal issue for which he was raising money, an agency official said Thursday. Elected officials may use legal defense funds to raise unlimited funds for expenses including representation by attorneys, but are required to disclose the purpose for which the money is being raised, said Roman Porter, executive director of the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Board members at California's huge state pension fund offered support Thursday for a plan to register as lobbyists the controversial middlemen hired by private investment funds to help get lucrative business from public pension plans. Reacting to continuing questions about possible influence peddling by these representatives for outside investment managers, several members said they backed the idea proposed by the board president of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, known as CalPERS.

Former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez broke no state laws when he spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on luxury travel around the world, gifts at high-end boutiques and meals at exclusive restaurants, the state's ethics watchdog has ruled. The Fair Political Practices Commission also has cleared the Los Angeles Democrat of any illegal activity in funneling nearly $300,000 from companies and organizations with business in the Capitol to a charity that spent it on events that helped him politically.

A former deputy director for the California Department of Managed Health Care has agreed to pay a $3,000 administrative fine after admitting a conflict of interest violation, the state's ethics watchdog agency said Monday. Kevin Donohue, who still works for the agency in another capacity, admitted he held stock in UnitedHealth Group Inc. when he helped review the 2005 merger of the firm with PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., according to a stipulated settlement with the state Fair Political Practices Commission.