Boehner makes counteroffer on 'fiscal cliff'

WASHINGTON — Rejecting President Obama’s call to raise tax rates for the wealthy, House Republicans unveiled a counteroffer that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other federal programs while raising new revenue by overhauling the tax code.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and his GOP leadership team sent the White House the three-page offer Monday afternoon as the administration turned up the volume on their complaints that Republicans have been unwilling to put a serious proposal on the table.

“With the fiscal cliff nearing, our priority remains finding a reasonable solution that can pass both the House and Senate, and be signed into law in the next couple of weeks,” Boehner and the other leaders wrote in the letter to the president, describing a plan that draws from an earlier deficit-reduction proposal from Erskine Bowles, the Democratic former co-chairman of the president’s fiscal commission.

Noticeably missing from the counteroffer, which was also signed by Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) who had been Republican Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, was Ryan’s House-passed budget proposals for turning Medicare into a voucher-like program for the next generation of seniors.

QUIZ: How much do you know about the fiscal cliff?

“We recognize it would be counterproductive to publicly or privately propose entitlement reforms that you and the leaders of your party appear unwilling to support inn the near-term,” the letter said.

The Republican offer comes as talks to avert the year-end budget crisis that economists warn could derail the economy had hit a stalemate. Existing tax rates will increase Jan. 1, rising about $2,200 on average Americans in the new year, if nothing is done. Enormous budget cuts are scheduled days later, a one-two punch of economic contraction.

Obama has been fighting to preserve the lower tax rates for all but the wealthiest households, those earning more than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for singles. The president has said the nation can no longer afford tax breaks for the wealthy that would cost about $900 billion over the decade. But Republicans are fighting to keep the tax breaks for all.

Monday, Republicans proposed capturing nearly the same amount of revenue by closing loopholes and limiting itemized deductions on the wealthiest households, while also launching a broader tax-reform process that would lower all tax rates.

Boehner and his team also proposed $1.4 trillion in savings from spending cuts — including healthcare reforms that could include raising the Medicare retirement age and asking wealthier seniors to pay higher Medicare premiums. They also proposed limiting the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients and others.

Cuts to the entitlement programs have long been discussed as part of a broad deficit-reduction deal, but they are politically unpleasant. By refusing to consider such changes, Democrats forced Republicans to put them on the table.

The Republican proposal is silent on issues Obama had proposed in his offer last week, including a continuation of the payroll tax break and long-term unemployment benefits.

Details of the proposal remain to be worked out, but Republicans suggested a two-part framework, with some of the tax-and-spending changes happening this year and the rest being made in 2013.

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lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaroinDC

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Ericsson seeks U.S. import ban on Samsung products

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish telecoms gear maker Ericsson has filed a request with the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban U.S. imports of products made by South Korean group Samsung,

The request from Ericsson, which said on Monday the products infringe on its patents, came after it sued Samsung for patent infringement in a U.S. court last week.

“The request for an import ban is a part of the process. An import ban is not our goal. Our goal is that they (Samsung) sign license agreements on reasonable terms,” spokesman Fredrik Hallstan said.

Ericsson said last week it was suing Samsung after talks failed to reach agreement on terms that were fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) over patents.

Samsung said it would defend itself against the lawsuit, adding that Ericsson had asked for “prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio”.

(Reporting by Sven Nordenstam; Editing by Dan Lalor)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Costas gun control commentary gets notice

NEW YORK (AP) — Bob Costas' "Sunday Night Football" halftime commentary supporting gun control sparked a Fox News Channel debate Monday on whether NBC should fire him and a Twitter storm involving Ted Nugent, Rosie O'Donnell, Herman Cain and many more.

The NBC sportscaster, who frequently delivers commentary at halftime of the weekly NFL showcase, addressed the weekend's murder-suicide involving Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher.

Costas said that the shooting has invoked the "mindless sports cliche" that "something like this really puts it all in perspective."

"Please," he said. "Those who need tragedies to continually recalibrate their sense of proportion about sports would seem to have little hope of ever truly achieving perspective."

He then paraphrased and quoted extensively from a piece by Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock.

After praising the column, Costas said: "In the coming days, Jovan Belcher's actions and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows? But here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn't possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today."

Belcher shot and killed Perkins, the mother of his 3-month-old daughter, on Saturday morning, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in the parking lot of the team's practice facility.

Quickly, Costas' comments renewed one of society's most contentious debates, made more intense by people who believe that a football halftime show was not the right place for Costas to be speaking on the issue.

"You tune in for a football game and end up listening to Bob Costas spewing sanctimonious dreck," tweeted Herman Cain, the former GOP presidential candidate.

Above a headline "Advocacy Gone Awry?" the hosts of Fox's morning show "Fox & Friends" read letters from viewers criticizing Costas' stance. On Megyn Kelly's afternoon show, there was a debate on whether Costas should be fired.

Rock star and gun advocate Nugent was quick to criticize via Twitter: "Hey Bob Costas we all kno (sic) that obesity is a direct result of the proliferation of spoons and forks. Get a clue."

Former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell, however, tweeted "way to go, Bob Costas." His former NBC colleague, Keith Olbermann, observed that it was "amazing that all those ripping my friend Bob Costas would, had he taken opposing view, be defending him for using the 1st."

There was no immediate comment on Monday from NBC Sports or from Costas.

Before the Olympics this summer, Costas criticized the International Olympic Committee's decision not to hold a moment of silence to mark the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches killed by Palestinian gunmen in Munich in 1972. But he stopped short of repeating that criticism on the air.

___

Online:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/

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Small Employers Weigh Impact of Providing Health Insurance

Erich Schlegel for The New York Times

Robert Mayfield, who owns Dairy Queen franchises in Texas, says he is “scared to death” of the new health care law.

Like many franchisees, Robert U. Mayfield, who owns five Dairy Queens in and around Austin, Tex., is always eager to expand and — no surprise — has had his eyes on opening a sixth DQ. But he said concerns about the new federal health care law had persuaded him to hold off.

“I’m scared to death of it,” he said. “I’m one of the ones sitting on the sidelines to see what’s really going to happen.”

Mr. Mayfield, who has 99 employees, said he was worried he would face penalties of $40,000 or more because he did not offer health insurance to many of his full-time workers — generally defined as those working an average of 30 hours a week or more. Ever since the law was enacted in 2010, opponents have argued that employers who were forced to offer health insurance would lay off workers or shift more people to part-time status to compensate for the additional cost. Those claims have drawn considerable attention — and considerable anger in response — in recent weeks.

John H. Schnatter, the chief executive of Papa John’s, the pizza chain, said some franchisees were likely to reduce their employees’ hours to avoid having to provide coverage. And an unhappy Denny’s franchise owner in Florida warned that he would raise prices 5 percent as a “surcharge,” adding that disgruntled customers could offset that by reducing their tips.

Some health care experts said comments like those came from outliers and sometimes resulted from confusion about a highly complicated new law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Many of the provisions do not go into effect until 2014. Federal officials are still tweaking the fine print, like defining exactly what constitutes a 30-hour workweek. Even so, restaurants and hotels are among the industries likely to be squeezed the hardest by the law because they are low-wage industries that do not offer coverage to most of their workers.

Most employers, even small businesses, already offer health insurance, and the federal law is not expected to have a significant impact on what they do over the next year or so. But businesses that rely heavily on low-income workers, many of whom do not make enough to afford their share of the cost of the insurance premiums, are being forced to rethink their business models.

Almost half of retail and hospitality employers do not offer coverage to all their full-time employees, according to a recent survey by Mercer, a benefits consultant.

“They’re all developing their strategies,” said Debra Gold, a senior partner with Mercer who advises several major retailers.

Many who oppose the requirement say the cost of providing health insurance could mean hiring fewer workers. “Any dollar that gets diverted, whether it’s through Obamacare or increased tax rates, puts franchisees one dollar further away from being able to expand their businesses,” said Don Fox, chief executive of Firehouse Subs, a fast-growing chain of 559 restaurants based in Jacksonville, Fla. At the 30 stores the corporation owns, only full-time managers are offered coverage. Mr. Fox is wrestling with whether to absorb the considerable cost of covering 100 more employees or pay the penalties — which would probably cost him less — but risk losing valued employees to competitors who choose to offer coverage.

Employee health coverage now averages nearly $6,000 for an individual plan. That is considerable for businesses like restaurants in which the majority of workers make $24,000 a year or less, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation found that only 28 percent of companies that employ large numbers of low-income workers offer health benefits. “This is where the biggest set of hurdles is,” said Gary Claxton, an executive with Kaiser.

By 2014, businesses with 50 or more full-time employees will be expected to offer as yet undefined affordable coverage, based on an employee’s income. For employers that fail to offer such coverage, the law typically calls for a penalty of $2,000 a worker, excluding the first 30 employees. As evidence of how sensitive the issue is, Mr. Schnatter of Papa John’s took some heat for his initial statements about the possibility that franchisees would cut employees’ hours to avoid penalties or having to provide coverage. His comments, made during a public appearance, were reported by a local newspaper in Florida, The Naples News. After facing a storm of criticism, he wrote an opinion piece for The Huffington Post, in which he said he had only been speculating about the law’s potential impact on franchisees.

“Papa John’s, like most businesses, is still researching what the Affordable Care Act means to our operations,” he wrote. “Regardless of the conclusion of our analysis, we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100 percent of Papa John’s corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984.” Through a spokesman, Mr. Schnatter declined to comment further.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 30, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of an executive with the Kaiser Family Foundation. He is Gary Claxton, not Glary.

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Text messaging celebrates 20th anniversary

You might not believe it, but text messaging is already past its teen years.

The thumb-numbing communications format that has become a favorite of teenagers and created a language of its own turned 20 on Monday.

The very first SMS was sent out on Dec. 3, 1992 when English engineer Neil Papworth, while working at the English tech company Sema, wrote "Merry Christmas" on his computer and sent it off to Vodafone director Richard Jarvis. 

Quiz: What set the Internet on fire in 2012?

You can hear a little more about the original text message from the very first person to send one in this commercial below by Best Buy, which was released earlier this year.

Since that time, of course, text messaging has changed quite a bit. We've gone from T9 predictive text messaging, to full QWERTY keyboard devices such as BlackBerrys, touchscreen smartphones and most recently, we can tell our voice-dictation services such as Siri to write our messages for us.

Text messaging has also gone mainstream, from being an activity exclusive to teens and young adults to becoming an essential way to communicate for many older adults.

According to a study by Experian, a research and analysis firm, 85% of adults 18 to 24 in the U.S. text message. On average they send and receive nearly 4,000 messages each month. That's followed by adults 25 to 34, about 80% of whom send and receive more than 2,000 messages every month. Even adults 55 and older are sending and receiving about 500 text messages on a monthly basis, though only about 20% of them text.

In recent years, alternative, free Internet-based text messaging services such as Apple's iMessage, Facebook messages and apps like WhatsApp and textPlus have also grown in popularity and dug into the number of SMS-based messages we send.

According to Chetan Sharma, a consulting firm, the 2012 third quarter was the first time text messaging in the U.S. saw a decline in both volume and revenue. Chetan Sharma's report listed free alternatives as the major reason for the decline.

But regardless of what the future may hold, hppy bday, txting :).

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Northridge residents stunned by multiple slayings

Shane Grady woke up "from a dead sleep" early Sunday when he heard gunshots.

He dropped to the floor and looked out his window, but the traffic on Devonshire Street blocked his view.

"If there was yelling or screaming, I couldn't hear it," he said.

Police arrived minutes later and began canvassing the neighborhood, a helicopter flying low overhead. By mid-morning, detectives were still at the house across from Grady's, where four people were found shot dead.

Investigators are still working to determine a motive and found no weapon at the scene, LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said. No suspects are in custody.

L.A. Councilman Mitchell Englander, whose district includes parts of the San Fernando Valley, said the incident appeared to be isolated. He said the home was believed to be an unlicensed boarding home with multiple tenants.

Neighbors said rooms at the home were rented out and the residents appeared to be single men who primarily kept to themselves. At least four people live in an upstairs area, they said, but they did not know how many boarders in all reside there.

The neighbors also said there was nothing unusual about the home, except for some occasional loud music.

One woman who lives around the block from the residence said she heard loud music and yelling from the house about 1:30 a.m. She fell asleep about an hour later but said the music was still playing.

"I just figured it was a party that was out of control," she said.

Others described the street as quiet, the kind where neighbors know one another and people walk to the Jewish temple just houses away from where the shooting occurred. There have been a few incidents — a car chase last summer, a murder 10 years back — they said, but nothing like this.

"It's usually sleepy-time America," said Richard Rutherford, 58.

Rutherford heard the shots as well. The helicopter that came next, he said, was so low it "was shaking the rooftop."

Jeff Kaye, 62, said the helicopters weren't unusual — the Devonshire police station is just a few blocks away. But the shootings were unusual, he said.

"It concerns you," he said. "You want to know what's going on."

Englander said he was "shocked" by the shootings.

"Typically, you don't have these kinds of incidents in this type of community," he said.

Grady said the same thing.

"How often in this neighborhood do you hear about four dead bodies?" Grady said.

Crime for last six months in Northridge:
Violent crimes (89)
   
Property crimes (895)
   
The violent crime rate for Northridge falls in the middle of all Los Angeles city neighborhoods, but homicide is rare in the community, according to LAPD data analyzed in The Times Crime L.A. database. In the previous six months, Northridge had one homicide among the 89 violent crimes reported. The location of the homicides discovered Sunday is on the border with Granada Hills, which typically has a much lower violent-crime rate than Northridge.

Since 2007 -- prior to Sunday's quadruple homicide -- Northridge had 11 homicides, all but one south of Nordhoff Street, according to L.A. County coroner's data compiled in The Times Homicide Report. The most recent took place Sept. 25, when Louis Villegas, 25, was fatally shot near Balboa Boulevard and Parthenia Street. Villegas was riding in a Lexus that had pulled over to the side of the road when a man approached and began shooting.

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Young down by boardwalk for benefit show

NEW YORK (AP) — Neil Young said Sunday that he couldn't see performing in the area devastated by Superstorm Sandy without doing something to help people who were affected by it.

Young and his longtime backing band, Crazy Horse, will hold a benefit concert for the American Red Cross' storm relief effort Thursday at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City. The New Jersey coastline areas were hit hard by the storm in late October.

People in the New York area who suffered damage in the storm have been supporting him for 40 years, he said.

"I couldn't see coming back here and just playing and have it be business as usual," he said. Young is touring in the area, with concerts scheduled for Monday in Brooklyn and Tuesday in Bridgeport, Conn.

Minimum ticket prices for the standing-room show in Atlantic City will be $75 and $150, although Young notes there's no maximum. He hopes to raise several hundred thousand dollars for the Red Cross.

Young said he was invited to join the Dec. 12 benefit at New York's Madison Square Garden that will feature Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, the Who, Kanye West and others, but had other obligations. Besides, there's enough star power there, he said.

"It wasn't going to make much difference whether I was there or not, so I decided to go someplace where I could make a difference," he said.

Young performed at a televised benefit in 2001 following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, memorably covering John Lennon's "Imagine."

Fans can expect a two-hour plus rock show on Thursday with opening band Everest. No special guests are planned, although Young issued an invitation to "anyone who wants to come in and play with us that we know and we know can play."

It's hard to resist wondering whether Young's epic "Like a Hurricane" will make it onto the set list, given the occasion.

"Anything's possible," Young said. "We have the equipment."

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Unboxed: Stand-Up Desks Gaining Favor in the Workplace

THE health studies that conclude that people should sit less, and get up and move around more, have always struck me as fitting into the “well, duh” category.

But a closer look at the accumulating research on sitting reveals something more intriguing, and disturbing: the health hazards of sitting for long stretches are significant even for people who are quite active when they’re not sitting down. That point was reiterated recently in two studies, published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine and in Diabetologia, a journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Suppose you stick to a five-times-a-week gym regimen, as I do, and have put in a lifetime of hard cardio exercise, and have a resting heart rate that’s a significant fraction below the norm. That doesn’t inoculate you, apparently, from the perils of sitting.

The research comes more from observing the health results of people’s behavior than from discovering the biological and genetic triggers that may be associated with extended sitting. Still, scientists have determined that after an hour or more of sitting, the production of enzymes that burn fat in the body declines by as much as 90 percent. Extended sitting, they add, slows the body’s metabolism of glucose and lowers the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol in the blood. Those are risk factors toward developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

“The science is still evolving, but we believe that sitting is harmful in itself,” says Dr. Toni Yancey, a professor of health services at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Yet many of us still spend long hours each day sitting in front of a computer.

The good news is that when creative capitalism is working as it should, problems open the door to opportunity. New knowledge spreads, attitudes shift, consumer demand emerges and companies and entrepreneurs develop new products. That process is under way, addressing what might be called the sitting crisis. The results have been workstations that allow modern information workers to stand, even walk, while toiling at a keyboard.

Dr. Yancey goes further. She has a treadmill desk in the office and works on her recumbent bike at home.

If there is a movement toward ergonomic diversity and upright work in the information age, it will also be a return to the past. Today, the diligent worker tends to be defined as a person who puts in long hours crouched in front of a screen. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, office workers, like clerks, accountants and managers, mostly stood. Sitting was slacking. And if you stand at work today, you join a distinguished lineage — Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov and, according to a recent profile in The New York Times, Philip Roth.

DR. JAMES A. LEVINE of the Mayo Clinic is a leading researcher in the field of inactivity studies. When he began his research 15 years ago, he says, it was seen as a novelty.

“But it’s totally mainstream now,” he says. “There’s been an explosion of research in this area, because the health care cost implications are so enormous.”

Steelcase, the big maker of office furniture, has seen a similar trend in the emerging marketplace for adjustable workstations, which allow workers to sit or stand during the day, and for workstations with a treadmill underneath for walking. (Its treadmill model was inspired by Dr. Levine, who built his own and shared his research with Steelcase.)

The company offered its first models of height-adjustable desks in 2004. In the last five years, sales of its lines of adjustable desks and the treadmill desk have surged fivefold, to more than $40 million. Its models for stand-up work range from about $1,600 to more than $4,000 for a desk that includes an actual treadmill. Corporate customers include Chevron, Intel, Allstate, Boeing, Apple and Google.

“It started out very small, but it’s not a niche market anymore,” says Allan Smith, vice president for product marketing at Steelcase.

The Steelcase offerings are the Mercedes-Benzes and Cadillacs of upright workstations, but there are plenty of Chevys as well, especially from small, entrepreneurial companies.

In 2009, Daniel Sharkey was laid off as a plant manager of a tool-and-die factory, after nearly 30 years with the company. A garage tinkerer, Mr. Sharkey had designed his own adjustable desk for standing. On a whim, he called it the kangaroo desk, because “it holds things, and goes up and down.” He says that when he lost his job, his wife, Kathy, told him, “People think that kangaroo thing is pretty neat.”

Today, Mr. Sharkey’s company, Ergo Desktop, employs 16 people at its 8,000-square-foot assembly factory in Celina, Ohio. Sales of its several models, priced from $260 to $600, have quadrupled in the last year, and it now ships tens of thousands of workstations a year.

Steve Bordley of Scottsdale, Ariz., also designed a solution for himself that became a full-time business. After a leg injury left him unable to run, he gained weight. So he fixed up a desktop that could be mounted on a treadmill he already owned. He walked slowly on the treadmill while making phone calls and working on a computer. In six weeks, Mr. Bordley says, he lost 25 pounds and his nagging back pain vanished.

He quit the commercial real estate business and founded TrekDesk in 2007. He began shipping his desk the next year. (The treadmill must be supplied by the user.) Sales have grown tenfold from 2008, with several thousand of the desks, priced at $479, now sold annually.

“It’s gone from being treated as a laughingstock to a product that many people find genuinely interesting,” Mr. Bordley says.

There is also a growing collection of do-it-yourself solutions for stand-up work. Many are posted on Web sites like howtogeek.com, and freely shared like recipes. For example, Colin Nederkoorn, chief executive of an e-mail marketing start-up, Customer.io, has posted one such design on his blog. Such setups can cost as little as $30 or even less, if cobbled together with available materials.

UPRIGHT workstations were hailed recently by no less a trend spotter of modern work habits and gadgetry than Wired magazine. In its October issue, it chose “Get a Standing Desk” as one of its “18 Data-Driven Ways to Be Happier, Healthier and Even a Little Smarter.”

The magazine has kept tabs on the evolving standing-desk research and marketplace, and several staff members have become converts themselves in the last few months.

“And we’re all universally happy about it,” Thomas Goetz, Wired’s executive editor, wrote in an e-mail — sent from his new standing desk.

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Port-strike talks continue even on Sunday, but stalemate goes on

At least they are talking, even on Sunday.

Labor contract negotiations are set to resume today in the now six-day-old strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Talks had continued past 9 p.m. Saturday night.

The strike, by the 800-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit, has shut down 10 of the 14 cargo container terminals at the nation's busiest seaport complex.

The labor fight pits the union against a group of shipping lines and cargo terminal operators calling themselves the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor Employers Assn.

The strike is considered a potentially disastrous event for the Southern California economy because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the leading contributors to the region's goods movement industry that employs about 595,000 people.

Last year, the two ports handled 39.5% of the total value of all cargo container imports entering the U.S. from origins worldwide, according to Jock O'Connell, international trade economist and adviser to Beacon Economics.

The union, which handles the vast amount of paperwork associated with the ports' container cargo, has been working without a contract since June 30, 2010.

The strike has crippled the port because of support from the ILWU dockworkers, who have 50,000 members on the U.S. West Coast, in Canada and in Hawaii. The dockworkers negotiate their contracts separately, but the 10,000 members who work at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have honored the smaller union's picket lines.

As a result, seven of the eight cargo container terminals at the Port of Los Angeles remain closed. Three of the six cargo container terminals at the Port of Long Beach are also closed.

The union says that its main issue is what it claims is the outsourcing of its jobs, which are being lost through attrition, retirements, illnesses or other reasons.

The shipping lines and terminal operators say the union's outsourcing claims are bogus and say they have offered "absolute job security."

The employers have repeatedly said the union members are the highest-paid clerical workers in the U.S., having a total compensation package of $165,000 a year, including wages, benefits, pension contributions and paid vacation. That package would be worth $195,000 a year under management's new offer, the employers have said.

On Saturday, the union offered a rebuttal, saying that the employers' claims were misleading. Wages reached $40 to $41 an hour, for an annual pay level of $80,000 to $82,200 a year, not counting overtime, retirement or benefits. The union has asked for a 2.5% raise, said union spokesman Craig Merrilees.

Merrilees added that the union has had one pay increase in the past four years.

Since the strike started, nine ships have either diverted at sea or briefly anchored outside the ports before leaving to unload at another harbor.

There were no new ship diversions reported on Sunday, said Capt. Dick McKenna, executive director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which tracks vessel movements.

Other than the lightly manned picket lines, the ships were the biggest evidence of the strike on Sunday.

Nine cargo container ships were anchored offshore Sunday: the APL London; the Hanjin ships Constantza, Algeciras and Chongqing; the Hyundai Hong Kong; the Ital Contessa; the Kota Wangsa; the Maersk Merlion; and the Liberian-flagged Talassa.

Normally, those ships would have gone straight to dock for unloading, but there is no room for them yet because of the strike.

Three more container ships are due to arrive today and 11 more container ships are scheduled to arrive on Monday.

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Jovan Belcher of Kansas City Chiefs dead in suspected murder-suicide

Jovan Belcher of the Kansas City Chiefs shot and killed his girlfriend, then drove to the team’s practice facility and killed himself in front of team officials, police said Saturday.

Police confirmed to the Kansas City Star the player was Belcher, 25, one of the team’s starting linebackers and a four-year veteran of the NFL.

PHOTOS: Jovan Belcher's NFL career

In a briefing outside of Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City Police Department spokesman Darin Snapp said the player shot his girlfriend “several times” at about 7:50 a.m. local time Saturday. The victim’s mother was there and reported the shooting.

By the time police arrived, Belcher was gone. Twenty minutes later, police were called to Arrowhead Stadium’s practice facility. Belcher was outside of the facility’s front doors with a gun to his head. According to the Associated Press, Chiefs Coach Romeo Crennel and General Manager Scott Pioli were there at the time and were talking to Belcher.

The player shot himself just as police arrived.

Snapp said Belcher and his girlfriend had been arguing recently, but offered no further details.

The area where Belcher shot himself was locked down briefly but has since reopened.

The Chiefs coaches called a team meeting for later in the day, Snapp said.

NFL executives and players took to Twitter after the incident.

Said NFL Players Assn. Assistant Executive Director George Atallah: “There is nothing profound or comforting to say that can help us understand or explain a situation like this. We have been in touch with players. At a time like this, we can only come together as a family and a community.”

Oakland Raiders wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey tweeted: “Very sad day in the NFL FAMILY. My prayers go out [to] the Chiefs and families involved.”

Louis Murphy Jr., a wide receiver with the Carolina Panthers, tweeted: “Thoughts and prayers go out to the Kansas City Chiefs players and family.”

The Chiefs  are scheduled to play the Carolina Panthers on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium. The NFL told the Panthers to continue traveling to Kansas City for Sunday’s game, the Charlotte Observer reported.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

twitter.com/josephserna

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