Willis' new 'Die Hard' scores with $25M debut

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bruce Willis remains a die-hard at the box office.

Willis' action sequel "A Good Day to Die Hard" debuted as the weekend's top draw with a $25 million debut from Friday to Sunday. The 20th Century Fox release raised its domestic total to $33.2 million since opening Thursday for Valentine's Day to get a jump on the long President's Day weekend.

The movie comes 25 years after the original "Die Hard" and six years after "Live Free or Die Hard," the hit that resurrected the franchise centered on Willis' relentless New York City cop John McClane.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Universal's comedy "Identity Thief" starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, was a close second with $23.4 million to lift its haul to $70.7 million.

Debuting at No. 3 with $21.4 million was Relativity Media's romance "Safe Haven," starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel in an adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel about a woman who flees her abusive husband and takes up with a sensitive widower. Since opening on Valentine's Day, "Safe Haven" has taken in $30.3 million.

The Weinstein Co. animated tale "Escape from Planet Earth" opened at No. 4 with $16.1 million. With a voice cast that includes Brendan Fraser, Jessica Alba, Sarah Jessica Parker and Rob Corddry, the movie follows the adventures of aliens captured by the U.S. military.

Making a weak debut at No. 6 was the Warner Bros. teen fantasy "Beautiful Creatures," which pulled in $7.5 million for the weekend and $10 million since opening Thursday. The movie is based on the first in the best-selling series about a Southern misfit (Alden Ehrenreich) who falls under the spell of a teen witch (Alice Englert).

"A Good Day to Die Hard" did solid business despite bad reviews for the latest installment, which sends Willis' McClane to Moscow in search of his estranged son, an undercover spy who winds up teaming with the old man against Russian bad guys.

The movie's success follows notable flops from two other holdovers of the 1980s action scene, Sylvester Stallone with "Bullet to the Head" and Arnold Schwarzenegger with "The Last Stand."

"There's still life left in the 'Die Hard' franchise. Given the fact that pretty much every other R-rated action movie that's come out this year has completely fallen flat, this is a pretty good showing," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. Willis in "one of the old-guard action stars who still has a solid career going, whereas a lot of these aging action heroes, unless they're in an ensemble cast, they're not able to draw audiences the way they used to."

Overall Hollywood business remained slow, with revenues off for the fourth-straight weekend compared to the same period last year. Domestic business from Friday to Sunday totaled $141 million, down 9.4 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when "Safe House" and "The Vow" led the way with about $23 million each.

A bright spot this year has been strong business for top Academy Awards contenders leading up to next Sunday's Oscars. The weekend's top-20 films included eight of the nine best-picture nominees, seven of which have either topped $100 million domestically or are close.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are included. Final domestic figures will be released Tuesday.

1. "A Good Day to Die Hard," $25 million.

2. "Identity Thief," $23.4 million.

3. "Safe Haven," $21.4 million.

4. "Escape from Planet Earth," $16.1 million.

5. "Warm Bodies," $9 million.

6. "Beautiful Creatures," $7.5 million.

7. "Side Effects," $6.3 million.

8. "Silver Linings Playbook," $6.1 million.

9. "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," $3.5 million.

10. "Zero Dark Thirty," $3.1 million.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

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

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Cuomo Bucks Tide With Bill to Lift Abortion Limits

ALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.

Mr. Cuomo, seeking to deliver on a promise he made in his recent State of the State address, would rewrite a law that currently allows abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. The law is not enforced, because it is superseded by federal court rulings that allow late-term abortions to protect a woman’s health, even if her life is not in jeopardy. But abortion rights advocates say the existence of the more restrictive state law has a chilling effect on some doctors and prompts some women to leave the state for late-term abortions.

Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, would also clarify that licensed health care practitioners, and not only physicians, can perform abortions. It would remove abortion from the state’s penal law and regulate it through the state’s public health law.

Abortion rights advocates have welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s plan, which he outlined in general terms as part of a broader package of women’s rights initiatives in his State of the State address in January. But the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups are dismayed; opponents have labeled the legislation the Abortion Expansion Act.

The prospects for Mr. Cuomo’s effort are uncertain. The State Assembly is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights; the Senate is more difficult to predict because this year it is controlled by a coalition of Republicans who have tended to oppose new abortion rights laws and breakaway Democrats who support abortion rights.

New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before it was legalized nationally by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Mr. Cuomo’s proposal would update the state law so that it could stand alone if the broader federal standard set by Roe were to be undone.

“Why are we doing this? The Supreme Court could change,” said a senior Cuomo administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the governor had not formally introduced his proposal.

But opponents of abortion rights, already upset at the high rate of abortions in New York State, worry that rewriting the abortion law would encourage an even greater number of abortions. For example, they suggest that the provision to allow abortions late in a woman’s pregnancy for health reasons could be used as a loophole to allow unchecked late-term abortions.

“I am hard pressed to think of a piece of legislation that is less needed or more harmful than this one,” the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, wrote in a letter to Mr. Cuomo last month. Referring to Albany lawmakers in a subsequent column, he added, “It’s as though, in their minds, our state motto, ‘Excelsior’ (‘Ever Upward’), applies to the abortion rate.”

National abortion rights groups have sought for years to persuade state legislatures to adopt laws guaranteeing abortion rights as a backup to Roe. But they have had limited success: Only seven states have such measures in place, including California, Connecticut and Maryland; the most recent state to adopt such a law is Hawaii, which did so in 2006.

“Pretty much all of the energy, all of the momentum, has been to restrict abortion, which makes what could potentially happen in New York so interesting,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “There’s no other state that’s even contemplating this right now.”

In most statehouses, the push by lawmakers has been in the opposite direction. The past two years has seen more provisions adopted at the state level to restrict abortion rights than in any two-year period in decades, according to the Guttmacher Institute; last year, 19 states adopted 43 new provisions restricting abortion access, while not a single significant measure was adopted to expand access to abortion or to comprehensive sex education.

“It’s an extraordinary moment in terms of the degree to which there is government interference in a woman’s ability to make these basic health care decisions,” said Andrea Miller, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “For New York to be able to send a signal, a hopeful sign, a sense of the turning of the tide, we think is really important.”

Abortion rights advocates say that even though the Roe decision supersedes state law, some doctors are hesitant to perform late-term abortions when a woman’s health is at risk because the criminal statutes remain on the books.

“Doctors and hospitals shouldn’t be reading criminal laws to determine what types of health services they can offer and provide to their patients,” said M. Tracey Brooks, the president of Family Planning Advocates of New York State.

For Mr. Cuomo, the debate over passing a new abortion law presents an opportunity to appeal to women as well as to liberals, who have sought action in Albany without success since Eliot Spitzer made a similar proposal when he was governor. But it also poses a challenge to the coalition of Republicans and a few Democrats that controls the State Senate, the chamber that has in the past stood as the primary obstacle to passing abortion legislation in the capital.

The governor has said that his Reproductive Health Act would be one plank of a 10-part Women’s Equality Act that also would include equal pay and anti-discrimination provisions. Conservative groups, still stinging from the willingness of Republican lawmakers to go along with Mr. Cuomo’s push to legalize same-sex marriage in 2011, are mobilizing against the proposal. Seven thousand New Yorkers who oppose the measure have sent messages to Mr. Cuomo and legislators via the Web site of the New York State Catholic Conference.

A number of anti-abortion groups have also formed a coalition called New Yorkers for Life, which is seeking to rally opposition to the governor’s proposal using social media.

“If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Is there enough abortion in New York?’ no one in their right mind would say we need more abortion,” said the Rev. Jason J. McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which is part of the coalition.

Members of both parties say that the issue of reproductive rights was a significant one in November’s legislative elections. Democrats, who were bolstered by an independent expenditure campaign by NARAL, credit their victories in several key Senate races in part to their pledge to fight for legislation similar to what Mr. Cuomo is planning to propose.

Republicans, who make up most of the coalition that controls the Senate, have generally opposed new abortion rights measures. Speaking with reporters recently, the leader of the Republicans, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, strenuously objected to rewriting the state’s abortion laws, especially in a manner similar to what the governor is seeking.

“You could have an abortion up until the day the child would be born, and I think that’s just wrong,” Mr. Skelos said. He suggested that the entire debate was unnecessary, noting that abortion is legal in New York State and saying that is “not going to be changed.”

The Senate Democratic leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers, who is the sponsor of a bill that is similar to the legislation the governor is drafting, said she was optimistic that an abortion measure would reach the Senate floor this year.

“New York State’s abortion laws were passed in 1970 in a bipartisan fashion,” she said. “It would be a sad commentary that over 40 years later we could not manage to do the same thing.”

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Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores, setting off more contention in the nation's second-largest school system in the weeks before a critical Board of Education election.

Leaders of the teachers union have insisted that there should be no fixed percentage or expectation for how much standardized tests should count — and that test results should serve almost entirely as just one measure to improve instruction. Deasy, in contrast, has insisted that test scores should play a significant role in a teacher's evaluation and that poor scores could contribute directly to dismissal.

In a Friday memo explaining the evaluation process, Deasy set 30% as the goal and the maximum for how much test scores and other data should count.

In an interview, he emphasized that the underlying thrust is to develop an evaluation that improves the teaching corps and that data is part of the effort.

"The public has been demanding a better evaluation system for at least a decade. And teachers have repeatedly said to me what they need is a balanced way forward to help them get better and help them be accountable," Deasy said. "We do this for students every day. Now it's time to do this for teachers."

Deasy also reiterated that test scores would not be a "primary or controlling" factor in an evaluation, in keeping with the language of an agreement reached in December between L.A. Unified and its teachers union. Classroom observations and other factors also are part of the evaluation process.

But United Teachers Los Angeles President Warren Fletcher expressed immediate concern about Deasy's move. During negotiations, he said, the superintendent had proposed allotting 30% to test scores but the union rejected the plan. Deasy then pulled the idea off the table, which allowed the two sides to come to an agreement, Fletcher said. Teachers approved the pact last month.

"To see this percentage now being floated again is unacceptable," the union said in a statement.

Fletcher described the pact as allowing flexibility for principals, in collaboration with teachers, first to set individual goals and then to look at various measures to determine student achievement and overall teacher performance.

"The superintendent doesn't get to sign binding agreements and then pretend they're not binding," Fletcher said.

When Deasy settled on 30%, his decision was in line with research findings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has examined teacher quality issues across the country. Some experts have challenged that work.

The test score component would include a rating for the school based on an analysis of all students' standardized test scores. Those "value-added" formulas, known within L.A. Unified as Academic Growth Over Time, can be used to rate a school or a teacher's effectiveness by comparing students' test scores with past performance. The method takes into account such factors as family income and ethnicity.

After an aggressive push by the Obama administration, individual value-added ratings for teachers have been added to reviews in many districts. They make up 40% of evaluations in Washington, D.C., 35% in Tennessee and 30% in Chicago.

But Los Angeles will use a different approach. The district will rely on raw test scores. A teacher's evaluation also may incorporate pass rates on the high school exit exam and graduation, attendance and suspension data.

Deasy's action was met Friday with reactions ranging from guarded to enthusiastic approval within a coalition of outside groups that have pushed for a new evaluation system. This coalition also has sought to counter union influence.

Elise Buik, chief executive of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, said weighing test scores 30% "is a reasonable number that everyone can be happy with."

The union and the district were under pressure to include student test data in evaluations after L.A. County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled last year that the system was violating state law by not using test scores in teacher performance reviews.

A lawsuit to enforce the law was brought by parents in Los Angeles, with support from the Sacramento-based EdVoice advocacy organization.

If the "actual progress" of students is taken into account under Deasy's plan, "it's a historic day for LAUSD," said Bill Lucia, the group's chief executive.

All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the upcoming March 5 election. The campaign for three school board seats has turned substantially into a contest between candidates who strongly back Deasy's policies and those more sympathetic toward the teachers union. Deasy supporters praise the superintendent for measures they say will improve the quality of teaching. The union has faulted Deasy for limiting job protections and said he has imposed unwise or unproven reforms.

In the upcoming election, the union and pro-Deasy forces are matched head to head in District 4, with several employee unions behind incumbent Steve Zimmer and a coalition of donors behind challenger Kate Anderson.

Anderson had high praise for Deasy's directive, saying it struck the right balance and that teachers and students would benefit.

Zimmer said that although he understands that principals need guidance, "I worry about anything that would cause resistance or delay in going forward. I hope this use of a percentage won't disrupt what had been a collaborative process."

howard.blume@latimes.com

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'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius weeps as he faces murder charge

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee revered in South Africa for overcoming his disability to compete in the London Games last year, wept in court Friday as he faced a murder charge in connection with the fatal shooting of his girlfriend.

During the proceedings in Pretoria, Gerrie Nel, one of the National Prosecuting Authority’s most senior advocates, said he would argue the killing of model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp was premeditated murder, the most serious category of offense under South African law.

Nel is known for prosecuting high-profile cases, including winning the conviction of former police chief and Interpol boss Jackie Selebi on corruption charges.

Pistorius, nicknamed the "Blade Runner" because of the carbon-fiber prosthetic legs he uses to compete, did not enter a formal plea and was remanded into custody at Brooklyn police station in Pretoria until Tuesday, when his bail application is to be heard.

Under South African law, a suspect charged with such a high-level offense would have to prove exceptional circumstances to be granted bail.

In a packed courtroom, members of Pistorius' family struggled to pass through a media scrum and to find seats. The hearing coincided with "Black Friday," a day when people were being urged to wear black to protest rapes and violence against women.

[Updated, 8:35 a.m. Feb. 15: The family and Pistorius' management company later issued a statement denying that the athlete had murdered his girlfriend, saying: "The alleged murder is disputed in the strongest possible terms."

Some details of Pistorius' argument and the state's case are expected Tuesday.]

The famed athlete's court appearance came as South African media reported that he shot Steenkamp, his girlfriend of several months, four times through a bathroom door.

Under South African law, a person who fatally shoots an intruder has to prove he or she had a reasonable fear that the intruder posed a real threat to his or her life.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of gun homicides in the world, with killings of women by intimate partners the leading cause of female homicide in the country. About 57% of female homicide victims were killed by their partners in 2009, according to a report last year by the Medical Research Council.

One-third of female homicides were committed by partners with a history of prior violence against their partners, according to the report.

Friends of Steenkamp and Pistorius mourned the incident on social media.

"Drained, confused, I just can't wrap my head around things," one of Pistorius’ close friends, Alex Pilakoutas, posted on Twitter.

Darren Fresco, who described himself as one of Steenkamp’s best friends said he was hoping to wake from a nightmare and hear her infectious laughter again.

"We were just goofing off the other day talking to each other in only the way that we could to each other. My heart is on the verge of exploding with the pain of such a sudden loss of one of my best friends," Fresco, who said he was one of the last people to exchange tweets with Steenkamp, posted on Facebook.

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robyn.dixon@latimes.com

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Charlie Sheen pays for injured teen's therapy dog

MILWAUKEE (AP) — MILWAUKEE (AP) — There's a 15-year-old Florida girl who didn't really know much about Charlie Sheen before this week — but does now.

The actor wired $10,000 to Teagan Marti and her family on Thursday for a therapy dog to help in her rehabilitation from injuries sustained when she plummeted 100 feet from a Wisconsin amusement park ride in 2010.

"I think he's a very kind person for helping me and my family and very generous," Teagan Marti said by phone Thursday from her home in Parkland, Fla.

Teagan Marti suffered brain, spine, pelvis and internal injuries in July 2010 when nets and air bags that were supposed to catch riders on a free-fall ride were not raised. She had convinced her family to make the trip from Florida to Extreme World in Wisconsin Dells after seeing the amusement park's Terminal Velocity ride on the Travel Channel.

She was hospitalized in Wisconsin and Florida for three months. She initially had no use of her arms or legs but through physical therapy is able to walk again with a walker.

Teagan Marti's mother, Julie Marti, said they are financially in trouble from the medical bills and her recent divorce. Their house is being foreclosed upon and insurance isn't covering physical therapy anymore, she said. She had no idea how they would pay for the English Golden Retriever puppy.

"I'm in such disbelief," Julie Marti said. "I was crying. ... What a guy. What a guy."

The dog is being trained in Fond du Lac to turn on lights, pick up objects and be the teen's constant companion.

Lucia Wilgus, of Eau Claire, became friends with the Martis after hearing of the accident and has spearheaded fundraising and helped find the dog and arrange training.

She sent a letter this week to Sheen through Sheen's godfather, who is a Wilgus family friend and Benedictine brother in the Benet Lake, Wis. She estimated the training and related costs would be around $6,000.

Sheen said he decided to give more for extra costs. The request had a "personal vibe" since it came through his godfather, and "if there's a need for more I told them to call me," he said.

"I like to pay it forward," Sheen said Thursday in a phone interview from Los Angeles. "People come into your orbit for a reason. You don't always know what that is ahead of time, but if I ignore these requests then I don't have any opportunity to see where these things lead us, or lead me."

He said he doesn't like to publicize most of his donations, but wanted to talk about this one to inspire others to donate.

Teagan Marti gets the dog on her birthday in September but hasn't made up her mind on a name.

"I think they should name the dog Charlie," Sheen joked.

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Follow Carrie Antlfinger at http://twitter.com/@antltoe

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Fat Dad: Baking for Love

Fat Dad

Dawn Lerman writes about growing up with a fat dad.

My grandmother Beauty always told me that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, and by the look of pure delight on my dad’s face when he ate a piece of warm, homemade chocolate cake, or bit into a just-baked crispy cookie, I grew to believe this was true. I had no doubt that when the time came, and I liked a boy, that a batch of my gooey, rich, chocolaty brownies would cast him under a magic spell, and we would live happily ever.

But when Hank Thomas walked into Miss Seawall’s ninth grade algebra class on a rainy, September day and smiled at me with his amazing grin, long brown hair, big green eyes and Jimi Hendrix T-shirt, I was completely unprepared for the avalanche of emotions that invaded every fiber of my being. Shivers, a pounding heart, and heat overcame me when he asked if I knew the value of 1,000 to the 25th power. The only answer I could think of, as I fumbled over my words, was “love me, love me,” but I managed to blurt out “1E+75.” I wanted to come across as smart and aloof, but every time he looked at me, I started stuttering and sweating as my face turned bright red. No one had ever looked at me like that: as if he knew me, as if he knew how lost I was and how badly I needed to be loved.

Hank, who was a year older than me, was very popular and accomplished. Unlike other boys who were popular for their looks or athletic skills, Hank was smart and talented. He played piano and guitar, and composed the most beautiful classical and rock concertos that left both teachers and students in awe.

Unlike Hank, I had not quite come into my own yet. I was shy, had raggedy messy hair that I tied back into braids, and my clothes were far from stylish. My mother and sister had been on the road touring for the past year with the Broadway show “Annie.” My sister had been cast as a principal orphan, and I stayed home with my dad to attend high school. My dad was always busy with work and martini dinners that lasted late into the night. I spent most of my evenings at home alone baking and making care packages for my sister instead of coercing my parents to buy me the latest selection of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans — the rich colored bluejeans with the swan stitched on the back pocket that you had to lay on your bed to zip up. It was the icon of cool for the popular and pretty girls. I was neither, but Hank picked me to be his math partner anyway.

With every equation we solved, my love for Hank became more desperate. After several months of exchanging smiles, I decided to make Hank a batch of my homemade chocolate brownies for Valentine’s Day — the brownies that my dad said were like his own personal nirvana. My dad named them “closet” brownies, because when I was a little girl and used to make them for the family, he said that as soon as he smelled them coming out of the oven, he could imagine dashing away with them into the closet and devouring the whole batch.

After debating for hours if I should make the brownies for Hank with walnuts or chips, or fill the centers with peanut butter or caramel, I got to work. I had made brownies hundreds of times before, but this time felt different. With each ingredient I carefully stirred into the bowl, my heart began beating harder. I felt like I was going to burst from excitement. Surely, after Hank tasted these, he would love me as much as I loved him. I was not just making him brownies. I was l showing him who I was, and what mattered to me. After the brownies cooled, I sprinkled them with a touch of powdered sugar and wrapped them with foil and red tissue paper. The next day I placed them in Hank’s locker, with a note saying, “Call me.”

After seven excruciating days with no call, some smiles and the usual small talk in math class, I conjured up the nerve to ask Hank if he liked my brownies.

“The brownies were from you?” he asked. “They were delicious.”

Then Hank invited me to a party at his house the following weekend. Without hesitation, I responded that I would love to come. I pleaded with my friend Sarah to accompany me.

As the day grew closer, I made my grandmother Beauty’s homemade fudge — the chocolate fudge she made for Papa the night before he proposed to her. Stirring the milk, butter and sugar together eased my nerves. I had never been to a high school party before, and I didn’t know what to expect. Sarah advised me to ditch the braids as she styled my hair, used a violet eyeliner and lent me her favorite V-neck sweater and a pair of her best Gloria Vanderbilt jeans.

When we walked in the door, fudge in hand, Hank was nowhere to be found. Thinking I had made a mistake for coming and getting ready to leave, I felt a hand on my back. It was Hank’s. He hugged me and told me he was glad I finally arrived. When Hank put his arm around me, nothing else existed. With a little help from Cupid or the magic of Beauty’s recipes, I found love.

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Fat Dad’s ‘Closet’ Brownies

These brownies are more like fudge than cake and contain a fraction of the flour found in traditional brownie recipes. My father called them “closet” brownies, because when he smelled them coming out of the oven he could imagine hiding in the closet to eat the whole batch. I baked them in the ninth grade for a boy that I had a crush on, and they were more effective than Cupid’s arrow at winning his heart.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the pan
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped, or semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs at room temperature, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Fresh berries or powdered sugar for garnish (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish.

3. In a double boiler, melt chocolate. Then add butter, melt and stir to blend. Remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix well.

4. Add flour. Mix well until very smooth. Add chopped walnuts if desired. Pour batter into greased baking pan.

5. Bake for 35 minutes, or until set and barely firm in the middle. Allow to cool on a rack before removing from pan. Optional: garnish with powdered sugar, or berries, or both.

Yield: 16 brownies

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Dawn Lerman is a New York-based health and nutrition consultant and founder of Magnificent Mommies, which provides school lectures, cooking classes and workshops. Her series on growing up with a fat father appears occasionally on Well.

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Stocks inch higher as finance ministers meet for G20

Stocks were little changed on Wall Street Friday, with the S&P 500 barely holding on to its seventh week of gains.

The Standard & Poor's 500 fell two points to 1,520 as of 12:32 p.m. EST. For the week, the index less than a point higher. It has risen every week so far this year.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 9 points to 13,963. The Nasdaq composite fell 2 points to 3,196.

Burger King gained 40 cents to $16.98. The company's fourth-quarter earnings nearly doubled after it revamped its menu. Energy stocks fell as the price of crude oil dropped nearly 2 percent to $95.52 a barrel. Chevron dropped 99 cents to $114.70 and Exxon Mobil fell 37 cents to $88.15.

A stock market rally that started in January has slowed in February. Investors piled into stocks at the beginning of the year after lawmakers reached a last-minute deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” of sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts. The gains continued as investors were encouraged by signs that the housing and jobs markets are recovering.

QUIZ: How much do you know about the stock market?

“We've just had such a fast start to the year,” said John Fox, manager of the FAM value fund. “It just makes sense that you are going to have a leveling or a slowdown.”

Herbalife surged $4.54, or 12 percent, to $42.80 after the billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he had accumulated a 13 percent stake in the company. The stock of the supplement company slumped last year after Pershing Square Capital Management's William Ackman described it as a massive pyramid scheme and placed bets that it would fall.

Investors are continuing to put money into stocks. Lipper, a unit of financial data provider Thomson Reuters, reported that $2.4 billion flowed into stock funds this week, marking the sixth straight week of increases. In January $37.4 billion went into stock funds, the most in that month since 2000.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, has risen as investors have put more cash into stocks. The yield rose 3 basis point to 2.03 percent today, it started the year at 1.70 percent.

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Oscar Pistorius remains in jail facing murder charge

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, who made history last year as the first double amputee runner to compete in the Olympics using prosthetic blades, will spend the night in jail Thursday after he was charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend at his house, prosecutors said.

The National Prosecuting Authority said Pistorius would remain in custody until his hearing Friday, when police intend to oppose bail.

Reeva Steenkamp, a 30-year-old model, died after being shot several times in the head and arm in Pistorius’ house in an upscale suburb in Pretoria.

PHOTOS: Pistorius in the London Olympics

Pistorius was ushered from the home by police Thursday morning with a gray hoodie covering his head and obscuring most of his face.

South Africans were in shock about the accusation against Pistorius, who became a hero during his long battle for the right to compete in the Olympics. After a controversy on whether the blades he uses to walk and run gave him an advantage in races, Pistorius was granted the right to compete in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of murder and violent crime, and many South Africans keep guns at home to guard against intruders.

The Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld suggested that Pistorius mistook his girlfriend for a burglar and killed her accidentally.

However, a police spokeswoman, Brig. Denise Beukes, said police were “surprised” at reports the killing was accidental, adding that that version hadn’t come from police, according to the South African Press Assn.

"I confirm there had been previous incidents of a domestic nature at his place,” said Beukes, adding that police couldn’t comment on the decision to oppose bail.

Beukes said police had interviewed neighbors who heard sounds at Pistorius’ home earlier in the evening, and also at the time the incident reportedly took place.

Pistorius’ father, Henke Pistorius, said his son was sad. But the older Pistorius said he didn’t know the facts.

“I don’t know nothing. It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate,” he said in a radio interview. “If anyone makes a statement, it will have to be Oscar.”

An advertisement for Nike, one of Pistorius’ major sponsors, was removed from his official website Thursday. It had shown the athlete in a green lycra athletic suit and the slogan, “I am the bullet in the chamber."

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Maggie Smith: I haven't seen 'Downton'

NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of people have watched Maggie Smith on "Downton Abbey." But she's not one of them.

The 78-year-old actress, who portrays Lady Grantham in the popular PBS series, told "60 Minutes" that she hasn't watched the drama because doing so would only make her agonize over her performance. She said she may watch it someday.

Smith told Steve Kroft, in an interview to be televised Sunday, that what she takes from the role is "the delight of acting."

She has three Oscars, two Emmys and a Tony Award, but said the "Downton Abbey" role has given her more public recognition than anything in her career.

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Life, Interrupted: Crazy, Unsexy Cancer Tips

Life, Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.

Every few weeks I host a “girls’ night” at my apartment in Lower Manhattan with a group of friends who are at various stages in their cancer treatments. Everyone brings something to eat and drink, and we sit around my living room talking to one another about subjects both heavy and light, ranging from post-chemo hair styling tips, fears of relapse or funny anecdotes about a recent hospital visit. But one topic that doesn’t come up as often as you might think — particularly at a gathering of women in their early 20s and 30s — is sex.

Actually, I almost didn’t write this column. Time and again, I’ve sat down to write about sex and cancer, but each time I’ve deleted the draft and moved on to a different topic. Writing about cancer is always a challenge for me because it hits so close to home. And this topic felt even more difficult. After my diagnosis at age 22 with leukemia, the second piece of news I learned was that I would likely be infertile as a result of chemotherapy. It was a one-two punch that was my first indication that issues of cancer and sexual health are inextricably tied.

But to my surprise, sex is not at the center of the conversation in the oncology unit — far from it. No one has ever broached the topic of sex and cancer during my diagnosis and treatment. Not doctors, not nurses. On the rare occasions I initiated the conversation myself, talking about sex and cancer felt like a shameful secret. I felt embarrassed about the changes taking place in my body after chemotherapy treatment began — changes that for me included hot flashes, infertility and early menopause. Today, at age 24, when my peers are dating, marrying and having children of their own, my cancer treatments are causing internal and external changes in my body that leave me feeling confused, vulnerable, frustrated — and verifiably unsexy.

When sex has come up in conversations with my cancer friends, it’s hardly the free-flowing, liberating conversation you see on television shows like HBO’s “Girls” or “Sex and the City.” When my group of cancer friends talk about sex — maybe it’s an exaggeration to call it the blind leading the blind — we’re just a group of young women who have received little to no information about the sexual side effects of our disease.

One friend worried that sex had become painful as a result of pelvic radiation treatment. Another described difficulty reaching orgasm and wondered if it was a side effect of chemotherapy. And yet another talked about her oncologist’s visible discomfort when she asked him about safe birth control methods. “I felt like I was having a conversation with my uncle or something,” she told me. As a result, she turned to Google to find out if she could take a morning-after pill. “I felt uncomfortable with him and had nowhere to turn,” she said.

This is where our conversations always run into a wall. Emotional support — we can do that for one another. But we are at a loss when it comes to answering crucial medical questions about sexual health and cancer. Who can we talk to? Are these common side effects? And what treatments or remedies exist, if any, for the sexual side effects associated with cancer?

If mine and my girlfriends’ experiences are indicative of a trend, then the way women with cancer are being educated about their sexual health is not by their health care providers but on their own. I was lucky enough to meet a counselor who specializes in the sexual health of cancer patients at a conference for young adult cancer patients. Sage Bolte, a counselor who works for INOVA Life With Cancer, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization that provides free resources for cancer patients, was the one to finally explain to me that many of the sexual side effects of cancer are both normal and treatable.

“Part of the reason you feel shame and embarrassment about this is because no one out there is saying this is normal. But it is,” Dr. Bolte told me. “Shame on us as health care providers that we have not created an environment that is conducive to talking about sexual health.”

Dr. Bolte said part of the problem is that doctors are so focused on saving a cancer patient’s life that they forget to discuss issues of sexual health. “My sense is that it’s not about physicians or health care providers not caring about your sexual health or thinking that it’s unimportant, but that cancer is the emergency, and everything else seems to fall by the wayside,” she said.

She said that one young woman she was working with had significant graft-versus-host disease, a potential side effect of stem cell transplantation that made her skin painfully sensitive to touch. Her partner would try to hold her hand or touch her stomach, and she would push him away or jump at his touch. It only took two times for him to get the message that “she didn’t want to be touched,” Dr. Bolte said. Unfortunately, by the time they showed up at Dr. Bolte’s office and the young woman’s condition had improved, she thought her boyfriend was no longer attracted to her. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, was afraid to touch her out of fear of causing pain or making an unwanted pass. All that was needed to help them reconnect was a little communication.

Dr. Bolte also referred me to resources like the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists; the Society for Sex Therapy and Research; and the Association of Oncology Social Workers, all professional organizations that can help connect cancer patients to professionals trained in working with sexual health issues and the emotional and physical concerns related to a cancer diagnosis.

I know that my girlfriends and I are not the only women out there who are wondering how to help themselves and their friends answer difficult questions about sex and cancer. Sex can be a squeamish subject even when cancer isn’t part of the picture, so the combination of sex and cancer together can feel impossible to talk about. But women like me and my friends shouldn’t have to suffer in silence.

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Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears regularly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.

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