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52 PAGES © 2015 WST D
latimes.com
THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015
Terrorist attack stuns Paris
Gunmen kill 12 at
Charlie Hebdo
magazine, known for
profane images of the
prophet Muhammad.
By Carol J. Williams,
Kim Willsher
and Christina Boyle
Gov. Brown’s call for
half of state’s power to
come from renewable
sources could spur
more large projects.
By Julie Cart
Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal this week to significantly boost the amount of
energy California derives
from renewable sources
could
reinvigorate
the
state’s utility-scale solar and
wind industries, as well as
launch another land rush in
the Mojave Desert.
In his inaugural address,
Brown didn’t say how the
state’s Renewables Portfolio
Standard could be raised to
50% by 2030 — the previous
benchmark was 33% by 2020
— but his commitment was
clear:
“This is exciting, it is
bold, and it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any
chance of stopping potentially catastrophic changes
to our climate system,” the
governor said.
He also outlined a plan to
reduce petroleum use in cars
and trucks by 50% and double the energy efficiency of
new buildings in the state.
The reverberation was
instantaneous.
“Is it significant? Absolutely. Will it stimulate the
market? Absolutely,” said
Jerry R. Bloom of the Los
Angeles law firm Winston &
Strawn, who guides renewable-energy
developers
through the financing and
permitting processes.
Because utilities already
are on track to meet California’s 2020 goal, they have
[See Renewables, A13]
Chefs,
diners
toast the
return of
foie gras
By Russ Parsons
and David Pierson
Foie gras is back on the
menu.
A federal judge issued a
ruling Wednesday that overturned California’s law banning the sale of the fatty
duck or goose liver, a delicacy prized by gourmands for
its rich flavor.
The ruling at least briefly
reverses what stood as a major victory for animal-welfare advocates trying to stop
the common practice of
force-feeding birds to enlarge their livers.
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson ruled that the
California ban was unconstitutional because it interfered with an existing federal law that regulates poultry products.
Many in the state’s restaurant industry were rejoicing Wednesday shortly
after the news was announced.
“I’ve been jumping up
and down for about 90 minutes,” said Napa Valley chef
Ken Frank, who has been active in the pro-foie gras
movement.
Foie gras from force-fed
poultry was outlawed in California by a bill that passed
the state Legislature in 2004
and went into effect in 2012.
The ban had been challenged in court by the Hot’s
Restaurant Group in Cali[See Foie gras, A12]
Anne Gelbard AFP/Getty Images
GUNMEN FACE police officers near the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris
during an attack in which eight journalists, a maintenance man, a visitor and two policemen were killed.
PERILS OF THE PEN
Cartoonists enrage, more so than writers, because their
work is visual and transcends language barriers
By Christopher Goffard
and Maria L. LaGanga
Key locations in Charlie Hebdo shooting
They are accustomed to poison-pen letters, furious emails, and insults. Now and
then, politicians demand they be fired or critics send them excrement. In the tiny fraternity
of American political cartoonists, the apoplectic anger their work can elicit speaks to
something intrinsic to their craft.
If cartoons are uniquely infuriating, that is
because their signature tactics — caricature,
ridicule, distortion, hyperbole — do not just
flout the ordinary rules of engagement but
also jeer at them.
Editorials have the luxury of saying, “On
the one hand, on the other hand,” and invite
rebuttal. But a cartoon “is not a series of
points you can take issue with,” said Kevin
Siers, a Charlotte Observer cartoonist who
won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. “That’s the point of humor — it bypasses intellectual steps and gets to the heart
of things.”
Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes
was up early working Wednesday when Twitter came alive with news of the shootings at
Charlie Hebdo.
[See Cartoonists, A6]
Twelve people were shot and killed Wednesday when masked gunmen
stormed into the offices of a satirical magazine in the center of Paris.
3 Attackers
PARIS
abandon car,
hijack another
GARE DE L’EST
PLAZA DE LA
REPUBLIQUE
JARDIN DES
TUILERIES
La
Boulevard Richard Lenoir
Se
ine
Paris
FRANCE
THE LOUVRE
1
Police officer shot,
2 shooters flee in car
PARIS
—
Gunmen
struck the heart of Paris
with a commando-style execution of a dozen people
Wednesday at the offices of a
satirical magazine that had
caricatured the Muslim
prophet Muhammad, angering the Islamic faithful
with its taunting push
against the boundaries of
free speech.
The dead are the chief editor of the Charlie Hebdo
weekly, Stephane Charbonnier, nine others at the magazine office and two policemen. One of the officers was
gunned down in the street by
the masked attackers as
their escape was captured
on video broadcast by
French television.
Attacks by outraged Islamic militants had been
threatened for years, and
the raid on the magazine offices in the shadow of the
Bastille monument shattered the nervous calm and
creeping complacency that
had settled over the French
capital in the absence of major terrorist attacks since
Charlie Hebdo’s publication
of controversial cartoons in
2011.
The shocking strike mobilized counter-terrorism
forces in Europe and the
United States and stirred
massive outpourings of sympathy for the victims and
solidarity with the people of
France.
“#JeSuisCharlie” — I am
Charlie — became a rallying
cry among journalists and
average citizens who took to
social media by the tens of
thousands to send messages
expressing horror at the
deaths and support for the
magazine’s provocative lampooning of religious and political leaders.
A massive manhunt was
underway, but police were
unsure even of the number of
gunmen. Some reports said
the 11:40 a.m. attack was carried out by two hooded,
black-clad assailants, while
others said a third was in[See Attack, A4]
Shootings at Charlie Hebdo offices
Nothing is sacred
to Charlie Hebdo
NOTRE DAME
Left Bank
ƒ MILE
Sources: Charlie Hebdo, Reuters, Google Earth, Arthur Benchetrit/YouTube, Martin Boudot/
Agence-Premiérs Lignes, BBC, Times reporting.
Los Angeles Times
The act of publishing
profane images is at the
heart of the magazine’s
mission of free speech at
all costs. WORLD, A7
COLUMN ONE
Iraq’s accidental tattooist
Superbugs
may meet
their match
Scientists cultivating
dirt have found a bacteria that can defeat
drug-resistant microbes. Clinical trials
could begin in two
years. NATION, A11
An interpreter for U.S.
forces found his true
calling in wartime.
Now, the young artist
is making his mark at
his own parlor.
By Molly
Hennessy-Fiske
reporting from baghdad
Francine Orr L. A. Times
He sculpted
famous works
Milton Hebald has
died at 97. He created
large public art in Los
Angeles and New York.
OBITUARY, AA6
Weather
Partly sunny.
L.A. Basin: 75/55. AA8
7
85944 00150
3
T
he short, chubby
Iraqi interpreter
watched as the
massively biceped American
soldiers he worked for shot
hoops during their breaks
from guarding the Baghdad
airport.
It was 2006, and although
Mohammed Akram Taher,
17, shared the troops’ love of
motorcycles and Metallica,
he couldn’t compete with
them on the basketball
court. So he sat on the sidelines, sketching.
One day, an Army sergeant from Los Angeles
glimpsed the Baghdad
native’s artwork: macabre
drawings of grinning skulls
and demons. The sergeant
was intrigued. He happened
Molly Hennessy-Fiske Los Angeles Times
IN BAGHDAD, Mohammed Akram Taher, also known as Dante, works on Iman
Jamil’s eyebrows. He also tattooed the initial of her slain son, Yassir, on her wrist.
to be a tattoo artist with a
sleeve of tats on each arm.
“You should do tattoos,”
the sergeant told Taher,
who, like most interpreters,
went by a nickname. His
was Dante, in homage to the
medieval Italian poet.
And that is how Dante,
now 25, ended up inking his
first tattoo: a smiley face
drawn freehand on the arm
of the American sergeant.
As word quickly spread
around the airport, Dante
attracted unlikely customers.
“I started doing them on
the Iraqi soldiers,” recalled
the tattoo artist, who still
goes by his nickname.
That was a switch. Tat-
toos have been stigmatized
for generations here for the
same reasons they were for
many years in the U.S. —
seen as the purview of criminals, with the exception of
some simple tribal tattoos
in rural areas.
With the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi attitudes
[See Iraq, A8]