'Sesame Street' nears 1 billion views on YouTube

NEW YORK (AP) — Nearing 1 billion views on YouTube, "Sesame Street" is headed for Justin Bieber territory.

The children's program is closing in on the kind of rarified digital milestone usually reserved for the likes of pop stars and cat videos. "Sesame Street" will soon pass 1 billion views on YouTube and it's celebrating the mark with a campaign to put itself over the hump.

"Sesame Street" on Thursday will post a video featuring the character Telly Monster, urging viewers to click the show past the final 20 million views and unlock a "top secret video." Naturally, for the nonprofit children's series, it's a teaching moment, too. Don't be surprised if Count von Count shows up to ponder such a big number.

For "Sesame Street," the milestone — a first on YouTube for a nonprofit or U.S. children's media outlet — reflects the increasingly multimedia nature of kid entertainment. Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch are now about as likely to be watched on an iPad, phone or laptop as they are on PBS.

"We have this theory that if we get content on multiple platforms and devices, it gives kids and families a chance to reinforce and experience the curriculum multiple times," says Terry Fitzpatrick, executive vice president of content and distribution for Sesame Workshop, who emphasizes videos are best co-viewed with child and parent. "It blows me away to think about how popular and strong a platform (YouTube) has become for us."

"Sesame Street," a mainstay on PBS since 1970, launched its YouTube channel in 2006, but has continually expanded its mindfulness of online and mobile viewers.

Sesame Workshop last year integrated its digital media group into its TV production, so that digital and interactive elements are considered from the start of an idea. Its most popular video is "Elmo's Song," which has been watched nearly 86 million times since being uploaded in 2009. More recently, another PBS hit, "Downton Abbey," was parodied in "Upside Downton Abbey," a video where British muppets have trouble drinking tea and eating crumpets because, well, they're upside down.

Caitlin Hendrickson, strategic partner manager for YouTube's educational realm, YouTube EDU, says that education is one of the fastest growing content categories on the Google Inc.-owned site. "Sesame Street" reaching 1 billion views, she said in a statement, "is proof of their outstanding leadership in this space and their creative use of YouTube."

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Online:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SesameStreet

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Well: The Well Flu Quiz

What surface is the most friendly to the flu virus? Where’s the best place to stand when you’re talking to a sick person? And how are Australians curbing germs in schools? To find out these answers and more, take the Well Flu Quiz.

With contributions from Laura Geggel and Tara Parker-Pope.

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Europe's recession deepened in 4th quarter as economy shrank 0.6%

WASHINGTON -- Europe's recession deepened at the end of last year as its economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.6% in the final three months, its sharpest contraction since the financial crisis.

The data for the Eurozone released Thursday was worse than analysts had expected, reflecting steeper-than-expected contractions for three of the region's largest economies: Germany, France and Italy.

Germany's economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.6% in the period after expanding at a 0.2% rate in the previous quarter.

Quiz: How much do you know about looming federal budget cuts?

"The decline of the gross domestic product at the end of 2012 was mainly due to the comparably weak German foreign trade: in the final quarter of 2012, exports of goods went down much more than imports of goods," said Germany's Federal Statistical Office.

Italy's economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.9%, while the French economy shrank at a rate of 0.3%, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office.

The news from Europe comes after the U.S. recently reported its economy unexpectedly shrank 0.1% in the fourth quarter. Economists believe the U.S. contraction, the first since 2009, was an anomaly, driven in part by fears of the fiscal cliff and a drop in exports because of economic problems in Europe and China.

Other data, including the January unemployment report, indicate the U.S. economy still is expanding and growth is expected to pick up this year.

The 17-nation Eurozone, however, now has shrunk for three straight quarters. The fourth quarter contraction was sharper than the 0.1% drop in the previous quarter.

The October-through-December period was the worst for the European economy since a nearly 3% contraction in the first quarter of 2009.

Howard Archer, chief European economist for IHS Global Insight, said the report depicted a dismal end to a bad year. He had expected the economy to shrink 0.4%. 

"While Eurozone economic activity saw its low point around last October, we suspect that growth will remain a struggle for some time to come," Archer said. "However, it is looking increasingly possible that the Eurozone could at least stop contracting in the first half of 2013, significantly helped by a return to growth in Germany."

"The hope for the Eurozone is that a sustained overall easing of sovereign debt tensions and generally improved financial markets further reduces uncertainties and steadily lifts consumer as well as business confidence," he added.

ALSO:

Obama, European leaders working on trade deal

American Airlines-US Airways merger formally announced

Economy's slight shrinkage late last year surprises experts

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Charred human remains found in burned cabin

Charred human remains have been found in the burned cabin where police believe fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner was holed up after trading gunfire with law enforcement, authorities
said.

If the body is identified
to be Dorner’s, the standoff would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD
officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant who is believed to be responsible for a string of revenge-fueled shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several
years ago. Four people have died, allegedly at Dorner’s hands.

The latest burst of
gunfire Tuesday came after the suspect, attempting to flee law enforcement
officials, shot to death a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy and
seriously injured another, officials said. He then barricaded himself in a wooden cabin outside
Big Bear, not far from ski resorts in the snow-capped San Bernardino Mountains
east of Los Angeles, according to police.

PHOTOS: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

Just before 5 p.m., authorities smashed the cabin's windows, pumped in tear
gas and called for the suspect to surrender. They got no response. Then, using
a demolition vehicle, they tore down the cabin's walls one by one. When they
reached the last wall, they heard a gunshot, officials said, and then the cabin burst into flames.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he would not consider the manhunt
over until a body was identified as Dorner.

"It is a bittersweet night," Beck said as he drove to the hospital
where the injured deputy was located. The deputy is expected to survive, but it is anticipated that he'll need several surgeries. "This could have ended
much better, it could have ended worse. I feel for the family of the deputy who
lost his life."

TIMELINE: Manhunt for ex-LAPD officer

According to a manifesto that authorities say Dorner posted on Facebook, he felt that the LAPD
unjustly fired him several years ago, after a disciplinary panel determined that he lied
in accusing his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an
arrest. Beck has promised to review the case.

The manifesto vowed "unconventional and asymmetrical
warfare" against law enforcement officers and their families. "Self-preservation is no longer important to me. I do not
fear death as I died long ago."

Last week, authorities said they had tracked Dorner, 33, to a wooded area near Big Bear
Lake. They said they found his torched gray Nissan Titan with several weapons inside, and that the only trace of the suspect was a short trail of footprints in newly fallen snow.

INTERACTIVE MAP: Searching for suspected shooter

On Tuesday morning, two maids entered a cabin in the 1200 block of Club View
Drive and ran into a man who they said resembled the fugitive, a law
enforcement official said. The cabin was not far from where Dorner's singed
truck had been found and where police had been holding news conferences about
the manhunt.

The man tied up the maids, and he took off in a purple Nissan parked near
the cabin, the official said. About 12:20 p.m., one of the maids broke free and called police.

Nearly half an hour later, officers with the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife spotted the stolen vehicle and called for backup, authorities said. The suspect
turned down a side road in an attempt to elude the officers but crashed the
vehicle, police said.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop

A short time later, authorities said, the suspect carjacked a light-colored
pickup truck. Allan Laframboise said the truck belonged to his friend. Rick
Heltebrake, who works at a nearby Boy Scout camp.

Heltebrake was driving on Glass Road with his Dalmatian, Suni, when a
hulking African American man stepped into the road, Laframboise said.
Heltebrake stopped. The man told him to get out of the truck.

"Can I take my dog?" Heltebrake asked, according to his friend.

"You can leave and you can take your dog," the man reportedly said. He then
sped off in the Dodge extended-cab pickup -- and quickly encountered two
Department of Fish and Wildlife trucks, officials said.

As the suspect zoomed past the officers, he rolled down his window and fired
about 15 to 20 rounds, authorities said. One of the officers jumped out and shot a high-powered
rifle at the fleeing pickup, they said, and the suspect abandoned the vehicle and took off on
foot.

Police said he ended up at the Seven Oaks Mountain Cabins, a cluster of
wood-frame buildings about halfway between Big Bear Lake and Yucaipa. The
suspect exchanged gunfire with San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies as he
fled into a cabin that locals described as a single-story, multi-room
structure.

The suspect fired from the cabin, striking one deputy, law enforcement
sources said. Then he ducked out the back of the cabin, deployed a smoke bomb
and opened fire again, hitting a second deputy. Neither deputy was identified
by authorities. The suspect retreated back into the cabin.

The gun battle was captured on TV by KCAL-TV Channel 9 reporter Carter Evans, who said
he was about 200 feet from the cabin. As Evans described on air how deputies
were approaching the structure, he was interrupted by 10 seconds of gunfire.

Deputies drew their weapons and sprinted toward Evans. Someone yelled for
him to move -- then about 20 more seconds of shooting erupted.

"Hey! Get … out of here, pal," someone shouted. Evans was
unharmed.

The gunfire gave way to a tense standoff. Mountain residents locked their
doors and hunkered down.

Holly Haas, 52, who lives about a mile from where the shootout unfolded,
said she heard helicopters buzzing on and off until about 3:30 p.m. One dipped so
close to her home, she said, "I could throw a rock and hit it."

Others watched the standoff unfold on television. At her home, Candy Martin
sat down to watch TV when, to her surprise, she spotted her rental cabin -- where the suspect was believed to be holed up -- on the screen.

She said she contacted police and told them that the furnished, 85-year-old cabin had
no cable, telephone or Internet service. No one had booked it for Monday.

"There should have been nobody," she recalled saying. "Nobody
in any way."

Within hours, authorities moved in on the cabin. The fire broke out, setting
off ammunition that had apparently been inside. On TV, viewers saw only the
orange flames and curls of black smoke.

LAPD Chief Beck said his officers have been providing
around-the-clock protection for more than 50 people thought to be Dorner's
targets since the manifesto was discovered.

Police say Dorner's first victims were the daughter of the retired LAPD
official who represented him at his disciplinary hearing and her fiance. Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence were
found shot to death Feb. 3 in their car in their condo complex's parking structure.

Days later, Dorner allegedly attempted to steal a boat in San Diego in a
failed bid to escape to Mexico. By Feb. 7, authorities said, he had fled to the
Inland Empire. In Corona, police said, he fired at an LAPD officer searching
for him at a gas station. About half an hour later, he allegedly opened fire on two
Riverside officers, killing Michael Crain, 34, and injuring his partner.

Early on in the manhunt, officers mistakenly fired on three people in the
Torrance area -- two Latina women and a white man -- while searching for Dorner,
who is 6 feet tall and 270 pounds.

FULL COVERAGE: Sweeping manhunt for ex-cop

After his truck was found in Big Bear, authorities swarmed the area, where
many cabins sit empty during the winter.

At the height of the search, more than 200 officers scoured the mountain,
while others sifted through more than 1,000 tips that poured in after officials
offered a $1-million reward.

Just as some officials began to speculate that the former cop had failed to
survive in the wilderness, Dorner apparently surfaced.

ALSO:

Dorner manhunt: Wounded deputy will need several surgeries

Dorner manhunt: Fish and Wildlife officers make the big break

Dorner manhunt: Maids stumbled on suspect, were tied up, then called 911

-- Andrew Blankstein, Joel Rubin and Ashley
Powers; with Phil Willon, Louis Sahagun, Adolfo
Flores, and Ruben Vives in San Bernardino County and Julie Cart, Matt Stevens, Kate Mather, Wesley Lowery, Samantha Schaefer, Frank Shyong and Rong-Gong Lin II

Photo: San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department public information officer Cindy Bachman updates reporters after a standoff and a shootout with
a man suspected to be former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner. Credit: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

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Eric Church leads ACM Awards nominations with 7

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — They don't call him Chief for nothing: Eric Church is the top nominee at this year's Academy of Country Music Awards.

The rising country music star has seven nominations for the April 7 awards show in Las Vegas. Hunter Hayes is next with six, followed by Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert at five apiece.

Swift and Lambert are up for the academy's top honor — entertainer of the year — with Lambert's husband, Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan. Swift is going for her third straight win in that category.

Shelton and Bryan will co-host the broadcast, to air live on CBS from the MGM Grand.

Along with naming nominees in a series of videos online Wednesday morning, the academy also awarded trophies in the three new artist categories. Jana Kramer is the new female vocalist of the year, Brantley Gilbert is the new male vocalist winner and Florida Georgia Line took new vocal duo or group, as voted by fans. Those three acts will now compete for new artist of the year.

Fans will continue to have a say in that category and entertainer of the year. Fans can vote in those categories beginning March 25 at http://VoteACM.com.

Church's "Chief" is up for album of the year along with Swift's "Red," Bryan's "tailgates & tanlines," Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" and Little Big Town's "Tornado." Jay Joyce scored a rare double in the category: He produced the Church and Little Big Town albums and will take home a trophy if either wins. He's also up for producer of the year.

Church is also up for male vocalist of the year with 2012 winner Shelton, Bryan, Aldean and Toby Keith. Lambert will be going for her fourth straight female vocalist of the year award with Swift, Underwood, Martina McBride and Kacey Musgraves, a newcomer who earned four nominations.

Others with four nominations include Bryan and Little Big Town. That quartet is up for vocal group of the year with Lady Antebellum, which has won the award three straight times, Zac Brown Band, Eli Young Band and The Band Perry.

Surprise 2012 vocal duo winner Thompson Square is nominated in that category again along with Sugarland, Big & Rich, Florida Georgia Line, and Love and Theft.

Church also is nominated in the song and single of the year categories for "Springsteen." Lambert's "Over You," Hayes' "Wanted," Eli Young Band's "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" and Lee Brice's "A Woman Like You" round out the song of the year category.

Lambert, EYB and Hayes join Church in the single of the year category with LBT's "Pontoon."

A complete list of nominees is available at the academy's Web site.

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Online:

http://acmcountry.com

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott .

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Phys Ed: Getting the Right Dose of Exercise

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

A common concern about exercise is that if you don’t do it almost every day, you won’t achieve much health benefit. But a commendable new study suggests otherwise, showing that a fairly leisurely approach to scheduling workouts may actually be more beneficial than working out almost daily.

For the new study, published this month in Exercise & Science in Sports & Medicine, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham gathered 72 older, sedentary women and randomly assigned them to one of three exercise groups.

One group began lifting weights once a week and performing an endurance-style workout, like jogging or bike riding, on another day.

Another group lifted weights twice a week and jogged or rode an exercise bike twice a week.

The final group, as you may have guessed, completed three weight-lifting and three endurance sessions, or six weekly workouts.

The exercise, which was supervised by researchers, was easy at first and meant to elicit changes in both muscles and endurance. Over the course of four months, the intensity and duration gradually increased, until the women were jogging moderately for 40 minutes and lifting weights for about the same amount of time.

The researchers were hoping to find out which number of weekly workouts would be, Goldilocks-like, just right for increasing the women’s fitness and overall weekly energy expenditure.

Some previous studies had suggested that working out only once or twice a week produced few gains in fitness, while exercising vigorously almost every day sometimes led people to become less physically active, over all, than those formally exercising less. Researchers theorized that the more grueling workout schedule caused the central nervous system to respond as if people were overdoing things, sending out physiological signals that, in an unconscious internal reaction, prompted them to feel tired or lethargic and stop moving so much.

To determine if either of these possibilities held true among their volunteers, the researchers in the current study tracked the women’s blood levels of cytokines, a substance related to stress that is thought to be one of the signals the nervous system uses to determine if someone is overdoing things physically. They also measured the women’s changing aerobic capacities, muscle strength, body fat, moods and, using sophisticated calorimetry techniques, energy expenditure over the course of each week.

By the end of the four-month experiment, all of the women had gained endurance and strength and shed body fat, although weight loss was not the point of the study. The scientists had not asked the women to change their eating habits.

There were, remarkably, almost no differences in fitness gains among the groups. The women working out twice a week had become as powerful and aerobically fit as those who had worked out six times a week. There were no discernible differences in cytokine levels among the groups, either.

However, the women exercising four times per week were now expending far more energy, over all, than the women in either of the other two groups. They were burning about 225 additional calories each day, beyond what they expended while exercising, compared to their calorie burning at the start of the experiment.

The twice-a-week exercisers also were using more energy each day than they had been at first, burning almost 100 calories more daily, in addition to the calories used during workouts.

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

“We think that the women in the twice-a-week and four-times-a-week groups felt more energized and physically capable” after several months of training than they had at the start of the study, says Gary Hunter, a U.A.B. professor who led the experiment. Based on conversations with the women, he says he thinks they began opting for stairs over escalators and walking for pleasure.

The women working out six times a week, though, reacted very differently. “They complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time,” Dr. Hunter says. They did not report feeling fatigued or physically droopy. Their bodies were not producing excessive levels of cytokines, sending invisible messages to the body to slow down.

Rather, they felt pressed for time and reacted, it seems, by making choices like driving instead of walking and impatiently avoiding the stairs.

Despite the cautionary note, those who insist on working out six times per week need not feel discouraged. As long as you consciously monitor your activity level, the findings suggest, you won’t necessarily and unconsciously wind up moving less over all.

But the more fundamental finding of this study, Dr. Hunter says, is that “less may be more,” a message that most likely resonates with far more of us. The women exercising four times a week “had the greatest overall increase in energy expenditure,” he says. But those working out only twice a week “weren’t far behind.”

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Treasury nominee Jacob J. Lew says he would work to boost recovery

WASHINGTON -- Treasury secretary nominee Jacob J. Lew told senators Wednesday that his top priority was to boost the economic recovery while also grappling with the nation's growing debt.

In his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Lew warned that automatic government spending cuts coming March 1 would damage the recovery. And he called for Democrats and Republicans to work together to improve the economy, citing his history of working across party lines.

"In recent years, some have argued that Washington is irrevocably broken, that our government cannot tackle the nation’s most serious problems, that bipartisanship is a thing of the past. I disagree," Lew said in his prepared remarks.

"The truth is, we all share the same goals. We want an economy that is expanding," he said.  

Quiz: How much do you know about looming federal budget cuts?

President Obama nominated Lew, 57, to replace Timothy F. Geithner, who stepped down as Treasury secretary last month. Lew had been Obama's chief of staff, and also served as head of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama and Clinton administrations.

As the budget director for two Democratic presidents, Lew negotiated spending deals with Republican majorities in Congress. Between his government stints, Lew worked in the private sector. He was president of New York University and worked from 2006 to 2009 at Citigroup.

Lew was managing director and chief operating officer at Citi Global Wealth Management from 2006 to 2008. He held the same position at Citi Alternative Investments in 2008-09.

Lew descibed his role at Citigroup as being "part of the senior management team trying to drive organizational change at one of our nation’s largest banks."

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he would press Lew at the hearing on his time at Citigroup and was among several Republicans who planned tough questions.

"Some of the units’ activities included proprietary trading along with sales and marketing of risky investments," Hatch said.

"If you knew about the marketing and sales of those investments, it would be instructive for us to find out what you knew," he continued. "If you did not know much about them, then it would be instructive for us to find out why, and to determine exactly what your responsibilities were during your years at Citi when you were very well compensated, including times when Citigroup was being propped up by American taxpayers."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said that Lew, if confirmed, would need to focus on three areas -- job creation, stabilizing the federal goverment's finances and simplifying the tax code.

"The state of the economy is still fragile," Baucus said. "Unemployment near 8% for the next two years is unacceptable."

 ALSO:

Jacob J. Lew, White House chief of staff, to get Treasury nod

Obama says Treasury nominee Jacob Lew 'has my complete trust'

Widget lets you see how Treasury nominee Lew would sign your name

Read More..

Ex-Bell officials defend themselves as honorable public servants

Less than three years ago, they were handcuffed and taken away in a case alleged to be so extensive that the district attorney called it "corruption on steroids."

But on Monday, two of the six former Bell council members accused of misappropriating money from the small, mostly immigrant town took to the witness stand and defended themselves as honorable public servants who earned their near-$100,000 salaries by working long hours behind the scenes.

During her three days on the stand, Teresa Jacobo said she responded to constituents who called her cell and home phone at all hours. She put in time at the city's food bank, organized breast cancer awareness marches, sometimes paid for hotel rooms for the homeless and was a staunch advocate for education.

"I was working very hard to improve the lives of the citizens of Bell," she said. "I was bringing in programs and working with them to build leadership and good families, strong families."

Jacobo, 60, said she didn't question the appropriateness of her salary, which made her one of the highest-paid part-time council members in the state.

Former Councilman George Mirabal said he too worked a long, irregular schedule when it came to city affairs.

"I keep hearing time frames over and over again, but there's no clock when you're working on the council," he said Monday. "You're working on the circumstances that are facing you. If a family calls … you don't say, '4 o'clock, work's over.' "

Mirabal, 65, said he often reached out to low-income residents who didn't make it to council meetings, attended workshops to learn how to improve civic affairs and once even made a trip to a San Diego high school to research opening a similar tech charter school in Bell.

"Do you believe you gave everything you could to the citizens of Bell?" asked his attorney, Alex Kessel.

"I'd give more," Mirabal replied.

Both Mirabal and Jacobo testified that not only did they perceive their salaries to be reasonable, but they believed them to be lawful because they were drawn up by the city manager and voted on in open session with the city attorney present.

Mirabal, who once served as Bell's city clerk, even went so far as to say that he was still a firm supporter of the city charter that passed in 2005, viewing it as Bell's "constitution." In a taped interview with authorities, one of Mirabal's council colleagues — Victor Bello — said the city manager told him the charter cleared the way for higher council salaries.

Prosecutors have depicted the defendants as salary gluttons who put their city on a path toward bankruptcy. Mirabal and Jacobo, along with Bello, Luis Artiga, George Cole and Oscar Hernandez, are accused of drawing those paychecks from boards that seldom met and did little work. All face potential prison terms if convicted.

Prosecutors have cited the city's Solid Waste and Recycling Authority as a phantom committee, created only as a device for increasing the council's pay. But defense attorneys said the authority had a very real function, even in a city that contracted with an outside trash company.

Jacobo testified that she understood the introduction of that authority to be merely a legal process and that its purpose was to discuss how Bell might start its own city-run trash service.

A former contract manager for Consolidated Disposal Service testified that Bell officials had been unhappy with the response time to bulky item pickups, terminating their contract about 2005, but that it took about six years to finalize because of an agreement that automatically renewed every year.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Miller questioned Mirabal about the day shortly after his 2010 arrest that he voluntarily told prosecutors that no work was done on authorities outside of meetings.

Mirabal said that if he had made such a statement, it was incorrect. He said he couldn't remember what was said back then and "might have heed and hawed."

"So it's easy to remember now?" Miller asked.

"Yes, actually."

"More than two years after charges have been filed, it's easier for you to remember now that you did work outside of the meetings for the Public Finance Authority?"

"Yes, sir."

Miller later asked Mirabal to explain a paragraph included on City Council agendas that began with the phrase, "City Council members are like you."

After some clarification of the question, Mirabal answered: "That everybody is equal and that if they look into themselves, they would see us."

corina.knoll@latimes.com

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Mardi Gras rolling despite New Orleans rain threat

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Overcast skies and the threat of rain couldn't dampen the revelry of Mardi Gras as parades took to the streets early Tuesday, showering merrymaking crowds with trinkets of all kinds.

The parades began around dawn, led by clarinetist Pete Fountain and his Half-Fast Marching Club. The Zulu krewe and the parade of Rex, King of Carnival, were to wind their way down stately St. Charles Avenue to the business district during the morning.

Parade-goers lined up despite the threat of inclement weather. Some families camped out overnight to stake out choice spots to view parades.

Freddie Zeigler, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Slidell, La., said there was an 80 percent chance of rain Tuesday. Fog blanketed the riverfront and business district in the early morning.

Still, no parades had been canceled and the Zulu parade began on time at 8 a.m.

Zulu had a pro football flavor. Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl stars Jacobi Jones and Ed Reed, both Louisiana natives, were aboard with Warren Sapp, a retired NFL player.

Brian Gibson, 45, lounged in a folding chair while his wife and two daughters ran to the float in hope of beads, stuffed animals or the prized coconuts that Zulu members give away.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the Zulu parade on horseback in a black shirt and jeans.

Many revelers in the French Quarter had drinks in hand before sun-up. Some donned costumes, tutus, beads and boas.

"We'll be in the French Quarter all day," said Bobbie Meir of Gretna, La., with feathers in her hair and fingernails painted purple. "The sights today are jaw-dropping. It's a ton of fun and the best party in the world. Nobody does Mardi Gras like we do."

Costumes included spotted cows, bees, pirates and jesters. Many revelers were clad in costumes of purple, green and gold, the traditional colors of Mardi Gras.

Meir said her group of friends would be taking in the sights from a Bourbon Street balcony.

Throughout the day, street bands and costumed revelers will be parading through the city's old quarter as big floats and marching bands parade on the major thoroughfares.

Following the Zulu and Rex parades would be hundreds of trucks decorated by families and social groups.

Fountain's Half-Fast Marching Club stepped off from a staging point in the Garden District just after dawn. Others with colorful names such as the Jefferson City Buzzards would follow.

Fountain and his clubmates were clad in garish red suits and feathered hats as they got ready to march in the Garden District.

Fountain no longer walks the route, which will take him to the French Quarter, but rides a truck-towed trolley. As he boarded, parade-goers snapped photos with camera phones.

Fountain wasn't worried about the forecast.

"This is my life," he said, referring to his 63rd parade with the group he founded. "We're going to make it before it rains."

Bob Johnson sipped on a screwdriver as he prepared to march with Fountain. "This is a half-healthy drink," he joked.

Johnson has done parades on floats and has been with Fountain's street marchers for six years. "It's a whole different perspective than riding a float. You can get right up to people," he said.

In the French Quarter, where the revelry almost didn't stop overnight, crowds were expected to cruise down Bourbon Street, pleading for beads from revelers on balconies before heading to Canal Street for the parades.

Traditionally, the French Quarter is the scene of Mardi Gras' most ribald activities, while the streetcar line along St. Charles is given over to family groups who set for a day of barbecues and parade watching.

On the uptown parade routes, families carried on generations-old traditions of camping out overnight in tents to catch the earliest action. Many hoped to catch one of the colorfully decorated coconuts handed out by grass-skirt-clad riders on the Zulu floats.

Bryan Clark, 42, said it would take more than the threat of rain to break his family's tradition of camping near the place where the Zulu parade turns onto St. Charles Avenue. "We stay here rain sleet or snow," he said.

The New Orleans native said his parents hooked him on the Mardi Gras ritual and now he does it with his wife and children. "There is no other place in America you can do this," he said.

Parading was planned across south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. In Louisiana's Cajun parishes, the tradition of the Courir du Mardi Gras was set to start after dawn, as groups of maskers on horseback would ride from community to community making merry.

Rain or shine, it was parade-goers last chance during the Carnival season, which ends with the stroke of midnight Tuesday night. After that, the solemn season of Lent replaces the revelry until Easter.

Frank Warford, of Riverdale, Ga., was holding an umbrella Monday as he walked Bourbon Street. He said he was ready to party through the rain.

"This is a party city. Everybody's partying and having fun, catching beads like crazy," said Warford, his neck draped in beads. "If it rains, put a hat on. It's as simple as that."

Scattered showers didn't keep revelers away Monday as thousands flocked to the French Quarter and along the Mississippi River for Lundi Gras festivities.

Many said they weren't going to let the weekend shooting on Bourbon Street wreck the party.

On Saturday night, four people were injured on the city's famed party street. One man has been arrested and police said they have issued an arrest warrant for a second suspect. A third person who is believed to have critical information about the shooting is also being sought, police said.

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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

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Katherine Boutin speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.

A transcript of this interview can be found here.

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Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

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Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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