Weak offense costs Lovie Smith his job as Bears coach

It is not often NFL teams fire head coaches after 10-win seasons, but it is even rarer for coaches to retain their jobs after failing to reach the playoffs five times in six years.

So it was not surprising Monday morning when the Bears fired Lovie Smith less than 24 hours after his team defeated the Lions to finish 10-6 but still missed the postseason, becoming just the second team since the 12-team playoff format was established in 1990 to miss the playoffs after a 7-1 start.

The epitaph for Smith's tenure as coach of the Bears could read, "He couldn't fix the offense."

Smith spoke to his team in a brief but emotional meeting, and many players, fiercely loyal to Smith, were hurt. Some were angry. Smith was 81-63 in the regular season with three NFC North titles, four 10-win seasons, a 3-3 playoff record and one Super Bowl trip. Only George Halas and Mike Ditka won more games as coach for the NFL cornerstone franchise.

"It's a tough situation to be in to see a great man and a great coach have to stand in front of the room and do that," center Roberto Garza said. "But this is the NFL. It happens. Unfortunately, we forced that situation."

Smith has one year remaining on his contract at $5 million. His staff remains under contract through 2013 and multiple assistants said they have not been released from their deals, although all or nearly all or expected to depart.

General manager Phil Emery will speak publicly about the move at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and NFL sources confirmed the team has scheduled interviews with Broncos offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and Falcons special teams coordinator Keith Armstrong, who held the same role for the Bears from 1997-2000.

Armstrong, who is expected to interview Tuesday, is African-American and the Bears must interview at least one minority candidate to satisfy the league's Rooney Rule. He also has interviews scheduled with the Eagles and Chiefs.

Buccaneers offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan is expected to interview with the Bears on Wednesday.

Surely, Emery's vision includes a dramatically reshaped offense. For all the good things Smith did in his nine years in Chicago, his undoing was his inability to take care of the side of the ball in which he had no background.

Since Smith took over in 2004, the Bears have ranked higher than 23rd in offense only once. They have ranked 28th or lower four times and finished 28th in 2012.

Smith tried four offensive coordinators during his Bears career. Smith's first thought was to run a similar offense to the one he was familiar with when he was defensive coordinator of the Rams, so he hired Terry Shea, despite not having worked with him. It was an unmitigated disaster. The Bears finished last in the league in offense behind quarterbacks Chad Hutchinson, Craig Krenzel, Jonathan Quinn and Rex Grossman, and Shea was dismissed after one season.

Smith then turned to Ron Turner for his second stint as Bears offensive coordinator, although some insist that the Smith-Turner pairing was an arranged marriage. Turner lasted five years in what was the heyday for the Bears offense under Smith.

Those days Smith talked frequently about how the Bears "get off the bus running," and the team achieved its offensive identity by pounding the ball with Thomas Jones, then Cedric Benson and finally Matt Forte.

But after the Bears traded two first-round draft picks and a third-rounder for Jay Cutler in 2009 and still finished 23rd in offense and missed the playoffs, Turner was made the scapegoat and fired.

An extensive job search led the Bears back to Smith's old friend Mike Martz, for whom he had worked in St. Louis. Going from the conservative Turner to the aggressive Martz was quite a philosophical shift for Smith.

Martz's offense sputtered in 2010 even as the team reached the NFC championship game but started to flourish the next season. Then Cutler broke his thumb in the 10th game and the team unraveled. The Bears lost five straight, and Martz was fired along with general manager Jerry Angelo, the man who brought Smith to Chicago.

Team President Ted Phillips mandated that Emery work with Smith for at least 2012, lauding the coach for his consistency. Speculation is the Bears chose not to fire Smith because he had two years remaining on his contract.

Smith's next move was to go conservative again, this time by promoting offensive line coach Mike Tice. A first-time play caller, Tice made great use of new acquisition Brandon Marshall but struggled to find other reliable targets or to overcome protection issues.

Read More..

Is Tom Cruise still a go-to action hero? Hollywood, “Jack Reacher” say yes

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Given his age and the tough year he’s had in the tabloids, is Tom Cruise still a go-to guy when Hollywood is looking for an action hero?

The answer is yes, based on the performance of his current movie, Paramount‘s “Jack Reacher.” It’s taken in $ 45 million in the 10 days since opening with $ 15.6 million in a very crowded and competitive holiday market. Its second week was a solid $ 14 million, and it’s added $ 22 million from overseas.

Holiday movies tend to have legs and “Reacher” has yet to roll out in the majority of major foreign territories, so both of those numbers, particularly the international, will be growing. All signs point to it surpassing $ 200 million at the worldwide box office. That’s not a blockbuster figure, and Paramount is staying mum on a sequel, but with a $ 60 million budget, “Jack Reacher” will make money for Paramount.

There were questions coming in. With his divorce from Katie Holmes and subsequent custody battle, Cruise is carrying plenty of public relations baggage. His foray earlier this year into musicals with “Rock of Ages” was critically applauded but proved a box-office dud. That’s on top of his well-known support for Scientology.

He’s 50 now, which might be the new 40 in the real world, but is starting to get on in years in the realm of action heroes. Daniel Craig is 44. Jeremy Renner is 41. We are a long way from “Top Gun” – that was 1986 – so it probably won’t be too, too long until “The Expendables” franchise comes calling for Cruise.

But in the meantime, “Reacher” is going to be profitable for Paramount and Cruise’s portrayal of the tough, ex-military drifter has drawn critical kudos, so there’s a bit of momentum now. And it’s clear from his upcoming schedule that Hollywood is still convinced he can carry an action film.

Next for Cruise will be two sci-fi movies: Universal’s “Oblivion” is due in April and “All You Need is Kill” is set for March 2014 from Warner Bros. After that, there’s a potential “Van Helsing” remake at Universal and “Mission: Impossible 5″ is on Paramount‘s 2015 slate.

His recent track record at the box office, particularly when you look at his performance in the action genre, suggests the studios are making a pretty good bet.

“Rock of Ages” may have crumpled, but “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” was a huge hit for Paramount, taking in nearly $ 700 million worldwide in 2011. “Knight & Day,” from Fox in 2010, and “Valkyrie,” from United Artists in 2008, both made over $ 200 million worldwide.

Supporting roles in “Tropic Thunder” and “Lions for Lambs” preceded those, but those came on the heels of two Paramount movies: “Mission Impossible 3,” which made nearly $ 400 million worldwide in 2006, and “War of the Worlds,” which did $ 592 million in the previous year.

The bottom line: Hollywood is still convinced you can still take Tom Cruise, movie action hero, to the bank.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Is Tom Cruise still a go-to action hero? Hollywood, “Jack Reacher” say yes
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Letters: Recovery After Trauma

To the Editor:

Re “A New Focus on the ‘Post’ in Post-Traumatic Stress” (Mind, Dec. 25): Social contexts are well-established predictors of adjustment following trauma. Sexual abuse survivors who are believed and supported following an abuse disclosure fare better than those who are not, and returning veterans’ social support predicts P.T.S.D. over and above the extent of military trauma exposure. Interpersonal traumas cause greater psychological scars than do noninterpersonal traumas like accidents or disasters, with the worst outcomes linked to trauma perpetrated by someone to whom the victim was close.

Rachel Goldsmith

New York

The writer is a clinical psychologist.

Read More..

Tough decisions await new Tribune Co. board

When the new seven-member Tribune Co. board officially convenes for the first time in the next few weeks, the group of media and entertainment executives will name the company's executive officers. Then comes the bigger job of assessing a diverse portfolio of broadcasting and publishing assets, with an eye toward maximizing the value of the Chicago-based media company.

Whether that means buying, selling or keeping the company intact is a story that will begin to unfold in 2013. But insiders say the new owners — senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management; Angelo, Gordon & Co.; and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — won't be in a rush to make those decisions after a contentious four-year journey through Chapter 11 bankruptcy left the reorganized company in strong financial shape.

"We're really looking forward to the opportunities and the possibilities with this asset base, with over $11 billion in debt removed from the balance sheet," said Ken Liang, a managing director at Oaktree and a member of the new board.

Tribune Co. plunged into bankruptcy in December 2008, saddled with $13 billion in debt from real estate investor Sam Zell's heavily leveraged buyout one year earlier. It emerged from bankruptcy Monday, relatively debt-free and generating cash.

The company owns 23 television stations, including WGN-Ch. 9; national cable channel WGN America; eight daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune; and other media assets, all of which the reorganization plan valued at $4.5 billion after cash distributions and new financing.

Tribune Co.'s biggest challenge has been declining revenue and cash flow as the advertisers that sustained it through the years defected to digital media alternatives. But 2012 was a slight improvement, likely boosted in part by election year ad spending in the company's broadcasting unit.

Data released Monday by the company showed that after several years of revenue declines, including a 3 percent drop to $3.1 billion in 2011, sales for the first three quarters of 2012 were flat at $2.3 billion compared with the same period a year earlier. Cash flow was even better: After dropping 12 percent in 2011 to about $370 million, cash flow increased 17 percent during the first three quarters of 2012, to $240 million.

Los Angeles-based investment firm Oaktree is the largest equity owner, with 23 percent of the company. All of Oaktree's distressed-debt holdings have a 10-year investment window, though the average is three or four years, executives said. That time frame usually includes an operating phase, which is where Tribune Co. now stands.

Some experts expect that phase to be relatively brief.

"I think they are temporary owners," said Marshall Sonenshine, chairman of New York banking firm Sonenshine Partners and a professor at Columbia University Business School. "They're not really there to be long-term shareholders of media assets."

While eventually selling the assets is part of Oaktree's distressed-debt investment strategy, it doesn't preclude a longer run, including strengthening the company through strategic acquisitions, Liang said. And with Tribune Co.'s balance sheet cleaned up, the timing of any asset sales will be at their discretion.

The new board also includes Tribune Co. CEO Eddy Hartenstein; Ross Levinsohn, who recently left as interim chief executive of Yahoo Inc.; Craig Jacobson, an entertainment lawyer; Peter Murphy, a former strategy executive at Walt Disney Co. and Caesars Entertainment; Bruce Karsh, Oaktree's president; and Peter Liguori, a former top television executive at Fox and Discovery, who is expected to be named CEO of Tribune Co.

The makeup of the board and the expected choice of Liguori as CEO suggests that broadcasting will be the operational focus for Tribune Co., according to insiders and media analysts. Priorities are expected to include developing WGN America, which lags cable networks such as FX and TBS in revenue, ratings and cash flow, analysts said.

"It's clear that, in a sense, we have a new Tribune media company, and it's going in a direction that many people thought it would be going," said media analyst Ken Doctor. "It makes the company entertainment leaning versus news leaning."

Meanwhile, in the face of digital competition and sagging industry revenue, Tribune Co.'s newspaper holdings have declined to $623 million in total value, according to financial adviser Lazard. While some analysts expect the newspapers to be bundled and delivered to an assortment of potential new owners — everyone from Rupert Murdoch to Warren Buffett has expressed interest in acquiring one or more of the nameplates — they are still profitable and may remain in the Tribune Co. fold for some time, according to insiders.

Tribune reporters Michael Oneal and Becky Yerak contributed.

rchannick@tribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick

Read More..

Change could be coming after Bears miss playoffs

DETROIT — The Bears could spend between now and wild-card weekend counting the reasons they will be sitting at home with 10 wins.

A defensive meltdown in Week 13 against the Seahawks and a brutal loss at Minnesota the following week are good places to start. Their time will be better spent, however, compiling ways they can improve in 2013 after a second-half collapse could not be saved by road wins over the lowly Cardinals and Lions at the end of a season that began with great promise.

The Bears held on for a 26-24 victory over the Lions on Sunday at Ford Field, but their playoff dreams were dashed a little more than three hours later as the Vikings upset the Packers 37-34 on Blair Walsh's 29-yard field goal as time expired.

The Bears join the 1996 Redskins as the only teams since the playoffs were expanded to 12 teams to miss the playoffs after a 7-1 start. An easy first-half schedule turned challenging, an opportunistic defense stopped scoring touchdowns and the offense again failed to blossom in the fourth season for quarterback Jay Cutler, who will enter the final year of his contract with scarce reasons for the franchise to guarantee him tens of millions of dollars.

Under first-year offensive coordinator Mike Tice, wide receiver Brandon Marshall rewrote the team record books, but far too often there was no semblance of balance, and an offensive line general manager Phil Emery did little to augment played a lot like the one he inherited. Whether the failures were due more to personnel, scheme or play calling, ultimately it's the offense of head coach Lovie Smith, who failed to guide his team to the postseason for the fifth time in six years.

Questions will persist about the future of Smith, who has an 81-63 regular-season record in nine seasons, until Emery announces his plan. It will be interesting to see what role Chairman George McCaskey takes; most believe it was his call to fire GM Jerry Angelo a year ago.

Smith is signed through next season, and Emery has been conspicuously silent this season, although he said on the WBBM radio pregame show Sunday that Smith "has done an outstanding job coaching the Bears."

"It is the full season and the whole body of work," Emery said of how he will judge Smith.

Bringing back Smith as a lame duck could be a disastrous distraction but would not be unprecedented. President Ted Phillips required Emery to keep Smith for this season, and Phillips lauded Smith for his "consistency" in explaining the decision.

Smith generally has avoided long losing streaks, but the Bears lost five of six before the final two wins. They also consistently have missed the playoffs since the 2006 Super Bowl season, and if Emery makes the unusual move of firing a coach coming off a 10-win season, it will condemn the organization's failure to clean house a year ago.

Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, the face of the franchise for 13 seasons, has an expiring contract, and his future could be tied to Smith's. Pro Bowl defensive tackle Henry Melton might be headed to free agency. The aging defense was solid for most of the season but needs more young firepower at a time when the offense must be upgraded.

The offense showed some life Sunday, even if it couldn't put the Lions away as four trips to the red zone resulted in only one touchdown — a 1-yard run by Matt Forte, who had a season-high 24 carries for 103 yards.

Cutler, who said during the week he didn't know how the offense would get more receivers involved besides Marshall, completed five passes for 109 yards to Earl Bennett, including a 60-yard touchdown that featured nice blocking by Marshall. Alshon Jeffery had four receptions for 76 yards, while Marshall was targeted 14 times but made just five catches for 42 yards.

The Lions clawed back with three 80-yard scoring drives, but the defense got a stop when it needed one as cornerback Tim Jennings deflected a pass for Kris Durham with less than four minutes to play before Forte helped run out the clock.

Asked how he would view a 10-win season with no playoffs, Forte said, "We'll have to look forward to next year."

First, we'll see what change a new year brings.

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

Read More..

Kobe Bryant Finally Joins Twitter — Kind Of

Long among the sports world’s biggest Twitter holdouts, Kobe Bryant has finally joined the social network. But he hasn’t opened an account, and won’t be around for long.

Social savvy fans are being blessed with his presence thanks to Nike Basketball, which has turned over its account to Bryant since Tuesday.

[More from Mashable: Avery Johnson’s Teenage Son Unloads on Twitter After NBA Firing]

Nike Basketball, which sponsors Bryant and produces his official sneaker, announced the Kobe takeover in a Christmas Day tweet. The account’s name is now “Kobe Bryant” although its handle remains @nikebasketball. Kobe has spent the past few days tweeting about a variety of subjects using a series of hashtags that play off the theme #counton-fill-in-the-blank.

He’s tweeted about the Lakers progress as a team:

[More from Mashable: FanDuel Is Fantasy Sports With a Twist]

He’s tweeted behind-the-scenes snippets of training and treatment:

And he’s tweeted a totally normal, typical, everyday holiday family portrait:

Bryant actually joined Twitter for realsies back in 2011, but then deleted the account after racking up more than 35,000 followers in a just a few hours. He’s one of the NBA’s few stars without a Twitter presence. Nearly 90% of the league’s players are on the social network, according to Twitter.

But Bryant did become much more active on Facebook this summer, especially while traveling with the United States’ Olympic basketball team. He has nearly 15 million fans there, and reportedly writes his status updates and messages himself, with editing and actual posting done by support staff. In November he asked Facebook fans whether to join Instagram or Twitter next, and on Monday hinted in a status update that he may soon open an Instagram account.

What athletes would you most like to see get more active on social media? Let us know in the comments.

BONUS: 30 Must-Follow Twitter Accounts This NBA SEASON

1. @NBA

The NBA is arguably the world’s most engaging sports league on social media. Follow its official Twitter account for news, highlights and promotions.

Click here to view this gallery.

Thumbnail image courtesy Flickr, Keith Allison

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Kobe Bryant Finally Joins Twitter — Kind Of
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

UK “X Factor” winner regains top chart spot

LONDON (Reuters) – James Arthur, winner of this year’s British version of the “X Factor” TV talent show, saw his debut single climb back to number one in the British pop charts on Sunday.

Arthur’s “Impossible” shot straight to the top earlier this month but was overtaken last week by a tribute song to the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, a version of the ballad that was a worldwide hit for The Hollies.

That song has now slipped to fifth position, according to the Official Charts Company listings.

“Scream and Shout” by will.i.am, featuring Britney Spears, stayed at two while Psy’s monster video hit “Gangnam Style” was up three places to third.

In the album charts, British singer Emeli Sande stayed top with “Our Version Of Events”, with Olly Murs‘ “Right Place, Right Time” unchanged at two.

Rihanna was up three places to third with “Unapologetic”.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Alison Williams)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: UK “X Factor” winner regains top chart spot
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Chinese Firm Is Cleared to Buy American DNA Sequencing Company

Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

DNA sequencing machines at Complete Genomics in California. The firm dismissed concerns about its acquisition.

The federal government has given national security clearance to the controversial purchase of an American DNA sequencing company by a Chinese firm.

The Chinese firm, BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, Calif., had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign takeovers of American companies. The deal still requires antitrust clearance by the Federal Trade Commission.

Some scientists, politicians and industry executives had said the takeover represented a threat to American competitiveness in DNA sequencing, a technology that is becoming crucial for the development of drugs, diagnostics and improved crops.

The fact that the $117.6 million deal was controversial at all reflects a change in the genomics community.

A decade ago, the Human Genome Project, in which scientists from many nations helped unravel the genetic blueprint of mankind, was celebrated for its spirit of international cooperation. One of the participants in the project was BGI, which was then known as the Beijing Genomics Institute.

But with DNA sequencing now becoming a big business and linchpin of the biotechnology industry, international rivalries and nationalism are starting to move front and center in any acquisition.

Much of the alarm about the deal has been raised by Illumina, a San Diego company that is the market leader in sequencing machines. It has potentially the most to lose from the deal because BGI might buy fewer Illumina products and even become a competitor. Weeks after the BGI deal was announced, Illumina made its own belated bid for Complete Genomics, offering 15 cents a share more than BGI’s bid of $3.15. But Complete Genomics rebuffed Illumina, saying such a merger would never clear antitrust review.

Illumina also hired a Washington lobbyist, the Glover Park Group, to stir up opposition to the deal in Congress. Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, was the only member of Congress known to have publicly expressed concern.

BGI and Complete Genomics point out that Illumina has long sold its sequencing machines — including a record-setting order of 128 high-end machines — to BGI without raising any security concerns. Sequencing machines have not been subject to export controls like aerospace equipment, lasers, sensors and other gear that can have clear military uses.

“Illumina has never previously considered its business with BGI as ‘sensitive’ in the least,” Ye Yin, the chief operating officer of BGI, said in a November letter to Complete Genomics that was made public in a regulatory filing. In the letter, Illumina was accused of “obvious hypocrisy.”

BGI and Complete said that Illumina was trying to derail the agreement and acquire Complete Genomics itself in order to “eliminate its closest competitor, Complete.”

BGI is already one of the most prolific DNA sequencers in the world, but it buys the sequencing machines it uses from others, mainly Illumina.

Illumina, joined by some American scientists, said it worried that if BGI gained access to Complete’s sequencing technology, the Chinese company might use low prices to undercut the American sequencing companies that now dominate the industry.

Some also said that with Complete Genomics providing an American base, BGI would have access to more DNA samples from Americans, helping it compile a huge database of genetic information that could be used to develop drugs and diagnostic tests. Some also worried about protection of the privacy of genetic information.

“What’s to stop them from mining genomic data of American samples to some unknown nefarious end?” Elaine R. Mardis, co-director of the genome sequencing center at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an e-mail.

Dr. Mardis could not specify what kind of nefarious end she imagined. But opponents of the deal cited a November article in The Atlantic saying that in the future, pathogens could be genetically engineered to attack particular individuals, including the president, based on their DNA sequences.

BGI and Complete Genomics dismissed such concerns as preposterous.

Read More..

Tribune Co. to emerge from bankruptcy Monday

The last day of 2012 is the first of a new era for Tribune Co.

After spending more than four years embroiled in a contentious Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, the reorganized Chicago-based media company will emerge Monday under new owners and a newly appointed board, freed from its massive debt and facing an uncertain future.

Senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are set to take control of Tribune Co.’s storied portfolio of publishing and broadcasting assets, including the Chicago Tribune, officials said.

It was an almost anticlimactic end to a long and painful chapter in Tribune Co.’s 165-year history. Late Sunday, the new Tribune Co. named its board of directors, filed notification with the Delaware bankruptcy court where the bulk of legal wrangling took place and declared its existence.

“It took a long time to get here,” said Ken Liang, a managing director at Oaktree and a new member of the board. “It was a tough restructuring. We’re pretty excited about the exit.”

The new board also will include Tribune Co. CEO Eddy Hartenstein; Ross Levinsohn, who recently left as interim chief executive of Yahoo Inc.; Craig Jacobson, a well-known entertainment lawyer; Peter Murphy, a former strategy executive at Walt Disney Co. and Ceasars Entertainment; Bruce Karsh, Oaktree president; and Peter Liguori, a former top television executive at Fox and Discovery.

Liguori is expected to be named chief executive of Tribune Co. going forward.

Hartenstein, who is publisher of the Los Angeles Times, has been CEO of Tribune Co. since May 2011. He will remain in the role until the board convenes its first meeting in the next several weeks, where it will name the company’s executive officers, according to a company statement.

“Tribune will emerge from the bankruptcy process as a multi-media company with a great mix of profitable assets, strong brands in major markets and a much-improved capital structure,” Hartenstein said in the statement.

Tribune Co. owns 23 television stations, including WGN-Ch. 9, WGN America, eight daily newspapers and other media assets, all of which the reorganization plan valued at $4.5 billion after cash distributions and new financing. Eventually, all the assets are expected to be sold, according to the new owners.

They take the reins of a company that saw its worth essentially cut in half since 2007, when Chicago billionaire Sam Zell took it private in an $8.2 billion leveraged buyout. The rapid decline was mostly due to falling newspaper valuations in the face of digital competition. The anticipated hiring of Liguori suggests that broadcasting will be the operational focus going forward, according to several media analysts.

Los Angeles-based Oaktree, the largest shareholder, with about 22 percent of the equity, appointed two of seven board members. Both Angelo Gordon and JPMorgan have roughly a 9 percent stake and appointed one seat each. The three jointly appointed two more board members, with the final seat occupied by the chief executive.

Among the outgoing board members is Zell, whose deal was seen at the time as an alternative to the squabbles within Tribune Co. that threatened to break apart the then-publicly traded company. But the Great Recession and plummeting advertising revenues across all media, especially the struggling newspaper industry, made the company’s resulting $13 billion debt load untenable.

Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2008. Zell blamed a “perfect storm” of industry and economic forces. But the bankruptcy case turned on charges leveled by junior creditors that saddling the company with such a debt burden left it insolvent from the outset.

Led by an aggressive distressed debt fund called Aurelius Capital Management, the junior creditors pressed litigation that stretched out the case for three and a half years in a Delaware court before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey confirmed the reorganization plan in July. An emergency appeal to stay that decision was dismissed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September. In November, the Federal Communications Commission signed off on waivers needed to transfer Tribune Co.’s broadcast properties to the new ownership, clearing the last hurdle to its emergence from Chapter 11.

“Usually, bankruptcy cases like this take much less time and cost less money,” said Douglas Baird, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at the University of Chicago.

Baird said legal fees for most large corporate bankruptcies run 3 to 4 percent of the company’s total worth. The Tribune Co. case, which will likely cost the company more than $500 million in legal and other professional fees, was more than twice that percentage, due to both the extended litigation and the company’s declining valuation.

Before cash distributions and new financing, a 2012 analysis by financial adviser Lazard valued the broadcasting assets, including the TV stations, WGN-AM 720, CLTV and national cable channel WGN America, at $2.85 billion. Other strategic assets, such as online job site CareerBuilder and cable channel Food Network, are worth $2.26 billion.

Tribune Co.’s newspaper holdings, including the Tribune, Los Angeles Times and six other daily publications, have withered to $623 million in total value, according to Lazard. In 2006, entertainment mogul David Geffen made a $2 billion cash offer for the Los Angeles Times.

Read More..

Bulls hold off Wizards 87-77

After losing back-to-back games in rare lopsided fashion, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau called on his players to ramp up the intensity.

Inserting Richard Hamilton into the starting lineup and returning Luol Deng to the court were supposed to be two ways of doing that.

While Thibodeau may not deem the Bulls cured of the low energy he said had plagued the team previously and would not be thrilled with having to shake off the league's worst team with an 87-77 victory over the Wizards on Saturday night at the United Center, having the two dependable starters back was a boost.

Deng came back from a right ankle injury but sat for much of the fourth quarter and finished with 11 points. Hamilton returned from a left torn plantar fascia in his left foot that caused him to miss 12 games, scoring nine points in 15 minutes.

Despite his returning to the bench with Hamilton's return, it was Marco Belinelli who helped the Bulls with a team-high 17 points in 33 minutes.

Playing against the worst team in the NBA would seem to be a pretty simple way to ignite an energy surge but the Bulls struggled to build a significant lead until the final five minutes when they pulled ahead by holding the Wizards scoreless in the final 4 minutes, 47 seconds.

The Wizards are now just 1-13 away from Washington and were coming off their first victory in nine games before playing the Bulls.

The Bulls, one of the league leaders in scoring defense, held the Wizards, the league's lowest scoring team, to 36.5 percent shooting. The Wizards were without leading scorer Jordan Crawford, who sat out with a left ankle injury after averaging 21.8 points per game in the last six outings.

But the Bulls shot only 39.1 percent from the field.

The Bulls knew what they were missing while Hamilton was out.

"His catch and shoot ability," Thibodeau said. "His ability to make plays, run the floor, get out in transition. Overall, his veteran experience."

Thibodeau said the Bulls would continue to monitor Hamilton's minutes.

"It's not going to change from where we started," he said of Hamilton's playing time. "He's at the stage of his career where I think you have to be careful. So we'll do that."

Thibodeau had bemoaned the Bulls' second quarter struggles.

They had scored just 19 points in the second quarter in their loss to the Rockets on Christmas and only 16 points in the second quarter in their loss to the Hawks a week ago.

It's a trend Thibodeau was eager to see end. After trailing by eight points in the first quarter, the Bulls outscored the Wizards 23-13 in the second quarter for a 45-39 halftime lead.

The other quarters were a bigger problem this time.

sryan@tribune.com

Twitter @sryantribune

Read More..

Praying Hitler in ex-Warsaw ghetto sparks emotion

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees is on display in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the place where so many Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by Hitler’s regime, and it is provoking mixed reactions.

The work, “HIM” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has drawn many visitors since it was installed last month. It is visible only from a distance, and the artist doesn’t make explicit what Hitler is praying for, but the broader point, organizers say, is to make people reflect on the nature of evil.

In any case, some are angered by the statue’s presence in such a sensitive site.

One Jewish advocacy group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, this week called the statue’s placement “a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis’ Jewish victims.”

“As far as the Jews were concerned, Hitler’s only ‘prayer’ was that they be wiped off the face of the earth,” the group’s Israel director, Efraim Zuroff, said in a statement.

However, many others are praising the artwork, saying it has a strong emotional impact. And organizers defend putting it on display in the former ghetto.

Fabio Cavallucci, director of the Center for Contemporary Art, which oversaw the installation, said, “There is no intention from the side of the artist or the center to insult Jewish memory.”

“It’s an artwork that tries to speak about the situation of hidden evil everywhere,” he said.

The Warsaw ghetto was an area of the city which the Nazis sealed off after they invaded Poland. They forced Jews to live in cramped, inhuman conditions there as they awaited deportation to death camps. Many died from hunger or disease or were shot by the Germans before they could be transported to the camps.

The Hitler installation is just one object in a retrospective of Cattelan’s work titled “Amen,” a show that explores life, death, good and evil. The other works are on display at the center itself, which is housed in the Ujazdowski Castle.

The Hitler representation is visible from a hole in a wooden gate across town on Prozna Street. Viewers only see the back of the small figure praying in a courtyard. Because of its small size, it appears to be a harmless schoolboy.

“Every criminal was once a tender, innocent and defenseless child,” the center said in a commentary on the work.

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation’s placement ahead of time and did not oppose it because he saw value in the artist’s attempt to try to raise moral questions by provoking viewers.

He said he was reassured by curators who told him there was no intention of rehabilitating Hitler but rather of showing that evil can present itself in the guise of a “sweet praying child.”

“I felt there could be educational value to it,” said Schudrich, who also wrote an introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue in which he says art can “force us to face the evil of the world.”

On Friday, a stream of people walked by to view the work, and many praised it.

“It had a big emotional impact on me. It’s provocative, but it’s not offensive,” said Zofia Jablonska, a 30-year-old lawyer. “Having him pray in the place where he would kill people — this was the best place to put it.”

Cattelan caused controversy in Warsaw in 2000 when another gallery showed his work “La Nona Ora” — or “The Ninth Hour” — which depicts the late Pope John Paul II being crushed by a meteorite. That offended many in Poland, which is both deeply Catholic and was John Paul’s homeland.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Praying Hitler in ex-Warsaw ghetto sparks emotion
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Questcor Finds Profit for Acthar Drug, at $28,000 a Vial

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

Christina Culver with her son Tyler, 6, at home in Colorado Springs this month. In 2007, Tyler was hospitalized when the price of Acthar soared.

THE doctor was dumbfounded: a drug that used to cost $50 was now selling for $28,000 for a 5-milliliter vial.

The physician, Dr. Ladislas Lazaro IV, remembered occasionally prescribing this anti-inflammatory, named H.P. Acthar Gel, for gout back in the early 1990s. Then the drug seemed to fade from view. Dr. Lazaro had all but forgotten about it, until a sales representative from a company called Questcor Pharmaceuticals appeared at his office and suggested that he try it for various rheumatologic conditions.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dr. Lazaro, a rheumatologist in Lafayette, La., says of the price increase.

How the price of this drug rose so far, so fast is a story for these troubled times in American health care — a tale of aggressive marketing, questionable medicine and, not least, out-of-control costs. At the center of it is Questcor, which turned the once-obscure Acthar into a hugely profitable wonder drug and itself into one of Wall Street’s highest fliers.

At least until recently, that is. Now some doctors, insurance companies and investors are beginning to have doubts about whether the drug is really any better than much cheaper alternatives. Short-sellers have written scathing criticisms of the company, questioning its marketing tactics and predicting that its shareholders are highly vulnerable.

 That Acthar is even a potential blockbuster is a remarkable turn of events, considering that the drug was developed in the 1950s by a division of Armour & Company, the meatpacking company that once ruled the Union Stock Yards of Chicago. As in the 1950s, Acthar is still extracted from the pituitary glands of slaughtered pigs — essentially a byproduct of the meatpacking industry.

The most important use of Acthar has been to treat infantile spasms, also known as West syndrome, a rare, sometimes fatal epileptic disorder that generally strikes before the age of 1.

For several years, Questcor, which is based in Anaheim, lost money on Acthar because the drug’s market was so small. In 2007, it raised the price overnight, to more than $23,000 a vial, from $1,650, bringing the cost of a typical course of treatment for infantile spasms to above $100,000. It said it needed the high price to keep the drug on the market.

“We have this drug at a very high price right now because, really, our principal market is infantile spasms,” Don M. Bailey, Questcor’s chief executive, told analysts in 2009. “And we only have about 800 patients a year. It’s a very, very small — tiny — market.”

Companies often charge stratospheric prices for drugs for rare diseases — known as orphan drugs — and Acthar’s price is not as high as some. Society generally tolerates those costs to encourage drug companies to develop crucial, possibly lifesaving drugs for these often neglected diseases.

But Questcor did almost no research or development to bring Acthar to market, merely buying the rights to the drug from its previous owner for $100,000 in 2001. And while the manufacturing of Acthar is complex, it accounts for only about 1 cent of every dollar that Questcor charges for the drug.

Moreover, the tiny “orphan” market soon became much bigger. Before long, Questcor began marketing the drug for multiple sclerosis, nephrotic syndrome and rheumatologic conditions, even though there is little evidence that Acthar is more effective for those other conditions than alternatives that are far cheaper. And the company did so without being required to prove that the drug actually works. That is because Acthar was approved for use in 1952, before the Food and Drug Administration required clinical trials to show a drug is effective for a particular disease. Acthar is essentially grandfathered in.

Today, only about 10 percent of the drug’s sales are for infantile spasms. The new uses, Mr. Bailey has told analysts, represent multibillion-dollar opportunities for Acthar and Questcor, its sole maker.

The results have been beyond even the company’s wildest dreams. Sales of Acthar, which accounts for essentially all of Questcor’s sales, totaled nearly $350 million in the first nine months this year, up 145 percent from the period a year earlier. In the same period, Questcor’s earnings per share nearly tripled, to $2.12. In the five years after the big Acthar price increase in August 2007, Questcor shares rose from around 60 cents to about $50, in one of the best performances of any stock in any industry.

But in September, the shares plummeted after Aetna, the big insurer, said it would no longer pay for Acthar, except to treat infantile spasms, because of lack of evidence the drug worked for other diseases. The stock now trades at $26.93.

Peter Wickersham, senior vice president for cost of care at Prime Therapeutics, a pharmacy benefits manager that has found the drug is possibly being overused, says the huge increase in Acthar’s price for patients “just invites the type of scrutiny that it’s received.”

Read More..

FCC acts to expand in-flight Internet service

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski addresses the media at the agency's headquarters in 2010. (Alex Wong/Getty Images / December 28, 2012)

Reuters

3:04 p.m. CST, December 28, 2012

The Federal Communications Commission has cleared the way for wider adoption of in-flight Internet services, aiming to cut by as much as 50 percent the time needed for regulatory approval.

Newly adopted rules should boost competition in this part of the U.S. mobile telecommunications market and promote "the widespread availability of Internet access to aircraft passengers," the FCC said in a statement Friday.

Since 2001, the commission has cleared companies case-by-case to market in-flight broadband services via a satellite antenna fixed to an aircraft's exterior.

Under a new framework, the licensing procedures will be simpler, the commission said.

Airlines will be able to test systems that meet the commission's standards, establish that they do not interfere with aircraft systems and then get approval of the Federal Aviation Administration, the FCC statement said.

The FAA, a Labor Department arm responsible for operating the nation's air traffic control system, said in response that the FCC's effort to establish standards "will help to streamline the process" for airlines to install Internet hookups on planes.

The goal is to speed the processing of applications by up to 50 percent, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a separate statement.

The FCC drive to promote broadband aboard planes does not change a ban on the in-flight use of cell phones, which is tied to concerns about interference with ground stations.

Genachowski earlier this month urged the Federal Aviation Administration to allow more electronics on aircraft.

The FAA announced in August that it was forming a government-industry group to study aircraft operators' policies to determine when portable electronic devices may be used safely during flight.

Read More..

Chicago marks 500 homicides

Chicago police investigate the scene of a fatal shooting in the 1000 block of North Lavergne on Chicago's West Side. (Chris Sweda/ Chicago Tribune)

On the surface, Nathaniel Jackson fit the profile of the vast majority of Chicago's homicide victims in 2012 — he had a lengthy arrest record and alleged gang ties.

But when Jackson was shot and killed Thursday night, just months after getting out of prison, he also earned the unfortunate distinction of being the 500th homicide victim in Chicago this year, a grim milestone the city reached for the first time in four years.

While Chicago had almost twice as many slayings 20 years ago as it did this year, the number 500 is a largely symbolic threshold, a reminder of the year's escalated violence and a numerical bar the city had not reached since 513 were killed in 2008.

By mid-November the city already had tallied the most homicides in four years. As of Friday, Chicago had an estimated 17 percent increase in homicides over 2011, and an 11 percent increase in shootings, according to police.

The city's rising homicide tally has been a thorny issue for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy for much of the year.

"It was a milestone on those days when we had zero murders and zero shootings. Those are milestones. This is a negative one, something that we never wanted," McCarthy told the Tribune Thursday afternoon, hours before Jackson, 40, was killed. "But in perspective, there's no such thing as an acceptable murder number. Even if we cut it down to 300 next year, it's still … unacceptable."

The department went back and forth Friday over whether Jackson was the 500th homicide victim so far this year, at first confirming it and then denying it, saying a homicide last week had been reclassified as a death investigation, therefore making Jackson the 499th homicide. But by late afternoon, the department once again confirmed there had been 500 homicides.

"The city has seen its 500th homicide for 2012, a tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods," McCarthy said in a statement. "Every homicide in Chicago is unacceptable to me and the hardworking men and women of the Chicago Police Department, who, this year, achieved a record drop in overall crime throughout our city."

Chicago's homicide rate also remains a major issue for Emanuel heading into the new year. Beyond the very real human cost, there's a perception problem for the city.

The homicide rate in Chicago far exceeds the rates in New York City and Los Angeles. While the homicide rate in LA has remained relatively flat and New York's has gone down — homicides there have fallen by more than 20 percent this year — Emanuel, known for carefully trying to craft the narrative of his tenure as mayor, has seen Chicago's violence attract national attention.

The mayor was on vacation Friday with his family but issued a statement to the Tribune:

"Chicago has reached an unfortunate and tragic milestone, which not only marks a needless loss of life but serves as a reminder of the damage that illegal guns and conflicts between gangs cause in our neighborhoods," Emanuel said, adding that his efforts to lengthen the public school day and provide before- and after-school programs for youths were part of the eventual solution.

Emanuel last week also noted that overall crime in Chicago was down about 8.5 percent for the year.

This previous winter was particularly violent. In the first three months of 2012, when the city experienced unseasonable warmth, homicides ran about 60 percent ahead of the 2011 rate. As the year went on, the increase in killings leveled out but still remained higher than in previous years.

In his statement Friday, McCarthy lauded the overall drop in crime in the city and said department efforts resulted in less violence in the latter part of 2012.

"CPD has put the right people in the right places to accomplish our long-term goal of reducing crime and ensuring that our streets and our neighborhoods belong to the residents of this city," McCarthy said in his statement. "Since the gang violence reduction strategy was adopted, we have seen drastic reductions in shootings and homicides that spiked early in the year."

Some within the department feel the disbanding of two specialized units that swooped into "hot spots" to reduce violent crime had a negative impact on this year's rate. After McCarthy was installed last year as the city's top cop, he eliminated those strike forces to move those officers to beat patrols, in the hope they would have more meaningful and positive interactions with the community. The department now uses cops who work all over the city to fulfill the same function as the strike forces, but these "area teams" comprise fewer officers.

McCarthy has blamed the proliferation of guns on Chicago's streets and the splintering of large street gangs into small factions as reasons for the homicide spike.

In October, the Tribune reported that 1 in 4 homicide victims this year were affiliated with the Gangster Disciples, the city's largest street gang, and one also riddled with internal conflict.

Jackson, who authorities described as being affiliated with the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, falls into a category shared by more than 80 percent of Chicago's 2012 homicide victims: those with criminal histories.

Read More..

Fans to join Beyonce onstage at Super Bowl

NEW YORK (AP) — All the single ladies — and fellas — will have a chance to join Beyonce onstage at the upcoming Super Bowl.

Pepsi announced Friday that 100 fans will hit the stage when the Grammy-winning diva performs on Feb. 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet tapping and hip shaking. Those pictures will be used in a TV ad introducing Beyonce’s halftime performance, and 50 people — along with a friend — will be selected to join the singer onstage.

The photo contest — at www.pepsi.com/halftime — ends Jan. 19, but Jan. 11 is the cut-off date for those interested in appearing onstage with Beyonce.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Fans to join Beyonce onstage at Super Bowl
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Memphis Aims to Be a Friendlier Place for Cyclists

Lance Murphey for The New York Times

The Shelby Farms Greenline, which replaced a Memphis rail line.

MEMPHIS — John Jordan, a 64-year-old condo appraiser here, has been pedaling his cruiser bicycle around town nearly every day, tooling about at lunchtime or zipping to downtown appointments.

“It’s my cholesterol-lowering device,” said Mr. Jordan, clad in a leather vest and wearing a bright white beard. “The problem is, the city needs to educate motorists to not run over” the bicyclists.

Bike-friendly behavior has never come naturally to Memphis, which has long been among the country’s most perilous places for cyclists. In recent years, though, riders have taken to the streets like never before, spurred by a mayor who has worked to change the way residents think about commuting.

Mayor A. C. Wharton Jr., elected in 2009, assumed office a year after Bicycling magazine named Memphis one of the worst cities in America for cyclists, not the first time the city had received such a biking dishonor. But Mr. Wharton spied an opportunity.

In 2008, Memphis had a mile and a half of bike lanes. There are now about 50 miles of dedicated lanes, and about 160 miles when trails and shared roads are included. The bulk of the nearly $1 million investment came from stimulus money and other federal sources, and Shelby County, which includes Memphis, was recently awarded an additional $4.7 million for bike projects.

In June, federal officials awarded Memphis $15 million to turn part of the steel truss Harahan Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River, into a bike and pedestrian crossing. Scheduled to open in about two years, the $30 million project will link downtown Memphis with West Memphis, Ark.

“We need to make biking part of our DNA,” Mr. Wharton said. “I’m trying to build a city for the people who will be running it 5, 10, 15 years from now. And in a region known to some for rigid thinking, the receptivity has been remarkable.”

City planners are using bike lanes as an economic development tool, setting the stage for new stores and enhanced urban vibrancy, said Kyle Wagenschutz, the city’s bike-pedestrian coordinator, a position the mayor created.

“The cycling advocates have been vocal the past 10 years, but nothing ever happened,” Mr. Wagenschutz said. “It took a change of political will to catalyze the movement.”

Memphis, with a population of 650,000, is often cited among the unhealthiest, most crime-ridden and most auto-centric cities in the country. Investments in bicycling are being viewed here as a way to promote healthy habits, community bonds and greater environmental stewardship.

But as city leaders struggle with a sprawling landscape — Memphis covers about the same amount of land as Dallas, yet has half the population — their persistence has run up against another bedeviling factor: merchants and others who are disgruntled about the lanes.

A clash between merchants and bike advocates flared last year after the mayor announced new bike lanes on Madison Avenue, a commercial artery, that would remove two traffic lanes. Many merchants, like Eric Vernon, who runs the Bar-B-Q Shop, feared that removing car lanes would hurt businesses and cause parking confusion. Mr. Vernon said that sales had not fallen significantly since the bike lanes were installed, but that he thought merchants were left out of the process.

On McLean Boulevard, a narrow residential strip where roadside parking was replaced by bike paths, homeowners cried foul. The city reached a compromise with residents in which parking was outlawed during the day but permitted at night, when fewer cyclists were out. Mr. Wagenschutz called the nocturnal arrangement a “Cinderella lane.”

Some residents, however, were not mollified. “I’m not against bike lanes, but we’re isolated because there’s no place to park,” said Carey Potter, 53, a longtime resident who started a petition to reinstate full-time parking.

The changes have been panned by some members of the City Council. Councilman Jim Strickland went as far as to say that the bike signs that dot the streets add “to the blight of our city.”

Tensions aside, the mayor’s office says that the potential economic ripple effect of bike lanes is proof that they are a sound investment.

A study in 2011 by the University of Massachusetts found that building bike lanes created more jobs — about 11 per $1 million spent — than any other type of road project. Several bike shops here have expanded to accommodate new cyclists, including Midtown Bike Company, which recently moved to a location three times the size of its former one. “The new lanes have been great for business,” said the manager, Daniel Duckworth.

Wanda Rushing, a professor at the University of Memphis and an expert on urban change in the South, said bike improvements were of a piece with a development model sweeping the region: bolstering transportation infrastructure and population density in the inner city.

“Memphis is not alone in acknowledging that sprawl is not sustainable,” Dr. Rushing said. “Economic necessity is a pretty good melding substance.”

Read More..

Wall Street ends sour week with fifth straight decline

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell for a fifth straight day on Friday, dropping 1 percent and marking the S&P 500's longest losing streak in three months as the federal government edged closer to the "fiscal cliff" with no solution in sight.

President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders met at the White House to work on a solution for the draconian debt-reduction measures set to take effect beginning next week. Stocks, which have been influenced by little else than the flood of fiscal cliff headlines from Washington in recent days, extended losses going into the close with the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 each losing 1 percent, after reports that Obama would not offer a new plan to Republicans. The Dow closed below 13,000 for the first time since December 4.

"I was stunned Obama didn't have another plan, and that's absolutely why we sold off," said Mike Shea, managing partner at Direct Access Partners LLC in New York. "He's going to force the House to come to him with something different. I think that's a surprise. The entire market is disappointed in a lack of leadership in Washington."

In a sign of investor anxiety, the CBOE Volatility Index , known as the VIX, jumped 16.69 percent to 22.72, closing at its highest level since June. Wall Street's favorite fear barometer has risen for five straight weeks, surging more than 40 percent over that time.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 158.20 points, or 1.21 percent, to 12,938.11 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 15.67 points, or 1.11 percent, to 1,402.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 25.59 points, or 0.86 percent, to end at 2,960.31.

For the week, the Dow fell 1.9 percent. The S&P 500 also lost 1.9 percent for the week, marking its worst weekly performance since mid-November. The Nasdaq finished the week down 2 percent. In contrast, the VIX jumped 22 percent for the week.

Pessimism continued after the market closed, with stock futures indicating even steeper losses. S&P 500 futures dropped 26.7 points, or 1.9 percent, eclipsing the decline seen in the regular session.

All 10 S&P 500 sectors fell during Friday's regular trading, with most posting declines of 1 percent, but energy and material shares were among the weakest of the day, with both groups closely tied to the pace of growth.

An S&P energy sector index slid 1.8 percent, with Exxon Mobil down 2 percent at $85.10, and Chevron Corp off 1.9 percent at $106.45. The S&P material sector index fell 1.3 percent, with U.S. Steel Corp down 2.6 percent at $23.03.

Decliners outnumbered advancers by a ratio of slightly more than 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, while on the Nasdaq, two stocks fell for every one that rose.

"We've been whipsawing around on low volume and rumors that come out on the cliff," said Eric Green, senior portfolio manager at Penn Capital Management in Philadelphia, who helps oversee $7 billion in assets.

With time running short, lawmakers may opt to allow the higher taxes and across-the-board federal spending cuts to go into effect and attempt to pass a retroactive fix soon after the new year. Standard & Poor's said an impasse on the cliff wouldn't affect the sovereign credit rating of the United States.

"We're not as concerned with January 1 as the market seems to be," said Richard Weiss, senior money manager at American Century Investments, in Mountain View, California. "Things will be resolved, just maybe not on a good timetable, and any deal can easily be retroactive."

Trading volume was light throughout the holiday-shortened week, with just 4.46 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT on Friday, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares. On Monday, the U.S. stock market closed early for Christmas Eve, and the market was shut on Tuesday for Christmas. Many senior traders were absent this week for the holidays.

Highlighting Wall Street's sensitivity to developments in Washington, stocks tumbled more than 1 percent on Thursday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned that a deal was unlikely before the deadline. But late in the day, stocks nearly bounced back when the House said it would hold an unusual Sunday session to work on a fiscal solution.

Positive economic data failed to alter the market's mood.

The National Association of Realtors said contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose in November to their highest level in 2-1/2 years, while a report from the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded in December.

"Economic reports have been very favorable, and once Congress comes to a resolution, the market should resume an upward trend, based on the data," said Weiss, who helps oversee about $125 billion in assets. "All else being equal, we see any further decline as a buying opportunity."

Barnes & Noble Inc rose 4.3 percent to $14.97 after the top U.S. bookstore chain said British publisher Pearson Plc had agreed to make a strategic investment in its Nook Media subsidiary. But Barnes & Noble also said its Nook business will not meet its previous projection for fiscal year 2013.

Shares of magicJack VocalTec Ltd jumped 10.3 percent to $17.95 after the company gave a strong fourth-quarter outlook and named Gerald Vento president and chief executive, effective January 1.

The U.S.-listed shares of Canadian drugmaker Aeterna Zentaris Inc surged 13.8 percent to $2.47 after the company said it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a special protocol assessment by the FDA for a Phase 3 registration trial in endometrial cancer with AEZS-108 treatment.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Gulf War General Schwarzkopf dies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the hard-charging U.S. Army general whose forces smashed the Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War, has died at the age of 78, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

The highly decorated four-star general died at 2:22 p.m. EST (1922 GMT) at his home in Tampa, Florida, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Schwarzkopf, a burly Vietnam War veteran known to his troops as Stormin' Norman, commanded more than 540,000 U.S. troops and 200,000 allied forces in a six-week war that routed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait in 1991, capping his 34-year military career.

Some experts hailed Schwarzkopf's plan to trick and outflank Hussein's forces with a sweeping armored movement as one of the great accomplishments in military history. The maneuver ended the ground war in only 100 hours.

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who built the international coalition against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait, said he and his wife "mourn the loss of a true American patriot and one of the great military leaders of his generation," according to a statement released by his spokesman.

Bush has been hospitalized in Houston since late November.

In a statement, the White House called Schwarzkopf "an American original" whose "legacy will endure in a nation that is more secure because of his patriotic service."

PHYSICAL PRESENCE

Schwarzkopf was a familiar sight on international television during the war, clad in camouflage fatigues and a cap. He conducted fast-paced briefings and reviewed his troops with a purposeful stride and a physical presence of the sort that clears bar rooms.

Little known before Iraqi forces invaded neighboring Kuwait, Schwarzkopf made a splash with quotable comments. At one briefing he addressed Saddam's military reputation.

"As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist," he said, "he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that."

Schwarzkopf returned from the war a hero and there was talk of him running for public office. Instead, he wrote an autobiography - "It Doesn't Take a Hero" - and served as a military analyst.

He also acted as a spokesman for the fight against prostate cancer, with which he was diagnosed in 1993.

Schwarzkopf was born August 22, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., the head of the New Jersey State Police. At the time, the older Schwarzkopf was leading the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh's infant son, one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century.

The younger Schwarzkopf graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1956. He earned a masters degree in guided-missile engineering from the University of Southern California and later taught engineering at West Point.

Schwarzkopf saw combat twice - in Vietnam and Grenada - in a career that included command of units from platoon to theater size, training as a paratrooper and stints at Army staff colleges.

CHESTFUL OF MEDALS

He led his men in firefights in two tours of Vietnam and commanded all U.S. ground forces in the 1983 Grenada invasion. His chestful of medals included three Silver and three Bronze Stars for valor and two Purple Hearts for Vietnam wounds.

In Vietnam, he won a reputation as an officer who would put his life on the line to protect his troops. In one particularly deadly fight on the Batangan Peninsula, Schwarzkopf led his men through a minefield, in part by having the mines marked with shaving cream.

In 1988, Schwarzkopf was put in charge of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, with responsibility for the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In that role, he prepared a plan to protect the Gulf's oil fields from a hypothetical invasion by Iraq. Within months, the plan was in use.

A soldier's soldier in an era of polished, politically conscious military technocrats, Schwarzkopf's mouth sometimes got him in trouble. In one interview, he said he had recommended to Bush that allied forces destroy Iraq's military instead of stopping the war after a clear victory.

Schwarzkopf later apologized after both Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney fired back that there was no contradiction among military leaders to Bush's decision to leave some of Saddam's military intact.

After retirement, Schwarzkopf spoke his mind on military matters. In 2003, when the United States was on the verge of invading Iraq under President George W. Bush, Schwarzkopf said he was unsure whether there was sufficient evidence that Iraq had nuclear weapons.

He also criticized Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense at the time, telling the Washington Post that during war-time television appearances "he almost sometimes seems to be enjoying it."

Schwarzkopf and his wife, Brenda, who he married in 1968, had two daughters and one son.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised Schwarzkopf as "one of the great military giants of the 20th century."

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he "embodied the warrior spirit," and called the victory over Hussein's forces the hallmark of his career.

(Reporting by David Alexander, Ian Simpson and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Stacey Joyce and Todd Eastham)

Read More..

KOL’s Nathan Followill, Jessie Baylin welcome baby

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Kings of Leon family has just gotten bigger.

Drummer Nathan Followill and his wife, singer-songwriter Jessie Baylin, welcomed a baby girl on Wednesday. It’s the first baby for the couple and the third for the Followill family band. Nathan Followill’s brother Caleb and cousin Matthew also have children.

A spokesman says Violet Marlowe Followill was born at 4:01 p.m. in Nashville. She was 7 pounds, 13 ounces at birth.

The baby comes before what promises to be a busy 2013 for Kings of Leon. The Nashville, Tenn.-based band has been working on new music for an album that’s expected to be released next year. Baylin released her third album, “Little Spark,” earlier this year.

The couple has been married since 2009.

___

Online:

http://kingsofleon.com

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: KOL’s Nathan Followill, Jessie Baylin welcome baby
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Senator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center.

NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients.

While the medical center had been treating many outpatients, it had farmed out surgery to other hospitals, which created scheduling problems that forced many patients to have their operations on nights and weekends, when staffing is traditionally low. Some patients and doctors had to postpone not just elective but also necessary operations for lack of space at other hospitals.

The medical center’s Tisch Hospital, its major hospital for inpatient services, between 30th and 34th Streets on First Avenue, had been closed since the hurricane knocked out power and forced the evacuation of more than 300 patients, some on sleds brought down darkened flights of stairs.

“I think it’s a little bit of a miracle on 34th Street that this happened so quickly,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said Thursday.

Mr. Schumer credited the medical center’s leadership and esprit de corps, and also a tour of the damaged hospital on Nov. 9 by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, whom he and others escorted through watery basement hallways.

“Every time I talk to Fugate there are a lot of questions, but one is, ‘How are you doing at NYU?’ ” the senator said.

The reopening of Tisch to surgery patients and associated services, like intensive care, some types of radiology and recovery room anesthesia, was part of a phased restoration that will continue. Besides providing an essential service, surgery is among the more lucrative of hospital services.

The hospital’s emergency department is expected to delay its reopening for about 11 months, in part to accommodate an expansion in capacity to 65,000 patient visits a year, from 43,000, said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, its senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy.

In the meantime, NYU Langone is setting up an urgent care center with 31 bays and an observation unit, which will be able to treat some emergency patients. It will initially not accept ambulances, but might be able to later, Dr. Brotman said. Nearby Bellevue Hospital Center, which was also evacuated, opened its emergency department to noncritical injuries on Monday.

Labor and delivery, the cancer floor, epilepsy treatment and pediatrics and neurology beyond surgery are expected to open in mid-January, Langone officials said. While some radiology equipment, which was in the basement, has been restored, other equipment — including a Gamma Knife, a device using radiation to treat brain tumors — is not back.

The flooded basement is still being worked on, and electrical gear has temporarily been moved upstairs. Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, said that a $60 billion bill to pay for hurricane losses and recovery in New York and New Jersey was nearing a vote, and that he was optimistic it would pass in the Senate with bipartisan support. But the measure’s fate in the Republican-controlled House is far less certain.

The bill includes $1.2 billion for damage and lost revenue at NYU Langone, including some money from the National Institutes of Health to restore research projects. It would also cover Long Beach Medical Center in Nassau County, Bellevue, Coney Island Hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan.

Read More..

McCormick Place development fight held over to 2013

The lengthy battle for control over property slated for hotel development adjacent to McCormick Place will extend into 2013 after a federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday gave the long-time property owners more time to show their plans have financial viability.

Judge Jack Schmetterer this month had given Olde Prairie Block Owner LLC until Thursday to show him it had plausible plans to repay its lenders, chief among them CenterPoint Properties Trust.

Olde Prairie, whose principals include Pamela Gleichman, her husband, Karl Norberg, and Gunnar Falk, have proposed selling portions of the properties for hotel development, with two deals projected to bring in $180 million. The developers said this would be sufficient to pay back lenders in full and develop the properties.

The lender, CenterPoint Properties Trust, contends the plan is not financially viable, in part because the sales agreements contained contingencies. As well, it argued that the structure of the deals would not provide sufficient funds to fully repay lenders.

Schmetterer gave Olde Prairie until Jan. 10 to show the potential buyer of the larger parcel had a firm financing commitment. He also is seeking greater clarity in the sales contract language.

The case has been closely watched because it involves parcels long eyed for development linked to McCormick Place. Speculation has swirled around possibilities,from hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues, including a possible casino, to an arena that could host the DePaul men's basketball team as well as corporate and religious assemblies.

The properties include a 3.67-acre parcel at 330 E. Cermak Rd., directly north of the administrative offices of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, and a 1.23-acre parcel directly west of it at 230 E. Cermak, across the street from the center's West Building.

The authority, known as McPier, this month purchased a separate parcel on the 230 E. Cermak block, with an eye toward gathering enough property to expand hotel, restaurant and entertainment amenities near the convention campus.

kbergen@tribune.com

Read More..

Melton among 5 Bears earning Pro Bowl honors

Henry Melton said last week he was as good as any 4-3 defensive tackle in the NFL than himself last week and now he’s been recognized as one of the best.

Melton was selected to the Pro Bowl for the first time, one of five Chicago Bears to be named to the NFC’s team Wednesday. Cornerback Tim Jennings, who leads the league with eight interceptions, also was a first-time honoree, joining fellow cornerback Charles Tillman, defensive end Julius Peppers and wide receiver Brandon Marshall as all-star selections.

Weak-side linebacker Lance Briggs, the team leader with 118 tackles, was not selected after being named to seven consecutive Pro Bowls. Briggs could be added later as an alternate.

Melton, who has not played in the last two games because of a clavicle injury, has six sacks and has improved greatly as a two-way player against the run this season. The Pro Bowl bid can only help him in his drive for a new contract as he will be a free agent after the season.

“It’s an amazing feeling. It’s been a long journey from playing running back and defensive end and now being a Pro Bowl defensive tackle,” Melton said. “It’s an amazing feeling. There are a lot of people who had a hand in helping me, and I just appreciate it.”

Melton was a fourth-round pick in 2009, and defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli quickly got the idea to move him from end to tackle. He started to take off last season, giving the Bears a pass-rushing presence on the inside that had been missing.

“He’s a great guy, a great coach,” Melton said. “We spend a lot of hours together working, working extremely hard trying to mold me into a better man and definitely a better football player. I’ve got a lot of love for him and hopefully we can keep it going.

“I just wanted to help the defense any way I could, and when he said I had the stuff that he looks for in a premier defensive tackle, I listened to him and just got to work. If he said that he saw me as an elite defensive tackle, he’s seen everybody -- (Warren) Sapp and a lot of guys that had come before me, and for him to say that I believed in what he was saying.”

When Melton got the news, he turned to Peppers, who was selected to his eighth Pro Bowl, and said, “We’re going to be roommates?”

Not exactly. But they can have fun in Hawaii during the week of the game -- one Jennings made clear he will be playing in.

“That's the most exciting thing really, playing really,” Jennings said. “Getting voted in and I'm actually going to play. They're not going to vote you in and you're not going to play. That's not the way it's going to work. Just being over there with all the guys, all the future Hall of Famers, just taking that in. I'm going to live for the moment and just kind of soak it all in right now. But I'm excited to just see what it's really about.”

Jennings, who was benched in Week 16 last season, re-signed with the Bears during free agency on a two-year deal. He started making plays and wound up leading all cornerbacks in the NFL in fan voting. At 5-8, he hopes he serves as an inspiration for undersized kids playing sports.

“Hopefully a lot of kids that's in my situation, that's gone through my situation, can take it all in and understand that it doesn't matter what people may think about you or you think you're not good enough,” Jennings said. “If you really want it and you enjoy doing it just kind of go out there and have fun and just try to be the best that you can be and everything can take care of itself.

“I think I've been doubted a lot. To put me where I am today, I took it all in stride. I enjoyed playing sports and I enjoyed playing football and I got a whole bunch of opportunities and blessings from God. And I just wanted to make the best of it and kind of just enjoy it and make the best of it while I still can because I know it's not going to last forever. So I just want to enjoy it while I can and make the best of every opportunity I get.”

Peppers had three sacks in Sunday’s victory at Arizona to give him 11 ½ for the season. He’s the first player opposing offenses prepare for and based on how the defense has played, even in the recent struggles for the team, it’s not a surprise he was selected. Tillman gets his second consecutive Pro Bowl selection. He had 10 forced fumbles, tying him for the most in a single season since 1991. He scored his third touchdown of the season in the victory over the Cardinals with an interception.

Marshall trails only the Lions’ Calvin Johnson in receiving yards with 1,466. He also is second with 113 receptions, both numbers Bears’ single-season records. Marshall, who was the MVP of the Pro Bowl last year playing for the Miami Dolphins, also had 11 touchdown receptions.

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

Read More..