No. 1 Notre Dame beats USC 22-13 to finish season 12-0

LOS ANGELES — Deliverance arrived on a crisp southern California night, welcomed in a frenzy of arms thrust in the air and throats cleared by cathartic screams. Notre Dame waited decades for this, all right, the end to the interminable search for its long-lost promise. It just needed to climb to the top of college football to find it.

The Irish will play for a national championship in January, inextricably No. 1 and impossibly 12-0 after a 22-13 victory over USC before 93,607 witnesses on Saturday night at the Los Angeles Coliseum, a sparkling moment of rapture in the City of Angels.

Whether Notre Dame is back may be of little import now. The Irish have arrived.

They did so not with a thunderclap against a reeling archrival.

It was a grinding, imperfect but relentless effort, and maybe there couldn't be any other way. Everett Golson, the redshirt freshman quarterback, cramped up but cut loose for 217 yards passing. Theo Riddick, the senior, stampeded to 146 yards and a score.

And the Heisman hopeful, Manti Te'o, picked off another pass and helped spearhead another adrenalized goal-line stand in the fourth quarter that stomped out USC's last hope and created a save-the-date for Jan. 7. There, Notre Dame will play in the BCS title game against the winner of the SEC championship.

One game, now, to look upon everyone else as national champions for the first time since 1988.

Notre Dame had USC where it wanted the Trojans early, on-heels and tested, on the spot to demonstrate any mettle or desire at the end of a season gone wrong and going nowhere.

The Irish thundered to a 10-0 first-quarter lead that could have been more but for the usual sputtering around in the red zone. First came a Kyle Brindza 27-yard field goal, then a Riddick 9-yard touchdown run after a 12-play drive. If this was the last hurdle to the BCS title game, it appeared knee-high.

Then USC showed it could be resolute, swiftly moving to an 11-yard Robert Woods touchdown reception to create some drama. After the teams both added field goals, USC's first mistake allowed Notre Dame to re-extend its lead at the break.

A Max Wittek interception returned the ball to Notre Dame with 85 seconds left in the first half, and Brindza was able to come on for a 52-yard attempt he pushed through with no time left, making it a 16-10 lead at intermission.

One chance to blow open the game came and went after intermission: Te'o's seventh interception set up the Irish offense, but the Irish offense couldn't hit paydirt and then Brindza sent a 34-yard field goal wide left.

Brindza hit a 33-yarder late in the third quarter that extended the lead to 19-10, and then Notre Dame watched in glee as USC coach Lane Kiffin exacted a bit of self-torture. Kiffin called a timeout just before a snap that resulted in an apparent Trojans touchdown, wiping out the score, and a post-timeout pass sailed incomplete.

Brindza pushed the lead to 22-13 with just less than six minutes left — a crucial two-score cushion. Crucial, because Marqise Lee's 53-yard catch on the next USC snap after a long kickoff return and two pass interference penalties set up a goal-to-go situation for the Trojans at the Irish 1.

And that set up the Irish defense for its signature moment. Three runs and an incomplete pass later, Notre Dame had made its stand, exploding off the sideline and into celebration.

The clock wound down. Te'o hopped up and down on the sideline, waiving a towel. The Notre Dame fans in attendance counted down the Coliseum clock, as if it was New Year's Eve. And then the celebration began, wild and joyous, for a date decades in the making. The Irish will play for a national title. They have arrived.

bchamilton@tribune.com

Twitter @ChiTribHamilton

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15 Cheesy Christmas Music Videos on YouTube

1. “Last Christmas” – Wham!

What would a cheesy Christmas music video roundup be without George Michael — and his mullet, covered by a furry, snow-covered hood? If you like this video, just wait until you see the a cappella Norwegian version.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 10 Adorable Animals Feeding Other Animals [VIDEOS]]

Now that the turkey has been picked apart and you’ve survived another Black Friday, it is now officially acceptable to listen to Christmas music. If you’ve been secretly listening to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” since early November, crank it up!

One of the best — or worst, depending on your perspective — parts about the holidays is how we embrace corniness. The lyrics are cheesy, the wardrobe is tacky and some traditions are silly.

[More from Mashable: Rebecca Black Shows Off Hidden Talent in New Music Video]

To kick off the season, here are the 15 cheesiest holiday music videos we could find on YouTube. Which is your favorite? Share your pick in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, ronnie44052

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Lincoln” Women: How Sally Field and Gloria Reuben Stole Daniel Day-Lewis’ Show

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Steven Spielberg‘s “Lincoln” is, on the face of it, a standard “great man” biopic. Basked in a honeydew light, overflowing with sage advice, Daniel Day-Lewis‘ Great Emancipator is depicted as constantly and self-consciously speaking to the ages well before he belongs to them.

But let us now praise the film’s not-as-famous women. For what rescues “Lincoln” from bombast are the slier and subtler performances by a trio of fantastic and often under-utilized actresses – Sally Field, Gloria Reuben and S. Epatha Merkerson.

Each one uses her limited screen time to etch a devastating portrait of the limitations that faced women in a male-dominated society. After all, if the legislators debating the merits of the 13th Amendment in the movie fret openly that abolishing slavery will begin a slippery slope to black enfranchisement, they seem even more horrified at the prospect that it one day might lead to granting women the right to vote.

Though some critics have griped about Spielberg’s penchant for speechifying in “Lincoln,” there has been near universal praise for Day-Lewis and for Tommy Lee Jones’ work as the wily Thaddeus Stevens. Field’s take on First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln – a woman Louis C.K. quipped on “Saturday Night Live” recently was “historically insane” – has been more divisive.

In TheWrap, for instance, Steve Pond wrote, “Sally Field may well be nominated for Supporting Actress for her Mary Todd Lincoln, but to me her hysteria was one of the least-successful parts of the film.”

Yet Field’s work is in many ways more revelatory than that of Day-Lewis. True, the Irish-Anglo acting god daringly gives the 16th president a historically accurate high voice and indelibly paints a picture of a great orator with an outhouse sense of humor, but his modifications are slight tweaks to the Lincoln myth. Field’s interpretation is a whole-scale reinvention.

Field’s Mary is privately unhinged, true. But she is also a smooth Washington operator, comfortable sparring with Stevens over her White House redecorating and forcibly pressuring her husband to carry the 13th Amendment to the finish line while wielding little more than a fan.

Even her mania is rooted in the death of her young son Willy; an empathetic anchor that keeps Mary from becoming simply the backwoods, social-climbing hysteric she’s been portrayed as in the past.

In screenwriter Tony Kushner, Field finds an eager co-conspirator. As Kushner confessed on NPR, the Lincolns had a turbulent relationship in part because of Abraham Lincoln’s emotional coldness.

“People always think about Mary as being difficult and she absolutely was, but Lincoln wasn’t easy either,” Kushner said. “He was remote and complicated and rather interestingly fond of telling her things that would upset her horribly, like these dreams that he kept having and he would leave her kind of in a state night after night, telling her that he was having these kind of scary dreams.

It’s an enormously complicated relationship and the family is a tragic family.”

The only false note in an otherwise galvanizing portrayal, is having Mary deliver a line that is a too historically self-aware.

“All anyone will remember about me was that I was crazy and ruined your happiness,” Mary says at one point – to which my companion let forth a large guffaw.

Field who packed 25 pounds onto her slender frame and allowed the camera to scan her creased face is a revelation – it’s a reminder that the plucky star of “Norma Rae” is good for more than Boniva ads.

But Mary Todd Lincoln isn’t the only female who elbows her way into this big screen men’s club. Gloria Reuben‘s Elizabeth Keckley is also a marvel.

Dramaturgically it’s a thankless role with Reuben’s freed slave seamstress frequently used as a stand-in for all-antebellum African American suffering. Yet Reuben grounds the performance in a simmering fury and heartbreak, using her eyes to register the peigns of hurt that greets the racist slights Keckley is exposed to on a daily basis.

Her conversation in the White House portico with Daniel Day-Lewis about the meaning of emancipation is a bravura moment – a reminder of just how long a walk to freedom 19th century blacks faced.

Likewise, S. Epatha Merkerson‘s Lydia Smith is perhaps the greatest master class in doing a lot with a little since Judi Dench captured a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1998 for her eight-minute cameo in “Shakespeare in Love.”

Smith, the housekeeper and (spoiler alert) common-law wife of Thaddeus Stevens, has two fleeting scenes. In one, she gently removes Jones’ coat as he enters their Washington, D.C., home after the amendment passes, in the other she reads the constitutional addition aloud in bed to her secret-paramour. It is, in the words of another Kushner play, a reminder that “the world only spins forward.”

Indeed, the entire film represents a major step forward for Spielberg whose earlier boy’s adventures were largely all-male affairs. Aside from Embeth Davidtz’s frightened maid in “Schindler’s List,” Whoopi Goldberg’s martyr-like Celie in “The Color Purple” and Karen Allen’s fiery adventurer in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the Spielberg women are a weightless bunch. Even great actresses like Julianne Moore in “The Lost World” are given gossamer thin screen time.

Here, transported by Kushner’s words, he allows these women to step forward out of the shadows and into history. Next time maybe he’ll let them take center stage.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Psychotherapy’s Image Problem Pushes Some Therapists to Become ‘Brands’

Illustration by Matt Dorfman. Photograph by Jens Mortensen for The New York Times.

In the summer of 2011, after I completed six years of graduate school and internship training and was about to start my psychotherapy practice, I sat down with my clinical supervisor in the Los Angeles office we’d be sharing. It had been a rigorous six years, transitioning from my role as a full-time journalist always on tight deadlines to that of a therapist whose world was broken into slow, thoughtful hours listening and trying to help people come to a deeper understanding of their lives. My supervisor went over the filing systems, billing procedures and ethical quandaries like whether to take referrals from current clients, but we never discussed how I would get these clients. I fully assumed, in what now seems like an astounding fit of naïveté, that I’d send out an e-mail announcement and network with doctors, and to paraphrase “Field of Dreams,” if I built it, they would come.

Except that they didn’t. What nobody taught me in grad school was that psychotherapy, a practice that had sustained itself for more than a century, is losing its customers. If this came as a shock to me, the American Psychological Association tried to send out warnings in a 2010 paper titled, “Where Has all the Psychotherapy Gone?” According to the author, 30 percent fewer patients received psychological interventions in 2008 than they did 11 years earlier; since the 1990s, managed care has increasingly limited visits and reimbursements for talk therapy but not for drug treatment; and in 2005 alone, pharmaceutical companies spent $4.2 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising and $7.2 billion on promotion to physicians, nearly twice what they spent on research and development.

According to the A.P.A., therapists had to start paying attention to what the marketplace demanded or we risked our livelihoods. It wasn’t long before I learned that an entirely new specialized industry had cropped up: branding consultants for therapists.

I couldn’t imagine hiring a branding consultant to lure people to the couch. Psychotherapy is perhaps one of the few commercial businesses that doesn’t see itself as one, that views financial gain as unseemly when connected to the delicate work of emotional insight. Moreover, the field is predicated on strict concepts of authenticity, privacy and therapist-patient boundaries. Branding was the antithesis of what we did.

But a couple of months after setting up my office and waiting for people to call, I found myself wondering — first idly, then deliberately, and always guiltily — about those branding consultants and how exactly they helped therapists like me. Sitting at my desk one morning when my appointment book looked particularly dismal, a combination of curiosity and desperation got the best of me. On Google, I came across a branding consultant named Casey Truffo. Her Web site’s home page spoke directly to my situation: “You are called to be a therapist. Are you also called to poverty?” I immediately dialed her number.

The first thing Truffo told me when I reached her in her Orange County office was that I shouldn’t feel bad about my empty hours; nowadays, she said, even established veterans were struggling. Yes, the economy was bad, but the real issue was that psychotherapy had an image problem.

She told me about a therapist named Sandra Bryson. In 2009, Bryson called for help after her successful Oakland-based practice of 25 years lost patients when she stopped taking insurance. According to Truffo, Bryson shared a problem common to therapists: “a blah-sounding message and no angle.” Bryson had always done well as a generalist — treating anything from depression to grief to marital issues — but Truffo urged her to find a specialty, one that “captured the zeitgeist but didn’t feel played out.” Bryson mentioned that she liked helping parents and had an affinity for technology, and voilà — suddenly she had a brand. Not as a clinician addressing typical parenting issues like boundary-setting, which Truffo called “generic and old-school,” but as an expert who helps modern families navigate digital media. She also became a sought-after speaker on so-called hot issues like screen time, cyberbullying and sexting, and Bryson told me her practice, which is based on “mostly deep work,” had become “more advice-driven.” Now her schedule is full, and her income has increased about 15 percent a year.

“Nobody wants to buy therapy anymore,” Truffo told me. “They want to buy a solution to a problem.” This is something Truffo discovered in her own former private practice of 18 years, during which she saw a shift from people who were unhappy and wanted to understand themselves better to people who would come in “because they wanted someone else or something else to change,” she said. “I’d see fewer and fewer people coming in and saying, ‘I want to change.’ ”

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Rosenthal: Big Ten getting too big for its own good?

There's a lesson the empire builders at Big Ten Conference headquarters in Park Ridge would do well to heed if they can be convinced to stop peering out to the distant horizon:

Growth through acquisition is fraught with peril.

"In the business world you acquire new companies and you have to deal with different corporate cultures, different priorities and so forth," Robert Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, an investment firm, said in an interview. "Merging them is often very messy and often fails. Here you're merging two teams into an existing conference and it creates risks. … Even college football teams have different cultures, different ways of thinking about how to win and different standards."

There undoubtedly was a logic behind each acquisition as the old Sears sought to expand and diversify its corporate profile. By the time the Chicago-area company's portfolio grew to include Allstate insurance, Coldwell Banker real estate and Dean Witter Reynolds stock brokerage, it was clear the increase in size was in no way matched by an increase in strength.

Rather than an all-powerful Colossus astride many sectors at once, it was reduced to an unfocused blob, bereft of identity, covering plenty of ground but hardly standing tall. Years after shedding its far-flung holdings, Sears has yet to regain its muscle, mojo or market share.

"It's hard to find a better example of a company that lost its mission and focus in the quest for growth," Arnott said.

"(Growth) may be partly a defensive move. It may be ego driven. In the corporate arena, you certainly see that in spades," he said. "When growth is through acquisition, you have to figure out what the real motivation is. Is it synergy, the most overused word in the finance community, or is it ego?"

Adding the University of Maryland and New Jersey's Rutgers University in 2014 will push the Big Ten to 14 schools and far beyond the Midwestern territory for which it's known. But doing so may not achieve what its backers envision.

Rather than spread the conference's brand, it may merely dilute it. The fit may be corrosive, not cohesive.

There is a school of thought that this is but the latest evidence that the Big Ten is not about athletics, academics or even the Midwest. Instead, it is just a television network, the schools content providers and student-athletes talent.

As it is, the overall TV payout is said to give each of the 12 current Big Ten schools about $21 million per year. They point to the Big Ten's lucrative deals with ESPN and its own eponymous cable network, a partnership with News Corp. They note that public schools Rutgers and Maryland are near enough to New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to drive a better bargain with cable carriers.

To Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, a New Jersey native, the addition is more the result of a paradigm shift that has redrawn the college sports map over the past decade. Some conferences splinter. Others seize new turf. The result: Idaho's Boise State football team is poised to join the Big East Conference next year.

"Institutions that get together for academics or athletics have got to be cognizant that they are competing for students, they are competing for student athletes, they are competing for research dollars," Delany told reporters.

"When you see a Southern conference in the Midwest or you see a Southern conference in the Plains states or whether you see other conferences in the Midwest or Northeast, it impacts your recruitment. ... It impacts everything you do," he said. "At a certain point you get to a tipping point. The paradigm has shifted, and you decide on a strategy to basically position yourself for the next decade or half-century."

Big has always meant more than 10 in the Big Ten, an intercollegiate entity formed by seven Midwestern universities that now boasts 12 with the bookends of Penn State and Nebraska added in 1990 and last year, respectively. Last week's announcement of adding schools 13 and 14 was just a reminder that the conference has only had 10 member schools for 70 of its 116 years and won't again for the foreseeable future.

Rutgers President Robert Barchi said his school looked "forward as much to the collaboration and interaction we're going to have as institutions as we do to what I know will be really outstanding competition on our field of play."

But make no mistake, the Big Ten was born out of sports, specifically football. A seven-school 1896 meeting at Chicago's Palmer House had Northwestern among those still stinging from a scathing Harper's Weekly critique of college sports abuses, the Tribune reported at the time.

A prohibition on allowing scholarship and fellowship students to compete was shot down. But "a move towards the coordination of Faculty committees" in terms of standards and enforcement passed and the precursor to the Big Ten was born.

Along the way, the conference has added member schools and come to recognize that the Big Ten's image has much to say about how those institutions are perceived. Scandals already are no stranger to the Big Ten. But whether you play in a stadium or on Wall Street, the bigger one gets, the bigger target one becomes.

"Whoever's biggest draws scrutiny," said Arnott, co-author of a research paper, "The Winners Curse: Too Big to Succeed." "That means politicians, regulators, the general public generally don't root for the biggest. They look to take them down a notch, so it's harder to succeed as the largest. It's also harder to move the dial and move from success to success as you get really big."

Everyone talks about becoming too big to fail, but there's also too big to scale, companies that are unable to capitalize on the efficiencies of their increased size ostensibly because they are so big that they cannot be managed adequately.

"People talk about economies of scale. There are also vast diseconomies of scale, mostly in bureaucracies," Arnott said. "The more people you have involved, the more people you have who feel they have to have their views reflected in whatever's done. So you wind up with innovation by committee."

That's deadly. That's why companies break up, citing the need to get smaller so they can grow.

"If you break up companies into operating entities that are more nimble," Arnott said, "the opportunities to grow are no longer hamstrung by centralized bureaucracies that have to pursue synergies that don't exist."

Size matters in all fields of play. Sometimes smaller is better.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Larry Hagman dead at 81

Cast member of the new TV series "Dallas" Larry Hagman arrives at the world premiere of the 40th anniversary restoration of the film "Cabaret" in Hollywood (Fred Prouser Reuters, REUTERS / April 13, 2012)

Reuters

10:43 p.m. CST, November 23, 2012

(Reuters) - Larry Hagman, who created one of American television's most supreme villains in the conniving, amoral oilman J.R. Ewing of "Dallas," died on Friday, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was 81.

Hagman died at a Dallas hospital of complications from his battle with cancer, the newspaper said, quoting a statement from his family. He had suffered from cancer and cirrhosis of the liver in the 1990s after decades of drinking.

Hagman's mother was stage and movie star Mary Martin and he became a star himself in 1965 on "I Dream of Jeannie," a popular television sitcom in which he played Major Anthony Nelson, an astronaut who discovers a beautiful genie in a bottle.

"Dallas," which made its premiere on the CBS network in 1978, made Hagman a superstar. The show quickly became one of the network's top-rated programs, built an international following and inspired a spin-off, imitators and a revival in 2012.

(Writing by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuszinkis; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Research In Motion shares climb

TORONTO (AP) — Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. Jumped nearly 14 percent Friday as investors seemingly grew more optimistic about a February launch of the Canadian company’s much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

RIM will release the latest version of its smartphone “not too long” after a Jan. 30 launch event, Kristian Tear, the company’s chief operating officer, has said.

The new phones are seen as critical to RIM’s survival as the smartphone pioneer struggles in North America to hold on to customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones.

The Waterloo, Ontario, company seems to be preparing for a February global launch, a month earlier than many analysts were expecting, according to an analyst with National Bank Financial, a Canadian bank. Kris Thompson raised his shipments forecast for RIM for fiscal 2014 in a research note from Wednesday.

Thompson also increased his price target for the BlackBerry maker to $ 15 from $ 12.

RIM shares on the Nasdaq closed up $ 1.41, or nearly 14 percent, to $ 11.67 Friday in an abbreviated trading session on Wall Street.

The spike in the BlackBerry maker’s shares came after a week of steady gains amid more positive sentiment.

On Wednesday, shares in Research In Motion gained almost 5 percent on the Toronto Stock Exchange even though it was reported that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board had dropped the BlackBerry maker in favor of Apple’s iPhone 5.

Thompson, the National Bank Financial analyst, was bolstered by RIM’s new management team, which he said is maintaining the BlackBerry smartphone subscriber base, managing costs and cash, and seemingly readying a February 2013 BB10 global product release, a month earlier than expected.

He said certification of the new BlackBerrys by wireless carriers is the key risk to his prediction and estimate of BlackBerry shipments. Carrier certification, which tests the new devices, can take time.

The new BlackBerry 10 system is designed for the touch screen, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now expect. RIM’s current software is still focused on email and messaging and is less user-friendly, agile and robust than iPhone or Android.

Earlier this week, a prominent tech analyst gave RIM’s new operating system a small but improved chance of success. Analyst Peter Misek of New York-based Jefferies & Company said he’s still giving the BlackBerry 10 operating system only a 20 to 30 percent probability of success.

RIM was once Canada‘s most valuable company with a market value of more than $ 80 billion in 2008, but the stock has plummeted since, from over $ 140 per share. Its decline evokes memories of Nortel, another former Canadian tech giant, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Justin Bieber will not face charges from paparazzo run-in

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Teenage pop star Justin Bieber will not face charges for an alleged altercation with a man who was taking photos of him at a suburban shopping center in May, Los Angeles prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Deputy District Attorney Mara McIlvain said in a report there was “insufficient evidence for proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that the Canadian singer scuffled with paparazzo Jose Hernandez-Duran before leaving the shopping center with his girlfriend, actress Selena Gomez.

The photographer accused Bieber, 18, of leaving a van to kick him in the abdomen and punch him in the face. Officials called to the scene in Calabasas, 30 miles west of Los Angeles, found no apparent injury or trauma to the photographer.

A later doctor’s evaluation indicated “minor swelling” to the photographer’s right cheek and “redness” on his lower abdomen but labeled the injuries “superficial.”

McIlvain’s report indicated that Bieber became frustrated when photographers obstructed his vehicle as he attempted to leave the shopping center. He then left the vehicle, charged at Hernandez-Duran and fell after taking a swing at his camera.

Witnesses told investigators they could not determine if Bieber had struck Hernandez-Duran, who kept on taking photos of the singer after the incident. They said the photographer was approached by a lawyer soon after the run-in.

McIlvain said there were no photos of a scuffle between Bieber and Hernandez-Duran, even though many photographers were present.

Bieber’s publicist could not immediately be reached for comment.

The pop star swept the American Music Awards on Sunday, winning three, including the top prize of the night, and performed live during the show.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and David Brunnstrom)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied

DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday.

The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files he had received from the Irish Health Service Executive about the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, including any mention of her requests for an abortion after she learned that the fetus would not survive.

The death of Dr. Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, has focused global attention on the Irish ban on abortion.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, has refused to cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the Irish health agency. “I have seen the way my wife was treated in the hospital, so I have no confidence that the H.S.E. will do justice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday night on RTE, the state television broadcaster. “Basically, I don’t have any confidence in the H.S.E.”

In a tense debate in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday evening, Robert Dowds of the Labour Party said Dr. Halappanavar’s death had forced politicians “to confront an issue we have dodged for much too long,” partly because so many Irish women travel to Britain for abortions.

“The reality is that if Britain wasn’t on our doorstep, we would have had to introduce abortion legislation years ago to avoid women dying in back-street abortions,” he said.

After the debate, the Parliament voted 88 to 53 against a motion introduced by the opposition Sinn Fein party calling on the government to allow abortions when women’s lives are in danger and to protect doctors who perform such procedures.

The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins — who is restricted by the Constitution from getting involved in political matters — also made a rare foray into a political debate on Wednesday, saying any inquiry must meet the needs of the Halappanavar family as well as the government.

In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court interpreted the current law to mean that abortion should be allowed in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,” including the threat of suicide. But that ruling has never been codified into law.

“The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan, of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told RTE last week. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”

Dr. Ruth Cullen, who has campaigned against abortion, said that any legislation to codify the Supreme Court ruling would be tantamount to allowing abortion on demand and that Dr. Halappanavar’s death should not be used to make that change.

Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood infection, septicemia, and died Oct. 28, a week after she was admitted to Galway University Hospital with severe back pains. She was 17 weeks pregnant but having a miscarriage and was told that the fetus — a girl — would not survive. Her husband said she asked several times for an abortion but was informed that under Irish law it would be illegal while there was a fetal heartbeat, because “this is a Catholic country.”

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Walmart protests draw crowds, shoppers largely unfazed

Dozens of local workers, and hundreds nationally, took advantage of Black Friday crowds and camera crews at major retailers like Walmart to call for wage increases.

But there was little evidence that the chanting disrupted holiday shoppers.

Steven Restivo, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said the chain had done its "best Black Friday event ever" despite protests organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Chicago and other cities.

At a Walmart in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood on the south side, only one of the store's 500 employees took part in the demonstration, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said. "Almost all the folks you'll see protesting today are not Walmart associates," Restivo said. "I guess you can't believe everything you read in a union press release."

According to the union, protests took place in Miami and Washington, D.C., with additional events planned at Midwestern and Southern stores.

Walmart has so far avoided a union presence, which has become cumbersome for competitors like Jewel-Osco and Dominick's Finer Foods. Those chains have been closing stores as Walmart has expanded locally.

Separately Friday, dozens of members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago and its supporters marched from the Loop to the Magnificent Mile to demand a $15 minimum wage and union contracts for downtown workers. Organized on November 15, the union has about 150 members and has received financial support from Service Employees International Union, Action Now and Stand Up Chicago.

Deborah Sims, marching Friday, said she worked at Macy's for 12 years, eventually making $13 an hour, before losing her job during the recession. She was rehired last holiday season, but at $8.50 an hour, with no benefits.

Sims said she expects retailers to turn to younger, less-experienced workers because "$8.25 an hour is going to look good to them."

Macy's did not respond to a request for comment.

Peter Gill, a spokesman for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, called the demand for a $15 minimum wage dangerous "because people are out looking for jobs and it's tough in this economy."

He explained that if retailers were forced to nearly double the starting hourly wage, "you're going to have to cut the number of employees."

Reuters contributed to this story.

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Black Friday shopping gets an early start in Chicago

After dinner at a Maggiano's restaurant, the Tannehill/Schroeder clan headed over to Sears at Woodfield Mall in search of a 50-inch flat-screen TV for less than $300.

After 10 minutes of waiting in line, they breezed into the store. That's when Terri Schroeder, of Chicago, began to yell. "Hurry, grab a TV," she said to her sister-in-law, Margie Tannehill, of West Chicago. Both women laughed.

As it turns out, the family of eight waited in the wrong line at the wrong door at Sears. Vouchers for the 50-inch TV and other discounted "door-busters" were given out at another entrance, and they missed their chance to snag the coveted TV.

After making their way through the swarming crowd, they found another TV, and both women grabbed it. They settled on a smaller, less expensive 32-inch flat-screen set that at $250 was on sale but not a door-buster that had throngs of shoppers waiting in line at Sears since Thursday afternoon.

"This is not the one we wanted, but we're keeping it," Schroeder said with a giggle.

She joined throngs of shoppers who cut off Thanksgiving celebrations to turn their attention to preparing for the December holiday season, which typically accounts for up to 40 percent of retailers' sales.

Black Friday historically launched the day after Thanksgiving. But in recent years, stores have opened at 4 a.m., then midnight. Last year, retailers created a stir by opening at 10 p.m. Thursday. This year, Wal-Mart upped the ante when it announced plans to open at 8 p.m.

Taryan Sanders and Maurice Boston, both 25, were among those hanging out at the Wal-Mart in Humboldt Park, waiting for the 8 p.m. round of door-busters.

With a cart already filled with playthings like a Monster High doll, toy puppy and scooter (they'd been at the store since 4 p.m.), the couple stationed themselves near a pallet of Nerf gun sets that would go on sale for $10 each, items they eyed for Sanders' younger brothers.

"Gotta get the door-busters for my daughter and two brothers," Sanders said. "I already ate, and I'm out ready to get my shop on!"

This year, holiday spending is expected to rise 4.1 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year, more than 24 percent of Black Friday shoppers were out before midnight, and nearly 39 percent of shoppers were in the stores before 5 a.m.

A recent survey from the consulting firm Deloitte shows that Chicago-area consumers plan to spend about 10 percent more on gifts this year, shelling out an average of $450. Most also expect the national economy to pick up in 2013 — their most positive outlook since 2009.

Beyond early Thanksgiving openings, retailers have also vied to outdo one another by offering Black Friday-esque discounts — in stores and online — nearly a week early.

"First blood is everything," said Wendy Liebmann, CEO and chief shopper at WSL Strategic Retail, a New York-based consumer behavior research firm. "This is really the first year where we've seen a vast majority of retailers decide that Thanksgiving Day is no longer sacrosanct."

Retailers are pulling out all the stops, from offering gift cards as incentives to shoppers who buy higher-priced items to touting deeper-than-ever discounts on popular items such as televisions and tablets. They'll send coupons to shoppers' phones, and many will promise to match rivals' prices.

"The earlier you can get people to open their wallets, the better," Liebmann said. "The uncertainty of life is such that you don't know what people will spend throughout the (holiday) season. So get 'em when you can."

With Black Friday bleeding into Thursday, the type of shopper prowling for good deals was expected to change, industry watchers said.

Mothers and families typically hit the stores Friday. But this year, retail watchers say men were expected to make a strong showing Thursday night. Big-spending millennials might also be inclined to soak up the partylike atmosphere.

The earlier hours open a window to "appeal to a wider array of customers," said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm NPD Group.

Some things stay the same, though. As in years past, shoppers are angling to get more bang for their buck. Flat-screen TVs have always been big Black Friday sellers, but this year, they are expected to be larger and cheaper. TVs and laptops, annual best-sellers, are expected to hit a new price low, experts say.

Wal-Mart greeted Thursday night shoppers with deeply discounted TVs, video game consoles and Blu-ray players. At Sears, shoppers were met with on-sale tablet computers, washer and dryer sets, refrigerators and more TVs, among other items.

To prepare for the crowds, retailers have bolstered employee ranks and stepped up training. They have also staggered door-buster deals.

Toys R Us, which opened at 8 p.m. Thursday, distributed tickets to shoppers lined up for door-buster deals such as a 16-gigabyte iPod accompanied by $50 in gift cards, to avoid a "mad rush," CEO Jerry Storch told the Tribune in an interview. "It de-stresses the crowd," he said.

At electronics seller Best Buy, which opened at midnight, store managers have been giving staff crash courses in customer service and product knowledge, said Mitchell Zelasko, sales manager at the retailer's Bucktown location. The chain has hired more than 20,000 employees nationwide for its stores, distribution centers and customer service centers to support the holiday rush.

Locally, Best Buy planned to boost security for the shopping kickoff Friday, keep employees well-fed and in the store by ordering food and bringing in off-duty Chicago police officers to help keep order.

"Things can change very quickly in a mob situation," Zelasko said. "We keep things under control and we keep it fun."

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.

crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter @corilyns

Read More..

Ex-’Price is Right’ model gets $8.5M in damages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.

The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $ 777,000 in actual damages.

Cochran, 41, said she was rejected when she tried to return to work in early 2010 after taking maternity leave. The jury agreed and determined that FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions owed her more than $ 8.5 million in all.

“I’m humbled. I’m shocked,” Cochran said after the jury announced its verdict. “I’m happy that justice was served today not only for women in the entertainment industry, but women in the workplace.”

FremantleMedia said it was standing by its previous statement, which said it expected to be “fully vindicated” after an appeal.

“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant,” and further “important” evidence, FremantleMedia said.

In their defense, producers said they were satisfied with the five models working on the show at the time Cochran sought to return.

Several other former models have sued the series and its longtime host, Bob Barker, who retired in 2007.

Most of the cases involving “Barker’s Beauties” — the nickname given the gown-wearing women who presented prizes to contestants — ended with out-of-court settlements.

Comedian-actor Drew Carey followed Barker as the show’s host.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Apple Pear Strudel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer.

Filling for 2 strudels:

1/2 pound mixed dried fruit, like raisins, currants, chopped dried figs, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries

1 1/2 pounds apples (3 large) (I recommend Braeburns), peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons unsalted butter for cooking the apples

1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup (30 grams) chopped or slivered almonds

3/4 pound (1 large or 2 small) ripe but firm pears, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice

For each strudel:

8 sheets phyllo dough

7/8 cup (100 grams) almond powder, divided

1 1/2 ounces butter, melted, for brushing the phyllo

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment.

2. Place the dried fruit in a bowl and pour on hot or boiling water to cover. Let sit 5 minutes, and drain. Toss the apples with the lemon juice.

3. Heat a large, heavy frying pan over high heat and add 2 tablespoons butter. Wait until it becomes light brown and carefully add the apples and the sugar. Do not add the apples until the pan and the butter are hot enough, or they won’t sear properly and retain their juice. But be careful when you add them so that the hot butter doesn’t splatter. When the apples are brown on one side, add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds, flip the apples and continue to sauté until golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the pears and dried fruit, then scrape out onto one of the lined sheet pans and allow to cool completely. Divide into two equal portions (easiest to do this if you weigh it).

4. Place 8 sheets of phyllo dough on your work surface. Cover with a dish towel and place another, damp dish towel on top of the first towel. Place a sheet of parchment on your work surface horizontally, with the long edge close to you. Lay a sheet of phyllo dough on the parchment. Brush lightly with butter and top with the next sheet. Continue to layer all eight sheets, brushing each one with butter before topping with the next one.

5. Brush the top sheet of phyllo dough with butter. Sprinkle on half of the almond powder (50 grams). With the other half, create a line 3 inches from the base of the dough, leaving a 2 1/2-inch margin on the sides. Top this line with one portion of the fruit mixture. Fold the bottom edge of the phyllo up over the filling, then fold the ends over and roll up like a burrito. Using the parchment paper to help you, lift the strudel and place it on the other parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with butter and make 3 or 4 slits on the diagonal along the length of the strudel. Repeat with the other sheets of phyllo to make a second strudel. If you are freezing one of them, double-wrap tightly in plastic.

6. Place the strudel in the oven and bake 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush again with butter, rotate the pan and return to the oven. Continue to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Yield: 2 strudels, each serving 8

Advance preparation: The fruit filling will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator. The strudel can be baked a few hours before serving it. Recrisp in a medium oven for 10 minutes. It can also be frozen before baking, double-wrapped in plastic. Transfer directly from the freezer to the oven and add 10 minutes to the baking time.

Nutritional information per serving: 259 calories; 13 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 15 milligrams cholesterol; 34 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 91 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Chicago shopping frenzy gets early start

After dinner at a Maggiano's restaurant, the Tannehill/Schroeder clan headed over to Sears at Woodfield Mall in search of a 50-inch flat-screen TV for less than $300.

After 10 minutes of waiting in line, they breezed into the store. That's when Terri Schroeder, of Chicago, began to yell. "Hurry, grab a TV," she said to her sister-in-law, Margie Tannehill, of West Chicago. Both women laughed.

As it turns out, the family of eight waited in the wrong line at the wrong door at Sears. Vouchers for the 50-inch TV and other discounted "door-busters" were given out at another entrance, and they missed their chance to snag the coveted TV.

After making their way through the swarming crowd, they found another TV, and both women grabbed it. They settled on a smaller, less expensive 32-inch flat-screen set that at $250 was on sale but not a door-buster that had throngs of shoppers waiting in line at Sears since Thursday afternoon.

"This is not the one we wanted, but we're keeping it," Schroeder said with a giggle.

She joined throngs of shoppers who cut off Thanksgiving celebrations to turn their attention to preparing for the December holiday season, which typically accounts for up to 40 percent of retailers' sales.

Black Friday historically launched the day after Thanksgiving. But in recent years, stores have opened at 4 a.m., then midnight. Last year, retailers created a stir by opening at 10 p.m. Thursday. This year, Wal-Mart upped the ante when it announced plans to open at 8 p.m.

Taryan Sanders and Maurice Boston, both 25, were among those hanging out at the Wal-Mart in Humboldt Park, waiting for the 8 p.m. round of door-busters.

With a cart already filled with playthings like a Monster High doll, toy puppy and scooter (they'd been at the store since 4 p.m.), the couple stationed themselves near a pallet of Nerf gun sets that would go on sale for $10 each, items they eyed for Sanders' younger brothers.

"Gotta get the door-busters for my daughter and two brothers," Sanders said. "I already ate, and I'm out ready to get my shop on!"

This year, holiday spending is expected to rise 4.1 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year, more than 24 percent of Black Friday shoppers were out before midnight, and nearly 39 percent of shoppers were in the stores before 5 a.m.

A recent survey from the consulting firm Deloitte shows that Chicago-area consumers plan to spend about 10 percent more on gifts this year, shelling out an average of $450. Most also expect the national economy to pick up in 2013 — their most positive outlook since 2009.

Beyond early Thanksgiving openings, retailers have also vied to outdo one another by offering Black Friday-esque discounts — in stores and online — nearly a week early.

"First blood is everything," said Wendy Liebmann, CEO and chief shopper at WSL Strategic Retail, a New York-based consumer behavior research firm. "This is really the first year where we've seen a vast majority of retailers decide that Thanksgiving Day is no longer sacrosanct."

Retailers are pulling out all the stops, from offering gift cards as incentives to shoppers who buy higher-priced items to touting deeper-than-ever discounts on popular items such as televisions and tablets. They'll send coupons to shoppers' phones, and many will promise to match rivals' prices.

"The earlier you can get people to open their wallets, the better," Liebmann said. "The uncertainty of life is such that you don't know what people will spend throughout the (holiday) season. So get 'em when you can."

With Black Friday bleeding into Thursday, the type of shopper prowling for good deals was expected to change, industry watchers said.

Mothers and families typically hit the stores Friday. But this year, retail watchers say men were expected to make a strong showing Thursday night. Big-spending millennials might also be inclined to soak up the partylike atmosphere.

The earlier hours open a window to "appeal to a wider array of customers," said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm NPD Group.

Some things stay the same, though. As in years past, shoppers are angling to get more bang for their buck. Flat-screen TVs have always been big Black Friday sellers, but this year, they are expected to be larger and cheaper. TVs and laptops, annual best-sellers, are expected to hit a new price low, experts say.

Wal-Mart greeted Thursday night shoppers with deeply discounted TVs, video game consoles and Blu-ray players. At Sears, shoppers were met with on-sale tablet computers, washer and dryer sets, refrigerators and more TVs, among other items.

To prepare for the crowds, retailers have bolstered employee ranks and stepped up training. They have also staggered door-buster deals.

Toys R Us, which opened at 8 p.m. Thursday, distributed tickets to shoppers lined up for door-buster deals such as a 16-gigabyte iPod accompanied by $50 in gift cards, to avoid a "mad rush," CEO Jerry Storch told the Tribune in an interview. "It de-stresses the crowd," he said.

At electronics seller Best Buy, which opened at midnight, store managers have been giving staff crash courses in customer service and product knowledge, said Mitchell Zelasko, sales manager at the retailer's Bucktown location. The chain has hired more than 20,000 employees nationwide for its stores, distribution centers and customer service centers to support the holiday rush.

Locally, Best Buy planned to boost security for the shopping kickoff Friday, keep employees well-fed and in the store by ordering food and bringing in off-duty Chicago police officers to help keep order.

"Things can change very quickly in a mob situation," Zelasko said. "We keep things under control and we keep it fun."

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.

crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter @corilyns

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Jesse Jackson Jr. resigns, acknowledges federal probe

Chicago Tribune reporter Rick Pearson discusses the resignation of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). (Posted on: Nov. 21, 2012.)

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., the ambitious political heir to a powerful Chicago family whose once promising future collapsed amid federal ethics investigations and a diagnosis of mental illness, resigned Wednesday from the South Side congressional seat he held for 17 years.

Jackson's downfall represents perhaps the last major political casualty in the long-running corruption scandal that sent former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to prison in March on charges he tried to sell the Senate seat of President Barack Obama.

Jackson's political star was on the rise until allegations surfaced in late 2008 that his supporters offered to raise as much as $6 million for Blagojevich in return for the governor appointing him to the Senate seat vacated by the president-elect. Though Jackson was never charged in that case, a House ethics panel investigation into his actions was ultimately eclipsed by a federal criminal probe based in Washington, D.C., into alleged misuse of campaign dollars.

Jackson's resignation letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was Jackson's first acknowledgment of the ongoing federal corruption investigation.

"I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone," Jackson said in the two-page letter. "None of us is immune from our share of shortcomings or human frailties, and I pray that I will be remembered for what I did right."

Jackson's Washington legal team, which recently added former federal prosecutor Dan Webb, a Chicago partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, indicated that while Jackson's political fate has been settled, there's more to come in a court of law.

"We hope to negotiate a fair resolution of the matter but the process could take several months," they said in the statement.

Despite admitting "my share of mistakes," Jackson said his deteriorating health — and treatment for bipolar depression — kept him from serving as a "full-time legislator" and was the reason for his resignation.

Jackson's decision to step down came little more than two weeks after his re-election to another two-year term despite a lack of campaigning. He disappeared from the public eye in June after taking a medical leave from the House for what aides had initially described as exhaustion.

Jackson formed a political tag-team with his wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson, 7th, who over the years has received hundreds of thousands of dollars as a paid political consultant to her husband. Despite her role on the City Council, the couple maintained an upscale home in Washington and sent their children to school there. Sandi Jackson has refused to discuss her husband's political future or the investigation into his campaign spending. She could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

Jackson's resignation immediately launched a field of possible successors —to be nominated and elected in special elections early next year — that could involve more than a dozen Democratic contenders, some of them political has-beens and others up-and-comers representing a new generation of leadership.

Under state law, Gov. Pat Quinn has five days to set dates for primary and general elections, which must be held by mid-March.

Some Democrats quickly offered to broker a nominee to avoid several African-American contenders splitting the vote in the heavily Democratic and majority black 2nd Congressional District, which could allow a white candidate to win. The district stretches from the South Side through the suburbs and as far as Kankakee.

Jackson's decision to leave office brought to an end a monthslong, consuming political game over the 47-year-old congressman's ability to serve his constituents.

In the congressman's public absence during the re-election campaign, both his father, civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., and Sandi Jackson sought to maintain the family's political power by offering generic statements about his health, thanking voters for their prayers and promising a return to Congress when his health permitted.

Ald. Carrie Austin, 34th, whose far South Side ward is in Jackson's district, said she wasn't surprised Jackson stepped down but was disappointed with him for misleading his constituents.

"He's lost the love and concern of the residents in his district," Austin said. "We gave him the benefit of the doubt because of his sickness, and it didn't have anything to do with that."

Jackson was first elected to Congress in 1995 in a special election to replace former Rep. Mel Reynolds, who was convicted on charges including sexual misconduct with a 16-year-old campaign aide and federal bank fraud.

In Washington, Jackson steadily moved up the ladder in a legislative chamber where seniority is a valued commodity to become Illinois' lone representative on the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

At home, he began building a local political organization in the South Side and south suburbs, an operation which successful supplanted the once powerful Shaw brothers, twins Bill and Bob, who held various posts.

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Exclusive: TV networks start seven-day ratings push with advertisers

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. television broadcast networks are taking the first steps to persuade advertisers to pay for commercial viewership that occurs up to seven days after a program airs, a shift that would provide a new revenue stream to help combat ratings erosion.

The networks argue that the rising popularity of digital video recorders is pushing a sizeable number of viewers to delay watching their favorite programs beyond the first three days, the time period most often used for calculating ad payments.

Some advertisers are ready to make the move to a seven-day metric. One of the big four networks, Walt Disney Co’s ABC, earlier this year reached deals with some sponsors that bring in payments for eyeballs counted between days four and seven.

The other broadcasters have begun talks with advertisers and hope to convince them to switch to the longer window in time for the “upfront” selling season that starts early next year, when billions of dollars in ad commitments will be made, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Since 2007, most TV ad time has been bought and sold based on “C3,” a ratings measurement based of the average number of commercial minutes watched during a program either live or within three days of its airing.

TV networks want advertisers to shift to “C7,” which captures commercials watched within seven days.

Advertisers hesitate to pay for the added days, particularly for time-sensitive ads pitching a department store’s one-day sale or the opening of a summer movie blockbuster. Media buyers are pushing for precise measurements of each commercial viewed, rather than an average for an entire program, as well as a tabulation of how many people are watching on mobile devices.

The debate intensified after Nielsen data showed a sharp decline in three-day viewing at the start of the fall TV season compared with last year.

The drop is partly due to “the greater penetration of DVRs and the greater usage of DVRs, which clearly have shifted the rating in the direction of C3, and ultimately, hopefully, C7,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told analysts on a November 8 conference call.

Most viewing of network prime time shows still takes place within three days. But the post-three day viewers are growing and can be significant. Ratings for ABC comedy hit “Modern Family” increased by 5 percent, to 6.5 million viewers age 18 to 49 viewers, when counted by the C7 measurement instead of C3.

The later viewers also are among the most-coveted by advertisers, according to ABC research, which showed people who watched a show after three days were more highly educated and had higher incomes. For days four through seven, “the people who are doing the viewing are some of the most desirable available from an advertiser’s perspective,” said Charles Kennedy, senior vice president of research for ABC and the ABC Family cable network.

Earlier this year, ABC made deals with some sponsors to pay for ad time based on C7 numbers, ABC spokesman Kevin Brockman said. “We expect to do more of them if they make sense for us and our clients,” Brockman said.

At CBS, the flagship network of CBS Corp, CEO Leslie Moonves has been outspoken in pressing for a C7 metric and said it “represents a significant opportunity for us that is still in the very early stages.”

“As we move forward, we will make it a priority to get paid for all of the viewing that is going on across our shows, including DVR viewing beyond C3,” Moonves told analysts on a November 7 conference call.

Advertisers are not ready to commit to the switch and will be looking for something in return if they agree to a longer window. Timing is a big concern for many brands that want to get a message out to large numbers of consumers during a specific time period. Some commercials lose their value for sponsors over a few days.

“In moving to C7, you’ve got to be careful because you are taking away some of the advantage of why clients buy television,” said Sam Armando, director of strategic intelligence for SMGx, a division of media buying agency Starcom MediaVest Group.

Advertisers believe simply adding more days to the current metric fails to adequately capture viewership. Brands are lobbying for a more precise measurement that tracks viewership of each commercial, rather than an average for a program over a time period, they say. They also want information on how many people see their ads on programs watched on computers or Internet-connected mobile devices like phones and tablets.

“If the industry is going to make a move, we need to consider it all before we just make a little baby step to C7,” Armando said.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Edited by Ronald Grover and Andrew Hay)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Man of Steel” Trailer to Play Before “The Hobbit”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Director Zack Snyder has told MTV News that a trailer for “Man of Steel” will play before “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” when it opens on December 14.

“It’s fun. I can’t wait for ‘The Hobbit,’ so it will be fun to see our crazy ‘Man of Steel’ trailer and then enjoy ‘The Hobbit’ because tat’s going to be great,” Snyder told the network.

A teaser trailer for the feature was released earlier this year. “Man of Steel” opens on June 14, 2013.

Both films are distributed by Warner Bros., which declined to comment.

Earlier this month, it was announced that nine minutes of the “Star Trek” sequel “Star Trek Into Darkness” would be shown in 500 select theaters before the IMAX version of “The Hobbit.”

Russell Crowe stars in “Man of Steel.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Officials Warn Against Baby Sleep Positioners

Health officials are warning parents not to use a special device designed to help keep babies in certain positions as they sleep. The device, called a sleep positioner, has been linked to at least 13 deaths in the last 15 years, officials with two federal agencies said on Wednesday.

“We urge parents and caregivers to take our warning seriously and stop using these sleep positioners,” Inez Tenenbaum, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a statement.

The sleep positioner devices come primarily in two forms. One is a flat mat with soft bolsters on each side. The other, known as a wedge-style positioner, looks very similar but has an incline, keeping a child in a very slight upright position.

Makers of the devices claim that by keeping infants in a specific position as they sleep, they can prevent several conditions, including acid reflux and flat head syndrome, a deformation caused by pressure on one part of the skull. Many are also marketed to parents as a way to help reduce a child’s risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, which kills thousands of babies every year, most between the ages of 2 months and 4 months.

But the devices have never been shown in studies to prevent SIDS, and they may actually raise the likelihood of sudden infant death, officials say. One of the leading risk factors for sudden infant death is placing a baby on his or her stomach at bedtime, and health officials have routinely warned parents to lay babies on their backs. They even initiated a “Back to Sleep” campaign in the 1990s, which led to a sharp reduction in sudden infant deaths.

With the positioner devices, if an infant rolls onto the stomach, the child’s mouth and nose can press up against a bolster or some other part of the device, leading to suffocation. Even if placed on the back, a child can move up or down in the positioner, “entrapping its face against a bolster or becoming trapped between the positioner and the crib side,” Gail Gantt, a nurse consultant with the Food and Drug Administration, said in an e-mail. Or the child might scoot down the wedge in a way that causes the child’s mouth and nose to press into the device.

“The baby’s movement may also cause the positioner to flip on top of the baby, trapping the baby underneath the positioner or between the positioner and the side of the crib,” she said.

Of the 13 babies known to have suffocated in a sleep positioner since 1997, most died after they rolled from their sides onto their stomachs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has also received dozens of reports of babies who were placed on their sides or backs, “only to be found later in hazardous positions within or next to the product,” the F.D.A. said in a statement.

Many baby books for new parents specifically urge against using sleep positioners, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not support their use for SIDS prevention. Though the F.D.A. has never approved the positioners for the prevention of SIDS, it has in the past approved a number of the devices for the prevention of gastroesophageal reflux disease and flat head syndrome. But the agency said that in light of the new safety data, it believed any benefits from using the devices were outweighed by the risk of suffocation.

As of Wednesday, the agency is explicitly advising parents to stop using sleep positioners, and it has asked manufacturers of the devices to submit clinical data showing that the benefits of their products outweigh the risk of serious harm. In addition to avoiding the devices, experts say, parents should keep things like pillows, comforters, quilts and bumpers away from their infants and their cribs. Soft bedding can increase the likelihood of a baby suffocating.

“The safest crib is a bare crib,” Dr. Susan Cummins, a pediatric expect with the F.D.A., said in a statement. “Always put your baby on his or her back to sleep. An easy way to remember this is to follow the ABC’s of safe sleep – Alone on the Back in a bare Crib.”

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Judge to let Hostess liquidation proceed

Hostess Brands Inc. on Wednesday won permission from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to begin shutting down, and expressed optimism it will find new homes for many of its iconic brands, which include Twinkies, Drake's cakes and Wonder Bread.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York authorized management, led by restructuring specialist Gregory Rayburn, to immediately begin efforts to wind down the 82-year-old company, a process expected to take one year.

"It appears clear to me that the debtors have taken the right course in seeking to implement the wind-down plan as promptly as possible," Drain said near the end of a four-hour hearing.

The judge authorized Hostess to begin the liquidation process one day after his last-ditch mediation effort between the Irving, Texas-based company and its striking bakers' union broke down.

Roughly 15,000 workers were expected to lose their jobs immediately, and most of the remaining 3,200 would be let go within four months.

"This is a tragedy, and we're well aware of it," Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess, told the judge. "We are trying to be as sensitive as we can possibly be under the circumstances to the human cost of this."

Lennox said Hostess has received a "flood of inquiries" from potential buyers for several brands that could be sold at auction, and expects initial bidders within a few weeks.

Joshua Scherer, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, which is advising Hostess, said the company was in "active dialogue" over its Drake's brand with one "very interested" party that had toured a New Jersey plant on Tuesday.

He said that regional bakeries, national rivals, private equity firms and others have also expressed interest in various brands and that more than 50 nondisclosure agreements have been signed.

"These are iconic brands that people love," Scherer said.

While prospective buyers were not identified at the hearing, bankers have said rivals including Flowers Foods Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV were likely to be interested in some of the brands.

Representatives of neither company responded on Wednesday to requests for comment.

Scherer said Hostess could be worth $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion in a normal bankruptcy, an amount equal to its annual revenue. It also has about $900 million of secured debt and faces up to about $150 million of administrative claims.

Scherer expects a discount in this case because plants have already been closed and Hostess' value could fall further if the liquidation were dragged out.

"I've had buyers tell me, 'Josh, the longer it takes, the less value I'm going to be able to pay you,' " he said.

Hostess decided to liquidate on Nov. 16, saying it was losing about $1 million per day after the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, representing close to one-third of its workers, went on strike a week earlier.

The bakers union walked out after Drain authorized Hostess to impose pay and benefit cuts, which the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hostess' largest union, had accepted.

Hostess has about 33 plants, plus three it decided to close after the strike began, as well as 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores.

Many of the 3,200 workers expected to stay on will help shut these properties and prepare them for sale. Hostess expects to need only about 200 employees by late March.

Rayburn, a former chief restructuring officer for the bankrupt phone company WorldCom Inc., said that letting 15,000 workers go now helps preserve their ability to obtain unemployment benefits.

"I need to maximize the value of the estate, but I need to do the best I can for my employees," he said.

Hostess filed for Chapter 11 protection on Jan. 11, its second bankruptcy filing in less than three years.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

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Bartender wounded in hotel stabbing: 'It was bone-chilling'

Bradford Burner didn't stop to think when he heard a blood-curdling scream and saw a man race through the Westin Hotel and into the streets of the Magnificent Mile still crowded from the Festival of Lights. He gave chase.

"The way the person screamed, 'Stop that person!' — it was bone-chilling," said Burner, 35, who was bartending Saturday night at the Westin's Grill on the Alley restaurant. "I just reacted."

Speaking out Tuesday for the first time, Burner said the man displayed a knife as he closed in on him near some shops at the Hancock building.

"Someone yelled something. The gentleman turned around (and) saw me coming toward him," Burner told Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass on WLS-AM 890. "The next thing I know, he was lunging at me with a sharp object."

Burner was cut on the left side of his chest and fell to the sidewalk.

"I was like, 'What the hell just happened?'" Burner told the Tribune after his radio interview.

Police and prosecutors said Jimmy Harris had tried to rob an Oak Brook doctor, Mir Jafar Shah, in the restaurant bathroom and stabbed and struck him during a scuffle before fleeing. Harris, 56, a parolee with 60 arrests who had just been freed from prison eight days earlier, is being held without bond on charges of attempted murder, aggravated battery and unlawful restraint.

In the radio interview, Burner said that after he had been cut on the chest, the assailant ran across the street before slowing down, trying to blend in among the families strolling along North Michigan Avenue.

"I looked right over at him. He paused for two seconds and looked directly back at me, and then he proceeded down the steps," Burner said. "His demeanor was that of a person trying to get away ... sacrifice everything to get away from the situation."

Burner recalled that parents and their small children stared down at him as he lay bleeding. He decided not to wait for an ambulance and hailed a cab. He hopped in and asked the driver, "What was the fastest he could get me to Northwestern (Memorial) Hospital?"

"The taxi driver was freaked out," Burner said. "He was like, 'Are you crazy?' I said, I'm really serious about this,'" said Burner, showing the cabbie his bloodied shirt and vest.

Burner said he tipped the driver — how much, he can't remember — before going inside to be stitched up for the deep wound.

Burner bristled at being called a hero.

"My heart goes out to (Shah) and their whole family that they had to go through this tragedy," Burner said. "I was just trying to stop an individual that was doing something wrong."

Tribune reporter Jason Meisner contributed.

wlee@tribune.com

Twitter: @MidnoirCowboy

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Eric Stonestreet Wasn’t Drunk, He Swears

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: What Happens When You Sing ‘All Night Long’ All Night Long

So if you were one of the few people watching the American Music Awards, (which no one watched) you may have seen Eric Stonestreet be a little tipsy. But that isn’t half as enjoyable as watching Eric Stonestreet watching himself be a little tipsy that night. (Also, wow, he’s sort of a bro.)

RELATED: Modern Family Is Scary

RELATED: ‘Seven Psychocats’ and the 50 Best Bond Moments in 007 Minutes

A few days ago we found out that Paul Rudd was in play called Grace on Broadway because … (wait for it) someone in the balcony puked on the audience members during the play. Four days late we can laugh at the whole thing. Mostly because we weren’t barfed on: 

RELATED: A ‘Mad Men’ Rickroll and the Man That Destroys Carnival Games

RELATED: A Video to Restore Our Faith in Humanity and a Glacier Tsunami

Here’s how to make some magic. What you’ll need: 

(1) Canadian newscaster with chubby fingers

(1) Technology

(1) Drunk piece of technology

Voila: 

And finally. Thanksgiving is upon us!  Today we’re thankful for squirrels who like to eat plastic: 

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Life of Pi” and “Rise of Guardians” Debut, but It’s Still “Twilight” Time at Box Office

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ang Lee‘s lyrical epic “Life of Pi,” the computer-animated 3D holiday tale “Rise of the Guardians” and the “Red Dawn” reboot all debut in theaters Wednesday, as the holiday movie season kicks into high gear.

But the current No. 1, “Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2,” will almost surely out-earn the newcomers and dominate the Thanksgiving weekend box office, with a second week that analysts are projecting will hit $ 65 million over the five days. DreamWorks Animation‘s “Rise of the Guardians” will wind up with around $ 55 million and run second, they say.

Add in sturdy holdovers like Sony’s record-breaking James Bond movie “Skyfall” and Disney’s animated “Wreck-It Ralph,” along with expanding awards hopefuls “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” and it shapes up as a very busy weekend at the cineplexes.

Summit Entertainment’s “Breaking Dawn 2″ remains in 4,070 theaters after rolling up $ 141 million in its U.S. debut last weekend.

That was the year’s fourth best opening – behind “The Avengers,” “Dark Knight Rises” and “The Hunger Games” – but fell short of the franchise-best $ 142.8 million set by “New Moon” in 2009. “Breaking Dawn” is expected to play more strongly abroad than domestically, and the first-week numbers reflect that: It took in nearly $ 200 million in its first week of release overseas.

“In the U.S., it didn’t get that finale bump that the last Harry Potter movie did, which was surprising,” Exhibitor Relations senior analyst Jeff Bock told TheWrap, “Its fan base was committed, but Summit couldn’t expand it beyond that.”

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2″ opened to $ 169 million in 2011, well ahead of “Deathly Hallows 2,” which opened to $ 125 million the previous year.

“Skyfall,” which took in $ 41 million in its second week as it became the top-grossing Bond film of all time, is looking at a five-day total of around $ 39 million, the analysts say. Its worldwide gross now stands at $ 672 million, $ 507 million of which has come from overseas.

Buoyed by surprisingly strong results, Disney is expanding “Lincoln” into roughly 2,000 theaters, up from 1,775, on Friday. The DreamWorks Oscar contender was a surprise No. 3 finisher with $ 21 million last weekend, well above analysts’ and the studio’s projections. It’s projected to finish with $ 24 million over the long weekend.

Among the newcomers, Oscar contender “The Life of Pi” is the most difficult to peg in terms of box-office potential.

It’s hard to imagine a tale tougher to bring to the screen than Yann Martel’s 2001 saga of an Indian youth lost at sea with a ravenous Bengal tiger aboard his small lifeboat and their ensuing adventures. But Lee brought martial arts (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and gay cowboys (“Brokeback Mountain”) into the movie mainstream, and he’s employed the highest-tech digital tools to bring David Magee’s adaptation to life in 3D.

Indian Suraj Sharma, who was 17 and had no acting experience when he shot “Pi,” plays the lead and spends a good bit of the film alone in a boat with the tiger.

The critics love it (92 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes), calling it gorgeous, innovative and a provocative and soulful examination of faith. Those are admirable qualities in a film, but hardly requisites for – or a guarantee of – box office success.

Fox has the PG-rated “Pi” in 2,700 theaters and it will have the advantage of premium pricing going for it. Analysts see it opening with about $ 25 million over the five days, and feel its long-term playability will hinge on word-of-mouth and awards buzz.

In terms of the box office, the most comparable film could be last year’s Martin Scorsese-directed 3D family adventure “Hugo.” Paramount opened that film around the same time last year to $ 11 million, and it went on to make $ 73 million, $ 185 million worldwide.

With its international cast and exotic settings, “Pi” is another example of a film expected to perform far better internationally than in the U.S. Fox is rolling it out in Taiwan Tuesday, China Wednesday and Hong Kong, India and Puerto Rico this weekend. With Lee’s following in China and young star Sharma expected to draw crowds in India, those two markets should give it fast start overseas.

“Pi” was produced for $ 120 million by Lee, Fox 2000 and special effects firm Rhythm and Hues.

Distributor Paramount is rolling out DreamWorks Animation‘s computer animated family film “Rise of the Guardians” on 3,500 3D screens.

The holiday rollout is a natural for the PG-rated “Rise of the Guardians,” which has a star-studded voice cast, and is executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro and produced by Gary Goetzman.

Based on the William Joyce’s “Guardians of Childhood” series, it tells the tale of Jack Frost (Chris Pine), who gets help from Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) after the evil Pitch (Jude Law) threatens the children of the world.

Awareness of the film is strong, and the critics think it’s pretty good. Seventy percent of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, 67 percent at Movie Review Intelligence. DreamWorks Animation has been on a hot streak, and this its first release since “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” which has made over $ 735 million worldwide this year.

“Red Dawn” is a remake of the 1984 John Millius war film that helped launch the careers of young stars Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen. Released at the peak of the Cold War, its populist and patriotic themes resonated strongly. In that film, Swayze’s character leads a group of teens who turn guerrilla fighters to resist Soviet and Cuban invaders who are occupying their state.

Shot in 2009, the “Red Dawn” reboot was to have been released in 2010, but was delayed by the financial troubles of the studio behind it, MGM.

Since then, the careers of several of the film’s stars have taken off. Since shooting “Red Dawn,” Chris Hemsworth has starred in “Thor,” “The Avengers” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” while Josh Peck was featured in “The Hunger Games.” Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas and Jeffrey Dean Morgan co-star.

This “Red Dawn” plays more like an action film and is less jingoistic than the original, and FilmDistrict has marketed that way. In addition to targeting fan boys at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and college campuses, “Red Dawn” has been show at more than 100 military bases. The cast did a special screening at Port Hueneme Naval Base in Oxnard, Calif.

Speaking of militaries, while the film was on the shelf: the filmmakers digitally turned the invaders from Chinese into North Koreans after angry denunciations of the portrayals from the Beijing press. The switch shouldn’t hurt at the Chinese box office, either.

FilmDistrict is opening the PG-13-rated “Red Dawn” in 2,600 theaters. The original made the equivalent of $ 90 million when adjusted to today’s ticket prices, while this reboot will be fortunate to make half that amount. A five-day total of around $ 15 million is what the analysts are projecting for the opening.

Fox Searchlight is rolling out “Hitchcock,” starring Anthony Hopkins as the late director Alfred Hitchcock, in 17 theaters on Friday.

Directed by Sacha Gervasi, with a screenplay from John G. McLaughlin, the film explores the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) while they were working on “Psycho,” one of his most successful films.

Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Jessica Biel, Toni Collette, Michael Wincott, and James D’Arcy co-star in the Montecito Picture Company production.

“Hitchcock” premiered at the AFI Film Festival and has been well-received by the critics. It has a 76 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Fox Searchlight plans to expand the film gradually over the next three weeks, ahead of its national release on December 14, when it will be on between 500 and 600 theaters.

The Weinstein Company is expanding its Oscar hopeful “Silver Linings Playbook” into 420 theaters. The dark romantic comedy is directed by David O. Russell and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro.

“Silver Linings Playbook” averaged $ 28,652 on 16 screens in its debut and was to have expanded into 2,000 theaters on Wednesday. But the Weinstein Co. shifted gears last week and decided on a more gradual platform release in hopes of building awards buzz. The Weinstein Co. knows Oscar campaigns; they were behind the last two Best Picture winners, “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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