Englewood shooting victim dies

An afternoon shooting in the Englewood neighborhood has left a man dead on a day in which at least 10 people have been shot since 12 a.m., according to authorities.

At 3:10 p.m. someone shot a male victim multiple times in the abdomen in the 5500 block of South Loomis Boulevard, News Affairs Officer Daniel O’Brien said.

The victim, a man in his 20s, was taken from the scene of the shooting in the Englewood neighborhood to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was pronounced dead at 3:52 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Saturday night about 8:30 p.m., a male was shot in the West Town neighborhood, police said.

The male, whose age and condition were not immediately released, was taken from the 1800 block of West Maypole Avenue to Stroger with a gunshot wound to the buttocks.

About 7:10 p.m., two men were injured in a shooting in the 5100 block of West Oakdale Avenue, O'Brien said.

A 25-year-old man was taken in critical condition to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the back, O'Brien said. A 21-year-old man was taken to the same hospital in good condition with a gunshot wound to the wrist, O'Brien said.

The shooting happened in the Cragin neighborhood on the Northwest Side.

Late Saturday morning, a shooting in the Back of the Yards neighborhood left another victim shot in the abdomen and seriously wounded.

Someone shot the male in the abdomen at 11:48 a.m. in the 4500 block of South Marshfield Avenue, according to Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Michael Sullivan.

He was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in serious condition, Sullivan said.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not known immediately but Sullivan said no one was arrested.

Earlier Saturday, four people were shot in two separate incidents before the sun rose, and a fifth man was killed in a West Side shooting.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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We Salute the First Baby Senator

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:

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Here’s our suggestion to improve the (already pretty hilarious) swearing-in process for U.S. Senators: Each new member of Congress must bring a cute baby.

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Apparently the BBC has decided to market a line of lunch boxes specifically made for hungry polar bears. They are still working out the kinks: 

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RELATED: Bo Obama Stays On Message; Sarah Palin Can See HBO in Her House

The Golden Globes will be bittersweet this year. Don’t get us wrong — we’re really excited to watch Amy Poehler and Tina Fey entertain us. But we’ll also be also really sad when this thing is over because it means the end of these promos:

And finally, it’s Friday. And it’s time to dance. Enjoy your weekend. 

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“Amour” takes U.S. film critics’ top prize as best film

NEW YORK (Reuters) – “Amour,” European director Michael Haneke‘s sensitive depiction of an aging couple’s battle with declining health, was named the year’s best film by the National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, with star Emmanuelle Riva winning best actress and Haneke taking the prize for best director.

The group, made up of 60 prominent movie critics from newspapers, magazines and other media outlets nationwide, chose Daniel Day-Lewis as best actor for his acclaimed performance in the title role in “Lincoln.”

Best supporting actor went to Matthew McConaughey for the male stripper film “Magic Mike,” while Amy Adams won best supporting actress for “The Master.”

In choosing “Amour” for its top prize, the critics were more in line with European honors such as the Cannes Film Festival which awarded it the Palme D’Or, than with earlier U.S. awards, many of which went to presumed Oscar frontrunner “Zero Dark Thirty.”

In the film, Riva plays a woman who suffers a stroke, challenging her and her husband, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, who becomes her caretaker. Isabelle Huppert plays the couple’s daughter.

The stars are among France’s most revered actors, while German-born Haneke has been honored for many previous films such as “The White Ribbon” and “The Piano Teacher,” with a canon that often hews more towards the bleak, brutal and disturbing than the overtly sensitive.

In other awards, the critics gave the nonfiction, or documentary prize, to “The Gatekeepers,” which looks at the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, while Tony Kushner won best screenplay for “Lincoln.” Best cinematography went to “The Master.”

“This Is Not a Film” took the experimental film prize, while the critics gave two special film heritage honors to Laurence Kardish, senior film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, and to Milestone Film and Video for its ongoing Shirley Clarke project.

The critics’ awards are among the last handed out in the run-up to the Oscar nominations, which will be announced on Thursday in Los Angeles, with the Academy Awards gala slated for February 24.

“Amour” is Austria’s official submission for the best foreign language film category.

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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Chicago restaurateurs shrug off economic worries

Chicago may have lost a few of its Michelin-starred restaurants in 2012 and waved goodbye to the inimitable Charlie Trotter's, but the higher-end restaurant scene is powering up in ways not seen since prerecession days, according to industry players and observers.

Local operators with a hit or two are embarking on ambitious ventures, though keeping an eye on startup costs and menu prices. A handful of chefs with established followings, among them Curtis Duffy and Iliana Regan, are sticking out their necks with riskier fine-dining ventures. And some prominent out-of-towners are investing on a grand scale, with a Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse just opened in the former Esquire Theater on Oak Street, and an Italian food and wine marketplace, Eataly, planned for the former ESPN Zone site in River North.

The flurry of activity is seen by some as a signal the economy has stabilized, at least for now.

"People are out spending money again, and corporations are hosting expensive dinners again, and there was a period when that was not happening," said Neil Stern, senior partner at McMillanDoolittle, a retail consultancy. "It affects the high end significantly."

Still, the bubbling of enthusiasm for the upper end of the market is something of an anomaly. The rebound in Chicago restaurant startups across all price ranges is tenuous. The city issued 1,458 new retail food licenses in 2012, only 11 more than in 2010 and below the 1,589 issued in 2007, the year leading into the recession.

Just as there are new arrivals, there were some big losses last year in this notoriously volatile business. Notable exits include Charlie Trotter's, Crofton on Wells, Il Mulino, One Sixtyblue, Pane Caldo and Ria at the Waldorf Astoria, one of several luxury hotels to step away from fine dining.

Weak economic conditions played a role for some, and the forecast for 2013 remains uncertain.

"It's a precarious market, and one economic blip really can take demand out of the market very, very quickly," Stern said.

Still, upscale-restaurant operators are moving ahead, betting on Chicagoans' seemingly endless fascination with food trends, dining out and the city's robust roster of accomplished chefs.

"When I was a child, people would go to each other's homes for a dinner party every week and would rarely go to restaurants — now it is almost the opposite," said David Flom, who with his business partner Matthew Moore hit a grand slam with Chicago Cut Steakhouse in River North, which opened in 2010. Steaks range from $34 to $114; soup, salad, sauces, vegetables and potatoes all are extra.

In December, they opened The Local at the Hilton Suites in Streeterville, a more modestly priced venue where executive chef Travis Strickland, formerly of the Inn at Blackberry Farm, is serving locally sourced comfort food. Meatloaf made with prime dry-aged beef goes for $24, rotisserie chicken pot pie for $22.

"People can use The Local as an everyday restaurant," Flom said. "People can say, 'Let's just grab a burger at The Local.' It doesn't have to be $100 a person, it can be $25."

At Chicago Cut, the average check, per person, is $82, including drinks, versus $44 at The Local, he said.

Industry observer Ron Paul, president and CEO of Technomic Inc., said he is particularly intrigued by the growing strength of such emerging independents, who are nipping at the heels of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc., even as that homegrown powerhouse continues to churn out winning concepts.

As restaurant real estate broker Randee Becker, president of Restaurants!, put it: "People who are doing north of $8 million to $10 million of sales are expanding in a big way."

After establishing a high-style, large-scale foothold in River North with the opening of Epic in 2009, proprietors Steve Tavoso and Jeff Krogh last fall embarked on a second act in the neighborhood. They engaged prominent chefs — Thomas Elliott Bowman and Ben Roche, who worked together at Moto — but kept their initial investment more modest this time.

Their latest entry, the eclectic Baume & Brix, opened last fall in the former Rumba space, which had most of the necessary mechanical, electrical, plumbing and kitchen elements in place. Startup costs were about $1.5 million, compared with more than $5 million spent to open Epic. "I took raw space (for Epic) — I would never do that again," Tavoso recalled.

Mercadito Hospitality, whose Chicago offerings include high-energy Latin American tapas spots Mercadito and Tavernita, also is watching its pennies on startups, its most recent being Little Market Brasserie in the Talbott Hotel. Led by chef/partner Ryan Poli, the restaurant has quietly opened with a Parisian decor and American small plates. Its grand opening is expected Jan. 18.

"We are aware of the fact the economy is not fully recovered, so we try to keep our expenses down without sacrificing quality," said managing partner Alfredo Sandoval.

The Chicago-based group intends to keep expanding. It just signed a lease at a River North spot with a 4 a.m. liquor license, with plans to open a drinks-focused venue there in 2013.

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Escapee's mother: 'I'm glad it's over'

Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Meisner on the recent arrest of Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber who escaped from federal jail in December. (Posted on: Jan. 4, 2013.)

The second inmate who made a daring escape last month from a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop was captured today in south suburban Palos Hills, according to FBI officials.

Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber, was awaiting sentencing when he and cellmate Joseph “Jose” Banks scaled about 15 floors down the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Dec. 18 with a rope fashioned from bedsheets.

FBI Spokeswoman Joan Hyde said Conley was apprehended at an apartment complex at about 4 p.m. by Palos Hills police.

Palos Hills Police Deputy Chief James Boie said officers apprehended Conley with the help of two maintenance men working at an apartment complex in the 10200 block of South 86th Terrace, who called police at about 3:30 p.m. to report a “suspicious person.''

In 2004, Conley used to live on another street of the Scenic Tree complex where police were initially called, Boie said.

At least two officers who had been checking out the complaint were talking with the building maintenance workers in the basement of the building on 86th Terrace but did not find Conley. 

As they were leaving, they saw their lieutenant outside on the street about a half a block away, involved in a dispute with Conley, who’d been walking eastbound, Boie said.

Conley was dressed in an overcoat, pretending to use a cane and was wearing glasses. He had a dark hat pulled down low over his head and appeared to be trying to look older than he actually was, Boie said.

“Our officers stopped to talk to him and he said he was just visiting,” Boie said. “He gave them a phony name, and while they’re trying to run the information, he got wise that they were going to figure it out and he pushed one of the officers down and took off running.”

Before fleeing, Conley slugged the lieutenant, a 30-year department veteran, and the lieutenant had injuries including a possible torn hamstring. Boie said the lieutenant was taken to Palos Community Hospital for treatment.

Boie said two additional officers responding to the scene caught the man -- later identified as Conley -- about a block away as he was trying to force his way into an apartment at the complex.

He was wrestled down but did not offer any other resistance. Conley was also taken to Palos Community Hospital for observation, according to Boie.

When police were called about the suspicious person, the lieutenant, a sergeant and an officer initially went to check it out, said police Chief Paul J. Madigan.

When Conley could not provide identification the struggle broke out, with Conley taking a swing at one of the officers before fleeing into one of the buildings, Madigan said.

Conley was finally apprehended when he tried to break into someone’s apartment, Madigan said.

Conley told police he injured his arm during the struggle.  He remains in the custody of federal authorities, Madigan said.

The multi-unit complex is made up of clusters of 2-story, brick buildings, with a wooded area behind it.

Police found a BB pistol in Conley’s pocket. He had no money, ID or other weapons, Boie said.

Boie said that U.S. Marshals had been in the area days earlier after getting a tip that Conley had knocked on the door of a former acquaintance.

Boie said Conley was known to the police because he’d had multiple resisting and obstructing arrests in 2004. Even still, they were surprised when they realized who they’d just arrested.

“I’m sure they were a little surprised that they had the guy standing in front of them,’’ Boie said.

As far as what happens next, Boie said it was not up to their department.

“It’s been turned over to the FBI and I’m sure the next move is theirs,’’ Boie said.

Boie said Conley was charged with two misdemeanor counts of battery and resisting arrest for today’s incident.

Conley’s mother, Sandra, answered the phone at her Tinley Park home this evening and said she had heard of her son’s arrest but had no details or comment.

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The Death of E-Readers Is All Your Fault

So there’s a reading gadget and a reading gadget with Angry Birds Star Wars. Which do you pick? Well, you, cultured person that you are, would select the dedicated e-reader, of course, just like you would rather watch Frontline instead of Honey Boo Boo, or pick up Vanity Fair instead of Us Weekly on the checkout line. Or at least that’s what the ideal version of yourself would do. But as Amazon and Barnes & Noble are quickly discovering this year, the highbrow ideal all too often gives way to the mass-market realities. Sales of the Kindle and especially the Nook fell this holiday season, despite lower prices than more fully functioning tablets, which are distinctly on the rise. And market researchers estimate that these divergent paths will continue — The Wall Street Journal reports that e-readers sales will be cut in half, from 14.9 million per year to just 7.8 million, by 2015. But the death of the e-reader has less to do with the iPad than what’s inside of it: from tablets to TV shows and everything in between, the most high-minded of ideas for cultural consumption always seem to devolve toward mindless entertainment.

RELATED: Gordon Brown Predicts the Future; Cormac McCarthy Doesn’t Tweet

Take Bravo, the once completely enlightened — and completely failing — network that, like Arts & Entertainment and The Learning Channel before they became A&E and TLC, once devoted itself to being a slightly less boring knockoff of PBS. In 1985, five years after its founding, The New York Times‘s Steve Schneider described Bravo’s success, measured then by its 350,000 subscribers, as follows: 

What has kept things afloat for the past five years has been an evolving mix of cultural programming. Nowadays, a spokesman said, approximately 70 percent of the premium service’s schedule is devoted to films, nearly all of which are either from abroad, from the fringes of American production or from times past. The remainder of the schedule is given over to the performing arts -jazz concerts, ballet, opera, modern dance and the like. From Woody Allen films to documentaries about Latin America to performances by the Pina Bausch dance troupe, the offerings range from the challenging to the downright esoteric.

All that changed when NBC bought Bravo in 2002 and gave it a makeover almost completely motivated by ratings. It started with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which in its first year delivered 3.3 million viewers per episode. Then came the much acclaimed era of Top Chef and Project Runway, which are still considered highbrow in their own way, but only in the context of their fellow reality shows like The Real Housewives. And let’s face it: Bravo is pretty much all Housewives all the time. Well, that and a show about Silicon Valley that features no computer programming at all.

RELATED: Barnes & Noble CEO Is Done with Books; 43 Famous Writers Walk into a Cafe

And remember The Learning Channel? It was founded by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, along with NASA. Really! Then in came Discovery as the new boss, and with it American Chopper and, eventually, TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras, which birthed Honey Boo Boo — not to mention major ratings. Arts & Entertainment has long been a corporate entity, but it gave way from highbrow post-Nickelodeon fare and devolved into, you know, Dog the Bounty Hunter and whatever Gene Simmons is up to these days.

RELATED: The New Kindles We’ll Probably See at Today’s Amazon Event

It’s all a little reminiscent of the days when Us magazine was actually a glossy movie magazine that Hollywood stars loved to pose for. The New York Times started it! Then came a partnership with Disney, and J.Lo, and on and on to the supermarket tabloid you now know as Us Weekly, one of the most successful print publications on Earth.

RELATED: Ebook Juggernaut John Locke Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You

So, in the slowly dwindling technological world of the e-reader and its advanced brethren, Amazon‘s Kindle is like old-school TLC and the B&N Nook is maybe a little younger and cooler, like Bravo, but still failing; the iPad, however, has Here Comes Honey Boo Boo written all over it. Not that there’s anything wrong with what Amazon and Barnes & Noble were trying to do — a small audience might enjoy a device that has novels and long biographies and maybe some newspapers and little more. But the majority of people these days want to spend their downtime with HBO Go and Netflix apps, with games and email and other ways to relax their entire brains… not just the fancy parts of it. With tablet prices falling to more affordable levels — Amazon sells a Kindle Fire for $ 159 and a Kindle Paperwhite for $ 119 — of course today’s readers are going to choose the thing that helps them go beyond boring old reading. It might not have that easy-on-the eyes screen, but the majority of time spent on tablets isn’t spent reading books but answering emails, reading the news (a shorter reading experience than an entire book), and playing games, according to Pew. Plus, the iPad has its own Kindle app, for those times when you do, after all, feel like indulging in something a bit more highbrow. Because people do, still read a lot of books. They just like doing everything else a lot more. If the death of the e-reader is nigh, maybe the age of the straight-and-narrow, undistracted smartypants isn’t far from ending, either.

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Al Pacino inhabits Phil Spector in Mamet’s HBO film

PASADENA, California (Reuters) – Playwright David Mamet had little interest in legendary music producer and convicted murderer Phil Spector, dismissing him as a “freak” – until he watched a documentary that shed light on a complicated personality.

Now, the “Glengarry Glen Ross” writer is bringing to HBO a movie inspired by Spector’s life that imagines his relationship with the attorney who defended him against charges of killing actress Lana Clarkson in Los Angeles in 2003.

The film, “Phil Spector,” written and directed by Mamet, stars Al Pacino as the music producer and Helen Mirren as his attorney.

When Mamet’s agent urged him to watch a documentary about Spector, the playwright said he felt he already knew enough about the eccentric producer who sported wild hair and was found guilty of murder.

“You start out saying this guy’s a freak,” Mamet told reporters at a Television Critics Association meeting on Friday.

Learning more about Spector, “you start to think, how could I be so prejudiced? The guy sounds brilliant.”

“Then you say, maybe he’s not guilty,” Mamet said.

In the TV film that debuts March 24 on Time Warner Inc-owned HBO, Mirren plays Linda Kenney Baden, who defended Spector in his first murder trial that ended in a mistrial with jurors deadlocked. He was convicted in a second trial in 2009 and is serving a sentence of 19 years to life.

Spector, now 73, revolutionized pop music in the 1960s with his layered “Wall of Sound” production techniques, working with the Beatles, the Ronettes, Cher and Leonard Cohen at the height of his fame. But for years before the trial, he had lived as a virtual recluse in a mock castle in suburban Los Angeles.

WORK OF FICTION

The HBO film starts with a disclaimer saying it is a work of fiction “inspired by actual persons in a trial, but it is neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor to comment upon the outcome.”

It tells how Baden became intrigued by Spector and the challenges of defending him. She considers how to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury while the defense team wrestles with whether Spector should take the stand.

As his attorneys consider that Spector might hurt his own cause, Spector reminds them of his accomplishments. In one scene, he tells Baden: “The first time you got felt up, guess what? You were listening to one of my songs.”

The real-life Baden told reporters on Friday that, as Spector’s attorney, she couldn’t tell Mamet about any conversations with her client. Instead, they were left to the playwright’s imagination.

Baden said she felt the forensic evidence against Spector did not prove he killed Clarkson, who was found shot to death in the foyer of Spector’s home hours after the pair met in a nightclub. Spector denied murdering Clarkson but did not testify at either trial.

Pacino said he didn’t try to perfectly mimic the real-life music producer or meet with him, though he did watch video footage of his statements around the time of the murder trial.

“I would sit for hours just looking at Phil talking about things,” said Pacino, speaking via satellite from New York.

Mirren said on Friday her biggest challenge was finding the right tone to play a character in the unconventional world that Spector seemed to inhabit.

“It’s like a strange dream you are having,” Mirren said. “The nature of Phil Spector and the life that he lived encouraged that. He seemed to live in a permanent dream.”

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine, editing by Jill Serjeant and Philip Barbara)

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F.D.A. Offers Rules to Stop Food Contamination

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed two sweeping rules aimed at preventing the contamination of produce and processed foods, which has sickened tens of thousands of Americans annually in recent years.

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Checking the temperature of lettuce at an Arizona farm. Safety measures would start at farms.

The proposed rules represent a sea change in the way the agency polices food, a process that currently involves taking action after contamination has been identified. It is a long-awaited step toward codifying the food safety law that Congress passed two years ago.

Changes include requirements for better record keeping, contingency plans for handling outbreaks and measures that would prevent the spread of contaminants in the first place. While food producers would have latitude in determining how to execute the rules, farmers would have to ensure that water used in irrigation met certain standards and food processors would need to find ways to keep fresh food that may contain bacteria from coming into contact with food that has been cooked.

New safety measures might include requiring that farm workers wash their hands, installing portable toilets in fields and ensuring that foods are cooked at temperatures high enough to kill bacteria.

Whether consumers will ultimately bear some of the expense of the new rules was unclear, but the agency estimated that the proposals would cost food producers tens of thousands of dollars a year.

A big question to be resolved is whether Congress will approve the money necessary to support the oversight. President Obama requested $220 million in his 2013 budget, but Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the F.D.A., said “resources remain an ongoing concern.”

Nonetheless, agency officials were optimistic that the new rules would protect consumers better.

“These new rules really set the basic framework for a modern, science-based approach to food safety and shift us from a strategy of reacting to problems to a strategy for preventing problems,” Michael R. Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in an interview. The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for the safety of about 80 percent of the food that Americans consume. The rest falls to the Agriculture Department, which is responsible for meat, poultry and some eggs.

One in six Americans becomes ill from eating contaminated food each year, the government estimates; most of them recover without concern, but roughly 130,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die. The agency estimated the new rules could prevent about 1.75 million illnesses each year.

Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010 after a wave of incidents involving tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

But it took the Obama administration two years to move the rules through the regulatory agency, prompting complaints that the White House was more concerned about protecting itself from Republican criticism than about public safety.

Mr. Taylor said that the delay was a function of the wide variety of foods and the complexity of the food system. “Anything that is important and complicated will always take longer than you would like,” he said.

The first rule would require manufacturers of processed foods sold in the United States to come up with ways to reduce the risk of contamination. Food companies would be required to have a plan for correcting problems and for keeping records that government inspectors could audit.

An example might be to require the roasting of raw peanuts at a temperature guaranteed to kill salmonella, which has been a problem in nut butters in recent years. Roasted nuts would then have to be kept separate from raw nuts to further reduce the risk of contamination, said Sandra B. Eskin, director of the safe food campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

“This is very good news for consumers,” Ms. Eskin said. “We applaud the administration’s action, which demonstrates its strong commitment to making our food safer.”

The second rule would apply to the harvesting and production of fruits and vegetables in an effort to combat bacterial contamination like E. coli, which is transmitted through feces. It would address what advocates refer to as the “four Ws” — water, waste, workers and wildlife.

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Shares in Jewel parent soar on report of deal

Stock in Jewel-Osco parent Supervalu soared 13.5 percent Friday on speculation that the company is on the brink of a deal with Cerberus Capital Management.

Shares for the Eden Prairie, Minn-based grocery company closed at $2.94.

Supervalu spokesman Mike Siemienas said the company is in talks with several suitors, though a deal is not assured.  A representative for Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm, declined to comment for this story.

The Eden Prarie, Minn-based company, which also owns Albertsons, Cub, Acme and Save-A-Lot stores, said it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale, in July. Days later, Supervalu dismissed CEO Craig Herkert, and Chairman Wayne Sales stepped in to run the troubled grocer.

Supervalu sales and earnings have lagged those of competitors for years. In 2012, the company's stock price fell 69.6 percent and return on investment declined 68.6 percent, according to Bloomberg. Average stock prices in the broader consumer staples market rose 7.4 percent and returns gained 10.7 percent in the period.

For the fiscal year ended Feb. 25, Supervalu reported a loss of $1.04 billion, which included a $519 million operating loss and $509 million in interest expense. Sales declined 3 percent, to $27.9 billion. The company has carried an onerous debt load since buying Albertsons, which included Chicago's Jewel-Osco chain, in 2006, making Supervalu the subject of bankruptcy  speculation.

Cerberus is rumored to be in the mix to buy parts of the company. The firm has experience in the food retail sector and was an investor in the 2006 Albertsons deal. Cerberus still holds a stake in Albertsons and Strategic Restaurants, a Burger King franchisee with more than 250 restaurants.

eyork@tribune.com | twitter: @emilyyork

SVU data by YCharts

SVU data by YCharts

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