Prostate Cancer Study Suggests Shorter Treatments

Men with high-risk prostate cancer treated with only 18 months of hormone therapy live just as long as those treated for a more standard 36 months, a new study has found.

If the study results are applied in practice, it could mean much shorter treatment, sparing men months of unpleasant side effects, researchers said Tuesday.

“This may well change the standard of care,” said Dr. Bruce J. Roth, a prostate cancer specialist at Washington University in St. Louis. “Three years of hormonal therapy was almost picked randomly, and there’s nothing magical about that duration.”

Dr. Roth was not involved in the study, but he moderated a news conference for the Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, which will take place starting Thursday in Orlando, Fla., and is where the results will be presented.

Hormone therapy is essentially chemical castration, in which drugs are used to block the body’s production of testosterone, which fuels prostate tumor growth.

The side effects, including hot flashes, loss of sexual desire, fatigue and the weakening of bones and muscles, make life “quite miserable,” said Dr. Abdenour Nabid of Sherbrooke University Hospital Center in Sherbrooke, Quebec, who was the lead investigator.

The study involved 630 patients with localized but high-risk prostate cancer who were treated with radiation therapy and hormone therapy. While that description fits only a small portion of the 240,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed each year in the United States, the results would still apply to thousands of men, researchers said.

After a median follow-up of about six and a half years, 77.1 percent of the men who received 36 months of therapy were still alive, as were 76.2 percent of the men treated for 18 months.

While slightly more men receiving the longer treatment were alive at five years, the difference was not statistically significant, and for the patients already followed for 10 years, the survival rates were similar. The death rate specifically from prostate cancer was also the same after 10 years.

There were also no statistically significant differences in the rate of biochemical failure — when the P.S.A. marker rises — or in the spread of cancer to the bone, Dr. Nabid said. The difference between the two therapy durations on the quality of the patients’ lives is still being studied.

Dr. David I. Quinn, medical director of the University of Southern California Norris Cancer Hospital, said the results “will change the approach for men who’ve got the worst localized prostate cancer that we see.” He said the results went against some previous studies that suggested that “more is better.”

But Dr. Michael J. Morris, associate professor at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, said that 630 patients might be too few to draw “a relatively sweeping conclusion.” A study meant to prove that two treatments are equivalent may need to be much larger, he said.

Dr. Matthew R. Smith, professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said it might be “overreaching” to make a conclusion yet because not many trial patients had died. “I think we need longer follow-up,” he said.

Dr. Nabid, the principal investigator, said that patients would be followed for two or three more years but that he was confident the results would hold up.

The trial enrolled patients at 10 hospitals in Quebec from October 2000 to January 2008. The drugs used were bicalutamide and goserelin, sold by AstraZeneca as Casodex and Zoladex, respectively, but now subject to generic competition. AstraZeneca paid for the study.

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Chicago leads nation in gas-price spikes

Drivers in Chicago are seeing a painful rise in gas prices get even worse this month.

The average price of regular unleaded in the Chicago metro area on Tuesday is $3.93, according to AAA. That's up 12 cents from a week ago. A month ago, the average was $3.42. Statewide, the average is about $3.79, up 8 cents from last week and 46 cents last month.

Prices are rising at pumps across the country, too, but not as dramatically. The national average is $3.60, up about 7 cents from a week ago and 30 cents higher than this time last month.

It's not typical to see gas price spikes at this time of year. Demand is typically low and picks up in the spring before driving season. And in general, gas is cheaper to produce in the winter because refineries can use less expensive blends.

The main reason for the spike is the higher price of crude oil. The price of oil has gone from around $85 a barrel in December to around $97 now because of improving economic certainty as the country moved past the election and the fiscal cliff deadline, according to energy analyst Phil Flynn. It's also being driven by better-than-expected growth in China, the world's second largest economy.

Prices in the Chicago area are typically some the highest in the nation, but the cost of a local fill-up is accelerating at almost double the national rate.

Flynn attributes this to a number of refinery issues in the region. Some scheduled maintenance at refineries -- where gasoline and other products are produced from oil -- occurred earlier than usual, which cut off some supply, affecting prices. Many close at this time of year to start the switchover to lower-emission summer blends of gasoline.

Besides a major overhaul of BP's Whiting refinery, the largest supplier of gasoline to Midwest markets, that's believed to be driving prices higher, a fire temporarily shut down a refinery in northwest Ohio.

AAA, which tracks daily gasoline prices around the country, predicts they will continue their rapid climb as local refinery issues continue into the beginning of peak driving season.

Flynn is more optimistic.

He believes that once the major Whiting refinery overhaul is complete later this year, gas prices will stabilize.

"I'm probably in the minority but I think we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel

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Slain teen's dad: 'The healing can start' after 2 charged with murder

Two reputed gang members were out for revenge from a previous shooting when they opened fire on a group of students in a South Side park last month, killing 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in a heartbreaking case that has brought national attention to Chicago's rampant gun violence, police said.

Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, were each charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm in the Jan. 29 attack that also left two teens wounded.

Ward confessed to police that he and Williams mistook a Pendleton companion for rivals who had shot and wounded Williams last July, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said at a news conference Monday night at the Area Central police headquarters.

Ward told police that he and Williams got out of their car, crept up on the group and opened fire in Harsh Park, McCarthy said. Williams then drove them from the scene, he said.

"The offenders had it all wrong. They thought the group they shot into included members of a rival gang. Instead it was a group of upstanding, determined kids who, like Hadiya, were repulsed by the gang lifestyle," said McCarthy, flanked by two dozen detectives and gang investigators who worked the case.

Detectives arrested the two Saturday night as the suspects were on their way to a suburban strip club to celebrate a friend's birthday, McCarthy said. Pendleton had been buried only hours earlier in a funeral attended by first lady Michelle Obama.

"I don't even know what to say about that," McCarthy said. "They were going out to celebrate at a strip club."

Williams did not confess and police have not recovered a weapon, McCarthy said. Both are due in bond court Tuesday.

Hadiya's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, said Monday night that news of the charges marked the first time since his daughter's slaying that he had a "legitimate" smile on his face.

"I'm ecstatic that they found the two guys," he told the Tribune during a brief telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where he and wife Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton will attend the State of the Union address Tuesday as guests of President Barack Obama. "(I'm) thanking God that these two guys are off the streets, so that this doesn't happen to another innocent person."

Danetria Hutson, 15, a classmate who held Hadiya in her arms after she was shot, said she and others who witnessed the shooting have had nightmares.

"A lot of us were actually paranoid because the guys were still out there," Hutson said in a telephone interview. "They knew where we went to school."

McCarthy said that two days before the killing, police had stopped Ward in his Nissan Sentra as part of a routine gang investigation. That information wound up being the starting point for detectives when witnesses in the shooting described seeing a similar car driving away from the shooting scene, he said.

Through surveillance and interviews — including several fruitful interviews with parolees in the neighborhood — detectives were able to home in on Ward and Williams, McCarthy said. On Saturday night, the decision was made to stop the two if they were spotted. Police watched as they departed in a caravan of cars headed to the strip club in Harvey. They were stopped near 67th Street and South King Drive and taken in for questioning.

McCarthy said Williams was shot July 11 at 39th Street and South Lake Park Avenue, and an arrest was made. But that gunman was let go after Williams refused to cooperate, McCarthy said.

McCarthy also noted that at the time of Hadiya's slaying, Ward was on probation for a weapons conviction. McCarthy said weak Illinois gun laws allowed Ward to avoid jail time because of the absence of mandatory minimum sentences.

"This incident did not have to occur," McCarthy said. "And if mandatory minimums existed in the state of Illinois, Michael Ward would not have been on the street to commit this heinous act."

In announcing the charges, McCarthy praised the "meticulous" detective work that led to the arrests, but he also expressed frustration that despite a $40,000 reward for information in the shooting, no one who had knowledge of the crime came forward.

"While we received a lot of tips in this particular case and the community really stepped up and tried to help us, I'm sad to point out that we did not get our target audience to step up," the superintendent said.

Hadiya was fatally shot about a mile north of the president's Kenwood neighborhood home a little more than a week after the King College Prep honor student performed with her school band near Washington during inauguration festivities.

Hadiya's death occurred during the deadliest January in Chicago since 2002. It also came on the heels of a homicide total last year that was the highest since 2008 and the second highest since 2003.

The first lady's attendance at Hadiya's funeral pushed Chicago further into the spotlight of a debate over gun violence that has polarized Congress and led the president to take his plans for gun control on the road to garner more public support. The president is scheduled to appear in Chicago on Friday to talk about violence.

In the days after Hadiya's death, clergy and community leaders raised the $40,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the teen's killer or killers.

The victim's father acknowledged that true closure will come if Ward and Williams are convicted of the crimes. But the charges, he said, are a good start.

"Right now, I can say to you that the healing can start," Pendleton said.

jmeisner@tribune.com

jgorner@tribune.com

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Bloomberg Lauds Companies for Cutting Salt Content

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in the midst of a long-running campaign to change the eating habits of New Yorkers and consumers across the country, declared a victory against salt on Monday, as 21 companies, from Kraft and Goya to FreshDirect, said they had met the first stage in reductions in salt content in foods.

After focusing on reducing trans fats and smoking, Mr. Bloomberg turned his attention to salt in 2010, announcing that about 30 companies had signed up to reduce salt in foods by 25 percent within five years, as a way of lowering consumers’ blood pressure and saving lives lost to heart attack and stroke.

“These companies have a huge presence on our shelves and in our diets,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference at City Hall as he announced the results, surrounded by a half-dozen executives of food companies.

The first stage focused on the low-hanging fruit — salsa, dips, bacon, ketchup, barbecue sauce, cold cuts, processed cheese, salad dressing, canned beans and pizza — foods whose salt content is so high that reducing it up to a point probably would not be noticed by many consumers.

Mr. Bloomberg called them “some of America’s most beloved and iconic foods,” suggesting that the cuts might have a disproportionately salutary effect. But Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, said he did not know how much salt the results so far had removed from the average person’s diet.

One side effect of the salt reduction drive is that food companies are looking for salt substitutes to make food taste better.

The main way to do that is to add potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, said Russ Moroz, vice president for research at Kraft Foods. But because potassium tends to have a bitter, mineral taste, other ingredients have to be added. He said these were proprietary secrets, and he declined to name them.

Potassium is good, Dr. Farley said, because it lowers blood pressure and most people do not get enough of it. It is removed from fruits and vegetable during processing, he said. Mr. Bloomberg said he thought fears of additives were overdone.

But a salt industry scientist said Monday that too much potassium could be bad for the kidneys, and that the “cocktail of chemical constituents” added to balance the bitterness and enhance the salty taste could present unknown risks, as those ingredients were undisclosed.

“They do it with one eye on the lab and the other eye on the label,” said Morton Satin, vice president for science and research at the Salt Institute, a trade association. “They make sure it’s below the level that the F.D.A. requires for it to be on the label.”

Mr. Satin said that the link between high blood pressure and salt was just “a theory,” and that reducing salt too much could have harmful effects, like iodine deficiency in children, a cause of mental retardation, and diabetes.

Some companies said reducing salt proved to be a popular marketing tool. Goya reported that it had reduced salt in its regular canned beans by 5 or 6 percent, without any drop in sales. “We tasted them, and you really wouldn’t notice the difference,” Joseph Perez, senior vice president of Goya Foods, said Monday.

Mr. Bloomberg said it might surprise many people to know that bread and rolls were the “biggest contributor” to salt in the diet. Eating a muffin, he said, could be worse than eating a small bag of Lays potato chips.

Bread makers are hard to spot on the list of companies that have pledged to reduce salt, perhaps, Mr. Satin said, because it is more difficult to make bread without salt. However, some companies, like Au Bon Pain, have reduced salt in some baked goods.

On an irreverent note, Mr. Bloomberg said that he loved Subway sandwiches and would eat his favorite, the Italian B.M.T. — it includes salami, pepperoni and ham — regardless of the salt content, but that he was glad that it now contained 27 percent less.

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Maker's Mark lowering proof to meet demand

Maker's Mark announced it is reducing the amount of alcohol in the spirit to keep pace with rapidly increasing consumer demand.

In an email to its fans, representatives of the brand said the entire bourbon category is "exploding" and demand for Maker's Mark is growing even faster. Some customers have even reported empty shelves in their local stores, it said.

After looking at "all possible solutions," the total alcohol by volume of Maker's Mark is being reduced by 3 percent. Representatives said the change will allow it to maintain the same taste while making sure there's "enough Maker's Mark to go around." It's working to expand its distillery and production capacity, too.

Maker's Mark, made by Deerfield-based Beam Inc., said it's done extensive testing to ensure the same taste. It says bourbon drinkers couldn't tell the difference. It also underscored the fact that nothing else in the production process has changed.

"In other words, we've made sure we didn't screw up your whisky," the note said.

Rob Samuels, chief operating officer and grandson of Maker's Mark Founder Bill Samuels, Sr., said this is a permanent decision that won’t be reversed when demand for bourbon slows down. Samuels said that bourbon has gone from the slowest growing spirits category to the fastest over the last 18 months, driven by growth overseas and demand from younger drinkers. An average bottle of Maker’s Mark takes six and half years to produce from start to finish, and since the company doesn’t buy or trade whiskey, it’s been impossible to keep up. 

The first bottle of Maker's Mark, with its signature red wax closure, was produced in 1958.

Beam is the country's second-largest spirits company by volume. It also makes Jim Beam, Sauza tequila and Pinnacle vodka. It's still dwarfed by industry-leading Diageo, the London-based maker of Smirnoff, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker.

It's a tough time to take a risk with one of its oldest and most popular brands. Beam has promised that 25 percent of sales will come from new products, a difficult goal to attain but a critical one for investor confidence.The move met some backlash on social media sites, where some said they would boycott the bourbon if the company went ahead with its plans.

Many also complained that they'd rather see an increase in its price than a decrease in the alcohol. But observers say that by raising the price, Beam would have hurt itself by positioning Maker's Mark to compete against its own higher end brands like Basil Hayden's.

sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel

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Blackhawks continue roll with win over Predators

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When the Blackhawks left on their 12-day, six-game trip, they didn't have a loss in regulation. After completing the arduous journey, they still don't.

The Hawks concluded their season-long odyssey as the only team in the NHL without a regulation defeat after they stymied the Predators 3-0 behind goaltender Corey Crawford on Sunday night at Bridgestone Arena. The Hawks completed their most difficult travel portion of the season with a 4-0-2 record after reeling off their fourth consecutive win and stand at 10-0-2 on the season. They also upped their record away from home to 8-0-2.

Marcus Kruger, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane scored and Crawford made 17 saves to record the Hawks' first regular-season shutout since he did it March 23, 2011. Crawford also had one April 21, 2011 in the playoffs against the Canucks.

"It feels good to finally get (a shutout)," said Crawford, who earned the sixth of his career. "Our guys played a great game overall. That was just a solid, solid road win for us. It seems like we just didn't make any mistakes out there."

A seven-game homestand now awaits the Hawks as they set their sights on the NHL record of 16 games to start a season with at least one point, set by the Ducks in 2006 when they raced to a 12-0-4 mark.

"This team has worked really hard," Crawford said. "(But) we're not just working hard, we're playing a really skilled game. When we get chances, we make the best of it. Everyone's playing well right now."

Added Duncan Keith, who had an assist on Toews' goal in the second period to give the Hawks a 2-0 lead and essentially put the game out of reach from the offensively challenged Predators: "We've done a good job of just staying in the moment. We want to carry that momentum back home."

Kruger put the Hawks on the board when Predators defenseman Roman Josi kicked the puck right to the stick of the center and Kruger rifled a low shot that sailed past Predators goalie Pekka Rinne to the stick side. The score at the 6-minute, 14-second mark of the second period was the first even-strength goal allowed by Rinne in 316:40, dating back to Jan. 28.

Just 1:06 later, Toews made it 2-0 when a rising shot by Keith hit the captain and popped up and over Rinne.

In the third, Kane scored on a shot reminiscent of the one he unleashed for the winning goal in Game 6 of the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. The winger sent a low rocket from a wide angle to the left of Rinne and it slid past the goalie to extend Kane's goal-scoring streak to five games.

"It was a great trip from start to finish," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "(Sunday night) I was really pleased with the way we started and finished the game. Everybody contributed and it was nice to see Crawford get the shutout and end it on a very positive note."

ckuc@tribune.com

Twitter @ChrisKuc

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Taylor Swift kicks off Grammys, Adele wins best pop solo award

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country-pop singer Taylor Swift brought the circus to the Grammy stage on Sunday, kicking off the annual awards with a lively performance and British singer Adele picked up the show’s first award.

The Black Keys, Skrillex and Gotye started the night strong, each picking up multiple awards prior to the televised ceremony.

The 55th Grammy Awards will hand out their gramophone-shaped trophies in more than 80 categories, but only a handful of winners are announced during the three-hour live telecast airing on CBS. More than 60 categories were announced prior to the televised show.

The top categories are dominated this year by male artists, with British folk band Mumford & Sons, indie-pop trio FUN. and R&B singer Frank Ocean going into the show with six nominations each, including Album of the Year.

Swift kicked off the live telecast dressed as a ringmaster with a circus-themed performance of her infectious chart-topping hit “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” backed by dancers in jester and acrobat costumes.

The 23-year-old singer picked up an early Grammy for her collaboration with T-Bone Burnett and The Civil Wars on the song “Safe and Sound” from “The Hunger Games” movie soundtrack.

Britain’s Adele, 24, who swept the Grammys with six major awards last year, landed another this year for Best Pop Solo Performance for her live rendition of “Set Fire to The Rain.”

The singer recognized the other female nominees in the audience, saying, “We work so hard, we make it look so easy.”

Presenting the award, rapper Pitbull joked that Jennifer Lopez, who joined him onstage in an asymmetric dress with a daring slit up to the top of her thigh, “inspired the memo,” referring to an advisory issued by CBS asking all performers and presenters to keep their breasts, buttocks and genitals covered.

VETERANS AND NEWCOMERS

The Grammys have a reputation for pairing up old-timers and newcomers, and this year had several collaborations.

Veteran Elton John took the stage with rising British star Ed Sheeran, 21, to sing a stripped down duet of “The A Team,” Sheeran’s song for which he’s nominated in the Song of the Year category.

One of the night’s leading nominees, New York indie-pop trio FUN., lived up to their name with a performance of “Carry On,” while rain fell on stage, soaking the band as they played.

The band, which received six nominations, was the only act to be nominated in the top four categories of Album, Song and Record of the Year and Best New Artist.

Rockers The Black Keys, formed by Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, started the night strong, picking up two Grammys – Best Rock Album for “El Camino” and Best Rock Song for “Lonely Boy.” Auerbach was also named the Producer of the Year in the non-classical category.

The band went into the night with five nominations, including top categories Album of the Year and Record of the Year.

British folk band Mumford & Sons went into Sunday’s awards with a leading six nominations. They picked up one win for Best Long Form Music Video for “Big Easy Express,” a collaboration with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

Australian singer Gotye, 32, picked up two Grammys for Best Alternative Album for “Making Mirrors” and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Somebody That I Used To Know” featuring Kimbra.

DJ Skrillex, 25, who won three Grammy awards last year, picked up three more, including Best Dance/Electronica Album for “Bangarang.”

Jay-Z and Kanye West picked up two awards, Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for their collaboration “N****s in Paris.” Jay-Z’s wife, Beyonce, won Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Love on Top.”

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom and Sue Zeidler; Editing by Jill Serjeant, Peter Cooney and Stacey Joyce)

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help?

Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

In her 20s, after a more serious suicide attempt, her parents sent her to a residential psychiatric treatment center, and from there to another. It was the treatment of last resort. When she was discharged from the second center last August after slapping another resident, her mother, Elisa Klump, was beside herself.

“I was banging my head against the wall,” the mother said. “What do I do next?” She frantically called support groups, therapy programs, suicide prevention lines, anybody, running down a list of names in a directory of mental health resources. “Finally,” she said, “somebody told me, ‘The person you need to talk to is Carolyn Wolf.’ ”

That call, she said, changed her life and her daughter’s. “Carolyn has given me hope,” she said. “I didn’t know there were people like her out there.”

Carolyn Reinach Wolf is not a psychiatrist or a mental health professional, but a lawyer who has carved out what she says is a unique niche, working with families like the Klumps.

One in 17 American adults suffers from a severe mental illness, and the systems into which they are plunged — hospitals, insurance companies, courts, social services — can be fragmented and overwhelming for families to manage. The recent shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., have brought attention to the need for intervention to prevent such extreme acts of violence, which are rare. But for the great majority of families watching their loved ones suffer, and often suffering themselves, the struggle can be boundless, with little guidance along the way.

“If you Google ‘mental health lawyer,’ ” said Ms. Wolf, a partner with Abrams & Fensterman, “I’m kinda the only game in town.”

On a recent afternoon, she described in her Midtown office the range of her practice.

“We have been known to pull people out of crack dens,” she said. “I have chased people around hotels all over the city with the N.Y.P.D. and my team to get them to a hospital. I had a case years ago where the person was on his way back from Europe, and the family was very concerned that he was symptomatic. I had security people meet him at J.F.K.”

Many lawyers work with mentally ill people or their families, but Ron Honberg, the national director of policy and legal affairs for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said he did not know of another lawyer who did what Ms. Wolf does: providing families with a team of psychiatrists, social workers, case managers, life coaches, security guards and others, and then coordinating their services. It can be a lifeline — for people who can afford it, Mr. Honberg said. “Otherwise, families have to do this on their own,” he said. “It’s a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job, and for some families it never ends.”

Many of Ms. Wolf’s clients declined to be interviewed for this article, but the few who spoke offered an unusual window on the arcane twists and turns of the mental health care system, even for families with money. Their stories illustrate how fraught and sometimes blind such a journey can be.

One rainy morning last month, Lance Sheena, 29, sat with his mother in the spacious family room of her Long Island home. Mr. Sheena was puffy-eyed and sporadically inattentive; the previous night, at the group home where he has been living since late last summer, another resident had been screaming incoherently and was taken away by the police. His mother, Susan Sheena, eased delicately into the family story.

“I don’t talk to a lot of people because they don’t get it,” Ms. Sheena said. “They mean well, but they don’t get it unless they’ve been through a similar experience. And anytime something comes up, like the shooting in Newtown, right away it goes to the mentally ill. And you think, maybe we shouldn’t be so public about this, because people are going to be afraid of us and Lance. It’s a big concern.”

Her son cut her off. “Are you comparing me to the guy that shot those people?”

“No, I’m saying that anytime there’s a shooting, like in Aurora, that’s when these things come out in the news.”

“Did you really just compare me to that guy?”

“No, I didn’t compare you.”

“Then what did you say?”

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Is Southwest Airlines losing the love?

Southwest Airlines' reputation as an industry maverick seems to be going the way of flight attendants in hot pants and $20 one-way fares.

The nation's largest domestic carrier just marked its 40th straight profitable year, an unmatched feat in a time of economic turbulence, fluctuating fuel prices and airline bankruptcies. It did so by undercutting the competition with no-frills flights and, in the process, building an army of budget-minded fans.

Now many of those longtime customers say the Dallas-based carrier that calls itself LUV airlines has been losing their love since it recently began to shift its focus away from low fares and friendly service toward swelling its bottom line.

Among the changes that critics say show Southwest's new profit-boosting attitude: It cut the legroom on many planes to fit more seats, retooled its frequent flier program to make passengers spend more money to collect points and adopted new fees to board early.

"Southwest used to be a great airline," said Lance Malkind, a semi-retired consulting actuary from Phoenix, who has been flying Southwest for 33 years. "The fares were reasonable, onboard service was excellent, and the frequent flier plan was simple and very good. Now the fares are no longer that good compared to other airlines, and the frequent flier plan has gone from being one of the best to one of the worst."

Southwest is still the country's only major airline to waive fees for the first two checked bags. It also ranks high in on-time performance. But even airline officials conceded that Southwest had to find new ways to make money to compete.

"Yes, we have to keep up with the times and, yes, we have to change," said Whitney Eichinger, a spokeswoman for the airline. "But the truth is that Southwest remains a maverick in the industry."

Many of the new fees adopted in the last couple of years are for optional services, such as early boarding and wireless Internet access, she said. But what has long been included in the price of the fare — two checked bags, snacks and drinks — remains free, Eichinger added.

"If we were charging for peanuts, that is something that our customers would find outrageous," she said.

Because Southwest has forgone millions of dollars in revenue from baggage fees, analysts say, it was no surprise that the airline would look for other ways to generate extra cash to offset rising labor and fuel costs.

"Southwest is in the middle between customers who are very sensitive to higher fares and investors, on the other hand, complaining that the airline is not doing enough," said Seth Kaplan, a managing partner at Airlines Weekly, a trade publication.

With the economy rebounding and demand for air travel still relatively strong, airline industry experts say now is the best time for Southwest to test new moneymaking ideas without risking the loss of too many loyal fans.

"I'm not surprised by this," said Betsy Snyder, an analyst with Standard & Poor's. "They want to increase their profits and this is the way to do it. They could lose passengers, but in some markets what's the option? Do other airlines offer anything better?"

Southwest was born in 1971, serving Dallas, Houston and San Antonio with three Boeing 737s — a plane that still represents nearly 90% of its fleet. It made its headquarters at Dallas' Love Field, which later earned it the stock symbol LUV.

The airline took to the air amid tough competition from now-defunct Braniff and Texas International and fought back by offering free bottles of liquor and half-price fares for overnight flights.

Almost from the beginning, Southwest has pushed its niche — low fares but no extra frills like seat assignments, in-flight meals or roomy first-class seats. The hot-pants uniforms worn by flight attendants in the 1970s were replaced with shorts and pants in the '80s.

Southwest enjoyed its best years in the late 1990s when it saved millions of dollars with fuel hedging contracts that enabled the airline to buy fuel at a fixed price to avoid the exposure of price fluctuations. But the hedging advantage ended around 2008 when fuel prices dropped.

As the Great Recession took hold, most other airlines added baggage fees to boost revenue. Southwest, instead, broke from the trend and adopted a "bags fly free" policy. JetBlue is the only other airline to waive fees for the first checked bag, but it doesn't for the second.

Southwest officials said the bags-fly-free policy is probably responsible for increasing Southwest's market share about 2% since 2008 and generates up to $1 billion annually.

To further expand its customer base, Southwest announced a $1.4-billion deal in 2010 to acquire Orlando, Fla.-based AirTran Airways.

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DCFS: Credible evidence of abuse at Maine West

The state’s child welfare agency has ruled that two staff members at Maine West High School abused and neglected children, a revelation that appears to be linked to a soccer team hazing scandal at the Des Plaines school involving allegations of beating and sodomy.

An Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigation concluded on January 30 that there were “indicated” reports of abuse and neglect against both staff members, according to spokesman Dave Clarkin. An “indicated” report means that the agency uncovered credible evidence that abuse took place.
Clarkin declined to comment on whether the targets of the investigation were boys and girls varsity coach Michael Divincenzo and freshman boys coach Emilio Rodriguez.

Both men, who have denied knowledge of hazing and could not be reached for comment Saturday, have been suspended and face being fired in the wake of the scandal that was revealed in November.

Officials at Maine Township High School District 207 have also disciplined 10 students and did not renew the contracts of three other Maine West High coaches who were not full-time staff members.

The hazing accusations surfaced when the parents of a 14-year-old boy sued the school in November.

The lawsuit alleged that soccer coaches and school officials allowed a culture of hazing that led to the boy being sodomized and beaten by teammates on Sept. 27. The lawsuit also alleged that similar incidents took place as far back as 2007.

School officials, who are also investigating the claims, later alleged that varsity soccer players also grabbed the genitals of other players and dunked their heads in a hot tub during a training camp in 2012.
Clarkin, the DCFS spokesman, said three allegations of abuse were subtantiated against one staff member. Those records will be kept on file for 50 years, Clarkin said, which is procedure for instances of death or sexual penetration.

Seven allegations of neglect against the same staff member were substantiated, while four allegations of neglect against the second staff member were substantiated, Clarkin said.

Several other allegations against both staff members were deemed unfounded, he said.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has said it is also investigating the allegations.

District spokesman David Beery said Saturday that officials had received a written memo from DCFS indicating they had completed an investigation, but the memo was “minimal” in information. He declined to comment specifically on the DCFS findings.

“From the initial onset of this, when we first received reports in September, we notified DCFS right away, and have been cooperating with their investigation all along,” Beery said.

Tribune reporter Jonathan Bullington contributed.

cdrhodes@tribune.com

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