Bears lose Cutler to concussion, fall 13-6 to Texans

The Chicago Bears had their six-game winning streak snapped and lost quarterback Jay Cutler to a concussion in Sunday night's 13-6 loss to the Houston Texans in front of a crowd of 59,989 at rainy Soldier Field.
 
Cutler, who was not playing well prior to suffering the concussion, took a hard hit to the head late in the second quarter but remained in the game until the intermission. He did not return in the second half as Jason Campbell took over.
 
Houston improved to 8-1, while the Bears fell to 7-2.

"You can't make the mistakes we did early on," Bears coach Lovie Smith. "If we're ever minus-2 on the turnover differential, it's not going to be a good day for us. ... But we got beat by a good football team tonight. You have to give the Texans a lot of credit.

"We're disappointed right now with the loss, but we have to get back up as soon as we possibly can."

As for Cutler's status, Smith said it was too early to say if he would be available for next Monday night's game at San Francisco. Smith did say that Cutler's concussion symptoms started to clear up during the second half and that the quarterback wanted to go back in, but "that decision was made for him" by the team doctors.

Smith said he didn't know which hit that Cutler took might have caused the concussion, and said he didn't know what concussion symptoms were present.

"I try not to be Dr. Smith too often," said Smith, adding that he accepted what he was told by the doctors.

Asked what he took away from the game, Smith said, "It's a loss, so you have to go from there. We were beaten by a good football team. We're 7-2, though. It's one game. ... There's a lot of football left to go. We'll bounce back."

Campbell replaced Cutler, who took a big hit from Texans linebacker Tim Dobbins late in the second quarter, to start the second half with the Bears trailing 10-3. Robbie Gould's 24-yard field goal pulled the Bears to within 10-6 with 1:55 left in the third quarter, but Shayne Graham connected from 42 yards with 4:49 to play in the game to put the Texans ahead 13-6.

Gould tried to bring the Bears to within a point early in the final quarter, but missed a 48-yard field goal attempt that caromed off the left upright with 11:40 left after the Bears had driven to the Houston 30.

Campbell was unable to direct another scoring threat and finished 11-for-19 for 94 yards. Matt Forte was held to 39 rushing yards on 16 carries. Brandon Marshall had eight receptions for 107 yards.

"It was tough," Campbell said. "Tonight was my first reps since the season started. If I have to play (next week at San Francisco), then of course, during the week, I'll get those practice reps and get the guys used to (having) me as the quarterback."

The Texans entered with the best record in the AFC, matching the Bears’ NFC North-leading record. The hitting was fierce from the outset, with six turnovers being forced in the first half and Bears rookie defensive end Shea McClellin also being ruled out for the game early in the first quarter with a concussion.

Arian Foster made a diving catch of a 2-yard pass from Matt Schaub to give the Texans a 10-3 lead with 4:14 remaining in the first half.

The Bears trailed at the break after accumulating a mere 99 total yards of offense. Cutler completed 7 of 14 first-half passes for 36 yards. He was intercepted twice and had a passer rating of 16.7.

Cutler did manage to run for 37 yards in the first half to lead the Bears’ rushing game. Forte ran for 11 yards on seven carries and Michael Bush had one run for 11 yards, although he lost a fumble at the end of that run.

Gould's 51-yard field goal pulled the Bears into a 3-3 tie with 12:52 to play in the second quarter. The score was set up when Tim Jennings intercepted his second pass of the night and returned it 10 yards to the Houston 38. The interception was Jennings' league-high eighth of the season. A deep third-down pass intended for Marshall into the end zone failed.

The Bears turned the ball over on their first play from scrimmage when Cutler passed six yards to tight end Kellen Davis. A fumble was forced by former Bears safety Danieal Manning at the Bears' 43 and recovered by Dobbins. When the Texans' drive stalled at the 2, Graham kicked a 20-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead.

The Bears also turned the ball over on their next possession when Bush fumbled after an 11-yard run and Houston recovered at the Texans' 27. The fumble was forced by Glover Quin and recovered by Bradie James with 4:40 left in the first period.

The Bears got the ball back when Schaub's pass intended for Keshawn Martin was intercepted by Jennings at the Houston 45 with 2:24 left in the first quarter.

On second down, however, Cutler's deep pass intended for Davis was intercepted by Manning at the Houston 5.

The Bears entered with a six-game winning streak, their longest such stretch since they won seven in a row in 2006 en route to a Super Bowl appearance.

fmitchell@tribune.com

Twitter @kicker34

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BBC head says broadcaster must reform or die

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain‘s BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten said on Sunday confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the Newsight report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organizational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC than there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognizable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual license fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The Neediest Cases: Single Mother Battling Breast Cancer Takes Strength From Her Children

She had not expected her fingernails to feel as if they had been hollowed out.

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

Josmery Batista, 34, with her children: Analisse, 4, left; Erika, 10; and Jeremy, 1. Ms. Batista is receiving chemotherapy treatment.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

Josmery Batista, 34, had braced herself for many of the side effects that would result from her palliative chemotherapy treatment. She knew about the dizzy spells, the head pain and the body aches, just as she knew about the fatigue, which weakens her so much at times that she is unable to bathe her infant son or even to hold him.

But when her nails became so brittle that she could not properly wash dishes, a development as alarming as it was discouraging, she sought comfort and reassurance from one of her new friends walking the same path.

Ms. Batista, a single mother of three, knows that she is blessed to have found a support group of others, like her, who are undergoing cancer treatment, and she gains additional courage from the memory of friends who did not survive. She also knows how blessed she is to have sisters to lean on for help.

But friends and siblings alone are not what fortify her will to survive.

“My children give me the strength to fight this illness, this disease,” Ms. Batista said. “My support system has been a great help. But what keeps me going is my kids.”

Five months into her pregnancy with her son, Jeremy Tavarez, now 1, Ms. Batista began to experience excruciating pain from her neck to her midsection. She had no idea what was wrong. When she sought help, examinations ruled out ailments like arthritis or liver problems. Tests for cancer would have involved radiation and, thus, potential harm to the baby, so Ms. Batista waited until after the birth to be tested further. Last November, one month after her son’s birth, Ms. Batista was told she had Stage 4 breast cancer. The disease has since spread to her liver and her bones.

She receives chemotherapy treatment every 21 days at Elmhurst Hospital Center, near her home in Flushing, Queens, and is then required to take pills for the next 14 days. The side effects of that medication are the cause of much of her discomfort.

Petite yet resilient, Ms. Batista is driven to take Tylenol instead of a nap. She will weather the lethargy and endure the pain to ensure that her son and her other two children, Erika, 10, and Analisse Tavarez, 4, can have as normal a life as possible. Whenever she is able to, she plays with her children, accompanies them to school or helps them with homework.

“Even though she’s battling every day, going to the hospital and stuff like that, she doesn’t let her kids fully know, and they’re happy,” said Ms. Batista’s sister Dalisa Batista, who assists with child care.

Josmery Batista, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1998, had been employed for 13 years as a jewelry sample maker in Manhattan. She has been unable to work since her treatment began and is living month to month as a result.

She receives $450 a month in food stamps and collects $868 monthly in workers’ compensation, a payment that is set to expire in January. Ms. Batista says her children’s father also provides $400 a month in child support. Her rent is $1,100 a month.

With her finances tight, Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, granted Ms. Batista $500 from the fund in September to cover five weeks of child care when she is at treatment and her relatives are unavailable. The agency also supplies the family with food from the Queens North Community Center pantry, which is affiliated with Catholic Charities.

“She stays very strong,” said Dalisa, who describes her sister as an inspiration. “I never really see her crying at home. She doesn’t cry in front of the kids.” Dalisa added that her niece Erika, who is still too young to fully grasp the severity of her mother’s situation, boosted morale with a child’s innocent honesty.

“Her daughter always gives her strength because she always tells her, ‘You’re beautiful with no hair,’ ” Dalisa said. “She tells her stuff like ‘I don’t want you to wear wigs. You’re beautiful to me.’ ”

The future holds many questions, but estimates are that Josmery Batista will be receiving treatments for at least the next six months. She says she will continue to do what she has been doing all along, basking in the love of those around her.

“I live my life as normal as possible, and I push myself to do the things I need to do,” Ms. Batista said. “I’m not going to allow the illness to dictate how I’m going to carry my life and what I need to do as a mother.”

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Phil Rosenthal: Forming a Bond with brands

On the big screen, a hero's mettle is established by showing how much punishment the star can withstand and how daunting the obstacles are while ultimately getting the job done.

Early in the latest James Bond movie, "Skyfall," an assassin seeks to escape on a train speeding through the Turkish countryside. His tireless pursuer is pelted with bullets, swats away bugs and, when the bad guy disconnects the trailing car, extends an arm to literally hold on to the rest of the train so the chase can continue.

And the pursuer is, in fact, tireless because it is a modified Caterpillar 320D L excavator that Daniel Craig's Bond has commandeered. The bullets are bullets, but the bugs are Volkswagen Beetles, some swept off the train, others crushed. The logo-covered excavator's arm not only holds onto the rest of the train but provides Bond a perch from which to leap into the carriage, fixing the cuffs in his Tom Ford suit as he goes after the villain.

"For (the filmmakers), it wasn't an excavator, it wasn't what they would in the U.K. call a digger — it was for them a 'hero machine' because it was something that actually saves Bond," said Robert Woodley, the marketing executive for Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., from his office in Geneva.

Woodley arranged and oversaw Cat's "Skyfall" star turn. "It's not just having the brand out there. It's seeing what light it's going to be viewed in."

"Skyfall" is practically "Skymall," what with all the brands and products mentioned and showcased.

The practice is neither new nor isolated. Yet even by the license-to-shill standards of increasingly commercialized James Bond movies, this one has an awful lot of brand exposure. All that's missing are the NASCAR-style logo patches for Bond, no slouch behind the wheel.

Especially now that the fictional covert operator is the focal point of an extremely overt ad campaign for beer, albeit Heineken.

Never mind the other products basking in the superspy's aura, such as Sony mobile phones and Vaio laptop computers, Macallan single-malt Scotch, Honda cycles, Bollinger Champagne, Globe-Trotter suitcases, Crockett & Jones footwear, Walther guns, Aston Martin cars, Swarovski jewelry, Omega watches, OPI nail polish, Land Rovers and Range Rovers and all the rest.

Some pay for the privilege, some make other arrangements. Some, like the new James Bond fragrance hawked by Procter & Gamble, aren't in the film. But all told, sponsorship and other ancillary deals for "Skyfall" are said to have brought in $45 million, about a third of what it cost to produce the film, one of the best in the Bond series.

"We have relationships with a number of companies so that we can make this movie," Craig told Moviefone on the "Skyfall" set this spring. "The simple fact is that, without them, we couldn't do it. It's unfortunate, but that's how it is."

The 007 tradition of brand integration, brand cameos, product placement or whatever you want to call it dates back to the original Ian Fleming stories. Some would say it's in the name of verisimilitude. But it's said Bond, originally a reader exclusively of The Times of London, also began reading the rival Daily Express when that paper began serializing Fleming's work.

Through a half-century of 007 films, the practice has grown as producers realized the potential economic windfall and marketers recognized the unique opportunity of association with the 007 franchise — as well as other entertainment.

"The challenge with product placement is it has to fit," said Timothy Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "When it works, there's a natural connection between the brand and the story and when it doesn't work, there's an inconsistency, and both parties are worse for the deal."

Today's sophisticated media consumer expects to see brands in TV shows, movies and even video games, according to Tom Weeks, senior vice president at LiquidThread (formerly known as Starcom Entertainment), the branded entertainment and content development operation within Chicago's Starcom MediaVest Group. But proper context — proper casting — is a must.

"Brands are stars, too," Weeks said. "They've got their own Twitter accounts. They've got their own Facebook pages. And they're invited into content as part of the experience. But it has to be done right, in a way that's not obtrusive and doesn't interrupt the digestion of that content."

Some Bond aficionados scoff at the Heineken tie-in, preferring to think of their man as a martini and Dom Perignon man. But there was Red Stripe beer in 1962's "Dr. No." And besides the familiar green-bottled Heineken (whose logo also is emblazoned on an unlikely wooden crate toppled in an early chase scene) and a lightly sipped martini, there is a memorable scene built around 50-year-aged Macallan.

"When I was at Kraft, there were times when a film would come out and our brands would be in the film and we'd be delighted … or not," he said. "I never saw a time when one of our brands was used in a way that made us cringe, but it could happen."

Case in point: the VW Beetles, out-of-stock models, crushed in "Skyfall." "While we always look for opportunities for exposure in the form of product placement, we were not involved with this placement," Corey Proffitt, who handles product communications for Volkswagen of America, told the Tribune by email.

Caterpillar, which first tied up with 007 in 1999's "The World is Not Enough," hopes the "Skyfall" connection boosts brand awareness, particularly in emerging markets like China, which seems a manageable goal.

A theme of "Skyfall" is that today's world is changing faster than ever, which is as true of advertising as it is of espionage. That's why you're only going to see more brand cameos, a la the Bond films.

"The traditional tools of advertising are fading and marketers are looking for new things to do," Calkins said. "Product placement becomes one of those things that can engage people where other methods have no effect."

Talk about daunting obstacles to overcome while ultimately getting the job done.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Notre Dame moves to 10-0

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — The Notre Dame championship chase was, in fact, just that: A chase, a full-on sprint after others in clear sight but clearly ahead in the distance. It's not a hunt if you're ahead, and whatever the Irish did, they were going to need others to tumble and drop to pass them by.

And as they trotted onto the Alumni Stadium turf on Saturday for the usual mundane warm-ups and pregame routine, Notre Dame was one step closer to the BCS championship game, whether players knew it at the time or not. Thousands of miles away, No. 1 Alabama had fallen. It was a seismic ripple. It was precisely what the Irish needed.

With such supercharged stakes, of course, came the responsibility to avoid an unsightly meltdown against unsightly, two-win Boston College. There would not be another epic upset in this series, only mauled Eagles, dispatched by a 21-6 score that will ensure the No. 4 Irish creep up in the polls but not ensuring they won style points in doing so.

Everett Golson threw for 200 yards and two scores while running for another, Theo Riddick rushed for 104 yards and the defense stiffened from the second quarter on, but Irish tailbacks coughed up two momentum-killing fumbles. Notre Dame perfunctorily made its way to 10-0 for the eighth time in school history, and voters will decide how high they climb after that.

With Texas A&M stunning Alabama, the Irish were all but assured of moving to the No. 3 position, at least, in the next set of BCS rankings. But Oregon and Kansas State still were preferred in the human component that makes up two-thirds of that BCS formula. As tantalizing as being one spot away from the national title matchup is, it was still one spot away.

So the relative beauty of these victories may come into play if future losses by Oregon and Kansas State don't. And it remains to be seen if grinding, imperfect victories like Saturday's are anyone's style.

Notre Dame had just three first-half possessions, thanks to a ball-hogging, clock-chomping offense that excelled at keep-away. The first example: A 95-yard marathon on the Irish's first possession, capped by a Golson 2-yard touchdown run to open the scoring midway through the first quarter.

Boston College frayed some nerves with a field goal drive followed by forcing a George Atkinson III fumble, but the ensuing drive sputtered. Notre Dame's next series did not. That one would eat up 81/2 minutes of clock over 16 plays, with a Golson-to-Troy Niklas touchdown strike making it 14-3.

Golson hit a wide-open John Goodman for an 18-yard touchdown on the first series after halftime — a modest nine-play march — to extend the lead to 21-3.

It wasn't close, really, with the Irish converting 10 straight third downs through late in the third quarter. But it was uneven, even as Notre Dame suffocated the possibility of another season-killing Boston College upset, a la 1993 and 2002. The Irish won, which is what they needed to keep doing.

But was it aesthetically pleasing? Was it enough if the final stages of the BCS race is essentially a pageant? Beauty may be in the eye of the vote-holder.

bchamilton@tribune.com

Twitter @ChiTribHamilton

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Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez have broken up, reports say

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop star Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, Selena Gomez, a Disney actress and singer, have broken up, ending a relationship that made them one of Hollywood’s most high-profile young couples, media reports said.

Bieber, 18, and Gomez, 20, disclosed their relationship in February 2011 when they appeared together at an Oscar night party after months of rumors of their dating.

E! Online late on Friday was the first to report the split, with other media outlets including US Weekly and People also saying the relationship was over. The reports cited unnamed sources close to the couple.

Representatives for Bieber and Gomez did not returns calls or emails on Saturday.

Bieber has released two No. 1 albums in just over a year – the holiday-themed “Under the Mistletoe” and his latest, “Believe.” In September, he topped Billboard’s “21 Under 21″ list of top young musical acts. It was his second year in a row with the title.

Gomez rose to fame as a teenager in the Walt Disney Co television series “Wizards of Waverly Place” and has enjoyed success as a pop singer.

(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Cooney)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Slipstream: Biometric Data-Gathering Sets Off a Privacy Debate

“PLEASE put your hand on the scanner,” a receptionist at a doctor’s office at New York University Langone Medical Center said to me recently, pointing to a small plastic device on the counter between us. “I need to take a palm scan for your file.”

I balked.

As a reporter who has been covering the growing business of data collection, I know the potential drawbacks — like customer profiling — of giving out my personal details. But the idea of submitting to an infrared scan at a medical center that would take a copy of the unique vein patterns in my palm seemed fraught.

The receptionist said it was for my own good. The medical center, she said, had recently instituted a biometric patient identification system to protect against identity theft.

I reluctantly stuck my hand on the machine. If I demurred, I thought, perhaps I’d be denied medical care.

Next, the receptionist said she needed to take my photo. After the palm scan, that seemed like data-collection overkill. Then an office manager appeared and explained that the scans and pictures were optional. Alas, my palm was already in the system.

No longer the province of security services and science-fiction films, biometric technology is on the march. Facebook uses facial-recognition software so its members can automatically put name tags on friends when they upload their photos. Apple uses voice recognition to power Siri. Some theme parks take digital fingerprints to help recognize season pass holders. Now some hospitals and school districts are using palm vein pattern recognition to identify and efficiently manage their patients or students — in effect, turning your palm into an E-ZPass.

But consumer advocates say that enterprises are increasingly employing biometric data to improve convenience — and that members of the public are paying for that convenience with their privacy.

Fingerprints, facial dimensions and vein patterns are unique, consumer advocates say, and should be treated as carefully as genetic samples. So collecting such information for expediency, they say, could increase the risks of serious identity theft. Yet companies and institutions that compile such data often fail to adequately explain the risks to consumers, they say.

“Let’s say someone makes a fake ID and goes in and has their photo and their palm print taken as you. What are you going to do when you go in?” said Pam Dixon, the executive director of the World Privacy Forum, an advocacy group in San Diego. “Hospitals that are doing this are leaping over profound security issues that they are actually introducing into their systems.”

THE N.Y.U. medical center started researching biometric systems a few years ago in an effort to address several problems, said Kathryn McClellan, its vice president who is in charge of implementing its new electronic health records system. More than a million people in the New York area have the same or similar names, she said, creating a risk that medical personnel might pull up the wrong health record for a patient. Another issue, she said, was that some patients had multiple records from being treated at different affiliates; N.Y.U. wanted an efficient way to consolidate them.

Last year, the medical center adopted photography and palm-scan technology so that each patient would have two unique identifying features. Now, Ms. McClellan said, each arriving patient has his or her palm scanned, allowing the system to automatically pull up the correct file.

“It’s a patient safety initiative,” Ms. McClellan said. “We felt like the value to the patient was huge.”

N.Y.U.’s system, called PatientSecure and marketed by HT Systems of Tampa, has already scanned more than 250,000 patients. In the United States, over five million patients have had the scans, said Charles Yanak, a spokesman for Fujitsu Frontech North America, a division of Fujitsu, the Japanese company that developed the vein palm identification technology.

Yet, unless patients at N.Y.U. seem uncomfortable with the process, Ms. McClellan said, medical registration staff members don’t inform them that they can opt out of photos and scans.

“We don’t have formal consent,” Ms. McClellan said in a phone interview last Tuesday.

That raises red flags for privacy advocates. “If they are not informing patients it is optional,” said Joel Reidenberg, a professor at Fordham University Law School with an expertise in data privacy, “then effectively it is coerced consent.”

He noted that N.Y.U. medical center has had recent incidents in which computers or USB drives containing unencrypted patient data have been lost or stolen, suggesting that the center’s collection of biometric data might increase patients’ risk of identity theft.

Ms. McClellan responded that there was little chance of identity theft because the palm scan system turned the vein measurements into encrypted strings of binary numbers and stored them on an N.Y.U. server that is separate from the one with patients’ health records. Even if there were a breach, she added, the data would be useless to hackers because a unique key is needed to decode the number strings. As for patients’ photos, she said, they are attached to their medical records.

Still, Arthur Caplan, the director of the division of medical ethics at the N.Y.U. center, recommended that hospitals do a better job of explaining biometric ID systems to patients. He himself recently had an appointment at the N.Y.U. center, he recounted, and didn’t learn that the palm scan was optional until he hesitated and asked questions.

“It gave me pause,” Dr. Caplan said. “It would be useful to put up a sign saying ‘We are going to take biometric information which will help us track you through the system. If you don’t want to do this, please see’ ” an office manager.

Other institutions that use PatientSecure, however, have instituted opt-in programs for patients.

At the Duke University Health System, patients receive brochures explaining their options, said Eliana Owens, the health system’s director of patient revenue. The center also trains staff members at registration desks to read patients a script about the opt-in process for the palm scans, she said. (Duke does not take patients’ photos.)

“They say: ‘The enrollment is optional. If you choose not to participate, we will continue to ask you for your photo ID on subsequent visits,’ ” Ms. Owens said.

Consent or not, some leading identity experts see little value in palm scans for patients right now. If medical centers are going to use patients’ biometric data for their own institutional convenience, they argue, the centers should also enhance patient privacy — by, say, permitting lower-echelon medical personnel to look at a person’s medical record only if that patient is present and approves access by having a palm scanned.

Otherwise, “you are enabling another level of danger,” said Joseph Atick, a pioneer in biometric identity systems who consults for governments, “instead of using the technology to enable another level of privacy.”

At my request, N.Y.U. medical center has deleted my palm print.

E-mail: slipstream@nytimes.com.

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Walmart Black Friday 2012 coming even earlier

Cierra Hobson is a die-hard Black Friday shopper.

Every year she queues in front of one of her favorite stores, where she waits, in her pajamas, in hopes of bagging a good deal.

This year, Hobson and other deal-seekers will find some twists on the post-Thanksgiving Day ritual: coupons delivered via mobile phones and deeper discounts, maneuvers designed to make shopping easier for consumers and to set retailers on a strong start to the biggest shopping period of the year. But perhaps the biggest change will be an earlier start to the holiday rush.

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, Sears and Wal-Mart announced plans to open at 8 p.m.

"The name of the game this holiday season is who can do it best," said National Retail Federation spokeswoman Kathy Grannis.

"When (early openings) started in 2009, things were a little bit worse off in terms of consumer confidence," Grannis added. "At that point it was very necessary for retailers to get out there before anybody else, and that literally meant before midnight."

This year, holiday spending is expected to rise 4.1 percent, according to the 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.

Wal-Mart plans to greet shoppers with the likes of $89 Wii consoles and a $38 Blu-ray player. At Sears, there will be perks on sale items for members of its shopper loyalty program.

Both retailers are touting in-store pickup, allowing customers to buy items online and pick them up at the store, avoiding checkout lines.

The Disney Store plans to begin offering Black Friday deals on the Monday before Thanksgiving, though Disney stores will open at midnight in some markets and 5 a.m. in others. Ads leaked to Internet deal sites say Target stores will open at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

Last year, Wal-Mart recorded its most customer traffic at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, said spokesman Steven Restivo, adding that the retailer relied on focus groups, online surveys and other feedback to help it decide to open two hours earlier this year. "Our customers told us they loved our Thanksgiving event last year and wanted it again."

At Sears, staying open 26 consecutive hours through Black Friday gives its customers the flexibility they want and makes good business sense, said spokesman Brian Hanover.

"There's a segment of Sears customers who want that thrill of holiday shopping to start as soon as their Thanksgiving dinner ends," he said. "Traditionalists," he added, can wait for door busters at 4 a.m.

Despite discounts that often go beyond 50 percent, stores still make money on the sales, retail experts say. That's because shoppers in physical stores tend to spend more than they planned, said Sanjay Dhar, professor of marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

In the store, "you end up making purchases that aren't as marked down, in addition to the door-buster deals," he said.

Opening earlier and staggering door-buster deals is not only a good way to make money, but it's also necessary for crowd control, retail watchers say. In 2008, a store employee was trampled to death in a Black Friday door-buster stampede at a Long Island, N.Y., Wal-Mart.

Hobson said she doesn't plan to start shopping Thanksgiving night, but she said she'll be up before dawn to catch sales at Express, a clothing store.

"Just knowing that everybody is doing the same thing I'm doing on the same day feels like the beginning of Christmas," she said.

Others worry that super-early openings could backfire.

Sheri Petras, CEO of CFI Group, a Michigan-based consultancy, said store employees grumpy from having to leave their Thanksgiving festivities will take out their anger on customers.

"Consumers will not spend as much with cranky employees," she said.

Some employees at Wal-Mart, Sears and Target say they'd like the day off.

Change.org, an activist website, said Friday that more than 20 new petitions were submitted by employees and consumers asking retailers to reconsider their Thanksgiving evening openings.

It's the second year the website has administered petitions calling for retailers to stick to traditional Black Friday openings.

In a statement distributed by OUR Walmart, a labor rights group, Wal-Mart employee Mary Pat Tifft, of Wisconsin, said she would be "devastated" if she had to work on Thanksgiving, because she is expecting her son home from Afghanistan for the holiday.

"This early opening is one more example of Walmart's disconnect with the workers who keep its stores running and disregard for all of our families. As the largest employer in the country, Walmart could be setting a standard for businesses to value families, but instead, this is one more Walmart policy that hurts the families of workers at its stores," she said.

crshropshire@tribune.com

Twitter @corilyns

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CIA Director David Petraeus quits post over affair

David Petraeus, the retired four-star general renowned for taking charge of the military campaigns in Iraq and then Afghanistan, abruptly resigned Friday as director of the CIA, admitting to an extramarital affair.

The affair was discovered during an FBI investigation, according to officials briefed on the developments. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

Petraeus carried on the affair with his biographer and reserve Army officer Paula Broadwell, according to several U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation that led to the resignation publicly.

The FBI discovered the relationship by monitoring Petraeus' emails, after being alerted Broadwell may have had access to his personal email account, two of the officials said.

Broadwell did not respond to voice mail or email messages seeking comment.

Petraeus' resignation shocked Washington's intelligence and political communities. It was a sudden end to the public career of the best-known general of the post 9/11 wars, a man sometimes mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate. His service was effusively praised Friday in statements from lawmakers of both parties.

Petraeus, who turned 60 on Wednesday, told CIA employees in a statement that he had met with President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday and asked to be allowed to resign. On Friday, the president accepted.

Petraeus told his staffers he was guilty of "extremely poor judgment" in the affair. "Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours."

He has been married for 38 years to Holly Petraeus, whom he met when he was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. She was the daughter of the academy superintendent. They have two children, and their son led an infantry platoon in Afghanistan.

Obama said in a statement that the retired general had provided "extraordinary service to the United States for decades" and had given a lifetime of service that "made our country safer and stronger." Obama called him "one of the outstanding general officers of his generation."

The president said that CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell would serve as acting director. Morell was the key CIA aide in the White House to President George W. Bush during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

"I am completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission," Obama said.

Administration officials said the White House was first notified about the Petraeus affair on Wednesday, the day after the election. Obama, who returned to the White House that evening after spending Election Day in Chicago, wasn't informed until Thursday morning.

The Senate and House intelligence committees were briefed on Petraeus' resignation only after the news was reported in the media, said a congressional staffer, speaking anonymously because the staffer was not authorized to publicly discuss the sensitive briefings.

The resignation comes at a sensitive time. The administration and the CIA have struggled to defend security and intelligence lapses before the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others. It was an issue during the presidential campaign that ended with Obama's re-election Tuesday.

The CIA has come under intense scrutiny for providing the White House and other administration officials with talking points that led them to say the Benghazi attack was a result of a film protest, not a militant terror attack. It has become clear that the CIA was aware the attack was distinct from the film protests roiling across other parts of the Muslim world.

Morell rather than Petraeus now is expected to testify at closed congressional briefings next week on the Sept. 11 attacks on the consulate in Benghazi.

For the director of the CIA, being engaged in an extramarital affair is considered a serious breach of security and a counterintelligence threat. If a foreign government had learned of the affair, the reasoning goes, Petraeus or Broadwell could have been blackmailed or otherwise compromised. Military justice considers conduct such as an extramarital affair to be possible grounds for court-martial.

Failure to resign also could create the perception for the rank and file that such behavior is acceptable.

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Spotify to raise $100 million at $3 billion valuation – report

(Reuters) – Spotify is in the middle of a $ 100 million financing round that could value the music streaming company at just over $ 3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported citing sources.

The Journal said Spotify would raise the fresh capital from multiple investors including Goldman Sachs. The WSJ report did not name any other investors.

Spotify has raised capital from outside investors several times since it set up shop in 2006, and was earlier reported to have been looking to secure a capital boost of about $ 200 million, at a valuation of about $ 4 billion.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Accel Partners and others have invested about $ 189 million in the company in its prior financing rounds.

The company has over 15 million active users and 4 million paying subscribers, for its on-demand service, which offers unlimited music streaming of some 18 million tracks.

(Reporting by Himank Sharma in Bangalore)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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