Terrorists Knocked Off Twitter After Threats

The Twitter account belonging to a self-identified spokesperson for an al Qaeda-allied terrorist organization has been suspended.

The account, which began in late 2011 and is believed to belong to a representative of al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based terrorist organization, is currently out of service, days after it threatened the lives of Kenyan hostages, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Representatives for Twitter declined to comment on exactly when or why al-Shabaab’s account was suspended, due to “privacy and security reasons,” but under “Twitter Rules,” the company writes on its website that “you may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.”

In addition to the reported threats against the Kenyans, earlier this month the same account posted a long missive about France’s failed attempt to rescue a French intelligence agent codenamed Denis Allex and posted images of another man it said was a French special operations soldier who was killed in the doomed raid. The statement said the group had reached a “verdict” on what to do about Allex and, a few days later, al-Shabaab said they planned to execute the spy. Then, using Twitter, they announced Allex was dead.

READ: Terrorists Say They’ll ‘Execute’ Spy Who May Already Be Dead

The account, along with those of other terrorist organizations, for years has provided a window, tinted by propaganda, into the group, its ambitions and inner troubles – a resource for journalists and, presumably, interested intelligence agencies.

For instance, in March 2012, Twitter was the forum al-Shabaab used to deny it had arrested or was trying to kill its most high-profile member, Omar Hammami, a rapping American jihadist who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Mansoor al-Amriki. Hammami had taken to the internet to describe, in detail, a fissure within the terror group. He may himself be operating another Twitter account with which he engages in long exchanges about the state of jihadism in Somalia.

In September 2011, ABC News reported on a curious public spat that emerged between NATO forces and the Taliban – all over Twitter. Lebanon-based Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, also has a media arm that Tweets frequently.

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Lena Dunham says “Girls” season 3 starts shooting in March

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – HBO has yet to announce whether “Girls” has been renewed for a third season, but that’s okay, because Lena Dunham may have done it for them.

The writer, director and star of the critically-acclaimed comedy told Alec Baldwin during his WNYC podcast, “Here’s the Thing,” that she is preparing to start shooting the next season in March.

“I just finished season two,” the Golden Globe-winning actress said on Monday. “We’re starting at the end of March. I’m so excited.”

And much to delight of million of the 1.6 total overall viewers that tuned in to watch three airings of the premiere on January 13, Dunham says the episode order may have been increased from 10 to 12.

“Well, we’ve been doing 10,” she continued. “I think between you, me and McGee, I think we might do 12 next year.”

HBO wouldn’t officially confirm the renewal to TheWrap, but Dunham’s interview makes it sound like she will call the premium cable network home for years to come. She admits it’s “not clear” how many seasons of “Girls” she is contractually obligated to continue writing and directing, but says she’s locked in as an actor for six years.

“HBO contractually has me I think as an actor for six years but as a writer and director – I should pay more attention to my deals, but I’m just so excited to have my job,” she said. “I just go, ‘Okay, whatever you say.’”

Another thing she should start getting excited about is the possibility of not just talking to Baldwin – one of her idols – but working with him, too.

After she revealed a third season, the “30 Rock” star was quick to add: “I’ll be available. I’ll come and play your therapist.”

“That would be the most fun thing in the world,” she responded before later adding: “Working with you is one of my longstanding dreams.”

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40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Pro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday.

WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday for the annual March for Life rally, which culminated in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building.

On a gray morning when the temperature was well below freezing, the crowd pressed in close against the stage to hear more than a dozen speakers, who included Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who recently introduced legislation to withhold financing from Planned Parenthood, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston; and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania and Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Santorum spoke of his wife’s decision not to have an abortion after they learned that their child — their daughter Bella, now 4 — had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18.

“We all know that death is never better, never better,” Mr. Santorum said. “Bella is better for us, and we are better because of Bella.”

Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said that the march was both somber and hopeful.

“We’ve lost 55 million Americans to abortion,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re starting to win. We’re winning in the court of public opinion, we’re winning in the states with legislation.”

Though the main event officially started at noon, the day began much earlier for the participants, with groups in matching scarves engaged in excited chatter on the subway and gaggles of schoolchildren wearing name tags around their necks. Arriving on the Mall, attendees were greeted with free signs (“Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Personhood for Everyone”) and a man barking into a megaphone, “Ireland is on the brink of legalizing abortion, which is not good.”

The march came two months after the 2012 campaign season, in which social issues like abortion largely took a back seat to the focus on the economy. But the issue did come up in Congressional races in which Republican candidates made controversial statements about rape or abortion. In Indiana, Richard E. Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the Senate, said in a debate that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were something that “God intended,” and in Illinois, Representative Joe Walsh said in a debate that abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother because of “advances in science and technology.” Both men lost, hurt by a backlash from female voters.

Recent polls show that while a majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned entirely, many favor some restrictions. In a Gallup poll released this week, 52 percent of those surveyed said that abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances, while 28 percent said they should be legal under all circumstances, and 18 percent said they should be illegal under all circumstances. In a Pew poll this month, 63 percent of respondents said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned completely, and 29 percent said they did — views largely consistent with surveys taken over the past two decades.

“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”

“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.

The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”

Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.

Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America started a new Web site, and on Tuesday, its president, Cecile Richards, released a statement supporting abortion rights.

“Planned Parenthood understands that abortion is a deeply personal and often complex decision for a woman to consider, if and when she needs it,” she said. “A woman should have accurate information about all of her options around her pregnancy. To protect her health and the health of her family, a woman must have access to safe, legal abortion without interference from politicians, as protected by the Supreme Court for the last 40 years.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 25, 2013

A summary that appeared on the home page of NYTimes.com with an earlier version of this article misstated the day of the march. It took place on Friday, not Thursday.

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2012 stock report: Pains and gains

If you invested heavily in Illinois companies that provide consulting services, you had little reason to celebrate in 2012.

While the Standard & Poor's 500 index ended the year up 13 percent, most large businesses in the region that counsel other companies on how to improve their operations saw their stock prices drop.

Business support services was one of the few sectors getting clobbered in a 2012 Tribune ranking of Illinois and northwest Indiana stocks' performance.

Stock prices gained at about 70 percent of the 127 companies on the list, and about half outperformed the S&P 500. Bank owners such as Taylor Capital Group emerged from their 2011 doldrums, and Ulta Salon Cosmetics & Fragrance Inc. and Discover Financial Services marked their second consecutive year of soaring stock prices.

The year's biggest decliner, down 76 percent, was Groupon, as once-torrid revenue growth at the daily deals offerer started slowing.

Career Education was the second-worst performer; its stock fell 56 percent. The highly scrutinized for-profit school chain said it would close campuses and cut jobs amid sinking revenue and financial losses.

Sectors boosted by broad gains in 2012 included electrical parts and equipment, industrial machinery, and specialty chemicals.

Of seven Illinois banks on the list, all but one outperformed the S&P 500, with price appreciation of those six ranging from 16 to 86 percent.

In contrast, stocks of four of five professional services firms — Navigant Consulting, Huron Consulting Group, Heidrick & Struggles International and R.R. Donnelley & Sons — closed down 2 to 38 percent.

Each had its own set of issues.

Navigant's services, for example, include advising companies that face disputes, litigation and investigations, including government probes, as well as businesses that need help valuing potential mergers and acquisitions.

"You see fewer government investigations during an election year, as regulators are leaving their jobs, and they don't want to start new ones," said Tobey Sommer, a SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst. "Also, worries about the 'fiscal cliff' slowed M&A because CEOs didn't want to look foolish acquiring a company in September ahead of the fiscal cliff when they might have been able to buy it for 20 percent less in January had we gone off."

Meanwhile, Heidrick's troubles included a slowing market for executive searches. In early 2012, analysts expected Heidrick's annual earnings to be in the range of about $1.30 per share. It appears that it will earn closer to 57 cents a share.

Huron's earnings estimates during 2012 were also trimmed, to about $2.10 from about $2.40 a share as the timing of fee payments to its health care consulting business proved volatile.

"Its underlying demand is strong," but an increasing number of clients had signed contracts where a larger portion of revenue was contingent on the outcome of Huron's consulting work, said Randle Reece, analyst with Avondale Partners LLC. That made it harder for the company and the analysts who cover it to predict the timing of revenues, since they are deferred.

For investors interested in "Dumpster diving," Morningstar Inc. considers Exelon, WMS Industries and Caterpillar to be high quality yet undervalued this year, said Heather Brilliant, chief equities strategist.

Navigant is among the region's beaten-down stocks liked by stock research firm EVA Dimensions LLC. "Its fundamentals are improving, and it's really cheap," said EVA analyst Andrew Zamfotis.

Best of the best

Here are the top three stock gainers of 2012:

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Soccer coach suspended in Maine West hazing case

Another soccer coach linked to hazing allegations on athletic teams at Maine West High School has been suspended without pay by the district while officials pursue his dismissal.

Maine Township High School District 207 officials reached that decision on freshman boys soccer coach Emilio Rodriguez at a special board meeting Thursday night, a month after reaching the same decision on the employment of head varsity soccer coach Michael Divincenzo.

“The board believes Mr. Rodriguez violated District 207 Board of Education policy and professional expectations by failing to adequately prevent, recognize, report and punish student hazing,” board president Sean Sullivan said in a statement read at the meeting.

Both men were originally placed on paid leave and reassigned from teaching duties this fall when allegations of hazing surfaced in early October on the Des Plaines school’s soccer and baseball teams.

Those allegations are the subject of a lawsuit filed on behalf of four alleged hazing victims on the soccer team and against the district, both coaches and Maine West Principal Audrey Haugan.

Rodriguez, a tenured applied arts and technology teacher, has 17 days to request a hearing on his dismissal through the Illinois State Board of Education, officials said.

Through an attorney, Divincenzo recently requested an appeal hearing with the state board. The appeal process could take up to one year, officials said.

Rodriguez could not be reached for comment on Thursday night. But Des Plaines police reports show he and Divincenzo previously denied any knowledge of team hazing or initiation rituals.

District officials also fulfilled early promises made shortly after the hazing allegations surfaced by approving the hiring of former assistant U.S. attorney Sergio Acosta to lead the district’s independent investigation into hazing allegations, and California-based consultant Community Matters to lead focus groups studying bullying and hazing prevention techniques.

Last week, district officials confirmed the receipt of grand jury subpoenas in the Cook County state’s attorney’s ongoing investigation. Officials reiterated their commitment to “cooperate fully with all agencies conducting their own investigations, including the Cook County State’s Attorney, Des Plaines Police and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

One subpoena, dated Dec. 6 and obtained by the Tribune, directs Maine West Principal Audrey Haugan to produce “personnel files, disciplinary records, reports, memorandums, summaries, interviews, investigations, notes, statements or other such writings or recordings for Michael Divincenzo and Emilio Rodriguez, and any and all other employees associated with coaching student athletes from 2007 to the present time.”

In another Dec. 6 subpoena, Superintendent Ken Wallace is directed to produce “any written materials describing or explaining” school, student athlete, coach or teacher conduct codes or rules, “or rules or any other similar such writings including but not limited to the topics of hazing, sexual misconduct or physical misconduct in any manner associated with Maine West High School.”

Wallace, Haugan, Maine East Principal Michael Pressler and Maine South Principal Shawn Messmer also received subpoenas dated Dec. 7. Those subpoenas, which were partially redacted, seek “any and all letters, emails, reports, memorandums, call logs, writings, recordings, or other such material regarding” redacted information, “including any such documents from within the school records or school file for” redacted information.

jbullington@tribune.com

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New PlayStation 4 details emerge: 8-core AMD ‘Bulldozer’ CPU, redesigned controller and more

2013 is a huge year for gamers. Nintendo (NTDOY) just launched the Wii U ahead of the holidays and both Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) are expected to issue next-generation consoles before the year is through. We’ve seen plenty of rumors about both systems over the past few months, and the latest comes from Kotaku and focuses on Sony’s PlayStation 4.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 said to be overhyped, RIM’s comeback chances remain slim]

The site claims to have gotten its hands on documents describing Sony’s developer system given to premier partners so they can build games ahead of the next-generation console launch. The specs, if accurate, will obviously line up with the release version of the system. Included in the specs Kotaku is reporting are an AMD64 “Bulldozer” CPU with eight cores total, an AMD GPU, 8GB of system RAM, 2.2GB of video memory, a 160GB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, four USB 3.0 ports and more.

[More from BGR: Apple: ‘Bent, not broken’]

Sony also reportedly has a redesigned controller in the works that will include a capacitive touch pad.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Damon ‘hijacks’ Kimmel’s ABC show

NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Damon had his revenge.

The butt of a long-running joke on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the actor opened Thursday night’s show as a kidnapper who tied Kimmel to a chair with duct tape and gagged him with his own tie.

“There’s a new host in town and his initials are M.D.,” Damon said. “That’s right, the doctor is in.”

For years, Kimmel has joked at the end of his show that he ran out of time and was unable to bring Damon on as a guest. Kimmel was the silent one Thursday, watching from the back of the stage as Damon did his job.

Damon tormented Kimmel by bringing on a succession of big-name guests. Robin Williams stopped by to finish the monologue. Ben Affleck had a walk-on role. Sheryl Crow was the bandleader and performed her new single. Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman, Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon and Demi Moore all crowded the talk show’s couch.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time,” Damon said. “This is like when I lost my virginity, except this is going to last way longer than one second.”

Damon’s guest hosting turn came at a key time for Kimmel. ABC earlier this month moved the show to 11:35 p.m. ET and PT after a decade of airing it a half hour later, putting him in direct competition with Jay Leno and David Letterman.

Thursday’s special program aimed for the same water-cooler status as a memorably lewd short film Damon made for the show a few years ago with Kimmel’s then-girlfriend, Sarah Silverman. It went viral and remains probably the best-known skit in the show’s history.

To twist the knife even further, Damon brought Silverman on as his final guest Thursday night, with Kimmel looking on forlornly as she likened their five-year relationship to an unfortunate trip to a hot dog vendor.

“Is there anything you’d like to say to Jimmy?” Damon asked.

“No, I’m good,” Silverman replied.

Then came the sweetest revenge of all, with Damon promising to ungag Kimmel in the show’s final minutes.

“Wait,” he said. “I’m sorry. We’re out of time.”

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The New Old Age Blog: Time to Recognize Mild Cognitive Disorder?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published and periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association, is one of those documents few laypeople ever read, but many of us are affected by.

It can make it easier or harder to get an insurance company or Medicare to cover treatments, for example. It factors into a variety of legal and governmental decisions.

And on a personal basis, a psychiatric diagnosis may be welcome (having a name and a treatment plan for what’s bothering us can be comforting) or not (are we really suffering from a mental disorder if we seem depressed after a family member dies?).

That last question refers to a change in the new DSM5, to be published in May, that has generated considerable controversy and that I discussed in an earlier post: the removal of the “bereavement exclusion,” once part of the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder.

Another element of the revised DSM could also affect readers: It will include something called Mild Neurocognitive Disorder. The task force revising the manual wanted to align psychiatry with the rest of medicine, which has already begun to distinguish between levels of impairment, said its chairman, David Kupfer, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatrist.

True enough, as we have reported before. Neurologists call it Mild Cognitive Impairment, a stage where cognitive decline becomes noticeable enough to affect daily functioning, yet people can still live independently and have not progressed to dementia.

In fact, a large proportion of people with mild cognitive problems never will develop dementia — but doctors and researchers cannot yet determine who will and who won’t. Biomarkers that could identify the biological brain changes that presage dementia are still years away.

Will it be helpful, then, for health professionals using the DSM5 — most of them not psychiatrists, but primary care doctors — to begin diagnosing Mild Neurocognitive Disorder? Particularly as there is no treatment that can reverse it or reliably slow its progression, if it would progress?

Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and a member of the working group that developed the new DSM5 criteria, said he thought the newly recognized disorder would be useful. “The predementia phase is becoming increasingly important,” he told me in an interview.

Counseling could help people compensate for the memory loss and other deficits they are experiencing, for example. With a DSM-recognized diagnosis, those approaches are more likely to be covered by insurers.

Besides, “one argument against Alzheimer’s therapies is that we wait too late, when there’s too much damage to the central nervous system to repair,” Dr. Petersen said, referring to several recent disappointing drug trials. In the future, with earlier diagnoses, “you may be able to intervene, stop the process and forestall the dementia.”

But as we have seen with screening tests for other diseases, early detection does not always lead to better health or longer lives. It can, however, lead to unnecessary treatments and procedures involving risks of their own. Could that happen with Mild Neurocognitive Disorder?

“It will lead to wild overdiagnosis,” predicted Allen Frances, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Duke and the chairman of the task force that developed the previous DSM edition. Indeed, about a quarter of people initially diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment are later determined to be normal, a prominent researcher told my colleague Judy Graham last year.

“People will get unnecessary tests and start getting weird treatments that have no proven efficacy,” said Dr. Frances, who has criticized a number of DSM5 changes. “They’re going to worry like crazy about being demented.”

Dr. Petersen agreed that it was a legitimate concern, but “by and large, we’re becoming better at distinguishing between the normal cognitive effects of aging and disease.” (The American Psychiatric Association will publish a specialized DSM for primary care physicians, Dr. Kupfer pointed out, to help guide them through diagnoses.)

It is hard for patients and families to know how to react when experts disagree. But keep in mind that contemporary health care aims for what is called shared decision-making. That means patients and professionals discuss options and weigh the risks and benefits of treatments and procedures, their likely outcomes, patients’ preferences, and come to agreement on how to proceed. This essay in the New England Journal of Medicine calls shared decision-making “the pinnacle of patient-centered care.”

So when Dr. Frances refers to the DSM5 as “a guide, not a bible,” and urges skepticism about some of its diagnoses, he is advocating an approach that patients and families should probably bring to any medical decision.

Seeking further information, asking questions, assessing options — those are reasonable responses if, a few weeks after a loved one’s death, a doctor says you may have major depression. Or if she thinks your memory loss could mean Mild Neurocognitive Disorder.

“The shorter the evaluation, the less the person knows you, the less he or she can explain and justify the diagnosis, the more tests and treatments that will result, the more a person should be cautious and get a second opinion,” Dr. Frances said.

Whatever the DSM5 says, it’s hard to argue with that.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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NTSB: Dreamliner grounding indefinite

Boeing 787 Dreamliners will remain flightless birds for some time, it appears.

Federal investigators said Thursday they are still early in their probe of a Dreamliner battery fire in Boston Jan. 7. That fire, along with a subsequent 787 battery problem in Japan, led to groundings of Boeing's breakthrough plane model in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The revelation at a news conference Thursday afternoon that investigators still have not found a cause may suggest grounded Dreamliners, including six owned by Chicago-based United Airlines, won't be airborne anytime soon.

"We are early in our investigation. We have a lot of activity to undertake," said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman, pointing to one upcoming forensic test that alone takes a week. "There is a lot more work to be done before we can identify what caused this event."

The NTSB is the lead investigator of the battery fire in Boston aboard a Japan Airlines 787 aircraft.

Despite many aviation experts calling the 787's numerous mechanical glitches "teething pains" that all new airplane models go through, Hersman emphasized the gravity of fires on planes.

"This is an unprecedented event. We are very concerned. ... We do not expect to see fire events on board aircraft," she said. "This is a very serious air safety concern."

Nobody was hurt in the fire on the 787 in Boston or in an emergency landing in Japan after battery-related smoke and fumes on a different 787 were discovered.

The NTSB investigation will try to explain why multiple backup protections in the battery and the electronics systems aimed at preventing a fire failed, Hersman said.

"These events should not happen," she said. "As far as the design of the aircraft, there are multiple systems to protect against a battery event like this. Those systems did not work as intended. We need to understand why."

Besides fire, NTSB investigators found evidence of short circuits in the charred eight-cell, 63-pound battery and "thermal runaway," essentially uncontrolled spreading of heat. But those were symptoms, not necessarily causes, Hersman said. The batteries were made in Japan by Kyoto-based GS Yuasa Corp.

News that the NTSB investigation may be protracted -- longer than the few days some had predicted -- is bad news for Chicago-based Boeing.

Boeing last week halted deliveries of new 787s, until the FAA lifts the flight ban. However, Dreamliner production continues. Boeing is working to double monthly output in 2013 to help shrink a backlog of about 800 orders that swelled during multiple delays to the jet's debut, which came in late 2011.

Deliveries are important because that's when planemakers get large bulk payments on the purchase price of a jet. The 787's list price starts at about $207 million, but airlines typically buy at discount.

In a statement Thursday, Boeing said it is assisting in multiple investigations in the U.S. and Japan.

"The company has formed teams consisting of hundreds of engineering and technical experts who are working around the clock with the sole focus of resolving the issue and returning the 787 fleet to flight status," Boeing said.

Earlier Thursday, Boeing received a vote of confidence from United Airlines, the only U.S. airline  to own the new jet, during an earnings call with United Continental Holdings CEO Jeff Smisek. "History teaches us that all new aircraft types have issues, and the 787 is no different," Smisek said. "We continue to have confidence in the aircraft and in Boeing's ability to fix the issues, just as they have done on every other new aircraft model they've produced."

United had been using a Dreamliners on a route between Chicago and Houston. After the grounding, the route has been flown with a different aircraft.

Dreamliners in the U.S., Japan, Europe and elsewhere have been grounded since Jan. 16, after a 787 operated by All Nippon Airways made an emergency landing in Japan because battery-related smoke and fumes. That followed the fire in Boston that the NTSB is investigating.

The Dreamliner grounding was the first since the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 had its airworthiness certificate suspended following a deadly crash in Chicago in 1979.

Boeing has sold about 850 of its new aircraft, with 50 delivered to date. The plane is half made of a composite material, leading some to call it a "plastic plane." It makes greater use of electronics, powered by batteries, rather than heavy hydraulics. That makes the plane lighter and helps improve fuel efficiency, which is a big deal for airlines.

Boeing has said in statements that it is confident the 787 is safe, and it stands by the plane's integrity. It is cooperating with investigations in the U.S. and abroad.

Because of the groundings, LOT Polish Airlines scrapped its inaugural flight from O'Hare International Airport to Warsaw Jan. 16, just hours after the FAA grounded the plane. LOT officials said they would seek compensation from Boeing for having its two Dreamliners grounded. It will take delivery of the three more due in March only if the problems are resolved, the airline said.

After Thursday, it's clear nobody knows just when that might be.

"There is a tremendous amount of work going on all around the world," Hersman said. "We actually have two shifts of employees both here and in Japan who really are working around the clock to try to solve this."

gkarp@tribune.com

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Bulls rally to beat Pistons 85-82

As the United Center rocked and the Bulls celebrated Marco Belinelli's go-ahead, three-point play with 7.5 seconds left, Joakim Noah remained down in the photographer's pit along the baseline, cameras and cheerleaders all around him.

"I didn't really see the play," Noah said. "I had the cheerleaders' pom-poms in my face."

His teammates saw it, which is why they were celebrating the shot that sealed the Bulls' stirring 85-82 comeback over the Pistons, their 17th straight victory in this series. It marked the second time in just more than a month the Bulls erased a 17-point deficit against the Pistons to prevail.

And yet Noah, who had authored, really, the play of the season — one that defines the heart and hustle that has the Derrick Rose-less Bulls on pace for 50 victories now that the midway point has been reached — remained down.

"We were over there celebrating and he was still knocked over by the cheerleaders," said Nate Robinson, who kick-started the rally with nine straight points early in the fourth. "We were like, 'Oh, yeah, we have to go help him up.' But that play shows how hard Jo works. He never gives up."

Noah smiled, clearly relishing the opportunity to tweak his teammates.

"Damn, it took forever, right?" he said of the delay.

All's well that ends well, right?

But make sure to find a replay of Noah's hustle, which came off Belinelli's bricked jumper. As Noah tumbled into cameras and cheerleaders, Belinelli cut to the basket, grabbed the fruit of Noah's effort and laid it in as Rodney Stuckey fouled him.

"I scored, but the credit goes to Jo," said Belinelli, who scored his second game-winner in four games.

Coach Tom Thibodeau just shook his head.

"Quite frankly, I don't know he got to it," Thibodeau said. "It was an incredible play."

The Bulls then watched tying 3-point attempts from Tayshuan Prince and Stuckey rim out as time expired.

"I stayed with the play," Noah said. "The basketball gods were on our side. It's not really a great play because if Detroit gets it, it's a four-on-five fast break the other side. Fortunately, we got it. "

Robinson's boundless energy can delve into extracurricular emotion, but there's no denying he jump-started the comeback. Robinson keyed a 12-2 run to open the fourth with nine straight points and a dish for a fast-break dunk from Butler, who tied his career-highs with 18 points and nine rebounds.

Butler, starting again for the injured Luol Deng, played all but 91 seconds and overcame a 1-for-8 start. He also hit a huge 3-pointer — the Bulls missed their first 10 and made just 3 of 14 — for an 82-80 lead before Jason Maxiell tied the game with 29.4 seconds left off a defensive breakdown.

"Jimmy just kept working the game," Thibodeau said. "He never got down. He kept battling and battling."

Robinson finished with 11 points.

"That's Nate. He made a lot of big-time plays for us," Thibodeau said. "He's not afraid. I respect that about him.

"The group that started the fourth quarter played with energy, got some stops and got us going.

Noah played 45 minutes with 10 points and 18 rebounds.

"We just kept saying, 'We're going to rally together,'" Butler said. "That's what this team is all about."

kcjohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

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Siri was supposed to be a key feature on Verizon’s DROID lineup until Apple swooped in

Since the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple (AAPL) has touted its intelligent voice assistant Siri as a key feature of the iOS ecosystem. The startup company behind the app originally launched Siri as standalone program on the App Store and had plans to release Android and BlackBerry versions in the future. Siri was quickly acquired by Apple, however, and plans to expand the app were cancelled.

[More from BGR: Apple reports Q1 results: $ 13.1 billion profit beats estimates, iPhone sales and Q2 guidance miss big]

According to a report from The Huffington Post, Verizon (VZ) had actually signed a deal with the creators of Siri to feature the voice assistant on its DROID line of smartphones several months before the company was approached by Apple. The wireless carrier even created commercials touting the unique feature, although they never saw the light of day.

[More from BGR: As data gets cheaper for Verizon to transmit, customers are paying more]

After two months of availability on the App Store, Apple acquired Siri in 2010 and the rest is history.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Broadway’s “Spider-Man” producers, Taymor, near settlement, again

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The producers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” and Julie Taymor, the musical’s ousted director, are once again ready to settle their long-running court case, a court filing showed on Wednesday.

“We anticipate notifying the Court within the next week that a final settlement agreement has been executed,” attorney Charles T. Spada, who represents Taymor, wrote in a January 22 letter to U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan.

The letter comes less than two weeks after the parties resumed litigation after failing to reach a final settlement of Taymor‘s copyright infringement lawsuit, court records show.

The latest development comes five months after Taymor had reached a settlement in principle with 8 Legged Productions, the producer, in the copyright infringement case

“Spider-Man,” which became a hit, got off to a disastrous start in 2010 with opening night delays, injured actors and the firing of Taymor, who won a Tony Award for her work on “The Lion King.” She sued 8 Legged Productions in November 2011.

Any settlement is conditioned on 8 Legged Productions coming to terms with Marvel Entertainment, a unit of Walt Disney Co, to extend its license to produce the musical in other venues, Spada wrote in a December 19 letter to the judge.

In Wednesday’s letter, Spada said an agreement between the producer and Marvel to amend the license is likely within days.

Taymor and 8 Legged Productions intend to execute their agreement at the same time, the letter said.

“We are moving closer to finalizing the settlement,” Dale Cendali, a lawyer for 8 Legged Productions, said in an email.

A spokesperson for Marvel didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is Julie Taymor et al v. 8 Legged Productions et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11-cv-8002.

(Reporting By Karen Freifeld; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Well: Long Term Effects on Life Expectancy From Smoking

It is often said that smoking takes years off your life, and now a new study shows just how many: Longtime smokers can expect to lose about 10 years of life expectancy.

But amid those grim findings was some good news for former smokers. Those who quit before they turn 35 can gain most if not all of that decade back, and even those who wait until middle age to kick the habit can add about five years back to their life expectancies.

“There’s the old saw that everyone knows smoking is bad for you,” said Dr. Tim McAfee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But this paints a much more dramatic picture of the horror of smoking. These are real people that are getting 10 years of life expectancy hacked off — and that’s just on average.”

The findings were part of research, published on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, that looked at government data on more than 200,000 Americans who were followed starting in 1997. Similar studies that were done in the 1980s and the decades prior had allowed scientists to predict the impact of smoking on mortality. But since then many population trends have changed, and it was unclear whether smokers today fared differently from smokers decades ago.

Since the 1960s, the prevalence of smoking over all has declined, falling from about 40 percent to 20 percent. Today more than half of people that ever smoked have quit, allowing researchers to compare the effects of stopping at various ages.

Modern cigarettes contain less tar and medical advances have cut the rates of death from vascular disease drastically. But have smokers benefited from these advances?

Women in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s had lower rates of mortality from smoking than men. But it was largely unknown whether this was a biological difference or merely a matter of different habits: earlier generations of women smoked fewer cigarettes and tended to take up smoking at a later age than men.

Now that smoking habits among women today are similar to those of men, would mortality rates be the same as well?

“There was a big gap in our knowledge,” said Dr. McAfee, an author of the study and the director of the C.D.C.’s Office on Smoking and Public Health.

The new research showed that in fact women are no more protected from the consequences of smoking than men. The female smokers in the study represented the first generation of American women that generally began smoking early in life and continued the habit for decades, and the impact on life span was clear. The risk of death from smoking for these women was 50 percent higher than the risk reported for women in similar studies carried out in the 1980s.

“This sort of puts the nail in the coffin around the idea that women might somehow be different or that they suffer fewer effects of smoking,” Dr. McAfee said.

It also showed that differences between smokers and the population in general are becoming more and more stark. Over the last 20 years, advances in medicine and public health have improved life expectancy for the general public, but smokers have not benefited in the same way.

“If anything, this is accentuating the difference between being a smoker and a nonsmoker,” Dr. McAfee said.

The researchers had information about the participants’ smoking histories and other details about their health and backgrounds, including diet, alcohol consumption, education levels and weight and body fat. Using records from the National Death Index, they calculated their mortality rates over time.

People who had smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetimes were not classified as smokers. Those who had smoked at least 100 cigarettes but had not had one within five years of the time the data was collected were classified as former smokers.

Not surprisingly, the study showed that the earlier a person quit smoking, the greater the impact. People who quit between 25 and 34 years of age gained about 10 years of life compared to those who continued to smoke. But there were benefits at many ages. People who quit between 35 and 44 gained about nine years, and those who stopped between 45 and 59 gained about four to six years of life expectancy.

From a public health perspective, those numbers are striking, particularly when juxtaposed with preventive measures like blood pressure screenings, colorectal screenings and mammography, the effects of which on life expectancy are more often viewed in terms of days or months, Dr. McAfee said.

“These things are very important, but the size of the benefit pales in comparison to what you can get from stopping smoking,” he said. “The notion that you could add 10 years to your life by something as straightforward as quitting smoking is just mind boggling.”

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U. of I. to launch tech research center in Chicago

Plans to launch a University of Illinois-affiliated technology research center in Chicago will be unveiled Thursday — the latest regional effort to stem an exodus of high-tech brainpower and entrepreneurship to the coasts.

A private, not-for-profit company, to be called UI Labs, is expected to open offices in or near the Loop to foster collaboration between the region's scientists and engineers from academia, industry and government.

The project, expected to be financed by private donations, corporate partnerships and federal grants, will be outlined for U. of I. trustees Thursday. The goal is to raise $20 million for first-year operations.

The aim is build a research and engineering powerhouse that will attract a range of industries to Chicago, along the lines of what the former Bell Labs did for the East Coast. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will offer up its vast tech resources, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and its Blue Waters supercomputer. It is anticipated other local universities and national research centers will participate.

"I was in India last week, talking with firms that were thinking of coming to Illinois to engage with university scientists," said U. of I. President Robert Easter. "And they say, 'We have a presence in Chicago or we're thinking of having a presence in Chicago, and it would be much more convenient if we could work with you there.'"

Or as project adviser James Duderstadt, president emeritus of the University of Michigan, put it, the U. of I. is among the top five universities in the nation in such high-tech fields as computer science and engineering, "but it's down there in the cornfields."

"All the pieces are there, but some of the things Chicago is lacking are things Urbana-Champaign has," he said.

The idea is to marry the two, helping Chicago attain the sort of direct scientific underpinnings that long have fostered tech hotbeds in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.

"This is an opportunity to essentially build some of the glue and connective tissue … and that's needed to keep students from leaving and, frankly, to grow some companies in Chicago," said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of innovation and networks for the Kansas City, Mo.-based Kauffman Foundation, which focuses on entrepreneurship.

Chicago faces intense competition nationwide, as many cities aim for technological prowess and growth. The start of the year brought the launch of a Cornell NYC Tech campus, for instance, a graduate program in applied sciences that will turn out high-level scientists in New York City.

In Illinois, the challenge is retaining talent. One telling statistic: 32 percent of computer science graduates from the U. of I. in Urbana-Champaign get jobs in California, said Larry Schook, the university's vice president for research.

Among U. of I. grads who made their names out West are Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; software entrepreneur Thomas Siebel, a major U. of I. donor; and Ray Ozzie, who recently retired as chief software architect for Microsoft Inc.

The goal of this project, supported by Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is to retain the next generation of Illinois-trained innovators.

The University of Illinois will have an affiliation agreement with the lab that would outline the flow of personnel, resources and services between them. The goal is to attract 250 faculty fellows during the first three years. Additionally, more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to participate in UI Labs training and entrepreneurial programs during the first five years.

"Some students and researchers prefer the city to a smaller community … so this could increase the quality of the faculty," said Bruce Rauner, a prominent Chicago venture capitalist who has worked on the development of this plan. "This can drive better research."

The intent is to develop a "junior year abroad program" as well, with the aim of attracting top students from overseas.

The UI Labs project will start within the next month or so, Schook said, with the naming of board members and a director search.

"We'd love to have … the smartest tech students in the world come to participate and stay here to create companies," Schook said.

Rauner, who made his fortune as co-founder of private equity firm GTCR and heads venture firm R8 Capital Partners, said he intends to participate in fundraising and to donate millions personally. Ultimately, to bring the center to world-class status, it may be necessary to raise a $300 million endowment, he said.

The University of Illinois has programs aimed at linking businesses to applicable academic research, including the University of Illinois at Chicago's Innovation Center and research parks at Chicago and Urbana. While those attempt to match faculty research with companies that could use it, the UI Labs model would aim for even deeper collaborative brainstorming, Easter said.

"A company struggling with a problem related to its technology could come in and sit with faculty who do theoretical work to see if those principles could lead to a solution," he said. "Out of that will come innovation, and that will drive economic growth."

kbergen@tribune.com

Twitter @kathy_bergen

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Massive blaze engulfs vacant Bridgeport warehouse

One-third of the Chicago Fire Department's on-duty personnel responded to a 5-11 alarm fire that engulfed a warehouse building, causing parts of it to collapse and endangering nearby buildings in the Bridgeport neighborhood Tuesday night.

A four-story building caught fire after 9 p.m., endangering another building, according to the Chicago Fire Department. Extra alarms, bringing more fire equipment, firefighters and paramedics were called soon after firefighters arrived. The fire in the former Harris Marcus Group building, 3757 S. Ashland Ave., was declared under control, though still burning, as of about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Firefighters had to contend with frozen hydrants and ice caused by overspray, Fire Department Commissioner Jose Santiago said. One firefighter suffered a back injury and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in serious condition, said Chicago Firefighter Meg Ahlheim, a department spokeswoman.

The fire climbed into the sky and sent ashes down on cars below. The warmth from the blaze could be felt blocks away. A Chicago Fire Department helicopter was called into service to provide an "aerial visual," but after firefighters arrived, they were able to keep the blaze from spreading to nearby businesses, Santiago said.

Still, anyone who looked out an upper-floor window from buildings across the city could see the fire, with many sending photographs out over social media. Ashes fell far from the fire scene.

"You could see the embers from the highway," said Darcy Benedict, a 28-year-old UIC medical school student. "I could see blue flames rising up."

Benedict and her boyfriend saw the fire from Interstate 55 and got off to get a better look. 

A crowd of at least 40 adults and children stood behind police tape, bundled up in the freezing weather, taking videos with cellphones.

Several others at the scene expressed doubt that the fire could be contained, as dozens of hoses could be seen in the distance spraying high and low onto the enormous blaze.

The commander at Tuesday's fire used two 'special alarms' to call for additional equipment beyond what a 5-11 alarm calls for, calling in special equipment needed to fight the massive blaze, Santiago said.

“I’m looking at the south side of the main fire building and there’s a big portion of exterior wall and roof collapse,” said Chicago Firefighter Meg Ahlheim, a Chicago Fire Department spokeswoman.

There was “extreme fire” throughout the buildings. Nobody has been reported injured.

The fire in the second building was mostly extinguished as of about 10:25 p.m. but the first building is "still involved," Ahlheim said.

Special alarms are called beyond the fifth, though they are "extremely rare," according to the fire department.

Commissioner Santiago said it was the first time a 5-11 with two special alarms was called since 2006 - apparently fire a fire that gutted the historic Wirt Dexter Building in the South Loop. That fire broke out before 3 p.m. on a weekday, snarled downtown traffic and forced the CTA to stop service on Loop L tracks.

Santiago said a Fire Department chief was driving past the warehouse when he saw smoke, turned around and called the fire in, bringing the first response, which was quickly elevated to an extra-alarm.

The alarms normally escalate one at a time beyond a normal fire response up to a fifth alarm, though the scene commander skipped a fourth alarm once the fire jumped to another building.

There was also a 5-11 fire in 2012 - in Avondale on the Northwest Side. That burned for hours but didn't required the special alarms called for Tuesday night's fire. About 200 firefighters and paramedics responded to that fire.

Santiago described the warehouse as "old," with lots of timber throughout the building. Firefighters are expected to be at the blaze for several hours, he said. As the water poured on the fire starts to freeze, more portions of the timber-and-brick construction building are likely to collapse under the weight of the ice, he said.

Check back for more information.

lford@tribune.com
Twitter: @ltaford

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Twitter: @peternickeas

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FTC study taking aim at online marketing of booze and kids

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans this summer to recommend ways that the alcoholic beverage industry can better protect underage viewers from seeing its advertisements online.

Distillers, brewers and wineries pour millions of dollars into brand promotion on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, and industry critics contend they are not doing enough to prevent young consumers from receiving these messages.

“We’re doing a deep dive on how they’re using the Internet and social media,” said Janet Evans, a lawyer with the FTC, which is conducting a year-long study due to be released by early summer. “We’re focusing on underage exposure.”

She would not elaborate on any potential recommendations that might come out of the study, which began in April 2012.

The FTC is reviewing data from 14 big producers, Evans said, including Beam Inc, the maker of Jim Beam, Diageo Plc, home to Johnnie Walker, and Constellation Brands Inc, which makes Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood wines.

The FTC report “is something we take seriously and place at high priority,” said Karena Breslin, director for digital marketing at Constellation.

The FTC has made two requests for information since the study began, she said.

The regulatory agency has not said it intends to impose restrictions on liquor company social media advertising but it can make recommendations to the industry.

The FTC is empowered to file suit to ensure consumers are protected from deceptive marketing practices, Evans said, but she stressed that studies of this nature are meant to promote better self-regulation, not provide a basis for a case.

Executives say alcohol makers and distributors voluntarily adhere to the same industry-set standard for marketing to underage viewers on social media sites that the industry set for its ads on TV and other medium. That requires that at least 71.6 percent of an audience consists of adults 21 and older.

“No one in their right mind would want to advertise to people who can’t legally buy their product,” said Frank Coleman, senior vice president for Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the trade group that sets the industry’s advertising codes.

In June 2011, DISCUS revised its code upwards to 71.6 percent from 70 percent, after the FTC recommended it review the standard to better reflect U.S. Census population data.

Industry critics, including David Jernigen, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Johns Hopkins University, and Sarah Mart, research director of the advocacy group Alcohol Justice, contend the industry didn’t go far enough and should raise the standard further.

Jernigen says it needs to be at least 85 percent to effectively protect youth, so there would be no more than 15 percent exposure to the underage drinking population.

“The industry says its self-regulating but it’s ineffective and social media opens up a whole new set of problems because their ads are everywhere,” said Sarah Mart, research director for the San Rafael, Calif.-based group Alcohol Justice.

The industry group’s Coleman said the group now requires members to install age-checking tools via instant-messaging as a gateway to Twitter feeds and other branded Web platforms that ask the user for a birth date before admitting them.

In the first nine months of 2012, beer, wine and spirits manufacturers’ spent an estimated $ 35 million for paid Web display advertising, but industry executives estimate many millions more were spent on Web site creation, video production for platforms like Google’s YouTube and social media marketing efforts.

“We’ve significantly adjusted more money to digital for online video, Web sites, Facebook and Twitter content,” said Kevin George, global chief marketing officer for Jim Beam, which he says spends 30 percent of its media spend for online outlets, up from 10 percent in 2008.

Many companies are expanding their digital staff. Wine maker Constellation hired Breslin three years ago to initiate digital marketing and now has a team of five reporting to her.

Many alcoholic beverage companies flocked to Facebook because it requires users to post their birth dates when signing up. Last year Twitter partnered with Buddy Media to offer a more effective screening tool that sends a direct message to fans who click on a brand. The message sends the fan a link to a site that asks for date of birth, which has allowed Twitter to grab some more of the sector marketing. Salesforce.com bought Buddy Media last June, which is now folding the platform into its marketing cloud portfolio.

Health advocates and industry critics are crying foul. “Facebook and other interactive platforms are poorly monitored and not well age protected,” said Jernigen of Johns Hopkins University. “Anyone can say they’re 21 and click yes.”

(Reporting By Susan Zeidler; Editing by Ron Grover and Alden Bentley)

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Did she or didn’t she? Beyonce causes lip-synching stir

(Reuters) – Never mind President Barack Obama’s inauguration address or what Michelle Obama was wearing at the ball.

Was Beyonce lip-synching the U.S. national anthem on Monday, or wasn’t she?

The Grammy-winning singer remained silent on Tuesday amid a media storm over whether she was lip-synching, singing over her own pre-recorded track, or performing live when she delivered a flawless version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to hundreds of thousands of people in Washington and millions watching on television.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Marine band first told U.S. news outlets on Tuesday that the “Single Ladies” star “decided to go with the pre-recorded music at the last minute” and that, to the spokeswoman’s knowledge, she was not actually singing the anthem.

But the U.S. Marine band later backtracked, saying in a statement: “Regarding Ms. Knowles-Carter’s vocal performance, no one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded.”

The statement said the band and Beyonce, whose surname is Knowles-Carter, had no chance to rehearse together before Monday’s inauguration “so it was determined that a live performance by the band was ill-advised for such a high-profile event.

“Each piece of music scheduled for performance in the Inauguration is pre-recorded for use in case of freezing temperatures, equipment failure, or extenuating circumstances,” the Marine Band added.

Beyonce, 31, was giving her first major public performance since giving birth to a baby with husband, rapper Jay-Z, in January 2012. On Sunday, she posted on Instagram photo of herself in a recording studio holding the sheet music for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Her representatives did not return calls for comment on Tuesday. Kelly Clarkson and James Taylor, who also performed at the inauguration ceremony, both sang live, their publicists said.

Whatever Beyonce’s choices on Monday, she was not the first artist cause a stir on such occasions.

Classical musicians Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two others played along to a pre-recorded tape at Obama’s 2009 inauguration because the cold and wind on the Washington Mall raised the potential of broken strings and sharp notes.

Madonna lip-synched her way through her 2012 Super Bowl half-time performance last year, as did the late Whitney Houston in her 1991 Super Bowl rendition of the national anthem. Singing to pre-recorded tracks has become widespread in the pop music industry

The lip-synching question made headlines around the world and “Beyonce” was among the top Facebook conversations on Monday, according to the social networking site.

Fans were divided. “I enjoyed the performance and do not care whether it was lip-synched or not – it was a beautiful rendition, with some originality, of a song we have all heard so many times,” wrote LeeAnne24 on the Washington Post comment board.

Twitter user hiphopdancerJen was disappointed. “There’s honestly no reason for Beyonce to lip-sync… Especially the national anthem. I may despise most of her music, but she has a voice.”

Beyonce is due to take the spotlight again next month – this time at the February 3 Super Bowl half-time show.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles and Anna Yukhananov in Washington; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

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The New Old Age Blog: Study Links Cognitive Deficits, Hearing Loss

There’s another reason to be concerned about hearing loss — one of the most common health conditions in older adults and one of the most widely undertreated. A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine suggests that elderly people with compromised hearing are at risk of developing cognitive deficits — problems with memory and thinking — sooner than those whose hearing is intact.

The study in JAMA Internal Medicine was led by Dr. Frank Lin, a hearing specialist and epidemiologist who over the past several years has documented the extent of hearing problems in older people and their association with falls and the onset of dementia.

The physician’s work is bringing fresh, and some would say much-needed, attention to the link between hearing difficulties and seniors’ health.

In his new report, Dr. Lin looked at 1,984 older adults who participated over many years in the Health ABC Study, a long-term study of older adults conducted in Pittsburgh and Memphis. Participants’ mean age was 77; none had evidence of cognitive impairment when the period covered by this research began. In 2001 and 2002, they received hearing tests and cognitive tests; cognitive tests alone were repeated three, five and six years later.

The tests included the Modified Mini-Mental State exam, which is administered through an interview and yields an overall picture of cognitive status, and the Digit Symbol Substitution Test, a paper-only exercise that asks people to match symbols and numbers, which can reveal deficits in someone’s working memory and executive functioning.

Dr. Lin found that annual rates of cognitive decline were 41 percent greater in older adults with hearing problems than in those without, based on results from the Modified Mini-Mental State Exam. A five-point decline on that test is considered a “clinically significant” indicator of a change in cognition.

Using this information, Dr. Lin found that elderly people with hearing problems experienced a five-point decline on the exam in 7.7 years, compared with 10.9 years for those with normal hearing.

Results from the Digit Symbol Substitution Test showed the same downward trend, though not quite as steep: older people with hearing loss recorded a yearly rate of cognitive decline 32 percent greater on it than those with intact hearing. In both cases, the results showed an association only, with no proof of causality.

Still, given the fact that nearly two-thirds of adults age 70 and older have hearing problems, it is an important finding.

For caregivers and older adults, the bottom line is “pay attention to hearing loss,” said Kathleen Pichora-Fuller, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study.

Most people seek medical attention for hearing difficulties 10 to 20 years after they first notice a problem, she said, because “there’s a stigma about hearing loss and people really don’t want to wear a hearing aid.” That means years of struggling with the consequences of impairment, without interventions that can make a difference.

One consequence that may help explain Dr. Lin’s findings is social isolation. When people have a hard time distinguishing what someone is saying to them, as is common in older age, they often stop accepting invitations to dinners or parties, attending concerts or classes, or going to family events. Over time, this social withdrawal can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to the loss of meaningful relationships and activities that keep older people feeling engaged with others.

A substantial body of research by cognitive scientists has established that seniors’ cognitive health depends on exercising both body and brain and remaining socially engaged, and “now we have this intersection of hearing research and cognitive research lining up and showing us that hearing health is part of cognitive health,” said Dr. Pichora-Fuller, who originally trained as an audiologist.

Family physicians and internists, too, often dismiss older patients’ complaints about hearing, and should pay close attention to Dr. Lin’s research, she said.

“I hope this study will be a wake-up call to clinicians that auditory tests need to be part of the battery of tests they employ to look at an older person’s health,” agreed Patricia Tun, an adjunct associate professor of psychology at Brandeis University.

Although the tests are effective and cause no known harm, a panel of experts recently failed to recommend them for older adults because of a lack of supporting evidence, as I wrote last August.

Another potential explanation for Dr. Lin’s new finding lies in a concept known as “cognitive load” that Dr. Tun has explored through her research. Basically, this assumes that “we only have a certain amount of cognitive resources, and if we spend a lot of those resources of processing sensory input coming in — in this case, sound — it’s going to be processed more slowly and understand and remembered less well,” she explained.

In other words, when your brain has to work hard to hear and identify meaningful speech from a jumble of sounds, “you’ll have less mental energy for higher cognitive processing,” Dr. Tun said.

Even seniors who hear sounds relatively well often report that words sound garbled or mumbled, she noted, indicating a deterioration in hearing mechanisms that process complex speech.

Also, as yet unidentified biological or neurological pathways may affect both speech and cognition. Or hearing loss may exacerbate frailty and other medical conditions that older people oftentimes have in ways that are as yet poorly understood, Dr. Lin’s paper notes.

A limitation to his study is its reliance, in part, on the Modified Mini-Mental State exam, which asks older adults to respond to questions posed by an interviewer, according to Barbara Weinstein, a professor and head of the audiology program at CUNY’s Graduate Center.

Her research has shown that hearing-compromised seniors may not understand questions and answer incorrectly, confounding results. Another limitation arises from the failure to test participants’ hearing over time, as happened with cognitive tests, making associations more difficult to tease out.

Dr. Lin hopes to address this through another research project that would follow older adults over time and test whether interventions such as hearing aides help prevent the onset or slow the progression of cognitive decline. In the meantime, older people and caregivers should arrange for hearing tests if they have concerns, and consider getting a hearing aid if problems are confirmed.

Getting sound to the brain is the “first and most important step” in preventing sensory deprivation that can contribute to cognitive dysfunction, said Kelly Tremblay, a professor of speech and hearing science at the University of Washington.

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Prosecutors: Peregrine Financial fraud loss exceeds $215M

Peregrine Financial Group's former chief executive stole more than $215 million from customers of his now-defunct futures brokerage and should be sentenced to the maximum 50 years in jail, U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday.

Russell Wasendorf Sr., 64, who founded the firm, has pleaded guilty to embezzlement but wants a lighter sentence, saying that the loss was less than $200 million and that he used "very basic, simple means" to carry out his fraud, according to documents filed by U.S. prosecutors.

Wasendorf, whose attempted suicide sent his firm into bankruptcy last July, is in jail in Iowa and will be sentenced Jan. 31.

U.S. prosecutors say the large loss, the sophisticated nature of the crime and the sheer number of victims -- more than 10,000 -- justify his spending the rest of his life behind bars.

"While some of defendant's individual acts might be characterized as simple in isolation, they were part of an exceedingly complex scheme whereby defendant's entire business was used as a mechanism to gather and purloin investor funds," prosecutors said in their sentencing memorandum, promising to fight any attempt by Wasendorf to receive a sentence of less than 50 years.

Prosecutors put the exact loss at $215,530,547, based on Peregrine's bank records, and will call Brenda Cuypers, the firm's chief financial officer, as a witness at the sentencing hearing next week.

They had previously pegged the embezzlement only at "more than $100 million," to which Wasendorf pleaded guilty.

Wasendorf's public defender has a policy of declining to comment on cases, and did not reply to an email from Reuters seeking comment.

The collapse last July of Peregrine Financial, known as PFGBest, dealt a blow to confidence in the U.S futures industry, already reeling from $1.6 billion hole in customer pockets left when giant brokerage MF Global failed nine months earlier.

Futures traders had never before suffered such large losses as a result of a brokerage failure.

"To see (Wasendorf) go to jail could give some people some hope," said James Koutoulas, co-head of the Commodity Customer Coalition, which fought to get customer money back in both bankruptcies. "In MF Global, justice hasn't been done."

No one has been charged with wrongdoing in MF Global's collapse.

Regulators have scrambled to patch perceived gaps in customer protections at brokerages and exchanges that handle contracts valued at some $2.5 trillion a day.

That figure is set to rise as new rules push over-the-counter swaps onto regulated trading venues.

The sentencing memorandum offers new details in the government's account of the fraud, which Wasendorf said in a July statement began in the early 1990s after he was hounded by an overzealous regulator.

The fraud began even earlier, prosecutors said in Tuesday's filing, when he stole at least $250,000 from customers' accounts to pay back the original financier of his brokerage, a person referred to in the document only by the initials "J.C."

"Using a copy machine, defendant fabricated a bank statement to conceal the theft of funds," the document said. For the next nearly 20 years, prosecutors said, he faked bank balances, fabricated deposits, and used a rented post office box in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to intercept letters from his auditors meant to check up on his balances at U.S. Bank.

He even went so far as to fly from Chicago, where his firm did most of its business, to Iowa to prevent the near-discovery of his fraud, ultimately convincing Peregrine and U.S. Bank employees that nothing was wrong, the document said.

All the while he worked to make Peregrine Financial seem much bigger and more successful than it was, they said.

Wasendorf believed that "if he could make himself appear rich, the auditors and regulators wouldn't be concerned with the state of his personal finances and not discover it was all a fraud," prosecutors quoted Wasendorf as saying in a sealed presentencing report.

But Peregrine was never actually profitable, even though by its demise investors had entrusted more than $376 million to him and his firm, they said.

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Body of cyanide-poisoned lottery winner is reburied

Mohammed Zaman on the exhumation of his brother-in-law, poisoned lottery winner Urooj Khan. (Posted on: Jan. 21, 2013.)

The body of a West Rogers Park man who died of cyanide poisoning last summer after winning a million-dollar lottery was laid to rest again Monday, three days after his remains were exhumed for an autopsy as part of a homicide investigation.

The scene at Rosehill Cemetery on Monday afternoon was in sharp contrast to Friday morning, when a throng of reporters and TV cameramen had massed outside an entrance gate as numerous Chicago police, Cook County medical examiner officials and cemetery workers surrounded the gravesite while Urooj Khan's remains were unearthed.

About half a dozen people — two in light blue coveralls — wheeled a gurney carrying Khan's body Monday from the back of an unmarked white minivan to under a tent at his gravesite in the Far North Side cemetery. The body was then lowered into the ground while two of Khan's relatives stood at the gravesite in the bitter cold.

Haroon Firdausi, a funeral director and imam, gave a brief prayer during the reburial.

The entire reburial took about 20 minutes.

Shortly before the reburial, one of Khan's relatives, Mohammed Zaman, talked briefly at the cemetery about the family's discomfort with his body being exhumed for the police investigation.

"The sad part is that he wasn't resting in peace," Zaman said of the exhumation. "... Now we have to bury him back again. For any religion, it's hard."

As the Tribune first revealed earlier this month, the medical examiner's office initially ruled that Khan's death in July was from hardening of the arteries, after no signs of trauma were found on the body and a preliminary blood test did not raise any questions. But the investigation was reopened about a week later after a relative raised concerns that Khan may have been poisoned.

Chicago police were notified in September after tests showed cyanide in Khan's blood. By late November, more comprehensive testing showed lethal levels of the toxic chemical, leading the medical examiner's office to declare the death a homicide.

After Khan's body was exhumed Friday, an autopsy was performed for evidence that could aid in the homicide investigation. At the time, Chief Medical Examiner Stephen Cina said it could take several weeks for the tests to be completed. The medical examiner's office hopes samples taken from Khan's organs will show whether he ingested or inhaled the cyanide.

Although a motive has not been determined, police have not ruled out that Khan was killed because of his lottery win a few weeks before his death, a law enforcement source has told the Tribune. At the time of his death, he hadn't collected his winnings — a lump-sum payment of about $425,000 after taxes.

Zaman said he hopes the autopsy sheds more light on his brother-in-law's death.

"It's very hard for the family," Zaman said of the exhumation and reburial. "But it's the only way to find out what happened to him."

jgorner@tribune.com

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No sympathy for Armstrong on social media

LONDON (Reuters) – Lance Armstrong’s televised doping confession has done nothing to restore his shattered reputation, a study of responses posted to the Twitter social media site showed.

“What was particularly noticeable in our analysis of the Armstrong revelation was the sheer lack of sympathy out there,” said Charlie Dundas of sports market research company Repucom.

“The tone of the discussion around the Oprah Winfrey interview highlighted the level of disappointment and anger that exists. It’s clear the public are far from ready to forgive Lance Armstrong,” he added.

In the interview, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs on his way to his seven Tour de France titles. The Texan also said he hoped a lifetime ban would one day be lifted to allow him to compete in events like marathons.

The Armstrong interview generated 1.9 million Twitter posts between January 14-20, Repucom said. America accounted for more than a quarter of these, with Australia the second most active nation on the site.

(Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Mark Meadows)

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Michelle Obama again picks designer Wu for inaugural gown

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It was one of the biggest questions of Monday’s inaugural celebrations: not what would President Barack Obama say, but what would his wife, Michelle Obama, wear?

The first lady cemented her reputation as an international style trend-setter with her choice of a Jason Wu red sleeveless ball gown in the evening, and a striking business-style blue navy coat and dress for the ceremonial daytime events.

It was a huge win for U.S. designer Wu making one of his ball gowns her choice for a second straight inauguration.

The first lady appeared for her first dance of the night with the president at the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball for U.S. service members in a ruby-colored chiffon and full-length velvet gown custom made by the New York-based designer.

Her shoes were from the London-based Malaysian-Chinese designer Jimmy Choo, and she wore a diamond-embellished ring handmade by jeweler Kimberly McDonald of New York.

Michelle Obama helped make Wu a household name by choosing a white chiffon gown he designed for the balls celebrating her husband’s first inauguration in 2009. Wu, now 30, has since had significant commercial success, but his creations in the two inaugurations has won him a place in U.S. fashion history.

Dressing the first lady, a Harvard-trained lawyer known for her style, can be a huge boost for a fashion designer or retail chain.

Praised for wearing high-end designers as well as pieces from mass-market stores, the first lady has won over fashion critics in her four years in the White House.

“Icon’s a big word and it sometimes gets over used, but I think if we’re going to use it, we can use it now,” said Steven Kolb, chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, adding, “What makes her a real icon is the work that she does and the woman that she is.”

Dresses, sweaters, shoes and belts she has worn have sold out at retailers from designer showrooms to mass market chains including Gap Inc., J. Crew and Target Corp., for which Wu has designed low-priced fashions.

Earlier on Monday, the first lady wore a navy coat and dress by designer Thom Browne, inspired by the fabric of a man’s silk tie.

Her belt and gloves were from J.Crew, a chain that is a fixture in U.S. shopping malls; the necklace and earrings were designed by Cathy Waterman. The suede boots were by Reed Krakoff, as was the short blue cardigan she wore to a celebratory lunch in the Capitol.

BIG-TICKET INDUSTRY

Best known for men’s clothing, Browne boasts a string of design awards, most recently, a prestigious National Design Award for fashion from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

“She likes well-tailored clothes, so the inspiration was doing something that looked tailored and structured and fitted through the body and somewhat A-line for the skirt and the dress,” Browne told the Los Angeles Times.

Style mavens credit the 49-year-old first lady with changing the way American women put together their outfits, and, by patronizing U.S. designers, bolstering a multibillion-dollar industry.

A 2010 study from New York University’s Stern School of Business found that a single appearance by the first lady can generate $ 14 million in value for a company.

Famed for her toned arms, Obama set a trend for sleeveless tops. Her cardigans and belted dresses have prompted many working women to switch from blazers and suits in the workplace.

“Michelle looks good however, wherever, whatever she does. Michelle looks good in her sleeping gown,” said Sharon Johnson, a therapist who came from Baltimore to watch the inauguration, and joked that she is still looking for the green leather gloves Obama wore on Inauguration Day four years ago.

“Her beauty is so far inside, and shines so far outside,” Johnson said.

When Michelle Obama held the Bible for her husband during his official swearing-in on Sunday, she wore a dark blue dress by Reed Krakoff, the creative director for the Coach leather goods company, who has become a fashion designer.

On Sunday night, she wore a sleeveless black sequined dress by Michael Kors to an inaugural reception for supporters.

At that reception, President Obama weighed in on what he termed the most “significant” event of the inaugural weekend, his wife’s hotly discussed new hairstyle.

“I love her bangs,” Obama said. “She looks good. She always looks good.”

Interest in Michelle Obama’s clothing has extended to the outfits worn by her two daughters. On Monday, the White House said Malia, 14, was wearing a J.Crew ensemble and Sasha, 11, wore a Kate Spade coat and dress.

Obama is a far bigger influence on U.S. fashion than most of her predecessors. Laura Bush favored suits by Oscar de la Renta and Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, is best known for wearing a range of brightly colored pants suits.

Even stylish Jackie Kennedy wore mostly European designers.

Obama’s fashion choices have not always been applauded. Some Americans were angry when she wore a red gown from a British label – Alexander McQueen – to a 2011 state dinner for China’s president.

Kolb dismissed such concerns, noting that fashion is a global business and that U.S. designers are thrilled when, for example, Kate Middleton, the wife of Britain’s Prince of Wales, wears their clothing.

“At the end of the day, we get up in the morning and we look in our closet and we have to feel good about what we put on,” he said.

At the end of the inaugural festivities, Michelle Obama’s outfits and accompanying accessories will go to the National Archives.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Alina Selyukh; Editing by Alistair Bell and Christopher Wilson)

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