2 hurt in melee near Ford City Mall

Two people suffered minor injuries in a disturbance involving large crowds of "kids" tonight at Ford City Mall on the Southwest Side.
 
A Chicago Lawn District police sergeant confirmed officers were called to the mall, 7601 S. Cicero Ave., where a “bunch of kids are running around.’’

Police News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala said, “A large group of teens got out of hand,’’ a little while after an autograph-signing appearance by a teen band.

Zala said officers did their best to control the disturbance, "trying to get everyone out of there safely.’’

By 6:25 p.m. two people had been taken to hospitals from the "fluid"  situation, according to Chicago Fire Department Chief Joe Roccasalva, a department spokesman.
 
A CTA bus driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, said Roccasalva, who added he did not know what happened to him.
 
A “kid’’ was also hurt, and that person was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, also in good condition, said Roccasalva.

By 7 p.m. the Fire Department confirmed the one adult and one pediatric patient with minor injuries were the final tally.
 
At 4:45 p.m. police responded to a battery in progress report at the Cicero Avenue address, police said.

About 50 police squad cars assigned to multiple South Side districts, including Chicago Lawn, Englewood and Deering, and a helicopter responded to the scene, police said.

During the disturbance the CTA had to reroute the No. 79 buses, which travel on 79th Street, as well as other buses in the immediate area.

Earlier in the afternoon, members of the teen band Mindless Behavior had appeared at the mall food court from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. to promote their new release, "All Around the World," said John Sarama, the mall's senior general manager.

The band's autograph signing drew approximately 1,000 parents and children, primarily mothers and girls between the ages of 6 and 13, Sarama said.

About 45 minutes after the band left, the chaos began, Sarama said.

"A group of older youths came into the mall with the intent of causing havoc and chaos and were running through the mall, screaming, yelling and so forth," he said.

Security staff contacted the police department, and mall officials closed the mall about 5 p.m., Sarama said.

The mall did not sustain any property damage apart from a single broken planter, and it will reopen Sunday at 11 a.m. as usual, Sarama said.

In the meantime, mall officials are at a loss as they try to understand what happened.

"Ford City is a family-oriented mall," he said. "We have not had an incident like this [in the past], and I’m still in a little bit of a state of shock actually.

"What would make these youths comes here to try and cause this kind of commotion and trouble?" he continued. "I don’t know. But they did have a plan in mind."

Tribune reporter Adam Sege contributed.

rsobol@tribune.com

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Off the Dribble: Salley Offers a Healthy Assist

When Carmelo Anthony went on a vegetarian diet a few weeks ago and caused the biggest culinary conundrum in sports since fried chicken and beer had starring roles in the Red Sox clubhouse, John Salley could only shake his head.

Anthony’s diet was blamed for his sluggish play and the Knicks’ 3-4 record during the 15-day fast.

Anthony admitted that his body felt “depleted out there.”

But Salley, the former N.B.A. player, said that if Anthony had eaten a vegetarian diet correctly, he would have felt invigorated and anything but depleted.

And not just for two weeks but for the entire season.

For Salley, many of his salad days in the N.B.A. really were salad days. Particularly kale salad.

Salley, a 6-foot-11 power forward and center, became a vegetarian in January 1991 after he felt he had to make changes in his lifestyle, much like Anthony’s stated desire for “clarity in his life.”

Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish or poultry, but may eat dairy products like cheese, eggs, yogurt or milk.

Salley had read a story about the Celtics’ Robert Parish, whom he had always admired, and his interest in yoga and a red-meat-free diet.

While Parish’s regimen was not total vegetarian, he recently said that it made a difference in his career, helping him withstand the rigors of playing center against behemoths in the paint.

“My diet consisted of chicken, fish, seafood, salad, pasta and organic when possible,” he said. “I had very little sugar and drank a gallon of water every day. I also ate rice and beans, peas, cabbage, mustard, collards greens and assorted nuts. I would always focus on healthy eating. My success depended on my body and I tried to do right by it. ”

His body responded with 20 years of service in his Hall of Fame career. Parish retired at 43.

Salley was striving for similar health and success.

“I was 27, and I felt I had to change my life,” Salley said. “My knees were sore, my joints ached, I had back problems and my cholesterol was 275. ”

When he was with the Pistons, Salley visited a nutritionist in Detroit who advised him to eliminate fried foods and adopt a macrobiotic diet (grains and vegetables).

Salley, invigorated and healthy, had his best season in 1991. A defensive specialist, he had more energy and quickness and averaged a career best 9.5 points a game.

He kept his healthy diet a secret from his burly Bad Boy Piston steak-and-pork-chop teammates, who included Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn and Dennis Rodman.

“I would tell them all the time,” Salley said, “if you go into a steak house it’s not that they have a certain thing inside the dead flesh or they cook it differently. They make it the same way everybody else does. All you’re doing is eating dead food.”

Salley would search out health food restaurants with a few tables or just counter service for his diet staples of quinoa, kale, spinach, stir fried vegetables, brown rice and wheatgrass on the menu.

“It was hard to find places in 1991,” he said. “So many times I would go into restaurants and ask the cook to steam my vegetables and make me the lightest fish.”

But it was worth it.

“I was playing so well it was crazy,” he said.

During his career, Salley, who retired in 2000, won four championships with the Detroit Pistons, the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers.

He now follows a vegan diet, which eliminates all dairy foods in addition to animal products.

“I’m eating raw,” said Salley, 48. “And I make all my food with no sugar, no salt and no oil.”

Salley is familiar with Anthony’s foray into vegetarian living. The Knicks star followed the Daniel Fast based on the book of Daniel in the Bible, which espouses a diet of mainly liquid and vegetables.

“He felt depleted because you need to find a natural source of vitamin B12,” Salley said.

B12 is not found in any significant amounts in plant food, and a deficiency can cause fatigue, weakness and tingling in the legs.

It can also cause irritability. Anthony said his diet might have caused him to lash out at Kevin Garnett in a game against the Boston Celtics.

“He didn’t take any supplements to help his body,” Salley said. “He did not get his body to heal. It’s like cutting yourself and not putting a Band-Aid on. He just got part of the plan right.”

Salley is working to make sure children get the plan right with food choices. He spreads the word about healthy eating in the community, having lobbied Congress for more vegetarian options in school lunches.

Although Anthony may have struggled to maintain his vegetarian diet, other N.B.A players and athletes have embraced it.

James Jones of the Miami Heat and Anthony’s teammate A’mare Stoudemire are vegetarians.

Baseball’s Prince Fielder, the triathlete Brendan Brazier, the mixed martial artist Mac Danzig, the bodybuilder Derek Tresize and the tennis player Serena Williams are among athletes who are vegans or vegetarians.

Dr. Joel Kahn, a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and medical director of wellness programs, preventive cardiology, and cardiac rehabilitation at Detroit Medical Center, has counseled Salley and other athletes about the benefits of vegan and vegetarian diets.

“A plant-based, whole-food diet low on sugar and gluten is very anti-inflammatory and ideal for rapid recovery from workouts,” he said.

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Promise, peril seen for crowd-funding investors

Crowd funding is widely seen as a revolutionary idea.

A 2012 federal law known as the JOBS Act opens the door to allowing small, privately owned businesses to market ownership stakes in their ventures to people over the Internet.

Companies will be able to sell up to $1 million in equity a year to ordinary investors without having to register the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission or state regulators.

Before the average person can use crowd funding to stake a claim in a startup, the SEC still must draft rules that the Obama administration hopes will result in U.S. businesses growing and adding jobs. At the same time, the securities cop needs to include safeguards that protect less sophisticated individual investors drawn to inherently risky startups.

That's why equity crowd funding under JOBS, or Jumpstart our Business Startups, has some longtime regulators and securities lawyers squirming.

"It can be an invitation for fraudsters to steal money," Matthew Brown, a Katten Muchin Rosenman lawyer, said last month at a CFA Society of Chicago event at 1871, a center for digital startups in Chicago.

But Brown also noted that equity crowd funding also democratizes small-business financing, a process that historically has given access mostly to wealthier — or, as they're known in high-finance circles, "accredited" — investors.

"The world has changed dramatically, and who's to say who is smarter than anyone else?" Brown added.

Many existing crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter don't sell equity stakes in businesses to average investors. Rather, they give consumers the chance to donate money to an enterprise or to get an early or discounted crack at a new product. Since Kickstarter's launch in April 2009, more than $450 million has been pledged by more than 3 million people funding more than 35,000 projects, the New York-based company's website says.

Their acceptance suggests that consumers are willing to engage with companies on a deeper level. As such, enabling unaccredited consumers to invest in companies in small increments online has promise and could become part of the fundraising "ecosystem," says one Chicago entrepreneur.

Abe's Market, a Chicago-based e-commerce site selling natural and organic products from more than 1,000 suppliers, said it would consider crowd funding under the JOBS Act, saying it and its vendors have "die-hard fans" and "a core group of customers" who might like to invest in their vision.

Last month, Abe's raised $5 million from Carmel Ventures, Index Ventures, Beringea and Accel Partners, a Groupon backer. New backers include OurCrowd, a crowd-funding site for accredited investors.

"If you can get passionate people to invest in your business, you're not just gaining investors, you're gaining evangelists," Abe's Chief Executive Richard Demb said. "The challenge for any consumer brand is: How do you find not just customers, but the right customers who are going to tell their friends?"

But there would also be potential headaches for companies raising equity financing through crowd funding, he said.

"You have to make sure that expectations would be set fairly, that no one is putting their life savings into the investment, and that they don't also come back and become a challenge to manage as the business grows," Demb said. "You don't want someone who invested $250 to come back and say, 'I don't think we should expand to the West Coast.'"

Safeguards for average investors exist in the JOBS Act. They include capping nonaccredited individuals' crowd-funding investments at $2,000, or 5 percent of annual income or net worth of less than $100,000, whichever is greater.

Snapclass, launched a few weeks ago at 1871, provides software enabling businesses to provide training online. Co-founder Scott Mandel, who has financed the company himself, doesn't expect to take advantage of equity crowd funding in the future and instead would seek, say, venture capital funding.

"Not all checks are the same," said Mandel, previously a trader and professional poker player. "I'd want someone who could add more than just the cash, such as connections and experience and help with things that I'm not an expert in."

One of 1871's fastest-growing startups is MarkITx. It recently raised $1.2 million from wealthy individuals in its first fundraising round, has seven employees and is looking to add sales jobs. It's an online exchange for businesses wanting to buy and sell used information technology equipment, from iPads to Oracle servers.

"For us, it wouldn't be the sole way to raise money, but it definitely is a viable vehicle to look at raising money," MarkITx partner Marc Brooks said of equity crowd funding under the JOBS Act.

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Drew Peterson transferred to Pontiac prison

Drew Peterson’s new life as an Illinois Department of Corrections inmate has begun.

Peterson was transferred this morning to the Stateville Correctional Center near Crest Hill, where he was evaluated for placement based upon factors such as his conviction, length of sentence, program needs and medical and mental health requirements.

Peterson stayed at Stateville only a few hours before being sent to his new home at Pontiac prison northeast of Bloomington, a maximum security facility that has a protective custody unit.  The assignment was based upon factors such as his conviction, length of sentence, program needs and medical and mental health requirements, per Illinois Department of Correction protocol.

Officials have not said whether he has a cellmate or if he will be in solitary confinement like he had been during his jail stay.

As part of his daily routine there, he will remain in his cell for most of the day, though he will be allowed out for meals and showers. Most inmates also get about five hours of recreation time outside per week, Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Stacey Solano said.

The Will County jail – which had held Peterson in solitary confinement since his May 2009 arrest for his own safety – had the paperwork prepared for his transfer by the time he returned from his sentencing hearing Thursday, officials said.

The sheriff’s department, which oversees the jail, kept the former Bolingbrook police sergeant segregated from the general population there amid concerns that his high-profile case and law-enforcement background would make him a target of inmates looking to build tough-guy reputations.

Jail supervisors began preparing Peterson at 8:30 a.m. and he left without incident by 9:22 a.m., officials said.

Drew Peterson wanted to make sure he was heard when he was given one last chance to speak Thursday, shortly before being sentenced to 38 years in prison for the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

Declining to speak from the defense table, where there was no microphone, the former Bolingbrook police sergeant shuffled to the witness stand in his jail-issued blue scrubs and orange shoes and began quietly.

"I hope I don't aggravate the situation," he turned and told the judge. Then Peterson screamed into the microphone, "I did not kill Kathleen!" startling almost everyone in the courtroom.

"Yes, you did!" Savio's sister Sue Doman yelled back from the gallery, prompting Will County Circuit Judge Edward Burmila to order her out of the courtroom.

It was an odd end to a case replete with oddities and circuslike sideshows. For the next 40 minutes, Peterson cried, raged and whispered, challenged the state's attorney to look him in the eye and indulged in self-pity as he unleashed his multitudinous thoughts like a character in a Dostoevsky novel.

The 59-year-old said he expects to die in prison. Barring any successful appeal, he won't be eligible for release until he's 93.

Peterson claimed that lies and mistakes by witnesses, prosecutors and police led to his conviction, and made disparaging remarks about Savio's family, attorneys and others involved in the case. His defense attorneys called the monologue an impassioned plea for leniency, but prosecutors said it was proof that Peterson is a psychopath.

"When he got up on the stand and (in) that shrill, kinda-feminine screech that he didn't kill Kathy — that's the guy that killed Kathy," Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said. "You got a glimpse into his soul."

But in describing himself on the stand Thursday, Peterson said he was maligned and misunderstood.

"Until this happened, I thought I was viewed as a great guy," Peterson said, giving a litany of public and private good deeds before announcing he planned to tattoo the phrase "No good deed goes unpunished" across his shoulders.

"The state took an accident and staged a homicide," Peterson said, before turning to the judge. "Can I get some water?"

Once refreshed, Peterson said he had upheld the oath he swore when he became a police officer.

"I always took my job seriously, I never violated the public trust," he said, his voice husky with emotion before quoting one of the Ten Commandments. "And I never beared false witness against anyone."

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Well: Savory Pie Recipes for Health

Pie is an indulgence often saved for holiday time. But this week Martha Rose Shulman shows us how to bake a pie and eat it too, without the guilt. She offers savory vegetable pies, showcased in whole grain crusts. She writes:

This week I slowed down and made pies: savory ones filled with vegetables … I used a number of different crusts for my winter pies. My favorite remains the whole wheat yeasted olive oil crust that I have used before in this column, but I also worked with a simple Mediterranean crust made with a mix of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and olive oil. And for those of you who are gluten-free, I made another foray into gluten-free pastry and produced one I liked a lot, which was a mix of buckwheat flour, millet flour and potato starch. It had a strong nutty flavor that worked well with a very savory, very vegan, tofu and mushroom “quiche.” They are all simple to mix together and easy to roll or press out. And if you don’t feel like dealing with a crust, just use Greek phyllo. The important things, after all, are the savory vegetables inside.

Here are recipes for a pie crust and four savory winter vegetable pies.

Whole Wheat Mediterranean Pie Crust: A simple Mediterranean crust made with a mix of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and olive oil.

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Mixed Greens Galette With Onions and Chickpeas: A tasty way to use bagged greens in a dish with Middle Eastern overtones.

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Goat Cheese, Chard and Herb Pie in a Phyllo Crust: A garlicky mix of greens and your choice of herbs inside a crispy phyllo crust.

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Tofu Mushroom ‘Quiche’: A vegan dish with a deep, rich flavor.

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Winter Tomato Quiche: Canned tomatoes can be used in the off season for a delicious dinner.

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16 airport investors show interest in Midway

An international array of airport investors and operators have shown interest in developing bids to privatize Midway Airport, the city announced Friday evening.

Sixteen parties responded to the city's "request for qualifications" by a 4 p.m. deadline, indicating they had interest in leasing, operating and improving the Southwest Side airport, the nation's 26th busiest, with about 9 million passengers passing through annually.

"The response generated from the  ... process is encouraging and provides the city with a sense of the strong level of interest in a potential lease," said Lois Scott, the city's chief financial officer. "We must evaluate fully if this could be a win for Chicagoans."

The city and its advisers will review the responses to identify qualified potential bidders.

Of the 16, seven had both the operational and financial capabilities sought in the RFQ. The city identified them as:

-- ACO Investment Group, an investor and operator with global airport experience.

-- AMP Capital Investors Limited, a manager and investor in airports, including Melbourne Airport in Australia and Newcastle Airport, in Britain.

--  Corporacion America Group, an Argentina-based airport operator with 49 airports in seven countries.

-- Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which is the controlling investor and active manager of London City Airport, London Gatwick Airport and Edinburgh Airport.

--Great Lakes Airport Alliance, which is a partnership of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets and Ferrovial. Its airport operations include London's Heathrow, Brussels Airport and Copenhagen Airport.

-- Incheon International Airport and Hastings Funds Management, which is the sole owner and operator of Incheon International Airport in South Korea and an investor with 16 airport-related investments.

--  Industry Funds Management and Manchester Airport Group, an investor with interests in 13 airports, including Melbourne Airport and Brisbane Airport, both in Australia, and operator of Manchester Airport and East Midlands Airport, in Britain.

If the city moves forward and seeks proposals, a privatization plan could be submitted to the City Council this summer.

This is the second time Chicago has looked at privatizing Midway. A 99-year lease that would have brought in $2.5 billion died in 2009 when the financial markets froze. That deal had drawn six serious bidders.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said any second attempt would have to provide city taxpayers with a better deal than the widely criticized 75-year agreement to privatize parking meter operations, carried out during former Mayor Richard Daley's administration. Proceeds from the earlier deal were used to plug operating deficits, and meter rates rose sharply.

This time, proposed leases must be less than 40 years, which locks in the city for a shorter period.

Rather than making only an upfront payment, the private operator also must share revenue with the city on an ongoing basis. Initial proceeds would be used to pay down debt issued since 1996 to rebuild the airport, the mayor's office said. There is about $1.4 billion in outstanding debt.

Longer term, cash flow would be directed to city infrastructure needs. The mayor has pledged proceeds would not be used to pay for city operations.

kbergen@tribune.com

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Retired general: National Guard could help curb Chicago violence

To reduce the homicides and shootings plaguing Chicago streets, elected officials should consider calling on the state and federal governments for help, even the National Guard if necessary, said a retired Army lieutenant general who spearheaded the military response after Hurricane Katrina.

"Just like we do with any disaster. When the tornado comes, or the floods come, the federal government comes in to help," Russel L. Honore said Thursday at a news conference in Chicago.

"Let's not let this be about pride. 'We are big ol' Chicago, we are too proud, we can handle this.' Maybe you can't handle it. If you need help, get the federal government here. But let's control the streets so children and elderly people can be in a safe community."

Honore, known for his no-nonsense leadership, was in Chicago as part of The HistoryMakers project to record and archive the stories of African-American military leaders. The nonprofit organization houses the largest collection of recorded histories of African-Americans.

As part of his visit, Honore met with high school students to discuss his career.

At the news conference at the Chicago Military Academy in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Honore spoke out against the gun violence that affects the lives of so many of the students.

Honore was mild in his tone and fell short of demanding action. Instead he suggested a strategy he thinks could work.

To tackle the violence here, Honore said, the state police and other law enforcement agencies could lend a hand to local police. And the National Guard could take over routine duties, patrolling the streets and handling traffic, while police concentrate their efforts on solving crimes and increasing their presence in troubled neighborhoods.

Last year, Chicago homicides exceeded 500 for the first time since 2008, a 16 percent jump from 2011. And January saw the most homicides for that month since 2002. In addition, the shooting death of Hadiya Pendleton has placed an international spotlight on the random violence in Chicago because the 15-year-old honors student with so much promise was killed less than a mile from President Barack Obama's home.

To reduce the violence, more attention needs to be paid to poor communities infested with drugs, Honore said.

"Trust me, we can tap this down," Honore said of the shootings. "It would take a commitment, and it's not going to be popular. Many people are going to say why are you bringing that to my community? (But) do you want law enforcement or do you want people shooting day and night and destroying the lives of innocent people like the little girl who lost her life here a few weeks ago?"

Rondell Freeman, a 17-year-old junior at Prologue Early College High School who was among the students to hear Honore's remarks, said he feels afraid on the streets or even visiting the local park in his Garfield Park community. Honore's suggestion to bring in state police and National Guard seems radical, but it may be necessary, he said.

"We should do whatever it takes to end the violence, so we won't have to feel scared," he said. "These kids have guns. We need experienced people that can stop them."

When he's not working as a Chicago police officer, Richard Wooten said he's in the neighborhoods — Auburn Gresham, West Chesterfield and Chatham — helping residents develop neighborhood watch groups.

"Crime in Chicago is just running rampant," said Wooten, who does community work as part of his own organization, the Gathering Point Community Council. He attended Honore's news conference.

"This is going to require more than just the Chicago Police Department," he said. "We are in a state right now where we need not only to get the community activated and mobilized and dealing with the issues in their community, but somewhere along the way, we're going to have to tap into some federal funding."

lbowean@tribune.com

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Living With Cancer: Arrivals and Departures

After being nursed and handed over, the baby’s wails rise to a tremolo, but I am determined to give my exhausted daughter and son-in-law a respite on this wintry evening. Commiserating with the little guy’s discomfort — gas, indigestion, colic, ontological insecurity — I swaddle, burp, bink, then cradle him in my arms. I begin walking around the house, swinging and swaying while cooing in soothing cadences: “Yes, darling boy, another one bites the dust, another one bites the dust.”

I kid you not! How could such grim phrases spring from my lips into the newborn’s ears? Where did they come from?

I blame his mother and her best friend. They sang along as this song was played repeatedly at the skating rink to which I took them every other Saturday in their tweens. Why would an infatuated grandma croon a mordant lullaby, even if the adorable one happily can’t understand a single word? He’s still whimpering, twisting away from me, and understandably so.

Previously that day, I had called a woman in my cancer support group. I believe that she is dying. I do not know her very well. She has attended only two or three of our get-togethers where she described herself as a widow and a Christian.

On the phone, I did not want to violate the sanctity of her end time, but I did want her to know that she need not be alone, that I and other members of our group can “be there” for her. Her dying seems a rehearsal of my own. We have the same disease.

“How are you doing, Kim?” I asked.

“I’m tired. I sleep all the time,” she sighed, “and I can’t keep anything down.”

“Can you drink … water?” I asked.

“A little, but I tried a smoothie and it wouldn’t set right,” she said.

“I hope you are not in pain.”

“Oh no, but I’m sleeping all the time. And I can’t keep anything down.”

“Would you like a visit? Is there something I can do or bring?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so, no thanks.”

“Well,” I paused before saying goodbye, “be well.”

Be well? I didn’t even add something like, “Be as well as you can be.” I was tongue-tied. This was the failure that troubles me tonight.

Why couldn’t I say that we will miss her, that I am sorry she is dying, that she has coped so well for so long, and that I hope she will now find peace? I could inform an infant in my arms of our inexorable mortality, but I could not speak or even intimate the “D” word to someone on her deathbed.

Although I have tried to communicate to my family how I feel about end-of-life care, can we always know what we will want? Perhaps at the end of my life I will not welcome visitors, either. For departing may require as much concentration as arriving. As I look down at the vulnerable bundle I am holding, I marvel that each and every one of us has managed to come in and will also have to manage to go out. The baby nestles, pursing his mouth around the pacifier. He gazes intently at my face with a sly gaze that drifts toward a lamp, turning speculative before lids lower in tremulous increments.

Slowing my jiggling to his faint sucking, I think that the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s meditation on death pertains to birth as well. Each of these events “names the very irreplaceability of absolute singularity.” Just as “no one can die in my place or in the place of the other,” no one can be born in this particular infant’s place. He embodies his irreplaceable and absolute singularity.

Perhaps we should gestate during endings, as we do during beginnings. Like hatchings, the dispatchings caused by cancer give people like Kim and me a final trimester, more or less, in which we can labor to forgive and be forgiven, to speak and hear vows of devotion from our intimates, to visit or not be visited by acquaintances.

Maybe we need a doula for dying, I reflect as melodious words surface, telling me what I have to do with the life left to be lived: “To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.”

“Oh little baby,” I then whisper: “Though I cannot tell who you will become and where I will be — you, dear heart, deliver me.”

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Susan Gubar is a distinguished emerita professor of English at Indiana University and the author of “Memoir of a Debulked Woman,” which explores her experience with ovarian cancer.

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United takes Dreamliner off schedule until June

The All Nippon Airways Dreamliner 787 arrives at Mineta San Jose International Airport. (Gary Reyes/San Jose Mercury News/MCT / January 22, 2013)

Staff and wire report

1:35 p.m. CST, February 21, 2013

The parent company of United Airlines says it is taking the Boeing 787 off its schedule through June 5 for all but one of its routes.

United Continental Holdings Inc. said it still plans to use the 787 on its flights between Denver and Tokyo's Narita airport starting May 12. It had aimed to start that route on March 31.

United, currently world's largest airline and the only U.S. customer for the 787, said the timing of that reinstatement will depend on resolution of the Dreamliner's current issues.

The 50 Dreamliners in commercial service were grounded worldwide last month after a series of battery-related incidents including a fire on board a parked plane in the United States and an in-flight problem on another jet in Japan. United had only been flying the plance since November.

Sources told Reuters earlier this week that Boeing Co. has found a way to fix the battery problems that involves increasing the space between the lithium ion battery cells.

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Jackson Jr.: 'Tell everybody back home I'm sorry I let 'em down'

WASHINGTON—

— It was the kind of runaway spending usually reserved for someone with newfound riches — a holistic retreat, a cruise, pricey restaurant tabs, flat-screen televisions and even a pair of stuffed elk heads —and former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. admitted Wednesday that he conspired with his then-Chicago alderman wife to pay for it all with campaign money and cover it up.

In two quiet federal court appearances just hours apart, the power couple who once sought to write a new chapter in Chicago political history instead became the latest entry in an infamous culture of public corruption. Jackson pleaded guilty to conspiring with his wife, Sandi, to siphon campaign funds for personal use, and she pleaded guilty to not reporting most of the take as income on the couple's tax returns.

A sullen Jackson gave his wife a peck on the cheek at his own hearing and at times appeared to wipe tears from his eyes as he told a judge he was guilty of misusing about $750,000 in campaign money. And with that, a political star once seemingly destined for the U.S. Senate or the Chicago mayor's office dissolved once and for all.

"Tell everybody back home I'm sorry I let 'em down, OK?" Jackson told a reporter as he left the courtroom.

As part of Jackson's plea agreement, prosecutors filed a 22-page statement filled with stunning details of how the Jacksons used his congressional campaign fund to fuel a lavish lifestyle. Jackson admitted that together the couple used campaign credit cards to buy personal items, tapped campaign funds to pay those bills, sometimes arranged for their campaign treasurer to make purchases for them, filed falsified campaign-disclosure forms to hide their actions and ultimately understated their personal income for tax purposes.

Both Jacksons face the prospect of time in federal prison.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors and Jesse Jackson's defense agreed that sentencing guidelines in the case call for a term of between 46 and 57 months, but the sides reserved the right to argue for a sentence above or below that range when he is sentenced June 28.

Sandi Jackson is to be sentenced days later on July 1 and may face from one to two years. Among the conduct in her case, prosecutors said, was failing to report that money in her aldermanic campaign fund was used for personal expenses.

Experts said the agreement for Jesse Jackson leaves room for the defense to argue for probation and use his mental health as a mitigating factor.

Jackson removed himself from the public spotlight last June after winning a primary election in March. His medical leave was initially attributed to "exhaustion." It was later revealed that he had been treated in the Sierra Tucson facility in Arizona and the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

He resigned in November amid the swirling probe, ending a 17-year congressional career just two weeks after winning re-election.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Wilkins asked Jackson during the hearing whether he understood what was happening.

"Sir, I've never been more clear in my life," Jackson answered.

At a news conference after the hearing, Jackson Jr.'s attorney, Reid Weingarten, said Jackson's health problems contributed to his crimes, hinting it may be an issue raised in a sentencing hearing.

"It turns out that Jesse has serious health issues. ... Those health issues are directly related to his present predicament," Weingarten said. "That's not an excuse, that's just a fact."

Documents filed with the plea agreement lay out a steady pilfering of Jackson's campaign fund during a period of nearly seven years dating to August 2005.

Six people identified by letters of the alphabet — Persons A through F —- were involved in various aspects of the crimes, prosecutors said, and have not been granted immunity in the case. They include two former campaign treasurers, an Alabama businessman who issued a check to pay down a Jackson credit card balance and a Chicago consultant.

In January 2006, Jackson personally opened a bank account under the name "Jesse Jackson Jr. for Congress," and the following year withdrew $43,350 he used to buy a gold Rolex watch, prosecutors said. In 2007, he was also withdrawing funds to pay down personal credit cards, according to case documents.

After that year, the spending went into high gear.

"These expenditures included high-end electronic items, collector's items, clothing, food and supplies for daily consumption, movie tickets, health club dues, personal travel, and personal dining expenses," prosecutors said. When he was charged last week, Jackson was accused of buying, among other items, a fedora that belonged to pop superstar Michael Jackson, an Eddie Van Halen guitar and a football signed by U.S. presidents.

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Jennifer Hudson, Zeta-Jones to sing in Oscars musical tribute

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar winners Russell Crowe, Jennifer Hudson and Catherine Zeta-Jones will perform at the Academy Awards in a tribute to the resurgence of big-screen musicals, organizers said on Wednesday.

The performance, which will also feature Oscar nominees Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman from “Les Miserables,” is part of the several musical acts at the annual Hollywood awards on Sunday.

“We are pleased to have been able to amass so much talent to create the celebration of musicals of the last decade that we envisioned,” Oscars producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan said in a statement. “We are thrilled that so many talented actors have agreed to bring our vision to life.”

Musicals have had a revival over the past decade in Hollywood. Death row drama “Chicago” won six Academy Awards in 2003, including top prize Best Picture, and girl-group drama “Dreamgirls” scored two Oscars in 2007 while television’s “Glee” has won six Emmy awards since 2010.

R&B singer Hudson won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2007 for her role in “Dreamgirls” and Zeta-Jones won the same award for “Chicago” in 2003.

Crowe, who stars in “Les Mis,” won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2001 for his role in the Roman drama “Gladiator.”

“Les Mis” scored eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Song. “Les Mis” actors Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit and Samantha Banks will also join the musical tribute.

Singers Adele, Shirley Bassey, Norah Jones and Barbara Streisand will also perform at the awards show.

Adele is nominated for an Oscar for her song “Skyfall” in the James Bond film of the same name, and Jones will perform Oscar-nominated song “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from “Ted.”

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Doina Chiacu)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Caffeine Linked to Lower Birth Weight Babies

New research suggests that drinking caffeinated drinks during pregnancy raises the risk of having a low birth weight baby.

Caffeine has long been linked to adverse effects in pregnant women, prompting many expectant mothers to give up coffee and tea. But for those who cannot do without their morning coffee, health officials over the years have offered conflicting guidelines on safe amounts during pregnancy.

The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 300 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to about three eight-ounce cups of regular brewed coffee. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated in 2010 that pregnant women could consume up to 200 milligrams a day without increasing their risk of miscarriage or preterm birth.

In the latest study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, researchers collected data on almost 60,000 pregnancies over a 10-year period. After excluding women with potentially problematic medical conditions, they found no link between caffeine consumption – from food or drinks – and the risk of preterm birth. But there was an association with low birth weight.

For a child expected to weigh about eight pounds at birth, the child lost between three-quarters of an ounce to an ounce in birth weight for each 100 milligrams of average daily caffeine intake from all sources by the mother. Even after the researchers excluded from their analysis smokers, a group that is at higher risk for complications and also includes many coffee drinkers, the link remained.

One study author, Dr. Verena Sengpiel of the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, said the findings were not definitive because the study was observational, and correlation does not equal causation. But they do suggest that women might put their caffeine consumption “on pause” while pregnant, she said, or at least stay below two cups of coffee per day.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article described incorrectly the relationship between the amount of caffeine a pregnant woman drank and birth weight. For a child expected to weigh about eight pounds at birth, the child lost between three-quarters of an ounce to an ounce in birth weight for each 100 milligrams of average daily caffeine intake by the mother, not for each day that she consumed 100 milligrams of caffeine.

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OfficeMax, Office Depot agree to merger

Office Depot to buy Office Max as an attempt to compete with Staples.

Office Depot Inc. and Naperville-based OfficeMax Inc. confirmed Wednesday that they're planning to merge but left some key questions about the deal unanswered.

The all-stock deal calls for Office Depot to issue 2.69 new shares of common stock for each outstanding common share of OfficeMax. But officials declined to say where the newly merged company would be headquartered, who would sit in the CEO seat or even what it would be called.

OfficeMax CEO Ravi Saligram and Office Depot CEO Neil Austrian presented a united front during a Wednesday conference call with analysts, taking turns to explain the specifics of the deal.

"It takes two to tango," Saligram said. "Lo and behold, Neil and I have decided to tango."

The announcement of a merger, which Saligram said would "create a stronger, more global, more efficient competitor," put to rest years of speculation about a deal. The merger would unite the No. 2 company in the stationery and office supplies industry, Boca Raton, Fla.-based Office Depot, with the No. 3 company, OfficeMax, headquartered off Interstate 88.

A merger between the two chains "has made sense for years," Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter wrote in a note this week.

Market leader Staples also would benefit from a merger, BB&T Capital Markets analyst Anthony Chukumba said.

"Clearly, you can't make this deal work unless you close a bunch of stores," he said. "Store rationalization is long overdue, and Staples will clearly benefit from just having fewer stores to compete with."

OfficeMax, with about 29,000 employees, operates 978 stores, including 10 in the Chicago area. Office Depot has about 39,000 employees and operates 1,675 stores, including seven in the Chicago area.

The two CEOs wouldn't say how many stores would be closed, but Balter has predicted about 600.

If the merger is completed, the company's board would have an equal number of directors chosen by Office Depot and OfficeMax. Based on Wednesday's stock closing price, the deal's value is about $976 million.

The combined company would have $18 billion in sales and achieve $400 million to $600 million in savings over three years, according to company officials.

Office Depot shareholders would own about 54 percent of the company and OfficeMax shareholders 46 percent.

It was not clear, though, whether those stockholders would be satisfied with the deal. One of OfficeMax's largest shareholders, Neuberger Berman, said this week that it would support a deal, depending on the terms.

The deal also is subject to approval by regulatory agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission.

Officials declined to say who would lead the combined business or where it would be located once the "merger of equals" is completed, likely by the end of the year.

"During the appropriate times ... our board will make the right decision," OfficeMax's Saligram said. "Now, we're independent companies, and we've got to go through lots of processes."

Saligram and Austrian will be considered to lead the company, but until a leader is chosen, they will remain in their positions.

"From the time we started talking, Ravi and I have grown very fond of each other. It's very clear we can work well together," Austrian said.

Their proposed partnership didn't begin well. The announcement of the planned merger was buried in an earnings release posted prematurely on the Office Depot website early in the morning, then quickly removed. The companies recovered, and about 8:30 a.m., they issued a joint statement announcing the proposed merger.

The mishap will likely be investigated by stock exchanges and regulatory organizations, according to a Chicago financial attorney.

"I am highly confident that the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the Securities and Exchange Commission will be looking very closely at who pulled the trigger, who knew about this, and was this in good faith?" James McGurk said.

McGurk said he was not suggesting wrongdoing.

"When you think about it, you have two boards, lots of investment advisers, lawyers, and deals break down at the last minute. Are there lots of ways it could happen? Sure," he said.

OfficeMax shares closed Wednesday down 91 cents, or 7 percent, at $12.09. Shares of Office Depot closed down 84 cents, or nearly 17 percent, at $4.18.

Reuters contributed.

crshropshire@tribune.com

Twitter @corilyns

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Ex-Peterson lawyer questioned by former team at hearing

Joel Brodsky, once the lead attorney in Drew Peterson's murder trial, was waiting in the hallway Tuesday when his former legal teammates asked that he be brought to the stand.

Brodsky refused to enter the courtroom, and a deputy relayed the message to the court that Brodsky expected to be called by the state, not by his former fellow attorneys. The refusal drew laughs in the courtroom but a rebuke from Judge Edward Burmila.

"A subpoenaed witness is a subpoenaed witness; there is no such thing as a state's witness," Burmila responded with a sigh to a sheriff's deputy. "Tell Mr. Brodsky to enter the courtroom."

On the stand, a seemingly flustered Brodsky was forced to answer questions from his former defense team rival Steve Greenberg, whom Brodsky is suing for libel along with Tribune Co.

It's a turn of tables for Brodsky, who seemed inseparable from Peterson in the years leading up to the former Bolingbrook officer's trial for the 2004 drowning of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. Now, Peterson's other lawyers have led an unorthodox legal campaign for a new trial, arguing ethical lapses and Brodsky's inept performance destroyed Peterson's constitutional rights to a fair trial.

Allegations of a physical assault, an inappropriate text message, more than $30,000 in media fees and a website that raised all of 11 cents for Peterson's defense were part of the drama in the unusual hearing, which will continue Wednesday in Joliet.

Peterson, 59, is facing up to 60 years in prison after a jury convicted him last fall of first-degree murder. He remains the sole suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy.

If the motion for a new trial is denied, Peterson could be sentenced as early as Wednesday. A retired judge is first expected to testify that Brodsky made a colossal error by calling a witness, Harry Smith, who some jurors later said convinced them Peterson was guilty.

"We're in uncharted waters," Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said outside court. "In 30 years, I've never had a case have a post-trial motion of this nature. But I've got a good feeling for where this is going."

Greenberg said he was pleased with Tuesday's testimony, which included an expert on legal ethics testifying Brodsky had "crossed the line." He said there was nothing personal about calling his former co-counsel to the witness stand.

"This is not between me and Joel Brodsky," Greenberg said outside the courthouse. "This is between Drew Peterson and the people of the state of Illinois."

The testimony was largely absent of drama between the rival attorneys. Instead, Greenberg primarily questioned Brodsky about the licensing fees generated during the five years Peterson was his client.

On the stand, Brodsky said a website set up to raise money for Peterson's legal expenses brought in 11 cents after expenses.

He said ABC paid $10,000 in licensing fees for photos and video, a publisher paid $5,900 for a book co-authored by Peterson and a Seattle-based TV studio paid $15,000 in 2010 for film licensing rights.

Peterson's defense team has argued that Brodsky was operating under a conflict of interest when he represented Peterson, citing a contract that called for money to be split between Brodsky, Peterson and their publicity agent.

The day's most dramatic testimony came from Brodsky's former law partner Reem Odeh, who gripped a tissue and seemed to fight back tears as she testified about an alleged physical assault by Brodsky.

"There was an incident where he physically attacked me, and the police had to be called," she said, recalling the alleged attack in 2010 after she decided to leave their two-partner firm. "Just remembering what I had to go through is very, very upsetting."

Odeh said Brodsky talked to her often about how he thought the Peterson case would benefit himself and the firm.

"On many occasions, especially when we would have our quarrels about financial matters regarding the case," Odeh said.

She also testified that Brodsky made a comment to her in passing outside the courtroom Tuesday as she entered to testify. Odeh later said he had told her, "Watch and see what I know."

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DNA Analysis, More Accessible Than Ever, Opens New Doors

Matt Roth for The New York Times

Sam Bosley of Frederick, Md., going shopping with his daughter, Lillian, 13, who has a malformed brain and severe developmental delays, seizures and vision problems. More Photos »

Debra Sukin and her husband were determined to take no chances with her second pregnancy. Their first child, Jacob, who had a serious genetic disorder, did not babble when he was a year old and had severe developmental delays. So the second time around, Ms. Sukin had what was then the most advanced prenatal testing.

The test found no sign of Angelman syndrome, the rare genetic disorder that had struck Jacob. But as months passed, Eli was not crawling or walking or babbling at ages when other babies were.

“Whatever the milestones were, my son was not meeting them,” Ms. Sukin said.

Desperate to find out what is wrong with Eli, now 8, the Sukins, of The Woodlands, Tex., have become pioneers in a new kind of testing that is proving particularly helpful in diagnosing mysterious neurological illnesses in children. Scientists sequence all of a patient’s genes, systematically searching for disease-causing mutations.

A few years ago, this sort of test was so difficult and expensive that it was generally only available to participants in research projects like those sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. But the price has plunged in just a few years from tens of thousands of dollars to around $7,000 to $9,000 for a family. Baylor College of Medicine and a handful of companies are now offering it. Insurers usually pay.

Demand has soared — at Baylor, for example, scientists analyzed 5 to 10 DNA sequences a month when the program started in November 2011. Now they are doing more than 130 analyses a month. At the National Institutes of Health, which handles about 300 cases a year as part of its research program, demand is so great that the program is expected to ultimately take on 800 to 900 a year.

The test is beginning to transform life for patients and families who have often spent years searching for answers. They can now start the grueling process with DNA sequencing, says Dr. Wendy K. Chung, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Columbia University.

“Most people originally thought of using it as a court of last resort,” Dr. Chung said. “Now we can think of it as a first-line test.”

Even if there is no treatment, there is almost always some benefit to diagnosis, geneticists say. It can give patients and their families the certainty of knowing what is wrong and even a prognosis. It can also ease the processing of medical claims, qualifying for special education services, and learning whether subsequent children might be at risk.

“Imagine the people who drive across the whole country looking for that one neurologist who can help, or scrubbing the whole house with Lysol because they think it might be an allergy,” said Richard A. Gibbs, the director of Baylor College of Medicine’s gene sequencing program. “Those kinds of stories are the rule, not the exception.”

Experts caution that gene sequencing is no panacea. It finds a genetic aberration in only about 25 to 30 percent of cases. About 3 percent of patients end up with better management of their disorder. About 1 percent get a treatment and a major benefit.

“People come to us with huge expectations,” said Dr. William A. Gahl, who directs the N.I.H. program. “They think, ‘You will take my DNA and find the causes and give me a treatment.' ”

“We give the impression that we can do these things because we only publish our successes,” Dr. Gahl said, adding that when patients come to him, “we try to make expectations realistic.”

DNA sequencing was not available when Debra and Steven Sukin began trying to find out what was wrong with Eli. When he was 3, they tried microarray analysis, a genetic test that is nowhere near as sensitive as sequencing. It detected no problems.

“My husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘The good news is that everything is fine; the bad news is that everything is not fine,' ” Ms. Sukin said.

In November 2011, when Eli was 6, Ms. Sukin consulted Dr. Arthur L. Beaudet, a medical geneticist at Baylor.

“Is there a protein missing?” she recalled asking him. “Is there something biochemical we could be missing?”

By now, DNA sequencing had come of age. Dr. Beaudet said that Eli was a great candidate, and it turned out that the new procedure held an answer.

A single DNA base was altered in a gene called CASK, resulting in a disorder so rare that there are fewer than 10 cases in all the world’s medical literature.

“It really became definitive for my husband and me,” Ms. Sukin said. “We would need to do lifelong planning for dependent care for the rest of his life.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 20, 2013

An article on Tuesday about the use of DNA sequencing to identify rare genetic diseases misstated the name of a medicine taken by two teenagers who have a rare gene mutation. The drug is 5-hydroxytryptophan, not 5-hydroxytryptamine.

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OfficeMax, Office Depot shares soar on merger talk

Shares in Naperville-based OfficeMax Inc. soared 20 percent Tuesday on a report it is in advanced merger talks with Office Depot Inc.

And Office Depot shares were up 9 percent after the Wall Street Journal reported the two companies were in advanced discussions, citing person familiar with the negotiations, with a deal possible as early as this week.

Currently, the deal is expected to be structured as a stock-for-stock transaction, the person said.

Neither company responded to requests seeking comment.

One of OfficeMax's top shareholders, Neuberger Berman, said it would support a merger with Office Depot depending on terms of the deal, according to a portfolio manager at the firm.

Responding to media reports, Benjamin Nahum of Neuberger Berman, told Reuters in an interview that his preference would be for OfficeMax to declare a special dividend before merging with Office Depot. "In our view this would facilitate a fair deal."

Neuberger Berman said OfficeMax shareholders should be compensated for "the balance sheet strength that we bring to this combined entity."

The news came months after the investment firm called on the third-largest U.S. office supply chain to return money to shareholders in the form of a dividend or share repurchases and raised the specter of a proxy fight next year if the retailer fails to comply.

According to Thomson Reuters' data, Neuberger Berman owns 4.76 percent of OfficeMax, making it the third-largest shareholder of the Naperville company.

OfficeMax is expected to report its quarterly earnings on Thursday.

While the pair up had been rumored for years, one analyst said Monday that he believed a deal was less likely after a report last week that Office Depot is in talks to sell its remaining 50 percent stake in its Mexican operations.

Scott Tilghman, an analyst with investment firm B. Riley & Co. said that similarities in the pair’s U.S. and Mexican operations were thought to be a cornerstone of the consideration to combine.

But even if Office Depot does sell its Mexican stake, Tilghman said a deal would still make sense as both companies struggle to gain traction against competitor Staples Inc. and sites like Amazon.com.

By combining, the pair could cut costs by shedding stores and streamlining operations without having to raise prices. Tilghman estimates the companies could get rid of 20 percent of their combined stores and still hold onto customers.

Both companies have struggled in recent years from declining revenue in their retail stores. In OfficeMax’s most recent quarter, it was able to grow net income by cutting costs despite lower revenue. Slumping retail sales were somewhat offset by OfficeMax’s U.S. contract business, where it works directly with businesses to help operate more efficiently and reduce office expenses.

If combined, OfficeMax and Office Depot, the world’s second and third largest office products companies by revenue, would still not eclipse the segment’s largest business, Staples Inc.

Office Depot, based in Boca Raton, Florida, has 1,675 stores world-wide, annual sales of about $11.5 billion and some 39,000 employees, the Journal said. OfficeMax, operates roughly 900 stores in the United States and Mexico, generates about $7 billion in annual sales and has 29,000 employees, the Journal said.

Shares of OfficeMax closed at $13, up $2.25 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Office Depot rose 42 cents to close at $5.02.

- Samantha Bomkamp and Reuters contributed to this report

OMX data by YCharts

OMX data by YCharts

OMX Revenue Quarterly data by YCharts

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Rose returns to 5-on-5 drills for first time since injury

A sense of doubt has evolved into a hint of optimism about Derrick Rose's comeback from knee surgery.

The Bulls guard, who last week mentioned the possibility of sitting out the season, appeared to take another step Monday as he participated in 5-on-5 drills during practice.

"He was able to get out there, and it's good," teammate Kirk Hinrich said. "It was something that (we) as a team needed, as far as every individual coming off the (All-Star) break needed to scrimmage a little bit. And I'm sure it was good for (Rose), helpful to ... give him a good gauge of where he's at."

Coach Tom Thibodeau said Rose did "what everyone else did'' and said his participation wasn't out of the ordinary based on the previously stated outlook. The plan all along was to have Rose return to 5-on-5 action after the break.

Rose cited his inability to dunk as the reason he knew he hadn't fully recovered, and Joakim Noah said Rose still wasn't dunking Monday. The Bulls went through three scrimmages of seven to eight minutes, during which Rose ran full-court. It was unclear how much contact Rose endured or how much pressure he put on his left knee.

"He's doing what he should be doing,'' Thibodeau said. "He's focused on his rehab, doing more and more. We just have to be patient. When he's ready, he'll go.''

Thibodeau reiterated how his players need to pick up their intensity after dropping five of the last seven games and six of the last 10. A Rose return would instantly inject life into the 30-22 Bulls, although they've performed admirably at times in his absence while currently holding the Eastern Conference's fifth seed.

Until Rose steps on the court for a game, his teammates have to lean on each other.

"When we're right and we're playing the right way, we've proved that we can beat everybody,'' Noah said. "We've also proved that if we don't come with the right (attitude), don't play together, we can lose to anybody.''

The return of Hinrich to the lineup for Tuesday night's game in New Orleans should provide a boost. The Bulls went 2-5 with Hinrich sidelined by a right elbow infection and committed 15.6 turnovers per game in the losses.

With all due respect to Nate Robinson and his scoring ability, Hinrich runs the offense more efficiently and is a better defender.

"He's a huge part of what we do, and it just feels good to have Kirk back,'' Noah said. "What he brings to our team, it's hard to measure. His defensive intensity, the ball movement ... it's all big.''

The Bulls have lost two straight and take on a 19-34 Hornets team that has won its last two and is 5-5 over the last 10. Four of the Bulls' next six opponents have sub-.500 records, but the Heat (36-14) and Thunder (39-14) are in that stretch too.

"We have to clean some things up offensively and defensively,'' Thibodeau said. "But the biggest challenge is going to be the level of intensity, to get that back.''

vxmcclure@tribune.com

Twitter @vxmcclure23

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National Briefing | South: Abortion Curbs Clear Senate in Arkansas

The State Senate voted 25 to 7 on Monday to ban most abortions 20 weeks into a pregnancy. The measure goes back to the House to consider an amendment that added exceptions for rape and incest. The legislation is based on the belief that fetuses can feel pain 20 weeks into a pregnancy, and is similar to bans in several other states. Opponents say it would require mothers to deliver babies with fatal conditions. Gov. Mike Beebe has said he has constitutional concerns about the proposal but has not said whether he will veto it.

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Cubs seek big payday on TV rights

While the Chicago Cubs and rooftop owners debate proposed stadium billboards, a much more lucrative revenue source is in the team's sights.

Officials confirmed Monday that the team plans to begin renegotiating its broadcast rights agreement with WGN-TV, putting nearly half of its televised games in play after the 2014 season and opening the door to a potentially imminent payday that could help fund proposed Wrigley Field renovations.

The Cubs and WGN-TV have a broadcast partnership that dates to 1948 and a history that is inextricably linked. With baseball rights fees soaring in recent years, due in part to the creation of exclusive team cable channels, there is much at stake for both. Last month, the Los Angeles Dodgers launched their own cable sports network, striking a deal with Time Warner Cable that will pay the team a reported $7 billion to broadcast its games over 25 years.

The Cubs couldn't create their own cable channel until 2020.

For now, Cubs games are split between Comcast SportsNet Chicago and WGN-TV, earning the club about $60 million in annual broadcast rights fees combined, according to sources close to the situation. The CSN deal runs through 2019 and includes the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks as partners. Comcast owns about 30 percent of the network.

The White Sox on Monday declined to discuss the future of their broadcast rights.

The Cubs get about $20 million to air 70 games each year on WGN. They have decided to exercise a renegotiation option with the Tribune Co.-owned station, seeking to boost those revenues for the 2015 season and beyond. WGN will have a chance to retain those rights, but other media players are likely to get a shot as well.

"WGN has the ability to retain those rights through 2019, provided that they're willing to pay fair market value," said Cubs spokesman Julian Green. "That's a discussion for WGN and the Cubs to have together."

Based on the $60 million revenue fee for combined broadcast rights, the Cubs get about $400,000 per game, far below the market value potentially set by the Dodgers. Under their reported new deal, the Dodgers will be getting about $280 million per year, or about $1.8 million per game.

"It doesn't surprise me that the Cubs are going to look at all available options out there, including Comcast and everybody else who might be interested in their rights," said Jim Corno, president of Comcast SportsNet Chicago. "Sports content is extremely valuable. It's DVR-proof. Not many people are going to DVR a Dodgers game or a Bulls game or a White Sox game if they can watch it live. The advertiser can buy spots knowing that the chances are very slim that people are not going to watch my commercials because they're going to fast-forward through them."

The Ricketts family inherited the broadcast agreements as part of their 2009 purchase of the Cubs from Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV. The $845 million deal — then the highest in Major League Baseball history — included Wrigley Field and a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

Since then, valuations have soared, due in no small part to skyrocketing broadcast rights. Last March, an ownership group led by Chicago financier Mark Walter, CEO of Guggenheim Partners, paid a record $2.15 billion to buy the Dodgers out of bankruptcy. In January, the team announced the launch of its own regional sports network with Time Warner Cable beginning in 2014.

For the Cubs, who are looking to offset a proposed $300 million renovation of 99-year-old Wrigley Field with some new outfield billboards, the broadcast rights issue is a significant opportunity. Experts say there are plenty of options to improve on the current deal, including the possibility of upfront payments that secure partial rights through 2019, and a full standalone network beginning in 2020.

In a statement, Tribune Co. signaled it was willing to consider competing to keep the Cubs on WGN.

"WGN-TV has enjoyed a tremendous relationship with the Cubs and their fans since 1948," Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said in a statement Monday. "It is a relationship that we are proud of, and one that brings Cubs baseball to fans throughout Chicago and across the country. We're looking forward not only to the upcoming 2013 season, but also to working with the Cubs on baseball broadcasts in the future."

Tribune Co. shows games on both WGN-Ch. 9 and the national cable channel WGN America. While Tribune Co., which is under new management, is looking at programming options for WGN America that include original shows, sources say the company is likely to want to keep the Cubs in its lineup.

Green said the Cubs plan to talk to different parties about where the slate of games currently broadcast by WGN will be seen.

"I think there are a number of options that will certainly present themselves as we talk about this with WGN and other partners throughout the year," the Cubs spokesman said. "But at the end of the day, any final result needs to be a result that benefits the organization and most importantly, the baseball team."

The rise in sports rights fees is being passed along to cable and satellite operators, who in turn are raising monthly fees for customers, whether they watch the games or not. There is some speculation that the Dodgers deal proves to be a tipping point in which cable operators rebel by threatening to drop those sports networks.

Not everyone agrees that the Dodgers deal represents the ceiling of what broadcast rights fees are worth. Corno said that if the Dodgers sale and the new deal for the team's baseball network seemed outrageously expensive now, they likely will seem in retrospect to have been fairly priced, or even a bargain.

"In 25 years, when this deal is up, people will not be talking about how expensive the Dodger deal is," he said. "Because somebody else will have cut a deal in a major market with a major team that will make this deal look like Time Warner got a heck of a deal."

rchannick@tribune.com

Twitter @RobertChannick

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CPS officials taking note of feedback on school closings

Chicago Public Schools officials gathering input on school closings started taking notes when the director of a local Boys and Girls Club of Chicago spoke up on behalf of West Pullman Elementary School at a hearing on the Far South Side late last week.

Then a local pastor spoke about the changing culture and the positive effect of a new principal at Whistler Elementary, which like West Pullman is on the preliminary list CPS released last week of 129 schools that could be closed. Another pastor talked about the problems with gangs near Lawrence Elementary, and CPS officials wrote some more notes.

School communities across the city are pulling out all the stops to make their case as the district prepares to make a final decision, due by the end of March, on what schools will be shuttered. Parents, teachers and community leaders are bringing healthy amounts of data and emotion to the meetings in their effort to convince district officials which schools should stay open.

The meetings will continue over the next several weeks. The district says it needs to close an as yet unknown number of under-enrolled schools to help address a projected deficit of $1 billion in the coming year.

District chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett has set specific criteria for the closings, and schools that don't want to be on the final list will have to show how they plan to build enrollment or improve academics. Security concerns will also play a role in deciding what schools to close.

Among the schools on the preliminary list were six that are part of the politically connected Academy for Urban School Leadership, which takes over schools known as turnarounds that are deemed in need of academic recovery.

CPS has invested nearly $20 million in capital improvements at the six AUSL Schools. AUSL, which runs 25 schools throughout the district, replaces teachers and administrators at its schools with AUSL-trained staff.

AUSL parents have appeared at meetings to speak about changes at schools being considered for closing.

"We know this has to run the course through the community meetings," said Shana Hayes, managing director of AUSL's external affairs department. "When CPS comes out with the new list, we hope our six schools will come off the list. We see significant positive changes in enrollment."

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the school closing process is "far from complete."

"We expect to get significantly more feedback from the community that will continue to guide this process and remove other schools from consideration," Carroll said. 

The schools on the preliminary list are mostly on the West, South and Southwest sides. In all, more than 43,000 students attend the 129 schools still under consideration.

For many parents and educators, the meetings have provided an opportunity to vent their frustration and anger with the district. They've complained about being denied resources, increasing class sizes and the growth of privately run but publicly funded charters schools.

"You've taken our students away from us — that's why (the school is) under-enrolled," said Tonya Saunders-Wolffe, a counselor at the pre-kindergarten to third grade Owens Elementary in Roseland, referring to the growth of charter schools.

Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, said the meetings have allowed parents to come out and voice what's happening in their schools and what they need to get better. Woestehoff said she thinks the number of schools on the preliminary list will be far lower when the final list is released.

"Given the powerful push-back from schools and communities that has already happened, (the district) ought to be concerned about an exponential increase in the level of anger that is sure to explode if they announce the closure of anything like 100," she said.

nahmed@tribune.com

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Project Seeks to Build Map of Human Brain

The Obama administration is planning a decade-long scientific effort to examine the workings of the human brain and build a comprehensive map of its activity, seeking to do for the brain what the Human Genome Project did for genetics.

The project, which the administration has been looking to unveil as early as March, will include federal agencies, private foundations and teams of neuroscientists and nanoscientists in a concerted effort to advance the knowledge of the brain’s billions of neurons and gain greater insights into perception, actions and, ultimately, consciousness.

Scientists with the highest hopes for the project also see it as a way to develop the technology essential to understanding diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as to find new therapies for a variety of mental illnesses.

Moreover, the project holds the potential of paving the way for advances in artificial intelligence.

The project, which could ultimately cost billions of dollars, is expected to be part of the president’s budget proposal next month. And, four scientists and representatives of research institutions said they had participated in planning for what is being called the Brain Activity Map project.

The details are not final, and it is not clear how much federal money would be proposed or approved for the project in a time of fiscal constraint or how far the research would be able to get without significant federal financing.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama cited brain research as an example of how the government should “invest in the best ideas.”

“Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy — every dollar,” he said. “Today our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s. They’re developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs, devising new materials to make batteries 10 times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation.”

Story C. Landis, the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said that when she heard Mr. Obama’s speech, she thought he was referring to an existing National Institutes of Health project to map the static human brain. “But he wasn’t,” she said. “He was referring to a new project to map the active human brain that the N.I.H. hopes to fund next year.”

Indeed, after the speech, Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, may have inadvertently confirmed the plan when he wrote in a Twitter message: “Obama mentions the #NIH Brain Activity Map in #SOTU.”

A spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy declined to comment about the project.

The initiative, if successful, could provide a lift for the economy. “The Human Genome Project was on the order of about $300 million a year for a decade,” said George M. Church, a Harvard University molecular biologist who helped create that project and said he was helping to plan the Brain Activity Map project. “If you look at the total spending in neuroscience and nanoscience that might be relative to this today, we are already spending more than that. We probably won’t spend less money, but we will probably get a lot more bang for the buck.”

Scientists involved in the planning said they hoped that federal financing for the project would be more than $300 million a year, which if approved by Congress would amount to at least $3 billion over the 10 years.

The Human Genome Project cost $3.8 billion. It was begun in 1990 and its goal, the mapping of the complete human genome, or all the genes in human DNA, was achieved ahead of schedule, in April 2003. A federal government study of the impact of the project indicated that it returned $800 billion by 2010.

The advent of new technology that allows scientists to identify firing neurons in the brain has led to numerous brain research projects around the world. Yet the brain remains one of the greatest scientific mysteries.

Composed of roughly 100 billion neurons that each electrically “spike” in response to outside stimuli, as well as in vast ensembles based on conscious and unconscious activity, the human brain is so complex that scientists have not yet found a way to record the activity of more than a small number of neurons at once, and in most cases that is done invasively with physical probes.

But a group of nanotechnologists and neuroscientists say they believe that technologies are at hand to make it possible to observe and gain a more complete understanding of the brain, and to do it less intrusively.

In June in the journal Neuron, six leading scientists proposed pursuing a number of new approaches for mapping the brain.

One possibility is to build a complete model map of brain activity by creating fleets of molecule-size machines to noninvasively act as sensors to measure and store brain activity at the cellular level. The proposal envisions using synthetic DNA as a storage mechanism for brain activity.

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U. of C. Medicine's leader gears up for challenges

Nearly every morning, before 7 a.m., Dr. Kenneth Polonsky is dropped off near the Lakefront Trail on Chicago's South Side, a few steps from Lake Michigan.

He carries no briefcase, wears no suit and has no cup of coffee, the standard trappings of his executive contemporaries.

Instead — at least in the winter — he's covered in high-tech running gear, leaving only a small patch of skin around his eyes exposed to the weather. The outfit, he muses, must raise suspicions among cab drivers.

"It's 6:30 in the morning, it's dark and can be, maybe, 10 degrees outside," he says. "When I ask the driver to drop me by the side of (the road), they must think, 'What's going on with this guy? There's something funny here.'"

Twelve months a year, through heat waves, cold snaps, rain, sleet and snow, the top official at University of Chicago Medicine starts most mornings running 5 miles to work.

It's a routine that reflects lessons learned from decades of studying diabetes and treating patients with the disease and one he pairs with watching his diet "like a hawk." The daily run also is a vehicle for the cerebral 62-year-old M.D. to contemplate the challenges that lie ahead.

There are many, starting with the massive transformation of the way medical care is paid for and delivered as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul.

Polonsky also faces cuts to research funding that flows to the Pritzker School of Medicine through the National Institutes of Health and growing financial pressure from Illinois' Medicaid program, the federal-state health insurance program that serves a substantial percentage of the hospital's South Side patients.

All this while christening and trying to pay for a $700 million, 1.2 million-square-foot new hospital, a 10-story, boxy, modernist structure that towers above a campus better known for its ubiquitous, early-20th-century red-roofed Gothic buildings.

The hospital, dubbed the Center for Care and Discovery in the absence of a donor willing to lay down $50 million for naming rights, is scheduled to open Saturday.

With 240 private patient rooms, 28 supersize operating rooms and seven advanced imaging rooms, the hospital will specialize in neuroscience and the treatment of cancer and gastrointestinal diseases.

But even what is supposed to be a celebratory, clink-the-glasses moment for Polonsky and the university has been sullied by controversy.

An estimated 50 protesters entered the hospital on a Sunday afternoon in January, holding placards and using a megaphone to voice their displeasure that such a costly facility was not outfitted with a trauma unit.

University police with batons were videotaped shoving protesters to the ground. Four were arrested in the melee.

Polonsky said the system is re-evaluating its role in trauma care, "a legitimate question for discussion and debate and one we are looking at again in detail."

Managing this issue will be a major test of Polonsky's leadership in 2013 and will occur against the backdrop of the largest upheaval to the health care industry in a generation.

"We're in a really vulnerable situation at the moment; there's no question about it," Polonsky said of the shift under way in health care. "But that's one of the reasons I'm interested in my job. I believe I can impact a series of big issues."

Many people, he said, go through life wondering whether what they're doing is worthwhile or significant in the big picture of things.

"I'm very fortunate to never, ever have had that problem," Polonsky said.

A boy in South Africa

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