Twinkie's demise? Not likely

Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies and other sugary snacks, has announced it's going out of business following a worker strike.

Fear not for the Twinkie. In all likelihood it will outlive us all.

The same cannot be said for Hostess Brands, the bankrupt baker responsible for Twinkies, Wonder Bread and other goods. The company said Friday it has asked a bankruptcy judge for permission to go out of business and lay off 18,500 workers, blaming a labor strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

In the Chicago area, Hostess employs about 300 workers making CupCakes, HoHos and Honey Buns in Schiller Park. Hostess also has a bakery in Hodgkins, where 325 workers make Beefsteak, Butternut, Home Pride, Nature's Pride and Wonder breads. The company's connection to Chicago is more than crust or frosting deep: the Twinkie was invented in the Chicago area in 1930.

"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Gregory Rayburn, Hostess' chief executive, said in a statement.

Texas-based Hostess, which has about $2.5 billion in sales, said it had suspended operations at all of its 33 plants around the United States as it moves to start liquidating assets. The expectation is that other baking companies or investors will scarf down the brands, giving its products a good chance at a new life under different ownership.

"We'll be selling the brands and as much of the infrastructure as we can," said company spokesman Lance Ignon. "There is value in the brands."

Gary Stibel, founder of the New England Consulting Group, said "the jury's still out," on the company's future, adding that the firm may be able to "work something out in the eleventh hour."

"There's a lot of activity going on," said Stibel, who added that his firm is involved in the conversations, but not representing Hostess. "Let's just say there are a lot of folks who are going to be working over the weekend."

Stibel said the only thing for certain is that "these brands aren't going anywhere."

"In the final analysis, these brands will return," he said. "Tylenol came back, Coke came back, and many of (the Hostess brands) will do better once this is over with."

Among the company's other brands: Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Sno Balls, Donettes, Dolly Madison Zingers and Drake's snack cakes.

The closure of Hostess plants creates a complication for other companies, including Supervalu Inc., parent of the Jewel supermarket chain. Hostess was the contract baker for Supervalu's private label Essential Everyday breads, sold in Jewel.

"It is possible that in some markets there may be some shortages of Essential Everyday, but we are quickly working to implement our contingency plan," spokesman Mike Siemienas said.

The dispute that closed Hostess focused on cost-cutting efforts by a company that has been in bankruptcy for all but three of the past eight years. Plagued by high labor and pension expenses, the company had sought numerous concessions from workers and needed more.

Hostess said the bakery union strike that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities, and it had no choice but to give up its effort to emerge intact from bankruptcy court.

The union accused Hostess in a statement of making unreasonable demands, including wage and benefit cuts of roughly 30 percent for workers, while top executives of the company received large pay raises.

"The crisis facing Hostess Brands is the result of nearly a decade of financial and operational mismanagement that resulted in two bankruptcies, mountains of debt, declining sales and lost market share," said Frank Hurt, the union's president. "The Wall Street investors who took over the company after the last bankruptcy attempted to resolve the mess by attacking the company's most valuable asset – its workers."

The Teamsters Union, which also represents 6,700 workers at Hostess Brands plants, had settled an earlier labor dispute with the company.

"The Teamsters Union tried everything in its power during the company's most recent financial difficulties to shape an outcome that would put Hostess on strong footing to be viable and preserve jobs," said Teamsters General-Secretary Ken Hall, in a statement. "Unfortunately, the company's operating and financial problems were so severe that it required steep concessions from a variety of stakeholders but not all stakeholders were willing to be constructive."

Hostess, a vintage favorite, had lost some ground with customers. From May 2012 to the same month in 2011, sales of Twinkies slipped 0.8 percent, Ding Dongs fell 8.7 percent and Ho Ho's tumbled 6.3 percent, according to analysis from research group Mintel.

The company ceded its top position in the pre-prepared cupcakes and brownies segment to McKee Foods, whose sales increased 1.8 percent, largely on the strength of its Little Debbie brand. Smaller rivals such as Bimbo Bakeries and Give and Go also poached customers from Hostess, as have private label offerings from grocery stores, according to Mintel.

The Hostess shutdown announcement sent shock waves through the country Friday, causing Americans to begin hoarding Ding Dongs and bemoaning their fading childhoods.

Chicago-area convenience stores reported that they'd sold out of Twinkies — some within an hour after opening. At the Walgreens adjacent to the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue, Twinkies were gone before 9 a.m. Friday.

Other Hostess products were flying off the shelves too. Those single serving pies that magically require no refrigeration? No more blueberry.

Salina Gonzalez made a beeline for the Hostess section at the Target at 1940 W. 33rd St. Friday afternoon.

With three sons marching behind her, the Pilsen woman smiled at seeing a few boxes of Twinkies still on the shelves.

She grabbed one. But sons Alex, 6, Noah, 9, and Nicolas, 11, were seeing no part of those treats.

"I'm picking these up for my grandmother. She had me come get some Twinkies for her," Gonzalez said.

Tribune reporter Julie Wernau and freelancer Cheryl V. Jackson contributed to this report.

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Review: Nintendo Wii U blows up dual-screen gaming

When Nintendo first broached the idea of multiple-screen video games in 2004, many critics were skeptical that players could focus on two images at once. Yet the handheld DS, blending one touch-sensitive screen with a slightly larger video display, became a runaway hit.

Turns out the portable DS may have just been a dress rehearsal for Nintendo‘s latest home console, the Wii U, which blows up the dual-screen concept to living-room size. It goes on sale in the U.S. on Sunday, starting at $ 300.

The Wii U is the heir to the Nintendo Wii system, whose motion-based controls got couch potatoes around the world to burn calories as they swung virtual tennis rackets, bowled and flailed around in their living rooms. The new console still allows you to use your old “Wiimotes,” but its major advancement is a new controller, the GamePad, with a built-in touch screen that measures 6.2 inches diagonally.

The GamePad looks like the spawn of a tablet computer and a classic game controller. Its surface area is a little smaller than an iPad’s, but it’s about three times as thick, largely because it has hand grips that make it more comfortable over prolonged game sessions. It has an accelerometer and gyroscope for motion-controlled games, as well as a camera, a microphone, speakers, two analog joysticks and a typical array of buttons.

It’s the touch screen that really makes the difference. In some cases, it houses functions that are typically relegated to a game’s pause screen. In others, it allows a group of people playing the same game together to have different experiences depending on the controller used. Nintendo Co. calls this “asymmetric gaming.”

In the mini-game collection “Nintendo Land,” you can shoot arrows or fling throwing stars by swiping on the touch screen. One of the games in the collection, “Mario Chase,” uses the GamePad to provide a bird’s-eye view of a maze through which you can guide the hero. His pursuers — up to four players using Wiimotes — see the maze from a first-person perspective on the TV screen.

“New Super Mario Bros. U” brings the asymmetric approach to cooperative action. While Wiimote-wielding players scamper across its side-scrolling landscapes, the GamePad user can create “boost blocks” to help them reach otherwise inaccessible areas. If you’re going solo, you can play the entire adventure on the GamePad screen, freeing up the TV for family members who might want to watch something else.

On a more basic level, the GamePad lets you select your next play or draw new routes for your receivers in Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Madden NFL 13.” You use it to adjust strategy or substitute players in 2K Sports’ “NBA 2K13.”

Ubisoft’s “ZombiU” — the best original game at launch — turns the GamePad into your “bug-out bag.” It’s where you’ll find all your undead-fighting supplies, from bats and bullets to hammers and health kits. It lets you access maps and security-camera footage as you navigate the devastated streets of London. If you hold it vertically, you can scan the virtual space in three dimensions to locate zombies who are lying in wait.

Essentially, the GamePad functions like the bottom half of the portable DS, with triggers, buttons and the touch screen offering additional information and an added dimension of control. In this comparison, your living-room TV would be the equivalent of the DS’ top display.

It’s somewhat gimmicky: Much of the time, you can easily imagine playing with just a regular joystick. But in “ZombiU,” the GamePad adds to the atmosphere, creating the panicky feeling of scrambling around in a backpack while another undead horde approaches.

The high-definition graphics produced by the Wii U are close to those of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3. That should bring back some of the game makers who had fled the underpowered Wii — at least until Microsoft and Sony bring out their next-generation consoles (neither company has announced any plans yet).

Some fine games from the past couple of years — Warner Bros.’ “Batman: Arkham City,” Electronic Arts’ “Mass Effect 3″ and THQ Inc.’s “Darksiders II” — are finally coming to a Nintendo console. The enhanced GamePad controls don’t substantially alter their DNA, and if you’ve already played them on the Xbox or PS3, you aren’t missing much. But if I’d had the option to play them the first time around with the enhanced GamePad controls, I would have.

The Wii U’s online functions include video chat, its own social network and the ability to search for TV shows and movies from services such as Netflix and Hulu. These are all free. I wasn’t able to test those features before writing this review. Nintendo said Friday that many of these features won’t be available until next month.

I don’t expect the Wii U to make as big a splash as the original Wii did six years ago. Nintendo‘s competitors are dipping their toes into the dual-screen pool as well: Some Sony games link the PS3 with the handheld Vita, while Microsoft’s SmartGlass app for tablet computers adds bonus material to Xbox games such as “Halo 4″ and “Forza Horizon.”

Still, the Wii U goes all in on the multiscreen concept for a relatively inexpensive price. And in a world where people tweet on their iPads while watching sports or reality shows on their TVs, the whole GamePad concept feels perfectly natural.

The Wii U’s success will depend on what Nintendo and other developers do with that second screen. The early results are very promising.

___

About the Wii U:

The basic Wii U model, with 8 gigabytes of internal storage, costs $ 300. The deluxe set, with 32 GB, “Nintendo Land” and a charging stand for the controller, costs $ 350. It comes to the U.S. on Sunday, later this month in Europe and Dec. 8 in Japan.

Both versions come with the GamePad, but you’ll need to snag old-school Wii controllers from older Wiis or buy them separately.

___

Follow Lou Kesten at http://twitter.com/lkesten

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lindsay Lohan pushed for Elizabeth Taylor TV role

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan so wanted to play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming film “Liz & Dick” that she cut out the middle man and went straight to the producer herself, the tabloid-favorite star said in an interview on Friday.

Lohan, 26, plays Taylor in an upcoming television movie that dramatizes the long love affair between the late Hollywood legend and actor Richard Burton.

“It’s a funny story, actually. I had seen that they were going to be making the movie and I got the producers’ numbers and started harassing (producer) Larry Thompson,” Lohan said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I didn’t even care if my agents were going to do it or not, I just did it myself, too,” the “Mean Girls” actress said. “Because I was like, ‘No one else is going to play this role, I have to do this.’”

Early reviews of “Liz & Dick,” which premieres on U.S. cable channel Lifetime on November 25, have ranged from middling to poor. But TV critics noted the similarities between Lohan and Taylor, both often-troubled actresses who started life as child stars.

“‘Liz & Dick’ truly drags,” said the Hollywood Reporter. “Luckily, you can’t take your eyes off of Lohan playing Taylor, which the producers clearly thought would work because they share similar back stories.”

Lohan’s acting alongside New Zealand’s Grant Bowler as Burton was described by Variety on Friday as “adequate, barring a few awkward moments, thanks largely to the fabulous frocks and makeup … she gets to model.”

Lohan’s reputation, much like Taylor’s, has been built from her tabloid persona more than on-screen performance.

In and out of legal trouble, jail and rehab since 2007, Lohan faced media blow-back this week after canceling an in-depth interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress’ publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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N.F.L. Paid Millions Over Brain Injuries, Article Says

Three retired N.F.L. players received at least $2 million in disability payments as a result of brain trauma injuries from their playing days, according to an article by ESPN and the PBS series “Frontline.”

The payments were made in the 1990s and early 2000s by the Bell/Rozelle N.F.L. Player Retirement Plan, a committee comprising representatives of the owners, players and the N.F.L. commissioner.

The N.F.L. is being sued by several thousand retired players who accuse the league of concealing a link between head hits and brain injuries. The league denies the accusation and has said it did not mislead its players.

The article, however, cites a letter written in 2000 from the director of the retirement plan who stated that Mike Webster, who retired in 1990, had a disability that was “the result of head injuries he suffered as a football player with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Kansas City Chiefs.”

Webster died in 2002. The article cites similar payments to Gerry Sullivan, a Browns lineman, and a third, unnamed player.

The article provides more details than were known about Webster’s case; his fight for disability benefits was known. The retired players say in their complaint that “the N.F.L.’s own physician independently examined Webster and concluded that Webster was mentally ‘completely and totally disabled as of the date of his retirement and was certainly disabled when he stopped playing football sometime in 1990.’ ”

However, Greg Aiello, an N.F.L. spokesman, said that the ESPN report “underscores that we have had a system in place with the union for many years to address player injury claims on a case-by-case basis.” The disability plan, he said, was “collectively bargained with the players.”

“All decisions concerning player injury claims are made by the disability plan’s board, not by the N.F.L. or by the Players Association,” Aiello said.

The board has seven members: three owner representatives, three player representatives and one nonvoting representative of the commissioner.

The disclosures in the article came a day after Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he trumpeted the league’s efforts to increase the safety of its players and proclaimed that “medical decisions override everything else.”

Jeffrey Standen, a law professor at Willamette University in Oregon, said the details about Webster’s disability payments did not amount to a smoking gun. The plan’s determination that Webster sustained head injuries is not the same as the N.F.L. making that decision.

“The problem is the N.F.L. didn’t make the admission; it was the board,” Standen said. “They’re not the same body. As a legal matter, the fact that they paid Webster is not going to matter much in legal terms. But it’s evidence to throw in front of a jury.”

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Sources: Liguori planned as next Tribune CEO

When Tribune Co. emerges from bankruptcy, the new owners plan to name television executive Peter Liguori as the company's chief executive, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Liguori is a former top TV executive at Fox and Discovery. The decision to name him Tribune Co.'s CEO would end months of speculation and usher in a new era for the Chicago-based media company, which owns newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, and television stations.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday signed off on waivers needed to transfer Tribune Co.'s broadcast properties to the new ownership, the final significant hurdle before the company can emerge from its long-running stay in Chapter 11.

While a date for emergence is not set, the new ownership group controlled by senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will likely take the reins by the end of the year. An initial step for the owners will be to appoint a board of directors. It will have final say on who becomes CEO, but sources say the owners have chosen Liguori.

"The decision has been made," one of the sources said.

Los Angeles Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein has been CEO of Tribune Co. since May 2011. A Tribune Co. spokesman declined to comment.

A former advertising executive who transitioned into television more than two decades ago, Liguori, 52, is credited with turning cable channel FX into a programming powerhouse during his ascent to entertainment chief at News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting. More recently, he served as chief operating officer at Discovery Communications Inc., where he helped oversee the rocky launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Liguori is considered by some observers to be a good fit for Tribune Co. and its new owners. While the company's identity is closely connected to publishing, broadcasting is now the headline business and core profit center. One of Liguori's main jobs will be to help maximize TV ratings, advertising dollars and increasingly important affiliate fees for WGN America and Tribune Co.'s 23 local stations, according to industry insiders.

Liguori "is a very, very smart hire for Oaktree and the guys that run the company because I think what Tribune needs more than anything is somebody to kind of build the brands back and make it a true media company, as opposed to just a collection of businesses," said Jeff Shell, London-based president of NBCUniversal International, who worked with Liguori for six years at Fox beginning in 1996. Shell, whose name had once been floated as a candidate for Tribune Co. CEO, spoke recently about his former colleague's potential value as head of Tribune Co.

Liguori is also expected to address the fundamental question of whether Tribune Co. should retain its ownership of newspapers or divest them to focus on the healthier TV business. Revenues for newspapers have been halved in recent years as readership migrates to the digital world.

Liguori, who could not be reached for comment, became president of Fox's FX Networks in 1998, when it was a small basic cable channel airing reruns of everything from "M.A.S.H." to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Elevated to CEO in 2001, he remade FX by offering edgy original programming. Starting with "The Shield" in 2002, Liguori then rolled out "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," creating first-run successes that redefined FX, and perhaps basic cable, in the process.

"FX was a channel when he took over — a little, tiny cable channel losing a bunch of money," Shell said. "He made it into something big by imagining something different, and I think that's what Tribune needs."

Liguori became president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Co. in 2005, where he headed up program development and marketing. Squeezed out in 2009, he then joined Discovery as chief operating officer, where one of his responsibilities was to oversee the nascent joint venture with OWN.

In May 2011, Liguori assumed the dual role as interim CEO of OWN after inaugural head Christina Norman was forced out at the struggling network. That added responsibility evaporated two months later when Winfrey made herself CEO of OWN. Liguori left Discovery in December, and the company eliminated his chief operating officer position.

Liguori has been working since July as a New York-based media consultant for private equity firm Carlyle Group. He is on the boards of Yahoo Inc., MGM Holdings Inc. and Topps Co.

Tribune Co. has been operating under bankruptcy court protection for nearly four years, having buckled under the $13 billion in total debt it took on after its 2007 buyout. The case was prolonged by a drawn-out battle for control among creditors.

With the court having resolved the major ownership questions, the FCC's decision to grant waivers was the last major piece of the puzzle to come together.

The FCC issued the waivers of its so-called cross-ownership rules for Tribune Co. in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, South Florida and Hartford, Conn., where it owns TV stations and newspapers. In Chicago, the company's properties include WGN-Ch. 9.

Getting the waivers "will enable the company to continue moving forward toward emergence from Chapter 11, a process we expect to complete over the course of the next several weeks," Hartenstein, Tribune Co.'s CEO, said in a statement.

Tribune Newspapers reporter Jim Puzzanghera contributed.

rchannick@tribune.com

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Hostess Brands seeks court permission to liquidate

Indiana Hostess plants could shut down after workers strike.

Hostess Brands Inc., the bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said it had sought court permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

Hostess said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation of the company would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs.

In the Chicago area, Hostess employs about 300 workers making CupCakes, HoHos and Honey Buns in Schiller Park. Hostess also has a bakery in Hodgkins, where 325 workers make Beefsteak, Butternut, Home Pride, Nature’s Pride and Wonder breads.

Hostess said it took the decision to liquidate the company after determining that not enough employees had returned to work by a deadline on Thursday.

The company, which filed for bankruptcy in January, said it had filed a motion with U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, for permission to shut down and sell assets.

"We deeply regret the necessity of today's decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Chief Executive Gregory Rayburn said in a statement.

"Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders," Rayburn added.

Union President Frank Hurt said on Thursday that the crisis at the company was the "result of nearly a decade of financial and operational mismanagement" and that management was trying to make union workers the scapegoats for a plan by Wall Street investors to sell Hostess.

Hostess said its debtor-in-possession lenders had agreed to allow the it to continue to have access to $75 million to fund the wind-down process.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052

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NBC to replace “Today Show” producer, source says

(Reuters) – NBC is expected to name Alexandra Wallace, a senior vice president of the network’s news division, as the executive in charge of “The Today Show,” the latest reshuffling of the show’s personnel after it slipped to second in ratings this year behind “Good Morning America.”

Wallace, who would be the first woman in charge of the long-running NBC show that pioneered early morning TV in the United States, will be named along with a producer to replace Jim Bell, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Bell, who has headed the show since 2005, was blamed this year for the controversial firing of Ann Curry as anchor alongside Matt Lauer.

Curry was replaced by Savannah Guthrie in June.

“Good Morning America” or GMA, produced by Walt Disney‘s ABC unit, closed the gap with “Today.”

“Today,” the top-rated morning show for 16 consecutive years, started the current TV season number two. In late October, NBC drew 7,000 more viewers than GMA among 25 to 54 year-old viewers, the age group advertisers most want to reach, its first lead since September 10. GMA still led among overall viewers.

The first two hours of “The Today Show,” from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., collected $ 485 million in ad revenues in 2011, up 6.6 percent from 2010, according to Kantar Media, which provides data to advertisers. GMA took in $ 299 million last year.

It is unclear when the changes at “The Today Show” will take effect, according to The New York Times, which first reported the shakeup.

Bell this summer produced NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage and is expected to become the full-time executive producer of the network’s ongoing Olympic coverage.

NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp., is also in the midst of layoffs at its entertainment unit, shedding 500 positions primarily at its cable channels. Jay Leno’s late night TV show cut about two dozen of its crew members about two months ago.

(Reporting By Ronald Grover)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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For Alzheimer’s, Detection Advances Outpace Treatment Options

Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Awilda Jimenez got a scan for Alzheimer’s after she started forgetting things. It was positive.

When Awilda Jimenez started forgetting things last year, her husband, Edwin, felt a shiver of dread. Her mother had developed Alzheimer’s in her 50s. Could his wife, 61, have it, too?

He learned there was a new brain scan to diagnose the disease and nervously agreed to get her one, secretly hoping it would lay his fears to rest. In June, his wife became what her doctor says is the first private patient in Arizona to have the test.

“The scan was floridly positive,” said her doctor, Adam S. Fleisher, director of brain imaging at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix.

The Jimenezes have struggled ever since to deal with this devastating news. They are confronting a problem of the new era of Alzheimer’s research: The ability to detect the disease has leapt far ahead of treatments. There are none that can stop or even significantly slow the inexorable progression to dementia and death.

Families like the Jimenezes, with no good options, can only ask: Should they live their lives differently, get their affairs in order, join a clinical trial of an experimental drug?

“I was hoping the scan would be negative,” Mr. Jimenez said. “When I found out it was positive, my heart sank.”

The new brain scan technology, which went on the market in June, is spreading fast. There are already more than 300 hospitals and imaging centers, located in most major metropolitan areas, that are ready to perform the scans, according to Eli Lilly, which sells the tracer used to mark plaque for the scan.

The scans show plaques in the brain — barnaclelike clumps of protein, beta amyloid — that, together with dementia, are the defining feature of Alzheimer’s disease. Those who have dementia but do not have excessive plaques do not have Alzheimer’s. It is no longer necessary to wait until the person dies and has an autopsy to learn if the brain was studded with plaques.

Many insurers, including Medicare, will not yet pay for the new scans, which cost several thousand dollars. And getting one comes with serious risks. While federal law prevents insurers and employers from discriminating based on genetic tests, it does not apply to scans. People with brain plaques can be denied long-term care insurance.

The Food and Drug Administration, worried about interpretations of the scans, has required something new: Doctors must take a test showing they can read them accurately before they begin doing them. So far, 700 doctors have qualified, according to Eli Lilly. Other kinds of diagnostic scans have no such requirement.

In another unusual feature, the F.D.A. requires that radiologists not be told anything about the patient. They are generally trained to incorporate clinical information into their interpretation of other types of scans, said Dr. R. Dwaine Rieves, director of the drug agency’s Division of Medical Imaging Products.

But in this case, clinical information may lead radiologists to inadvertently shade their reports to coincide with what doctors suspect is the underlying disease. With Alzheimer’s, Dr. Rieves said, “clinical impressions have been misleading.”

“This is a big change in the world of image interpretation,” he said.

Like some other Alzheimer’s experts, Dr. Fleisher used the amyloid scan for several years as part of a research study that led to its F.D.A. approval. Subjects were not told what the scans showed. Now, with the scan on the market, the rules have changed.

Dr. Fleisher’s first patient was Mrs. Jimenez. Her husband, the family breadwinner, had lost his job as a computer consultant when the couple moved from New York to Arizona to take care of Mrs. Jimenez’s mother. Paying several thousand dollars for a scan was out of the question. But Dr. Fleisher found a radiologist, Dr. Mantej Singh Sra of Sun Radiology, who was so eager to get into the business that he agreed to do Mrs. Jimenez’s scan free. His plan was to be the first in Arizona to do a scan, and advertise it.

After Dr. Sra did the scan, the Jimenezes returned to Dr. Fleisher to learn the result.

Dr. Fleisher, sad to see so much plaque in Mrs. Jimenez’s brain, referred her to a psychiatrist to help with anxiety and suggested she enter clinical trials of experimental drugs.

But Mr. Jimenez did not like that idea. He worried about unexpected side effects.

“Tempting as it is, where do you draw the line?” he asks. “At what point do you take a risk with a loved one?”

At Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, Dr. Samuel E. Gandy found that his patients — mostly affluent — were unfazed by the medical center’s $3,750 price for the scan. He has been ordering at least one a week for people with symptoms ambiguous enough to suggest the possibility of brain plaques.

Most of his patients want their names kept confidential, fearing an inability to get long-term care insurance, or just wanting privacy.

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United glitch hits ahead of holidays

A massive computer outage at United Airlines early Thursday stranded passengers across the country.A spokesperson for United tells WGN-TV that the airline is up and running again.

United Airlines, just a week before the year's busiest travel period, experienced yet another major computer problem Thursday morning that delayed hundreds of flights across the country, mostly on the East Coast. Some airline industry observers called for "heads to roll" at the world's largest airline.

The latest glitch involved the dispatch system software that enables Chicago-based United to communicate with airplanes before departure, delivering information on the plane's weight and balance, number of passengers and baggage, said United spokesman Charlie Hobart.

Flights of United's regional jet service, United Express, were not affected.

The outage occurred from about 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday and resulted in 257 delays directly attributable to the outage and more through the day, along with about 10 cancellations. The airline said it had 636 delays Thursday, far more than its typical number of about 300. The delays affected a relatively small number of the airline's 5,500 daily flights — fewer than 5 percent, Hobart said.

The impact at O'Hare International Airport seemed to be minimal, United and airport officials said.

United has had rampant problems with an unrelated system, its passenger reservation system it switched to in March. In August, the airline had another unrelated network outage that occurred when a piece of communication equipment in a United data center failed and disabled communications with airports and the United website, United.com. That was due to a failure at a United vendor.

The computer problems, especially the reservation system problem that affected flights in midsummer, have had Jeff Smisek, CEO of United's parent company, United Continental Holdings, making public apologies since March. He conceded to Wall Street analysts that operational problems hurt the airline's third-quarter profits as many customers fled to competitors. But he said during an earnings call with analysts in late October that those problems were behind the airline and that he was confident United would perform well during the busy holiday travel season.

Aside from weather-related delays, such as superstorm Sandy and a snowstorm on the East Coast, that seemed true until Thursday's outage. Even on Thursday, United's on-time performance was about 80 percent, meeting its target, a spokesman said.

"It was a software issue that we found and fixed in that two-hour period," United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson said. "It will not happen again."

Hobart said he did not have details about what went wrong.

Joe Brancatelli, a business travel writer at JoeSentMe.com, said the failures point to a larger problem.

Some industry observers said United is out of excuses.

"It is flat-out unacceptable," said Henry Harteveldt, co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group. "This makes United a laughingstock among airlines."

He said airline computer systems are complex and Thursday's problem might be a one-time issue, but the repeated failures are not only embarrassing for United, they "undermine trust in the airline" and "demoralize employees."

"There are clearly failures in the airline's strategy and the airline's execution, and heads need to roll," he said. "United's (chief information officer) should resign or be dismissed."

Hobart said the airline has improved recently.

"Since this summer, we've significantly improved our operational performance, with nearly 85 percent of our flights on time so far this month and nearly 80 percent of flights arriving on time in October, despite operational challenges like Hurricane Sandy," he said. "We understand this outage was frustrating for our customers, and we are enabling them to rebook without penalty and receive a full refund if their flights were delayed by at least two hours."

"Mostly what it says is that (airlines) have got to stop looking at mergers as two route maps you can smash together," Brancatelli said. He contends that the United-Continental merger was not planned properly.

"There are too many things going wrong," he said. Blame rests with "the guys running the show," he said of United's top executives. "The fish stinks from the head."

gkarp@tribune.com

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Man charged in hit-and-run that killed father of 3

A 23-year-old West Rogers Park man faces charges of reckless homicide and seven other charges and citations in connection with a fatal hit-and-run crash Monday night, police said.

Fernando Jasso Perez, of the 6400 block of North Campbell Avenue, is scheduled to appear in bond court today.

Jasso Perez was charged with reckless homicide with a motor vehicle, failure to report an accident resulting in death, and failure to report an accident resulting in an injury. He was also cited with driving to the left of center, two counts of driving in a right of way, driving in an uninsured motor vehicle and driving without ever having been issued a license.

Tsering Dorjee was killed in the crash while crossing the 6400 block of North Maplewood Avenue. He spent the day helping his brother-in-law find an apartment for his family, expected to arrive from India next month.

Around 6 p.m., Dorjee and Dakpa Jorden  were crossing the street on their way to get food when both were struck by a dark blue Volkswagen that kept on driving, police said.

Dorjee, 44, was pronounced dead late Monday night at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Jorden suffered a broken leg and was also taken to Saint Francis Hospital. .

Dorjee worked in the Cook County Clerk’s office for 14 years and was president of the Rogers Park Chamber of Commerce. He leaves behind his wife and three children under 6.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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Michael Jackson’s assistant files class-action lawsuit against “This Is It” tour promoter

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Michael Jackson has been dead for more than three years now – but apparently he lives on in the halls of America’s legal system.

Jackson’s former assistant, Michael Amir Williams, filed a class-action lawsuit against concert promoters AEG Live in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, claiming he and others hired to attend to the “Beat It” singer during his would-be “This Is It” tour at London’s O2 Arena were deprived of at least $ 7.5 million dollars in pay.

According to the suit, AEG was responsible for the financial loss because it hired Dr. Conrad Murray — who was found guilty of causing the singer’s death – to care for Jackson.

The suit claims that Jackson “bargained for the addition of Class to help Michael Jackson give the ‘first class performance’ as required by Contract. The express terms of the Contract allowed for class to be paid by AEG up to $ 7.5 million and any amount over $ 7.5 million to be paid for by Michael Jackson.”

Unfortunately, AEG also hired Murray, who administered a fatal dose of Propofol to Jackson in June 2009, before the concerts could take place. (Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for Jackson’s death in November 2011.)

AEG’s lawyer, Marvin Putnam of O’Melveny & Myers, calls the lawsuit “frivolous” and “truly unfortunate.”

“This lawsuit is clearly frivolous; it is literally barred by at least four different legal doctrines,” Putnam said in a statement provided to TheWrap. “The easiest is that Mr. Williams was a personal employee of Michael Jackson’s, and was never a beneficiary of Mr. Jackson’s contract with AEG Live. As such he has no legal standing to sue on that contract. Nor can he legally bring a claim for Mr. Jackson’s wrongful death. The idea that Mr. Williams purports to sue on behalf of the many persons who did enter into relationships with AEG Live and Jackson in connection with the This Is It Tour, and with whom AEG Live parted ways with the utmost friendship and respect, is disgraceful. It is truly unfortunate that so many see Mr. Jackson’s demise as an opportunity to grab as much for themselves as possible. This is just the latest wrongful death lawsuit with someone hoping to profit from Michael Jackson’s tragic death in the same way they profited from his life.”

Williams’ suit alleges breach of express terms of contract; breach of implied terms of contract; and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The complaint seeks unspecified damages, plus court costs and attorneys’ fees.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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5-Hour Energy Is Cited in 13 Death Reports

Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths over the last four years that cited the possible involvement of 5-Hour Energy, a highly caffeinated energy shot, according to Food and Drug Administration records and an interview with an agency official.

The disclosure of the reports is the second time in recent weeks that F.D.A. filings citing energy drinks and deaths have emerged. Last month, the agency acknowledged it had received five fatality filings mentioning another popular energy drink, Monster Energy.

Since 2009, 5-Hour Energy has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the F.D.A., including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion, a summary of F.D.A. records reviewed by The New York Times showed.

The filing of an incident report with the F.D.A. does not mean that a product was responsible for a death or an injury or contributed in any way to it. Such reports can be fragmentary in nature and difficult to investigate.

The distributor of 5-Hour Energy, Living Essentials of Farmington Hills, Mich., did not respond to written questions about the filings, and its top executive declined to be interviewed. Living Essentials is a unit of the product’s producer, Innovation Ventures.

However, in a statement, Living Essentials said the product was safe when used as directed and that it was “unaware of any deaths proven to be caused by the consumption of 5-Hour Energy.”

Since the public disclosure of reports about Monster Energy, its producer, Monster Beverage of Corona, Calif., has repeatedly said that its products are safe, adding that they were not the cause of any of the health problems reported to the F.D.A.

Shares of Monster Beverage, which traded above $80 earlier this year, closed Wednesday at $44.74.

The fast-growing energy drink industry is facing increasing scrutiny over issues like labeling disclosures and possible health risks. Some lawmakers are calling on the F.D.A. to increase its regulation of the products and the New York State attorney general is investigating the practices of several producers.

Unlike Red Bull, Monster Energy and some other energy drinks that look like beverages, 5-Hour Energy is sold in a two-ounce bottle referred to as a shot. The company does not disclose the amount of caffeine in each bottle, but a recent article published by Consumer Reports placed that level at about 215 milligrams.

An eight-ounce cup of coffee, depending on how it is made, can contain from 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine.

The F.D.A. has stated that it does not have sufficient scientific evidence to justify changing how it regulates caffeine or other ingredients in energy products. The issue of how to do so is complicated by the fact that some high-caffeine drinks, like Red Bull, are sold under agency rules governing beverages, while others, like 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy, are marketed as dietary supplements. The categories have differing ingredient rules and reporting requirements.

In an interview Wednesday, Daniel Fabricant, the director of the agency’s division of dietary supplement programs, said the agency was looking into the death reports that cited 5-Hour Energy. He said that while medical information in such reports could rule out a link with the product, other reports could contain insufficient information to determine what role, if any, a supplement might have played.

Mr. Fabricant said that the 13 fatality reports that mentioned 5-Hour Energy had all been submitted to the F.D.A. by Living Essentials. Since late 2008, producers of dietary supplements are required to notify the F.D.A. when they become aware of a death or serious injury that may be related to their product.

Currently, the agency does not publicly disclose adverse event filings about dietary supplements like 5-Hour Energy. Companies that market energy drinks as beverages are not required to make such reports to the agency, although they can do so voluntarily, Mr. Fabricant said.

Along with caffeine, 5-Hour Energy contains other ingredients, like very high levels of certain B vitamins and a substance called taurine.

Reached by telephone, the chief executive of the Living Essentials, Manoj Bhargava, declined to discuss the filings and said he believed an article about the reports would cast the company in a negative light.

“I am not interested in making any comment,” Mr. Bhargava said.

Subsequently, the company issued a statement that said, among other things, that it took “reports of any potential adverse event tied to our products very seriously,” adding that the company complied “with all of our reporting requirements” to the F.D.A.

The company also stated that it marketed 5-Hour Energy to “hardworking adults who need an extra boost of energy.” The product’s label recommends that it not be used by woman who are pregnant or by children under 12 years of age.

The number of reports filed with the F.D.A. that mention 5-Hour Energy appears particularly striking. In 2010, for example, the F.D.A. received a total of 17 fatality reports that mentioned a dietary supplement or a weight loss product, two broad categories that cover more than 50,000 products, according to Mr. Fabricant, the F.D.A. official.

He added that it was difficult to put the volume of 5-Hour Energy filings into context because he believed that some supplement manufacturers were probably not following the mandated reporting rules and that consumers and doctors might also be unaware that they can file incident reports with the agency. Last year, the F.D.A. received only 2,000 reports about fatalities or serious injuries that cited dietary supplements and weight loss products, he said.

Another federal agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reported late last year that more than 13,000 emergency room visits in 2009 were associated with energy drinks alone.

Along with Living Essentials, The Times sent queries last week to several producers asking whether they had received reports linking fatalities or serious injuries to their products.

Representatives for two of those companies — Red Bull and Coca-Cola, which sells NOS and Full Throttle — said they were unaware of any such reports. A representative for PepsiCo, which makes Amp, also said it was unaware of any such reports.

In addition to Red Bull, NOS, Full Throttle and Amp are also marketed as beverages, rather than as dietary supplements.

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FCC recommends waivers for Tribune

The staff of the Federal Communications Commission has recommended that the agency grant Tribune Co. waivers of so-called media ownership rules, paving the way for the company to emerge from its long-running bankruptcy.

The waivers -- the last major hurdle in the four-year case -- would take effect Friday as long as none of the five commissioners raise serious objections, according to a person at the FCC who wasn't authorized to speak and therefore did not want to be identified.

No vote is required for the waivers to take effect.

The waivers would set the wheels in motion to emerge from bankruptcy, something that can happen as soon as new ownership, a group led by senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo Gordon & Co and JPMorgan Chase & Co., can complete the necessary paperwork.

The FCC staff is recommending that the agency grant a permanent waiver to Tribune's ownership of the Chicago Tribune and WGN radio and television stations and that it give  one-year waivers for the Los Angeles Times ownership of KTLA-TV Channel 5 and for similar arrangements in three other markets.

The FCC also is circulating among commissioners a proposal for new media ownership rules that would ease restrictions on consolidations among newspapers and TV and ratio stations, according to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. That proposal is expected to come up for an agency vote at the next regular meeting.

Once the new rules are in effect, Tribune's new owners could seek permanent waivers in the Los Angeles, New York, Hartford, Conn., and South Florida markets.

Tribune Vice President Shaun Sheehan declined to comment.

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U.S. Attorney: Ex-Dixon comptroller to plead guilty

Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell plans to plead guilty Wednesday to a federal fraud charge that alleges she siphoned more than $53 million from the northwestern Illinois city's coffers, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

The office released a statement saying Crundwell will change her plea to guilty at a hearing in Rockford.

The move by Crundwell, 59, came as no surprise to Dixon Mayor Jim Burke, who said he last saw Crundwell when he left her with FBI agents at City Hall in April.

"(The agents) told me, 'This will either take a few minutes or a few hours,'" Burke recalled Tuesday. "When it just went on for hours, I figured she was singing like a canary, and that's good."

When Crundwell was charged, authorities said she confessed to stealing money from city accounts for years to finance a horse-breeding operation.

The scheme was uncovered only when another city employee was struggling to reconcile city accounts while filling in for Crundwell, who had taken a weekslong leave of absence to attend horse shows.

Then in September, five months after the federal charges were filed, Lee County State's Attorney Henry Dixon brought additional charges against Crundwell -- 60 counts of theft in connection with the same alleged misconduct.

It is unclear how Crundwell's guilty plea to the federal fraud count might affect the Lee County charges. Henry Dixon lost his bid for re-election last week and was not available for comment Tuesday, his office said. The Tribune was unable to reach State's Attorney-elect Anna Sacco-Miller.

Local officials wanted "insurance that Rita wouldn't just get a slap on the wrist with the one (federal) count," said Burke, who hopes the local charges still move forward.

In addition to her admissions to the FBI, Crundwell has put up little fight in court to date.

She did not contest moves by federal authorities to sell assets she allegedly bought with the stolen money. As part of those efforts, more than $7 million has been raised by auctioning off about 400 quarter horses and the luxury motor home she used to travel to horse shows.

Much of that money will go back to Dixon to make up for losses incurred from Crundwell's alleged thefts over nearly 22 years. And the auctions will continue. Her properties in Dixon, jewelry and other assets are still to be sold.

Burke said the investigation and audits since Crundwell's arrest have not linked anyone else to the thefts and that Crundwell did not appear to have any vices like drugs or gambling that drove her to steal.

In Dixon, Crundwell did not flaunt her wealth. And when she arrived at horse shows around the country with dozens of horses, her peers assumed she had a massive income that came from outside the horse business.

She seems, Burke said, to have wanted to live a lavish lifestyle and raise champion horses.

"Our police chief said it best," Burke said. "All this was about horses and trophies."

Tribune reporter Melissa Jenco contributed.

agrimm@tribune.com

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Accuser recants sex claims against Elmo puppeteer: report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The man who claimed he had underage sex with the puppeteer behind “Sesame Street” character Elmo recanted his claims on Tuesday, U.S. media reported.

The unnamed man, now 23, had claimed that Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash had a sexual relationship with him when the accuser was 16 years old, potentially engulfing one of the biggest childhood brands in an underage sex scandal.

“He wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship,” the law firm Andreozzi and Associates, who represent the man, told U.S. media outlets in a statement.

Clash, 52, who had denied the allegations, said in a statement obtained by Reuters on Tuesday: “I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest. I will not discuss it further.”

New York-based Sesame Workshop said on Monday that its own inquiry had concluded that the claims of underage sexual conduct against Clash were unsubstantiated.

“We are pleased that this matter has been brought to a close, and we are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode,” Sesame Workshop said in a statement on Tuesday.

Clash, 52, the voice of Elmo for nearly three decades, had acknowledged a past relationship with his accuser but said on Monday the pair were both consenting adults at the time. He termed the allegations “false and defamatory.”

“I am a gay man. I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it,” Clash said on Monday, saying he was taking a break from the TV show to deal with the situation.

Sesame Workshop said the allegations involving Clash came to its attention in June when the accuser first contacted the company by email. A company executive said it had found “absolutely no evidence that the allegations were true.”

The Elmo character debuted on “Sesame Street” in 1979. While Clash was the third performer to animate the child-like shaggy red monster, Sesame Workshop credits him with turning Elmo into the international sensation he became.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey and Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Johnston)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lance Armstrong Cuts Officials Ties With His Livestrong Charity

In the wake of being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, Lance Armstrong last week cut all official ties with Livestrong, the charity he founded 15 years ago while he was treated for testicular cancer.

On Nov. 4, he resigned from the organization’s board of directors; he had previously stepped down as the chairman of the board Oct. 17. He has distanced himself from the charity to try to protect it from any damage caused by his doping controversy, the new board chairman, Jeff Garvey, said in a statement.

“Lance Armstrong was instrumental in changing the way the world views people affected by cancer,” Garvey said. “His devotion to serving survivors is unparalleled, and for 15 years, he committed himself to that cause with all his heart.”

Garvey said that the Armstrong family had donated nearly $7 million to the foundation and that the organization under Armstrong had raised close to $500 million to serve cancer survivors.

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency made public its evidence in its doping case against Armstrong, saying he had doped and encouraged his teammates to dope so they could help him win races. He was subsequently barred from Olympic sports for life and was stripped of all the cycling titles he won from August 1998 on.

Since then, Armstrong has spent several weeks in Hawaii, out of the public eye. On Saturday, though, he posted a photograph on Twitter showing him at home in Austin, Tex. He is lounging on a couch with his seven yellow Tour jerseys framed on the wall in the background.

In the post, he said, “Back in Austin and just layin’ around.” The photograph had more than 400,000 page views as of Monday evening, with many people posting negative comments on the page.

“Lance, you have no moral conscious and it’s obvious many of your followers don’t either,” said one person who went by the Twitter handle “irobot,” who also posted that Armstrong needed “professional help.”

A person posting under the name “Aumann” said: “An art thief enjoying all his da Vincis.”

Other people posted words of support, including many who said they still thought Armstrong was the top cyclist in history.

“TomShelton” said of Armstrong’s seven Tour titles, “You earned all 7 of them no matter what is being said about you!”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 13, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated Jeff Garvey’s estimate of the sum the Livestrong charity had raised to serve cancer survivors. It was close to $500 million, not close to $300 million.

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Microsoft executive exits at a shaky time

Turns out Microsoft Corp.'s radical overhaul of its Windows operating system last month wasn't the only big change in store for the company.

The abrupt departure of Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows and Windows Live, is being called poor timing for the tech behemoth. It's also seen as a sign that longtime Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has no plans to step down anytime soon.

Sinofsky's exit, just weeks after the company rolled out the Windows 8 operating system, "doesn't necessarily reflect well on the company," said Kirk Materne, managing director at Evercore Partners.

"I think if you're Steve, having this happen right after creates a level of distraction that you don't want in the first place," he said. "It's never great when you've had this much turnover at the senior level of a company that is really trying to gain its footing in markets like tablet and mobile."

Shares of Microsoft slid 90 cents, or 3.2%, to $27.09 on Tuesday. Its stock has languished in the last decade — virtually unchanged — while shares of rival Apple Inc. have climbed more than 6,700%.

Microsoft is under pressure to impress consumers and investors with its latest offerings, which include Windows 8 and its new Surface device, a hybrid tablet-laptop that launched last month.

But both products have been met with lackluster interest. Windows 8 debuted to low investor expectations, and reviews for the revamped operating system have been mixed, with some users saying it's at times confusing to use.

The Surface, meanwhile, was buzz-worthy when it was first unveiled, but analysts seem unconvinced that it will make a dent in a market currently dominated by Apple's iPad. Although the hardware is sleek, the Surface lacks applications compared with the iPad, and its highly touted snap-on keyboard that doubles as a cover is difficult to accurately type on, reviewers have said.

The Windows 8 launch was said to be the biggest revamp of the operating system in nearly two decades. The latest update includes a new interface called the Start screen that was designed for tablets and touch-screen computers and features moving tiles similar to those on Windows Phone devices. Microsoft wants the new Start screen interface to be the future of Windows.

"The general conclusion of Win 8 is on the surface, it's a solid first start," Materne said. "It's not mind-blowing, it's not going to immediately recapture market share, but it gets them back in the ballgame to a certain degree."

Sinofsky, a 23-year Microsoft veteran, was in charge of the Windows 8 and Surface efforts at the Redmond, Wash., company. He was a polarizing figure in the office with a tough management style and was rumored to be in line to succeed Ballmer, who has been chief executive since 2000.

In an employee memo Monday, the day Microsoft announced his departure, Sinofsky said he had decided to leave to seek "new opportunities."

"With the general availability of Windows 8/RT and Surface, I have decided it is time for me to take a step back from my responsibilities at Microsoft," he said. "I've always advocated using the break between product cycles as an opportunity to reflect and to look ahead, and that applies to me too."

Now that Sinofsky has left, analysts — some of whom speculated there had been a rift between Sinofsky and Ballmer — say they expect a new direction for the Windows division.

"Sinofsky was a highly talented operator who hit product release dates, got delivery in Windows to be more reliable, and was pivotal to successful Office and Win 7 releases," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt said in a note to investors. "While he is a loss for Microsoft, Windows has entered a different phase where cultivation of developers, collaboration between product groups, integration with the mobile operating system and a focus on applications become more important."

Sinofsky will be replaced by Julie Larson-Green, who has been with the company since 1993 and oversaw program management, user interface design and research for Windows 7 and 8. She will lead all Windows software and hardware engineering.

Tami Reller, Windows chief financial officer and chief marketing officer, also will assume responsibility for the business of Windows.

There could be a bit of a learning curve in the meantime, said equity analyst Angelo Zino of S&P Capital IQ.

"We are surprised by the announcement, given Sinofsky's recent success as well as a belief by many that he could eventually have been the successor to CEO Steve Ballmer," he said. "While we are confident in the abilities of both individuals, we see the change increasing product development risk to future Windows releases."

andrea.chang@latimes.com

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U.S. commander in Afghanistan linked to Petraeus sex scandal

PERTH -- The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, is under investigation for alleged inappropriate communication with a woman at the center of the sex scandal involving former CIA Director David Petraeus, a senior U.S. defense official said on Tuesday.

The shocking revelation threatens to fell another of the U.S. military's biggest names and suggests that the scandal involving Petraeus - a retired four-star general who had Allen's job in Afghanistan before moving to the CIA last year - could expand much further than previously imagined.

The U.S. official said the FBI uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of communications - mostly emails and spanning from 2010 to 2012 - between Allen and Jill Kelley, who has been identified as a long-time friend of the Petraeus family and a Tampa, Florida, volunteer social liaison with military families at MacDill Air Force Base.

It was Kelley's complaints about harassing emails from the woman with whom Petraeus had had an affair, Paula Broadwell, that prompted an FBI investigation, ultimately alerting authorities to Petraeus' involvement with Broadwell. Petraeus resigned from his job on Friday.

It was unclear how Allen knew Kelley, but he was stationed in Tampa as the deputy director of the U.S. military's Central Command for the three years until he took over in Afghanistan in 2011. Petraeus was head of the Tampa-based Central Command from 2008 to 2010.

Asked whether there was concern about the disclosure of classified information, the official, on condition of anonymity, said: "We are concerned about inappropriate communications. We are not going to speculate as to what is contained in these documents."

But even the sheer volume of communication alone could raise questions. Allen and Kelley were exchanging around 30 pages of communication per day, on average. Even if the notes were short, such intense interaction might have consumed a lot of Allen's time.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement given to reporters flying with him to Perth, Australia that he had asked that Allen's nomination to be Commander of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe be delayed "and the president has agreed".

Allen, who is now in Washington, was due to face a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, as was his slated successor in Afghanistan, General Joseph Dunford.

The FBI referred the case to the Pentagon on Sunday and Panetta directed the Defense Department's Inspector General to handle its investigation. Panetta informed the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee during the overnight flight to Australia. The House Armed Services Committee was also notified.

The U.S. defense official said that Allen denied any wrongdoing and that Panetta had opted to keep him in his job while the matter was under review, and until Dunford can be confirmed to replace him - a process that gains urgency given the potentially lengthy review process and the cloud it could cast over the mission in Afghanistan.

"While the matter is under investigation and before the facts are determined, General Allen will remain commander of ISAF," Panetta said, referring to the NATO—led force in Afghanistan.

Only hours earlier, Panetta had said he was reviewing Allen's recommendations on the future U.S. presence in Afghanistan after most troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

Commending Allen's leadership in Afghanistan, Panetta said in his statement: "He is entitled to due process in this matter."

At the same time, he noted that he wanted the Senate to act "promptly" on Dunford's nomination.

The U.S. official said Panetta was informed of the matter involving Allen on Sunday, as he flew to Hawaii, after the Pentagon's top lawyer called Panetta's chief of staff. The White House was informed next.

Pair used old email trick

FBI agents on Monday searched the home of the woman with whom Petraeus had the affair.

According to two federal law enforcement officials, the FBI initially began a criminal investigation of unsigned, harassing emails that were sent, beginning last May, to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley. She and her husband, Scott, were longtime friends of Petraeus and his wife, Holly. FBI agents traced the alleged cyber harassment to Broadwell and during that process discovered she was exchanging intimate messages with a private Gmail account. Further investigation revealed that account belonged to Petraeus, under an alias.

Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teenagers alike, to conceal their email traffic, one of the law enforcement officials said.

Rather than transmitting emails to the other's inbox, they composed at least some messages and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic "dropbox," the official said. Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail that is easier for outsiders to intercept or trace.

Agents later told Petraeus that Broadwell sent emails warning Kelley to stay away from the general and carrying a threatening tone.

Friends and former staff members of Petraeus told The Associated Press that he has assured them his relationship with Kelley was platonic, although Broadwell apparently saw her as a romantic rival. They said Petraeus was shocked to learn last summer of Broadwell's emails to Kelley.

Petraeus also denied to these associates that he had given Broadwell any sensitive military information.

FBI agents who contacted Petraeus told him that sensitive, possibly classified documents related to Afghanistan were found on her computer, the general's associates said. He assured investigators they did not come from him, and he mused to his associates that they were probably given to her on her reporting trips to Afghanistan by commanders she visited in the field there.

One associate also said Petraeus believes the documents described past operations and had already been declassified, although they might have still been marked "secret."

Broadwell had high security clearances as part of her former job as a reserve Army major in military intelligence. But those clearances are only in effect when a soldier is on active duty, which she was not at the time she researched the Petraeus biography.

The FBI concluded there was no security breach.

Shirtless photos linked to case

But the criminal investigation continued into the emails to Kelley, including whether Petraeus had any hand in them. At that point in late summer, FBI Director Robert Mueller and eventually Attorney General Eric Holder were notified that agents had uncovered what appeared to be an extramarital affair involving Petraeus.

Broadwell and Petraeus have each been questioned by FBI agents twice in recent weeks, with both acknowledging the affair in separate interviews. The FBI's most recent interviews with Broadwell and with Petraeus both occurred during the week of Oct. 29, days before the election, one of the law enforcement officials said. The FBI notified Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, of the investigation on Tuesday, Nov. 6 — Election Day.

U.S. officials had said in recent days that their investigation was largely complete and that prosecutors had determined it was unlikely they would bring charges in that case, which started when Kelley contacted an FBI agent in Tampa about harassing emails from an anonymous source.

That FBI agent, who has not been identified, has also come under scrutiny after it was discovered he had sent shirtless photographs of himself to Kelley, but "long before" this investigation, a law enforcement official told Reuters. The photographs were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

There were at least a couple of members of Congress who heard inklings of the affair before the election. Republican Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington state received a tip from an FBI source that the CIA director was involved in an affair in late October. Reichert arranged for an associate of his source at the FBI to call House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Saturday, Oct. 27, according to Cantor spokesman Rory Cooper.

Cooper told The Associated Press Monday that Cantor notified the FBI's chief of staff of the conversation but did not tell anyone else because he did not know whether the information from a person he didn't know was credible.

"Two weeks ago, you don't want to start spreading something you can't confirm," Cooper said.

The FBI responded by telling Cantor's office that it could not confirm or deny an investigation, but assured the leader's office it was acting to protect national security. Cooper said Cantor believed that if national security was affected, the FBI would, as obligated, inform the congressional intelligence committees and others, including House Speaker John Boehner.

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Storm volunteers mingle with stars at Glamour fest

NEW YORK (AP) — Sandra Kyong Bradbury was star struck. She had just spied Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a few feet away.

“How can you top that?” asked Bradbury, a New York City neonatal nurse who had helped evacuate infants from a hospital that lost power during the height of Superstorm Sandy. She was amazed that she was being honored at the same event as a Supreme Court justice — the annual Glamour Women of the Year awards, where stars of film, TV, fashion and sports share the stage with lesser-known women who have equally impressive achievements to their name.

Few events bring together such an eclectic group of honorees, not to mention presenters. At the Carnegie Hall ceremony Monday night, HBO star Lena Dunham, creator of “Girls” and a heroine to a younger generation, was introduced by Chelsea Handler and paid tribute in her speech to Nora Ephron, who died earlier this year. Ethel Kennedy was praised by her daughter, Rory, who has made a film about her famous mother. Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, 17, was honored along with swimming phenom Missy Franklin, also 17, and other Olympic athletes, introduced by singer Mary J. Blige and serenaded by American Idol winner Phillip Phillips. Singer-actress Selena Gomez was lauded by her friend, the actor Ethan Hawke.

But the most moving moments of the Glamour awards, now in their 22nd year, are often those involving people of whom the audience hasn’t heard. This year, the most touching moment came when one honoree, Pakistani activist and filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, brought onstage a woman who’d been the victim of an acid attack in her native Pakistan. Obaid-Chinoy won this year’s documentary short Oscar for a film about disfiguring acid attacks on Pakistani women by the men in their lives.

The evening carried reminders of Superstorm Sandy, with Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker introducing some 20 women who’d been heavily involved in storm relief work. “They held us together when Sandy tried to blow us apart,” Booker said. The women worked for organizations like the American Red Cross, but also smaller volunteer groups like Jersey City Sandy Recovery, an impromptu group formed by three women in Jersey City, N.J., who wanted a way to help storm-ravaged communities.

Singer-rapper Pharrell Williams introduced one of his favorite architects, the Iraqi-born Zaha Hadid, 62, who designed the aquatic center for the London Olympics and is now at work on 43 projects around the world.

Activist Erin Merryn was honored for her work increasing awareness of child sex abuse — a horror she had endured during her own childhood. A law urging schools to educate children about sex abuse prevention, Erin’s Law, has now passed in four states. “I won’t stop until I get it passed in all 50 states,” Merryn insisted in her speech.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour saluted a fellow fashion luminary, honoree Annie Leibovitz, the creator of so many iconic photographs over the years. Jenna Lyons, the president of J. Crew, got kind words from her presenter, former supermodel Lauren Hutton. Chelsea Clinton brought up a stageful of women from across the country who had been involved in politics this year, noting that, while there is still a long way to go, progress was made in 2012.

The lifetime achievement award went to Ginsburg, 79, who made a few quips about being honored by a fashion magazine. “The judiciary is not a profession that ranks very high among the glamorously attired,” the justice said. She also noted that although she was only the second female Supreme Court justice (Sandra Day O’Connor came first), she was the first justice to be honored by Glamour.

An affectionate tribute to the late Ephron followed, with three actresses — Cynthia Nixon, and two Meryl Steep daughters, Mamie and Grace Gummer, reading from a graduation speech she had given at Wellesley College.

Actress Dunham, in her speech, touched on politics and expressed her own relief that President Barack Obama had won re-election, saying she felt it was crucial for reproductive freedom and other issues of women’s rights. “I wanted control of my womb before I really knew what my womb was,” she quipped.

After the ceremony, which was presided over by Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive, honorees and presenters headed to a private dinner. There, Sandy volunteers mingled with the stars. One woman, Lynier Harper, had spent six nights during Sandy at the Brooklyn YMCA where she works, taking care of other people. “When I finally went back home, my house was totally destroyed,” she said. She has moved in with her sister while she seeks a new home.

A group of seven nurses came from New York University’s Langone Medical Center, which lost power during the storm. The neonatal intensive care nurses had to carry the babies down nine flights of stairs, in the dark, squeezing oxygen into their lungs, to get them to safety.

And there were the three women from Jersey City Sandy Recovery, sinking in the proximity to the so many impressive people.

“I just shook Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s hand,” exulted one of them, Candice Osborne. “How awesome!”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lance Armstrong Cuts Officials Ties With His Livestrong Charity

In the wake of being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for doping, Lance Armstrong last week cut all official ties with Livestrong, the charity he founded 15 years ago while he was treated for testicular cancer.

On Nov. 4, he resigned from the organization’s board of directors; he had previously stepped down as the chairman of the board Oct. 17. He has distanced himself from the charity to try to protect it from any damage caused by his doping controversy, the new board chairman, Jeff Garvey, said in a statement.

“Lance Armstrong was instrumental in changing the way the world views people affected by cancer,” Garvey said. “His devotion to serving survivors is unparalleled, and for 15 years, he committed himself to that cause with all his heart.”

Garvey said that the Armstrong family had donated nearly $7 million to the foundation and that the organization under Armstrong had raised close to $300 million to serve cancer survivors.

Last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency made public its evidence in its doping case against Armstrong, saying he had doped and encouraged his teammates to dope so they could help him win races. He was subsequently barred from Olympic sports for life and was stripped of all the cycling titles he won from August 1998 on.

Since then, Armstrong has spent several weeks in Hawaii, out of the public eye. On Saturday, though, he posted a photograph on Twitter showing him at home in Austin, Tex. He is lounging on a couch with his seven yellow Tour jerseys framed on the wall in the background.

In the post, he said, “Back in Austin and just layin’ around.” The photograph had more than 400,000 page views as of Monday evening, with many people posting negative comments on the page.

“Lance, you have no moral conscious and it’s obvious many of your followers don’t either,” said one person who went by the Twitter handle “irobot,” who also posted that Armstrong needed “professional help.”

A person posting under the name “Aumann” said: “An art thief enjoying all his da Vincis.”

Other people posted words of support, including many who said they still thought Armstrong was the top cyclist in history.

“TomShelton” said of Armstrong’s seven Tour titles, “You earned all 7 of them no matter what is being said about you!”

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Chicago's top employers named

The Chicago Tribune released its annual Top Workplaces survey Monday, with a broad cross section of companies -- and dozens of new names -- earning recognition as the best places to work in Chicago. 

Abt Electronics and Coyote Logistics repeated as the top large and midsize employers, respectively, with iD Commerce + Logistics making the list for the first time as the top-ranked small company.  

This is the third year the Tribune has partnered with Workplace Dynamics to rank the top 100 companies as judged by their own employees, using criteria ranging from clued-in managers to flexible work schedules. More than 1,600 companies were invited to participate, with a record 254 completing the survey.

Pennsylvania-based Workplace Dynamics partnered with 32 newspapers and surveyed 1.5 million employees nationwide last year as part of its research efforts into what environments are best for employees. 

"We all spend an awful lot of time at work," said Doug Claffey, CEO of Workplace Dynamics. "Creating a really great workplace for employees is something that I think businesses have an obligation to do.  In addition to making money, you need create an environment where your people want to be."

Beyond Glenview electronics retailer Abt,  the top five large companies were Hyatt Hotels, Baird & Warner, ATI Physical Therapy and FedEx -- all new to this category this year.

Chicago-based Coyote Logistics was followed by kCura, Slalom Consulting, Edward Jones and Mercy Home for Boys & Girls among companies with 250 to 999 employees.  

Wood Dale-based id Commerce topped Webster Dental, 2011 winner Red Frog Events, Assurance Agency and LeasePlan USA among small companies.

Full survey results and a variety of top workplace profiles will be published in a magazine insert included in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune.

rchannick@tribune.com | Twitter @RobertChannick

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