Winter storm closes schools, slows morning rush









About three inches of snow fell across the Chicago region, though the snow is expected to turn to freezing drizzle this morning, coating the area with ice.


The 2.7 inches at O'Hare International Airport tied the highest total for this year, according to the National Weather Service. Some flurries are still fallign so the total could tick upward by a tenth of an inch or two, said Ben Deubelbeiss, a NWS meteorologist.


Some of the snow in southern suburbs has already started turning to rain and might create a "light glaze" on the roadways, he said.








Dozens of schools closed or are delaying start times because of the storm.


The accumulation was more or less consistent across the area, from Rockford in north central Illinois east to Portage, Ind.


The weather caused between 20 and 30 spinouts on highways across the city and suburbs, according to state police, who described the conditions as "horrible." 


State Police are in a "snow plan" and aren't responding to accidents without injuries - those are supposed to be reported later.


"It will be tapering off from the south in the next couple hours, possibly some freezing drizzle across whole area," said Mark Ratzer, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "We may end up coming in a little less."


The city of Chicago has sent 284 plows to work clearing main thoroughfares, according to the streets and sanitation department.


Temperatures today should peak around 34 degrees with winds gusting out of the east around 20 or 25 miles an hour.


"The wind should be diminishing today to around 10 miles an hour," Deubelbeiss said.


Flurries could linger into the weekend with a chance for light snow on Saturday. Deubelbeiss said he didn't expect any significant weather Sunday. High temperatures both days should be around 30, with lows in the low 20s and high teens both mornings.


Check back for more information.


Midwest storm hits Kansas hardest


A major winter storm blanketed states from Minnesota to Ohio with a mix of blinding snow, sleet and freezing rain Thursday and into Friday morning.


The same storm dumped more than a foot of snow in Kansas, stranded motorists on highways and forced airports to cancel hundreds of flights.


The storm is expected to eventually reach the East Coast this weekend, delivering heavy snow to parts of New England for a third straight weekend, from northern Connecticut to southern Maine.


Kansas bore the brunt of the storm, with up to 15 inches of snow in some parts of the state, according to the National Weather Service. A 200-mile stretch of Interstate 70 in central Kansas was closed and strewn with cars stuck in snow.


National Guard troops riding in Humvees were dispatched to look for stranded motorists along the interstate and other highways, said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for Kansas emergency management services.


The fierce storm triggered severe thunderstorms from eastern Texas to Georgia.





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The New Old Age Blog: For Traumatized Caregivers, Therapy Helps

I recently wrote about caregivers who experienced symptoms of traumatic-like stress, and readers responded with heart-rending stories. Many described being haunted by distress long after a relative died.

Especially painful, readers said, was witnessing a loved one’s suffering and feeling helpless to do anything about it.

The therapists I spoke with said they often encountered symptoms among caregivers similar to those shown by people with post-traumatic stress — intrusive thoughts, disabling anxiety, hyper-vigilance, avoidance behaviors and more — even though research documenting this reaction is scarce. Improvement with treatment is possible, they say, although a sense of loss may never disappear completely.

I asked these professionals for stories about patients to illustrate the therapeutic process. Read them below and you’ll notice common themes. Recovery depends on unearthing the source of psychological distress and facing it directly rather than pushing it away. Learning new ways of thinking can change the tenor of caregiving, in real time or in retrospect, and help someone recover a sense of emotional balance.

Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and author of “The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers” (Guilford Press, 2006), was careful to distinguish normal grief associated with caregiving from a traumatic-style response.

“Nightmares, lingering bereavement or the mild re-experiencing of events that doesn’t send a person into a panic every time is normal” and often resolves with time, he said.

Contrast that with one of his patients, a Greek-American woman who assisted her elderly parents daily until her father, a retired firefighter, went to the hospital for what doctors thought would be a minor procedure and died there of a heart attack in the middle of the night.

Every night afterward, at exactly 3 a.m., this patient awoke in a panic from a dream in which a phone was ringing. Unable to go back to sleep for hours, she agonized about her father dying alone at that hour.

The guilt was so overwhelming, the woman couldn’t bear to see her mother, talk with her sisters or concentrate at work or at home. Sleep deprived and troubled by anxiety, she went to see her doctor, who works in the same clinic as Dr. Jacobs and referred her to therapy.

The first thing Dr. Jacobs did was to “identify what happened to this patient as traumatic, and tell her acute anxiety was an understandable response.” Then he asked her to “grieve her father’s death” by reaching out to her siblings and her mother and openly expressing her sadness.

Dr. Jacobs also suggested that this patient set aside a time every day to think about her father — not just the end of his life, but also all the things she had loved about him and the good times they’d had together as a family.

Don’t expect your night time awakenings to go away immediately, the psychologist told his patient. Instead, plan for how you’re going to respond when these occur.

Seven months later, the patient reported her panic at a “3 or 4” level instead of a “10” (the highest possible number), Dr. Jacobs said.

“She’ll say, ‘oh, there’s the nightmare again,’ and she can now go back to sleep fairly quickly,” he continued. “Research about anxiety tells us that the more we face what we fear, the quicker we are to extinguish our fear response and the better able we are to tolerate it.”

Sara Qualls, a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, said it’s natural for caregivers to be disgusted by some of what they have to do — toileting a loved one, for instance — and to be profoundly conflicted when they try to reconcile this feeling with a feeling of devotion. In some circumstances, traumatic-like responses can result.

Her work entails naming the emotion the caregiver is experiencing, letting the person know it’s normal, and trying to identify the trigger.

For instance, an older man may come in saying he’s failed his wife with dementia by not doing enough for her. Addressing this man’s guilt, Dr. Qualls may find that he can’t stand being exposed to urine or feces but has to help his wife go to the bathroom. Instead of facing his true feelings, he’s beating up on himself psychologically — a diversion.

Once a conflict of this kind is identified, Dr. Qualls said she can help a person deal with the trigger by using relaxation exercises and problem-solving techniques, or by arranging for someone else to do a task that he or she simply can’t tolerate.

Asked for an example, Dr. Qualls described a woman who traveled to another state to see her mother, only to find her in a profound disheveled, chaotic state. Her mother said that she didn’t want help, and her brother responded with disbelief. Soon, the woman’s blood pressure rose, and she began having nightmares.

In therapy, Dr. Qualls reassured the patient that her fear for her mother’s safety was reasonable and guided her toward practical solutions. Gradually, she was able to enlist her brother’s help and change her mother’s living situation, and her sense of isolation and helplessness dissipated.

“I think that a piece of the trauma reaction that is so devastating is the intense privacy of it,” Dr. Qualls said. “Our work helps people moderate their emotional reactivity through human contact, sharing and learning strategies to manage their responsiveness.”

Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, noted that stress can accumulate during caregiving and reach a tipping point where someone’s ability to cope is overwhelmed.

She tells of a vibrant, active woman in her 60s caring for an older husband who declined rapidly from dementia. “She’d get used to one set of losses, and then a new loss would occur,” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

The tipping point came when the husband began running away from home and was picked up by the police several times. The woman dropped everything else and became vigilant, feeling as if she had to watch her husband day and night. Still, he would sneak away and became more and more difficult.

Both husband and wife had come from Jewish families caught up in the Holocaust during World War II, and the feeling of “complete and utter helplessness and hopelessness” that descended on this older woman was intolerable, Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

Therapy was targeted toward helping the patient articulate thoughts and feelings that weren’t immediately at the surface of her consciousness, like, for example, her terror at the prospect of abandonment. “I’d ask her ‘what are you afraid of? If you visualize your husband in a nursing home or assisted living, what do you see?’” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

Then the conversation would turn to the choices the older woman had. Go and look at some long-term care places and see what you think, her psychologist suggested. You can decide how often you want to visit. “This isn’t an either-or — either you’re miserable 24/7 or you don’t love him,” she advised.

The older man went to assisted living, where he died not long afterward of pneumonia that wasn’t diagnosed right away. The wife fell into a depression, preoccupied with the thought that it was all her fault.

Another six months of therapy convinced her that she had done what she could for her husband. Today she works closely with her local Alzheimer’s Association chapter, “helping other caregivers learn how to deal with these kinds of issues in support groups,” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

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United not planning on Dreamliner until June
















All Nippon Dreamliner 787


The All Nippon Airways Dreamliner 787 arrives at Mineta San Jose International Airport.
(Gary Reyes/San Jose Mercury News/MCT / January 22, 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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Are you getting the fish you paid for?

Dirk Fucik, owner of Dirk's Fish Gourmet Shop on February 19, 2013 says fish substitution in the restaurant industry is a common phenomena driven by profits. (Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune)









Chicago diners who think they are eating red snapper may actually be munching on goldbanded jobfish.


Those who order Alaskan cod may really be tucking into a threadfin slickhead. And fans of yellowtail could just be getting a fish tale.


These are some of the findings of a Chicago fish fraud investigation to be released Thursday by conservancy group Oceana.








After its troubling seafood fraud investigations in East and West Coast cities over the last two years, the group expanded its testing to other cities, including Chicago. Thirty of 93 fish samples taken from Chicago restaurants, retail chains and sushi bars were mislabeled, mirroring percentages found in other cities.


Eight of nine Chicago red snapper samples tested by Oceana turned out to be different fish, the report said. And none of the three yellowtail samples tested was actually yellowtail. Single samples sold as corvina, jack, mackerel and even perch did not match those descriptions, according to Oceana's DNA tests.


The ocean conservancy organization does not list the names of the restaurants or stores where it bought the fish because "we didn't know where, along the supply chain, the mislabeling first occurred," said Beth Lowell Oceana's seafood fraud campaign director."So we didn't want to call out businesses that may not have known their fish was mislabeled."


Improperly labeled fish can cost consumers financially, but these substitutions also can have health consequences. As in many cities, Chicago purveyors were found marketing white tuna that was actually escolar, which is cheaper and can cause severe digestive problems.


On a reassuring note for local fish fans, every one of the 22 salmon samples Oceana tested in the area checked out just fine. Ditto for the seven halibut and seven grouper samples — a surprise, Oceana noted, because grouper has frequently been found mislabeled elsewhere.


Among the places where testers bought the samples, sushi bars fared the worst, with 64 percent (or 14 out of 22) of the samples coming back as erroneously labeled. In contrast, 20 percent of fish sold at other types of restaurants and 24 percent of the seafood sold at grocery stores was mislabeled. Oceana said it focused mainly on large grocery chains.


Lowell says consumers can minimize their risk by patronizing businesses that make an effort to source sustainable fish, are willing to answer lots of questions about the product, and can show you the whole fish even if you are only going to buy a fillet.


Dirk Fucik, owner of Dirk's Fish and Gourmet Shop in Lincoln Park, says he does all that, but he's not surprised that others don't.


"It's unfortunate, but this has been going on in the seafood business for a long time," said Fucik, a veteran fishmonger and a former co-owner of Burhop's. "The U.S. imports about 25 million pounds of a Vietnamese catfish called basa (also called pangasius) every year. When's the last time you saw that on a menu?"


Americans may be particularly vulnerable to fish fraud because of their preference for white-fleshed fish with little taste variation.


"Most other countries show a preference for oiler, more flavorful fish, but Americans like their fish on the milder side," said Christopher Martinez, a manager at Dirk's. "And with a lot of those mild varieties, if you remove the fillet from the fish and take off the skin, you can call it just about anything."


Gavin Gibbons, spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, a trade group, says he's always glad to see "people shining a light on fish fraud."


But, he said, he thinks reports like Oceana's "can negatively impact the whole community, and disproportionately those who are not engaging" in fraud.


It would be more helpful to go deeper, he said, and find where the fraud originates: at the dock, the distributor, the retailer or some point in between. "We feel like these investigations leave the loop unclosed," he said.


A 2011 investigative series by the Boston Globe reported that at least some of the fraud started at the distribution level. It said suppliers had been labeling escolar, for example, interchangeably with white/albacore tuna. The Globe noted that the less expensive escolar is not even in the tuna family.


The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is enforced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and prohibits the mislabeling of food. In October, after another Oceana report, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and scores of seafood advocates sent letters to the FDA urging it to combat fraud with stepped-up inspections.


Boxer noted in her letter that fraud isn't just "deceptive marketing, but it can also pose serious health concerns, particularly for pregnant women seeking to limit exposure to heavy metals or individuals with serious allergies to certain types of fish."





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In Reversal, Florida to Take Health Law’s Medicaid Expansion





MIAMI — Gov. Rick Scott of Florida reversed himself on Wednesday and announced that he would expand his state’s Medicaid program to cover the poor, becoming the latest — and, perhaps, most prominent — Republican critic of President Obama’s health care law to decide to put it into effect.




It was an about-face for Mr. Scott, a former businessman who entered politics as a critic of Mr. Obama’s health care proposals. Florida was one of the states that sued to try to block the law. After the Supreme Court ruled last year that though the law was constitutional, states could choose not to expand their Medicaid programs to cover the poor, Mr. Scott said that Florida would not expand its programs.


Mr. Scott said Wednesday that he now supported a three-year expansion of Medicaid, through the period that the federal government has agreed to pay the full cost of the expansion, and before some of the costs are shifted to the states.


“While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost, I cannot in good conscience deny Floridians that needed access to health care,” Mr. Scott said at a news conference. “We will support a three-year expansion of the Medicaid program under the new health care law as long as the federal government meets their commitment to pay 100 percent of the cost during that time.”


He said there were “no perfect options” when it came to the Medicaid expansion. “To be clear: our options are either having Floridians pay to fund this program in other states while denying health care to our citizens,” he said, “or using federal funding to help some of the poorest in our state with the Medicaid program as we explore other health care reforms.”


Mr. Scott said the state would not create its own insurance exchange to comply with another provision of the law.


His reversal sent ripples through the nation, especially given the change in tone and substance since the summer, when he said he would not create an exchange or expand Medicaid.


“Floridians are interested in jobs and economic growth, a quality education for their children, and keeping the cost of living low,” Mr. Scott said in a statement at the time. “Neither of these major provisions in Obamacare will achieve those goals, and since Florida is legally allowed to opt out, that’s the right decision for our citizens.”


Mr. Scott now joins the Republican governors of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio, who have decided to join the Medicaid expansion. Some, like Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, were also staunch opponents of Mr. Obama’s overall health care law.


Shortly before his announcement, the governor received word from the federal government that it planned to grant Florida the final waiver needed to privatize Medicaid, a process the state initially undertook as a pilot project. Mr. Scott, who is running for re-election next year, has heavily lobbied for the waiver, arguing that Florida could not expand Medicaid without it.


Mr. Scott’s support of Medicaid expansion is significant, but is far from the last word. The program requires approval from Florida’s Republican-dominated Legislature, which has been averse to expanding Medicaid under the health care law. The Legislature’s two top Republican leaders said that before making a decision they would consider recommendations from a select committee, which has been asked to review the state’s options.


“The Florida Legislature will make the ultimate decision,” Will Weatherford, the state House speaker, said. “I am personally skeptical that this inflexible law will improve the quality of health care in our state and ensure our long-term financial stability.”


Medicaid, which covers three million people in Florida, costs the state $21 billion a year. The expansion would extend coverage to one million more people.


Mr. Scott’s reversal is sure to anger his original conservative supporters.


The governor “was elected because of his principled conservative leadership against Obamacare’s overreach,” said Slade O’Brien, state director for Americans for Prosperity, an influential conservative advocacy organization. “Hopefully our legislative leaders will not follow in Governor Scott’s footsteps, and will reject expansion.”


During his announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Scott said his mother’s recent death and her lifetime struggle to raise five children “with very little money” played a role in his decision.


“Losing someone so close to you puts everything in a new perspective, especially the big decisions,” he said.


Michael Cooper contributed reporting from New York.



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Nearly 645K Chicago mortgages underwater









Almost 645,000 homeowners in a 14-county Chicago area owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth at the end of December, a slight increase from the third quarter, Zillow reported Thursday.

Still, the company's fourth quarter report on negative equity showed a year-over-year decrease in the percentage of homeowners with a mortgage who were underwater on their loans. Last year, 41,208 area homes moved into positive equity, Zillow found.

Compared with the nation as a whole, the Chicago area remains hard hit by the housing crisis. Zillow found that nationally, 27.5 percent of homeowners with a mortgage, or about 13.8 million homeowners, had negative equity in December, but that percentage should fall to 25.5 percent by the end of this year.

That positive trend is not the case in the Chicago area, where the percentage of underwater homeowners is expected to increase to 37.3 percent of all homeowners with a mortgage by the fourth quarter. The uptick is due to Zillow's prediction that home values in the Chicago area are expected to fall 0.6 percent this year.

Zillow's definition of the Chicago area includes Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Jasper, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, Newton, Porter and Will counties in Illinois, Wisconsin's Kenosha County and Indiana's Lake County.

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

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Jesse Jackson Jr., Sandi Jackson expected to plead guilty today









WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and his wife, former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson, are expected to plead guilty to federal charges today, when more details may emerge about an alleged crime spree in which he is accused of spending more than $750,000 in campaign cash to buy luxury items, memorabilia and other goods.

Attorneys familiar with public corruption investigations said the amount of campaign cash allegedly converted to personal use in this case is the largest of any that they can remember.






Jackson Jr., who has been largely out of the public eye for eight months, is to appear in court at 9:30 a.m. Chicago time. His wife is to appear at 1:30 p.m. Chicago time. Both Jacksons will stand before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Wilkins.

Sentencing is not expected for several weeks. Jackson Jr. faces up to five years in prison, while she faces up to three years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Jackson Jr., 47, was in the House of Representatives for 17 years until he resigned last November. Sandi Jackson, 49, was a Chicago alderman from 2007 until she stepped down in January.

He is charged with conspiracy in a case involving a $43,350 men’s Rolex watch, nearly $9,600 in children’s furniture and $5,150 in cashmere clothing and furs, court papers show. She is charged with filing false tax returns for six years, most recently calendar year 2011.

When separate felony charges were filed against them Friday, their attorneys said the two would plead guilty.

Prosecutors also are seeking a $750,000 judgment against Jackson Jr. and the forfeiture of thousands of dollars of goods he purchased, including cashmere clothing, furs and an array of memorabilia from celebrities including Michael Jackson, Bruce Lee and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Jackson Jr. began a mysterious medical leave of absence last June for what was eventually described as bipolar disorder. Though he did not campaign for re-election, he won another term last Nov. 6 while being treated at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He left office two weeks later, saying he was cooperating with federal investigators.

Married for more than 20 years, the Jacksons have a 12-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son. The family has homes in Washington and on Chicago’s South Side.

Washington defense attorney Stan Brand, the former general counsel of the House of Representatives, said Tuesday that Jackson Jr.’s case involved the largest sum of money he’s seen in a case involving personal use of campaign money. “Historically, there have been members of Congress who either inadvertently or maybe purposefully, but not to this magnitude, used campaign funds inappropriately,” he said.

Brand said that when the dollar figure involved is low, a lawmaker may be fined and ordered to reimburse the money. “This is so large, the Department of Justice decided to make his case criminal,” he said.

Other attorneys said they could not remember a bigger case of its kind. Washington attorney Ken Gross, a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission, said: “Directly dipping into your campaign coffers, and spending money on personal items, I can’t recall a case where it involved this much money.”

Brand once represented another disgraced Illinois Democratic congressman, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, who in 1996 pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud. Rostenkowski was later represented by attorney Dan Webb, who is Sandi Jackson’s counsel.

Rostenkowski, who died in 2010, entered his pleas and received his punishment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — the same venue on the Jacksons’ calendars on Wednesday.

kskiba@tribune.com

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The New Old Age Blog: The Reluctant Caregiver

Now and then, I refer to the people that caregivers tend to as “loved ones.” And whenever I do, a woman in Southern California tells me, I set her teeth on edge.

She visits her mother-in-law, runs errands, helps with the paperwork — all tasks she has shouldered with a grim sense of duty.  She doesn’t have much affection for this increasingly frail 90something or enjoy her company; her efforts bring no emotional reward. Her husband, an only child, feels nearly as detached. His mother wasn’t abusive, a completely different scenario, but they were never very close.

Ms. A., as I’ll call her because her mother-in-law reads The Times on her computer, feels miserable about this. “She says she appreciates us, she’s counting on us. She thanks us,” Ms. A. said of her non-loved one. “It makes me feel worse, because I feel guilty.”

She has performed many services for her mother-in-law, who lives in a retirement community, “but I really didn’t want to. I know how grudging it was.”

Call her the Reluctant Caregiver. She and her husband didn’t invite his parents to follow them to the small city where they settled to take jobs. The elders did anyway, and as long as they stayed healthy and active, both couples maintained their own lives. Now that her mother-in-law is widowed and needy, Ms. A feels trapped.

Ashamed, too. She knows lots of adult children work much harder at caregiving yet see it as a privilege. For her, it is mere drudgery. “I don’t feel there’s anybody I can say that to,” she told me — except a friend in Phoenix and, anonymously, to us.

The friend, therapist Randy Weiss, has served as both a reluctant caregiver to her mother, who died very recently at 86, and a willing caregiver to her childless aunt, living in an assisted living dementia unit at 82. Spending time with each of them made Ms. Weiss conscious of the distinction.

Her visits involved many of the same activities, “but it feels very different,” she said. “I feel the appreciation from my aunt, even if she’s much less able to verbalize it.” A cherished confidante since adolescence, her aunt breaks into smiles when Ms. Weiss arrives and exclaims over every small gift, even a doughnut. She worked in the music industry for decades and, despite her memory loss, happily sings along with the jazz CDs Ms. Weiss brings.

Because she had no such connection with her mother, whom Ms. Weiss described as distant and critical, “it’s harder to do what I have to do,” she said. (We spoke before her mother’s death.) “One is an obligation I fulfill out of duty. One is done with love.”

Unlike her friend Ms. A, “I don’t feel guilty that I don’t feel warmly towards my mother,” Ms. Weiss said. “I’ve made my peace.”

Let’s acknowledge that at times almost every caregiver knows exhaustion, anger and resentment.  But to me, reluctant caregivers probably deserve more credit than most. They are not getting any of the good stuff back, no warmth or laughter, little tenderness, sometimes not even gratitude.

Yet they are doing this tough work anyway, usually because no one else can or will. Maybe an early death or a divorce means that the person who would ordinarily have provided care can’t. Or maybe the reluctant caregiver is simply the one who can’t walk away.

“It’s important to acknowledge that every relationship doesn’t come from ‘The Cosby Show,’” said Barbara Moscowitz when I called to ask her about reluctance. Ms. Moscowitz, a senior geriatric social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital, has heard many such tales from caregivers in her clinical practice and support groups.

“We need to allow people to be reluctant,” she said. “It means they’re dutiful; they’re responsible. Those are admirable qualities.”

Yet, she recognizes, “they feel oppressed by the platitudes. ‘Your mother is so lucky to have you!’” Such praise just makes people like Ms. A. squirm.

Ms. Moscowitz also worries about reluctant caregivers, and urges them to find support groups where they can say the supposedly unsay-able, and to sign up early for community services — hotlines, senior centers, day programs, meals on wheels — that can help lighten the load.

“Caregiving only goes one way – it gets harder, more complex,” she said. “Support groups and community resources are like having a first aid kit. It’s going to feel like even more of a burden, and you need to be armed.”

I wonder, too, if reluctant caregivers have a romanticized view of what the task is like for everyone else. Elder care can be a wonderful experience, satisfying and meaningful, but guilt and resentment are also standard parts of the job description, at least occasionally.

For a reluctant caregiver, “the satisfaction is, you haven’t turned your back,” Ms. Moscowitz said. “You can take pride in that.”


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

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Kraft learns from product launch failures









BOCA RATON, Fla. — —





Struggling to reverse a string of product failures, Kraft Foods turned to an outside firm in 2010 to study its launch initiatives.


The firm's conclusion? "Kraft is where good ideas go to die," recalled Barry Calpino, Kraft vice president of breakthrough innovation, at a gathering Tuesday for the Consumer Analysts Group of New York conference.





Calpino said that in 2008, for example, 17 of the company's 19 product launches were considered failures. Sales of such new products as Bagelfuls, frozen bagels stuffed with cream cheese, and Macaroni & Cheese crackers, shaped to look like the noodles, failed to meet benchmarks. Kraft no longer makes either product. The track record for new product launches wasn't much better in 2009, he added.


Small ideas, lack of focus and little investment hobbled development as well as launches, Calpino noted. At the time, he said, innovation was considered a "dead-end job," and employees just accepted that Kraft wasn't good at it.


It's a different story today, he said, as he outlined changes in how the newly independent Kraft Foods Group develops and supports new products. The Northfield-based maker of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Planters and Velveeta was spun off from Mondelez International in October.


As a result of that review, Kraft developed an innovation playbook that calls for more investment in fewer, bigger ideas that receive more financial support, rather than what Calpino referred to as "Field of Dreams" approach that amounted to a "build it and they will come" mentality.


In 2009, 6.5 percent of company sales came from new products, whereas 13 percent of sales last year were attributable to new products, according to a company estimate.


Kraft now does more work with its sales team, bringing them into product development so they can better explain each one's significance to retailers, and investing more in each launch.


In 2011, Calpino said, the company focused its efforts on 13 "big bets," including its MiO brand of water flavoring, Velveeta Cheesy Skillet Dinners and Oscar Mayer Selects, a line of higher-quality meat without artificial flavors or preservatives. In so doing, the company raised its average marketing and advertising support for each of these launches roughly fivefold, to about $25 million from about $5 million. MiO, he noted, received more than $50 million in support.


Since their introduction in 2011, MiO, Velveeta Skillets and Oscar Mayer Selects each have become $100 million product platforms, which is an industry sales benchmark for successful product launches.


Calpino said that Kraft is also maintaining focus on its big launches for the first three years of a product's life rather than moving on after the first year. Other initiatives include improving the level of talent within the organization and appealing more to Hispanics in product development and marketing.


Kraft's major 2013 launches include pulled pork under its Oscar Mayer Selects brand and Recipe Makers, a pair of sauce packets to be sold in the pasta and sauce aisle. Consumers add vegetables or protein to the sauces to cook popular dishes like pot roast, sweet and sour chicken, or enchiladas.


One analyst said Kraft is doing a better job at tapping into the nation's changing habits.


"I do think some of the new products are bringing consumers back to certain categories and catering to consumer trends," Morningstar analyst Erin Lash said.


Lash pointed to the trend to making more meals at home and said Kraft has responded well with products like Fresh Take, packets of cheese and seasoned bread crumbs that make easy coatings, and Kraft shredded cheese with a "touch of Philadelphia," for easier melting.


The trick will be whether these new products stay popular, Lash said, "with an even more stretched consumer" as the payroll tax rollback ends and unemployment and gas prices remain high.


While Kraft clearly has high aspirations, the new company was recently caught flat-footed. Kraft's presentation came on the heels of last week's announcement that fourth-quarter sales would be lower than expected after Oscar Mayer cold cuts lost market share to a key competitor, presumably Chicago-based Hillshire Brands.


The company said it expects fourth-quarter net revenue to fall 10.7 percent, to $4.5 billion. The final numbers will be reported before the end of March.


Kraft also raised 2013 per-share earnings guidance by 15 cents, to $2.75 per share.


Shares closed Tuesday at $47.37, up 20 cents.


eyork@tribune.com


Twitter @emilyyork





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Prosecution details 'horrific' murder case against Pistorius









PRETORIA -- "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius put on his artificial legs and walked across his bedroom before firing four handgun rounds into the locked bathroom door, killing his cowering girlfriend in cold blood, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Reeva Steenkamp, a law graduate and model, died after being hit by three rounds, prosecutor Gerrie Nel said.






Pistorius wept uncontrollably in court as Nel outlined details of a shooting that has gripped South Africa and the millions around the world who saw the double amputee's track glory as the ultimate tale of triumph over adversity.

Scores of mourners gathered in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth for Steenkamp's funeral, where the mood was one of grief tinged with anger at the loss of "an angel".

In Pretoria central magistrate's court, defense lawyer Barry Roux disputed the murder charge, saying the facts surrounding the shooting in the early hours of Thursday were unclear.

"All we really know is she locked herself behind the toilet door and she was shot," he told the packed courtroom.

However, the prosecution painted a picture of premeditated killing - a crime that carries a life sentence in South Africa.

"If I arm myself, walk a distance and murder a person, that is premeditated," he said. "The door is closed. There is no doubt. I walk seven meters and I kill."

"The motive is 'I want to kill'. That's it," he added. "This deceased was in a 1.4 by 1.14 meter little room. She could go nowhere. It must have been horrific."

The arrest of Pistorius, 26, stunned the millions who had watched in awe last year as the Olympic and Paralympic sprinter reached the semi-final of the 400 meters in the London Olympics, running on high-technology carbon fiber 'blades'.

Initial reports suggested he might have mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder - a possibility in crime-ridden South Africa and a version Pistorius told his sister immediately after the shooting, Nel said.

The prosecution countered this theory by saying Steenkamp's overnight bag had been found in the bedroom of the plush two-storey home in a gated compound north of Pretoria.

"ROT IN JAIL"

Dressed in a dark suit, Pistorius arrived at the court in a police car shortly before 7 a.m. (0500 GMT). Proceedings were delayed as more than 100 journalists from around the world jostled to get into the dimly lit, brick-face courtroom.

The case has drawn further attention to endemic violence against women in South Africa after the gang-rape, mutilation and murder of a 17-year-old near Cape Town this month.

Members of the Women's League of the ruling African National Congress protested outside the building, waving placards saying: "No Bail for Pistorius" and "Rot in jail".

At Steenkamp's cremation in the windswept Victoria Park Crematorium in Port Elizabeth, sorrow mingled with outrage.

"She was an angel. She was so soft, so innocent. Such a lovely person. It's just sad that this could happen to somebody so good," said Gavin Venter, an ex-jockey who worked for Steenkamp's father.

"I'm disgusted with what he did. He must be dealt with harshly," he added. "Without a doubt he's a danger to the public. He'll be a danger to witnesses. He must stay in jail."

After the hour-long private ceremony in the cream-colored hill-top church, Steenkamp's brother Adam and uncle Mike, fighting back tears, spoke briefly to reporters.

"There's a space missing inside all the people that she knew that can't be filled again," Adam Steenkamp said. "We are going to keep all the positive things that we remember and know about my sister. We will miss her."

The case has gripped sports-mad South Africa, where Pistorius was seen as a rare hero who had transcended the racial divides that persist 19 years after the end of apartheid.

Pistorius' endorsements and sponsorships, which include sportswear giant Nike, British telecoms firm BT, sunglasses maker Oakley and French designer Thierry Mugler, are thought to be worth as much as $2 million a year.

Nike said on Monday it had dropped Pistorius from any future advertising campaigns. Other sponsors have said they will make no decisions until the legal process has run its course.

Pistorius has cancelled scheduled track appearances in Australia, Brazil and Britain in the coming months to focus on his attempt to clear his name.

Born without a fibula in either leg, Pistorius had his lower legs amputated as an 11-month-old baby but became the highest-profile athlete in the history of the Paralympic Games.

In last year's Paralympics he suffered his first loss over 200 meters in nine years. After the race he questioned the legitimacy of Brazilian winner Alan Oliveira's prosthetic blades, but was quick to express regret for the comments.

Reuters

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