Bears fire Lovie Smith after 9 seasons; search for new head coach begins

Chicago Tribune sports columnist Steve Rosenbloom on the Bears firing Lovie Smith.

The epitaph for Lovie Smith's tenure as head coach of the Bears could read, "He couldn't fix the offense."

For all the good things Smith did in his nine years in Chicago, his undoing was his inability to take care of the side of the ball in which he had no background.

The Bears fired Smith on Monday after a 10-6 season, Tribune sources have confirmed. They started 7-1 but fell apart down the stretch, mostly because they couldn't score.

Since Smith took over in 2004, the Bears have ranked higher than 23rd in offense only once. They have ranked 28th or lower four times.

Smith tried four offensive coordinators during his Bears career. His first thought was to run a similar offense to the one he was familiar with when he was defensive coordinator of the Rams, so he hired Terry Shea.

The Bears finished last in the league in offense behind quarterbacks Chad Hutchinson, Craig Krenzel, Jonathan Quinn and Rex Grossman, and Shea was dismissed after one season.

Smith then turned to Ron Turner for his second stint as Bears offensive coordinator. Turner lasted five years in what was the heyday for Smith's offense.

It was during this period that Smith's stubborn allegiance to Grossman became an issue. "Rex is our quarterback," he said over and over again.

Those days Smith often talked frequently about how the Bears "get off the bus running," and the team achieved its offensive identity by pounding the ball with Thomas Jones, then Cedric Benson and finally Matt Forte.

But after the Bears traded for Jay Cutler in 2009 and they still finished 23rd in offense and missed the playoffs, Turner was made the scapegoat and fired.

An extensive job search that included interest in Jeremy Bates, Rob Chudzinski and Tom Clements led the Bears back to Smith's old friend Mike Martz, for whom he had worked in St. Louis. Going from the conservative Turner to the aggressive Martz was quite a philosophical shift for Smith.

Martz's offense sputtered in 2010 but started to come on the next season. Then Cutler broke his thumb in the 10th game, and the team unraveled. The Bears lost five straight, and Martz was fired along with general manager Jerry Angelo, the man who brought Smith to Chicago.

Smith's next move was to go conservative again, this time by promoting offensive line coach Mike Tice. A first-time play caller, Tice made great use of new acquisition Brandon Marshall but struggled to find other reliable targets or to overcome protection issues.

The Bears finished 28th in offense.

The only time Smith enjoyed a fairly efficient offense was in 2006, when the offense ranked 15th in a season that ended in the Super Bowl.

Defensively, the Bears were on the other end of the spectrum under Smith. With perennial Pro Bowlers Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs as the constants, Smith's defenses usually were among the best in the NFL.

Since 2004, the Bears defense ranks first in the league in takeaways, three-and-out drives forced and third-down percentage and is fourth in scoring defense.

Smith's defenders scored 34 touchdowns, which became a signature of the Bears' style of play.

It was Smith's defense that drove the Bears to their first Super Bowl appearance in 21 years after the 2006 season. Smith and Tony Dungy became the first two African-Americans to coach a Super Bowl team as the Bears took on the Colts.

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Can Samsung survive without Android?

Samsung (005930) is the world’s top Android smartphone vendor by a staggering margin. Aside from LG (066570), which managed a small $ 20 million profit from its mobile division last quarter, no other global Android vendor can figure out how to make money selling Android phones. Meanwhile, Samsung posted a $ 6 billion profit on $ 47.6 billion in sales in the third quarter, thanks largely to record smartphone shipments and a massive marketing budget. Even as industry watchers turn sour on Apple, Samsung is seen steamrolling into 2013 and its stock is up nearly 50% on the year while Apple (AAPL) shares continue to fall from a record high hit in September. As unstoppable as Samsung appears right now, one key question remains: Is Samsung driving Android’s success or is Android driving Samsung’s success? Starting in 2013, we may finally begin to find out.

[More from BGR: Unreleased ‘BlackBerry X10′ QWERTY phone appears again in new photos]

Earlier this year, BGR wrote about Samsung’s effort to look beyond Android. Even with its own UI and application suite — and even with its own content services — Samsung will always rely on Google (GOOG) if it continues to base its devices on Google’s latest Android builds.

[More from BGR: RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone]

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it means Samsung will never truly control the end-to-end experience on its products. It also means Samsung will never truly own its smartphones and tablets. Instead, Samsung’s devices will deliver an experience that is an amalgamation of Google’s vision and its own.

But there are alternative options. One example is the path Amazon (AMZN) has taken. Amazon let Google do the grunt work and then took its open-source Android OS and built its own software and service layer on top. Kindle Fire users don’t sit around waiting for Android updates — many of them don’t even know they’re using an Android-powered tablet.

Samsung could do the same thing, but there is a great deal of prep work that would need to be done first. Amazon’s efforts were so successful (depending on your measure of success) because the company already had a massive ecosystem in place before it even launched its first device. Streaming movies and TV shows, eBooks, retail shopping and a stocked application store were all available on the Kindle Fire from day one.

Samsung doesn’t have this luxury. Yet.

Samsung could also take ownership of a new OS, and Tizen may or may not end up being that OS. Samsung is co-developing the new Linux-based mobile platform with Intel (INTC) and others, and a new rumor from Japan’s The Daily Yomiuri suggests Samsung plans to launch its first Tizen phone in 2013. “Samsung will probably begin selling the [Tizen] smartphones next year and they are likely to be released in Japan and other countries at around the same time,” the site’s sources claim.

This will be a slow process. If Samsung follows the same path it took with Bada, Samsung’s earlier Linux-based OS that was folded into the Tizen project, things will start out slow as Samsung launches regional devices that are restricted to a few Eastern markets. Testing the waters before dumping serious marketing dollars into the project isn’t a bad idea, especially considering the battle at the bottom of the smartphone OS food chain that will already be taking place in 2013.

But one thing is clear: Samsung is looking to broaden its strategy and move beyond a point where it relies entirely on another company for its smartphone software.

This article was originally published by BGR

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List: No love for ‘fiscal cliff,’ ‘spoiler alert’

DETROIT (AP) — Spoiler alert: This story contains words and phrases that some people want to ban from the English language. “Spoiler alert” is among them. So are “kick the can down the road,” ”trending” and “bucket list.”

A dirty dozen have landed on the 38th annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. The nonbinding, tongue-in-cheek decree released Monday by northern Michigan’s Lake Superior State University is based on nominations submitted from the United States, Canada and beyond.

“Spoiler alert,” the seemingly thoughtful way to warn readers or viewers about looming references to a key plot point in a film or TV show, nevertheless passed its use-by date for many, including Joseph Foly, of Fremont, Calif. He argued in his submission the phrase is “used as an obnoxious way to show one has trivial information and is about to use it, no matter what.”

At the risk of further offense, here’s another spoiler alert: The phrase receiving the most nominations this year is “fiscal cliff,” banished because of its overuse by media outlets when describing across-the-board federal tax increases and spending cuts that economists say could harm the economy in the new year without congressional action.

“You can’t turn on the news without hearing this,” said Christopher Loiselle, of Midland, Mich., in his submission. “I’m equally worried about the River of Debt and Mountain of Despair.”

Other terms coming in for a literary lashing are “superfood,” ”guru,” ”job creators” and “double down.”

University spokesman Tom Pink said that in nearly four decades, the Sault Ste. Marie school has “banished” around 900 words or phrases, and somehow the whole idea has survived rapidly advancing technology and diminishing attention spans.

Nominations used to come by mail, then fax and via the school’s website, he said. Now most come through the university’s Facebook page. That’s fitting, since social media has helped accelerate the life cycle of certain words and phrases, such as this year’s entry “YOLO” — “you only live once.”

“The list surprises me in one way or another every year, and the same way every year: I’m always surprised how people still like it, love it,” he said.

Rounding out the list are “job creators/creation,” ”boneless wings” and “passion/passionate.” Those who nominated the last one say they are tired of hearing about a company’s “passion” as a substitute for providing a service or product for money.

Andrew Foyle, of Bristol, England, said it’s reached the point where “passion” is the only ingredient that keeps a chef from preparing “seared tuna” that tastes “like dust swept from a station platform.”

“Apparently, it’s insufficient to do it ably, with skill, commitment or finesse,” Foyle said. “Passionate, begone!”

As usual, the etymological exercise — or exorcise — only goes so far. Past lists haven’t eradicated “viral,” “amazing,” ”LOL” or “man cave” from everyday use.

___

Follow Jeff Karoub on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jeffkaroub

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The Boss: For Kathryn Giusti, Two Wars Against Multiple Myeloma

MY identical twin sister, Karen, and I have two older brothers. We were raised in Blue Bell, Pa., where my father was a family physician and my mother was a nurse. We spent summers on Long Beach Island, N.J., where both of us were waitresses at a busy seafood restaurant.

Kathryn E. Giusti is the C.E.O. and co-founder of the Multiple Myeloma Research Founda- tion in Norwalk, Conn.

AGE 54

LOVES TO Watch her son, who plays baseball, and her daughter, a cheerleader, at their events.

My sister and I have always been best friends. We even went to the same college, the University of Vermont. I was scientifically inclined and majored in biology. We graduated in 1980, and my sister later became a lawyer.

I was accepted to medical school, but my father was opposed to that. He thought I was too impatient to cope with medicine’s bureaucracy. Instead, I took a job in sales at Merck, the drug maker.

To my chagrin, the company sent me to its site in West Point, Pa., very close to home. After two years, I moved over to work in the company’s marketing and communications area, but I began to realize that I needed some formal business education.

In 1983, I entered Harvard Business School, specializing in marketing. I met my husband, Paul Giusti, there. After we earned our M.B.A.’s in 1985, he started a real estate development business in the Midwest, and I joined Gillette in Boston in its personal care division.

We married in 1990 and moved to Chicago, and I worked briefly at Brach’s, the candy manufacturer, in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. I then joined G. D. Searle in Skokie, helping to develop new products like Ambien. Later, I was promoted to manage the company’s worldwide arthritis drugs division.

In late 1995, I was feeling tired and went in for a physical. Blood tests found that I had multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. I was shocked because I was only 37. My grandfather had had the disease, but I wasn’t in the usual demographic or age group. The scariest part was that there were no drugs in the pipeline to combat the cancer.

Our first child, Nicole, was about 2 when I received the diagnosis. I was determined that I was going to have another child, which I did. Our son, David, was born in 1997.

At that point, I did not expect to live beyond a few years, so we moved to New Canaan, Conn., to be closer to our families. Paul sold his company, but the new owners who were based in McLean, Va., asked him to remain as chief operating officer, which he did, working from a New Canaan office.

After our move, my sister and I organized a fund-raiser, garnering $400,000. We used that to start the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, which initially made grants to speed development of cancer-fighting drugs. (Later, it also worked with academic and clinical centers and pharmaceutical companies on initiatives like a tissue bank.) Six years later, in 2004, I started the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium to foster collaboration among cancer centers, to start a patient tissue bank for research and to encourage broader participation in clinical trials.

I was working full time and raising my family, but in 2005 my health began to deteriorate. In early 2006, I received a stem cell transplant. Karen donated the cells, and the operation was done at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. When I came home, I weighed 90 pounds and was bald and fragile.

It took several months to recover, but I returned to work later that year and kept building our network of 16 clinics and hospitals that participate in the clinical trials, tissue bank and genome research. We’ve raised $200 million since the foundation opened and are now focused on helping patients use individualized medicine to fight cancer.

I still get a huge knot in my stomach every two months, when I check in at Dana-Farber for my test results. But I believe we have made some real progress because I continue to work impatiently to cure this disease and other cancers as well.

As told to Elizabeth Olson.

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Tribune Co. emerges from bankruptcy

The last day of 2012 is the first of a new era for Tribune Co.

After spending more than four years embroiled in a contentious Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, the reorganized Chicago-based media company emerged Monday under new owners and a newly appointed board, freed from its massive debt and facing an uncertain future.

Senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are set to take control of Tribune Co.’s storied portfolio of publishing and broadcasting assets, including the Chicago Tribune, officials said.

It was an almost anticlimactic end to a long and painful chapter in Tribune Co.'s 165-year history. Late Sunday, the new Tribune Co. named its board of directors, filed notification with the Delaware bankruptcy court where the bulk of legal wrangling took place and declared its existence.

"It took a long time to get here," said Ken Liang, a managing director at Oaktree and a new member of the board. "It was a tough restructuring. We're pretty excited about the exit."

The new board also will include Tribune Co. CEO Eddy Hartenstein; Ross Levinsohn, who recently left as interim chief executive of Yahoo Inc.; Craig Jacobson, a well-known entertainment lawyer; Peter Murphy, a former strategy executive at Walt Disney Co. and Ceasars Entertainment; Bruce Karsh, Oaktree president; and Peter Liguori, a former top television executive at Fox and Discovery.

Liguori is expected to be named chief executive of Tribune Co. going forward.

Hartenstein, who is publisher of the Los Angeles Times, has been CEO of Tribune Co. since May 2011. He will remain in the role until the board convenes its first meeting in the next several weeks, where it will name the company’s executive officers, according to a company statement.

“Tribune will emerge from the bankruptcy process as a multi-media company with a great mix of profitable assets, strong brands in major markets and a much-improved capital structure,” Hartenstein said in the statement.

Tribune Co. owns 23 television stations, including WGN-Ch. 9, WGN America, eight daily newspapers and other media assets, all of which the reorganization plan valued at $4.5 billion after cash distributions and new financing. Eventually, all the assets are expected to be sold, according to the new owners.

They take the reins of a company that saw its worth essentially cut in half since 2007, when Chicago billionaire Sam Zell took it private in an $8.2 billion leveraged buyout. The rapid decline was mostly due to falling newspaper valuations in the face of digital competition. The anticipated hiring of Liguori suggests that broadcasting will be the operational focus going forward, according to several media analysts.

Los Angeles-based Oaktree, the largest shareholder, with about 23 percent of the equity, appointed two of seven board members. Both Angelo Gordon and JPMorgan have roughly a 9 percent stake and appointed one seat each. The three jointly appointed two more board members, with the final seat occupied by the chief executive.

Among the outgoing board members is Zell, whose deal was seen at the time as an alternative to the squabbles within Tribune Co. that threatened to break apart the then-publicly traded company. But the Great Recession and plummeting advertising revenues across all media, especially the struggling newspaper industry, made the company’s resulting $13 billion debt load untenable.

Tribune Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2008. Zell blamed a “perfect storm” of industry and economic forces. But the bankruptcy case turned on charges leveled by junior creditors that saddling the company with such a debt burden left it insolvent from the outset.

Led by an aggressive distressed debt fund called Aurelius Capital Management, the junior creditors pressed litigation that stretched out the case for three and a half years in a Delaware court before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey confirmed the reorganization plan in July. An emergency appeal to stay that decision was dismissed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September. In November, the Federal Communications Commission signed off on waivers needed to transfer Tribune Co.’s broadcast properties to the new ownership, clearing the last hurdle to its emergence from Chapter 11.

“Usually, bankruptcy cases like this take much less time and cost less money,” said Douglas Baird, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at the University of Chicago.

Baird said legal fees for most large corporate bankruptcies run 3 to 4 percent of the company’s total worth. The Tribune Co. case, which will likely cost the company more than $500 million in legal and other professional fees, was more than twice that percentage, due to both the extended litigation and the company’s declining valuation.

Before cash distributions and new financing, a 2012 analysis by financial adviser Lazard valued the broadcasting assets, including the TV stations, WGN-AM 720, CLTV and national cable channel WGN America, at $2.85 billion. Other strategic assets, such as online job site CareerBuilder and cable channel Food Network, are worth $2.26 billion.

Tribune Co.’s newspaper holdings, including the Tribune, Los Angeles Times and six other daily publications, have withered to $623 million in total value, according to Lazard. In 2006, entertainment mogul David Geffen made a $2 billion cash offer for the Los Angeles Times.

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Urlacher out for fourth straight game

Bears quarterback Jay Cutler arrives for Sunday's game. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Tribune Photo / December 30, 2012)

By Brad Biggs, Tribune reporter

10:48 a.m. CST, December 30, 2012

DETROIT -- Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher is inactive for the fourth consecutive week because of his injured hamstring as the Chicago Bears prepare to face the Detroit Lions on Sunday.

The Bears will start Nick Roach in his place for the must-win game against the Lions at Ford Field. But the team is holding out hope Urlacher could return next weekend if the Bears are alive in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

The Bears must defeat the Lions and have the Green Bay Packers win at Minnesota to reach the postseason.

Starting free safety Chris Conte also is sidelined with a hamstring injury and Anthony Walters, an undrafted rookie free agent a year ago, will make his first NFL start. Special teams standout Blake Costanzo, another linebacker, is also inactive. He’s missed consecutive games with a calf muscle injury.

Also inactive for the Bears are running back Armando Allen, who has a knee injury, third quarterback Josh McCown, offensive tackle Cory Brandon and defensive tackle Nate Collins, who had been active for nine consecutive games.

The Lions got some good news as tight end Brandon Pettigrew, second on the team with 57 receptions, will play. He was listed as doubtful with an ankle injury that kept him out of the previous two games.

Inactive for Detroit are third quarterback Kellen Moore, running back Kevin Smith, cornerback Drayton Florence, safety Ricardo Silva, offensive tackles Jason Fox and Corey Hilliard and defensive end Ronnell Lewis.

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

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NASA Sets Record with Ion Thrusters Test

NASA has completed a 43,000 hour stress test — a record for ion thrusters — on a new rocket propulsion system that could extend future space travel to farther reaches of the solar system.

Developed by NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon Thruster Project, the 7-kilowatt ion thruster can burn 10-12 times longer than the conventional chemical thrusters used today. Though not practical for manned-spaceflight, the system could power exploratory rockets that reach outer planets and their moons.

[More from Mashable: NASA Unveils E-books on Hubble, Webb Space Telescopes]

To find out more, watch the video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Photo courtesy of NASA

[More from Mashable: First ‘Alien Earth’ Will Be Found in 2013]

BONUS: 15 Twitter Accounts Every Space Lover Should Follow

Sunita Williams

Captain Williams is a NASA astronaut who recently completed the first triathlon in space.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Hot spots draw believers, but not doomsday

As the sun rose from time zone to time zone across the world on Friday, there was still no sign of the world’s end — but that didn’t stop those convinced that a 5,125-year Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse from gathering at some of the world’s purported survival hot spots.

Many of the esoterically inclined expected a new age of consciousness — others wanted a party. But, in some places said to offer salvation from the end, fewer people showed up than officials had predicted — much to the disappointment of vendors hoping to sell souvenirs.

Here are some key places being marked by the fascination over doomsday rumors:

MEXICO

In an area of Mexico that was once the ancient Mayan heartland, spiritualists gathered in the darkness before dawn on Friday to prepare white clothes, drums, conch shells and incense. They believed the sunrise would herald the birth of a new and better age as a vast cycle in the Mayan calendar comes to an end.

Many people who came to Yucatan for the occasion were already calling it “a new sun” and “a new era.”

FRANCE

According to one rumor, a rocky mountain in the French Pyrenees will be the sole place on Earth to escape destruction. A giant UFO and aliens are said to be waiting under the mountain, ready to burst through and spirit those nearby to safety. But there is bad news for those seeking salvation: French gendarmes, some on horseback, blocked outsiders from reaching the Bugarach peak and its village of some 200 people.

Eric Freysselinard, head of local government, said the security forces had “partially stopped the new age enthusiasts as well as curious people from coming to the area.”

Meanwhile, some Bugarach residents dressed up like aliens, with tinfoil costumes and funnels and fake antenna on their heads, strolling around their village Friday to make light of the rumored UFO prophecy.

RUSSIA

Doomsday rumors have prompted some people across Russia to stock up on candles, water, canned foods and other non-perishable foods. The apocalypse has proven a good business, with some shops selling survival aid packages that include soap and vodka.

In Moscow, salvation has also been promised in the underground bunker for the former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — with a 50 percent refund if nothing happens. An underground stay was originally priced at 50,000 rubles ($ 1,625) but dropped to 15,000 ($ 490) a week ahead of the feared end.

The bunker, located 65 meters (210 feet) below ground, was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Now home to a small museum, it has an independent electricity supply, water and food — but no more room, because the museum has already sold out all 1,000 tickets.

BRITAIN

Hundreds of people have converged on Stonehenge for an “End of the World” party that coincides with the Winter Solstice.

Arthur Uther Pendragon, Britain’s best-known druid, said he was anticipating a much larger crowd than usual at Stonehenge this year. But he doesn’t agree that the world is ending, noting that he and fellow druids believe that things happen in cycles.

“We’re looking at it more as a new beginning than an end,” he said. “We’re looking at new hope.”

Meanwhile, end-of-days parties will be held across London on Friday. One event billed as a “last supper club” is offering a three-course meal served inside an “ark.”

SERBIA

Some Serbs are saying to forget that sacred mountain in the French Pyrenees. The place to be Friday is Mount Rtanj, a pyramid-shaped peak in Serbia already drawing cultists.

According to legend, the mountain once swallowed an evil sorcerer who will be released on doomsday in a ball of fire that will hit the mountain top. The inside of the mountain will then open up, becoming a safe place to hide as the sorcerer goes on to destroy the rest of the world. In the meantime, some old coal mine shafts have been opened up as safe rooms.

On Friday a New Age group called “The Spirit of Rtanj” was holding a conference there. Participants, however, said they expect not the end of time but the start of a new time cycle. Locals turned out to sell brandy and herbs.

“There will be no tragedy, no doomsday,” said resident Dalibor Jovic. “It was supposed to happen at 12:12 and I think that time has passed. So, we can now go on with our lives and be happy to be alive.”

TURKEY

A small Turkish village known for its wines, Sirince, has also been touted as the only place after Bugarach that would escape the world’s end. But on Friday journalists and security officials outnumbered cultists. This outcome disappointed local business people who had prepared a range of doomsday products to sell, including a specially labeled Doomsday wine and Turkish delight candy whose “best before” date was Dec. 21, 2012. One restaurant prepared a special “last meal” menu that included a “heaven kebab” and “forbidden fruit dessert.”

ITALY

Another spot said to be spared: Cisternino, a beautiful small town in southern Italy in an area of trulli, traditional dry stone huts with conical roofs. The notion that Cisternino could be a safe haven at world’s end derives from an Indian guru, Babaji, who said “Cisternino will become an island” at world’s end. His followers built a community in Cisternino centered on an ashram built in 1979. Hotel bookings are up this weekend.

Mayor Donato Baccaro told the AP that the beauty of the place has inspired many foreigners to live there. “This confirms that this place has a special energy,” he said.

CHINA

A fringe Christian group has been spreading rumors about the world’s impending end, prompting Chinese authorities to detain more than 500 people this week and seize leaflets, video discs, books and other material.

Those detained are reported to be members of the group Almighty God, also called Eastern Lightning, which preaches that Jesus has reappeared as a woman in central China. Authorities in the province of Qinghai say they are waging a “severe crackdown” on the group, accusing it of attacking the Communist Party and the government.

U.S.

Dozens of Michigan schools canceled classes for thousands of students to cool off rumored threats of violence and problems related to doomsday. The fears were exacerbated by the recent shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which “changed all of us,” the school system in Genesee County said. “Canceling school is the right thing to do.”

___

Associated Press writers Florent Bajrami in Bugarach, France; Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow; Peppino Ciraci in Cisternino, Italy; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Paisley Dodds in London; and Dejan Mladenovic in Mount Rtanj, Serbia, contributed to this report.

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Elwood V. Jensen, Pioneer in Breast Cancer Treatment, Dies at 92

Tony Jones/Cincinnati Enquirer, via Associated Press

Elwood V. Jensen in 2004.

Elwood V. Jensen, a medical researcher whose studies of steroid hormones led to new treatments for breast cancer that have been credited with saving or extending hundreds of thousands of lives, died on Dec. 16 in Cincinnati. He was 92.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Thomas Jensen, said.

In 2004 Dr. Jensen received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, one of the most respected science prizes in the world.

When Dr. Jensen started his research at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, steroid hormones, which alter the functioning of cells, were thought to interact with cells through a series of chemical reactions involving enzymes.

However, Dr. Jensen used radioactive tracers to show that steroid hormones actually affect cells by binding to a specific receptor protein inside them. He first focused on the steroid hormone estrogen.

By 1968, Dr. Jensen had developed a test for the presence of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells. He later concluded that such receptors were present in about a third of those cells.

Breast cancers that are estrogen positive, meaning they have receptors for the hormone, can be treated with medications like Tamoxifen or with other methods of inhibiting estrogen in a patient’s system, like removal of the ovaries. Women with receptor-rich breast cancers often go into remission when estrogen is blocked or removed.

By the mid-1980s, a test developed by Dr. Jensen and a colleague at the University of Chicago, Dr. Geoffrey Greene, could be used to determine the extent of estrogen receptors in breast and other cancers. That test became a standard part of care for breast cancer patients.

Scientists like Dr. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Ronald M. Evans, who shared the 2004 Lasker prize with Dr. Jensen, went on to show that many types of receptors exist. The receptors are crucial components of the cell’s control system and transmit signals in an array of vital functions, from the development of organs in the womb to the control of fat cells and the regulation of cholesterol.

Dr. Jensen’s work also led to the development of drugs that can enhance or inhibit the effects of hormones. Such drugs are used to treat prostate and other cancers.

Elwood Vernon Jensen was born in Fargo, N.D., on Jan. 13, 1920, to Eli and Vera Morris Jensen. He majored in chemistry at what was then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, and had begun graduate training in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago when World War II began.

Dr. Jensen wanted to join the Army Air Forces, but his poor vision kept him from becoming a pilot. During the war he synthesized poison gases at the University of Chicago, exposure to which twice put him in the hospital. His work on toxic chemicals, he said, inspired him to pursue biology and medicine.

Dr. Jensen studied steroid hormone chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on a Guggenheim Fellowship after the war. While there, he climbed the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps, even though he had no mountaineering experience. He often equated his successful research to the novel approach taken by Edward Whymper, the first mountaineer to reach the Matterhorn’s summit. Mr. Whymper went against conventional wisdom and scaled the mountain’s Swiss face, after twice failing to reach the summit on the Italian side.

Dr. Jensen joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of surgery in 1947, working closely with the Nobel laureate Charles Huggins. He became an original member of the research team at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research (now the Ben May Department for Cancer Research) in 1951, and became the director after Dr. Huggins stepped down.

He came to work at the University of Cincinnati in 2002, and continued to do research there until last year.

His first wife, the former Mary Collette, died in 1982. In addition to his son, Dr. Jensen is survived by his second wife, the former Hiltrud Herborg; a daughter, Karen C. Jensen; a sister, Margaret Brennan; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Dr. Jensen’s wife was found to have breast cancer in 2005. She had the tumor removed, he said in an interview, but tested positive for the estrogen receptor and was successfully treated with a medication that prevents estrogen synthesis.

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Airlines' plans for 2013 up in the air

Airfares will be on the rise in 2013, and those niggling airline fees will metamorphose into optional bundles of services.

Meanwhile, onboard amenities, such as Internet access, entertainment options and refreshed interiors, will abound among U.S. carriers, but tight seating in coach probably won't improve.

And 2013 might be the year you'll finally be able to keep your smartphone, iPad or Kindle turned on during takeoffs and landings.

Those are some of the predictions airline industry experts foresee in the new year. Here's the lowdown on fares, fees and flight experience for 2013.

Higher fares forecast

Airlines pushed through six fare increases in 2012. Expect a similar number in the new year, said Rick Seaney, co-founder of FareCompare.com.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see airfares rise like they did this year, between 3 and 6 percent domestically," Seaney said. That's because airlines will succeed in properly balancing supply and demand by trimming the number of seats they offer to match "decent, but bordering on tepid, demand."

Fares are typically driven by four main factors: competition, most of all, then supply, demand and oil prices. "If you look at those drivers, they are, for the most part, on the airlines' side, which gives them pricing power," Seaney said.

That doesn't mean there won't be good airfare deals on some flights on some routes. And consumers will still see lower prices during off-peak days, such as Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday departures and off-peak seasons, such as late January and early February. Like this year, summertime fares probably will stay relatively high, he said.

Airline mergers can also affect fares, and a huge one could take place early in 2013. American Airlines and US Airways are in talks about combining.

The general consensus among consumer advocates is that airline mergers aren't good for passengers.

"Any time you have two big airlines merging, that means consumers have less choice and competition is reduced, which only translates to higher prices," said Charlie Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance.

However, a bit of new evidence bucks that conventional wisdom. Despite four mega-mergers in the U.S. airline industry during the past seven years, fares have not increased significantly, just 1.8 percent per year, according to a December report from professional services firm PwC. In fact, average domestic fares decreased 1 percent from 2004 to 2011 when inflation is factored in, the report found.

Fliers know full well, however, that the fare isn't all that counts nowadays. There are those fees.

Fees get a makeover

The most noticeable trend in recent years with airline fees is that there are more of them: fees for checked bags, aisle seats, onboard meals, among many others. 

"What we hear is that people pay their fare and get to the airport and feel they're constantly being nickeled-and-dimed to death for things that used to be included," said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org. 

The top five U.S. carriers alone generated more than $12 billion in fees in 2011, with even more expected through 2012, according to the PwC report.

What consumers call fees, airlines call "unbundling" — making a la carte choices from services that used to be included in the fare.

A likely trend for 2013 might be called "rebundling," airlines packaging a few now-optional services and charging for a tier of service.

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Putin signs ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that bans Americans from adopting Russian children and imposes other sanctions in retaliation for a new U.S. human rights law that he says is poisoning relations.

Washington has called the new Russian law misguided, saying it ties the fate of children to "unrelated political considerations", and analysts say it is likely to deepen a chill in U.S.-Russia relations and harm Putin's image abroad.

Fifty-two children whose adoptions by American parents were underway will now remain in Russia, the Interfax news agency cited Russia's child rights commissioner, Pavel Astakhov, as saying.

The new law, which has also ignited outrage among Russian liberals and child rights' advocates, takes effect on January 1.

The legislation, whose text was issued by the Kremlin, will also outlaw some non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. funding and impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians abroad.

Pro-Kremlin lawmakers initially drafted the bill to mirror the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which bars entry to Russians accused of involvement in the death in custody of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other alleged rights abuses.

The restrictions on adoptions and non-profit groups were added to the legislation later, going beyond a tit-for-tat move and escalating a dispute with Washington at a time when ties are already strained by issues such as the Syrian crisis.

The adoption ban may further tarnish Putin's international standing at a time when the former KGB officer is under scrutiny over what critics say is a crackdown on dissent since he returned to the Kremlin for a third term in May.

"The law will lead to a sharp drop in the reputation of the Kremlin and of Putin personally abroad, and signal a new phase in relations between the United States and Russia," said Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on Putin with the Carnegie Moscow Centre.

"It is only the first harbinger of a chill."

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Magnitsky Act - the U.S. bill which prompted the new Russian law - had "seriously undermined" the "reset", the moniker for the effort U.S. President Barack Obama launched early in his first term to improve relations between the former Cold War foes.

Putin has backed the hawkish response with a mixture of public appeals to patriotism, saying Russia should care for its own children, and with belligerent denunciations of what he says is the U.S. desire to impose its will on the world.

SHARP CRITICISM

Seeking to dampen criticism of the move, Putin also signed a decree ordering an improvement in care for orphans.

Critics of the Russian legislation say Putin has held the welfare of children trapped in a crowded and troubled orphanage system hostage to political maneuvering.

"He signed it after all! He signed one of the most shameful laws in Russian history," a blogger named Yuri Pronko wrote on the popular Russian site LiveJournal.

A hashtag that translates as "Putin eats children" was being widely used on Twitter in Russia on Friday, and pro-Kremlin microbloggers hit back with: "Putin supported orphans".

Russian authorities say the deaths of 19 Russian-born children adopted by American parents in the past decade were one of the main motives for the law as well as what they perceive as the overly lenient treatment of those parents by U.S. courts and law enforcement agencies.

However, critics of the bill say Russian orphanages are woefully overcrowded and that adoptions by Russian families remain modest, with some 7,400 adoptions in 2011 compared with 3,400 adoptions of Russian children by families abroad.

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Apple still said to account for 87% of North American tablet traffic as Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 gain

Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.

[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]

Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.

[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]

The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.

“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.

This article was originally published by BGR

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Piano maker Steinway takes down “for sale” sign

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Steinway Musical Instruments Inc, the famous manufacturer of pianos, saxophones and trumpets, said on Wednesday it had decided not to sell itself following a 17-month-long exploration of strategic alternatives.

An American icon synonymous with handmade grand pianos, Steinway has struggled to keep its production margins competitive amid stagnant sales, and has seen its shares plunge 10 percent year-to-date. Still, its third-quarter earnings last month offered signs that cost-cutting was paying off.

In a statement on Wednesday, Steinway said it had received several non-binding indications of interest in buying the company, following talks with other companies in the sector as well as private equity, yet these did not offer more value than its own strategic plan.

“We will continue to focus management’s efforts on execution of that plan and we look forward to a prosperous 2013,” Steinway CEO Michael Sweeney said in the statement.

An in-principle agreement to sell its band instrument division to an investor group led by two of its board members, Dana Messina and John Stoner, was also scrapped in light of the current operating performance of the band division, Steinway said.

In July 2011, Messina, Stoner and other members of management made an offer for Steinway’s band instrument and online music divisions, prompting the company to set up a special committee in order to assess it.

Later that month, Steinway asked investment bank Allen & Company LLC to a assist the special committee on exploring strategic alternatives that could also include selling the whole company outright to other interested parties.

By October 2011, Messina had stepped down as CEO of the company after 15 years at the helm to pursue his bid, yet he remained a board member. He was replaced by Sweeney, a chairman of the board of Star Tribune Media Holdings and a former president of Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Ltd.

Steinway said on Wednesday that it was continuing a separate process to sell its leasehold interest in New York’s Steinway Hall building, situated on Manhattan’s 57th Street, and was in talks with several parties.

According to its website, Steinway & Sons, the company’s piano unit, opened the first Steinway Hall on 14th Street in Manhattan in 1866.

With a main auditorium of 2,000 seats, it became New York City’s artistic and cultural center, housing the New York Philharmonic until Carnegie Hall opened in 1891. These days, Steinway Hall is a showroom for the company’s instruments.

The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company’s pianos have been used by legendary artists such as Cole Porter and Sergei Rachmaninoff and by contemporary ones like Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by M.D. Golan)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Spinach Recipes for Health

Spinach goes well with all kinds of foods. It’s also a green that is easy to find year-round. As Martha Rose Shulman writes in this week’s Recipes for Health:

Spinach has remained a part of my holiday ritual. I love the convenience of bagged spinach, but I prefer the richness of the lush bunches I get at the farmers’ market. I don’t mind stemming and washing it, but if you are pressed for time the bagged spinach is a godsend, especially if you live in a cold climate and don’t have access to farmers’ market spinach in December.

Below are five new ways to add spinach to your meal. And for more spinach recipes, see “Making Spinach the Star of the Meal.”

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Spinach and Millet Timbale With Tomato Sauce
A timbale is a molded custard, somewhat similar to a quiche without a crust.

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Garlic Soup With Spinach
A quick and easy soup that is a great way to use any leftover turkey stock from Thanksgiving.

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Penne With Mushroom Ragout and Spinach
This is a delicious meal no matter what variety of mushrooms you have on hand.

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Spinach Gnocchi
A considerably lighter version of the classic gnocchi made with spinach and ricotta.

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Spinach, Sardine and Rice Gratin
This classic Provençal gratin is a good way to work fish that is high in omega-3s into your diet.

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McCormick Place development fight held over to 2013

The lengthy battle for control over property slated for hotel development adjacent to McCormick Place will extend into 2013 after a federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday gave the long-time property owners more time to show their plans have financial viability.

Judge Jack Schmetterer this month had given Olde Prairie Block Owner LLC until Thursday to show him it had plausible plans to repay its lenders, chief among them CenterPoint Properties Trust.

Olde Prairie, whose principals include Pamela Gleichman, her husband, Karl Norberg, and Gunnar Falk, have proposed selling portions of the properties for hotel development, with two deals projected to bring in $180 million. The developers said this would be sufficient to pay back lenders in full and develop the properties.

The lender, CenterPoint Properties Trust, contends the plan is not financially viable, in part because the sales agreements contained contingencies. As well, it argued that the structure of the deals would not provide sufficient funds to fully repay lenders.

Schmetterer gave Olde Prairie until Jan. 10 to show the potential buyer of the larger parcel had a firm financing commitment. He also is seeking greater clarity in the sales contract language.

The case has been closely watched because it involves parcels long eyed for development linked to McCormick Place. Speculation has swirled around possibilities,from hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues, including a possible casino, to an arena that could host the DePaul men's basketball team as well as corporate and religious assemblies.

The properties include a 3.67-acre parcel at 330 E. Cermak Rd., directly north of the administrative offices of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, and a 1.23-acre parcel directly west of it at 230 E. Cermak, across the street from the center's West Building.

The authority, known as McPier, this month purchased a separate parcel on the 230 E. Cermak block, with an eye toward gathering enough property to expand hotel, restaurant and entertainment amenities near the convention campus.

kbergen@tribune.com

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Sen. Reid warns U.S. poised to go over 'fiscal cliff'

Rana Foroohar, Time magazine's assistant managing editor for business news, talks to Rebecca Jarvis and Jeff Glor about what a drop off the "fiscal cliff" could mean to businesses and consumers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat in the Senate warned on Thursday that the United States looks to be headed over the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that will start next week if squabbling politicians do not reach a deal.

Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Senate in a speech that "it looks like that is where we're headed."

He called on the Republicans who control the House of Representatives to prevent the worst of the fiscal shock by getting behind a Senate bill to extend existing tax cuts for all except those households earning more than $250,000 a year.

With the House not in session and the clock ticking toward the scheduled January start of tax increases and deep, automatic government spending cuts, Reid offered little hope.

"I don't know time-wise how it can happen now," he said.

President Barack Obama arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington after a flight from Hawaii on Thursday on his way back to the White House to try to restart stalled negotiations with Congress.

Obama made phone calls to congressional leaders on Wednesday from his vacation in Hawaii to try to revive the stalled talks to prevent the "fiscal cliff" scenario, which would worry world financial markets and could push the United States back into recession.

U.S. stocks fell to session lows after Reid's pessimistic remarks.

In addition, consumer confidence fell to a four-month low in December as the budget crisis sapped what had been a growing sense of optimism about the economy, a report released on Thursday showed.

"People are hearing about (the cliff) and it negatively impacts confidence and investor sentiment and even holiday sales," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at Landcolt Capital in New York.

The chances of a last-minute deal - at least one that would prevent tax hikes - remained uncertain, with Republicans and Democrats each insisting the other side move first amid continuing partisan gridlock.

The Senate, controlled by Democrats, was scheduled to meet later on Thursday but on matters unrelated to the "fiscal cliff."

Speaker John Boehner and other House Republican leaders, who say they are willing to take up a "fiscal cliff" measure only after the Senate acts on one, were to hold a conference call with Republican House members on Thursday.

The expectation for the call was that lawmakers would be told to get back to Washington within 48 hours to consider anything the Senate might pass.

Weather permitting, that would bring them to Washington with perhaps three days left before the deadline for action. Storms affecting the Midwest, the South and the Northeast played havoc with airline schedules.

'NOT WILLING'

"This isn't a one party or one house problem. This is (that) leaders in both parties in all branches of the government are not willing to make the deal that they know they have to make. Everybody wants their stuff but doesn't want to give up what they don't want to give up," Republican U.S. Representative Steven LaTourette told CNN.

The House and Senate passed bills months ago reflecting their own sharply divergent positions on the expiring low tax rates, which went into effect during the administration of Republican former President George W. Bush.

Democrats want to allow the tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans want to extend the tax cuts for everyone.

Congress has proven that it can act swiftly once an agreement is reached. Hope persisted that Republicans and Democrats might come up with a resolution before New Year's Day that could at least postpone the impact of the tax hikes and spending cuts while further discussions take place.

That gives some hope to world markets.

"There is still hope for a last-minute deal, otherwise we're in for a correction in January. People have already priced in an agreement. Without it, the market can't stay at these levels," a Paris-based trader said.

Another battle is just over the horizon in late January or early February over raising the debt ceiling, which puts a limit on the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its debts and can be raised only with the approval of Congress.

Republican leaders have said they will insist on more budget cuts as a condition of raising the ceiling. Without any action, the U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday the government is set to reach its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on December 31.

The Treasury Department is to begin "extraordinary measures" to buy time. Many analysts believe the government can stave the default date off into late February.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Alina Selyukh and Richard Cowan; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Will Dunham)

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British actress Kate Winslet marries for third time

LONDON (Reuters) – British Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet has married for the third time, her publicist confirmed on Thursday.

The 37-year-old, best known for her starring role in the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic”, married Ned RocknRoll, a nephew of music and aviation tycoon Richard Branson.

The private ceremony was attended by Winslet’s two children from previous marriages and “a very few friends and family”, according to the publicist, and took place in New York earlier this month.

“The couple had been engaged since the summer,” Winslet’s spokeswoman said in a statement.

Winslet has been nominated for six Academy Awards and won once for her lead role in “The Reader”.

Her other notable performances include Iris Murdoch in “Iris”, Clementine Kruczynski in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and April in “Revolutionary Road“.

That film was directed by Sam Mendes, whom Winslet wed in 2003 and divorced seven years later. Her first marriage was to Jim Threapleton, which lasted from 1998 to 2001.

According to online reports, RocknRoll had his name changed by deed poll from Ned Abel Smith and is an executive for Branson’s space flight venture Virgin Galactic.

The Sun newspaper said the New York wedding was so secret that even the couple’s parents did not know about it.

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who co-starred with Winslet in Titanic and Revolutionary Road, gave her away, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Steve Addison)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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New York’s Mental Health System Thrashed by Services Lost to Storm

Marcus Yam for The New York Times

Dr. Richard Rosenthal, physician in chief of behavioral services for Continuum hospitals, at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

When a young woman in the grip of paranoid delusions threatened a neighbor with a meat cleaver one Saturday last month, the police took her by ambulance to the nearest psychiatric emergency room. Or rather, they took her to Beth Israel Medical Center, the only comprehensive psychiatric E.R. functioning in Lower Manhattan since Hurricane Sandy shrank and strained New York’s mental health resources.

The case was one of 9,548 “emotionally disturbed person” calls that the Police Department answered in November, and one of the 2,848 that resulted in transportation to a hospital, a small increase over a year earlier.

But the woman was discharged within hours, to the shock of the mental health professionals who had called the police. It took four more days, and strong protests from her psychiatrist and caseworkers, to get her admitted for two weeks of inpatient treatment, said Tony Lee, who works for Community Access, a nonprofit agency that provides supportive housing to people with mental illness, managing the Lower East Side apartment building where she lives.

Psychiatric hospital admission is always a judgment call. But in the city, according to hospital records and interviews with psychiatrists and veteran advocates of community care, the odds of securing mental health treatment in a crisis have worsened significantly since the hurricane. The storm’s surge knocked out several of the city’s largest psychiatric hospitals, disrupted outpatient services and flooded scores of coastal nursing homes and “adult homes” where many mentally ill people had found housing of last resort.

One of the most affected hospitals, Beth Israel, recorded a 69 percent spike in psychiatric emergency room cases last month, with its inpatient slots overflowing. Instead of admitting more than one out of three such cases, as it did in November 2011, it admitted only one out of four of the 691 emergency arrivals this November, records show. Capacity was so overtaxed that ambulances had to be diverted to other hospitals 15 times in the month, almost double the rate last year, in periods typically lasting for eight hours, officials said.

Dr. Richard Rosenthal, physician in chief of behavioral services for Continuum Health Partners, Beth Israel’s parent organization, said he was proud of how much Continuum’s hospitals had done to handle psychiatric overflow since storm damage shuttered Bellevue Hospital Center, the city’s flagship public hospital; NYU Langone Medical Center; and the Veterans Affairs Hospital. But these days, he said, as he walks on Amsterdam Avenue between Continuum’s Roosevelt hospital on West 59th Street and its St. Luke’s hospital on West 114th Street, he notices more mentally ill people in the streets than he has seen in years.

“When you have the most vulnerable folks, all you need is one chink in the system and you lose them,” Dr. Rosenthal said. “Whether they lost their housing, or the outpatient services they usually go to were closed and they were lost to follow-up, they have become disconnected, with predictable results.”

Similar patterns are playing out in Brooklyn, where Maimonides Medical Center has been overwhelmed with mental health emergencies from the Coney Island vicinity since Coney Island Hospital, one of the city’s largest acute care psychiatric hospitals, suspended operations, hospital officials said.

“Triage has reached a different level: You have to get sicker to get in,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the chairman of psychiatry at Maimonides, citing a 56 percent increase in psychiatric emergency room visits there from Oct. 26 to Dec. 7, compared with the same period last year, and a 24 percent rise in admissions. The increase in admissions was possible only with emergency permission from the state to exceed licensed limits.

“Not only is there decreased capacity, because Bellevue and Coney Island are off line,” Dr. Kolodny added, “but there’s increased demand because the storm or the loss of their residence has been a stressor for mental illness.”

The storm battered a mental health system that still relies heavily on private nursing homes and substandard adult homes to house people with mental illness. Such institutions have a sordid history of neglect and exploitation, and the courts have repeatedly found that their overuse by the state isolated thousands of people in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Plans are under way to increase supportive housing — dwellings where mentally ill people can live relatively independently, with support services. But even before Hurricane Sandy, the expansion fell far short of demand.

The storm underscored the fragility of the system. Many disabled evacuees who were sent first to makeshift school shelters lost access to the psychiatric medications that kept their symptoms at bay, Dr. Kolodny said. Even those lucky enough to have the drugs they need are at greater risk of relapse as they experience crowded living conditions. “If they’re now sleeping in a gym with 100 people, that can tip them over the edge and start making them really paranoid,” he said.

On Staten Island, where the chief of psychiatry at Richmond University Medical Center says psychiatric resources have been stretched to the limit, clergy members report that mentally ill people transferred to a large adult home in New Brighton from one that was washed away in Far Rockaway, Queens, are now showing up at church rectories, begging for socks and underwear.

“It’s heartbreaking, because they just found us by chance,” said Margaret Moschetto, a missionary at the Church of Assumption-St. Paul in New Brighton. “They were just walking around the neighborhood. They really didn’t know where they were.”

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Toyota to pay big to settle suits

Toyota Motor Corp., moving to put years of legal problems behind it, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle dozens of lawsuits relating to sudden acceleration.

The proposed deal, filed Wednesday in federal court, would be among the largest ever paid out by an automaker. It applies to numerous suits claiming economic damages caused by safety defects in the automaker's vehicles, but does not cover dozens of personal injury and wrongful-death suits that are still pending around the nation.

The suits were filed over the last three years by Toyota and Lexus owners who claimed that the value of their vehicles had been hurt by the potential for defects, including floor mats that could cause the vehicles to surge out of control.

ROAD TO RECALL: Read The Times' award winning coverage

In addition, Toyota said it is close to settling suits filed by the Orange County district attorney and a coalition of state attorneys general who had accused the automaker of deceptive business practices. The costs of those agreements would be included in a $1.1-billion charge the Japanese automaker said it will take against earnings to cover the actions.

"We concluded that turning the page on this legacy legal issue through the positive steps we are taking is in the best interests of the company, our employees, our dealers and, most of all, our customers," Christopher Reynolds, Toyota's chief counsel in the U.S., said in a statement.

Toyota's lengthy history of sudden acceleration was the subject of a series of Los Angeles Times articles in 2009, after a horrific crash outside San Diego that took the life of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and his family.

Under terms of the agreement, which has not yet been approved in court, Toyota would install brake override systems in numerous models and provide cash payments from a $250-million fund to owners whose vehicles cannot be modified to incorporate that safety measure.

In addition, the automaker plans to offer extended repair coverage on throttle systems in 16 million vehicles and offer cash payments from a separate $250-million fund to Toyota and Lexus owners who sold their vehicles or turned them in at the end of a lease in 2009 or 2010. The total value of the settlement could reach $1.4 billion, according to Steve Berman, the lead plaintiff attorney in the case.

The lawsuits, filed over the last several years, had been seeking class certification.

News of the agreement comes scarcely a week after Toyota agreed to pay a record $17.35-million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report a potential floor mat defect in a Lexus SUV. Those come on top of almost $50 million in fines paid by Toyota for other violations related to sudden acceleration since 2010.

The massive settlement does not, however, put Toyota's legal woes to rest. The automaker still faces numerous injury and wrongful death claims around the country, including a group of cases that have been consolidated in federal court in Santa Ana, and other cases awaiting trial in Los Angeles County.

The first of the federal cases, involving a Utah man who was killed in a Camry that slammed into a wall in 2010, is slated for trial in mid-February.

The California cases are set to begin in April, among them a suit involving a 66-year-old Upland woman who was killed after her vehicle allegedly reached 100 miles per hour and slammed into a tree.

Edgar Heiskell III, a West Virginia attorney who has a dozen pending suits against Toyota, said he is preparing to go to trial this summer in a case that involved a Flint, Mich., woman who was killed when her 2005 Camry suddenly accelerated near her home.

"We are proceeding with absolute confidence that we can get our cases heard on the merits and that we expect to prove defects in Toyota's electronic control system," he said.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the settlement would have no bearing on the personal injury cases.

"All carmakers face these kinds of suits," he said. "We'll defend those as we normally would."

The giant automaker's sudden acceleration problems first gained widespread attention after the August 2009 crash of a Lexus ES outside San Diego.

That accident set off a string of recalls, an unprecedented decision to temporarily stop sales of all Toyota vehicles and a string of investigations, including a highly unusual apology by Toyota President Akio Toyoda before a congressional committee. Eventually Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide and has since spent huge sums — estimated at more than $2 billion, not including Wednesday's proposed settlement — to repair both its automobiles and public image.

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Storm spares Chicago as mild winter nears another record

Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli, of Miami's CBS-4, has the latest on the paths of the winter storms.

For the second time in less than a week, a major winter storm is battering the Midwest. And once again Chicago has been spared.

Blizzard warnings have been issued for southern Illinois and parts of Indiana and Kentucky, with as much as a foot of snow whipped by 50 mph wind gusts.

In Pinckneyville, about 60 miles southeast of St. Louis, Rich Emling wasn't catching much of a break. Emling and other workers at his eight-truck towing business had been scrambling to muscle vehicles out of ditches and other tough spots since well before daybreak Wednesday as the region's first significant snowstorm of the season left its mark.

Emling, 43, wasn't expecting any relief later in the day, when he suspected slushy roads to freeze.

“I'm not going to say we're overly swamped, but we're certainly steady,” he said while hauling away a minivan that had slid off a road and hit a culvert. Even before dropping off that vehicle, Emling had another motorist in distress waiting for his help.

“When I was a kid, we had snowstorms all the time, but it seems like we get just two or three nowadays,” Emling said.

In Vincennes, Ind., a National Guard unit has been put on standby after the area received about 9 inches of wet, heavy snow. But Knox County emergency management spokeswoman Kellie Streeter said no major emergencies have been reported in the Vincennes area as of late Wednesday morning.

South of Vincennes, Gibson County Sheriff George Ballard said Interstate 64 and U.S. 31 in southwest Indiana were down to one lane. Ballard said the area has 6 to 8 inches of snow with ice underneath.

Authorities say traffic is light because most people have decided to stay home.

The sweeping storm system also unleashed rare winter tornadoes around the Deep South as it moved toward the Northeast.

The storm system has been blamed for six deaths and several injuries, though no one was killed in the tornadoes. The storms also left more than 100,000 without power for a time across the South, darkening Christmas celebrations.

Severe thunderstorms were forecast for the Carolinas while a line of blizzard and winter storm warnings stretched from Arkansas up the Ohio River to New York and on to Maine.

Thirty-four tornadoes were reported in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama during the outbreak Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.

In Chicago, snow flurries are in the forecast every day this week with highs in the 30s. The last time the high has been below freezing here was on Feb. 25, with a high of 27. The latest Chicago has gone without recording a subfreezing high was Jan. 1, 1924 during the winter of 1923-24.

With today's high already at 33 degrees, the city is within 6 days of the record, according to the Chicago Weather Center.

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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services

LONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.

Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.

Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.

Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.

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Corporate tax rate overhaul may be part of a 'fiscal cliff' deal

WASHINGTON — Amid the wrangling over the so-called fiscal cliff, President Obama and congressional Republicans can agree on something: They want to lower the corporate tax rate.

The U.S. has the highest overall rate of any of the world's developed economies. It took the top spot in March after Japan reduced its rate, mimicking other countries that have lowered taxes to lure new businesses and keep existing companies from leaving.

Negotiations to avert automatic income tax increases and federal spending cuts scheduled to kick in Jan. 1 could provide the impetus for U.S. policymakers to tackle an overhaul of the corporate tax code next year.

The White House wants to put a corporate tax overhaul, along with changes to the individual income tax system, on a fast track as part of any deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

The centerpiece of an overhaul would be slashing the 35% corporate tax rate, a goal long sought by corporate executives and lobbyists.

Quiz: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'?

"In the name of global competitiveness, I think that has largely been agreed to," Jim McNerney, chief executive of Boeing Co., said about how both parties view the need for major corporate tax changes.

In February, Obama proposed lowering the federal rate to 25% for manufacturing companies and to 28% for other firms. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has been pushing a plan to lower the rate to 25% for all corporations.

In both cases, the rate cuts would be accompanied by the elimination of some of the numerous tax breaks that allow many companies to pay a much lower effective tax rate — and sometimes to avoid paying any corporate taxes at all.

"The administration's position on this is very much in sync with what Republicans say they want, which is a lower rate and a broader base," said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the former chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.

But there still are some obstacles to a deal.

Some Democrats want to use an overhaul to increase the amount of tax revenue coming from corporations, while Republicans want to keep the amount the same. The White House and congressional Republicans also differ on how the U.S. should treat money earned abroad.

And the business community itself is divided. Many small companies file taxes as individuals. They're opposed to any "fiscal cliff" deal that would raise their rates while giving corporations a rate reduction.

Analysts said the obstacles could be overcome because there is consensus around the broader point that the U.S. needs to bring its corporate tax rate in line with other developed nations.

"Regardless of your political persuasion, it is unquestionably the case that the nominal U.S. corporate tax rate is much higher than that of peer countries," said Edward Kleinbard, a USC law professor and former chief of staff of Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation.

The case for corporate tax reform got a boost when the overall U.S. rate of 39.1%, which includes federal, state and local corporate taxes, became the highest this year among the 34 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Two decades ago, the U.S. was 13th.

"At one time in the '80s, we had a competitive corporate tax rate," said Dorothy Coleman, vice president of tax and domestic economic policy for the National Assn. of Manufacturers. "We've fallen behind by standing still."

Quiz: The year in business

But the rate in the tax code isn't what many companies pay because of a host of deductions and tax credits. In 2011, the effective corporate tax rate in the U.S. was 29.2%, roughly in line with the 31.9% average of the six other largest developed economies, the Obama administration said.

The White House said that parity does not mean the statutory rate shouldn't be reduced. It simply means that many tax breaks should be eliminated, allowing the rate to be lowered without adding to the deficit.

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