Moroccan road film subverts Hollywood stereotypes

DUBAI (Reuters) – When director John Slattery first visited Morocco, the familiarity was jarring – and as removed from the images of an exotic Orient conjured up by Hollywood as possible.

That dichotomy between the representation and the reality of Morocco drives Slattery‘s charming paean to a country he clearly loves and makes “Casablanca, Mon Amour” a thoughtful rejoinder to U.S. popular culture.

Two young Moroccans spend three weeks travelling their native country, filming what they see on a digital camera while passing by studios and locations that have formed the backdrop for many Hollywood blockbusters, an industry Morocco has cultivated.

The film is spliced with shots of endearingly bemused or nervous ordinary people giving their thoughts to the camera about Hollywood and its global stars, as well as clips from classics such as “Casablanca” featuring off-the-cuff anti-Arab slurs like “you can’t trust them” and “they all look alike”.

“We had the idea of going on this trip and to be this stupid American film crew going to make this traditional movie using Morocco, but we wanted to subvert that,” Slattery said after a screening at the Dubai international film festival this week.

“There was not really a script but the trip was their trip and so wherever they went we followed them. So that way they were really directing the film.”

Shot by Hassan, who narrates the road trip in French, the images shift from scenes of daily life caught on camera, to his comically testy relationship with his travelling companion Abdel, to a troupe they stumble upon in Meknes that plays traditional Moroccan “malhoun” music.

Hassan, a real-life film school student at the time, is using the road trip for a class project, while Abdel wants to visit a dying uncle on the other side of the country.

Slattery includes footage from Moroccan television from the Marrakech film festival in which comic actor Bashar Skeirej declares that “a country without its own art will never have a history”.

It’s a subtle suggestion that the government should do more to promote domestic film rather than just rent out landscapes for Hollywood misrepresentation.

Morocco has formed the backdrop for a fictionalized Orient in “Ishtar”, doubled as Abu Dhabi in the “Sex in the City 2″ and been various distant planets in Star Wars films.

“National cinemas in many countries are being destroyed or have been destroyed because of this massive power of marketing that is Hollywood,” said Slattery, a California-based American of Irish origin. “They destroy little films, they destroy the possibility for little stories.”

The film, a labor of love that took Slattery seven years to complete, borrows from the book “Reel Bad Arabs”, author Jack Shaheen’s study of Hollywood’s anti-Arab stereotypes. Its title references Alain Resnais’s 1959 French New Wave classic “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”.

“(When) I would say ‘Morocco’, people would say ‘were you scared’, or a polite ‘what was that like?’,” Slattery said, recounting reactions in the United States when he would talk about his first experiences as a peace corps volunteer.

“There was that whole category of fear in the responses, or ‘Morocco, you must have seen Lawrence of Arabia’, or ‘Blackhawk Down’! – all these film titles. That stuck with me, this fear and movies were the two references for Morocco.”

Yet Slattery‘s first day in the North African country could not have been more mundane, he said.

A colleague whisked him off to a rural home near Rabat where he met farmers who reminded him of Ireland.

“This guy opens (his door) in a tweed jacket that was all torn up. This is how these old farmers dress in Ireland, and his hands were all calloused and dirty. It just felt very familiar to me,” Slattery said.

“His grandmother had a television hooked up to a car battery for electricity. I spent the weekend there, hanging out with these people, cutting hay and stuff, and I just thought ‘this is Ireland’.”

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Op-Ed Contributor: Labs, Washed Away

BEDPAN ALLEY is the affectionate name given to a stretch of First Avenue in Manhattan that is packed with more hospitals than many cities possess. This stretch also happened to be right in the flood zone during Hurricane Sandy. Water damage and power failures closed down all three of the New York University teaching hospitals — Bellevue Hospital, Tisch Hospital and the Manhattan V.A. Two months later, they are still not admitting patients, though two are on schedule to begin doing so shortly.

The harrowing evacuation of hundreds of patients made headlines nationwide. The disruption of regular medical care for tens of thousands of outpatients was a clinical nightmare that is finally easing. And the education of hundreds of medical students and residents is being patched back together.

All academic medical centers, however, rest on a tripod — patient care, education and research. The effect of the hurricane on the third leg of that tripod — research — has gotten the least attention, partly because rescuing cell cultures just isn’t as dramatic as carrying an I.C.U. patient on a ventilator down flights of stairs in the dark.

But, of course, there is an incontrovertible link between those cell cultures and that patient. For every medication that a patient takes, someone researched the basic chemistry of the drug, someone designed the clinical trial to test its efficacy, and of course a volunteer stepped forward to be the first to take the pill. Scientific research has engineered the impressive advancements of medical treatment, and every patient is a beneficiary.

When the hospitals were hit by Hurricane Sandy, hundreds of experiments were obliterated by the loss of power. Precious biological samples carefully frozen over years were destroyed. Temperature-sensitive reagents and equipment were ruined. Medications and records for patients in clinical trials were rendered inaccessible. And sadly, many laboratory mice and rats perished (though 600 cages of animals were rescued during the night by staff members who used crowbars on inaccessible doors and carried the cages out through holes cut in the ceiling).

On a slushy, rainy day earlier this month, I sat in on a meeting of N.Y.U.’s research community. Hundreds of scientists packed the chilly lecture hall to discuss what the future might hold. It was clear that the damage to laboratories and samples would not be amenable to easy repair. Some 400 researchers were being relocated to a patchwork of temporary sites so that they could restart their work.

But scientists can’t just walk in to a new space with a lab coat and a notebook; they need centrifuges, deep-freezes, lab animals, electron microscopes, incubators, autoclaves, gamma counters, PET scanners. They come with graduate students, lab techs, post-docs and collaborating investigators. For clinical researchers, there are also the patients enrolled in their clinical trials, with their medications and voluminous records.

Even beyond their eagerness to get back to work, researchers felt a sense of loss, not just in time, money, momentum, samples and grants, but of a part of their lives. Some senior scientists lost decades of archived samples. Others lost irreplaceable mice with genetic mutations for studying how coronary plaques resolve, the role of inflammation in lymphoma and the development of neural networks. At the other end of the spectrum were post-docs whose nascent careers were suddenly up in the air. Some were in tears.

Walking down First Avenue after the meeting, I passed a young researcher pushing a cart laden with cages, transporting lab rats to their new home. There was a blanket over the cages to protect them from the rain, but it kept slipping. She slogged up the wet avenue, one hand pushing the cart, the other struggling to keep the cover over her charges.

The logistical efforts to relocate and reignite such a vast research enterprise are staggeringly complicated. But the administration has cataloged each person’s research needs to match them with available space elsewhere, and hundreds of researchers have successfully rekindled their investigations despite the prodigious challenges.

Bellevue and Tisch are returning to their clinical operations and will be able to admit patients shortly. But even after the hospital wards and clinics are bustling at full capacity, the ribbon won’t feel ready to snip until the researchers are restored to their homes as well. For many patients, the thrum of research within a medical center is invisible. But it is an integral — and very human — part of a hospital. When a hurricane disrupts research, it is a loss that resonates well beyond the laboratories.

Danielle Ofri, an associate professor at New York University School of Medicine, is the editor of the Bellevue Literary Review and the author, most recently, of “Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients.”

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Emanuel explores Midway privatization

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration will explore the possibility of privatizing Midway Airport but will take a shorter-term, more tightly controlled approach than was employed by former Mayor Richard Daley's team on the city's first go-round.

Chicago's last try, a 99-year lease that would have brought in $2.5 billion, died in 2009 when the financial markets froze up.

The city's latest intentions are expected to be formally announced Friday, ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline for deciding whether to retain a slot for Midway in the Federal Aviation Administration's airport privatization pilot program. The city put off this decision several times previously.

The move, preliminary as it is, is sure to be politically charged, given the anger over the way Daley's 75-year parking meter privatization deal has played out, with proceeds used to plug operating deficits and meter rates rising sharply.

With that historical backdrop, Emanuel is suggesting a more conservative approach. It includes a shorter-term lease of less than 40 years; a "travelers' bill of rights" aimed at ensuring any changes will benefit passengers; and a continuing stream of revenue for the city, giving it a shot to capture some growth.

And unlike the parking meter and Chicago Skyway lease deals, a new Midway transaction would not allow proceeds to be used to plug operating deficits or to pay for operations in any way, Emanuel said in an interview Thursday.

"I will not let the city use it as a crutch to not make the tough decisions on the budget," he said.

But while a shorter lease and greater city control may play well locally, those sorts of terms may not appeal to investors, experts said in interviews this month.

"The shorter the lease term, the lower the bid prices are going to be — that's just the math," said Steve Steckler, chairman of the Infrastructure Management Group, a Bethesda, Md.-based company that advises infrastructure owners and operators. "I'd be shocked if investors offered more than $2 billion for a 40-year lease," Steckler said.

Emanuel said: "Nobody knows until you talk to people. … I'm the mayor and I'm not agreeing to … 99 years. I'm saying it's either 40 years or less." His office has not offered an estimate of what such a deal could bring in, saying it would be premature.

"No final decisions have been made, but we can't make a decision until we evaluate fully if this could be a win for Chicagoans," Emanuel said.

A private operator would take over management of such revenue-producing activities as food, beverage and car rental concessions and parking lots. The FAA would continue to provide air traffic control, while the Transportation Security Administration would continue to provide security operations. The city would retain ownership.

Few details were provided about how privatization would affect travelers and Midway employees. Emanuel said specifics will emerge over time.

By year's end, the city will send the FAA a preliminary application, a timetable and a draft "request for qualification," a document the city will put out early next year to identify qualified bidders for the project. A review of the potential bidders will be conducted in the spring.

Last year, Emanuel expressed hesitation in pursuing a private lease for Midway unless a careful vetting process was in place, saying taxpayers were correct to be wary, given the city's history.

The evaluation process will be deliberate and open to public view, he said Thursday.

He pledged to create a committee of business, labor and civic leaders that will provide updates to the public on a regular basis and that will select an independent adviser to vet the transaction. The committee will deliver a report to the City Council, and there will be a 30-day review period before any vote.

"I set up a different process and a different set of principles that stand in stark contrast to what was discussed or done in the past," Emanuel said.

The FAA pilot program frees cities from regulations that require airport revenue to be used for airport purposes. It allows money to be withdrawn for other uses.

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Police release photos of man suspected in Rogers Park rape

Police search for man wanted for assault. (WGN - Chicago)

By Rosemary Regina Sobol




Tribune reporter

9:55 a.m. CST, December 20, 2012

Police have released photos of a man suspected of grabbing a woman off the street in the Rogers Park neighborhood and sexually assaulting her in a construction area near the CTA Morse station.

The woman, 50, told police she was walking south on Glenwood around 5:45 a.m. Wednesday when a man wearing a mask grabbed her by the throat near the entrance to the station, according to the police report.

As she screamed, the man dragged her into a construction area and assaulted her, threatening to "snap her neck" if she screamed again, police said.

The woman said she saw a worker at the site and ran toward him as the attacker fled with the woman's clothes and purse, according to the police report. The items were later found in an alley and on the roof of a nearby garage.

Police released surveillance photos of the suspect Wednesday night and asked anyone with information to call 312-744-8200.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @chicagobreaking

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Facebook predicted to overtake Google in mobile display ad revenue this year

Shares of Facebook (FB) have begun to rebound since the company’s disastrous initial public offering this past May. After opening at $ 38 per share the company’s stock plummeted into the mid-20s over the summer months and eventually fell to a low of $ 17.55 in early September. Since then, however, Facebook shares have begun to bounce back after the company posted better-than-expected results in the third quarter. While Facebook stock is still down more than 25% on the year, it is rising steadily as analysts and investors become increasingly bullish about the company’s future as a leading advertising platform.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

According to a new report from eMarketer, Facebook is predicted to surpass Google (GOOG) in mobile display advertising in 2012. Google is expected to generate $ 339 million in mobile ad revenue this year, a significant increase from previous estimates of between $ 45 and $ 100 million. The research firm notes that Facebook is expected to capture an 18.4% share of the mobile display ad market in the U.S. this year, compared to Google’s 17% share, which is down from 23% in 2011.

[More from BGR: New iMac early adopters upset that they can’t run Boot Camp]

“Major ad publishers are strengthening their offerings much faster than previously expected,” said Clark Fredricksen, vice president of communications at eMarketer. “I don’t think anybody thought after the second quarter that Google and Facebook would be in position that they are now in the mobile ad marketplace.”

The company’s mobile ad revenue is expected to more than triple by 2014 when it will reach an estimated $ 1.2 billion. The firm predicts that Facebook and Google will continue to battle for the No.1 spot in the mobile ad market over the next few years. Facebook is expected to increase its lead to 25.2% in 2013, compared to Google’s 19.6% share. Google is estimated to bounce back in 2014, however, with a market leading 23.1% share, ahead of Facebook’s 22.7% share.

Despite the impressive numbers, eMarketer notes that mobile still represents a small slice of the total advertising market. In 2012, only 2.4% of total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to go towards mobile ads, but the market is expected to reach an 11% share by 2016 when it surpasses both radio and print spending.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Thousands mourn U.S.-Mexican singer Jenni Rivera

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Thousands of mourners on Wednesday packed a Los Angeles theater to pay their final respects to Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera more than a week after her death in a plane crash.

Rivera, 43, best known for her work in the Mexican folk Nortena and Banda genres, died after the small jet she was traveling in crashed in northern Mexico on December 9.

Rivera’s family, dressed in white, led the memorial service eulogizing the singer. A bank of white roses was displayed in front of Rivera’s bright red coffin and a brass band performed musical interludes.

More than 6,000 people crowded into the theater about 30 miles north of her childhood home in Long Beach, California. Tickets for the service at the Gibson Amphitheatre sold out within minutes, organizers said.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Rivera was called the “Diva de la Banda.” She sold about 15 million albums and earned a slew of Latin Grammy nominations during her 17-year career.

“Jenni made it OK for women to be who they are,” her manager Pete Salgado said at the service. “Jenni also made it OK to be from nothing, with the hopes of being something.”

Rivera had five children, the first at age 15, and was married three times. Her third husband was baseball pitcher Esteban Loaiza. Rivera’s private life influenced her songs, which often referenced living through hardship.

“She’s a fighter and she knows it’s in all of us,” Rivera’s son Michael said between video tributes.

In recent years, Rivera branched out into television, appearing on a reality television show and serving as a judge on the Mexican version of the singing competition “The Voice.” Television broadcaster ABC was reported to be developing a comedy pilot for the singer.

Rivera’s plane crashed in mountains south of Monterrey killing all seven on board.

The singer was to perform in the city of Toluca, 40 miles southwest of Mexico City, in central Mexico after a concert in Monterrey. It is not clear what caused the crash.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Female Vaccination Workers, Essential in Pakistan, Become Prey

LAHORE, Pakistan — The front-line heroes of Pakistan’s war on polio are its volunteers: young women who tread fearlessly from door to door, in slums and highland villages, administering precious drops of vaccine to children in places where their immunization campaign is often viewed with suspicion.

Now, those workers have become quarry. After militants stalked and killed eight of them over the course of a three-day, nationwide vaccination drive, the United Nations suspended its anti-polio work in Pakistan on Wednesday, and one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health campaigns has been plunged into crisis. A ninth victim died on Thursday, a day after being shot in the northwestern city of Peshawar, The Associated Press reported.

The World Health Organization and Unicef ordered their staff members off the streets, while government officials reported that some polio volunteers — especially women — were afraid to show up for work.

At the ground level, it is those female health workers who are essential, allowed privileged entrance into private homes to meet and help children in situations denied to men because of conservative rural culture. “They are on the front line; they are the backbone,” said Imtiaz Ali Shah, a polio coordinator in Peshawar.

The killings started in the port city of Karachi on Monday, the first day of a vaccination drive aimed at the worst affected areas, with the shooting of a male health worker. On Tuesday four female polio workers were killed, all gunned down by men on motorcycles in what appeared to be closely coordinated attacks.

The hit jobs then moved to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, which, along with the adjoining tribal belt, constitutes Pakistan’s main reservoir of new polio infections. The first victim there was one of two sisters who had volunteered as polio vaccinators. Men on motorcycles shadowed them as they walked from house to house. Once the sisters entered a quiet street, the gunmen opened fire. One of the sisters, Farzana, died instantly; the other was uninjured.

On Wednesday, a man working on the polio campaign was shot dead as he made a chalk mark on the door of a house in a suburb of Peshawar. Later, a female health supervisor in Charsadda, 15 miles to the north, was shot dead in a car she shared with her cousin.

Yet again, Pakistani militants are making a point of attacking women who stand for something larger. In October, it was Malala Yousafzai, a schoolgirl advocate for education who was gunned down by a Pakistani Taliban attacker in the Swat Valley. She was grievously wounded, and the militants vowed they would try again until they had killed her. The result was a tidal wave of public anger that clearly unsettled the Pakistani Taliban.

In singling out the core workers in one of Pakistan’s most crucial public health initiatives, militants seem to have resolved to harden their stance against immunization drives, and declared anew that they consider women to be legitimate targets. Until this week, vaccinators had never been targeted with such violence in such numbers.

Government officials in Peshawar said that they believe a Taliban faction in Mohmand, a tribal area near Peshawar, was behind at least some of the shootings. Still, the Pakistani Taliban have been uncharacteristically silent about the attacks, with no official claims of responsibility. In staying quiet, the militants may be trying to blunt any public backlash like the huge demonstrations over the attack on Ms. Yousafzai.

Female polio workers here are easy targets. They wear no uniforms but are readily recognizable, with clipboards and refrigerated vaccine boxes, walking door to door. They work in pairs — including at least one woman — and are paid just over $2.50 a day. Most days one team can vaccinate 150 to 200 children.

Faced with suspicious or recalcitrant parents, their only weapon is reassurance: a gentle pat on the hand, a shared cup of tea, an offer to seek religious assurances from a pro-vaccine cleric. “The whole program is dependent on them,” said Mr. Shah, in Peshawar. “If they do good work, and talk well to the parents, then they will vaccinate the children.”

That has happened with increasing frequency in Pakistan over the past year. A concerted immunization drive, involving up to 225,000 vaccination workers, drove the number of newly infected polio victims down to 52. Several high-profile groups shouldered the program forward — at the global level, donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations and Rotary International; and at the national level, President Asif Ali Zardari and his daughter Aseefa, who have made polio eradication a “personal mission.”

On a global scale, setbacks are not unusual in polio vaccination campaigns, which, by dint of their massive scale and need to reach deep inside conservative societies, end up grappling with more than just medical challenges. In other campaigns in Africa and South Asia, vaccinators have grappled with natural disaster, virulent opposition from conservative clerics and sudden outbreaks of mysterious strains of the disease.

Declan Walsh reported from Lahore, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Intercontinental to pay $8.2B for NYSE

The IntercontinentalExchange has agreed to buy rival exchange NYSE Euronext for $8.2 billion, as it moves to create one of the top futures markets in Europe and position the combined group to challenge arch rival CME Group.

The two exchanges said in an emailed statement on Thursday ICE had agreed to pay $33.12 a share for NYSE Euronext made up of one third cash and two thirds ICE shares.

NYSE Euronext shares were up more than 30 percent on the news while IntercontinentalExchange Inc. shares reversed earlier declines and were recently up more than 2 percent.

The multi-billion dollar deal designed to push it into the big league of European derivatives and take on arch rival CME Group.

ICE may consider a spin-off or sale of NYSE's stock markets, a source told Reuters. As well as the 200-year old New York exchange, the NYSE also owns bourses in Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Lisbon.

"We can't exclude any option at this stage. It's all down to what regulators will require to get the deal approved, and to the timeframe they will give ICE to meet these targets," a source familiar with the situation told Reuters, adding that a deal was expected to be announced later on Thursday.

ICE has proposed buying NYSE, which also owns derivatives market Liffe, for $33 per share, a 37 percent premium to its Wednesday closing price, CNBC said.

One-third of the deal would be funded by cash and the rest in stock, the source confirmed.

NYSE and ICE representatives declined to comment.

Analysts said a deal would give Atlanta-based ICE a strategic boost with control of Liffe, Europe's second-largest derivatives market, helping it compete against U.S.-based CME Group Inc., owner of the Chicago Board of Trade.

"ICE is after Liffe, that is the crown jewel of NYSE Euronext. ICE could potentially sell the U.S. and European equities business, but could struggle to find a buyer. A spin-off of this business could be more likely," said Peter Lenardos, analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

"Strategically it makes sense for ICE to enter the European derivatives space in a meaningful way, but paying $10 billion -- with debt -- to do so sounds generous for NYSE shareholders and expensive for ICE shareholders.

At the close of trading on Wednesday, NYSE was worth about $5.8 billion, indicating that ICE may be willing to pay roughly $8 billion for the owner of the world's largest stock market.

NYSE shares jumped 12 percent in after-hours trading to $26.96. ICE shares rose 3.1 percent to $132.32.

REGULATORY THUMBS-UP

An ICE-NYSE Euronext tie-up would leap-frog Deutsche Boerse to become the world's third-largest exchange group with a combined market value of $15.2 billion. CME Group, ICE's largest U.S.-based rival, has a market value of $17.5 billion, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is the world's largest exchange group with a market capitalization of $19.5 billion.

ICE's main operations are in energy futures trading and unlike NYSE Euronext, it has steered clear of stocks and stock-options trading, so there is not much business overlap between the two groups, making it more likely competition authorities would approve a tie-up.

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department blocked a $11 billion joint hostile bid by ICE and Nasdaq OMX Group for NYSE Euronext on concerns the tie-up would dominate U.S. stock listings.

If that bid had succeeded, ICE planned to buy NYSE Euronext derivatives business while Nasdaq would have taken control of the stock exchanges.

A rival $9.3 billion bid by German exchange operator Deutsche Boerse also ran afoul of regulators.

"I doubt the competition authorities will have a problem with it, there's only a modest overlap between the businesses," said Richard Perrott, an analyst at Berenberg Bank.

"The rationale for the deal will be the same as that with Deutsche Boerse -- migrate the clearing of Liffe derivatives to ICE's services in London and scale up to attract OTC (Over The Counter) derivatives clearing. There could be more than $300 million in cost savings in the deal."

Before the latest ICE offer emerged, NYSE Euronext's shares had fallen by nearly a third since ICE and Nasdaq launched their thwarted joint bid.

The New York Stock Exchange, known as the Big Board and the symbol of U.S. capitalism, has seen its clout fade as new technology and the rise of private trading venues run by Wall Street banks and brokers cut its margins.

Founded in 2000 as a U.S. electricity trading platform backed by Wall Street banks and energy traders, ICE is the product of a string of acquisitions, from the London-based International Petroleum Exchange in 2001 through the New York Board of Trade and, most recently, a handful of smaller deals, including a climate exchange and a stake in a Brazilian clearing house.

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FBI offering $50,000 for help in capturing prison escapees

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of two convicted robbers who rappelled down the side of a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop, scurrying some 15 floors to freedom on a rope made of bedsheets.

The FBI announced the reward in a brief statement this morning. It said anyone with information can call 312-421-6700.

The daring, carefully planned escape from the Metropolitan Correctional Center Tuesday by Joseph "Jose" Banks and Kenneth Conley shocked federal law enforcement officials who scrambled to find the two violent bank robbers on a desperate run.

FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde says there are no developments to report this morning. "Unfortunately, we don't have any new news," she said. "Our focus is still primarily on the Chicago metropolitan area."

The hulking federal jail with its narrow slits for windows has defied escape attempts. This marked only the second successful one and the first in almost three decades. Just three years ago, however, a brother of a famous Hollywood director was caught with 31 feet of roped bedsheets in his cell.

The two escapees made for memorable bank robbers — Banks for his goofy disguises and Conley for flaunting his cash loot a short time later at the strip club where he worked.

Banks and Conley were present for a 10 p.m. check Monday, but by 7 a.m., MCC employees arriving for work saw the crudely wrapped rope dangling on the south side of the building, still swinging in the wind.

Guards found the window in their cell broken and the makeshift rope tied to its bars, federal authorities revealed late Tuesday in filing escape charges against the pair. Numerous articles of clothing and sheets were piled under a blanket in both their beds to make it appear they were asleep for the standard overnight bed checks.

In addition, authorities found metal bars from the window in a mattress as well fake bars in the cell, suggesting the two had gone to some lengths to cover their tracks as they prepared their escape.

But exactly how Banks and Conley slipped through a window just 5 inches wide was not immediately clear.

"You've got to be a contortionist to pull that one off," said Scott Fawell, a top aide of convicted former Gov. George Ryan. Fawell spent about eight months at the MCC for corruption.

However, one law enforcement source said Banks and Conley may have removed a cinder block from beneath the window to make a bigger opening to slip out.

The jail, at 71 W. Van Buren St., was placed on lockdown after the break was discovered and visits with inmates were canceled, according to several criminal defense attorneys who had planned to meet with clients. The facility, which is operated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, opened in 1975 and houses about 700 inmates.

Conley and Banks were last seen in suburban Tinley Park and are believed to be together. Banks, 37, was described as black, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds, while Conley, 38, is white, 6 feet and 185 pounds.

Banks could have as much as $500,000 stashed away, according to testimony at his trial. He stole a combined $589,000 in two robberies, but only about $80,000 had been recovered or accounted for through Banks' purchases, prosecutors said.

The FBI called Banks one of the most prolific bank robbers in Chicago history, saying at the time of his arrest in 2008 that he was suspected in about 20 heists. However, he was charged in only two bank robberies and two attempted holdups. A jury convicted him on all counts last week.

An aspiring clothes designer, Banks was caught on bank surveillance tapes in 2007 and 2008 jumping bank counters and directing employees to empty vaults while wearing a fake beard. He was dubbed the Second Hand Bandit because of the discount clothing he wore during the robberies.

On the day he was scheduled to go to trial in late October, Conley abruptly pleaded guilty to robbing a Homewood bank in 2011 while brandishing a pistol and threatening a teller.

"If you don't give (the money) to me, I will put them in your head," he allegedly said.

Conley then went to the Chicago Heights strip club where he worked while still dressed in the black suit and white tie he wore during the holdup, flashing cash around, prosecutors alleged. He paid off a $400 debt before telling co-workers he was jetting off to Bermuda, according to the charges.

Conley, incarcerated at the MCC since October 2011, faces a maximum 20 years, while Banks, who has been in custody since 2008, could be hit with an 80-year sentence. An escape conviction carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Early in the day the search for the duo zeroed in on Tinley Park, where Conley lived and where the two had last been spotted, authorities said. SWAT teams searched the home of a Conley relative, but the investigators missed the two by a few hours, authorities said.

Helicopters hovered above the southwest suburb and streets were blocked by police squads as the search continued. The SWAT team walked the nearby streets with dogs as neighbors followed behind, snapping pictures with their phones. About two blocks down, the officers searched the Metra stop.

In the wake of the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Tinley Park officials notified local schools and dispatched police officers to school buildings closest to where the search was under way.

Federal and local law enforcement also charged into Conley's old strip club, Club 390, surprising staff and patrons, in an attempt to find him, staff said.

FBI agents first showed up at the Chicago Heights club early Tuesday morning, hours before its 11 a.m. opening. The agents questioned an employee who told them she hadn't seen Conley, staff said.

Sheriff's deputies returned around 1 p.m., bursting into the club in police gear and scattering the lunch crowd, employees said. A few officers questioned staff and searched the building, including the dancers' dressing room and women's bathroom. Plainclothes officers remained seated in the darkness at the periphery of the stage around 3 p.m.

A mug shot of Conley was posted near the cash register at the bar.

Authorities were chasing numerous tips into the night Tuesday, but the search so far remained focused on Chicago and the suburbs.

A woman who answered at the home of a relative of Conley said the day's events were "very upsetting for everyone" and declined further comment.

The Banks family learned of the escape while watching the morning news, said Banks' cousin, Theresa Ann Banks, who pleaded for her cousin to turn himself in.

"I just don't want to see him get hurt or killed," she said in a shaky voice. "(The family) is trying to hold themselves together. We just have to have faith in God and hope everything goes right."

Banks represented himself at the trial, challenging U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer so much that he was briefly strapped into a restraint chair during the trial. In court filings, he identified himself as "Joseph Banks-Bey," a Moorish national, and made legal filings defying the court's jurisdiction.

He offered a long, rambling closing that Pallmeyer finally cut off because Banks would not stop making wild accusations that the government had "trumped" up the charges and rigged photo lineups in the case.

The law enforcement source said security had been stepped up for Pallmeyer and the prosecutors involved in Banks' trial.

Tribune reporter Adam Sege contributed.

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Facebook CEO Zuckerberg donating $500M in stock

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he is donating nearly $ 500 million in stock to a Silicon Valley charity with the aim of funding health and education issues.

Zuckerberg donated 18 million Facebook shares, valued at $ 498.8 million based on their Tuesday closing price. The beneficiary is the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works with donors to allocate their gifts.

This is Zuckerberg’s largest donation to date. He pledged $ 100 million in Facebook stock to Newark, N.J., public schools in 2010, before his company went public earlier this year. Later in 2010, he joined Giving Pledge, an effort led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. CEO Warren Buffett to get the country’s richest people to donate most of their wealth. His wife, Priscilla Chan, joined with him.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Zuckerberg, 28, said he’s “proud of the work” done by the foundation that his Newark donation launched, called Startup: Education, which has helped open charter schools, high schools and others.

With the latest contribution, he added, “we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next.” He did not give further details on what plans there may be for funds.

“Mark’s generous gift will change lives and inspire others in Silicon Valley and around the globe to give back and make the world a better place,” said Emmett D. Carson, CEO of the foundation.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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