After 9 years, Bears and Smith part ways

Chicago Tribune sports columnist Steve Rosenbloom on the Bears firing Lovie Smith. (Posted: Dec 31, 2012)

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.

Armstrong better, Green Day to resume tour in 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Green Day is going back out on the road.

The Grammy-winning punk band announced new tour dates Monday.

The band canceled the rest of its 2012 club schedule and postponed the start of a 2013 arena tour after singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong‘s substance abuse problems emerged publicly in September when he had a profane meltdown on the stage of the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Armstrong told fans in a statement Monday that he’s “getting better every day” and “the show must go on.”

The tour is scheduled to begin March 28 at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago area.

The band released its most recent album, “Tre,” on Dec. 11, more than a month ahead of schedule.

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Essay: In Pursuit of Answers One May Not Want to Know

I jogged into the Stanford Cancer Clinic with my boyfriend, the youngest people there by two decades. We stood there sweating and holding hands, a jarring sight in the sickly light.

“You are 18, right?” the receptionist asked. Behind me, a woman so gaunt that her cheekbones protruded rolled by in a wheelchair. The oncologist called me alone to the exam room, and I told her the story I had revealed to more doctors than friends: I carry the BRCA1 mutation, which gives you a 98 percent chance of developing cancer.

When my family found out that I might have inherited the mutation from my mother, we took it as a given that I would get tested. Scientists, atheists and lawyers, we are compulsively rational. Yet when I learned I carried the mutation, I felt the cruel weight of a paradox: you can never know whether you want to know until you already do.

At Stanford, I study artificial intelligence, in which math is used to resolve these sorts of dilemmas. My teachers claim that gaining information never hurts. It can be proved mathematically that a robot with more information never makes worse decisions But we are not robots. Our eyes don’t filigree the world with coordinates and probabilities, and they can be blinded by tears.

Still, we, too, display a preference for information. We dislike uncertainty so strongly that we sometimes even prefer bad news. One study of people at risk for a terminal disease found that those who learned they were going to die from it were happier a year later than those who remained uncertain about their fates. Most people have a deep intuition that a life lived cleareyed has inherent value, independent of whether the truth makes you happy. But surely this has limits.

I know there are some things I do not want to know: which other girls my boyfriend finds attractive or the day and manner of my death. The truth can hurt in two ways. It can worsen your options: you can’t live as happily with a significant other after learning of his infidelity. Or it can make you irrational: hearing about terrorists targeting airplanes may lead you to drive instead of fly, though planes remain much safer than cars.

So was I wrong to unwind my double helix?

My risks of getting cancer at 21 are too low for me to do anything differently to better my odds. The knowledge is both irrelevant and painful; it’s obsessed me and made me behave irrationally. I wake from nightmares in which I am dying from cancer. I reread the memoirs of patients with metastatic disease until I can’t see the text through my tears. In my supposedly rational pursuit of knowledge, I’ve gone a little mad.

Despite an excess of information, I pursued more, enrolling in Stanford’s cancer biology class. The professor filled his slides with dark oncological puns, lecturing with the almost robotic detachment I sometimes see in those who work closely with cancer. Maybe I, too, am becoming robotic. I can laugh at the puns, calmly press lecturers on survival rates for breast cancer, marvel at the elegant molecular mechanisms by which it eats us alive. Just as tumors eventually swell too large for their hosts to endure, will all this knowledge grow past what I can handle?

The prospect was too much for my mother, a far tougher woman than I am. When she received a diagnosis of breast cancer, she ordered the doctors to give her chemotherapy as rapidly as possible and recovered completely. But she refused to learn her chances of long-term survival or look at her medical records. I became the first in my family to read them, and when I learned her cancer had been unusually lethal, my father asked me not to tell her.

I cannot shake the thought that this mutation was given to me for a reason. I don’t believe in God. I know my chromosomes divided along a random schism, not a divine skein. But while I reject the theist’s idea of God-granted purpose, I accept the existentialist’s idea of crafting your own. The world may be only sound and fury, but we can choose to see patterns in that chaos, stories in the stars.

So I choose to believe that I have been given this mutation so that I can discover how to overcome it. Like the protagonist in “Flowers for Algernon,” I will be both scientist and patient. Even if this sense of purpose is illusory, it lets me do what I couldn’t before. Fear has sharpened me: I wake at 3 in the morning to refine biological algorithms or to read papers on ovarian cancer.

While I believe this knowledge has made me live better, I am not sure it’s made me happier. True, there was the day I dropped by Stanford’s Relay for Life, a fund-raiser for cancer research, ran farther than I ever had and walked home full of joyful purpose. There was also the night I lost it completely and sobbed for hours in my boyfriend’s arms.

In this oscillation between light and dark, one thing remains constant: I’m no longer so eager to illuminate my fate. Recently, I went to the Web site of 23andMe, a company that will read from your genome your risk of dying from a hundred diseases. I clicked through the testimonials and was unnerved by how similar our reasons were for wanting information. I looked down at my fingertips, tempted: what else in my genome waits to be found?

But then I clicked away. The Bible doesn’t tell us if Eve ate any more apples, but I have had my fill of revelations. I am 21 years old, and I want to be free to live a normal life: fate unbound by double helix, future exploding with possibility. I don’t want to know.

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.

Ten Worst Films Of 2012

I don’t necessarily enjoy highlighting the bad stuff. I do like to give every film a chance, in spite of possible preconceptions. As such, I try to see as much as possible of what’s released and as a consequence I inevitably end up watching films that aren’t very good.

These rank as the worst films I saw in 2012 through either paucity of ambition, cynical laziness or just plain misjudgement of themes and execution. The list includes feature films that received a UK general release between January 1st and December 31st 2012, on any format, but doesn’t include festival-only showings.

It also includes the 11-20 spots, for context:

20. Where Do We Go Now? (dir: Nadine Labaki)
19. What To Expect When You’re Expecting (dir: Kirk Jones)
18. Offender (dir: Ron Scalpello)
17. Jack And Jill (dir: Dennis Dugan)
16. Lovely Molly (dir: Eduardo Sánchez)
15. To Rome With Love (dir: Woody Allen)
14. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (dirs: Kyle Balda, Chris Renaud)
13. The Wedding Video (dir: Nigel Cole)
12. 360 (dir: Fernando Meirelles)
11. The Devil Inside (dir: William Brent Bell)

10. W.E. (dir: Madonna)

There’s arguably the scope for one interesting story here. There’s certainly not room for the offensive modern-day tale weaved throughout this.

9. Piranha 3DD (dir: John Gulager)

It’s not meant to be serious but that doesn’t mean it needs to be this bad. Woefully unfunny and over-reliant on a misfiring star cameo. Makes the first installment look like Jaws.

8. Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger! (dir: Debbie Isitt)

Cynical, with a suffocating improvvy script and reliance on thinking children 'acting naturally' is grounds enough to neglect just how chronic every element of it is.

7. A Few Best Men (dir: Stephan Elliott)

Filled with the very worst elements of farce and uniformly grim performances from a cast playing a coterie of laddish pricks and female characters who are either insipid or punchlines.

6. This Means War (dir: McG)

A charmless, sloppily edited mess that takes a weak joke and stretches it to breaking point, further proving action and romcoms rarely mix. It's a love story where all parties concerned are thoroughly unlikeable and completely dishonest with each other throughout.

5. Project X (dir: Nima Nourizadeh)

Absolutely deplorable, mindless found footage comedy which takes a scene which might pad out a flabby midsection of another teen comedy and stretches it to feature length – with added casual homophobia, disablism and misogyny.

4. Love Bite (dir: Andy De Emmony)

An abysmal, cynical stab at marrying a comedy-horror model with a queasily obvious attempt to ape the success of The Inbetweeners. Fails on all counts, making you look back on the golden era of Horne and Corden's Lesbian Vampire Killers with a warm glow of fond nostalgia.

3. Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy (dir: Rob Heydon)

An abominable druggy drama with an awful script and even worse performances. The riffing on Trainspotting is so broad that at times it borders on parody - only minus any of the wit, charm or flair of its progenitor. The Scottish accents on display make Mike Myers sound born-and-bred.

2. Tim And Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (dirs: Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim)

It attempts to break down the mystery of comedy and deconstruct the film through dry examinations of jokes and parodies of movie tropes but they fall completely flat at every turn. Not clever enough to succeed as a satire or outrageous enough to succeed in the gross out stakes, it is one thing to parody awful movies but that doesn’t make it exempt from being an awful movie itself.

1. Keith Lemon: The Film (dir: Paul Angunawela)

An ITV2 vision of cinema.

Top Ten Films Of 2012

This list represents the best new films I saw throughout the year and includes feature films that received a UK general release between January 1st and December 31st 2012, on any format, but doesn’t include festival-only showings.

It also includes the 11-20 spots, for context:

20. The Hunter (dir: Daniel Nettheim)
19. Skyfall (dir: Sam Mendes)
18. War Horse (dir: Steven Spielberg)
17. Life Of Pi (dir: Ang Lee)
16. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (dir: Matthew Akers)
15. Moonrise Kingdom (dir: Wes Anderson)
14. A Royal Affair (dir: Nikolaj Arcel)
13. Martha Marcy May Marlene (dir: Sean Durkin)
12. Jeff, Who Lives At Home (dirs: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass)
11. 21 Jump Street (dirs: Phil Lord, Chris Miller)

The Dark Knight Rises (dir: Christopher Nolan)

Christopher Nolan rounds off one of the greatest blockbuster trilogies of our time with a film that’s grander in scope than either of the previous entries. It’s a rousing finale that provides resolution to every aspect of the series with epic finality. Tom Hardy’s Bane belies his lesser status in the canon of Batman villains with unexpected eloquence and baffling vocal gymnastics while Anne Hathaway remodels Catwoman as a technologically advanced noir femme fatale. Christian Bale imbues the eight-years-older Bruce Wayne with a sense of emotional and physical damage that’s rarely seen in this genre. More often than not it’s when Wayne is onscreen, rather than Batman, that the most profound moments play out. It’s not entirely cohesive but the spirit is there and Nolan’s anchoring of potentially silly aspects in a heightened form of reality is satisfyingly handled.

The Imposter (dir: Bart Layton)

This documentary with the qualities of a whodunnit skilfully weaves a tale of true-life intrigue with genuine cinematic flair. It tells the most fantastically preposterous story of identity theft - if only it weren’t for the fact it all actually happened. As revelation is heaped upon revelation it twists and turns, leaving your heart pounding and breathing shallow. Frédéric Bourdin’s recounting of events makes for chillingly compelling viewing and forms an equally fascinating psychological study that’s never overplayed in the narrative. There’s artistry in the way the film has been assembled with such precision in its balance of reconstructions, talking heads and archive footage. Director Bart Layton offers the opportunity to question the sources and accuracy of the words and story as they are presented on screen and ultimately leaves you to form your own conclusions.

Dredd (dir: Pete Travis)

Dredd’s strongest suit comes as a result of its limitations. With a low budget, in relative terms, for a comic book movie it takes an approach which doesn’t see it make a hash of doing grand scale on-the-cheap, but instead limits the action to one superbly realised location. That allows the film to focus on creating richer characters with a truer sense of purpose. It features not only two genre-defying, well rounded female characters in rookie Judge Anderson and the villain, Ma-Ma, but also allows for some nuance in the Judge Dredd character himself. Mega-City One is given a grounded aesthetic and a visually revolutionary use of slow motion imagery which has rarely looked as good, or made as much sense, as it does here. With a lean running time that fits its story perfectly it is brutal, confident and streamlined.

About Elly... (dir: Asghar Farhadi)

What begins relatively sedately, following a group of Iranian friends visiting a remote villa, gradually shifts to something more uneasy as the eponymous Elly disappears. Simmering tensions and questions of honour are brought to the surface. It never comes to a head in the way that might be expected but the power of the film comes from the sense of dread created through characterisation alone. As blame is apportioned and human frailty is exposed, the ratcheting tension is palpable. The dynamics between the different couples which make up the party are enthralling. It has more to say about domestic life in Iran than it does about the missing person and so while not a thriller in a traditional sense, it has enough textured elements to make it thrilling. Emotionally mature and occasionally agonising, it's a work of quiet tragedy that rarely sets a foot wrong.

Magic Mike (dir: Steven Soderbergh)

Among the chiselled abs, glistening buns and thrusting phalluses there's a fantastic central performance from Channing Tatum that manages to convey the internal struggle of reconciling his career as a stripper against his artistic ambition. The sense of a look behind the scenes at an interesting industry works well. It most reminiscent of The Wrestler at times and the backroom scenes of oiled-up badinage are a lot of fun. It manages to be both moving and funny when required and individual performances have a naturalism that includes fluffed lines and awkward silences. Alongside Tatum’s central role, Matthew McConaughey is particularly impressive as the club frontman. There's a real sense of location both interior and exterior and it’s a sodium yellow joy to look at, with some fascinatingly structured shots. The choreography is great and, regardless of your views on male nudity, captivatingly handled. It’s an excellent character piece from Steven Soderbergh that sits alongside, and completely outclasses, his thematically similar The Girlfriend Experience.

Barbara (dir: Christian Petzold)

Set in East Germany in 1980, it beguiles as it unravels with emotion conveyed through unspoken interactions rather than overtly dramatic exchanges. Intrigue and untold stories lie at the heart of this tale and it mesmerises and captivates with every frame. Barbara is a character at odds with her surroundings; a flash of sultry glamour among the drab surroundings of the rural GDR, where she’s been forcefully relocated. The entire atmosphere of the film, from windswept landscape to costume, is so precisely handled that every element feels like a piece of Barbara’s psyche, adding to her outsider status. While dealing with a political situation it’s not a political film as much as it is a human story about an individual and her own inner turmoil. At its heart it’s a relationship drama where the air is thick with mistrust. Nina Hoss gives a central performance which is a wonder of silent intensity culminating in a quietly devastating final scene.

The Kid With A Bike (dirs: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)

Featuring one of the finest ever performances by a child actor, the Dardennes paint a picture of the underclass of Belgian society with an air of grim authenticity and eminent humanity. They place the perspective of the film with that of the kid of the title, Cyril (Thomas Doret), who is a mess of emotions, not least of which is stoicism in the face of abandonment by his father. Cécile de France gives an equally impressive performance as the hairdresser who takes him under her wing at the expense of her own comfort and struggles to adapt to his problematic behaviour. It never quite plays out in expected ways and doesn’t offer easy solutions to societal problems. The characters might not always be likeable but they’re never less than fully formed human beings. Functioning as both a hard-edged social realist drama and verging on pulse-quickening thriller at times, the sense of balance it maintains is masterful. Uplifting without being saccharine and with enough sociological bite to keep it focused.

The Avengers (dir: Joss Whedon)

The Avengers is quite simply a heroic feat that pulls together the disparate elements of four other franchises and fashions them into a coherent, delirious whole. Not only does it work in its own right but it serves as an excellent punctuation point and umbrella third act for each film that lead up to it. It gets as close as cinema has come to capturing the spirit of comic books on the big screen. Every character is given a moment to shine so no one part feels bigger than the ensemble. Joss Whedon’s script is smart enough to know exactly what elements are required to make a film as ridiculous as this fly and that characterisation is the most important of the lot. No concessions are made to grounding this in reality as to do that would be unnecessary padding in this universe. In spite of the film’s greatest successes occurring in the dialogue scenes it doesn’t forget that spectacle counts. The maxim ‘the bigger the better’ is clearly at the forefront and the visually stunning tour de force finale exemplifies that completely.

The Master (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson)

More demanding than any of his previous films and certainly more discordant, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is Hollywood filmmaking which takes delight in confounding. This is not a film which concerns itself with grandiose character arcs so much as it prefers to linger on the shifting sands of the relationship and power struggle between not only Joaquin Phoenix’s Freddie Quell and Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd, but also Amy Adams as Dodd’s wife, Peggy. The question of the nascent religion which the film is centred around is only a defining factor inasmuch as it raises the question of just how key the positions of master and follower are in these characters’ lives. There is a real sense of development in the characters and they feel lived-in. Quell is petulant and infuriating but there’s a depth to him that cements this as a frankly remarkable performance from Phoenix. From the avant-garde editing and stunning cinematography from Mihai Malaimare Jr to Jonny Greenwood’s dissonant score, it’s a visual and aural joy. It’s a rich, heady mix which simultaneously invigorates and numbs the senses, exuding a sense of otherness in every frame and requiring that you invest in the world and its minutiae.

Young Adult (dir: Jason Reitman)

As bland as the film’s hook sounds this pitch black comedy about facing up to your past and whether it should, or could, be recaptured is a dark delight with a smart script from Diablo Cody. Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, an author of young adult fiction who returns to her hometown not as local hero but just another relic of the past for people whose lives have moved on. It’s that dynamic that makes her mission to rekindle a relationship with her high school sweetheart all the more depressingly tasteless. It's in the Grosse Pointe Blank vein but it doesn't ask us to accept that she’s seeking redemption of some sort. It's an exposé of just how venal and shallow people can be and that no matter how much water passes under the bridge, people rarely change. At its core is a refreshingly brave performance from Theron who's not afraid of looking unflattering and playing an emotionally ugly character. Its beauty hinges on the fact it’s a psychological drama masquerading as comedy. From the subtlety of Cody’s characterisation of Mavis (not least in the things left unsaid like her owning one dog named Dolce), it’s a career best from both her and director Jason Reitman. At an absolutely lean 95 minutes of thoroughly unrepentant behaviour it pitches everything perfectly, right down to the unexpected, but thoroughly fitting, ending.

4th quarter: Bears 26, Lions 24

The Chicago Bears did their part Sunday, beating the Detroit Lions 26-24. Now they need help from the Green Bay Packers, who must beat the Minnesota Vikings to send the Bears into the playoffs.

The victory didn't come easily. The Lions cut the Bears' lead to 26-24 on a 9-yard Matthew Stafford pass to Brian Robiskie with 6:55 to play in the game. The nine-play, 80-yard drive was kept alive by an unnecessary roughness penalty on linebacker Lance Briggs for a hit on a sliding Stafford.

Olindo Mare's fourth field goal -- this one from 20 yards out -- boosted the Bears' lead to 26-17 with 10:47 left. It capped an 11-play, 59-yard drive that took 4:25 off the clock.

Mare's 28-yard field goal increased the Bears' lead to 23-17 with 1:50 left in the third quarter. The score was set up when safety Major Wright came up with the Lions' fourth turnover of the day, recovering a Mikel Leshoure fumble at the Detroit 13.

Detroit fought back and trimmed the Bears' once-commanding lead to 20-17 with a 10-yard TD pass from Matthew Stafford to Will Heller at the 6:35 mark of the third quarter.

The Lions cut the Bears' lead to 20-10 just before halftime, as Stafford hit Kris Durham on a 25-yard TD pass with 12 seconds to play before intermission.

Mare's 40-yard field goal extended the Bears' lead to 20-3 with 1:49 to play.

Tim Jennings made his league-high ninth interception with 2:38 left in the half to put the Bears' offense back in business inside Lions territory.

Matt Forte's 1-yard touchdown run -- after a pass-interference call against Detroit drawn by Brandon Marshall -- gave the Bears a 17-3 lead with 3:26 to go in the first half.

The Bears' defense delivered again to set up the score. Israel Idonije knocked the ball from quarterback Matthew Stafford's hand and Julius Peppers recovered on the Lions' 10-yard line.

Mare's 33-yard field goal gave the Bears a 10-3 lead with 2:59 left in the first quarter. Joe Anderson forced a fumble on the kickoff after the Bears' first score and Eric Weems recovered, setting up Mare's kick.

Mare blew a chance to extend the lead, missing a 43-yard attempt wide right with just under five minutes remaining in the half.

The Bears grabbed a 7-3 lead when Earl Bennett caught a screen pass from Jay Cutler and took it 60 yards for a touchdown with 4:33 left in the first quarter.

The Lions struck first, with Jason Hanson connecting on a 44-yard field goal for a 3-0 Detroit lead with 5:54 to go in the quarter. The kick came after replay overturned a fumble that had been ruled on Stafford and recovered by the Bears.

The Bears' offense started well, with Cutler hitting receiver Alshon Jeffery for a 55-yard gain on their first play. But the drive sputtered and the Bears were forced to punt.

The Bears have been to the playoffs three times under coach Lovie Smith, with the last playoff appearance coming in 2010.

General manager Phil Emery had praise for Smith while speaking before the game on WBBM-AM (780).

"Great team-first person," Emery said of Smith. "He's done an outstanding job coaching the Bears."

As to whether Smith must reach the playoffs to retain his job, Emery said, "When you're evaluating players, you're always looking for body of work. No different when you're evaluating coaches.

"It's is the full season, and the whole body of work. ... It's about steady progress toward our goals, which is to win championships.''

As for needing help from Green Bay to reach the playoffs, Emery said, "We're rooting against Minnesota. ... We're not rooting for Green Bay."
 
fmitchell@tribune.com

Twitter@kicker34

‘The Hobbit’ stays atop box office for third week

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” continues to rule them all at the box office, staying on top for a third-straight week with nearly $ 33 million.

The Warner Bros. fantasy epic from director Peter Jackson, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien novel, has made $ 222.7 million domestically alone.

Two big holiday movies — and potential awards contenders — also had strong openings. Quentin Tarantino‘s spaghetti Western-blaxploitation mash-up “Django Unchained” came in second place for the weekend with $ 30.7 million. The Weinstein Co. revenge epic, starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, has earned $ 64 million since its Christmas Day opening.

And in third place with $ 28 million was the sweeping, all-singing “Les Miserables.” The Universal Pictures musical starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway has made $ 67.5 million since debuting on Christmas.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: ‘The Hobbit’ stays atop box office for third week
Rating:
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Well: Exercise and the Ever-Smarter Human Brain

Anyone whose resolve to exercise in 2013 is a bit shaky might want to consider an emerging scientific view of human evolution. It suggests that we are clever today in part because a million years ago, we could outrun and outwalk most other mammals over long distances. Our brains were shaped and sharpened by movement, the idea goes, and we continue to require regular physical activity in order for our brains to function optimally.

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

The role of physical endurance in shaping humankind has intrigued anthropologists and gripped the popular imagination for some time. In 2004, the evolutionary biologists Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard and Dennis M. Bramble of the University of Utah published a seminal article in the journal Nature titled “Endurance Running and the Evolution of Homo,” in which they posited that our bipedal ancestors survived by becoming endurance athletes, able to bring down swifter prey through sheer doggedness, jogging and plodding along behind them until the animals dropped.

Endurance produced meals, which provided energy for mating, which meant that adept early joggers passed along their genes. In this way, natural selection drove early humans to become even more athletic, Dr. Lieberman and other scientists have written, their bodies developing longer legs, shorter toes, less hair and complicated inner-ear mechanisms to maintain balance and stability during upright ambulation. Movement shaped the human body.

But simultaneously, in a development that until recently many scientists viewed as unrelated, humans were becoming smarter. Their brains were increasing rapidly in size.

Today, humans have a brain that is about three times larger than would be expected, anthropologists say, given our species’ body size in comparison with that of other mammals.

To explain those outsized brains, evolutionary scientists have pointed to such occurrences as meat eating and, perhaps most determinatively, our early ancestors’ need for social interaction. Early humans had to plan and execute hunts as a group, which required complicated thinking patterns and, it’s been thought, rewarded the social and brainy with evolutionary success. According to that hypothesis, the evolution of the brain was driven by the need to think.

But now some scientists are suggesting that physical activity also played a critical role in making our brains larger.

To reach that conclusion, anthropologists began by looking at existing data about brain size and endurance capacity in a variety of mammals, including dogs, guinea pigs, foxes, mice, wolves, rats, civet cats, antelope, mongooses, goats, sheep and elands. They found a notable pattern. Species like dogs and rats that had a high innate endurance capacity, which presumably had evolved over millenniums, also had large brain volumes relative to their body size.

The researchers also looked at recent experiments in which mice and rats were systematically bred to be marathon runners. Lab animals that willingly put in the most miles on running wheels were interbred, resulting in the creation of a line of lab animals that excelled at running.

Interestingly, after multiple generations, these animals began to develop innately high levels of substances that promote tissue growth and health, including a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. These substances are important for endurance performance. They also are known to drive brain growth.

What all of this means, says David A. Raichlen, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona and an author of a new article about the evolution of human brains appearing in the January issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology, is that physical activity may have helped to make early humans smarter.

“We think that what happened” in our early hunter-gatherer ancestors, he says, is that the more athletic and active survived and, as with the lab mice, passed along physiological characteristics that improved their endurance, including elevated levels of BDNF. Eventually, these early athletes had enough BDNF coursing through their bodies that some could migrate from the muscles to the brain, where it nudged the growth of brain tissue.

Those particular early humans then applied their growing ability to think and reason toward better tracking prey, becoming the best-fed and most successful from an evolutionary standpoint. Being in motion made them smarter, and being smarter now allowed them to move more efficiently.

And out of all of this came, eventually, an ability to understand higher math and invent iPads. But that was some time later.

The broad point of this new notion is that if physical activity helped to mold the structure of our brains, then it most likely remains essential to brain health today, says John D. Polk, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and co-author, with Dr. Raichlen, of the new article.

And there is scientific support for that idea. Recent studies have shown, he says, that “regular exercise, even walking,” leads to more robust mental abilities, “beginning in childhood and continuing into old age.”

Of course, the hypothesis that jogging after prey helped to drive human brain evolution is just a hypothesis, Dr. Raichlen says, and almost unprovable.

But it is compelling, says Harvard’s Dr. Lieberman, who has worked with the authors of the new article. “I fundamentally agree that there is a deep evolutionary basis for the relationship between a healthy body and a healthy mind,” he says, a relationship that makes the term “jogging your memory” more literal than most of us might have expected and provides a powerful incentive to be active in 2013.

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.

Chicago police backtrack after confirming 500th homicide

Chicago police investigate the scene of a fatal shooting in the 1000 block of North Lavergne on Chicago's West Side. (Chris Sweda/ Chicago Tribune)

Hours after Chicago police listed the shooting death of a West Side man as the city’s 500th homicide of the year, the department backtracked and said the city has yet to reach the grim milestone.

Superintendent Garry McCarthy had told the Tribune Thursday afternoon that the homicide count stood at 499. Hours later, Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40, was gunned down outside a store in the Austin neighborhood and the department confirmed Friday morning that his death was the 500th homicide. Mayor Rahm Emanuel released a statement noting that "Chicago has reached an unfortunate and tragic milestone."

But then the department issued its own statement calling reports of the tally inaccurate, saying the number remained at 499.  Asked for clarification, a spokeswoman for the superintendent said one of the homicide cases from earlier this week has been reclassified as a death investigation.

The case in question is last Saturday’s death of 57-year-old Edward Phelps. He died following a domestic-related altercation in the 0-99 block of North Long Avenue in Austin, police said.

Although he appeared to have suffered a blunt force injury, his autopsy on Sunday at the Cook County medical examiner’s office was ruled inconclusive, pending toxicological studies.

Still, police classified Phelps’ death as a homicide in the days following the autopsy, according to internal reports. It wasn’t until this afternoon that McCarthy’s spokeswoman, Melissa Stratton, citing the autopsy results, said the department reclassified the case as a death investigation.

McCarthy has been under fire because of the climbing number of homicides this year. As of Thursday night, homicides were up 17 percent over last year in Chicago and shootings had increased by 11 percent, according to police statistics.

Largely contributing to the spike was the unusual number of homicides that occurred during the early part of the year, when the  city experienced unseasonable warmth. In the first three months of the year, homicides ran about 60 percent ahead of the 2011 rate.

The city's latest homicide occurred around 9 p.m. Thursday when someone walked up and shot Jackson in the  head outside Noah Foods at Augusta Boulevard and Lavergne Avenue, police said.

Police tapped on apartment windows and knocked on doors looking for witnesses. A few bullet casings, which police believed were from a .45-caliber handgun, were found near the blood-stained sidewalk in front of the store. Police had no motive and no one was in custody.

Jackson's family sat for three hours in a waiting room at Stroger Hospital when staff members finally walked in and told them Jackson had died. Relatives stood up and exchanged tight embraces.

Jackson grew up on the West Side, a few miles from where he was gunned down, and had been released from prison this past summer after serving a sentence for robbery. He had been shot several years ago, after an earlier stint in jail, and a cousin said she constantly warned him to be careful on the street.

"The last time he was out, someone had shot him several times, in the back,"  Gave Bates said as she stood outside Stroger Hospital, where Jackson was pronounced dead shortly after midnight. "He was a fighter, he was a survivor."

Bates smiled through tears as she swiped her hand across her phone, flipping through pictures of her cousin playing around and striking goofy poses.

"He was a lot of fun, very good at imitating people," Bates said. "He just had so much fun all the time. And we all grew up together in the same house."

gorner@tribune.com

pnickeas@tribune.com

Twitter: @peternickeas

Katie Holmes’ Broadway play ‘Dead Accounts’ closes

NEW YORK (AP) — Katie Holmes‘ return to Broadway will be much shorter than she would have liked.

The former Mrs. Cruise‘s play “Dead Accounts” will close within a week of the new year. Producers said Thursday that Theresa Rebeck‘s drama will close on Jan. 6 after 27 previews and 44 performances.

The show, which opened to poor reviews on Nov. 29, stars Norbert Leo Butz as Holmes’ onstage brother who returns to his Midwest home with a secret. Rebeck created the first season of NBC’s “Smash” and several well-received plays including “Seminar” and “Mauritius.”

Holmes, who became a star in the teen soap opera “Dawson’s Creek,” made her Broadway debut in the 2008 production of “All My Sons.” She was married to Tom Cruise from 2006 until this year.

___

Online: http://www.deadaccountsonbroadway.com

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Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Senator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center.

NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients.

While the medical center had been treating many outpatients, it had farmed out surgery to other hospitals, which created scheduling problems that forced many patients to have their operations on nights and weekends, when staffing is traditionally low. Some patients and doctors had to postpone not just elective but also necessary operations for lack of space at other hospitals.

The medical center’s Tisch Hospital, its major hospital for inpatient services, between 30th and 34th Streets on First Avenue, had been closed since the hurricane knocked out power and forced the evacuation of more than 300 patients, some on sleds brought down darkened flights of stairs.

“I think it’s a little bit of a miracle on 34th Street that this happened so quickly,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said Thursday.

Mr. Schumer credited the medical center’s leadership and esprit de corps, and also a tour of the damaged hospital on Nov. 9 by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, whom he and others escorted through watery basement hallways.

“Every time I talk to Fugate there are a lot of questions, but one is, ‘How are you doing at NYU?’ ” the senator said.

The reopening of Tisch to surgery patients and associated services, like intensive care, some types of radiology and recovery room anesthesia, was part of a phased restoration that will continue. Besides providing an essential service, surgery is among the more lucrative of hospital services.

The hospital’s emergency department is expected to delay its reopening for about 11 months, in part to accommodate an expansion in capacity to 65,000 patient visits a year, from 43,000, said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, its senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy.

In the meantime, NYU Langone is setting up an urgent care center with 31 bays and an observation unit, which will be able to treat some emergency patients. It will initially not accept ambulances, but might be able to later, Dr. Brotman said. Nearby Bellevue Hospital Center, which was also evacuated, opened its emergency department to noncritical injuries on Monday.

Labor and delivery, the cancer floor, epilepsy treatment and pediatrics and neurology beyond surgery are expected to open in mid-January, Langone officials said. While some radiology equipment, which was in the basement, has been restored, other equipment — including a Gamma Knife, a device using radiation to treat brain tumors — is not back.

The flooded basement is still being worked on, and electrical gear has temporarily been moved upstairs. Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, said that a $60 billion bill to pay for hurricane losses and recovery in New York and New Jersey was nearing a vote, and that he was optimistic it would pass in the Senate with bipartisan support. But the measure’s fate in the Republican-controlled House is far less certain.

The bill includes $1.2 billion for damage and lost revenue at NYU Langone, including some money from the National Institutes of Health to restore research projects. It would also cover Long Beach Medical Center in Nassau County, Bellevue, Coney Island Hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan.

Wall Street extends losses, Dow slides 1 percent

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks extended their losses on Friday, with the Dow falling 1 percent as President Barack Obama and top lawmakers met in a last-ditch attempt at a budget deal to prevent the United States from going over the "fiscal cliff."

The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 125.33 points, or 0.96 percent, to 12,970.98. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 11.66 points, or 0.82 percent, to 1,406.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 16.81 points, or 0.56 percent, to 2,969.09.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Snow buries parts of Northeast, flights canceled

A powerful winter storm is hitting the Northeast, one day after it hammered the Midwest and plains. Snowfall could top a foot in some areas.

BUFFALO, New York (Reuters) - A powerful winter storm responsible for wind, snow, tornadoes and a flurry of traffic accidents battered the U.S. Northeast on Thursday, canceling hundreds of airline flights but also reviving what had been a snowless ski season.

The storm dumped a foot of snow on parts of the United States with the heaviest snow falling across northern New York and into New England, the National Weather Service reported.

"It feels lovely to have wonderful snow for the kids to play in, and I think it's the kind of snow that's good for making forts and snowmen," said Katryna Nields, a musician in Conway, Massachusetts, who was outside her home shoveling snow.

"It's just the kind of snow you want for between Christmas and New Year's," she added.

The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England and coastal flood advisories from New York's Long Island to southern Maine.

Airlines canceled nearly 700 flights on Thursday after 1,500 U.S. flights were canceled on Wednesday, according to FlightAware.com, a website that tracks flights.

Some flights into and out of the three major New York City area airports - Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia - were delayed due to the weather, the Federal Aviation Administration reported.

The weather service forecast 12 to 18 inches of snow for northern New England, accompanied by freezing rain and sleet, creating hazards on the highways and at airports.

The snow also brought renewed hope for winter recreation across upstate and western New York.

About 8 to 12 inches of snow fell on Buffalo overnight. Light snow and freezing drizzle persisted throughout the morning hours, with as much as another inch or two possible in some areas.

Before Wednesday evening's snow, Buffalo was 23 inches below average for this time of year, the weather service said.

"It's just a reminder, winter is here," said Tom Paone of the National Weather Service in Buffalo.

Daniel Ivancic, of the Buffalo suburb of Tonawanda, said he bought a snowmobile last winter that has sat largely idle with snow totals well below average.

"I waited and waited and, no snow. This winter it seemed like the same thing was going to happen until the storm hit," Ivancic said. "I'm just going to take advantage of every minute of it."

Retailers, still in the holiday shopping season, expected sales would continue with consumers looking for winter items.

"People are out spending anyway. Weather can trigger what you purchase - not if you purchase, but what you purchase," said Evan Gold, senior vice president of client services at Planalytics, which tracks weather for businesses including retailers.

Police patrolling the New York State Thruway from Buffalo to Albany reported as many as 50 accidents, mostly involving cars that slipped off snowy roads overnight.

The massive storm system dumped record snow in north Texas and Arkansas before it swept through the U.S. South on Christmas Day and then veered north.

The system triggered tornadoes and left almost 200,000 people in Arkansas and Alabama without power on Wednesday.

Authorities said an 81-year-old man died in Georgiana, Alabama after a tree fell on his home.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley on Thursday toured hard-hit sections of Mobile, where a high school and dozens of homes were damaged and historic oak trees were uprooted.

Residents were carting wheelbarrows filled with debris and tree limbs and, in the city's business district, workers removed pieces of the smashed top floor of Cantrell's photography studio, where a young Jimmy Buffett recorded in the late 1960s.

Virginia authorities responded to nearly 700 car crashes on Wednesday, most of which were due to snow and ice around the Interstate 81 corridor.

A Southwest Airlines jet skidded off the runway on Thursday at Long Island MacArthur Airport, about 50 miles east of New York City, as it taxied for takeoff, Suffolk County police said.

None of the 134 people aboard Tampa-bound flight No. 4695 was injured, police said.

"It's been undetermined at this time if weather was a factor," a police spokeswoman said.

(Additional reporting by Zach Howard in Conway, Massachusetts; Kaija Wilkinson in Mobile, Alabama; Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Dan Burns in New York and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Claudia Parsons)

Apple CEO’s pay takes big hit vs. record 2011 package

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook’s 2012 compensation package of just over $ 4 million is a huge cut on paper for the top executive of the most valuable U.S. corporation, after a 2011 package fattened by more than $ 376 million in long-term stock awards.

Cook received the largest single pay package awarded to a company CEO in about a decade when he replaced Apple‘s legendary co-founder, Steve Jobs, shortly before Jobs’ death in October 2011.

The maker of the iPhone and iPad made the 2012 compensation disclosures in a regulatory filing on Thursday. Cook, who is in his early 50s, joined Apple in 1998 and became CEO in August 2011.

Virtually all of Cook’s $ 376 million bonus in 2011 was in stock awards that will vest in two chunks – one in 2016 and the other in 2021. This structure was intended to keep Jobs’ longtime lieutenant at the helm for many years.

In terms of base salary, Cook actually received a 50 percent increase to $ 1.4 million for 2012, and the same 200 percent bonus that other top Apple executives like CFO Peter Oppenheimer earned, Apple said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

The 2012 compensation package for Cook also pales in comparison with his 2010 pay, which was 14 times higher, when he served as chief operating officer.

But Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Group – which counts Apple stock as the biggest holding among the approximately $ 2 billion it manages – said Cook’s package was “normal CEO compensation.”

For example, Yahoo Inc’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, a former Google Inc high-flyer hired this year to try to turn around the struggling Internet icon, won a pay package worth more than $ 70 million. Despite her lack of a CEO track record, her basic pay is comparable to Cook’s, with about $ 1 million in annual salary and up to $ 2 million in an annual bonus.

Oracle Corp’s Larry Ellison, one of the most highly paid chief executives in the United States – and also the world’s sixth-richest man, according to Forbes – received total compensation for the year ended May 31, 2012, of $ 96.2 million – almost all of it in stock options.

That compared with $ 77.6 million for Ellison in the prior year.

Cook’s longtime boss, Jobs, famously received $ 1 a year in salary in the three years before he stepped down, though in 2000 he too received a stock option that analysts say was valued at almost $ 600 million at the time.

Cook will not receive any stock awards for 2012, Apple said in Thursday’s filing.

The 2012 package includes a salary of $ 1.4 million and a nonequity bonus of $ 2.8 million. Cook’s base salary actually increased in 2012 from the $ 900,000 he earned in 2011.

While Apple’s shares are roughly 35 percent higher than when Cook became CEO, they have fallen more than 27 percent since October, when they hit a $ 700.10 high. The stock has declined amid investor worries about intensifying competition in the mobile phone market and growth prospects in important markets including China.

Apple shares were down 1.3 percent at $ 506.35 on the Nasdaq on Thursday afternoon.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew and Liana Baker in New York, Jim Finkle and Tim McLaughlin in Boston and Edwin Chan in San Francisco,; editing by Kenneth Barry and Matthew Lewis)

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Soprano Bartoli: My voice has more colors, shadow

LONDON (Reuters) – Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli has released a year-end blockbuster that is part mystery story, part research project and shows off a voice which only seems to improve with age.

Bartoli’s latest deluxe-packaged album “Mission” (Decca) is devoted to the music of the late 17th-century Italian composer, diplomat and perhaps spy, Agostino Steffani.

Steffani may have been a bit overlooked as a result of his appearance at the end of the Renaissance and at the beginning of the Baroque periods – until Bartoli’s interest alighted on him.

“The variety is amazing in the music of Steffani, the slow arias have very beautiful melodic lines, they are unbelievable, it’s quite hypnotic music,” Bartoli said in a telephone interview from Paris.

Since she burst upon the world in the 1990s, specializing mostly in Mozart and Rossini, Bartoli has gone from strength to strength, not only in digging up unusual repertoires, including another deluxe compilation in 2009 devoted to music sung by castrati, but also vocally.

Here’s what else Bartoli had to say about Steffani and his possible career as a spy, why she goes for the anti-diva look on her recent album covers, and what she calls a Fellini-esque experience at La Scala with conductor Daniel Barenboim:

Q: Is it true, then, that the voice improves with time?

A: “I think this is a very good time because of the maturity of the technique. When you are young, of course, you have to have a beautiful voice. This is a gift you receive, but you don’t have enough technique or experience. So this is a very good time because I can really paint with my voice with so many colors, like a painter. I love painting with the voice and I’m of an age when I do this definitely better than 20 years ago.”

Q: So this bit about Steffani being a spy, surely that was dreamt up by the Decca marketing department?

A: “He had an incredible life as a priest, a missionary and a diplomatic mission to arranging weddings between the royal princes of that period. And also he was a kind of spy, in fact he was a Catholic priest in the north of Germany, in the Protestant area, and he spent lots of years in that area – it was very unusual, very strange. Maybe he also had the mission to convert (people) to Catholicism, who knows? We have lots of speculation about him, all the mysterious things about this man. There’s still mystery.”

Q: There’s no mystery though that the cover for this album, showing you bald-headed and wielding a crucifix, is “non-diva” – like the cover on the “Sacrificium” album of castrati music, with your head superimposed on the torso of a male statue.

A: “The idea was to have a cover related to the project and it was a bit against the cliche of a diva who has to look beautiful all the time. In a project like ‘Sacrificium’, when at the beginning of the 18th century 3,000-4,000 boys were castrated every year in Italy…how can I make a CD project about this and make a cover with a beautiful, glamorous Vanity Fair picture? This would be more embarrassing…People realize there is a real story here to tell, it’s not a compilation of arias which you do for Christmas. And ‘Sacrificium’ was a huge success.”

Q: Your concert recital earlier this month singing Handel, Rossini and Mozart with Daniel Barenboim conducting at La Scala in Milan, with a chorus of boos and whistles in the second half, was perhaps less of a success?

A: “This story is repeating what happened to Carlos Kleiber, one of the greatest conductors of our lives, also to (Maria) Callas, (Luciano) Pavarotti. The concert was magnificent – Handel, Mozart, Rossini – and then I believe at the very end there was a very Fellinian situation. You think these things don’t happen anymore, that they only happen in the movies of (Federico) Fellini but actually, no, this is happening. And it seemed like a parody but the next morning I opened the newspaper and (Silvio) Berlusconi is back (in Italian politics). And so I said, ‘Yes, of course.’

I think living in Italy is difficult but living without Italy is impossible.”

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Measles: Measles Epidemic Is Spreading in Central Africa

Jehad Nga for The New York Times

An internally displaced persons camp in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to recent violence in the country, a spreading measles epidemic is further endangering the lives of thousands of children there.

A large measles epidemic is spreading in Central Africa, endangering the lives of thousands of children, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders warned last week.

Since October, the charity has vaccinated more than 226,000 children in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The organization has also treated nearly 13,000 Congolese for the effects of the disease.

Measles is very contagious. In places where many children are malnourished and vitamin-deficient, it kills 1 percent to15 percent of those who don’t receive medical care, Doctors Without Borders estimated. (Even in the United States in the 1990s, although cases were rare, the fatality rate was 0.3 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In AIDS patients, the rate is 30 percent.)

The eastern Congo basin has serious shortages of medical workers and of drugs. While there is no treatment for measles itself, antibiotics can save those who develop pneumonia, meningitis or other secondary infections. Measles can also cause blindness by scarring the eyeball.

The outbreak is taking place despite enormous success against the disease worldwide. According to a study released earlier this year, deaths from measles have dropped by almost 75 percent since 2000.

Most of the lives saved were in Africa and India. Measles shots are often cited as one of the chief reasons that deaths of children under age 5 around the world have fallen steadily.

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.

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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.

One of Chicago's most feared mobsters dies in prison

Frank Calabrese Jr., ex-mobster and author of the book Family Secrets, speaks to the Chicago Tribune's John Kass on March 14, 2011, at Bella Luna cafe in Chicago. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2011)

Convicted mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. has died in a federal prison in North Carolina.

Calabrese died on Christmas at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex, where he had been serving a life sentence, according to a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons. He was 75.

Calabrese, one of Chicago’s most feared mobsters, was convicted in 2007 during the Operation Family Secrets trial.

A federal jury held Calabrese and two other aging mobsters -- Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and James Marcello -- responsible for 10 murders after a trial that exposed the seedy inner workings of organized crime in Chicago.

Calabrese,  a portly, bearded loan shark who according to witnesses doubled as a hit man, was found responsible for seven mob murders. Witnesses, including his brother Nicholas Calabrese, said he strangled victims with a rope, then cut their throats to make sure they were dead.

Marcello, described by prosecutors as a top leader of the Chicago Outfit, was held responsible for the June 1986 murder of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the Chicago mob's longtime man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino."

The Family Secrets trial was the biggest organized crime case in Chicago in years. The defendants were convicted of operating the Chicago Outfit as a racketeering enterprise.

They allegedly squeezed "street tax," similar to protection money, out of businesses, ran sports bookmaking and video poker operations as well as engaged in loan sharking. And they allegedly killed many of those who they feared might spill mob secrets to the government -- or already were doing so.

The cases went unsolved for decades.

Calabrese’s attorney in the Family Secrets trial, Joseph “Shark” Lopez, said Calabrese had been in ill health.

“Last I spoke with him a little over a year ago, he was a sick man,” Lopez said. “He was on about 17 different medications. But always a strong-willed individual.”

After spending hundreds of hours together while Calabrese was on trial, Lopez said the two developed a relationship.

“Sure he was difficult at times because he was used to getting his way, but I only saw one side of him and that was the good side,” Lopez said. “He was a pleasure to deal with and a pleasure to talk to. We’d talk about cooking, restaurants, history, you name it.”

“He was quick-witted, smart and street-savvy,” Lopez said. “Always very upbeat; nothing could keep Frank down.”

Lopez said Calabrese was very religious, making his Christmas day death feel “odd.”

“He always talked about how much he loved spending Christmas with his family. It was his favorite holiday of the year,” he said.

Lopez said he thinks there will be mixed feelings in Chicago about Calabrese’s death.

“I’m sure there are some people really sad and some people really happy,” Lopez said. “I’m sad for his family.”

Calabrese's body was taken to the medical examiner's office, where it will be examined this afternoon, according to Kevin Gerity, autopsy manager for the office. Gerity said an autopsy or an external examination will be conducted.

Ticket rush: Film fans hand Hollywood record cash

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The big deal for Hollywood is not the record $ 10.8 billion that studios took in domestically in 2012. It’s the fact that the number of tickets sold went up for the first time in three years.

Thanks to inflation, revenue generally rises in Hollywood as admission prices climb each year. The real story is told in tickets, whose sales have been on a general decline for a decade, bottoming out in 2011 at 1.29 billion, their lowest level since 1995.

The industry rebounded this year, with ticket sales projected to rise 5.6 percent to 1.36 billion by Dec. 31, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. That’s still well below the modern peak of 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, but in an age of cozy home theater setups and endless entertainment gadgets, studio executives consider it a triumph that they were able to put more butts in cinema seats this year than last.

“It is a victory, ultimately,” said Don Harris, head of distribution at Paramount Pictures. “If we deliver the product as an industry that people want, they will want to get out there. Even though you can sit at home and watch something on your large screen in high-def, people want to get out.”

Domestic revenue should finish up nearly 6 percent from 2011′s $ 10.2 billion and top Hollywood‘s previous high of $ 10.6 billion set in 2009.

The year was led by a pair of superhero sagas, Disney’s “The Avengers” with $ 623 million domestically and $ 1.5 billion worldwide and the Warner Bros. Batman finale “The Dark Knight Rises” with $ 448 million domestically and $ 1.1 billion worldwide. Sony’s James Bond adventure “Skyfall” is closing in on the $ 1 billion mark globally, and the list of action and family-film blockbusters includes “The Hunger Games,” ”The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part Two,” ”Ice Age: Continental Drift,” ”Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” ”The Amazing Spider-Man” and “Brave.”

Before television, movies were the biggest thing going, with ticket sales estimated as high as 4 billion a year domestically in the 1930s and ’40s.

Movie-going eroded steadily through the 1970s as people stayed home with their small screens. The rise of videotape in the 1980s further cut into business, followed by DVDs in the ’90s and big, cheap flat-screen TVs in recent years. Today’s video games, mobile phones and other portable devices also offer easy options to tramping out to a movie theater.

It’s all been a continual drain on cinema business, and cynics repeatedly predict the eventual demise of movie theaters. Yet Hollywood fights back with new technology of its own, from digital 3-D to booming surround-sound to the clarity of images projected at high-frame rates, which is being tested now with “The Lord of the Rings” prelude “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” shown in select theaters at 48 frames a second, double the standard speed.

For all of the annoyances of theaters — parking, pricy concessions, sitting next to strangers texting on their iPhones — cinemas still offer the biggest and best way to see a movie.

“Every home has a kitchen, but you can’t get into a good restaurant on Saturday night,” said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros. “People want to escape. That’s the nature of society. The adult population just is not going to sit home seven days a week, even though they have technology in their home that’s certainly an improvement over what it was 10 years ago. People want to get out of the house, and no matter what they throw in the face of theatrical exhibition, it continues to perform at a strong level.”

Even real-life violence at the movie theater didn’t turn audiences away. Some moviegoers thought twice about heading to the cinema after a gunman killed 12 people and injured 58 at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Colorado last summer, but if there was any lull in attendance, it was slight and temporary. Ticket sales went on a tear for most of the fall.

While domestic revenues inch upward most years largely because of inflation, the real growth areas have been overseas, where more and more fans are eager for the next Hollywood blockbuster.

Rentrak, which compiles international box office data, expects 2012′s foreign gross to be about $ 23 billion, 3 percent higher than in 2011. No data was yet available on the number of tickets sold overseas this past year.

International business generally used to account for less than half of a studio film’s overall receipts. Films now often do two or even three times as much business overseas as they do domestically. Some movies that were duds with U.S. audiences, such as “Battleship” and “John Carter,” can wind up being $ 200 million hits with overseas crowds.

Whether finishing a good year or a bad one, Hollywood executives always look ahead to better days, insisting that the next crop of blockbusters will be bigger than ever. The same goes this time as studio bosses hype their 2013 lineup, which includes the latest “Iron Man,” ”Star Trek,” ”Hunger Games” and “Thor” installments, the Superman tale “Man of Steel” and the second chapter in “The Hobbit” trilogy.

Twelve months from now, they hope to be talking about another revenue record topping this year’s $ 10.8 billion.

“I’ve been saying we’re going to hit that $ 11 billion level for about three years now,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “Next year I think is the year we actually do it.”

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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