Off-duty Chicago police officer dies in SUV rollover on Skyway

Chicago Tribune reporter Peter Nickeas recaps Friday night's breaking news, involving two traffic accidents and one homicide. (Posted Feb. 16th, 2013).

By Peter Nickeas and Carlos Sadovi




Tribune reporters

1:29 p.m. CST, February 16, 2013

A 31-year-old off-duty Chicago police officer who died when the SUV she was driving rolled over on the Chicago Skyway late Friday was on her way to celebrate a new position with the department, according to her family.

Shaunda Bond, 31, was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. at the Cook County medical examiner's office. She lived in the 4100 block of South Michigan Avenue in the Bronzeville neighborhood.

The officer's older sister works in the section of the Chicago Police Department that investigates fatal accidents and answered the phone when officers on the Skyway called to notify them of the wreck, police said.

Bond was on her way to meet her cousin Daphne Flores and three other friends at a restaurant to celebrate the woman getting a spot on a tactical response unit, said Flores. Police could not immediately confirm the information.

Bond joined the police department in December 2009 and was assigned to the South Chicago District, which covers the area from 75th Street south to 138th, between roughly Woodlawn Avenue and the state line.

"She loved helping people, she was always able to help somebody," said Flores. "She just had a warm heart."

After college, Bond worked at a rental car company until a spot opened up at the police department, Flores said. She said Bond either always wanted to become a police officer or a teacher. She had two sisters and grew up on the South Side, graduating from Longwood Academy high school.

"She liked working with people, she loved public service work," Flores said.

The crash happened about 10:40 p.m. near 81st Street on the Skyway when the 2003 Land Rover SUV Bond was driving flipped over.

Bond was the lone occupant in the SUV, which was the only vehicle involved in the crash.

According to a witness interviewed by police, her SUV was seen traveling at a high rate of speed before it hit a concrete barrier and rolled.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

csadovi@tribune.com

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Epic regrets Lil Wayne lyric about slain civil rights figure

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Epic Records has apologized to the family of Emmett Till, whose 1955 murder spurred the U.S. civil rights movement, over a graphic reference by rapper Lil Wayne and promised to delete the lyrics upon its release, the company said on Thursday.

Epic Chairman L.A. Reid told the family it was regretful that a remix of the song “Karate Chop” by rapper Future, in which Lil Wayne likens the beating of African-American Till to sex, had been leaked on the Internet.

“He (Reid) apologized to me and our family and stated the song is being pulled,” said a post on the Facebook page of the Mamie Till Mobley Memorial Foundation on Wednesday. Mobley, who died in 2003, was Till’s mother.

The song reportedly first appeared online over the weekend.

“Mr. Reid stated the song was leaked out and he had not heard the lyric,” the statement added. “He is a man of integrity that values our family’s legacy and wouldn’t allow such a heinous usage of Emmett Till’s name or dishonor his memory.”

The foundation, which was founded by Till’s cousin Airickca Gordon-Taylor, said that it had yet to hear from Lil Wayne.

Reid, an African American, is one of the music industry’s highest-profile executives and was a judge on the Fox singing competition “The X Factor” for two seasons.

Till, from Chicago, was beaten and murdered in 1955 at the age of 14 for allegedly whistling at a white woman in the village of Money, Mississippi, where he was visiting family.

An all-white jury acquitted two white men of Till’s murder, sparking national outrage. The trial is credited with mobilizing the civil rights movement and drawing attention to racial injustice and violence in the American South.

Epic Records called the song an “unauthorized remix” and promised to delete the reference from the official version.

“Out of respect for the legacy of Emmett Till and his family and the support of the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, we are going through great efforts to take down the unauthorized version,” the record company said in a statement.

Epic Records is owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a division of Sony Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jackie Frank)

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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.

A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”

Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.

Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.

The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”

While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.

“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”

Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.

“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”

Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.

“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”

For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.

“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”

“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.

That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.

Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.

Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.

“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”

Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.

As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.

“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”

She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.

“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”

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Illinois corporate tax credits swelled to $161 million 2011

When lawmakers raised taxes on Illinois residents and businesses, they also increased corporate income tax breaks for a select group of companies.

In 2011, businesses were eligible to claim about $161 million in tax credits — double from the prior year — mostly because of the increase to 5 percent from 3 percent in the state's personal income tax rate, which is a factor in determining the value of the incentives. The boost marked the largest increase in the Economic Development for a Growing Economy tax credit program, the state's main economic development program, since its creation in 1999.

Deere & Co., Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc., whose leader severely criticized lawmakers for tax hikes, were among dozens of companies that received more robust tax breaks. Some companies' deals also allowed them to be in line to receive tax incentives even while laying off workers or lowering wages.

The EDGE program allows a business to claim a credit against its corporate income tax liability if it agrees to create and/or retain jobs and make an investment in the state of at least $1 million, for companies with fewer than 100 workers, and at least $5 million for larger companies.

Once accepted into the program, which typically lasts 10 years, a company applies on an annual basis for a tax credit certificate, similar to a voucher, which it can claim when it files its taxes.

Marcelyn Love, a spokeswoman with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which administers the program, said that under the tax credit program companies make investments and employ workers, practices that otherwise would not have occurred without the credits.

"Both the private investment and the increased employment significantly increase tax revenue collection for the state in excess of the credits given," Love said in an email. Far from adding to the tax burden, she added, these incentives actually generate revenue for the state. "Further, most of these tax credits pay for themselves within two years."

The certificates are the only way to gauge the potential cost and scope of the program, because tax filings are not public. The Tribune obtained the 2011 certificates data, the latest year available, under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Companies have as many as five years to redeem a certificate.

After a deal is finalized, a company has two years to meet its side of the bargain and begin applying for certificates. Thus, the increase in the total value of 2011 tax breaks is also the result of companies receiving certificates for the first time. For example, Ford Motor Co. began applying for its certificates in 2010 from a 2007 deal.

During Gov. Pat Quinn's administration, companies have received increasingly larger deals. Many have been for retaining jobs, according to a Tribune analysis. In 2011, Sears Holdings Corp. was offered a tax credit package worth $150 million over 10 years to keep its headquarters in the state and retain at least 4,250 full-time jobs. The company, which after the deal was announced revealed that it was closing 125 stores nationwide, has yet to apply for a certificate. Five of those stores were in Illinois. State officials have said that during a recession, when few jobs are created, it's important to focus on retaining workers.

Chris Brathwaite, a Sears spokesman, said the company's employment level at its headquarters is higher than the more than 6,000 jobs it had when the deal was approved, but he declined to provide figures.

In general, the value of a certificate equals the number of jobs created and/or retained, multiplied by wages tied to those jobs and the state's personal income tax rate.

That means companies that didn't add one worker and kept wages at the 2010 rate received a 67 percent boost to their 2011 corporate income tax break. Just like individuals, corporations also registered a tax rate increase in 2011. Lawmakers set the new corporate income tax rate at 7 percent, up from 4.8 percent. The increases in breaks partially offset that hike.

The formula under which companies become eligible to receive tax breaks was aimed at encouraging job creation and increasing employee wages. Still, the 2011 data revealed that some companies made deals to allow job cuts and still qualify for incentives, a practice known as "normal attrition."

A case in point is Motorola Mobility. For the past two years, Motorola Mobility has qualified for certificates worth a total of $22.6 million while slowly chipping away at its workforce. Late last year, the smartphone-maker, which was acquired by Google Inc. in May, announced it was laying off 20 percent of its global workforce. Locally, the company cut hundreds of workers, bringing its Illinois head count to about 2,300, a figure that would make it ineligible for a 2013 certificate unless it boosts its workforce before the end of the year.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity said the EDGE program played a crucial role in keeping Motorola Mobility in Illinois after it was acquired by Google. Its presence, the agency said, is drawing more technology investment and jobs to the state.

A state lawmaker wants the state to end the wiggle room practice, cap at $100 million the annual amount of tax breaks awarded and remove the investment bar so more small and medium-size businesses can qualify for breaks.

"Large multinationals are getting all the breaks," said Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, adding that his focus is to modernize the program and increase accountability.

Franks' House Bill 1336 would also limit the length of the tax breaks to five years and require that companies pay workers at least the median salary of their occupation as determined by federal data. The bill also eliminates the provision requiring companies to make a capital investment in the state of at least $1 million or $5 million, depending on their size. And it creates a nine-member board to oversee the deals, with members appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate.

Franks said that the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity shouldn't promote the program while also negotiating deals with companies, because it creates a conflict of interest.

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Obama arrives in Chicago to address economy, violence

President Barack Obama is in Chicago today to talk about helping struggling families and also touch on the wide-ranging approach he thinks the country should take to fighting gun violence.

Air Force One landed at 1:23 p.m. at O'Hare International Airport. 

The president, wearing a black overcoat, walked off the jet accompanied by many members of the Illinois Congressional delegation,

Obama was greeted by greeted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whom he patted on the back before boarding the Marine One helicopter.

The president is headed to Hyde Park Academy this afternoon, where his remarks will be devoted to the “ladders of opportunity” he thinks will help working families, like raising the federal minimum wage and investing in education, a senior administration official has said.

Before speaking at the school, Obama plans to meet privately with 16 students involved in a youth anti-violence program, a White House spokesman said.

He’ll also talk directly about gun violence, aides say, in a visit that comes just days after the funeral of Hadiya Pendleton, a teenager killed in a shooting a mile from the Obamas’ South Side home. After attending the services for Pendleton, first lady Michelle Obama invited her parents to join her in the balcony for the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.

At the school, members of the Pendleton family had arrived. Also on hand were members of the Wortham family. Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham IV was fatally shot in front of his parents’ Chatham home in 2010 when attackers tried to rob him of a new motorcycle.

Religious leaders including the Rev. Byron Brazier, pastor of Apostolic Church of God in Woodland, and the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, are in the audience.

Among the city's political class, Obama adviser David Axelrod and Chicago Alds. Pat Dowell, Leslie Hairston and Willie Cochran were there. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin are scheduled to attend.

The president is expected to speak about 2:40 p.m. and later head to Florida for some rest and relaxation during the President's Day weekend, the White House has said.

But the president’s emphasis this week is on promoting job creation and economic recovery, aides say, in the belief that solutions to violence and other social problem hang in the balance.

He and Vice President Joe Biden have made the case in recent weeks that the solution to gun violence isn’t just about gun control, but also about improving access to educational opportunities, social programs and mental health services.

To clear these pathways to the middle class, Obama on Tuesday night proposed creating “promise zones” in 20 struggling communities, helping them develop plans and leverage federal resources to increase economic activity.

He also proposes a plan to support summer and year-round jobs for low-income youth and to put long-term unemployed and low-income adults back to work.

Clergy, activists, parents and others in Chicago have said they are eager to hear a plan of action from the president to curb violence.

Annette Nance-Holt, whose 16-year-old son Blair was killed in 2007, said that if the president can set up a task force in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school Dec. 14, he can do the same in Chicago.

Cathy Cohen, founder of the Black Youth Project, said she hopes to hear a plan on how to get illegal guns off the street and how to get young people working.

Clergy said they hope the president talks about broader factors contributing to the city's violence, such as a high unemployment rate and a lack of adequate funding for local schools.

Chicago's homicides in recent years have numbered far below their annual total of more than 900 in the early 1990s. But while Chicago topped 500 homicides last year, the total fell below 500 in New York City, which has about three times the population of Chicago.

White House pool reports contributed.

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Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie venture into winemaking

(Reuters) – Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have gone into the wine business, helping to produce a rose called Miraval from their French estate and putting their names on the label, wine website Decanter.com reported.

The movie star couple have been working with French winemaker Marc Perrin starting with the 2012 harvest, the website said. The Miraval wine will be on the market in March, and white wines will begin arriving by the end of this summer.

“They … want to ensure they are making the best Provence wines they can,” Perrin told Britain-based Decanter.com. on Wednesday.

“They were present at the blending sessions this year, and are relooking at everything from the installations in the winery – where we have already switched to stainless steel tanks – to reworking the labels across the range of wines,” he added.

The back label of the Miraval wine carries the names Jolie-Pitt and Perrin.

Pitt and Jolie began renting Chateau Miraval in Correns, southern France, about four years ago and later bought the property, which has about 148 acres of vines.

The Miraval wine was formerly called Pink Floyd because the British rock band recorded their 1979 album “The Wall” in a studio on the estate, Decanter.com said.

Pitt last year unveiled a high-end collection of furniture that he helped create with designer Frank Pollaro. He has also worked with architects to create affordable quality housing for victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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Well: Winter Fruit Desert Recipes

Whether you are looking for an extra dose of vitamins or just love the flavors of fruit, winter is a time of abundance at the fruit stand. Martha Rose Shulman writes:

When I lived in Europe I got hooked on blood oranges, small oranges with dark ruby red pulp and mottled orange-red skins. Their flavor is deep and multidimensional, with nuances of berries and cherries. And like berries, cherries and other highly nutritious dark red, blue and purple fruits and vegetables, blood oranges have high levels of antioxidant-rich anthocyanins.

The same farmer I bought blood oranges from at my farmers’ market was selling over-ripe fuyu persimmons at a bargain price. I bought a few pounds for pureé, some of which I used for a sweet persimmon spice bread and some of which I froze. Persimmons are another fruit rich in phytonutrients like lutein and lycopene, zeaxanthin and cryptoxanthi, which are all reported to be rich in antioxidants.

Pears are also abundant. It is difficult to find pears that are ready to eat, even at farmers’ markets, so buy them a few days, or even a week, before you plan on making this week’s sorbet. The riper and juicier the pear, the better.

Here are five new ways to create dishes with winter fruits.

Blood Orange Compote: A delicious dessert, but it is also great at breakfast.

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Lemon and Blood Orange Gelée Parfaits: A beautiful, layered gelatin dessert.

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Pear Vanilla Sorbet: For maximum flavor, wait until the pears are nice and ripe before making this sorbet.

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Tangerine Sorbet: A light, refreshing sorbet that can be made with a number of different fruits.

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Persimmon Spice Bread: A dense, sweet bread that can be home to over-ripe persimmons.

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Facebook's latest revenue trick: Pay to promote friends' posts

Facebook has announced its latest attempt at making money, and this time it involves letting users pay to promote their friends' posts.

The feature lets users pay to have a friend's post show more prominently in other friends' news feeds.

"If your friend is renting their apartment out and she tells her friends on Facebook, you can share the post with the people you and your friend have in common so that it shows up higher in news feed and more people notice it," the company said, citing an example of when this feature could be useful. 

PHOTOS: Tech we want to see in 2013

The feature is similar to another one that Facebook introduced last year that lets users pay to promote their own posts.

The company said Thursday that people have been using that feature to promote posts about charities and causes, publicize events, advertise items they're selling, promote important life announcements or congratulate someone else on an accomplishment.

The cost of promoting a post depends on a number of factors, including geographic location and how many people the post would reach, Facebook said.

Facebook said the ability to pay to promote a friend's post will be rolled out to all users over time.

ALSO:

Google under fire for sending users' information to developers

Mother's 'baby' portraits of 13-year-old son go viral on Facebook

Bandai resurrects Tamagotchi pets just in time for Valentine's Day

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Stricken cruise ship reported awash in raw sewage nears port

MOBILE, Alabama—

More than 4,200 people trapped aboard the crippled cruise ship Carnival Triumph, having endured days of overflowing toilets, should return to land when tugboats haul the vessel into Mobile, Alabama late on Thursday.

The 893-foot vessel, notorious for reports of sewage and food shortages, has been without propulsion and running on emergency generator power since Sunday, when an engine room fire left it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico.

Operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, the flagship brand of global cruise ship giant Carnival Corp, the ship left Galveston, Texas a week ago carrying 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew. It was supposed to return there on Monday.

Carnival Corp spokesman Vance Gulliksen in Miami said the Triumph was expected to arrive in Mobile at between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. CST on Thursday night.

"This is going to be a long day," Terry Thornton, a senior Carnival Cruise Lines vice president, told reporters at the port in Mobile.

He said the ship, which he described as "in excellent shape" after additional provisions were laid in on Wednesday, was near the sea buoy at the entrance to Mobile Bay late on Thursday morning. Getting from the buoy into port normally takes about three hours, Thornton said.

"There is no way we could actually speed up the process to get the ship alongside sooner," he said. "We're making every effort we can to get the ship alongside here in Mobile as quickly as possible."

A Coast Guard cutter has been escorting the Triumph on its long voyage into port since Monday, and a Coast Guard helicopter ferried about 3,000 pounds of equipment including a generator to the stricken ship late on Wednesday.

Earlier in the week, some passengers reported on the poor conditions on the Triumph when they contacted relatives and media before their cellphone batteries died.

They said people were getting sick and passengers had been told to use plastic "biohazard" bags as makeshift toilets.

MORE COMPENSATION

Carnival Cruise Lines President and Chief Executive Gerry Cahill said in a statement late on Wednesday that the company had decided to add further payment of $500 per person to help compensate passengers for "very challenging circumstances" aboard the ship.

"We are very sorry for what our guests have had to endure," Cahill said.

Mary Poret, who spoke to her 12-year-old daughter aboard the Triumph on Monday, rejected Cahill's apology out of hand in comments to CNN on Thursday, as she waited anxiously in Mobile with a friend for the Triumph's arrival.

"Seeing urine and feces sloshing in the halls, sleeping on the floor, nothing to eat, people fighting over food, $500? What's the emotional cost? You can't put money on that," Poret said.

The troubles on the Carnival Triumph occurred a little more than a year after 32 people were killed when the Costa Concordia, a luxury cruise ship operated by Carnival Corp's Costa Cruises brand, was grounded on rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio in Italy.

Carnival Corp Chairman and CEO Micky Arison faced criticism in January last year for failing to travel to Italy and take personal charge of the Costa Concordia crisis, which unleashed numerous lawsuits against his company.

The cruise ship mogul has taken a low-key approach to the Triumph situation as well, even as it grabbed a growing share of the U.S. media spotlight. His only known public appearance since Sunday was courtside on Tuesday at a game played by his championship Miami Heat basketball team.

Carnival Corp shares were down $0.12 at $37.34 in early afternoon trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares closed down 4 percent at $37.46 on Wednesday after the company said voyage disruptions and repair costs related to Carnival Triumph could shave up to 10 cents per share off its second-half earnings.

Carnival said it had initially planned to tow the Triumph into Progreso in Mexico, the closest port to its location early on Sunday when the engine room fire occurred. But the ship drifted about 90 nautical miles north, due to strong currents, before the towing got under way, and that left it stranded roughly midway between Progreso and Mobile.

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Actor Steve Martin is first-time dad at age 67

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor, writer and comedian Steve Martin has become a dad for the first time at age 67 – and managed to keep it secret from the media for more than a month.

Martin and his second wife, Anne Stringfield, 41, “are new parents and recently welcomed a child,” a spokeswoman for the actor said on Wednesday.

The spokeswoman gave no details, including the sex of the child or the date of birth. But the New York Post cited unidentified sources as saying the baby arrived in December.

The multi-talented Martin, whose career as a writer and performer dates back more than 45 years, has played a father in movies such as “Parenthood,” Cheaper by the Dozen,” and “Father of the Bride.”

Martin, who has hosted the Oscars ceremony three times, married Stringfield, a former writer at the New Yorker magazine, in 2007. His eight-year marriage to British actress Victoria Tennant ended in divorce in 1994.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey: Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

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U.S. Approves First Method to Give the Blind Limited Vision

The F.D.A. Approves a Bionic Eye:
The Argus II allows Barbara Campbell, who lost her sight 20 years ago, to see the world through patterns of light. Scientists hope it is the beginning of even more treatments.

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the first treatment to give limited vision to people who are blind, involving a technology called the “artificial retina.”

With it, people with certain types of blindness can detect crosswalks on the street, burners on a stove, the presence of people or cars, and sometimes even oversized numbers or letters.

The artificial retina is a sheet of electrodes surgically implanted in the eye. The patient is also outfitted with a pair of glasses with an attached camera and a portable video processor. These elements together allow visual signals to bypass the damaged portion of the retina and be transmitted to the brain. The F.D.A. approval covers this integrated system, which the manufacturer calls Argus II.

The approval marks the first milestone in a new frontier in vision research, a field in which scientists are making strides with gene therapy, optogenetics, stem cells and other strategies.

“This is just the beginning,” said Grace Shen, director of the retinal diseases program at the National Eye Institute, which helped finance the artificial retina research and is supporting many other blindness therapy projects. “We have a lot of exciting things sitting in the wings, multiple approaches being developed now to address this.”

With the artificial retina or retinal prosthesis, a blind person cannot see in the conventional sense, but can identify outlines and boundaries of objects, especially when there is contrast between light and dark — fireworks against a night sky or black socks mixed with white ones in the laundry.

“Without the system, I wouldn’t be able to see anything at all, and if you were in front of me and you moved left and right, I’m not going to realize any of this,” said Elias Konstantopolous, 74, a retired electrician in Baltimore, one of about 50 Americans and Europeans who have been using the device in clinical trials for several years. He said it helps him differentiate curbs from asphalt roads, and detect contours, but not details, of cars, trees and people. “When you don’t have nothing, this is something. It’s a lot.”

The F.D.A. approved Argus II, made by Second Sight Medical Products, to treat people with severe retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited diseases in which photoreceptor cells, which take in light, deteriorate.

The first version of the implant had a sheet of 16 electrodes, but the current version has 60. A tiny camera mounted on eyeglasses captures images, and the video processor, worn on a belt, translates those images into pixelized patterns of light and dark. The processor transmits those signals to the electrodes, which send them along the optic nerve to the brain.

About 100,000 Americans have retinitis pigmentosa, but initially between 10,000 and 15,000 will likely qualify for the Argus II, according to the company. The F.D.A. says that up to 4,000 people a year can be treated with the device. That number represents people who are older than 25, who once had useful vision, have evidence of an intact inner retinal layer, have at best very limited light perception in the retina, and are so visually impaired that the device would prove an improvement. Second Sight will begin making Argus II available later this year.

But experts said the technology holds promise for other people who are blind, especially those with advanced age-related macular degeneration, the major cause of vision loss in older people, affecting about two million Americans. About 50,000 of them are currently severely impaired enough that the artificial retina would be helpful, said Dr. Robert Greenberg, Second Sight’s president and chief executive.

In Europe, Argus II received approval in 2011 to treat a broader group of people, those with severe blindness caused by any type of outer retinal degeneration, not just retinitis pigmentosa, although it is currently only marketed in Europe for that condition. In the U.S., additional clinical trials need to be completed before the company can seek broader FDA approval.

Eventually, Dr. Greenberg said, the plan is to implant electrodes not in the eye, but directly into the brain’s visual cortex. “That would allow us to address blindness from all causes,” he said.

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Buffet, 3G to buy Heinz for $23B

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and private equity firm 3G Capital will buy ketchup and baby food maker H.J. Heinz Co for $23.2 billion in cash, a deal that combines 3G's ambitions in the food industry with Buffett's hunt for growth.

Including debt assumption, Heinz valued the transaction, which it called the largest in its industry's history, at $28 billion. Berkshire and 3G will pay $72.50 per share, a 19 percent premium to the stock's previous all-time high. Heinz shares actually rose slightly above the offer price, although Buffett cautioned he had no intention of raising his bid.

Analysts said the deal could be the first step in a broader wave of mergers for the food and beverage industry.

"Maybe for the consumer staples group in general this may start some talk about consolidation. Even corporate entities are flush with cash, interest rates are low, it would seemingly make sense," Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo said.

Companies like General Mills and Campbell Soup - itself long seen as a potential Heinz merge partner - rose on the news.

BUFFETT HUNTING GROWTH

The surprise purchase satisfies, at least in part, Buffett's hunt for growth through acquisition. He was frustrated in 2012 by the collapse of at least two deals in excess of $20 billion and said he might have to do a $30 billion deal this year to help fuel Berkshire's growth engine. In this case, Berkshire is putting up about $12 billion to $13 billion cash, Buffett told CNBC, leaving it ample room for another major transaction.

Berkshire Hathaway already has a variety of food assets, including the Dairy Queen ice cream chain, chocolatier See's Candies and the food distributor McLane. Buffett, famed for a love of cheeseburgers, joked he was well acquainted with Heinz's products already and that this was "my kind of deal."

It does represent an unusual teaming of Berkshire with private equity, though; historically, Buffett's purchases have been outright his own. He and 3G founder Jorge Paulo Lemann have known each other for years, and Buffett said Lemann approached him with the Heinz idea in December. One Berkshire investor said he had mixed feelings about the deal because of the limited growth prospects domestically.

"We're a little hesitant on the staple companies because they don't have any leverage in the United States," said Bill Smead, chief investment officer of Smead Capital Management in Seattle. But at the same time, he said, Buffett was likely willing to accept a bond-like steady return even if it was not necessarily a "home run."

3G EXPANDS

For 3G, a little-known firm with Brazilian roots, the purchase is something of a natural complement to its investment in fast-food chain Burger King, which it acquired in late 2010 and in which it still holds a major stake. Lemann, a globe-trotting financier with Swiss roots, made his money in banking and gained notoriety for helping to pull together the deals that ultimately formed the beer brewing giant AB InBev.

3G's Alex Behring runs the fund out of New York. He appeared at a Pittsburgh news conference on Thursday with Heinz management to discuss the deal - and to reassure anxious local crowds that the company will remain based there and will continue to support local philanthropy.

But at the same time, Behring said it was too soon to talk about cost cuts at the company. Unlike Berkshire, which is a hands-off operator, 3G is known for aggressively controlling costs at its operations.

PITTSBURGH ROOTS Also to be determined is whether CEO Bill Johnson would stay on. Only the fifth chairman in the company's history, Johnson is widely credited with Heinz's recent strong growth.

"I am way too young to retire," he told the news conference, adding that discussions had not yet started with 3G over the details of Heinz's future management.

The company, known for its iconic ketchup bottles, Heinz 57 sauces as well as other brands including Ore-Ida frozen potatoes, has increased net sales for the last eight fiscal years in a row.

Heinz said the transaction would be financed with cash from Berkshire and 3G, debt rollover and debt financing from J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo. Buffett told CNBC that Berkshire and 3G would be equal equity partners.

Heinz shares soared 19.9 percent, or $12.06, to $72.54 on the New York Stock Exchange. A week ago the stock hit a long-term high of $61 a share - near records it set in 1998 - having risen almost 5 percent this year and nearly 12 percent since the beginning of 2012.

The deal is also a potential boon for new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, whose wife Teresa is the widow of H.J. Heinz Co heir John Heinz.

Kerry's most recent financial disclosures from his time in the U.S. Senate show a position in Heinz shares of more than $1 million, although the precise size is unclear.

Centerview Partners and BofA Merrill Lynch were financial advisers to Heinz, with Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP the legal adviser. Moelis & Company was financial adviser to the transaction committee of Heinz's board and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz served as its legal adviser. Lazard served as lead financial adviser. J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo also served as financial advisers to the investment consortium. Kirkland & Ellis LLP was legal adviser to 3G Capital, and Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP was legal adviser to Berkshire Hathaway.

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Obama to visit Hyde Park Academy during trip to Chicago

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will visit Hyde Park Academy High School on Chicago’s South Side on Friday when he travels to the city as part of a three-state tour following his State of the Union speech.

The academy is at 6220 S. Stony Island Ave. The White House has distributed an invitation to the event instructing people to arrive no later than 1 p.m. on Friday and to expect “airport-like security.”
It was not immediately known what time Obama will speak.

Tickets are available only to invited guests, who were instructed to pick up their tickets at a specific location on Thursday afternoon, the invitation said.

His visit comes in the wake of the slaying of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old honor student whose parents were guests Tuesday of the president and first lady at the State of the Union speech.

Pendleton was shot and killed on Jan. 29 a mile from Obama's residence in the Kenwood neighborhood.

She and the King College Prep band and drill team had performed in Washington on Jan. 21, the day of Obama’s public swearing-in, at an inauguration-viewing reception hosted by Rep. Danny Davis in the House Ways and Means Committee Room, according to Yul Edwards, chief of staff to Davis, a Chicago Democrat.

Earlier, the band and drill team took part in a competition in Severn, Md., in the Washington suburbs, on Jan. 19. That competition, called the Presidential Inauguration Heritage Music Festival, was timed for the inaugural weekend but was not an officially sanctioned inaugural event.

kskiba@tribune.com

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Beyonce shows marriage, miscarriage and Blue Ivy in documentary

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Beyonce is letting fans into her charmed life, introducing daughter Blue Ivy to the world and talking about motherhood, marriage and miscarriage in a new documentary.

The 31-year-old pop singer and her rapper husband, Jay-Z, 43, one of music’s most influential couples, have been guarded about their private life.

But in “Life is But a Dream,” airing on Saturday on cable channel HBO, Beyonce gives fans a glimpse of her working life and even a peek at baby Blue Ivy, who has been fiercely shielded from paparazzi since her birth in January 2012.

The “Crazy in Love” singer addresses the widely reported claim from 2011 that she was faking her pregnancy, calling it “the most ridiculous rumor I’ve ever heard of me.”

“To think that I’d be that vain … especially after losing a child. The pain and trauma from that just makes it mean so much more to get an opportunity to bring life into the world,” she says in the documentary.

The Grammy-winning singer shows footage of a sonogram, her growing bump and grainy video of herself posing nude as she neared her due date.

The HBO film, which Beyonce co-directed, is part of a return to performing by the singer, who took a year off after her first child was born.

The arrival last year of Blue Ivy Carter gained worldwide media attention and prompted Beyonce to share more with her fans, launching a Tumblr page with snapshots that showed glimpses of her family life, including the baby.

Her miscarriage had been kept secret from the public until Jay-Z referred to it in his song “Glory,” that he released following the birth of Blue Ivy.

In the documentary, Beyonce touched on the topic briefly, saying, “It was the saddest thing I’ve ever been through.”

“My life is a journey. … I had to go through my miscarriage, I believe I had to go through owning my company and managing myself … ultimately your independence comes from knowing who you are and you being happy with yourself,” she said.

“Life is But a Dream” serves as a coming-of-age for the star as she entered motherhood.

She gives audiences a peek into her four-year marriage to Jay-Z, showing footage of the couple singing Coldplay’s “Yellow” to each other.

“This baby has made me love him more than I ever thought I could love another human being,” she says.

The documentary shows Beyonce putting herself and her team through grueling choreography rehearsals in 2011 and planning every second of her performances at big awards shows that year.

Beyonce began her comeback with a controversial lip-synched performance of the national anthem at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January, followed by a live performance at the Super Bowl halftime show that wowed critics.

She has also announced a new album for this year. “The Mrs Carter Show World Tour” – Jay-Z’s real name is Shawn Carter – will kick off in April with more than 40 performances in Europe and North America.

“Life is But a Dream” airs on HBO on Saturday, the same day as Beyonce’s interview with Oprah Winfrey on the OWN cable channel.

(This version of the story corrects the spelling of Shawn Carter to “Shawn” from “Sean” Carter in paragraph 17.)

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Doina Chiacu)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

---

Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.

A transcript of this interview can be found here.

---

Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

---

Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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Feds OK insurance exchange partnership

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday said her department conditionally approved Illinois’ plan to operate a health insurance exchange in a partnership with the federal government, a widely expected move that makes the state the third to receive the official go ahead. 

Sebelius plans to make the announcement Wednesday afternoon at a West Side clinic alongside Gov. Pat Quinn, Sebelius said the approval will allow the state and the federal government to continue work on readying the online marketplace for Oct. 1, when uninsured Illinoisans can begin signing up for health insurance offered under the 2010 health care overhaul law.

Under the partnership model, Illinois will maintain its responsibility for regulating the insurance market, a function that will allow the state to tailor the types of private health insurance plans offered through the exchange. Illinois also will be in charge of customer assistance, which will allow it to conduct outreach efforts and aid people in signing up.

The federal government is responsible for building and operating the exchange.

Illinois becomes the third state to have its partnership plan approved, following Delaware and Arkansas. A handful of other states, including Iowa, Michigan, West Virginia and New Hampshire, also are interested in the partnership model. Other states have opted to set up and run their own exchanges, while a majority refused to participate, relying on the federal government to do so.

Sebelius is in town through Thursday to meet with several large stakeholders, including union leaders, clergy and community groups, to raise awareness about the forthcoming exchanges, a spokesman said.

The exchanges are a crucial part of the government's plan to expand the number of Americans who have some form of health insurance.

Eventually, an estimated 20 million people will benefit from federal tax credits starting in 2014 that will help offset the cost of paying for insurance premiums. Even so, the government estimates that about 6 million Americans will not sign up and will start paying tax penalties in 2014.

In the first year, those penalties are relatively modest, starting at $95 for adults and $47.50 per child. But they’re expected to increase in future years, eventually totaling nearly $7 billion in 2016, an average fine of about $1,200 per person.

While states were given the option of setting up and running their own exchanges, only 18 chose to do so, with most of the rest opting to allow the federal government to operate them, at least in the beginning.

Julie Hamos, director of the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services, has said she hopes to get legislation passed this spring to authorize a purely state-run exchange that will be up and ready in time for open enrollment for 2015.

Meanwhile, consumers can expect a marketing blitz during the summer and into the fall touting the exchanges, which will serve individuals who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid and not offered health insurance through their employers.

pfrost@tribune.com | Twitter: @peterfrost

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How Oscar played matchmaker for a Scandinavian mutual admiration society

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Two Scandinavian directors.

Nikolaj Arcel, nominated for his smart Danish costume drama “A Royal Affair,” and Espen Sandberg, the co-director with Joachim Roenning of the Norwegian epic “Kon-Tiki,” had never met before this awards season – but when both films were nominated for Oscars and Golden Globes, the two men began to find themselves at the same events in Los Angeles, far from where they grew up.

Is there a kinship between Scandinavian filmmakers?

SANDBERG: Absolutely. It is a small scene, and I think every

Scandinavian movie that does well helps me.

ARCEL: When we heard the Oscar nomination announcements, me and my friends were in the room, and obviously at first we were screaming about our own nomination.

But then we immediately went into talking about how fantastic it was that “Kon-Tiki” got nominated, too. For two Scandinavian countries to be in one nomination pool is quite good for us.

SANDBERG: It’s a phenomenon. A small one, but still …

ARCEL: There is also something worth mentioning, which is that me and Espen and Joachim are sort of alike in the way we work. We are very un-Scandinavian. I think they are known in Norway as being the Hollywood guys in Norway, and I am known as the Hollywood guy in Denmark.

We’re both lovers of Hollywood films, and I think it’s fun that we both have these big films at the same time.

SANDBERG: I totally agree. We make movies sort of in the vein of the movies that they used to make here. They’re the kind of movies we grew up with, and we miss.

ARCEL: Some of the other Scandinavian directors are arthouse directors, more inspired by the French Wave and by filmmakers like Godard. Our generation, we are slightly younger, and we are inspired by Spielberg and Scorsese and Coppola.

Both of your stories are very dear to the countries you come from: “A Royal Affair” is about Johann Struensee, the German doctor who became the lover of the queen and helped push for human rights in Denmark, and “Kon-Tiki” is the story of a voyage by the legendary Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. Were you thinking of the international audience when you made them, or were you just trying to please your home countries?

SANDBERG: We were thinking about both. We even shot a version in English, which was a demand from the financiers, and we also knew that the story, when it happened, was an international phenomenon. But we of course knew that we had to succeed at home first.

ARCEL: Didn’t it make you go crazy that you actually had to edit two films?

SANDBERG: Yeah, but we did the Norwegian one first. And then we matched the English and then adjusted slightly.

ARCEL: I have to say, we didn’t think about the international stuff, other than we knew that it had to be big in Germany – which was the only country where it totally flopped, by the way. It’s a period drama in Danish, and I never thought it would travel outside of Northern Europe.

Was it hard to pull off a period drama on a limited budget?

ARCEL: It was extremely difficult. It was the most difficult thing I ever had to do, and I think I will never do that again. It was $ 7 million to do the film, and I had to do five or six big scenes a day. So we worked 14, 15, 16 hours a day. And we didn’t focus so much on the surroundings. It’s still a little bit of a chamber piece.

I have to say, I am even more impressed with the work that the guys did on “Kon-Tiki,” because that looks like a $ 150 million Hollywood film. I still can’t figure out how you guys are doing that.

SANDBERG: Thank you. We are very proud of the effects work. I don’t think the effects houses made any money on this. I think they thought, like the actors did, ‘This is our chance to show the world what we can do.’ And they did. We sort of promised them that this movie can really break out, so it’s great now that we’ve come so far.

We had to be very well-prepared. We had to storyboard everything and make pre-visualizations of the scenes that had a lot of effects work. We shot digital, so we could shoot more with the actors in a shorter time. And then we were just being very economical about everything. We shot the two versions, the Norwegian version and the English version, in 59 days in six countries. It was very, very hard work, and four of those weeks were open sea.

Casting somebody to play Thor Heyerdahl, a national hero, must have been a big job.

SANDBERG:Yeah, it’s tough on the actor. We knew from beforehand, because he also plays a smaller part in Max Manus. He’s an amazing actor; he looks the part, but he was actually on his way to study biology when he got accepted to theater school. So I knew he would understand Thor on a deeper level. He is interested in the things that Thor was interested in. We knew very early on that it had to be him, and we cast around him.

ARCEL: I was actually wondering about these specific moments in “Kon-Tiki.” Whenever he gets faced with a real tough challenge, the actor has this little smile on his face, like ‘I can beat this.’ Was that something that Thor Heyerdahl was known for?

SANDBERG: Yes. He put on a smile whenever things got tough.

ARCEL: That was a great touch. You guys must have felt a little bit of the same thing that I did, because as much as Thor is a huge icon in Norway, in Denmark Streunsee is equally known and a very iconic character.

You must have felt the same pressure, that if you fuck this up the whole country’s going to hate you!

SANDBERG: Yes.

You’re both living in Los Angeles these days. Are you looking to do Hollywood films?

ARCEL: Absolutely!

SANDBERG: When Joachim and I started out making movies, we were watching American movies. That was what we dreamt of since we were kids. We always wanted to do that. We would love to do a movie here, and preferably a studio movie. We’re getting close. We’ll see how it goes.

ARCEL: I’m getting some very interesting things as well. But I have a process that’s very important to me. I need to develop my own stuff. Otherwise I have a problem steering the ship. So I’m looking for things that I can write – or maybe books, maybe scripts that are not good so I can fix them and rewrite them. So I don’t think I’m going to be directing right now. I might take a year or so and write.

SANDBERG: I was very happy to hear that you and your writing partner also work as scriptwriters. I would love to have you write something…

ARCEL: Oh yeah. Any time. Absolutely.

SANDBERG: Let’s make a deal here in the room. Anybody have a napkin?

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

---

Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.

A transcript of this interview can be found here.

---

Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

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Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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Chicago leads nation in gas-price spikes

Drivers in Chicago are seeing a painful rise in gas prices get even worse this month.

The average price of regular unleaded in the Chicago metro area on Tuesday is $3.93, according to AAA. That's up 12 cents from a week ago. A month ago, the average was $3.42. Statewide, the average is about $3.79, up 8 cents from last week and 46 cents last month.

Prices are rising at pumps across the country, too, but not as dramatically. The national average is $3.60, up about 7 cents from a week ago and 30 cents higher than this time last month.

It's not typical to see gas price spikes at this time of year. Demand is typically low and picks up in the spring before driving season. And in general, gas is cheaper to produce in the winter because refineries can use less expensive blends.

The main reason for the spike is the higher price of crude oil. The price of oil has gone from around $85 a barrel in December to around $97 now because of improving economic certainty as the country moved past the election and the fiscal cliff deadline, according to energy analyst Phil Flynn. It's also being driven by better-than-expected growth in China, the world's second largest economy.

Prices in the Chicago area are typically some the highest in the nation, but the cost of a local fill-up is accelerating at almost double the national rate.

Flynn attributes this to a number of refinery issues in the region. Some scheduled maintenance at refineries -- where gasoline and other products are produced from oil -- occurred earlier than usual, which cut off some supply, affecting prices. Many close at this time of year to start the switchover to lower-emission summer blends of gasoline.

Besides a major overhaul of BP's Whiting refinery, the largest supplier of gasoline to Midwest markets, that's believed to be driving prices higher, a fire temporarily shut down a refinery in northwest Ohio.

AAA, which tracks daily gasoline prices around the country, predicts they will continue their rapid climb as local refinery issues continue into the beginning of peak driving season.

Flynn is more optimistic.

He believes that once the major Whiting refinery overhaul is complete later this year, gas prices will stabilize.

"I'm probably in the minority but I think we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel

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Charges in Hadiya Pendleton slaying could come soon: McCarthy

Charges could come this evening against two people being questioned in the shooting death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said today.
"We will bring this all to closure, probably sometime this evening we're anticipating hopefully that we'll have charges," McCarthy said at a news conference with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to announce a push for stiffer jail terms for people convicted of gun crimes.
McCarthy declined to provide more specifics, saying the investigation is ongoing.

"We're still doing lineups. We're still crossing some t's and dotting some i's that we need to do before we can get charges approved for these individuals," he said.

Chicago police picked up the two men, 18 and 20, were picked up over the weekend, hours after first lady Michelle Obama attended the funeral for the teenager whose death has become a symbol of escalating violence in Chicago.

The men were pulled over near East 67th Street and South Chicago Avenue late Saturday night or early Sunday morning after detectives canvassed the area of the park where she was shot and killed Jan. 29 and tracked down witnesses, the sources said.

Hadiya was fatally shot in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park, about a mile north of President Barack Obama's Kenwood neighborhood home on the South Side, a little more than a week after the honor student performed with the King College Prep band in Washington during inauguration festivities. Two other teens were wounded.

The shooting in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue happened after classes were dismissed for the day during finals week at King. Hadiya, a sophomore at King, was at the park with a group of teens, primarily other students from the school, when a male gunman climbed over a fence, ran to the group and started firing, police have said. The shooter escaped in what has been described as a white Nissan vehicle, possibly driven by a getaway driver.

One of the sources said at least one of the men brought into custody was riding in a Nissan Sentra, one of the two vehicles police pulled over when bringing the pair into custody. The source didn't know that Nissan's color.

Police have insisted the teens in Hadiya's group who had gathered in the park were not involved in gangs. But police have been looking into whether the gunman may have mistaken them for rival gang members.

While police and neighbors have generally described Harsh Park and its immediate surroundings as safe, there has been an internal gang conflict brewing in the area between factions of the Gangster Disciples, police said. The two men being questioned Sunday are alleged members of the Gangster Disciples, sources said.

One of the two men has a previous weapons conviction, according to court records.

In addition to Hadiya's homicide, there have been at least three other shootings within blocks of Harsh Park so far this year, according to police records.

No charges have been filed against the men, who are being held at Area Central police headquarters on the South Side.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel personally called Hadiya's parents, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton, to inform them of the development, according to a source. Nathaniel Pendleton told the Tribune on Sunday night that he didn't want to say too much about the men being questioned because charges have not been filed.
“Right now, we're just happy that Chicago police have some leads and things are moving,” he said.

Shatira Wilks, a cousin of Hadiya's and a family spokesperson, said the development is a “good response” and better news than the family had Saturday.

Arrests and charges “will bring a small level of closure to the family, although (the shooter) still will be allowed to eat, drink, mingle,” Wilks said. “The thing about that is, Hadiya is no longer (able) to do so.”

On how Hadiya's family is doing, Wilks said, “Everyone keeps asking that. I don't know if you'll ever get an answer that we're feeling good or we're feeling fine.”

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