Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Meisner on the recent arrest of Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber who escaped from federal jail in December. (Posted on: Jan. 4, 2013.)
Kenneth Conley's formal return to federal custody this morning at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse was a far cry from the brazen way he left.
The second half of a daring escape duo who used bedsheets to scale down the façade of a downtown jail last month was pushed into a federal courtroom in a wheelchair, his legs extended and his feet swollen and shoeless. Shoulder bones pushed through his thin white T-shirt and one pinky was secured in a splint.
A short time later, U.S. District Judge Sheila Finnegan ordered Conley be held in custody without bail and set his preliminary hearing for Jan. 17. Conley spoke only briefly to tell Finnegan he understood the charges against him.
"Yes, your honor," said Conley, who was wan and appeared thinner than in his booking photo.
Conley, a convicted bank robber, was on the lam 18 days before being arrested Friday afternoon in Palos Hills after police there received a call of a suspicious person. Police said Conley had attempted a disguise, wearing a an overcoat, beret and using a cane he didn't need.
Conley fought briefly with police, slugging one officer before he was tackled, authorities said. He was treated at a hospital before being transferred back to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the jail he busted out of Dec. 18 with his cellmate and fellow convicted bank robber, Joseph "Jose" Banks. Banks was caught two days after the escape.
Conley's attorney, Gary Ravitz, asked Finnegan for permission to use his cell phone camera to document Conley's left foot, which he said was swollen.
Ravitz, who represents Conley on the underlying bank robbery charge, said he did not know the extent of his client's injuries and that he otherwise appeared calm.
"He seemed to be in relatively good spirits, given the situation," Ravitz said.
Conley, 38, allegedly escaped from the jail, located at 71 W. Van Buren Street, while awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty on Oct. 29, 2012, to a 2011 bank robbery of $4,000 in Homewood.
Deputy U.S. Marshals and FBI agents returned to Palos Hills Friday morning to canvass for Conley because of unconfirmed sightings there and his long-standing connections to the area. A 911 call from maintenance workers at a building where Conley is believed to have been sleeping in the basement came in around 3:30 p.m.
The maximum penalty for Conley's escape is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The maximum penalty for bank robbery is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
According to court records, Conley has a long criminal history. He has been convicted in Cook County of offenses ranging from retail theft to weapons violations and was sentenced to eight years in prison for an armed robbery in 1996. He also was sentenced to six years in prison in San Diego County for petty theft with a prior conviction, according to California records.
If denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, then mobile isn’t just a city in Alabama. And if 2012 proved one thing, it’s that there’s no denying mobile is the present and future of technology.
Sales figures for mobile devices reached new heights in 2012. Market research firm Gartner predicted tablet sales would near 120 million, about doubling the total sold in 2011.
[More from Mashable: Would You Make Your Kid Sign a Contract to Use an iPhone?]
In addition, the number of active smartphones eclipsed 1 billion during the past year. That’s one for every seven people on the planet. And while it took almost two decades to reach 1 billion active smartphones, research firm Strategy Analytics projects there will be 2 billion by 2015, fueled by growth in developing economies in China, India and Africa.
It’s not just phones and tablets though. All sorts of smart mobile technology flourished in 2012, from watches and wristbands to glasses that can project video on the inside of the lenses. Speaking of glasses, in April, Google sent the tech world into a tizzy when it unveiled plans for a futuristic headset called Project Glass.
[More from Mashable: ‘Offensive Combat’ Brings Hardcore Gaming to Facebook]
Well, if you think mobile came a long way in 2012, this year could be even better. Here’s an outline of where we think mobile technology is headed in 2013.
Brand Wars Will Drive Innovation
In terms of smartphones, mobile in 2013 will be like an evening of boxing. For the main event, heavyweights Apple and Samsung will square off to see which can produce the world’s most popular device.
The Samsung Galaxy III recently dethroned the iPhone for that honor. While Apple went conservative with new features on the iPhone 5, Samsung went bold, equipping the Galaxy S III with an enormous 4.8-inch display, near field communication (NFC) technology (more on this later), a burst-shooting camera and a voice-enabled assistent akin to the iPhone’s Siri.
Apparently, Apple is preparing to counter-punch. There are already rumors that Apple is testing its next iPhone, identified as “iPhone 6.1″ which runs iOS 7.
Behind the iPhone and Galaxy a host of capable contenders are hungry for a shot at the belt, including devices from Motorola, HTC and Nokia.
There might even be some new players in the game. It seems likely that Amazon will debut a Kindle Phone sometime in 2013. There was even talk that Facebook was working on its own smartphone, but CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg squelched those rumors in September.
What does this all this mean for us? It means better phones. Competition drives innovation. Look for these brands to consistently try to one-up one another with faster processors, better cameras and more innovative features.
That’s not the only battle that will play out in 2013. Another one to watch will be the fight for third place in mobile operating systems. Android is the undisputed number one with nearly 75% global market share. While Apple’s iOS is miles behind Android, it is still firmly entrenched at number two.
In 2013, the top two contenders for third place will be Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10, which is expected to launch in the coming months.
A few dark horses are running in this race for third. Mozilla plans to launch a Firefox OS sometime during 2013. Then, there is Tizen, a Linux-based mobile OS. Samsung recently revealed plans to release Tizen-based devices in 2013.
Both Firefox and Tizen are open source mobile operating systems, but they won’t be the only ones. There are two other open source mobile operating systems to watch going forward. Jolla expects to release smartphones and possibly tablets running its Sailfish OS in 2013; and Ubuntu-based smartphones should hit the market by early 2014.
No NFC Mobile Payment, Yet
Before leaving the house, most will check to make sure they have three things: keys, wallet and cellphone. Well, thanks to NFC technology, cellphones might soon lighten the load by essentially replacing wallets with an “e-wallet.”
It seems like we have been talking about NFC for years now. Basically, it enables two devices to make a very short-range and secure connection through radio technology. If a smartphone is equipped with NFC, as are most newer-model Androids, and if a retailer has an NFC terminal, one could make a purchase by simply tapping the phone on the terminal.
NFC technology also has other applications, such as data transfer between phones, but mobile payments is the feature most often discussed.
Services like Isis and Google Wallet are already in place. They secure one’s payment information within a device.
The reason why mobile payment through NFC has not yet hit the mainstream is that device penetration is not at the point where it has prompted retailers to update their technology. Basically, not enough smartphones have the technology. Androids have started to adapt, but unlike iPhones, Android hardware is not uniform across the various devices.
While the wheels have been in motion for some time, they’re really spinning now that most new Androids, including the Galaxy S III, come with NFC. If Apple releases a new iPhone during 2013, and if Apple decides to include NFC this time around, it will probably tip the scales in favor of rapid adoption of mobile payment.
Even if all that does happen, however, there probably won’t be a new iPhone until later in the year, so odds are you’re not going to see NFC penetrate the mainstream during 2013. Maybe 2014 will finally be the year of NFC.
Flexible Smartphones
Here’s something you never knew you needed — a flexible smartphone. These devices will be lighter, more durable and the screen will be bendable. This feat is possible by making the display out of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and shielding it in plastic rather than glass. Samsung is reportedly moving forward with plans to start producing a bendable phone.
Samsung is not the only player in this game, however. Many companies are developing bendable screens. At Nokia World in London in 2011, Nokia showed off a device which not only bends but is controlled by bending. Check it out in the video below.
Since there are quite a few companies working on this, it seems likely that one will try to be first to market in 2013. There are rumors that the next model of Samsung’s Galaxy will feature a bendable HD display. We’ll find out much more about this at the Consumer Electronics Show, scheduled for next week. Stay tuned for updates.
The Future of Smartphone Cameras
Cameras and phones have been married for about a decade (they dated, previously). In that time, the relationship has been constantly improving in terms of specs, which has led to higher-quality photographs.
Nokia upped the ante significantly in 2012 when it released the 808 PureView, a smartphone equipped with a 41-megapixel camera. The iPhone 5 has an eight-megapixel camera. Granted, more megapixels doesn’t necessarily equate to better pictures, but it’s certainly one important element. The gallery below features pictures taken with the 808 PureView.
Nokia 808 PureView
The Nokia 808 PureView comes in several colors. It’s heavier than your average phone, with the camera lens protruding from the back. By far its most interesting feature is the 41-megapixel camera, which takes amazing photos.
Click here to view this gallery.
In 2013, we can not only expect more megapixels, and better sensors, flashlights and shutter speeds from smartphone cameras; there are also some futuristic developments in the works.
One most likely to hit the market in 2013: a sensor developed by Toshiba that will allow users to adjust the area of focus of a shot during post-processing, much like with a Lytro cameras.
Another development to anticipate is greater availability and lower cost for smartphone cameras that shoot 3D photos and video.
While all of these improvements are exciting, it’s not just smartphones that are getting better cameras. Better cameras are literally being turned into smartphones. In 2012, Samsung released a Galaxy Camera which Mashable’s tech editor Pete Pachal described as an “incredible device.”
Connected cameras might not become the norm in 2013, but they will definitely become more common.
Eventually, there could even be cameras that have the ability to penetrate objects such as thin walls, clothing or even skin. While the technology is in place, don’t look for it in 2013. The world probably isn’t ready for x-ray vision quite yet.
Wearable Tech
It’s not enough to carry technology anymore. Nowadays people want to wear it, too.
In April, the Pebble Watch, which integrates with both Android and iOS devices, received Kickstarter funding totaling over $ 10 million from nearly 70,000 backers. Pebble still has not shipped watches. It is currently accepting pre-orders, but has not announced a release date. It’s relatively safe to assume these watches will be available in 2013.
Although there are other smart watches currently available, Pebble may face some serious competition if the rumors about Apple producing a smart watch prove true. In fact, Apple recently received 22 patents that would enable the company to move forward with a range of wearable smart technology, including sneakers, shirts, skiing gear and more.
Patents alone mean very little. So unless you hear otherwise, don’t expect Apple smartpants (which, if they do happen, should definitely be called “smartypants”) anytime during 2013.
And speaking of extremely exciting wearable technology that probably won’t happen during 2013, let’s all re-watch this video for Google Glass while wistfully longing for the future to arrive.
On the bright side, since we survived the Mayan apocalypse, it looks like we might eventually make it to the future, after all. In case you hadn’t noticed, it seems pretty obvious that when we get there, glorious mobile technology will abound.
Images courtesy of Flickr, SETUP Utrecht, John Biehler and via Isis
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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PARIS (Reuters) – Former French screen goddess Brigitte Bardot on Friday threatened to follow Gerard Depardieu in asking for a Russian passport, in protest not at tax hikes, but at the treatment of two circus elephants.
The animals, named Baby and Nepal and owned by a touring circus, are thought to be carrying tuberculosis and were ordered to be put down by a court in Lyon, southern France, on Friday as a precautionary measure.
Bardot’s threat comes a day after fellow actor Depardieu caused a storm in France by becoming a Russian citizen in protest at high tax rates proposed by the Socialist government, which he accuses of penalizing success.
“If those in power are cowardly and impudent enough to kill the elephants… then I have decided I will ask for Russian nationality to get out of this country which has become nothing more than an animal cemetery,” Bardot said in a statement.
Owners Cirque Pinder also said on Friday they would appeal to save the elephants, which first tested positive for tuberculosis in 2010 but have since been kept in a zoo in Lyon away from the general public.
Bardot, who first rose to fame as a screen siren in the 1956 Roger Vadim film “And God Created Woman”, has become an increasingly controversial figure with her outbursts on animal rights, but also on gays, immigrants and the unemployed.
Since retiring from the screen in the 1970s she has become a semi-recluse, devoting herself to her Brigitte Bardot Foundation for animal rights, and has frequently taken aim at Eid al-Adha festivities when Muslims ritually slaughter sheep.
In 2008 she was convicted for a fifth time in 11 years for incitement to religious hatred, over a 2006 tract on Eid al-Adha in which she said the Muslim community in France was “destroying our country by imposing its acts’.
(Reporting By Vicky Buffery, editing by Paul Casciato)
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One consequence of our elders’ extended lifespans is that we half expect them to keep chugging along forever. My father, a busy yoga practitioner and blackjack player, celebrated his 90th birthday in September in reasonably good health.
So when I had the sad task of letting people know that Murray Span died on Dec. 8, after just a few days’ illness, the primary response was disbelief. “No! I just talked to him Tuesday! He was fine!”
And he was. We’d gone out for lunch on Saturday, our usual routine, and he demolished a whole stack of blueberry pancakes.
But on Wednesday, he called to say he had bad abdominal pain and had hardly slept. The nurses at his facility were on the case; his geriatrician prescribed a clear liquid diet.
Like many in his generation, my dad tended towards stoicism. When he said, the following morning, “the pain is terrible,” that meant agony. I drove over.
His doctor shared our preference for conservative treatment. For patients at advanced ages, hospitals and emergency rooms can become perilous places. My dad had come through a July heart attack in good shape, but he had also signed a do-not-resuscitate order. He saw evidence all around him that eventually the body fails and life can become a torturous series of health crises and hospitalizations from which one never truly rebounds.
So over the next two days we tried to relieve his pain at home. He had abdominal x-rays that showed some kind of obstruction. He tried laxatives and enemas and Tylenol, to no effect. He couldn’t sleep.
On Friday, we agreed to go to the emergency room for a CT scan. Maybe, I thought, there’s a simple fix, even for a 90-year-old with diabetes and heart disease. But I carried his advance directives in my bag, because you never know.
When it is someone else’s narrative, it’s easier to see where things go off the rails, where a loving family authorizes procedures whose risks outweigh their benefits.
But when it’s your father groaning on the gurney, the conveyor belt of contemporary medicine can sweep you along, one incremental decision at a time.
All I wanted was for him to stop hurting, so it seemed reasonable to permit an IV for hydration and pain relief and a thin oxygen tube tucked beneath his nose.
Then, after Dad drank the first of two big containers of contrast liquid needed for his scan, his breathing grew phlegmy and labored. His geriatrician arrived and urged the insertion of a nasogastric tube to suck out all the liquid Dad had just downed.
His blood oxygen levels dropped, so there were soon two doctors and two nurses suctioning his throat until he gagged and fastening an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.
At one point, I looked at my poor father, still in pain despite all the apparatus, and thought, “This is what suffering looks like.” I despaired, convinced I had failed in my most basic responsibility.
“I’m just so tired,” Dad told me, more than once. “There are too many things going wrong.”
Let me abridge this long story. The scan showed evidence of a perforation of some sort, among other abnormalities. A chest X-ray indicated pneumonia in both lungs. I spoke with Dad’s doctor, with the E.R. doc, with a friend who is a prominent geriatrician.
These are always profound decisions, and I’m sure that, given the number of unknowns, other people might have made other choices. Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide; I could ask my still-lucid father.
I leaned close to his good ear, the one with the hearing aid, and told him about the pneumonia, about the second CT scan the radiologist wanted, about antibiotics. “Or, we can stop all this and go home and call hospice,” I said.
He had seen my daughter earlier that day (and asked her about the hockey strike), and my sister and her son were en route. The important hands had been clasped, or soon would be.
He knew what hospice meant; its nurses and aides helped us care for my mother as she died. “Call hospice,” he said. We tiffed a bit about whether to have hospice care in his apartment or mine. I told his doctors we wanted comfort care only.
As in a film run backwards, the tubes came out, the oxygen mask came off. Then we settled in for a night in a hospital room while I called hospices — and a handyman to move the furniture out of my dining room, so I could install his hospital bed there.
In between, I assured my father that I was there, that we were taking care of him, that he didn’t have to worry. For the first few hours after the morphine began, finally seeming to ease his pain, he could respond, “OK.” Then, he couldn’t.
The next morning, as I awaited the hospital case manager to arrange the hospice transfer, my father stopped breathing.
We held his funeral at the South Jersey synagogue where he’d had his belated bar mitzvah at age 88, and buried him next to my mother in a small Jewish cemetery in the countryside. I’d written a fair amount about him here, so I thought readers might want to know.
We weren’t ready, if anyone ever really is, but in our sorrow, my sister and I recite this mantra: 90 good years, four bad days. That’s a ratio any of us might choose.
Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”
Stock in Jewel-Osco parent Supervalu soared 13.5 percent Friday on speculation that the company is on the brink of a deal with Cerberus Capital Management.
Shares for the Eden Prairie, Minn-based grocery company closed at $2.94.
Supervalu spokesman Mike Siemienas said the company is in talks with several suitors, though a deal is not assured. A representative for Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm, declined to comment for this story.
The Eden Prarie, Minn-based company, which also owns Albertsons, Cub, Acme and Save-A-Lot stores, said it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale, in July. Days later, Supervalu dismissed CEO Craig Herkert, and Chairman Wayne Sales stepped in to run the troubled grocer.
Supervalu sales and earnings have lagged those of competitors for years. In 2012, the company's stock price fell 69.6 percent and return on investment declined 68.6 percent, according to Bloomberg. Average stock prices in the broader consumer staples market rose 7.4 percent and returns gained 10.7 percent in the period.
For the fiscal year ended Feb. 25, Supervalu reported a loss of $1.04 billion, which included a $519 million operating loss and $509 million in interest expense. Sales declined 3 percent, to $27.9 billion. The company has carried an onerous debt load since buying Albertsons, which included Chicago's Jewel-Osco chain, in 2006, making Supervalu the subject of bankruptcy speculation.
Cerberus is rumored to be in the mix to buy parts of the company. The firm has experience in the food retail sector and was an investor in the 2006 Albertsons deal. Cerberus still holds a stake in Albertsons and Strategic Restaurants, a Burger King franchisee with more than 250 restaurants.
Andre Curry, 22, talks about his felony conviction for posting a Facebook photo of his daughter bound and gagged with tape being reduced to misdemeanor domestic battery. (Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune)
A Cook County judge today reversed himself, reducing the conviction to a misdemeanor for a dad who posted a Facebook photo of his 22-month-old bound and gagged with tape.
Judge Lawrence Flood had convicted Andre Curry in November of aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery, both felonies, and was scheduled to sentence him today when he did an abrupt about-face.
In reducing Curry’s conviction to misdemeanor domestic battery, the judge said that after reviewing the law, he found no intent to obstruct the child's breathing. He sentenced Curry to 18 months of probation and ordered him to take parenting classes.
Despite his change of heart, Flood said that Curry showed an extreme "lack of judgment."
"In your rush to show everyone how funny you were, you used...a helpless 22-month-old child who was completely dependent on you as a prop," Flood said. “This was not funny, OK? I want you to understand the gravity of your lack of judgment in this case."
Curry thanked the judge in a soft voice and apologized to his family.
"I'm sorry for everybody who’s been on the edge of their seats out there," he said.
Curry, 22, had been free on bond since his felony conviction but had faced up to 7 years in prison before the judge changed his mind.
At trial, Flood had acquitted Curry of unlawful restraint but found him guilty of the two battery counts, saying in a brief ruling that by placing tape over the girl's mouth, he had obstructed her breathing for his own enjoyment.
"To use a child...as a toy or a prop in an odd attempt at humor is conduct of an insulting or provoking nature," Flood said at the time.
Curry told police he was playing with his daughter one night at their South Side home and used blue painter’s tape to bind her ankles and wrists and cover her mouth. He then snapped a photo and uploaded it on his Facebook page.
Across the top of the photo were the words: "This is wut happens wen my baby hits me back," according to prosecutors and police reports. The message was followed with a winking emoticon.
Family members have said that Curry is playful and the photograph was meant to be a joke.
But the image went viral on the Internet, prompting a flood of calls to police and state child-welfare authorities from Curry’s friends on Facebook and others who had seen it.
After Curry’s felony conviction in November, Curry’s attorney, Sam Adam Jr., blasted prosecutors, saying they had overcharged the case because of the publicity. He said the domestic battery law wasn’t intended to punish a loving parent who made a mistake but didn’t injured his child.
He filed a motion asking Flood to reconsider the verdict, arguing that the judge had incorrectly found that Curry had impeded the child’s breathing or attempted to strangle her, elevating the charge to a felony. The eight-page filing contained innocuous examples of someone having their mouth covered, including one photo of a child playfully holding her hand over the mouth of President Barack Obama during a photo op.
In reversing his ruling today, Judge Flood said he agreed that prosecutors had not proven there was any “intent to strangle” or to keep the child from breathing. The judge cited testimony from both police and Curry’s sister that the tape was over the child’s mouth for only a matter of seconds.
It is extremely rare for a trial judge to overturn his own ruling. Typically, if a case is reversed it comes after an appeal is filed before the Illinois Appellate Court.
After the hearing, Adam, a veteran criminal defense attorney who has tried hundreds of cases at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, estimated he wins only about 1 percent of his motions to reconsider. He said trying to convince a judge he or she was wrong is a tricky maneuver, but that most judges know it’s not a personal attack.
“You have to be very careful when you say, “I think you’re wrong here,’” Adam said. “But I have a client.. I believe in, and I believed that the judge was wrong on what the state proved.”
After the hearing, Curry hugged his pastor, Torrey Barrett, who has hired Curry to mentor other young fathers as part of the KLEO Community Life Center that Barrett runs in the Washington Park neighborhood. Curry said he hoped his story would help others remain a positive force in their children’s lives.
“From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry for the pain I put everybody through, everyone who had to see that picture,” Curry said.
Asked what he learned from the ordeal, Curry said emphatically, “Think before you do.”
Curry, who spent 39 days in jail before he was freed on bond, said the experience has humbled him but not made him bitter or angry.
“I think for my actions I deserved to be put through this. It was actually a life-learning experience for myself,” he said.
Curry said he knew that as his daughter grows older, she will hear stories about the case and possibly even see the picture. “It’ll just be something we’ll sit back and laugh at as a family like ‘Look what daddy went through for you,’” he said.
He said he was looking forward to seeing his daughter soon. Since his release from jail, Curry was allowed only sporadic, supervised visits with his daughter. That restriction will be lifted as long as he completes the parenting classes and stays out of trouble.
“I’m gonna pick her up and throw her in the air,” Curry said, smiling. “And I’m going to catch her and spin her around.”
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A decision by U.S. regulators to end a probe into whether Google Inc hurt rivals by manipulating internet searches will not affect the European Union‘s examination of the company.
“We have taken note of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) decision, but we don’t see that it has any direct implications for our investigation, for our discussions with Google, which are ongoing,” said Michael Jennings, a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU executive.
U.S. regulators on Thursday ended their investigation into the giant internet company, which runs the world’s most popular search engine.
Other internet companies, such as Microsoft Corp, had complained about Google tweaking its search results to give prominence to its own products. But the FTC said there was not enough evidence to pursue a big search-bias case.
The European Commission has for the past two years been investigating complaints against Google, including claims that it unfairly favored its own services in its search results.
Google presented informal settlement proposals to the Commission in July. On December 18 the Commission gave the company a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve the investigation.
If it fails to address the complaints and is found guilty, Google could eventually be fined up to 10 percent of its revenue – a fine of up to $ 4 billion.
(Reporting By Ethan Bilby; Editing by Sebastian Moffett and David Goodman)
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty” are adding to their front-runner status for Hollywood’s awards season.
The two dramas earned nominations from the Writers Guild on Friday for outstanding screen writing.
“Lincoln” is up for adapted screenplay, along with “Argo,” ”Silver Linings Playbook,” ”Life of Pi” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
“Zero Dark Thirty” was nominated for original screenplay, along with “Flight,” ”Looper,” ”The Master” and “Moonrise Kingdom.”
In the documentary category, “The Central Park Five,” ”The Invisible War,” ”Mea Maxima Culpa, “West of Memphis,” ”We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists,” and “Searching for Sugar Man” earned nominations.
Winners will be announced during simultaneous ceremonies in New York and Los Angeles on Feb. 17.
___
Online:
www.wga.org
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Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.
Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.
The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.
“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.
Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.
Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.
As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.
Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.
“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”
A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.
In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.
Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.
Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.
On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.
But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.
Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.
CBS News business and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis talks to Norah O'Donnell and Anthony Mason about the final jobs report of 2012 to be released later today.
The pace of hiring by U.S. employers eased slightly in December, pointing to a lackluster pace of economic growth that was unable to make further inroads in the country's still high unemployment rate.
Payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. That was in line with analysts' expectations and slightly below the level for November.
Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to health care.
That should reinforce expectations that the economy will grow about 2 percent this year, unlikely to quickly bring down the unemployment rate or make the U.S. Federal Reserve rethink its easy-money policies, which have been propping up the recovery.
"It's not a booming economy, but it is growing," Jim O'Sullivan, an economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, said before the data was released.
The jobless rate held steady at 7.8 percent in December, down nearly a percentage point from a year earlier but still well above the average rate over the last 60 years of about 6 percent.
The Labor Department raised its estimate for the unemployment rate in November by a tenth of a point to 7.8 percent, citing a slight change in the labor market's seasonal swings.
Most economists expect the U.S. economy will be held back by tax hikes this year as well as by weak spending by households and businesses, which are still trying to reduce their debt burdens.
Friday's data nonetheless gave signals of growing momentum in the labor market's recovery from the 2007-09 recession. Many economists had expected December's payroll gains to be padded by one-time factors like the recovery from a mammoth storm that hit the East Coast in late October.
The government had said last month the storm had no substantial impact on the November data, and many economists expected the government to recant by revising downward in Friday's report its estimate for payroll gains in November. Instead, the government revised its estimate for November payrolls upward by 15,000.
"There is some evidence that underlying jobs growth has improved," Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said before the report was released.
AUSTERITY'S BITE
Despite the signs of some momentum in hiring, a wave of government spending cuts due to begin around March loom over the economy.
Many economic forecasts assume the cuts - which would hit the military, education and other areas - will ultimately be pushed into next year as part of a deal sought by lawmakers to reduce gradually the government's debt burden.
Initially, the cuts were planned to have begun this month as part of a $600 billion austerity package that also included tax hikes. Hiring in December may have been slowed by uncertainty over the timing of the austerity, economists say.
Congress this week passed legislation to avoid most of the tax hikes and postpone the spending cuts.
Even with the last-minute deal to avoid much of the "fiscal cliff," most workers will see their take-home pay reduced this month as a two-year cut in payroll taxes expires.
That leaves the Fed's efforts to lower borrowing costs as the main program for stimulating the economy.
The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008, and in September promised open-ended bond purchases to support lending further. On Thursday, however, minutes from the Fed's December policy review pointed to rising concerns over how the asset purchases will affect financial markets.
Analysts ahead of the report expected some of the strength in job creation in December would be due to the Fed's policies.
"Despite the end-of-year angst over the ‘fiscal cliff,' financial conditions remained supportive of job growth in December," economists at Nomura said in a note to clients earlier in the week.
