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A man the FBI said appeared to be in his 70s and walking with a cane robbed a bank this morning in north suburban Niles.
A man who is estimated to be in his 70s robbed the Harris Bank branch at 7077 W. Dempster St. at 9:45 a.m., according to FBI spokesman Joan Hyde.
The robber was wearing a brown coat and walked with a cane during the incident, she said.
He did not show a weapon and no one was hurt, according to Hyde.
Niles police were not available immediately.
chicagobreaking@tribune.com
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his stake in the Internet search company, a move that could potentially net the former chief executive a $2.51 billion windfall.
Schmidt, 57, will sell 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock through a stock trading plan, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
The plan, which Google said would give Schmidt "individual asset diversification and liquidity," allows Schmidt to spread trades out over a period of one year to reduce the market impact.
Shares of Google were down $4.11 at $781.26 in after-hours trading on Friday.
A Google spokeswoman would not comment on why Schmidt is selling the shares at this time.
Wedbush Securities analyst James Dix said Schmidt's stock sales did not worry him or signal a loss of confidence in the company by Schmidt.
"I'd be more worried if the current CEO or CFO sold a lot of their stake," said Dix.
Schmidt, who served as Google's chief executive until 2011, currently owns roughly 7.6 million shares of Class A and Class B common stock. The shares represent 2.3 percent of Google's outstanding stock and roughly 8.2 percent of the voting power of Google's stock.
The fact that Schmidt will still own a significant amount of shares after the sales means he'll have a good deal of "skin in the Google game," said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice. But he said it could hint at Schmidt playing a less central role within the company going forward.
"My speculation is that Eric's relationship with Google is evolving," said Rice. "I would assume that as he decides he wants to diversify away from Google - both his career and financially - he's got ideas of what he would like to do with some of his funds."
Schmidt, who helped turn Google into the world's No.1 search engine during his decade as CEO, handed the reins to Google co-founder Larry Page in April 2011.
As executive chairman, Schmidt has been particularly involved in government relations, taking a leading role in the company's discussions with antitrust regulators in the United States and the European Union. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation into Google last month without any action. Google has offered to change some of its business practices to appease European competition regulators.
"As Google moves to maybe more tactical battles, as opposed to the strategic battles it's been waging with the government, once those are concluded, maybe his role can be lessened," said Needham & Co's Rice.
Schmidt has also made headlines apart from Google. In January, Schmidt traveled to North Korea with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson for a "personal" trip. The trip was criticized by the U.S. State Department as ill-timed - coming weeks after North Korea conducted a rocket launch in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
Shares of Google are trading at all-time highs, finishing Friday's regular session at a record closing price of $785.37. At that price, Schmidt's share sales would be worth $2.51 billion.
Google said that Schmidt entered into the stock trading plan in November.
Schmidt was ranked 138 on the Forbes list of global billionaires with a net worth of $6.9 billion in March 2012.
Given Schmidt's changed role at the company and the amount of his wealth tied up in Google's stock, it was not unreasonable for him to diversify his holdings, said Wedbush Securities analyst Dix.
"As good as Google stock is, it isn't as good as cash if you actually want to buy something," he said.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Lisa Shumaker)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — When Ben Brust tied the game at the end of regulation with a shot just from just inside midcourt, his teammate Mike Bruesewitz looked over at Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan and saw something unusual.
His coach had both his arms in the air.
"You know when he shows some emotion, you've done something pretty special," Bruesewitz said.
Brust hit a tiebreaking 3-pointer with less than 40 seconds left in overtime as Wisconsin beat No. 3 Michigan 65-62 on Saturday.
"It was awesome, something I'll remember forever, and I'm sure a lot of people will," Brust said of the game, which ended with students storming the court and Bruesewitz taking the public address announcer's microphone to thank the crowd as students celebrated around him.
The Wolverines became the third top three team to lose this week as No. 1 Indiana lost to Illinois and No. 2 Florida was beaten by Arkansas. This should be the sixth straight week with a different No. 1 in The Associated Press' Top 25.
Brust's shot at the end of regulation was a dramatic turn of events for Wisconsin (17-7, 8-3 Big Ten) and a soul crusher for Michigan (21-3, 8-3).
Just moments earlier, Tim Hardaway Jr. hit a contested 3-pointer to put the Wolverines up 60-57 with less than 3 seconds left in regulation.
Following a timeout, Bruesewitz passed up his first option in the inbounds play and hit Brust in stride. The guard took one dribble across halfcourt and launched the shot, which hit nothing but net.
Ryan said the play was drawn up to see how Michigan defended the first cutter, Brust read the defense and reacted.
"The best thing was Mike's pass on the dime on the run, didn't have to reach back for it, able to catch it all in one motion," Ryan said.
Michigan still had fouls to give before the shot, and coach John Beilein said the order coming out of the timeout was to foul. He also put Caris LeVert on Brust to bolster the defense.
"We were definitely fouling, wanted to keep everyone in front of us and (Brust) turned the corner on (LeVert) just enough that he couldn't foul him," Beilein said. "I thought we had them once they couldn't get their initial guy.
"With Caris' quickness, we thought he could get there, but he didn't."
For all the fireworks in the final 3 seconds, the teams only managed seven points in overtime, including Brust's winning 3-pointer.
Following Brust's shot, Hardaway couldn't connect on his drive to the hoop on the next Michigan possession, and Glenn Robinson III fouled Jared Berggren on the rebound.
The Wolverines went to a full-court press with two more fouls to give. But the Badgers broke the press, and Michigan had to foul twice more to finally put Ryan Evans on the free throw line.
Evans, who shoots less than 43 percent from the line, missed the front end of a 1-and-1, and Burke couldn't connect in a rushed final possession for the Wolverines.
It was another grinding win for the Badgers keyed by their defense. Michigan came in as one of the top scoring teams in the country at almost 78 points per game. But Wisconsin held Michigan to less than 40 percent shooting from the field, including 5 of 18 from beyond the 3-point line.
Michigan was 1 for 7 from the field in overtime, and the offensive futility was highlighted by one sequence in which Mitch McGary stole the ball outside the 3-point line and drove the other way only to miss the layup with Berggren defending the rim.
Beilein said the Wolverines missed out on 14 points thanks to missed layups.
"I'm not talking about when they're really contesting," Beilein said. "I'm talking about we had the ball, the basket and us, and it didn't go in."
Brust scored 14 points for the Badgers, while Berggren added 13 and eight rebounds. Sam Dekker scored 12 points, while Evans finished with 11 points and nine rebounds.
Burke scored 19 points to lead Michigan, but needed 21 shots to do it. Hardaway added 18, and McGary had 12 points and eight rebounds.
It was the second straight game for both teams to go past regulation after the Badgers beat Iowa 74-70 in double overtime on Wednesday and Michigan downed Ohio State 76-74 in overtime on Tuesday.
Several Wisconsin players said consecutive overtime games exemplified their will to win even as critics contend they're not talented enough, not fast enough and, as Bruesewitz said he's seen on Twitter, not good-looking enough.
"We have a group of guys in that locker room that believe and is going to fight until the end until you tell us we can't play any more basketball," Berggren said. "We just find a way to get it done."
NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.
The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.
The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.
But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.
For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.
Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.
"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.
In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.
Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications
But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.
So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.
Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.
The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says
On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.
Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
___
Online:
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jay-Z and Beyonce sat tightly with Solange. Kelly Rowland embraced Beyonce with a huge hug. And Rihanna spilled some of her drink laughing with Rowland.
Music's top stars attended the annual pre-Grammy Roc Nation and Nokia brunch Saturday at the Soho House.
Grammy nominee Miguel, Timbaland, Jill Scott and Kylie Mingoue also attended the exclusive event.
Jay-Z is one of six acts nominated for six awards at Sunday's Grammys. Rihanna is up for three trophies, and Beyonce is nominated for one award.
The crowd Saturday was full of members of music industry, who mingled with performers like The-Dream, Jordin Sparks, Melanie Fiona, Diane Warren, Christina Milian, MC Lyte and Santigold.
Controversy is again casting a shadow over the multilevel marketing industry, as nutritional supplement company Herbalife Inc., which has thousands of distributors in the Chicago region, has been publicly called a pyramid scheme by a prominent investor — an allegation the company vigorously denies.
Meanwhile, a different multilevel marketer, Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, was shut down in recent weeks after a lawsuit was brought by regulators and several states, including Illinois, alleging the company scammed consumers out of $169 million. The scheme affected an estimated 100,000 Americans, including some in Chicago, where it targeted Spanish-speaking consumers, the Federal Trade Commission alleged.
Most people outside the industry might have only a vague notion about multilevel marketing, also called network marketing and direct selling. It often involves personal sales of cosmetics, wellness products or home decor items — or as critics flippantly call it, "pills, potions and lotions" — usually sold through product parties hosted by friends or relatives.
For sellers, the companies offer the appeal of starting a business on the cheap with little training, working from home and being their own boss, if only for part-time money. Some might recruit friends and family to become sellers, which augments their own commissions and gives them a shot at the six-figure compensation many such marketing companies tout but few distributors attain.
The largest multilevel marketing companies, often known as MLMs, are household names: Avon, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef and Amway. MLMs have annual sales of about $30 billion, with about 16 million people in the United States selling their products, according to the industry group Direct Selling Association, which represents these firms and others.
The recent controversies might raise the question: What's the difference between a legitimate multilevel marketing company and an illegal pyramid scheme, in which only people who get in first — at the top of the pyramid-like structure — make money and everyone else is a dupe?
The harshest critics maintain there is no difference, that there's no such thing as a legitimate MLM and that the industry's secrets stay safe because of a cultlike mentality and a blind eye of regulators.
Jon M. Taylor, who was once a seller for an MLM company, said he has studied the industry for 18 years and analyzed more than 500 MLM companies. He maintains the website MLM-thetruth.com and offers a free e-book there.
"I have not yet found a good MLM — a good MLM is an oxymoron," Taylor said.
He said all MLM companies have the same flaw: They depend on endless chains of recruiting new members. "There is no more unfair and deceptive practice than multilevel marketing," Taylor said.
Tracy Coenen, a forensic accountant and fraud investigator with Sequence Inc. in Chicago and Milwaukee, is author of the Fraud Files Blog. She is also a critic.
"Multilevel marketing companies are pyramid schemes that the government allows to operate," said Coenen. "The only difference is that Herbalife, or any multilevel marketing company, has a tangible product that they use to make their pyramid appear legitimate."
The Direct Selling Association says MLMs are legitimate businesses, and that the group has about 200 members carefully screened by the organization to ensure they are not pyramid schemes and don't use deceptive practices.
The Federal Trade Commission agrees there are legitimate MLMs. The difference between a legitimate business and pyramid scheme comes down to products.
If the company and its distributors make money primarily from the sale of products to end-users (and not boxes of product accumulating in a distributor's garage), it's OK.
By contrast, a pyramid scheme compensates those at the top of the pyramid with participation fees paid by those recruited at the bottom. It eventually collapses when the scheme can't recruit more people.
But identifying a pyramid scheme can be difficult because MLMs typically have product sales, along with recruitment fees and recruitment incentives.
"It gets cloudy when you have a situation where you have fees being paid for both," said Monica Vaca, assistant director of the FTC's division of marketing practices. "It's very nuanced."
While prosecuting an MLM can seem somewhat of a judgment call, cases have a common factor: deceptive promises about how much money distributors will earn, Vaca said.
In the Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing case filed last month, C. Steven Baker, director of the FTC's Midwest region, said, "These defendants were promising people that if they worked hard they could make lots of money. But it was a rigged game, and the vast majority of people lost money."
CAPTIONS
Hadiya Pendleton wake
Tanique Parker, 16, cries as she leaves the wake for friend and classmate Hadiya Pendleton at Calahan Funeral Home on Chicago's South Side. (Chris Sweda, Chicago Tribune /February 8, 2013)
Hadiya’s body lay in an open casket, dressed in a purple dress embellished with sparkles. The inside of the casket was lined in a soft purple.
Dozens of bouquets of flowers lined the room and a large photo of Hadiya was hung on display. A small TV played a picture slideshow of Hadiya smiling with family and friends.
John Burdette, a Hyde Park resident, said although he didn't know the Pendleton family, he wanted to pay his condolences.
“It helped put me at ease,” said Burdette, 64. "This poor young lady. Things are nuts out there and it's terrible. I don't leave my house after 4 p.m.”
Media trucks and police cars lined Halsted Street outside the funeral home, as Hadiya's death has garnered much attention on both a local and national scale.
The wake is scheduled from 2 to 9 p.m. Friday with the funeral to follow Saturday morning. First lady Michelle Obama is scheduled to attend.bdoyle@tribune.com
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is selling roughly 42 percent of his stake in the Internet search company, a move that could potentially net the former chief executive a $2.51 billion windfall.
Schmidt, 57, will sell 3.2 million shares of Class A common stock through a stock trading plan, Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
The plan, which Google said would give Schmidt "individual asset diversification and liquidity," allows Schmidt to spread trades out over a period of one year to reduce the market impact.
Shares of Google were down $4.11 at $781.26 in after-hours trading on Friday.
A Google spokeswoman would not comment on why Schmidt is selling the shares at this time.
Wedbush Securities analyst James Dix said Schmidt's stock sales did not worry him or signal a loss of confidence in the company by Schmidt.
"I'd be more worried if the current CEO or CFO sold a lot of their stake," said Dix.
Schmidt, who served as Google's chief executive until 2011, currently owns roughly 7.6 million shares of Class A and Class B common stock. The shares represent 2.3 percent of Google's outstanding stock and roughly 8.2 percent of the voting power of Google's stock.
The fact that Schmidt will still own a significant amount of shares after the sales means he'll have a good deal of "skin in the Google game," said Needham & Co analyst Kerry Rice. But he said it could hint at Schmidt playing a less central role within the company going forward.
"My speculation is that Eric's relationship with Google is evolving," said Rice. "I would assume that as he decides he wants to diversify away from Google - both his career and financially - he's got ideas of what he would like to do with some of his funds."
Schmidt, who helped turn Google into the world's No.1 search engine during his decade as CEO, handed the reins to Google co-founder Larry Page in April 2011.
As executive chairman, Schmidt has been particularly involved in government relations, taking a leading role in the company's discussions with antitrust regulators in the United States and the European Union. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation into Google last month without any action. Google has offered to change some of its business practices to appease European competition regulators.
"As Google moves to maybe more tactical battles, as opposed to the strategic battles it's been waging with the government, once those are concluded, maybe his role can be lessened," said Needham & Co's Rice.
Schmidt has also made headlines apart from Google. In January, Schmidt traveled to North Korea with former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson for a "personal" trip. The trip was criticized by the U.S. State Department as ill-timed - coming weeks after North Korea conducted a rocket launch in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
Shares of Google are trading at all-time highs, finishing Friday's regular session at a record closing price of $785.37. At that price, Schmidt's share sales would be worth $2.51 billion.
Google said that Schmidt entered into the stock trading plan in November.
Schmidt was ranked 138 on the Forbes list of global billionaires with a net worth of $6.9 billion in March 2012.
Given Schmidt's changed role at the company and the amount of his wealth tied up in Google's stock, it was not unreasonable for him to diversify his holdings, said Wedbush Securities analyst Dix.
"As good as Google stock is, it isn't as good as cash if you actually want to buy something," he said.
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Lisa Shumaker)
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The company that supplied electricity to the Super Bowl says the blackout that halted the big game was caused by a device it installed specially to prevent a power failure.
But the utility stopped short of taking all the blame and said Friday that it was looking into whether the electrical relay at fault had a design flaw or a manufacturing defect.
The relay had been installed as part of a project begun in 2011 to upgrade the electrical system serving the Superdome in anticipation of the championship game. The equipment was supposed to guard against problems in the cable that links the power grid with lines that go into the stadium.
"The purpose of it was to provide a newer, more advanced type of protection for the Superdome," Dennis Dawsey, an executive with Entergy Corp., told members of the City Council. Entergy is the parent company of Entergy New Orleans, the city's main electric utility.
Entergy officials said the relay functioned with no problems during January's Sugar Bowl and other earlier events. It has been removed and will be replaced.
All systems at the Superdome are now working, and the stadium was to host a major Mardi Gras event Saturday night, said Doug Thornton, an executive with SMG, the company that manages the stadium for the state.
The relay was installed in a building near the stadium known as "the vault," which receives a line directly from a nearby Entergy substation. Once the line reaches the vault, it splits into two cables that go into the Superdome.
Sunday's power failure cut lights to about half of the stadium, halting play between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers and interrupting the nation's most-watched sporting event for 34 minutes.
Not long after the announcement, the manufacturer of the relay, Chicago-based S&C Electric Co., released a statement saying that the blackout occurred because system operators had put the relay's so-called trip setting too low to allow the device to handle the incoming electric load.
The equipment was owned and installed by Entergy New Orleans.
"If higher settings had been applied, the equipment would not have disconnected the power," said Michael J.S. Edmonds, vice president of strategic solutions for S&C.
In a follow-up statement, Entergy said that tests conducted by S&C and Entergy on the two relays at the Superdome showed that one worked as expected, the other did not.
Entergy spokesman Mike Burns said both relays had the same trip setting.
Entergy's announcement came shortly before company officials went before a committee of the City Council, which is the regulatory body for the company.
During the committee hearing, council member Susan Guidry asked Entergy executives whether they were "fairly certain" that the relay was faulty.
"That is correct," Dawsey said.
However, when asked if the outage was caused by the design or a defect in a part of the equipment, Entergy New Orleans CEO Charles Rice said that had not been determined.
"The equipment did not function properly," Rice said. "At this particular time, based upon our analysis, we cannot say definitively that there was a defect in design. What we do know is that the equipment for some unknown reason, at this particular time, did not react the way that it should have."
Asked if Entergy and SMG still plan to hire a third-party investigator to get to the bottom of the cause, Rice said that possibility remains open.
"We'll work closely with SMG, and if there is a need for a third-party investigation, we will do that," Rice said, adding that Entergy was also working with the relay manufacturer.
Shabab Mehraeen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Louisiana State University, said relays are common electrical fixtures in businesses and massive facilities such as the Superdome.
"They are designed to keep a problem they sense from becoming something bigger, like a fire or catastrophic event," he said.
The devices vary in size. Mehraeen, who was not familiar with the relay at the Superdome, said he "wouldn't be surprised if it was bigger than a truck."
The reasons the devices fail are the subject of much academic research into the interaction of relays with the complex electrical systems they regulate.
"It's not unusual for them to have problems," Mehraeen said. "They can be unpredictable, despite national testing standards recommended by manufacturers."
Entergy and SMG had both upgraded lines and equipment in the months leading up to the Super Bowl. Rice said the new gear, with the faulty relay, was installed as part of a $4.2 million upgrade by Entergy that included a new power line dedicated solely to the stadium.
In a separate project, SMG replaced lines coming into the stadium after managers expressed concerns the Superdome might be vulnerable to a power failure like the one that struck Candlestick Park during an NFL game in 2011.
Thornton stressed Friday that the dome was drawing only about two-thirds of its power capacity Super Bowl night. He said typical NFL games in late August or September can draw a little more.
Friday's announcement appeared to absolve Superdome officials of any missteps in the blackout.
City officials had worried that the Super Bowl outage might harm New Orleans' chances of getting another NFL championship game.
But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell downplayed that possibility, saying the league planned to keep New Orleans in its Super Bowl plans. Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the city intends to bid for the game again in 2018.
___
Associated Press Writer Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.
The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.
The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.
But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.
For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.
Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.
"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.
In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.
Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications
But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.
So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.
Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.
The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says
On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.
Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
___
Online:
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/
LOS ANGELES (AP) — NBC is pulling the drama series "Do No Harm" after two low-rated episodes.
The show is a take on the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and stars Steven Pasquale of "Rescue Me." He plays a respected neurosurgeon who turns into a dangerous alter ego each night. Other cast members include Alana De La Garza and Phylicia Rashad.
"Do No Harm" started with a historically small audience for a major network debut and then dropped further in its second Thursday airing.
NBC will replace "Do No Harm" with reruns of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" for the next two weeks.
S&C Electric Co. said the outage, which lasted for more than 30 minutes at Sunday's game, happened when the demand for Superdome power exceeding a "trip setting" for its electrical relay.
S&C wouldn't go into more details, but the power provider for Sunday's game was Entergy New Orleans, a unit of Entergy Corp.
In a statement, Entergy said the relay device had functioned properly at other high-profile sporting events, including the Sugar Bowl.
The relay was designed to prevent an outage if a cable connection to the stadium failed.
"S&C continues to work with all those involved to get the system back online, and our customers can continue to rely on the quality and performance of our products," Spokesman Michael Edmonds said in a statement.
S&C equipment is commonly used where high reliability is critical, he said, including data centers for United Parcel Service Inc., drug manufacturing centers and hospitals. The company also works with other stadiums throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Entergy said in a statement that the Superdome relay has been removed and replacement equipment is being examined.
That statement came before a special meeting of the New Orleans City Council's Utility Committee Friday morning to discuss the root cause of the outage.
Immediately after the game, Entergy indicated its equipment was functional and the problem must have come from the Superdome, but later said it was launching an investigation to determine the source of the problem.
"While some further analysis remains, we believe we have identified and remedied the cause of the power outage and regret the interruption that occurred during what was a showcase event for the city and state," Entergy New Orleans President and CEO Charles Rice said.
sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel
The unusual agreement is sure to fuel the fight among heirs of Urooj Khan over his estate, once estimated at about $2 million.
The agreement means that Khan’s widow, Shabana Ansari, owns half of the dry cleaning business and its real estate, instead of those assets being divided among heirs in probate court, according to Ansari’s lawyer, Al-Haroon Husain.
Those business assets are worth more than $1 million, leaving only about $680,000 – including the $425,000 in lottery winnings -- to be split among Khan’s heirs, Husain contends.
“It’s a bit unusual,” Husain said of the agreement following a hearing Thursday in the Daley Center courthouse. “I just think he wanted to make sure his wife had a business and had attachment to the commercial property if something happened to him.”
Khan and his partner, Shakir Mohammed, a childhood friend from their native India, signed the agreement early last May, according to court documents. Khan, 46, won the lottery prize later in May and died suddenly in mid-July before he collected the check.
Husain said he didn’t believe Khan “thought he’d be passing away so soon thereafter.”
In addition to the business agreement, Khan had signed a real estate contract with his wife that entitles her to sole ownership of their Rogers Park home, which is valued at almost half a million dollars, Husain said.
Based on those changes, Husain filed amended papers Thursday in court, drastically lowering the value of Khan’s estate to the $680,000 figure, down from about $2 million a few weeks ago.
Khan's family has been fighting in probate court over his estate since his unexpected death at 46. His brother, Imtiaz, raised concerns that since Khan left no will, his 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage would not get "her fair share" of the inheritance. Khan and Ansari did not have children together.
As the Tribune first revealed last month, the Cook County medical examiner's office initially ruled that Khan died from hardening of the arteries after no signs of trauma were found on his body and a preliminary blood test did not raise any questions.
But the investigation was reopened about a week later after a relative raised concerns that Khan may have been poisoned.
Chicago police became involved in September after further testing found cyanide in Khan's blood. By late November, more comprehensive testing showed lethal levels of the toxic chemical, leading the medical examiner's office to declare his death a homicide.
Last month authorities exhumed Khan's body in order to perform an autopsy and gather additional evidence for the homicide investigation. No results have been made public yet.
While a motive for Khan’s homicide has not been determined, police have not ruled out that he was killed because of his lottery win, a law enforcement source has told the Tribune.
Ansari has been questioned by Chicago police detectives in her husband’s death, but she has denied any wrongdoing.
jmeisner@tribune.com
jgorner@tribune.com
(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Thursday it was still working to determine the extent its computer systems had been breached by hackers, adding that the incident was the subject of a criminal probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
"We are in the process of a comprehensive assessment to determine what information might have been obtained in this incident," said Federal Reserve spokesman Jim Strader. "We remain confident that this incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve."
The online intrusion, which has embarrassed the U.S. central bank and raised questions about the effectiveness of its security, was publicized on Sunday by activist group Anonymous.
The integrity of the Fed's systems is vital to ensure confidence in its ability to securely transmit highly confidential information, including communications about U.S. monetary policy and the banks that it supervises.
The Fed statement on Thursday was its first explicit acknowledgment that it did not yet know the extent of the security breach. Cyber-security specialists say it takes time to thoroughly investigate a stealthy intrusion by skilled hackers.
Anonymous claimed that it had published personal information from more than 4,000 U.S. bank executives gleaned from a password-protected Fed website.
The website, called the Emergency Communication System (ECS), exists to provide bank contact information in the event of a natural or other disaster. It is managed by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.
A message sent by the Fed to ECS users and obtained by Reuters on Tuesday warned that personal information, including mobile and business telephone numbers, email and business addresses, had been obtained by the online intruders.
Strader said it was possible that more information might still be released by the hackers, but declined to spell out if data from a site other than the ECS had been obtained.
"This incident is the subject of an active criminal investigation with the FBI and we cannot comment further," he said.
The Fed also declined to comment on when the attack took place, how long it took for the breach to be discovered and what type of system or vulnerability was exploited.
A review by Reuters of the code on the ECS site home page shows it runs on ColdFusion, a program used to build websites that software maker Adobe Systems Inc patched in mid-January to repair several critical security flaws.
The company said hackers could take advantage of those bugs to break into computer systems, access restricted files and take control of affected servers.
BOSTON (AP) — North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell earned her 900th career victory when the No. 16 Tar Heels beat Boston College 80-52 on Thursday night.
Xylina McDaniel had 15 points and seven rebounds for North Carolina (21-3, 9-2 Atlantic Coast Conference). The Tar Heels lost to No. 5 Duke on Sunday — their first home loss of the season — spoiling Hatchell's first chance to become the third women's coach in NCAA history to reach the milestone.
Hatchell joins Pat Summitt and Jody Conradt in the women's 900-win club. Hatchell is tops among active coaches, with Rutgers' C. Vivian Stringer two wins behind.
Only three men's coaches have reached the 900-win mark — Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Bob Knight.
Nicole Boudreau scored 16 points and Kristen Doherty added 13 with seven rebounds for Boston College (9-13, 3-8), which has lost six of its last seven games.
BC stayed close for about eight minutes before the Tar Heels went on a 15-2 run to turn a two-point lead into a double-digit advantage.
As the Tar Heels reserves dribbled out the last 10 seconds, Hatchell's assistant leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek and the referee leaned over toward the bench to say something. A handful of Carolina blue-clad fans in the sparse crowd stood to cheer when the public address announcer recognized the milestone.
Hatchell, 60, is 900-317 in 38 seasons, including a 628-237 record and the 1994 NCAA championship in 27 years at North Carolina. She was 272-80 in 11 seasons at Francis Marion.
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt scored 14 with six rebounds and six assists and Krista Gross had 12 points and eight rebounds for Carolina, which beat Boston College 77-46 last year but needed a last-second tip-in to beat BC the last time the teams met in Chestnut Hill, in 2011.
The Tar Heels led by as many as 17 points late in the first half, then used a 15-4 run early in the second to open a 27-point lead. They scored seven in a row to make it a 64-32 game with about 11 minutes left.
Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.
It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.
Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.
"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.
In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.
"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.
Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.
The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:
—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.
—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.
—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.
—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.
—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.
"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.
Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.
There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.
There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.
The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.
Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.
"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.
"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."
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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
NEW YORK (AP) — Justin Bieber's mom wants to set the record straight: She's not interested in the political fray on abortion as she promotes "Crescendo," a new film she hopes will raise $10 million for centers that help pregnant girls.
Pattie Mallette, an unmarried teen herself when she had Bieber, signed on as an executive producer after the film was finished. She said Thursday that she connected personally with the story about a suicide and abortion attempt by Beethoven's mother.
"The press has been saying that I'm producing an anti-abortion film and taking this big stance. You know, I haven't shared my stance with anyone and I'm not here to make a political statement, so there's been a lot of assumptions made."
Mallette, in numerous interviews and her autobiography, "Nowhere but Up," has recounted her own suicide attempt, pressure to have an abortion when she became pregnant at 18 and struggles with drugs and alcohol before becoming a Christian.
The movie does include some producers who have anti-abortion beliefs, she said, but her goal is simple: to support residential programs like the one that helped her after her parents kicked her out of the house in Canada.
"The pregnancy center that I lived in is now closed because of lack of funds, so I thought it was a really important thing that they're doing to raise money," Mallette said.
The movie will be released Feb. 28 worldwide.
Mallette has had her share of mom moments of late with her only child, who at 18 is the youngest singer to have five chart-topping albums and will be both host and musical guest for the Feb. 9 episode of "Saturday Night Live" on NBC.
Like his Instagram photo (since deleted) of his butt crack. What ran through her head?
"I thought, I'm a mom, I don't want to see that," Mallette sighed, shaking her head. "I don't want to see him doing that kind of stuff. But, you know, he's 18. He's making some of his own decisions and he's going to make some mistakes and he's going to make some good choices, too."
What of reports of pot smoking and partying with "sizzurp"-downing hip hop singers — sizzurp being a purplish mixture of cough syrup with codeine and promethazine, a carbonated soft drink and pieces of Jolly Rancher candy.
"It's hard, you know, as a mom of an 18-year-old because that's the time when you just gotta start letting go," she said. "And, you know, I had to make some of my own mistakes. I gotta kind of let go and let him make some of his own mistakes and just hope that I put all the right things in him."
And what of Bieber's relationship with Selena Gomez?
"I have no idea if they're on-again, off-again," she said. "It's a constant thing. Today I'm not sure where they stand. I try to stay out of it. He's 18. He doesn't want me getting involved in his romantic life."
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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie
Inquiries into Moody's are in the early stages, largely because state and federal authorities have dedicated more resources to the S&P lawsuit, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about enforcement discussions.
Moody's spokesman Michael Adler and Justice Department spokeswoman Adora Andy declined to comment for this story.
Moody's in the past has defended itself against similar allegations, including a 2011 congressional report that concluded the major ratings agencies manipulated ratings to drive business.
The firm previously said Moody's takes the quality of its ratings and the integrity of the ratings process very seriously. It also said the firm has protections in place to separate the commercial and analytical aspects of its business.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a $5 billion lawsuit against S&P late on Monday and accused it of an egregious scheme to defraud investors in the run-up to the financial crisis, fueled by a desire to gain more business.
Shares of McGraw Hill Cos Inc , which owns S&P, have fallen more than 25 percent since news of the lawsuits. Moody's shares have fallen about 15 percent, even though it was not named in any of this week's actions.
"Don't think Moody's is off the hook," said one law enforcement official.
Another rival, Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings, is unlikely to face similar action, the sources said, since it is a much smaller player in the U.S. ratings industry. The firm also escaped the brunt of scrutiny from congressional investigators.
In a sign of just how high-stakes the battle is, S&P hired prominent defense attorney John Keker, who has represented everyone from cyclist Lance Armstrong to Enron's Andrew Fastow.
S&P said in a statement on Tuesday that the lawsuit is meritless and said it will vigorously defend itself.
A similar coordinated federal-state action against Moody's would follow lawsuits two states have already filed against the ratings firm. Connecticut, which led the states in this week's actions, sued Moody's and S&P in March 2010.
In January a state court in Hartford denied the last of the preliminary motions Moody's had filed to have the case thrown out. That case and the one against S&P are proceeding to trial in the second half of 2014.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who as then-attorney general brought the cases against S&P and Moody's in 2010, said he found rampant abuse across the credit rating industry.
"The difference is one of degree and scale rather than essential modus operandi," Blumenthal said in an interview. "S&P is the largest and they did the most sizeable amount of ratings with the largest profits."
CASE THEORY
Those earlier cases and the more recent ones against S&P are based on a theory that the firms misled investors by stating that their ratings on mortgage products were objective and not influenced by conflicts of interest.
Instead, the lawsuits contend, the firms inflated ratings and understated risks as the housing bubble started to burst, driven by a desire to gain more business from the investment banks that issued mortgage securities.
Framing the cases in that manner steers clear of attacking individual ratings, which have largely been shielded under free speech protections. Instead, the focus is on proving false just one statement S&P made - that its ratings were objective.
Chicago Tribune Springfield correspondent Ray Long analyzes Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's State of the State speech, saying it was ambitious and much like one heard during a re-election campaign. (Posted on: Feb. 6, 2013.)
It won’t be easy for Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn to find enough lawmakers to vote for the minimum wage increase, what with business groups pronouncing it a “job killer.”
But the best news for Quinn is that key Democratic lawmakers already are lined up behind an idea that’s popular with a large number of low-income workers. Senate President John Cullerton and House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie quickly embraced it. Cullerton flatly predicted, “We’ll be able to pass a minimum wage bill.”
“I support it. It’s very, very popular in Illinois,” Cullerton said. “There is overwhelming support in the electorate.”
The electorate is the target audience in Quinn’s State of the State speech as he ramps up for a 2014 re-election campaign. His office estimated 500,000 Illinoisans could benefit from the wage hike. That’s a huge number of potential supporters who might be easily persuaded to cast a vote for a politician that helped them put more money into their pockets, particularly one like Quinn whose margin of victory in both the 2010 primary and general elections were far from overwhelming.
Republicans, including potential rivals in 2014, refused to get behind the minimum wage hike. House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego charged Quinn’s priorities are askew when the “elephant in the room” is the state’s $96.8 billion pension debt — a worst-in-the-nation status that has sent the state’s credit rating into a tailspin.
The pension battle has Quinn locked in a protracted war with union workers who are fighting against any rollbacks in retirement benefits at the same time they are unable to come to terms with the administration on a labor contract.
But as Quinn revealed his minimum wage push to a joint session of the House and Senate, he sought to wrap his arms around the working class, saying Illinois must “honor the productivity of our workers.”
“Our businesses are only as good as the employees who drive their success,” Quinn said. “Nobody in Illinois should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty. That’s a principle as old as the Bible.”
Quinn said the state minimum wage — currently $8.25 an hour — should be bumped up over four years to “at least $10 an hour.”
But beyond the finances, Quinn may hope a populist pocketbook issue can boost his own low approval ratings as he prepares to fight potentially big-name Democratic challengers like Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Bill Daley, the former white House chief of staff and a high-profile heir to the Daley family legacy.
Quinn called for a minimum-wage hike during the 2010 governor’s race, while Republican challenger Sen. Bill Brady opposed it.
Following Quinn’s speech on Wednesday, Brady said he wanted to review Quinn’s plan when there details are rolled out.
Hinsdale Republican Sen. Kirk Dillard, who like Brady is eyeing Quinn’s job, said he does not support the minimum wage hike. “We need to create better jobs, not minimum wage jobs, for those who are trying to raise a family,” Dillard said.
The chief sponsor of the minimum wage increase is Sen. Kimberly Lightford, the Maywood Democrat on Cullerton’s leadership team. She has sought to negotiate with foes and backers of the legislation for eight months. She said she wants to roll out a bill in the next few weeks.
One controversial provision Lightford is working through is her desire to raise the minimum wage for restaurant waiters and waitresses, who get a fraction of $8.25 regular minimum wage and get subsidized by tips.
“Businesses should be able to pay them the full $8.25,” Lightford said. But with smaller restaurants in particular balking, Lightford said, finding a happy medium is “not an easy task.”
Still, she said the chance of passage in the Senate “looks good” because she has been priming colleagues about the issue over the last two years.
“It’s not new today, which is very helpful,” Lightford said.
In a town where a raised eyebrow or a snarl can result in major political ramifications, Lightford said she saw House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, clapping when Quinn talked about raising the minimum wage.
“That was a good sign,” Lightford said.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Software makers Microsoft Corp and Symantec Corp said they disrupted a global cyber crime operation by shutting down servers that controlled hundreds of thousands of PCs without the knowledge of their users.
The move made it temporarily impossible for infected PCs around the world to search the web, though the companies offered free tools to clean machines through messages that were automatically pushed out to infected computers.
Technicians working on behalf of both companies raided data centers in Weehawken, New Jersey, and Manassas, Virginia, on Wednesday, accompanied by U.S. federal marshals, under an order issued by the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
They seized control of one server at the New Jersey facility and persuaded the operators of the Virginia data center to take down a server at their parent company in the Netherlands, according to Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.
Boscovich told Reuters that he had "a high degree of confidence" that the operation had succeeded in bringing down the cyber crime operation, known as the Bamital botnet.
"We think we got everything, but time will tell," he said.
The servers that were pulled off line on Wednesday had been used to communicate with what Microsoft and Symantec estimate are between 300,000 and 1 million PCs currently infected with malicious software that enslaved them into the botnet.
HIJACKING SEARCHES
The companies said that the Bamital operation hijacked search results and engaged in other schemes that the companies said fraudulently charge businesses for online advertisement clicks.
Bamital's organizers also had the ability to take control of infected PCs, installing other types of computer viruses that could engage in identity theft, recruit PCs into networks that attack websites and conduct other types of computer crimes.
Now that the servers have been shut down, users of infected PCs will be directed to a site informing them that their machines are infected with malicious software when they attempt to search the web.
Microsoft and Symantec are offering them free tools to fix their PCs and restore access to web searches via messages automatically pushed out to victims.
The messages warn: "You have reached this website because your computer is very likely to be infected by malware that redirects the results of your search queries. You will receive this notification until you remove the malware from your computer."
It was the sixth time that Microsoft has obtained a court order to disrupt a botnet since 2010. Previous operations have targeted bigger botnets, but this is the first where infected users have received warnings and free tools to clean up their machines.
Microsoft runs a Digital Crimes Unit out of its Redmond, Washington, headquarters that is staffed by 11 attorneys, investigators and other staff who work to help law enforcement fight financial crimes and exploitation of children over the web.
Symantec approached Microsoft about a year ago, asking the maker of Windows software to collaborate in trying to take down the Bamital operation. Last week they sought a court order to seize the Bamital servers.
The two companies said they conservatively estimate that the Bamital botnet generated at least $1 million a year in profits for the organizers of the operation. They said they will learn more about the size of the operation after they analyze information from infected machines that check in to the domains once controlled by Bamital's servers.
Their complaint identified 18 "John Doe" ringleaders, scattered from Russia and Romania to Britain, the United States and Australia, who registered websites and rented servers used in the operation under fictitious names. The complaint was filed last week with a federal court in Alexandria and unsealed on Wednesday.
The complaint alleges that the ringleaders made money through a scheme known as "click fraud" in which criminals get cash from advertisers who pay websites commissions when their users click on ads.
Bamital redirected search results from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing search engines to sites with which the authors of the botnet have financial relationships, according to the complaint.
The complaint also charges that Bamital's operators profited by forcing infected computers to generate large quantities of automated ad clicks without the knowledge of PC users.
Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said Bamital is just one of several major botnets in a complex underground "click fraud ecosystem" that he believes generates at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
He said that researchers at will comb the data on the servers in order to better understand how the click fraud ecosystem works and potentially identify providers of fraudulent ads and traffic brokers.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg in the world of click fraud," said Thakur.
Boscovich said he believes the botnet originated in Russia or Ukraine because affiliated sites install a small text file known as a cookie that is written in Russian on infected computers.
The cookie file contains the Russian phrase "yatutuzebil," according to the court filing. That can loosely be translated as "I was here," he said.
Microsoft provided details on the takedown operation on its blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2013/02/06/microsoft-and-symantec-take-down-bamital-botnet-that-hijacks-online-searches.aspx
(Reporting By Jim Finkle; Editing by Claudia Parsons and Leslie Gevirtz)
NEW YORK (AP) — Researchers have discovered the first U.S. cases of whooping cough caused by a germ that may be resistant to the vaccine.
Health officials are looking into whether cases like the dozen found in Philadelphia might be one reason the nation just had its worst year for whooping cough in six decades. The new bug was previously reported in Japan, France and Finland.
"It's quite intriguing. It's the first time we've seen this here," said Dr. Tom Clark of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. cases are detailed in a brief report from the CDC and other researchers in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease that can strike people of any age but is most dangerous to children. It was once common, but cases in the U.S. dropped after a vaccine was introduced in the 1940s.
An increase in illnesses in recent years has been partially blamed on a version of the vaccine used since the 1990s, which doesn't last as long. Last year, the CDC received reports of 41,880 cases, according to a preliminary count. That included 18 deaths.
The new study suggests that the new whooping cough strain may be why more people have been getting sick. Experts don't think it's more deadly, but the shots may not work as well against it.
In a small, soon-to-be published study, French researchers found the vaccine seemed to lower the risk of severe disease from the new strain in infants. But it didn't prevent illness completely, said Nicole Guiso of the Pasteur Institute, one of the researchers.
The new germ was first identified in France, where more extensive testing is routinely done for whooping cough. The strain now accounts for 14 percent of cases there, Guiso said.
In the United States, doctors usually rely on a rapid test to help make a diagnosis. The extra lab work isn't done often enough to give health officials a good idea how common the new type is here, experts said.
"We definitely need some more information about this before we can draw any conclusions," the CDC's Clark said.
The U.S. cases were found in the past two years in patients at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. One of the study's researchers works for a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which makes a version of the old whooping cough vaccine that is sold in other countries.
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JournaL: http://www.nejm.org
LOS ANGELES (AP) — With the woman he assaulted throwing him a kiss, Chris Brown walked into court Wednesday to face allegations he failed to complete his community labor sentence for Rihanna's 2009 beating.
A judge asked for more information and scheduled another hearing in two months.
Rihanna, the glamorous singer whose bruised face became a tabloid fixture after she was beaten by her then-boyfriend on the way to the Grammys, has been dating Brown again.
She arrived with the R&B star, his mother and two other women and blew him a kiss as he entered the courtroom. They left together after the short proceeding in which Superior Court Judge James Brandlin set the next hearing for April 5.
Brown's lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he was disturbed about the way the district attorney handled the matter and said he would be filing a motion opposing the prosecution's move to modify Brown's fulfillment of his community labor sentence.
He offered details of Brown's various community labor stints cleaning stables,
Prosecutors, who said they could find no credible evidence that Brown had completed his community labor in his home state of Virginia, asked that he start all over and put in 180 days in Los Angeles County.
Prosecutors have suggested there was either sloppy record keeping or fraudulent reporting.
Later in the day, Geragos filed an angry response, alleging that prosecutors submitted material to the court that was "DEAD WRONG" and asking they be sanctioned.
He offered details of Brown's various community labor stints clearing brush at stables, shredding documents, painting walls and picking up trash.
In a news conference Geragos said, "I've never had a client, and I've represented a wide breadth and thousands of clients, never ever had a client who has been tortured by a DA's office on probation like Chris Brown has."
He said Rihanna was present in support because, "She thinks it's utterly ridiculous what they're doing to him, as do I."
He said prosecutions launched a "vicious and unwarranted attack on Mr. Brown" and officials in Richmond, Va., who oversaw his community labor program.
He submitted a letter from a Richmond Police Department official disputing the prosecution's claims of shoddy record keeping and inadequate supervision in Brown's home state where he was allowed to fulfill the requirements.
The judge noted during the brief court session that a prosecution filing did not request revocation of Brown's probation and he, therefore, would not revoke it.
The prosecution motion filed Tuesday also raised for the first time in Brown's felony assault case several incidents that prosecutors said demonstrate Brown has ongoing anger management issues.
The motion cited a Jan. 27 fight between Brown and fellow R&B star Frank Ocean, and a 2011 outburst in which Brown threw a chair through a window after he was asked about the Rihanna attack on "Good Morning America."
The filing represents a dramatic shift in the case against Brown, who was repeatedly praised by another judge overseeing his case for his completion of domestic violence courses and his community service work in his home state of Virginia.
That changed in September, when prosecutors raised concerns about Brown's community service after he logged 701 hours in seven months — an amount that had previously taken him more than two years to achieve.
Los Angeles investigators traveled to Richmond, Va., to investigate Brown's service.
"This inquiry provided no credible, competent or verifiable evidence that defendant Brown performed his community labor as presented to this court," Deputy District Attorney Mary Murray wrote.
Brown's attorney Geragos blasted the court filing, saying the prosecutor ignored interviews "where sworn peace officers stated unequivocally that Mr. Brown was supervised and did all of the community service."
Brown's case was transferred to Brandlin after a recent shuffling of judicial assignments.
After pleading guilty to the Rihanna attack, Brown was given permission to serve 180 days of community labor in Virginia, but only as long as he performed manual labor such as graffiti removal and roadside cleanup.
Given problems with documentation and statements from some witnesses who contradict Brown's claims of work, prosecutors asked Brandlin to order Brown to repeat his service in Los Angeles.
Brown spent one-third of the hours he logged in Virginia working night shifts at a day care center in rural Virginia where his mother once served as director and where the singer spent time as a child.
A detective who checked on Brown's work nine times at the Tappahannock Children's Center found the singer, his mother and a bodyguard at the center on each visit.
The records said Brown waxed floors or performed general cleaning at the center.
A professional floor cleaner contracted to work at the daycare center told investigators he had been cleaning the floors during the months Brown reported working at the facility.
"Claims that the defendant cleaned, stripped and waxed floors at that location have been credibly contradicted," prosecutors said in the filing.
Brown's mother, Joyce Hawkins, no longer had a formal role at the day care center but had her own set of keys and coordinated her son's work at the facility, prosecutors said.
Murray stated in her filing that the police report on Brown's service was "at best sloppy documentation and at worst fraudulent reporting."
No one from Virginia's probation department oversaw Brown's hours, prosecutors said.
The motion noted that the only records the department has to indicate Brown was supervised were officers' overtime sheets. Five of 21 days that officers logged overtime for Brown were spent providing security for the singer's concerts.
The allegations are the latest pre-Grammy controversy for Brown, who was arrested shortly after the 2009 ceremony for his attack on Rihanna. He has since returned to the awards show by performing and winning an award in 2011 for his album "F.A.M.E."
Brown and Ocean are competing against one other for the Best Urban Contemporary Album category at Sunday's Grammys.
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AP writers Anthony McCartney and Ryan Pearson contributed to this report.
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Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker has emerged as a leading candidate to serve in the administration of President Obama, for whom she has long been a campaign supporter and top fund raiser.
A senior administration official cautioned that no announcement is imminent and that Obama has made no decision. But Pritzker is under consideration to serve as Commerce secretary or perhaps in another senior position involving relations between Obama and business leaders, according to officials close to the process who spoke anonymously to comment on internal deliberations.
Pritzker is a member of the Chicago family behind the Hyatt Hotels Corp. She has been a prominent Obama friend and supporter since his early days in politics and ran his 2008 campaign fundraising operation.
She is founder and CEO of PSP Capital Partners and the Pritzker Realty Group, as well as chair of the Artemis Real Estate Partners. She is also a member of the Chicago Board of Education and has had two White House appointments, serving on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
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