Shootings leave 1 dead, 2 hurt

A bike lies abandoned in the snow near the spot where a 22-year-old man was found fatally shot Friday night. (Adam Sege, Chicago Tribune)

By Adam Sege

1:04 a.m. CST, February 2, 2013

A pair of shootings on a cold and snowy Friday night left a 22-year-old man dead and two people injured, Chicago police said.

The fatal shooting happened about 8:30 p.m., Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said.

Officers found the man near a three-story apartment building in the 3900 block of North Central Avenue, in the Northwest Side's Portage Park neighborhood.

It was not clear, however, whether the man had been shot there, police said.

Paramedics rushed the man to Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Later, as snow coated Central Avenue road and several squad parked near the scene, police searched for shell casings and photographed a bike lying by the an entrance on the building's north side.

Police have launched a homicide investigation in the shooting.

In a separate shooting, a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old were wounded about 11:30 p.m. near the intersection of South California Avenue and 52nd Street.

Both people were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where they were listed in good condition Gaines said.

The shooting happened in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Check back for more information.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Nintendo says it won’t cut Wii U price despite slumping sales

Nintendo (NTDOY) has a lot riding on its latest video game console, but sales have been slow thus far. Gamers have not responded to the bulky new GamePad controller, which could be considered the biggest point of differentiation on the Wii U. As a result, Nintendo recently slashed its sales outlook on Wii U consoles for the March quarter. Following some speculation that Nintendo might cut the price of the Wii U in an effort to bolster sales, the company confirmed alongside its third-quarter results that dropping the console’s price is not an option.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry doesn’t need to catch up with Android and iOS overnight, it needs to live to fight another day]

“With Wii U, we have taken a rather resolute stance in pricing it below its manufacturing cost, so we are not planning to perform a markdown,” the company said. “I would like to make this point absolutely clear. We are putting our lessons from Nintendo 3DS to good use, as I have already publicly stated. However, given that it has now become clear that we have not yet fully communicated the value of our product, we will try to do so before the software lineup is enhanced and at the same time work to enrich the software lineup which could make consumers understand the appeal of Wii U.”

[More from BGR: Mark Cuban unloads on American patent system, says bad patents are ‘crushing small businesses’]

Nintendo stands firm behind its new console, and the company says it will gain traction once consumers become more familiar with the new GamePad controller and other Wii U features.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Actress Kerry Washington wins big at NAACP Image Awards

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Kerry Washington was the big winner at the NAACP Image Awards on Friday, picking up awards for her roles in the slavery-era Western film “Django Unchained” and television drama “Scandal,” as well as a special honor for professional achievement and public service.

But on a night that celebrated the successes of artists of color, actor and activist Harry Belafonte struck a somber note when he admonished the black community for failing to speak out in favor of gun control, saying “the group most devastated by America’s obsession with the gun is African-Americans.”

Washington received the best supporting actress in a movie award for her role as a slave in Quentin Tarantino‘s “Django Unchained” and best actress in a television drama for “Scandal,” in which she plays a crisis-management expert.

“This award does not belong to me. It belongs to our ancestors,” Washington said in accepting her award for “Django Unchained,” which has received a mixed reaction from the black community for its portrayal of slavery and its violence.

Both Washington and “Django” co-star Jamie Foxx, who received the entertainer of the year award, thanked Tarantino for making the film.

“‘Django’ was an absolute blessing of a movie,” Foxx said. “Thank you Quentin Tarantino for having the courage to do it.”

“Django” failed to pick up the image award for best movie, losing to “Red Tails,” a film about African-American wartime pilots.

The NAACP also honored Washington with a special award for both her political activism, including her work on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, and for being the first black woman in 40 years to star in a prime-time drama on network television.

“I stand here tonight on the shoulders of those who have blazed a path of art and activism,” Washington said, mentioning Belafonte specifically.

Belafonte took the stage later to accept his own special award for his decades of political activism. He used his speech to implore the black community to support gun control, an issue that has received heightened attention since a December shooting at a Connecticut school killed 20 children and six adults.

“In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children,” Belafonte said. “Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?”

The night’s other winners included Denzel Washington, who won the best actor in a movie award for his role as an alcoholic pilot in “Flight,” and LL Cool J, who picked up best actor in a TV drama for “NCIS: Los Angeles.”

The NAACP Image Awards celebrate the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of film, television, music and literature, and also honor individuals or groups who promote social justice.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, is the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States.

(Reporting By Nichola Groom; Editing by Eric Beech)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.

The company, which ranks third in U.S. beer sales volume, is a joint venture between New York-based Constellation Brands Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Modelo, which makes Corona Extra, the leading imported beer in the U.S., and other brands. Crown sells Modelo brands as well as China's Tsingtao.

As part of its proposed sale to Anheuser-Busch InBev, Grupo Modelo agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in Crown to Constellation Brands for $1.85 billion. The separate transaction was meant to ease possible antitrust concerns that the merger would eliminate Crown Imports as a competitor.

But on Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against AB InBev to block its acquisition of Grupo Modelo. Antitrust officials said the merger would further increase the concentration of the U.S. beer market, leading to higher prices for American consumers.

The lawsuit said the sale of Modelo's interest in Crown Imports to its partner would only create "a facade of competition" between AB InBev and the importer.

"In reality, Defendants' proposed 'remedy' eliminates from the market Modelo — a particularly aggressive competitor — and replaces it with an entity wholly dependent on ABI," the Justice Department said in the lawsuit.

The suits cites as evidence part of an internal memo that Crown's chief executive, Bill Hackett, wrote to employees after the transactions were announced in June. According to the suit, Hackett wrote, "Our #1 competitor will now be our supplier ... it is not currently or will not, going forward, be 'business as usual.'"

Under the terms of the proposed merger with Modelo, AB InBev also had the option to terminate its agreement with Crown Imports after 10 years, giving it full control of Corona distribution.

Constellation Brands on Friday attacked the Justice Department, saying in a statement that the suit "demonstrates its incomplete understanding" of the proposed merger. Constellation and AB InBev have indicated that they plan to challenge the suit.

In a detailed defense, Constellation said its full control of Crown would improve competition, not harm it. According to the lawsuit, Modelo controls about 7 percent of U.S. beer sales, far behind AB InBev's market-leading 39 percent.

Constellation attempted to ease concerns that AB InBev's merger with Modelo would lead to higher prices. Hackett said in a statement: "Our Crown team independently develops, implements and refines pricing, promotional and sales strategies for each of our brands in the U.S."

The proposed beer merger had reduced uncertainty hanging over Crown Imports because the Modelo-Constellation joint venture was set to expire at the end of 2016. The Justice Department action creates a new level of uncertainty, said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer's Insights, a beer industry trade publication.

"Crown's fate is hanging in the balance," Steinman said.

asachdev@tribune.com

Twitter@ameetsachdev

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Hadiya Pendleton's 'twin' describes death of best friend

The best friend of Hadiya Pendleton talks about the moments before her friend was shot in Chicago on January 31, 2013. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune)

As she and her high school classmates fled from the gunfire, Hadiya Pendleton screamed that she had been shot, fell to the ground, struggled to get up and fell again, according to her best friend.

The best friend and another girl scrambled to Pendleton's side, cradling her in their arms as others ran for help.

"I was holding her hand trying to talk her through it," her best friend told the Tribune on Thursday. "I was like, 'You're going to be fine, you're going to be OK.'"

But Hadiya, 15, died shortly after a bullet pierced her back Tuesday, igniting outrage over the senseless loss of another young victim of Chicago's out-of-control gun violence and leaving her friends staggered by the horrifying chain of events on what had been a carefree afternoon.

In the account that follows, the Tribune is not naming those who witnessed the shooting and its aftermath because the gunman is still at large.

On Tuesday afternoon, the mood outside King College Prep in North Kenwood was jubilant. The students at the elite high school had just finished final exams, classes had let out early and the winter weather was spectacular, tipping into the low 60s.

Hadiya and her best friend, both sophomores, headed toward a nearby Potbelly's, one of their favorite places to eat, the friend said. But on their way, at about 1:30 p.m., they ran into friends who invited them to Harsh Park, just a few blocks away from the school.

"We were like, 'OK, sure, who doesn't want to walk around outside when it's nice?'" Hadiya's best friend said.

As they walked, the group of about a dozen teens discussed which tests had been easy and which had been hard. Some were volleyball players from King and others went to another high school, Hadiya's friends said.

Once they reached the small, residential park, Hadiya and others headed to a playground where they swung in the warm air while chatting about their plans for the summer and their 16th birthdays. Hadiya's best friend said she and Hadiya had talked about a joint sweet 16 party and possibly wearing matching gold heels and colorful outfits to celebrate the occasion.

But then a sudden downpour drove the teens beneath a metal awning where Hadiya played "Misery Business" by the band Paramore on her cellphone and others tweeted and texted as they waited out the rain.

Minutes later, however, Hadiya's best friend said she saw a gun-wielding male scale the park fence and approach the group. She yelled a warning to her friends, but the gunman opened fire, spraying the teens with bullets as they ran.

Hadiya was struck in the back about 2:20 p.m. One teen suffered a graze wound to an ankle. And a 17-year-old junior at King was hit in the left leg below the calf, according to his mother, who said he was trying to protect his girlfriend.

The teen's mother said that her son, an Eagle Scout, didn't realize he had been shot. He felt a little sting in his leg before he looked down and saw blood.

A nurse who lived in the area and was leaving her home at the time of the shooting ran to the group, applied a makeshift tourniquet to the teen shot in the leg and called 911. The nurse instructed the others on how to take care of Hadiya.

In the meantime, another friend of Hadiya's ran to a nearby Subway restaurant, burst through the door and asked to borrow a man's phone to call 911.

But by then wailing police cars whizzed by toward the park, so she called her mom.

"I told her to stay put," her mother told the Tribune. "I can't even tell you, as a mother, what it's like to get that phone call. My goal was to get to my child."

The friend said that she and Hadiya met freshman year at a high school dance camp. The friend joined poms, while Hadiya became a majorette, traveling to Washington last month to perform in a competition with her squad during President Barack Obama's inauguration weekend.

The girls were nicknamed "twins" by classmates and teachers because of their similar appearance, the friend said. From haircut to smile to skin tone to personalities, the two were hard to tell apart, she said.

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BlackBerry World is off to a decent start, but it’s missing some big-name apps

When BlackBerry (RIMM) announced that more than 70,000 BlackBerry 10 applications would be available when its new platform launched, users were ecstatic. That big number was too good to be true, unfortunately, as we and many others noticed in our time spent with the BlackBerry Z10. While the app store includes some big names such as Rovio’s Angry Birds and various titles from Electronic Arts (EA) and Gameloft, it still leaves much to be desired. The company is said to be “in talks” to bring popular apps such as Netflix (NFLX) and Instagram to the platform but nothing is certain. Despite all of this, BlackBerry has announced that more than 1,000 of the top app developers are developing for BlackBerry 10.

“Being able to announce 1000 of the top app partners is a testament to the strength of BlackBerry 10, the ease of developing for this powerful new platform, and the remarkable opportunity that it represents for developers and brands alike,” said Martyn Mallick, BlackBerry’s VP of global alliances and business development. “We have focused on bringing the most relevant apps to BlackBerry 10 – whether they are global leaders in their categories, or whether they are regional must-have apps. We are thrilled and want to thank all the developers that have shown such strong support of a platform before it has commercially launched. We share in their excitement and belief in BlackBerry 10.”

Some of the big-name apps that aren’t available on BlackBerry 10 include YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, Hulu and perhaps most importantly, Google Maps.

BlackBerry’s press release follows below.

BlackBerry 10 Customers Will Have a Great Selection of Top Apps in Every Category
BlackBerry welcomes more than 1000 of the top app partners with relevant, local content from every region of the globe

WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Jan. 31, 2013) – A phenomenal lineup of top brands and applications have committed to the BlackBerry(R) 10 platform, giving the new platform the strongest content offering of any first generation mobile platform at launch. Yesterday at the BlackBerry 10 launch event in New York, BlackBerry(R) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) announced that 1,000 of the top app partners will be making their applications available on the BlackBerry(R) World(TM) storefront. The partners range from leaders in social media to the top games, sports, productivity, lifestyle apps, and more.

BlackBerry Vice President of Global Alliances and Business Development, Martyn Mallick took to the stage yesterday to showcase some of applications committed to BlackBerry 10, and attendees were able to play with some of the applications for the new platform.

“Being able to announce 1000 of the top app partners is a testament to the strength of BlackBerry 10, the ease of developing for this powerful new platform, and the remarkable opportunity that it represents for developers and brands alike,” said Mallick. “We have focused on bringing the most relevant apps to BlackBerry 10 – whether they are global leaders in their categories, or whether they are regional must-have apps. We are thrilled and want to thank all the developers that have shown such strong support of a platform before it has commercially launched. We share in their excitement and belief in BlackBerry 10.”

Here are just some of the apps and games committed to BlackBerry 10. Many of these apps will be available at launch with others to follow:

Business and Productivity
– Bloomberg, BMC Service Desk & Remedy, Box, Cisco WebEx Meetings, Citrix Podio, CNBC, Dictionary.com, Emirates NBD, Harmon.ie, IBM Notes, Traveler, ING DIRECT Canada, Nat West, RBC, RBS, SAP, TD Bank Group and Thomson Reuters

Gaming
- 10tons: Sparkle, Joining Hands, Azkend, King Oddball, Azkend2, Ironworm, Dragon Portal and Boom Brigade 2
- Disney Mobile Games: Where’s My Water? and Where’s My Perry?
– Electronic Arts: A great selection of their top games including, Mass Effect(TM) Infiltrator, Flight Control Rocket, The Sims(TM) FreePlay and MONOPOLY Millionaire
– Fishlabs: Galaxy on Fire
– Funkoi: Alpha Zero
– Gameloft: A great selection of their top games, including Asphalt 7:Heat, The Amazing Spider-Man(TM), Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour, The Dark Knight Rises(TM)
– Halfbrick: Jetpack Joyride, Fruit Ninja
– JoyBits: Doodle God & Doodle Devil
– Rovio: Angry Birds Classic, Angry Birds Star Wars, Angry Bids Space and Angry Birds Seasons
– Square One Games: Square One and InXile
– SEGA: Sonic4(TM) Episode 1
– ZeptoLab- Cut the Rope, Cut the Rope: Experiments
Lifestyle
– AccuWeather, Air Canada, Air France, DStv Mobile, Dr. Oetker Rezeptideen, Easyjet, FlightAware, Flixster, KLM, Manulife Financial, President’s Choice Recipe Box, SkyScanner, Spotcast, StubHub, The Weather Channel, The Weather Network, Tim Hortons TimmyMe(TM), United Airlines, Wikitude, WisePilot, Yellow Pages Group and Zara

Multimedia
– Absolute Radio, Al Jazeera, Allocine, Astral Radio, BBC Worldwide- Top Gear, BubblePix, Channel 4, Corus Entertainment- Radio, Deezer, E! Online, eMusic, Europe 1, Kiss Kube, MTV Italia, Nobex Radio, NOS, N-TV Nachrichten, Occipital 360 Panorama, OxygenLive, Pacemaker, PaperCamera, Rdio, Shahid.net, SiriusXM, Slacker, Songza, SoundHound, TuneIn, and Volu.me
Published Media
– AFP News, Amazon Kindle, CBC (News, Radio, Music, Hockey Night in Canada), Economist, elmundo.es, El Pais, Grazia Italy, Handlesbaltt, kicker, Leo Dictionary, MailOnline, Maxim, News24, New York Times, NU.nl, PressReader, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, The Independent, The London Evening Standard, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Wirtschaftswoche
Social
– Badoo, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, ooVoo, Skype, Tuenti Social Messenger, Twitter, Viber, Whatsapp and Xing
Sports
CBSSports.com, ESPN ScoreCenter, Goal.com, L’equipe, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment’s Maple Leafs Mobile App and Raptors Mobile App, MLB.com At Bat(R), NHL GameCenter, PGA Tour, Runtastic, Sports Tracker and UFC

Continuing to build out a rich and robust content offering for BlackBerry 10 customers, on January 28, BlackBerry announced content partnerships with leading music labels, movie studios and TV broadcasters making BlackBerry World a one stop shop for all app, games and multimedia content for BlackBerry 10.

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Amazon Orders 5 Children’s Shows to Pilot

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Amazon is continuing to beef up its original programming, ordering five potential children’s series to pilot, including shows from the creators of “Blue Clues” and “Rugrats,” the company announced on Thursday.

“Creative Galaxy,” “Oz Adventures,” “Teeny Tiny Dogs,” “Tumbleaf” and an untitled J.J. Johnson project will join six other comedy pilots on Amazon Instant Video. Viewers can watch for free and give their feedback – after which Amazon will decide what shows get series orders.

No launch date has yet been scheduled for the pilots.

“Creative Galaxy,” from “Blue Clues” creator Angela Santomero, is an animated interactive art adventure series that hopes inspire kids’ creative thinking through crafts, story, music and dance.

The “Wizard of Oz”-inspired “Oz Adventures” will follow Dorothy’s daughter, Dot, on daily learning excursions down the yellow-brick road with other offspring from Dorothy’s old pals.

“Teeny Tiny Dogs” hails from “Rugrats” creator Howard Baker, is produced by the Jim Henson Company. As the title suggests, the show follows teeny tiny dogs as they overcome their size to navigate the big, large world.

“Tumbleaf,” created by Drew Hodges and Big Pix Studios, hopes to entertain preschoolers with a small, blue fox named Fig who has a knack for finding learning adventures down every path it wanders.

J.J. Johnson‘s project introduces kids to science and technology through Anne, a young scientist and her three robot helpers assisting her experiments carried out in her dad’s junkyard.

“We think parents – and our very youngest customers – are going to love the magical combination of entertainment and learning that they’ll discover in these children’s series,” Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios, said in a statement.

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During Trial, New Details Emerge on DuPuy Hip

When Johnson & Johnson announced the appointment in 2011 of an executive to head the troubled orthopedics division whose badly flawed artificial hip had been recalled, the company billed the move as a fresh start.

But that same executive, it turns out, had supervised the implant’s introduction in the United States and had been told by a top company consultant three years before the device was recalled that it was faulty.

In addition, the executive also held a senior marketing position at a time when Johnson & Johnson decided not to tell officials outside the United States that American regulators had refused to allow sale of a version of the artificial hip in this country.

The details about the involvement of the executive, Andrew Ekdahl, with the all-metal hip implant emerged Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court during the trial of a patient lawsuit against the DePuy Orthopaedics division of Johnson & Johnson. More than 10,000 lawsuits have been filed against DePuy in connection with the device — the Articular Surface Replacement, or A.S.R. — and the Los Angeles case is the first to go to trial.

The information about the depth of Mr. Ekdahl’s involvement with the implant may raise questions about DePuy’s ability to put the A.S.R. episode behind it.

Asked in an e-mail why the company had promoted Mr. Ekdahl, a DePuy spokeswoman, Lorie Gawreluk, said the company “seeks the most accomplished and competent people for the job.”

On Wednesday, portions of Mr. Ekdahl’s videotaped testimony were shown to jurors in the Los Angeles case. Other top DePuy marketing executives who played roles in the A.S.R. development are expected to testify in coming days. Mr. Ekdahl, when pressed in the taped questioning on whether DePuy had recalled the A.S.R. because it was unsafe, repeatedly responded that the company had recalled it “because it did not meet the clinical standards we wanted in the marketplace.”

Before the device’s recall in mid-2010, Mr. Ekdahl and those executives all publicly asserted that the device was performing extremely well. But internal documents that have become public as a result of litigation conflict with such statements.

In late 2008, for example, a surgeon who served as one of DePuy’s top consultants told Mr. Ekdahl and two other DePuy marketing officials that he was concerned about the cup component of the A.S.R. and believed it should be “redesigned.” At the time, DePuy was aggressively promoting the device in the United States as a breakthrough and it was being implanted into thousands of patients.

“My thoughts would be that DePuy should at least de-emphasize the A.S.R. cup while the clinical results are studied,” that consultant, Dr. William Griffin, wrote.

A spokesman for Dr. Griffin said he was not available for comment.

The A.S.R., whose cup and ball components were both made of metal, was first sold by DePuy in 2003 outside the United States for use in an alternative hip replacement procedure called resurfacing. Two years later, DePuy started selling another version of the A.S.R. for use here in standard hip replacement that used the same cup component as the resurfacing device. Only the standard A.S.R. was sold in the United States; both versions were sold outside the country.

Before the device recall in mid-2010, about 93,000 patients worldwide received an A.S.R., about a third of them in this country. Internal DePuy projections estimate that it will fail in 40 percent of those patients within five years; a rate eight times higher than for many other hip devices.

Mr. Ekdahl testified via tape Wednesday that he had been placed in charge of the 2005 introduction of the standard version of the A.S.R. in this country. Within three years, he and other DePuy executives were receiving reports that the device was failing prematurely at higher than expected rates, apparently because of problems related to the cup’s design, documents disclosed during the trial indicate.

Along with other DePuy executives, he also participated in a meeting that resulted in a proposal to redesign the A.S.R. cup. But that plan was dropped, apparently because sales of the implant had not justified the expense, DePuy documents indicate.

In the face of growing complaints from surgeons about the A.S.R., DePuy officials maintained that the problems were related to how surgeons were implanting the cup, not from any design flaw. But in early 2009, a DePuy executive wrote to Mr. Ekdahl and other marketing officials that the early failures of the A.S.R. resurfacing device and the A.S.R. traditional implant, known as the XL, were most likely design-related.

“The issue seen with A.S.R. and XL today, over five years post-launch, are most likely linked to the inherent design of the product and that is something we should recognize,” that executive, Raphael Pascaud wrote in March 2009.

Last year, The New York Times reported that DePuy executives decided in 2009 to phase out the A.S.R. and sell existing inventories weeks after the Food and Drug Administration asked the company for more safety data about the implant.

The F.D.A. also told the company at that time that it was rejecting its efforts to sell the resurfacing version of the device in the United States because of concerns about “high concentration of metal ions” in the blood of patients who received it.

DePuy never disclosed the F.D.A. ruling to regulators in other countries where it was still marketing the resurfacing version of the implant.

During a part of that period, Mr. Ekdahl was overseeing sales in Europe and other regions for DePuy. When The Times article appeared last year, he issued a statement, saying that any implication that the F.D.A. had determined there were safety issues with the A.S.R. was “simply untrue.” “This was purely a business decision,” Mr. Ekdahl stated at that time.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 1, 2013

A headline on Thursday about a patient lawsuit against DePuy Orthopaedics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, misstated the start of the trial in some copies. It began last week, not on Wednesday.

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Former Peregrine CEO Wasendorf gets 50 years in prison

A U.S. judge on Thursday sentenced the founder of Peregrine Financial Group to 50 years in prison for looting hundreds of millions of dollars from the brokerage, saying his customers would probably never recover the money they lost.

Russell Wasendorf Sr., who had tried to kill himself just before the fraud was uncovered, received the maximum sentence allowed by law and was ordered to pay $215.5 million in restitution for his nearly 20-year scheme.

Wasendorf's fraud was revealed in 2012, triggering the collapse of the brokerage and further shaking investors' confidence in the U.S. futures industry, already rattled by the failure of larger rival M.F. Global.

"I'm very sorry for the financial and emotional damage I've caused to investors and employees of Peregrine Financial Group," Wasendorf said in a feeble voice at a sentencing hearing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "I feel I fully deserve whatever sentence I am given… My guilt is such I will accept that sentence."

Chief Judge Linda Reade of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Iowa said former Peregrine customers will probably never get all their money back.

Wasendorf, 64, admitted last July that he had bilked tens of thousands of clients over a period of nearly 20 years, faking bank statements and lying to federal regulators, employees and his closest family members.

As regulators closed in on the fraud, Wasendorf made a botched suicide attempt outside his $24-million headquarters in Cedar Falls, Iowa, which investigators say was financed with money siphoned from customers.

Peregrine Financial, known as PFGBest, quickly collapsed, and 24,000 former customers are still missing most of the money they had invested with the firm.

Wasendorf pleaded guilty in September to embezzling more than $100 million. Prosecutors said the amount stolen was more like $215 million.

"The lengthy prison sentence imposed today is just punishment for a con man who built a business on smoke and mirrors," said Acting U.S. Attorney Sean Berry.

PLEAS FOR LENIENCY

Supporters of the disgraced executive had asked Reade for leniency, arguing that Wasendorf is in frail health and that he had helped others even in the midst of his 20-year fraud.

Wasendorf, wearing an orange sweatshirt, looked gaunt in court after spending six months in isolation in a county jail.

He has been sick in jail, and doctors found a tumor on or near his pancreas, according to testimony from his pastor, Linda Livingston of Ascension Lutheran Church. Wasendorf's mother died of pancreatic cancer, but it is unknown whether Wasendorf's tumor is cancerous, she said.

U.S. prosecutors said the large loss, the sophisticated nature of the crime, and the sheer number of victims justified Wasendorf spending the rest of his life behind bars.

"The defendant spent like he was the richest man in the world," Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan said in court.

Peregrine's collapse dealt a blow to confidence in the U.S futures industry, already reeling from $1.6 billion hole in customer pockets left when giant brokerage MF Global failed nine months earlier.

Futures traders had never before suffered such large losses as a result of a brokerage failure.

Despite his misdeeds, Wasendorf "did do some positive things for the community," said former U.S. Congressman David Nagle from Iowa, who spoke up for the fallen CEO in court.

Nagle, who helped Wasendorf win zoning approval for Peregrine's environmentally-friendly headquarters, asked the judge for leniency.

"Who wants to defend the magnitude of the crimes Mr. Wasendorf committed?" he said. "But good people do bad things."

Wasendorf was well known for donating to local charities before his empire came crashing down.

However, he built his reputation for generosity using money stolen from his customers, Judge Reade said, adding that the donations likely lessened Wasendorf's feelings of guilt.

Peregrine customers "unwittingly funded the charities, but it was Mr. Wasendorf who took the credit," she said.

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Hawks' streak ends in 3-2 shootout loss

Blackhawks suffered first loss of the season.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — For the first time this season, the only sounds in the Blackhawks' postgame dressing room were pieces of tape being ripped from pads and hushed tones.

Gone was the celebrating as the Hawks had their six-game winning streak to start 2013 snapped as the Wild edged them 3-2 in a shootout Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center.

Matt Cullen scored the winner in the shootout for the Wild as the Hawks suffered their first loss on the road in five outings. Cullen and Cal Clutterbuck scored in regulation and Niklas Backstrom earned the victory in goal in relief of Josh Harding for the Wild, playing the second of back-to-back games.

"Those are the tight games in the last three or four games that we found a way to win," said Hawks captain Jonathan Toews, who scored in regulation and in the shootout. "We were this close again and we had a great chance to win in overtime and in the shootout but we just came up a bit short.

"We just wanted to play a patient game and keep wearing them down as much as we could (but) we didn't get on them as much as we wanted to."

Andrew Shaw also had a goal in regulation for the Hawks but it wasn't enough as Corey Crawford suffered the defeat in the first of the six-game trip. The Hawks managed a point and lead the NHL with 13, but fell to 4-0-1 on the road.

"We played a lot better the second half of the game," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "If we had won we probably would be saying we played a great game and we're happy, but we lost in a shootout so we're not going to get down and get negative."

After the Wild struck early in the opening period on Cullen's goal, the Hawks answered when Shaw and Toews scored 1 minute, 31 seconds apart a few minutes later. First, Shaw rushed the net and took a pass from Bryan Bickell and stuffed it past Harding.

Toews put the Hawks ahead when he snapped a quick shot from the left dot that eluded Harding. Wild coach Mike Yeo had seen enough and yanked Harding, who proceeded to take out his frustration on his goalie stick in the tunnel leading to the dressing room.

The Hawks rode the momentum of a strong penalty-killing effort into the intermission but it was short-lived as Clutterbuck redirected a long Tom Gilbert shot in the opening minute of the second.

With Crawford and Backstrom both playing well, the game eventually went to the shootout. It ended when Patrick Sharp rifled a shot off the crossbar and the Wild had the extra point.

"Going to a shootout, anything can happen," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We had the play in the last part of the game. It's disappointing, obviously, when you don't win but at least let's get excited about getting back in the 'W' column."

ckuc@tribune.com

Twitter @ChrisKuc

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Facebook’s mobile ad revenue doubles in fourth quarter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc doubled its mobile advertising revenue in the fourth quarter, a sign that the No.1 social network is seeing early success in expanding onto handheld devices as more of its users migrate to smartphones and tablets.

Investors want to see evidence that CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s 8-year-old company is delivering on promises to develop a full-fledged mobile advertising business, a challenge facing many of today’s technology leaders including Google Inc.

But the growth trailed some of Wall Street‘s most aggressive estimates. Shares of Facebook were down roughly 3 percent at $ 30.21 in after-hours trading on Wednesday, regaining ground after falling more than 8 percent immediately after the numbers were released.

Mobile revenue estimates among some analysts and investors were unreasonably high, said Sterne, Agee & Leach analyst Arvind Bhatia.

“As a result the stock was set up for disappointment,” he said. Overall, he said, Facebook’s results were encouraging.

The company’s overall advertising business grew at its fastest clip since before its May initial public offering, helping the company’s revenue expand 40 percent and surpass Wall Street targets.

Facebook has rolled out a wide variety of new services in recent months as the company seeks to stay ahead in the fast-moving Web market and to convince Wall Street that it can turn its audience of more than 1 billion users into a sustainable business.

Zuckerberg said the company plans to spend heavily to recruit talent in 2013 as the company pushes forward with new product development, particularly “mobile-first” services.

“We aren’t operating to maximize our profit this year but we’re doing what we think will build the best service and business over the long term,” Zuckerberg said during a conference call with analysts on Wednesday.

The strategy makes sense for an Internet company, said Stifel Nicolaus Jordan Rohan. But it will force Wall Street analysts to “ratchet down” their profit expectations.

“The conference call was a bit of a sobering event,” said Rohan. “The company advised analysts and investors to expect lower margins, and downplayed the near-term opportunity for revenues from Gifts,” Facebook’s recently-launched online commerce service.

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

Facebook shares, which lost more than half their value following a rocky IPO, have regained ground in recent months as concerns about its mobile ad business and insider selling have eased. Shares have surged roughly 60 percent since mid-November.

Zuckerberg said that recently introduced products such as Gifts, which allows Facebook users to purchase retail goods for their friends, as well as its new social search tool could become important businesses in the future. But in the near term he said that Facebook’s advertising efforts will be the core of its business.

The number of monthly active users on the social network reached 1.06 billion at the end of last year, with 618 million daily active users, Facebook said. But much of that growth again came from emerging markets like Asia, rather than the United States or Europe, where revenue per user is several times higher. For instance, average revenue per user is $ 13.58 for the United States and Canada, but just $ 2.35 in Asia.

Overall fourth-quarter revenue came to $ 1.585 billion, up 40 percent versus $ 1.131 billion a year earlier. Analysts were looking for revenue of $ 1.53 billion.

Executives said some revenue from its payments business dating back to September 2012 had been booked in the October-December quarter, inflating the number somewhat. Excluding those deferred sales, overall revenue would have been up just 34 percent in the quarter.

But it was the fledgling mobile business that dominated Wednesday’s discussion on the call. Finance Chief David Ebersman said Facebook had “basically doubled” mobile ad revenue from the third quarter to the fourth quarter.

“Two quarters ago we really had no mobile revenue,” Ebersman told Reuters in an interview. “In the course of a pretty short period of time, we’ve dramatically ramped up our ability to monetize mobile.”

Facebook said net income in the fourth quarter was $ 64 million, or 3 cents a share, compared to $ 302 million, or 14 cents a share a year earlier.

Excluding certain items, Facebook said it earned 17 cents a share, compared to the 15 cents a share expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Facebook expects expenses — excluding stock-based compensation for employees — to jump 50 percent in 2013, likely outpacing revenue growth. Capital investments may climb to $ 1.8 billion, up 14 percent from last year’s $ 1.575 billion.

“They’re going to have to continue to develop new products, which will cost them,” said Bhatia of Sterne, Agee & Leach.

But he said, “the market would be less happy if they were not finding enough opportunities.”

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Ryan Woo)

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“Sin City 2″ casts Eva Green and Julia Garner

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” has cast Eva Green as a femme fatale and Julia Garner to portray yet another stripper struggling to make a dime in the gritty comic-book metropolis.

Green (“Casino Royale”) will appear in the sequel to the 2005 hit, “Sin City,” as a deadly muse named Ava Lord. Garner (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) plays a stripper who appears in scenes with Johnny, a cocky young gambler played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Like the first film, “A Dame to Kill For” is adapted from Frank Miller‘s graphic novels.

Miller, who is co-directing with Robert Rodriguez, says Green’s character is “every man’s most glorious dreams come true, she’s also every man’s darkest nightmares.”

“Ava Lord is one of the most deadly and fascinating residents of ‘Sin City.’ From the start, we knew that the actor would need to be able to embody the multifaceted characteristics of this femme fatale and we found that in Eva Green,” Miller and Rodriguez added in a statement. “We are ecstatic that Eva is joining us.”

Green and Garner are newcomers to the sequel, along with Gordon-Levitt, Jaime King, Josh Brolin, Dennis Haysbert, Michael Madsen, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Juno Temple and Jamie Chung.

Returning from the first “Sin City” are Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson.

The sequel is currently filming at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas and is scheduled for an October 4 theatrical release.

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Well: Waiting for Alzheimer's to Begin

My gray matter might be waning. Then again, it might not be. But I swear that I can feel memories — as I’m making them — slide off a neuron and into a tangle of plaque. I steel myself for those moments to come when I won’t remember what just went into my head.

I’m not losing track of my car keys, which is pretty standard in aging minds. Nor have I ever forgotten to turn off the oven after use, common in menopausal women. I can always find my car in the parking lot, although lots of “normal” folk can’t.

Rather, I suddenly can’t remember the name of someone with whom I’ve worked for years. I cover by saying “sir” or “madam” like the Southerner I am, even though I live in Vermont and grown people here don’t use such terms. Better to think I’m quirky than losing my faculties. Sometimes I’ll send myself an e-mail to-do reminder and then, seconds later, find myself thrilled to see a new entry pop into my inbox. Oops, it’s from me. Worse yet, a massage therapist kicked me out of her practice for missing three appointments. I didn’t recall making any of them. There must another Nancy.

Am I losing track of me?

Equally worrisome are the memories increasingly coming to the fore. Magically, these random recollections manage to circumnavigate my imagined build-up of beta-amyloid en route to delivering vivid images of my father’s first steps down his path of forgetting. He was the same age I am now, which is 46.

“How old are you?” I recall him asking me back then. Some years later, he began calling me every Dec. 28 to say, “Happy birthday,” instead of on the correct date, Dec. 27. The 28th had been his grandmother’s birthday.

The chasms were small at first. Explainable. Dismissible. When he crossed the street without looking both ways, we chalked it up to his well-cultivated, absent-minded professor persona. But the chasms grew into sinkholes, and eventually quicksand. When we took him to get new pants one day, he kept trying on the same ones he wore to the store.

“I like these slacks,” he’d say, over and over again, as he repeatedly pulled his pair up and down.

My dad died of Alzheimer’s last April at age 73 — the same age at which his father succumbed to the same disease. My dad ended up choosing neurology as his profession after witnessing the very beginning of his own dad’s forgetting.

Decades later, grandfather’s atrophied brain found its way into a jar on my father’s office desk. Was it meant to be an ever-present reminder of Alzheimer’s effect? Or was it a crystal ball sent to warn of genetic fate? My father the doctor never said, nor did he ever mention, that it was his father’s gray matter floating in that pool of formaldehyde.

Using the jarred brain as a teaching tool, my dad showed my 8-year-old self the difference between frontal and temporal lobes. He also pointed out how brains with Alzheimer’s disease become smaller, and how wide grooves develop in the cerebral cortex. But only after his death — and my mother’s confession about whose brain occupied that jar — did I figure out that my father was quite literally demonstrating how this disease runs through our heads.

Has my forgetting begun?

I called my dad’s neurologist. To find out if I was in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have to look for proteins in my blood or spinal fluid and employ expensive neuroimaging tests. If he found any indication of onset, the only option would be experimental trials.

But documented confirmation of a diseased brain would break my still hopeful heart. I’d walk around with the scarlet letter “A” etched on the inside of my forehead — obstructing how I view every situation instead of the intermittent clouding I currently experience.

“You’re still grieving your father,” the doctor said at the end of our call. “Sadness and depression affect the memory, too. Let’s wait and see.”

It certainly didn’t help matters that two people at my father’s funeral made some insensitive remarks.

“Nancy, you must be scared to death.”

“Is it hard knowing the same thing probably will happen to you?”

Maybe the real question is what to do when the forgetting begins. My dad started taking 70 supplements a day in hopes of saving his mind. He begged me to kill him if he wound up like his father. He retired from his practice and spent all day in a chair doing puzzles. He stopped making new memories in an all-out effort to preserve the ones he already had.

Maybe his approach wasn’t the answer.

Just before his death — his brain a fraction of its former self — my father managed to offer up a final lesson. I was visiting him in the memory-care center when he got a strange look on his face. I figured it was gas. But then his eyes lit up and a big grin overtook him, and he looked right at me and said, “Funny how things turn out.”

An unforgettable moment?

I can only hope.

---

Nancy Stearns Bercaw is a writer in Vermont. Her book, “Brain in a Jar: A Daughter’s Journey Through Her Father’s Memory,” will be published in April 2013 by Broadstone.

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Study: 40% of Ill. residents lack sufficient savings

A new study finds that 40 percent of Illinoisans don't have enough for a rain day. (Tribune file / January 30, 2013)

By Becky Yerak




Tribune reporter

5:04 p.m. CST, January 30, 2013

More than 40 percent of Illinois residents lack adequate savings to cover basic expenses for three months if they suffer a loss of income, according to a new report from the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Data released Wednesday by the advocate for low- and moderate-income households shows that 42 percent of Illinois residents live in "liquid asset poverty," meaning they don't have enough cash or other such quickly accessible assets as bank, investment and retirement accounts.

Besides Illinois residents living below the official income poverty line of $23,050 for a family of four, many who would consider themselves middle class are included.

More than a quarter of households being paid $57,841 to $88,980 a year have less than three months of savings, or nearly $5,800 to subsist at the poverty level for three months.

The 2013 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard ranked Illinois 33rd overall in the ability of residents to achieve financial security. The lower the overall score, the better the state's overall performance.

The scorecard evaluates states across 53 measures. Illinois got a "D" in housing and home ownership, for example, partly because of a relatively high foreclosure rate, and a "C" in business and jobs.

It did better in average annual pay and in private loans to small businesses.

Its recommendations to Illinois included: offering programs to transition low-income renters to homeowners and enacting foreclosure prevention and protection policies.

byerak@tribune.com | Twitter: @beckyyerak

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Girl who performed at Obama inaugural slain on South Side

After taking their exams Tuesday, Hadiya Pendleton and a group of others decided to hang out at a park on Tuesday just blocks away from their high school on the South Side.

But the trip ended in tragedy when the 15-year-old King College Prep sophomore was fatally shot about a week after she attended President Barack Obama’s inauguration and performed at inaugural events with the King College Prep band and drill team.

Penldeton and a16-year-old boy wounded in the attack were shot in a park near the school about 2:20 p.m., in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue, police said.

Most of those who were in the park were gang members, and those in the group did not stay on scene to help after the shootings, according to police. The shooting occurred around 2:20 p.m. in the 4500 block of South Oakenwald Avenue.

They boy remained in serious condition Tuesday night. He was also a student at King, according to Pendleton’s friends, though her relatives weren’t sure what school the boy attended.

One of the teens was taken in serious to critical condition to Comer Children's Hospital, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Will Knight.

The other victim also was taken to Comer and police at first believed both victims' conditions had stabilized by a little after 3 p.m., said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala.

At Comer this evening, a group of young people sat and stood inside the entrance to the hospital's emergency room, along with the principal of King high school.

Many hugged as they brushed tears from their eyes and consoled each other and Pendleton's parents.

"She was awesome," one girl said of Pendleton outside the hospital's ER.

Friends of the slain girl said King was dismissed early today because of exams, and students went to the park on Oakenwald--something they don't usually do.

Friends said the girl was a majorette and a volleyball player, a friendly and sweet presence at King, one of the top 10 CPS selective enrollment schools. Pendleton performed with other King College students at President Barack Obama’s inaugural events.

Neighbors said students from King do hang out at Harsh Park, 4458-70 S. Oakenwald Ave., and that students were there this afternoon before the shooting took place. A group of 10 to 12 teens at the park had taken shelter under a canopy there during a rainstorm when a boy or man jumped a fence in the park, ran toward the group and opened fire, police said in a statement this evening.

The attacker then got into an auto and left the area, police said.

Neighbors reported hearing shots about 2:20 p.m.

Desiree Sanders said she heard six gunshots and called 911 after a neighbor told her that some teens had been shot. Neighbors told her as many as 10 young people had been hanging out at the small park, and most scattered after the shooting, though a few stayed behind with the victims.

Those in the group were not cooperating with police, however, and investigators had no detailed descriptions yet of either the attacker or the vehicle in which he left. Central Area detectives were investigating, and they had no one in custody as of about 8:20 p.m.

Police crime data show no serious crimes happened in the 4400 or 4500 blocks of South Oakenwald Avenue Dec. 19 to Jan. 20.

“It’s a great neighborhood. Nothing like this has happened since I’ve been here,” on the block, said Roxanne Hubbard, who has lived in the neighborhood for 19 years.

As a matter of policy, Chicago Board of Education officials refuse to confirm whether any child is a student at Chicago Public Schools because a policy on student identification passed by the board several years ago has never been implemented.

Tribune reporter Liam Ford contributed.

jmdelgado@tribune.com

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Critical, long-overdue BlackBerry makeover arrives

TORONTO (AP) — BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. will kick off a critical, long-overdue makeover when chief executive Thorsten Heins shows off the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on Wednesday.

Repeated delays have left the once-pioneering BlackBerry an afterthought in the shadow of Apple’s trend-setting iPhone and Google’s Android-driven devices. There has even been talk that the fate of the company that created the BlackBerry in 1999 is no longer certain.

Now, there’s some optimism. Previews of the BlackBerry 10 software have gotten favorable reviews on blogs. Financial analysts are starting to see some slight room for a comeback. RIM‘s stock has more than doubled to $ 15.66 from a nine-year low in September, though it’s still nearly 90 percent below its 2008 peak of $ 147.

RIM redesigned the system to embrace the multimedia, apps and touch-screen experience prevalent today. The company is promising a speedier device, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone.

Most analysts consider a BlackBerry 10 success to be crucial for the company’s long-term viability. Doubts remain about the ability of BlackBerry 10 to rescue RIM.

“We’ll see if they can reclaim their glory. My sense is that it will be a phone that everyone says good things about but not as many people buy,” BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek called it a “great device” and said RIM does have some momentum just months after the Canadian company was written off for dead.

“Six months ago we talked to developers and carriers, and everybody was just basically saying ‘We’re just waiting for this to go bust,’” Misek said. “It was bad.”

The BlackBerry has been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and crossed over to consumers. But when the iPhone came out in 2007, it showed that phones can do much more than email and phone calls. Suddenly, the BlackBerry looked ancient. In the U.S., according to research firm IDC, shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 percent of the market in 2008 to 2 percent in 2012.

RIM promised a new system to catch up, using technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software Systems. RIM initially said BlackBerry 10 would come by early 2012, but then the company changed that to late 2012. A few months later, that date was pushed further, to early 2013, missing the lucrative holiday season. The holdup helped wipe out more than $ 70 billion in shareholder wealth and 5,000 jobs.

Although executives have been providing a glimpse at some of BlackBerry 10′s new features for months, Heins will finally showcase a complete system at Wednesday’s event. Devices will go on sale soon after that. The exact date and prices are expected Wednesday.

Regardless of BlackBerry 10′s advances, though, the new system will face a key shortcoming: It won’t have as many apps written by outside companies and individuals as the iPhone and Android. RIM has said it plans to launch BlackBerry 10 with more than 70,000 apps, including those developed for RIM’s PlayBook tablet, first released in 2011. Even so, that’s just a tenth of what the iPhone and Android offer. Popular service such as Instagram and Netflix won’t have apps on BlackBerry 10.

Gillis said he’ll be looking to see when RIM releases a keyboard version of the new phone. The first BlackBerry 10 phone will have only a touch screen. RIM has said a physical keyboard version will be released soon after. He said a delay could alienate RIM’s 79 million subscribers.

“The No. 1 feature that they like is the physical keyboard,” Gillis said.

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Actor Jason London arrested after Ariz. bar fight

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities say actor Jason London has been arrested on suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct after an Arizona bar fight.

Scottsdale police say London allegedly sneezed on a man who then asked him to apologize, but London refused and instead hit the man in the face.

The Arizona Republic (http://bit.ly/VoULau ) says the two men were escorted out of the bar, but London began pushing and cursing at firefighters trying to treat him and appeared extremely drunk. He was arrested early Monday.

London’s Twitter account says “some guy thought I was hitting on his girl” and that several large bouncers beat him, breaking bones in his face. London added, “the truth will win” and “I hate Arizona.”

London is best known for the 1993 movie “Dazed and Confused.”

___

Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com

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Well: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.

The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal ski gear and schuss or ride down the slopes at their preferred speed. Although they hadn’t informed the volunteers, their primary aim was to determine whether wearing a helmet increased people’s willingness to take risks, in which case helmets could actually decrease safety on the slopes.

What they found was reassuring.

To many of us who hit the slopes with, in my case, literal regularity — I’m an ungainly novice snowboarder — the value of wearing a helmet can seem self-evident. They protect your head from severe injury. During the Big Air finals at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., this past weekend, for instance, 23-year-old Icelandic snowboarder Halldor Helgason over-rotated on a triple back flip, landed head-first on the snow, and was briefly knocked unconscious. But like the other competitors he was wearing a helmet, and didn’t fracture his skull.

Indeed, studies have concluded that helmets reduce the risk of a serious head injury by as much as 60 percent. But a surprising number of safety experts and snowsport enthusiasts remain unconvinced that helmets reduce overall injury risk.

Why? A telling 2009 survey of ski patrollers from across the country found that 77 percent did not wear helmets because they worried that the headgear could reduce their peripheral vision, hearing and response times, making them slower and clumsier. In addition, many worried that if they wore helmets, less-adept skiers and snowboarders might do likewise, feel invulnerable and engage in riskier behavior on the slopes.

In the past several years, a number of researchers have attempted to resolve these concerns, for or against helmets. And in almost all instances, helmets have proved their value.

In the Innsbruck speed experiment, the researchers found that people whom the questionnaires showed to be risk takers skied and rode faster than those who were by nature cautious. No surprise.

But wearing a helmet did not increase people’s speed, as would be expected if the headgear encouraged risk taking. Cautious people were slower than risk-takers, whether they wore helmets or not; and risk-takers were fast, whether their heads were helmeted or bare.

Interestingly, the skiers and riders who were the most likely, in general, to don a helmet were the most expert, the men and women with the most talent and hours on the slopes. Experience seemed to have taught them the value of a helmet.

Off of the slopes, other new studies have brought skiers and snowboarders into the lab to test their reaction times and vision with and without helmets. Peripheral vision and response times are a serious safety concern in a sport where skiers and riders rapidly converge from multiple directions.

But when researchers asked snowboarders and skiers to wear caps, helmets, goggles or various combinations of each for a 2011 study and then had them sit before a computer screen and press a button when certain images popped up, they found that volunteers’ peripheral vision and reaction times were virtually unchanged when they wore a helmet, compared with wearing a hat. Goggles slightly reduced peripheral vision and increased response times. But helmets had no significant effect.

Even when researchers added music, testing snowboarders and skiers wearing Bluetooth-audio equipped helmets, response times did not increase significantly from when they wore wool caps.

So why do up to 40 percent of skiers and snowboarders still avoid helmets?

“The biggest reason, I think, is that many people never expect to fall,” says Dr. Adil H. Haider, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-author of a major new review of studies related to winter helmet use. “That attitude is especially common in people, like me, who are comfortable on blue runs but maybe not on blacks, and even more so in beginners.”

But a study published last spring detailing snowboarding injuries over the course of 18 seasons at a Vermont ski resort found that the riders at greatest risk of hurting themselves were female beginners. I sympathize.

The takeaway from the growing body of science about ski helmets is in fact unequivocal, Dr. Haider said. “Helmets are safe. They don’t seem to increase risk taking. And they protect against serious, even fatal head injuries.”

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, of which Dr. Haider is a member, has issued a recommendation that “all recreational skiers and snowboarders should wear safety helmets,” making them the first medical group to go on record advocating universal helmet use.

Perhaps even more persuasive, Dr. Haider has given helmets to all of his family members and colleagues who ski or ride. “As a trauma surgeon, I know how difficult it is to fix a brain,” he said. “So everyone I care about wears a helmet.”

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Chicago Booth social enterprise program gets $5M gift

Retired CDW Chairman and Chief Executive John Edwardson has donated $5 million to the social enterprise initiative at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

The gift is the first directed to the social enterprise effort, which launched last March. It will pay for research and larger cash awards to the winners of the school's annual social new venture competition.

Social enterprises try to achieve philanthropic goals, such as pollution and poverty reduction, through business tactics and discipline. They are often for-profit operations that put tackling complex social problems ahead of rewarding shareholder.

"One of the things I've been concerned about, and I think that kids are different today, is that when I was at Booth, we were focused on one thing and that was getting out of Booth and making a lot of money," said Edwardson, who graduated from the school in 1972. "Over the years, one thing that has become important to me is helping students learn to share what they have when they have a little, so that when they have a lot, they would be willing to share a lot."

Social entrepreneurship programs have brought a softer edge to business schools. Examples include a company trying to develop cheap, solar-powered batteries for sub-Saharan Africa, or a home retrofitting company or a restaurant that mostly employs ex-convicts.

The school's competition for social ventures business plans is being renamed the John Edwardson Social New Venture Challenge. Last year, 19 teams of three to five students competed for $55,000 in prize money, split among the top four finishers, said Booth spokesman Allan Friedman.

In comparison, the school's more traditional startup competition had 33 teams vying for $75,000 in prize money, split among the top 10 teams, Friedman said.

"I had agreed to endow a professorship, but it just wasn't exciting me very much," Edwardson said. "And then when I went to the social new venture challenge, and it really excited me. And I thought this is where I want my gift to go, to help do more of this."

From 2001 to 2011, Edwardson was CEO and chairman of Vernon Hills-based CDW, a computer equipment reseller. He stayed on as chairman for one more year to ensure a smooth transition.

He also is the chairman of Booth's alumni advisory board, known as the Council on Chicago Booth, and will be the lead volunteer fundraiser for the school's upcoming capital campaign. Edwardson said no fundraising goal has been set.

mmharris@tribune.com | Twitter @chiconfidential

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Butler's 19 points lead Bulls over Bobcats

To Jimmy Butler, it's simple.

Whether he's averaging 45.2 minutes in the five games he started for Luol Deng or playing 31 minutes, 14 seconds in reserve of Deng and others, as he did during Monday's 93-85 victory over the Bobcats, his role remains the same.

"Rebound, guard and make some open shots," Butler said. "Starting gave me a lot more confidence. But I'm still able to do those things (off the bench)."

Indeed, Butler stole the show, backing up his promise with a career-high 19 points and six rebounds, playing at shooting guard alongside Deng for a long second-quarter stretch and most of the final 5:28.

"Jimmy's a big part of the team," coach Tom Thibodeau said. "Lu has been huge for us. We know we have flexibility. You do what's best for the team."

Deng returned after missing five games with an injured right hamstring and finished with 12 points in just over 31 minutes as the Bulls avenged their New Year's Eve home loss to the Bobcats.

"I felt great," Deng said. "I hadn't gone full speed like that, so I was a little worried about the change of speed and direction. So I'm happy I was able not to have any setbacks. It felt a little tight, but it didn't feel like how it felt when I first did it."

Thibodeau admitted he didn't want to overextend Deng's minutes in his first game while casually plugging him for defensive player of the year.

"There may not be a better defender in the league," Thibodeau said.

At least against the speedy, perimeter-driven Bobcats, minutes dropped for Marco Belinelli and Richard Hamilton. Thibodeau even used the combination of Kirk Hinrich and Nate Robinson for a brief third-quarter stretch.

"They went real small," Thibodeau said. "I liked (Butler's) quickness out there defensively."

The Bulls pulled away late in the third after the Bobcats tied it at 55-55 with 3:36 remaining. Joakim Noah, huge again with a double-double, seven assists and five blocks in nearly 45 minutes, scored on a three-point play. Robinson, who contributed 15 points off the bench, fueled a 13-0 run with two 3-pointers as the Bobcats failed to score for 4:24.

With 13 points and 18 rebounds, Noah became the first Bull to grab 15 or more rebounds in four straight games since Dennis Rodman in March 1998.

Robinson poured it on in the fourth, scoring eight points as the Bulls pushed their lead to 14. But old friend Ben Gordon found his range in the final period as well, scoring 10 of his 18 points as the Bobcats trimmed the lead to six late.

That's when Carlos Boozer powered home a left-handed dunk over Bismack Biyombo off a feed from Robinson with 1:24 left to jazz the sellout crowd of 21,308.

"As long as we play the type of basketball we know we're capable of, we can beat any team," Butler said. "We can also lose to any team if we don't."

kcjohnson@tribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

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