Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher kills girlfriend, self

Chiefs Player Involved in Murder-Suicide (Posted Dec. 1st, 2012)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The NFL was left reeling in horror on Saturday after Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher murdered his girlfriend and committed suicide.

The 25-year-old Belcher shot Kasandra Perkins at their home on Saturday morning then drove his car to the team's training facility near Arrowhead Stadium and turned the gun on himself just as police arrived.

"As officers pulled up and were getting ready to get out of their car, they heard a gunshot," Kansas City police spokesman Darin Snapp said.

"The individual, it appears, took his own life."

Snapp said Belcher shot himself in the head in front of Chiefs coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli.

"He was not threatening the employees at all," Snapp said. "He was just talking to them and thanking them for everything they had done for him."

Snapp said police had earlier been called to a nearby house after reports that a woman, identified as Belcher's 22-year-old girlfriend Perkins, had been shot multiple times. She was later pronounced dead at hospital.

Local media reported that Belcher and Perkins had a three-month-old daughter and Perkins' mother witnessed the killing and called police.

"This is part of the tragedy of urban living in this country," Kansas City Mayor Sly James told reporters outside the practice facility.

"Handguns all over the place, people blowing themselves away, and others. At some point we have to get a handle on this kind of stuff. We are not doing a good job of it."

The Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt issued a statement.

"The entire Chiefs family is deeply saddened by today's events, and our collective hearts are heavy with sympathy, thoughts and prayers for the families and friends affected by this unthinkable tragedy," Hunt wrote.

"We will continue to fully cooperate with the authorities and work to ensure that the appropriate counseling resources are available to all members of the organization."

The Chiefs have won just one of 11 games this season, the worst record in the NFL. They were due to host the Carolina Panthers at Arrowhead on Sunday.

The Chiefs confirmed to the NFL that the game would go ahead.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Chiefs and the families and friends of those who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy," an NFL spokesman said.

"We have connected the Chiefs with our national team of professional counselors to support both the team and the families of those affected. We will continue to provide assistance in any way that we can."

Belcher was signed by the Chiefs in 2009 after he was overlooked in the NFL draft and established himself as a regular starter in his second season.

Earlier this year, he signed a one-year deal worth just under $2 million. This season Belcher started 10 of 11 games, making 38 tackles.

Belcher is just the latest NFL player to commit suicide in recent years, amid increasing concerns about the long term dangers of head injuries from repeated concussions in the sport.

The tight-knit NFL community was stunned by the latest news.

"There is nothing profound or comforting to say that can help us understand or explain a situation like this," tweeted NFL Players Association assistant executive George Atallah.

Defensive end Justin Tuck, a two-time Super Bowl winner with the New York Giants, also passed on his condolences to the Chiefs on his Twitter account.

"Man prayers go out to the KC Chiefs community and families after this morning's tragic incident," he wrote.

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NBC sets premiere date for “Do No Harm” drama

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – NBC will premiere its new drama “Do No Harm” at 10 p.m. on January 31, NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said Friday.

The premiere date takes advantage of the one-hour series finale of “30 Rock,” which will air at 8 p.m. on that same night.

“Do No Harm” stars “Rescue Me” alum Steven Pasquale as Dr. Jason Cole, a neurosurgeon whose life is going swimmingly until his dangerous alter-ego emerges, hell-bent on creating havoc on Cole and those around him.

“January 31 will be a special night as one classic series will mark its finale with a great hour-long send-off episode while a promising new drama will make its debut on Thursdays,” Greenblatt said. “‘30 Rock’ is acclaimed as a legendary comedy and we will see a truly memorable and fitting last episode. In ‘Do No Harm,’ viewers will have a unique new dramatic storyline with an exciting new star in Steven Pasquale that takes them into dark and uncharted territory.”

To accommodate “Do No Harm,” “Rock Center With Brian Williams” will move to Fridays at 10 p.m., following “Dateline,” beginning February 8.

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Unboxed: Stand-Up Desks Gaining Favor in the Workplace

THE health studies that conclude that people should sit less, and get up and move around more, have always struck me as fitting into the “well, duh” category.

But a closer look at the accumulating research on sitting reveals something more intriguing, and disturbing: the health hazards of sitting for long stretches are significant even for people who are quite active when they’re not sitting down. That point was reiterated recently in two studies, published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine and in Diabetologia, a journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Suppose you stick to a five-times-a-week gym regimen, as I do, and have put in a lifetime of hard cardio exercise, and have a resting heart rate that’s a significant fraction below the norm. That doesn’t inoculate you, apparently, from the perils of sitting.

The research comes more from observing the health results of people’s behavior than from discovering the biological and genetic triggers that may be associated with extended sitting. Still, scientists have determined that after an hour or more of sitting, the production of enzymes that burn fat in the body declines by as much as 90 percent. Extended sitting, they add, slows the body’s metabolism of glucose and lowers the levels of good (HDL) cholesterol in the blood. Those are risk factors toward developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

“The science is still evolving, but we believe that sitting is harmful in itself,” says Dr. Toni Yancey, a professor of health services at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Yet many of us still spend long hours each day sitting in front of a computer.

The good news is that when creative capitalism is working as it should, problems open the door to opportunity. New knowledge spreads, attitudes shift, consumer demand emerges and companies and entrepreneurs develop new products. That process is under way, addressing what might be called the sitting crisis. The results have been workstations that allow modern information workers to stand, even walk, while toiling at a keyboard.

Dr. Yancey goes further. She has a treadmill desk in the office and works on her recumbent bike at home.

If there is a movement toward ergonomic diversity and upright work in the information age, it will also be a return to the past. Today, the diligent worker tends to be defined as a person who puts in long hours crouched in front of a screen. But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, office workers, like clerks, accountants and managers, mostly stood. Sitting was slacking. And if you stand at work today, you join a distinguished lineage — Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov and, according to a recent profile in The New York Times, Philip Roth.

DR. JAMES A. LEVINE of the Mayo Clinic is a leading researcher in the field of inactivity studies. When he began his research 15 years ago, he says, it was seen as a novelty.

“But it’s totally mainstream now,” he says. “There’s been an explosion of research in this area, because the health care cost implications are so enormous.”

Steelcase, the big maker of office furniture, has seen a similar trend in the emerging marketplace for adjustable workstations, which allow workers to sit or stand during the day, and for workstations with a treadmill underneath for walking. (Its treadmill model was inspired by Dr. Levine, who built his own and shared his research with Steelcase.)

The company offered its first models of height-adjustable desks in 2004. In the last five years, sales of its lines of adjustable desks and the treadmill desk have surged fivefold, to more than $40 million. Its models for stand-up work range from about $1,600 to more than $4,000 for a desk that includes an actual treadmill. Corporate customers include Chevron, Intel, Allstate, Boeing, Apple and Google.

“It started out very small, but it’s not a niche market anymore,” says Allan Smith, vice president for product marketing at Steelcase.

The Steelcase offerings are the Mercedes-Benzes and Cadillacs of upright workstations, but there are plenty of Chevys as well, especially from small, entrepreneurial companies.

In 2009, Daniel Sharkey was laid off as a plant manager of a tool-and-die factory, after nearly 30 years with the company. A garage tinkerer, Mr. Sharkey had designed his own adjustable desk for standing. On a whim, he called it the kangaroo desk, because “it holds things, and goes up and down.” He says that when he lost his job, his wife, Kathy, told him, “People think that kangaroo thing is pretty neat.”

Today, Mr. Sharkey’s company, Ergo Desktop, employs 16 people at its 8,000-square-foot assembly factory in Celina, Ohio. Sales of its several models, priced from $260 to $600, have quadrupled in the last year, and it now ships tens of thousands of workstations a year.

Steve Bordley of Scottsdale, Ariz., also designed a solution for himself that became a full-time business. After a leg injury left him unable to run, he gained weight. So he fixed up a desktop that could be mounted on a treadmill he already owned. He walked slowly on the treadmill while making phone calls and working on a computer. In six weeks, Mr. Bordley says, he lost 25 pounds and his nagging back pain vanished.

He quit the commercial real estate business and founded TrekDesk in 2007. He began shipping his desk the next year. (The treadmill must be supplied by the user.) Sales have grown tenfold from 2008, with several thousand of the desks, priced at $479, now sold annually.

“It’s gone from being treated as a laughingstock to a product that many people find genuinely interesting,” Mr. Bordley says.

There is also a growing collection of do-it-yourself solutions for stand-up work. Many are posted on Web sites like howtogeek.com, and freely shared like recipes. For example, Colin Nederkoorn, chief executive of an e-mail marketing start-up, Customer.io, has posted one such design on his blog. Such setups can cost as little as $30 or even less, if cobbled together with available materials.

UPRIGHT workstations were hailed recently by no less a trend spotter of modern work habits and gadgetry than Wired magazine. In its October issue, it chose “Get a Standing Desk” as one of its “18 Data-Driven Ways to Be Happier, Healthier and Even a Little Smarter.”

The magazine has kept tabs on the evolving standing-desk research and marketplace, and several staff members have become converts themselves in the last few months.

“And we’re all universally happy about it,” Thomas Goetz, Wired’s executive editor, wrote in an e-mail — sent from his new standing desk.

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Jewel parent says sale talks proceeding

Exterior of Jewel-Osco's first "Green Store" located at 370 N. Desplaines in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / November 29, 2012)

By Emily Bryson York




Chicago Tribune reporter

6:51 a.m. CST, November 30, 2012

Supervalu, the Minneapolis-based parent of Jewel-Osco said sale talks are proceeding after stock closed down more than 18 percent Thursday, to $2.28.

The beleaguered grocery chain was likely moving to combat reports that sale talks with suitor Cerberus Capital Management had stalled over funding.

"The company continues to be in active discussion with several parties," according to the statement. "There can be no assurance that this process will result in any transaction or any change in the Company's overall structure or its business model."

Supervalu, the third-largest U.S. grocery chain, has acknowledged sale talks since the spring. The company has been closing stores and cutting jobs as it has underperformed competitors like Dominick's parent Safeway and Kroger.

If Supervalu does not sell to Cerberus, it may have to restructure on its own or sell off individual assets, which could have big tax consequences, Bloomberg said.

Reuters reported last month that buyout firm Cerberus was preparing a takeover bid for Supervalu, the third-largest U.S. supermarket chain.

Cerberus officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

-- Reuters contributed to this report

In addition to Jewel, Supervalu owns Albertsons, Cub and other regional grocery chains.

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The Kids Are All Right: How Social Media Created a Generation of Activists

This week marked the nation’s inaugural  “Giving Tuesday,” a UN sponsored initiative, which utilized social media to encourage businesses, schools, and community members to give back. The effort resulted in $ 10 million worth of donations made in a single day, a 53 percent increase over the same day last year.

Conceived as a means to promote activism and charity, the campaign’s use of social media to spread its message is most likely a large part of the initiative’s success. 

Certainly people from every age group use Twitter and Facebook, but social media activism is especially resonant with young adults. According to TBWA, people between the ages of 18-29 strongly identify as activists and count social media as their first point of engagement when they learn about a new cause.

MORE: ‘Tis Always the Season to Give: Creating a Corporate Culture That Gives Back

In fact, about half believe that activism is important to their personal identity and about a third look to it as a means of socializing and relating to one another.

But more than identifying with activism, this younger generation’s aptitude for social media can effect real change. Look at the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Earlier this year, when the organization announced it would pull its funding for breast cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, cutting off medical access for millions of women, Twitter and Facebook lit up with vitriolic statements, claiming the organization had become a puppet of the religious right. The ensuing bad press proved to be too much and within days, the organization reversed its decision and issued a public apology.

Similarly, when Florida law enforcement officials refused to arrest George Zimmerman after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin, the case lay dormant for almost a month. But an online petition started by Martin’s parents went viral and galvanized a nation demanding justice for the boy’s death. Zimmerman was arrested and charged as a result.

For all we hear about “kids these days” and their irresponsible use of social media−posting questionable pictures of themselves doing kegstands or letting Twitter corrode their ability to hold a thought for more than a nanosecond−it turns out that most are using it to express a genuine passion for changing the world around them. And they’re succeeding.

And these trends extend well beyond the U.S. That same age group in other countries shows similar interests in contributing to larger causes. China’s young adults for instance, lead the world in online political discussions and offline they donate the most money to charities. India’s younger generation ranks the first in the world when it comes to staying informed, and they’re the most optimistic about the impact their activism has on the world around them.

It seems that our youngest generation of adults are the ones leading the charge when it comes to effectively making a difference.

Do you consider yourself an activist? Let us know in the Comments what social causes inspire you to get involved.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Secret Santas: Profiles in Anonymous Holiday Generosity

• Rwanda Genocide Survivor Wins Grant for Giving Back

• 40 U.S. Billionaires Pledge Half of Fortunes to Charity

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A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

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Officials: 6 shot, 1 fatally, on South Side

A total of six people were shot, one fatally, in two shootings on the South Side, officials said.

In the first shooting, two 19-year-old men were reported shot on the 1100 block of West 51st Street, police said. The Shooting was reported at 6:11 p.m., said Chicago Fire Department Chief Joseph Roccasalva.

The men were both taken in serious-to-critical condition to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County.

One of the men was reportedly shot in the back and the second man was shot in the hand, leg, side and buttocks, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer VeeJay Zala.

Minutes after that shooting, four people were shot on the 4200 block of South Wells Street at 6:21 p.m., said Roccasalva.

Two of the victims were taken in serious-to-critical condition to Stroger Hospital, one person was taken to Mercy Hospital in fair-to-serious condition and one person was reported dead on the scene, said Roccasalva.

All of the victims were male, reportedly between the ages of 20 and 30 years of age, said Roccasalva.

About 20 onlookers gathered on sidewalks and stoops in the 4200 block of South Wells Street where beat cops and detectives were going door to door scouring for witnesses.

A female voice could be heard screaming down the block. Two others were consoling each other with tears in their eyes in the middle of the street.

One officer approached a group of people outside the yellow tape and asked loudly, "Did anybody see anything?"

Nobody said anything back to the officer as she walked away from them.

Rolita Lofton, 34, stood crying at the edge of the police tape Friday night near the shooting site on Wells Street.

"They hit my brother in the chest," Lofton said.

Lofton said her brother, Orivell Chester, 32, was one of the four shot Friday night.

Lofton said she was told her brother was in surgery but did not know the hospital. She said Chester worked at McCormick Place and recently got off work.

Marcus Keene, 38, said he heard the shooters came through the gangway on Wells Street and just started shooting at a group of men gathered on the porch.

He said two of the men shot were on the porch while the other two shot were sitting on the couch inside the next house over. Keene said he believes one of the men who were struck while inside the house has already died.

Keene, who works as a CTA bus driver, expressed frustration.

"Why? Who knows. Is this sad? Yes. The powers at be aren't doing what they should do and neither are the people here," Keene said.

Several police vehicles and an amblance was also stationed on the block full of two-story apartment houses.

Linda McCullough was watching television at her home when she heard about five gunshots. She then went outside to see what was going on.

She says the neighborhood is usually quiet.

"We have some trouble maybe every four years," she said. "People start acting crazy."

In addition to those shootings, a man was found dead on the 8200 block of South Dobson, police said.

The victim may have been dead for several weeks and was found in a half-way house, a police source said. The man sustained several gunshot wounds, police said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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“iCarly” and “Victorious” spinoff gets greenlight from Nickelodeon

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Tweens of the world, rejoice: “iCarly” may be relegated to the dustbin of TV-programming history, but a part of it will live on.

Nickelodeon has greenlit “Sam & Cat,” a hybrid spinoff of “iCarly” – which ended its run last week – and the Nickelodeon series “Victorious.”

The series – from “iCarly” and “Victorious” creator Dan Schneider – will star Jennette McCurdy (who played Sam Puckett on “iCarly”) and Ariana Grande (perhaps better known as Cat Valentine to “Victorious” viewers). Both will reprise theo become teen entrepreneurs by starting their own after-school babysitting business.”

The 20-episode first season of “Sam & Cat” will premiere next year; production will begin in January in Los Angeles.

“Jennette and Ariana are adored by our audience, and it’s great to unite these talented actresses in this hilarious new comedy from Dan Schneider,” Nickelodeon’s president of content development and production Russell Hicks said. “This show promises to deliver on what our audience loves most about these two favorite characters – laugh-out-loud humor and non-stop adventure, and is sure to be a compelling new chapter for our new comedic duo.”

The “iCarly” series finale last week drew 6.4 million viewers.

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Hockey Coaches Defy Doctors on Concussions, Study Finds

Despite several years of intensive research, coverage and discussion about the dangers of concussions, the idea of playing through head injuries is so deeply rooted in hockey culture that two university teams kept concussed players on the ice even though they were taking part in a major concussion study.

The study, which was published Friday in a series of articles in the journal Neurosurgical Focus, was conducted during the 2011-12 hockey season by researchers from the University of Western Ontario, the University of Montreal, Harvard and other institutions.

“This culture is entrenched at all levels of hockey, from peewee to university,” said Dr. Paul S. Echlin, a concussion specialist and researcher in Burlington, Ontario, and the lead author of the study. “Concussion is a significant public health issue that requires a generational shift. As with smoking or seat belts, it doesn’t just happen overnight — it takes a massive effort and collective movement.”

The study is believed to be among the most comprehensive analyses of concussions in hockey, which has a rate of head trauma approaching that of football. Researchers followed two Canadian university teams — a men’s team and a women’s team — and scanned every player’s brain before and after the season. Players who sustained head injuries also received scans at three intervals after the injuries, with researchers using advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques.

The teams were not named in the study, in which an independent specialist physician was present at each game and was empowered to pull any player off the ice for examination if a potential concussion was observed.

The men’s team, with 25 players and an average age of 22, played a 28-game regular season and a 3-game postseason. The women’s team, with 20 players and an average age of 20, played 24 regular-season games and no playoff games. Over the course of the season, there were five observed or self-reported concussions on the men’s team and six on the women’s team.

Researchers noted several instances of coaches, trainers and players avoiding examinations, ignoring medical advice or otherwise obstructing the study, even though the players had signed consent forms to participate and university ethics officials had given institutional consent.

“Unless something is broken, I want them out playing,” one coach said, according to the study.

In one incident, a neurologist observing the men’s team pulled a defenseman during the first period of a game after the player took two hits and was skating slowly. During the intermission the player reported dizziness and was advised to sit out, but the coach suggested he play the second period and “skate it off.” The defenseman stumbled through the rest of the game.

“At the end of the third period, I spoke with the player and the trainer and said that he should not play until he was formally evaluated and underwent the formal return-to-play protocol,” the neurologist said, as reported in the study. “I was dismayed to see that he played the next evening.”

After the team returned from its trip, the neurologist questioned the trainer about overruling his advice and placing the defenseman at risk.

“The trainer responded that he and the player did not understand the decision and that most of the team did not trust the neurologist,” according to the study. “He requested that the physician no longer be used to cover any more games.”

In another episode, a physician observer assessed a minor concussion in a female player and recommended that she miss the next night’s game. Even though the coach’s own playing career had ended because of concussions, she overrode the medical advice and inserted the player the next evening.

According to the report, the coach refused to speak to another physician observer on the second evening. The trainer was reluctant to press the issue with the coach because, the trainer said, the coach did not want the study to interfere with the team.

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Jewel parent says sale talks proceeding

Exterior of Jewel-Osco's first "Green Store" located at 370 N. Desplaines in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / November 29, 2012)

By Emily Bryson York




Chicago Tribune reporter

6:51 a.m. CST, November 30, 2012

Supervalu, the Minneapolis-based parent of Jewel-Osco said sale talks are proceeding after stock closed down more than 18 percent Thursday, to $2.28.

The beleaguered grocery chain was likely moving to combat reports that sale talks with suitor Cerberus Capital Management had stalled over funding.

"The company continues to be in active discussion with several parties," according to the statement. "There can be no assurance that this process will result in any transaction or any change in the Company's overall structure or its business model."

Supervalu, the third-largest U.S. grocery chain, has acknowledged sale talks since the spring. The company has been closing stores and cutting jobs as it has underperformed competitors like Dominick's parent Safeway and Kroger.

If Supervalu does not sell to Cerberus, it may have to restructure on its own or sell off individual assets, which could have big tax consequences, Bloomberg said.

Reuters reported last month that buyout firm Cerberus was preparing a takeover bid for Supervalu, the third-largest U.S. supermarket chain.

Cerberus officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

-- Reuters contributed to this report

In addition to Jewel, Supervalu owns Albertsons, Cub and other regional grocery chains.

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Study: DVRs now in half of US pay-TV homes

NEW YORK (AP) — A new survey finds that digital video recorders are now in more than half of all U.S. homes that subscribe to cable or satellite TV services.

Leichtman Research Group‘s survey of 1,300 households found that 52 percent of the ones that have pay-TV service also have a DVR. That translates to about 45 percent of all households and is up from 13.5 percent of all households surveyed five years ago by another firm, Nielsen.

The first DVRs came out in 1999, from TiVo Inc. and ReplayTV. Later, they were built into cable set-top boxes. The latest trend is “whole-home” DVRs that can distribute recorded shows to several sets.

Even with the spread of DVRs, live TV rules. Nielsen found last year that DVRs accounted for 8 percent of TV watching.

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Jury gets case of attorney charged with letting suspect use cellphone

Attorney Sladjana Vuckovic was acquitted tonight of charges she improperly gave her personal cell phone to a client who was being questioned in the murder of a Chicago police officer.

A Cook County jury deliberated a little less than three hours before acquitting Vuckovic of two counts of bringing contraband into a penal institution.

The jury began deliberating at about 3:55 p.m.

Sladjana Vuckovic, 44, was charged with a felony count of bringing contraband into a penal institution, faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted and would likely be disbarred from practicing law.

In closing arguments this afternoon in Judge Evelyn Clay’s packed courtroom, attorneys from both sides acknowledged the unusual nature of the case.

Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Golden told jurors that “anyone with common sense” should have known not  to let a suspect in custody for murder use a personal cell phone.

“You shouldn’t expect that attorneys across the country would be charged with such abysmal behavior,” Golden said.

Vuckovic’s attorney, Leonard Goodman, countered that common sense should tell jurors that Vuckovic wasn’t trying to obstruct the police investigation or “help some suspect cook up an alibi or destroy evidence.”

Goodman suggested to jurors that prosecutors were trying to insinuate there was an insidious motive for the calls “to trick you into convicting her based on something that this case is not about.”

The comment drew vehement objections from prosecutors.

“Counsel says she didn’t know it was wrong?” Golden said. “Well maybe somebody should tell her.”

Vuckovic was volunteering for a free legal service for indigent suspects when she twice went to the Calumet Area headquarters in November 2010 to meet with Timothy Herring after a relative of his had contacted the legal hotline about his arrest. Herring was undergoing questioning by detectives in the slayings of Officer Michael Flisk and another man.

Vuckovic testified in her own defense Wednesday she had made at least 100 client visits at police stations and had never been told that cellphones were prohibited. She said she was vaguely aware of a state law prohibiting bringing contraband into a penal institution but thought it barred "knives, guns, drugs." She also said that unlike a police lockup where suspects are behind bars, she didn't consider an interrogation room to be a penal institution.

Prosecutors alleged that 26 calls were made from or received by Vuckovic's cell phone during two meetings with Herring, including incoming calls from a number that was blocked.    

jmeisner@tribune.com

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Actor who apparently killed landlady not on drugs

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An autopsy report shows no drugs were detected in the body of a former “Sons of Anarchy” actor who police say killed his landlady and then fell to his death.

Toxicology results on Johnny Lewis found no traces of cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or any other types of drugs in the actor’s system. Officials checked for anti-psychotic drugs as well as psychedelic drugs.

Lewis was found dead in September in the driveway of a Los Angeles residence, and police found his landlady and a cat dead inside the home. Officials believe Lewis fell while trying to flee the home after killing 81-year-old Catherine Davis.

The killing occurred just days after Lewis was released from jail. Records show he had pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and attempted burglary in separate cases.

Authorities expressed concern about his mental health in court hearings before his release.

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Clearing the Fog Around Personality Disorders

For years they have lived as orphans and outliers, a colony of misfit characters on their own island: the bizarre one and the needy one, the untrusting and the crooked, the grandiose and the cowardly.

Their customs and rituals are as captivating as any tribe’s, and at least as mystifying. Every mental anthropologist who has visited their world seems to walk away with a different story, a new model to explain those strange behaviors.

This weekend the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association will vote on whether to adopt a new diagnostic system for some of the most serious, and striking, syndromes in medicine: personality disorders.

Personality disorders occupy a troublesome niche in psychiatry. The 10 recognized syndromes are fairly well represented on the self-help shelves of bookstores and include such well-known types as narcissistic personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, as well as dependent and histrionic personalities.

But when full-blown, the disorders are difficult to characterize and treat, and doctors seldom do careful evaluations, missing or downplaying behavior patterns that underlie problems like depression and anxiety in millions of people.

The new proposal — part of the psychiatric association’s effort of many years to update its influential diagnostic manual — is intended to clarify these diagnoses and better integrate them into clinical practice, to extend and improve treatment. But the effort has run into so much opposition that it will probably be relegated to the back of the manual, if it’s allowed in at all.

Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and chairman of the task force updating the manual, would not speculate on which way the vote might go: “All I can say is that personality disorders were one of the first things we tackled, but that doesn’t make it the easiest.”

The entire exercise has forced psychiatrists to confront one of the field’s most elementary, yet still unresolved, questions: What, exactly, is a personality problem?

Habits of Thought

It wasn’t supposed to be this difficult.

Personality problems aren’t exactly new or hidden. They play out in Greek mythology, from Narcissus to the sadistic Ares. They percolate through biblical stories of madmen, compulsives and charismatics. They are writ large across the 20th century, with its rogues’ gallery of vainglorious, murderous dictators.

Yet it turns out that producing precise, lasting definitions of extreme behavior patterns is exhausting work. It took more than a decade of observing patients before the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin could draw a clear line between psychotic disorders, like schizophrenia, and mood problems, like depression or bipolar disorder.

Likewise, Freud spent years formulating his theories on the origins of neurotic syndromes. And Freudian analysts were largely the ones who, in the early decades of the last century, described people with the sort of “confounded identities” that are now considered personality disorders.

Their problems were not periodic symptoms, like moodiness or panic attacks, but issues rooted in longstanding habits of thought and feeling — in who they were.

“These therapists saw people coming into treatment who looked well put-together on the surface but on the couch became very disorganized, very impaired,” said Mark F. Lenzenweger, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Binghamton. “They had problems that were neither psychotic nor neurotic. They represented something else altogether.”

Several prototypes soon began to emerge. “A pedantic sense of order is typical of the compulsive character,” wrote the Freudian analyst Wilhelm Reich in his 1933 book, “Character Analysis,” a groundbreaking text. “In both big and small things, he lives his life according to a preconceived, irrevocable pattern.”

Others coalesced too, most recognizable as extreme forms of everyday types: the narcissist, with his fragile, grandiose self-approval; the dependent, with her smothering clinginess; the histrionic, always in the thick of some drama, desperate to be the center of attention.

In the late 1970s, Ted Millon, scientific director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Personology and Psychopathology, pulled together the bulk of the work on personality disorders, most of it descriptive, and turned it into a set of 10 standardized types for the American Psychiatric Association’s third diagnostic manual. Published in 1980, it is a best seller among mental health workers worldwide.

These diagnostic criteria held up well for years and led to improved treatments for some people, like those with borderline personality disorder. Borderline is characterized by an extreme neediness and urges to harm oneself, often including thoughts of suicide. Many who seek help for depression also turn out to have borderline patterns, making their mood problems resistant to the usual therapies, like antidepressant drugs.

Today there are several approaches that can relieve borderline symptoms and one that, in numerous studies, has reduced hospitalizations and helped aid recovery: dialectical behavior therapy.

This progress notwithstanding, many in the field began to argue that the diagnostic catalog needed a rewrite. For one thing, some of the categories overlapped, and troubled people often got two or more personality diagnoses. “Personality Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified,” a catchall label meaning little more than “this person has problems” became the most common of the diagnoses.

It’s a murky area, and in recent years many therapists didn’t have the time or training to evaluate personality on top of everything else. The assessment interviews can last hours, and treatments for most of the disorders involve longer-term, specialized talk therapy.

Psychiatry was failing the sort of patients that no other field could possibly help, many experts said.

“The diagnoses simply weren’t being used very much, and there was a real need to make the whole system much more accessible,” Dr. Lenzenweger said.

Resisting Simplification 

It was easier said than done.

The most central, memorable, and knowable element of any person — personality — still defies any consensus.

A team of experts appointed by the psychiatric association has worked for more than five years to find some unifying system of diagnosis for personality problems.

The panel proposed a system based in part on a failure to “develop a coherent sense of self or identity.” Not good enough, some psychiatric theorists said.

Later, the experts tied elements of the disorders to distortions in basic traits.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of traits included in the proposed criteria for narcissistic personality disorder.   The final proposal relies on two personality traits, not four.

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Groupon board ends meeting; takes no action on CEO Mason's job

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason at the Nasdaq after his company's initial public offering in 2011. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters / November 29, 2012)

By Melissa Harris




Tribune reporter

3:14 p.m. CST, November 29, 2012

Today's meeting of Groupon's board of directors concluded minutes ago with no announced action on chief executive Andrew Mason's job, according to the company's spokesman.

For now, it appears Mason will continue leading the daily deals company as it seeks to turn around its sluggish performance in Europe, expand its offerings and draw in more customers via Google search vs. email blasts.

"The meeting is over and the board and management team are keenly focused on the performance of the company," said company spokesman Paul Taaffe. "And they are all working together with their heads down to achieve Groupon's objectives."

mmharris@tribune.com | Twitter @ChiConfidential

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Video Games: Art-Tested, MoMA-Approved

Citing a palpable “aesthetic experience” in classic games while eschewing others, the Museum of Modern Art announced Thursday that it has assembled a new collection of video games. The museum’s initial collection includes 14 classics like Pac-Man and Tetris, but also more recent additions to the canon like Passage and Canabalt. The museum has a “wish list” of about 40 total games, which include Pong, The Legend of Zelda, and Minecraft. The games will be exhibited starting in March 2013, but the selections aren’t necessarily what you’d expect.

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Video games are art. That’s a fact (which has some notable dissenters) that’s even been determined by the Supreme Court in a a case decided in 2011. And games have been embraced by art institutions before. In an exhibition this year, the Smithsonian American Art Museum explored The Art of Video Games. But in a blog post today, Paola Antonelli, senior curator in MoMA‘s department of design, explained that the museum’s intention is not as simple as evaluating the artistic value of certain video games. They want to look at games from a design perspective: “Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design.” 

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Because the museum is looking for specific design traits, Antonielli explained that MoMA has not acquired, and is not looking for, some games that might seem like “no-brainers to video game historian.”

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Here are some images of the games MoMA has acquired, via the museum: 

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Tetris

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flOw

Myst

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Emanuel not backing down on CTA fare hike comments

Mayor Rahm Emanuel today refused to back away from his remarks that commuters can choose whether to drive or take the CTA when fares increase, instead saying his earlier comments were misinterpreted.

"What I said is, (it's) a choice. People have a choice between public transportation and private," the mayor said. "If you're coming from O'Hare, you pay $50 for the cab downtown. You can rent a car, which is probably close to that. Or you can take the CTA. That's a choice which is much cheaper."

That’s not much different from Emanuel’s comments Monday, when he was asked  about a proposed CTA budget that will raise prices on transit passes, including shorter passes of a few days often favored by tourists and business travelers and the 30-day pass many Chicagoans rely on to get to work.

"Public transportation is different from driving to work. You will make that choice," Emanuel said Monday when asked about the increase to the 30-day pass.

The mayor's insistence that the CTA hikes are not really fare increases, that public transit remains a bargain and that commuters can "make that choice" about whether to drive became conversation fodder and inspired a Twitter account @RahmSaysDrive.

Emanuel also pointed out then that the standard CTA fare of $2.25 will remain unchanged under the budget, unlike gasoline prices. "Now you, as a commuter, will pick. You can either drive to work or you can take public transportation, and the standard fare will stay the same," Emanuel said Monday.

Today, the mayor noted that 45 percent of CTA riders pay the standard fare, and said his earlier comments were meant to illustrate that cost of a bus or train ride would be set while other consumer prices like gas and milk rise.

"I did not say or imply that you could just drive," Emanuel said at an unrelated news conference. "I said there's a choice. People choose public transportation because it's competitive against private transportation. That's a choice. And the service is getting better and improved. And that's my intention."

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“Anger Management,” “Justified” return dates set by FX

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – FX released its early 2013 premiere schedule Wednesday, including dates for the second season of Charlie Sheen‘s sitcom “Anger Management” and the fourth season of the Timothy Olyphant lawman drama “Justified.”

The premiere schedule kicks off with “Justified” on Tuesday, January 8 at 10 p.m. The season will find Olyphant’s character, U.S. Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens, picking up a 30-year-old cold case, unraveling a riddle that echoes all the way back to his boyhood and his criminal father’s bad dealings.

The premieres go into high gear on January 17, with the return of “Anger Management,” “Archer” and “Totally Biased W. Kamau Bell,” as well as the series premiere of the new offering “Legit.”

“Anger Management,” which received a 90-episode order after the success of its first season, will premiere with consecutive episodes at 9 and 9:30 p.m., with the animated series “Archer” premiering its fourth season at 10 p.m.

The new series “Legit,” which stars Jim Jeffries as a foul-mouthed Australian comedian struggling to legitimize his life and career in Los Angeles, will begin its 13-episode maiden season at 10 p.m., while “Totally Biased W. Kamau Bell,” which features comedian Bell riffing on politics, culture and other topics, will start a new cycle of episodes at 11 p.m.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Weight Loss Surgery May Not Combat Diabetes Long-Term

Weight loss surgery, which in recent years has been seen as an increasingly attractive option for treating Type 2 diabetes, may not be as effective against the disease as it was initially thought to be, according to a new report. The study found that many obese Type 2 diabetics who undergo gastric bypass surgery do not experience a remission of their disease, and of those that do, about a third redevelop diabetes within five years of their operation.

The findings contrast with the growing perception that surgery is essentially a cure for Type II diabetes. Earlier this year, two widely publicized studies reported that surgery worked better than drugs, diet and exercise in causing a remission of Type 2 diabetes in overweight people whose blood sugar was out of control, leading some experts to call for greater use of surgery in treating the disease. But the studies were small and relatively short, lasting under two years.

The latest study, published in the journal Obesity Surgery, tracked thousands of diabetics who had gastric bypass surgery for more than a decade. It found that many people whose diabetes at first went away were likely to have it return. While weight regain is a common problem among those who undergo bariatric surgery, regaining lost weight did not appear to be the cause of diabetes relapse. Instead, the study found that people whose diabetes was most severe or in its later stages when they had surgery were more likely to have a relapse, regardless of whether they regained weight.

“Some people are under the impression that you have surgery and you’re cured,” said Dr. Vivian Fonseca, the president for medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association, who was not involved in the study. “There have been a lot of claims about how wonderful surgery is for diabetes, and I think this offers a more realistic picture.”

The findings suggest that weight loss surgery may be most effective for treating diabetes in those whose disease is not very advanced. “What we’re learning is that not all diabetic patients do as well as others,” said Dr. David E. Arterburn, the lead author of the study and an associate investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle. “Those who are early in diabetes seem to do the best, which makes a case for potentially earlier intervention.”

One of the strengths of the new study was that it involved thousands of patients enrolled in three large health plans in California and Minnesota, allowing detailed tracking over many years. All told, 4,434 adult diabetics were followed between 1995 and 2008. All were obese, and all underwent Roux-en-Y operations, the most popular type of gastric bypass procedure.

After surgery, about 68 percent of patients experienced a complete remission of their diabetes. But within five years, 35 percent of those patients had it return. Taken together, that means that most of the subjects in the study, about 56 percent — a figure that includes those whose disease never remitted — had no long-lasting remission of diabetes after surgery.

The researchers found that three factors were particularly good predictors of who was likely to have a relapse of diabetes. If patients, before surgery, had a relatively long duration of diabetes, had poor control of their blood sugar, or were taking insulin, then they were least likely to benefit from gastric bypass. A patient’s weight, either before or after surgery, was not correlated with their likelihood of remission or relapse.

In Type 2 diabetes, the beta cells that produce insulin in the pancreas tend to wear out as the disease progresses, which may explain why some people benefit less from surgery. “If someone is too far advanced in their diabetes, where their pancreas is frankly toward the latter stages of being able to produce insulin, then even after losing a bunch of weight their body may not be able to produce enough insulin to control their blood sugar,” Dr. Arterburn said.

Nonetheless, he said it might be the case that obese diabetics, even those whose disease is advanced, can still benefit from gastric surgery, at least as far as their quality of life and their risk factors for heart disease and other complications are concerned.

“It’s not a surefire cure for everyone,” he said. “But almost universally, patients lose weight after weight loss surgery, and that in and of itself may have so many health benefits.”

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Groupon CEO Mason offers to step down

Groupon Inc Chief Executive Andrew Mason, under fire for a plunging share price and tapering growth, declared on Wednesday he would fire himself if he ever thought he was the wrong man for the job.

Mason, whose performance at the helm will come under scrutiny from his board of directors during a regular board meeting Thursday, said it would be "weird" if they did not. But he said he believed the board was comfortable with his strategy.

Shares in the company, once touted as innovating local business advertising t hrough the marketing of Internet discounts on everything from spa treatments to dining, surged 8 percent to $4.25 i n the afternoon.

"It would be more noteworthy if the board wasn't discussing whether I'm the right guy for the job," Mason said in an interview from a Business Insider conference in New York. "If I ever thought I wasn't the right guy for the job, I'd be the first person to fire myself."

"As the founder and creator of Groupon, as a large shareholder ... I care far more about the success of the business than I do about my role as CEO," he said.

Groupon has shed four-fifths of its value since its public trading debut as an investor favorite during last year's consumer dotcom IPO boom, and Mason himself has presided over a string of high-profile executive departures.

Wall Street has grown uneasy about the viability of its business as fever for daily deals has cooled among consumers and merchants, hurting its growth rate.

In the interview broadcast from the conference, the outspoken and sometimes-zany co-founder argued his company was going through a period of volatility but believed it was on the right path. Groupon's efforts to reduce its reliance on plain vanilla deals include bumping up its "Goods" retail business, increasing the selection of "persistent" or long-running deals, and allowing users to search for such deals on demand.

Shares in Groupon spiked after the interview and were up 8 p ercent at $4.2 6, still way below its $20 market debut price.

Groupon and rivals in the daily deals business, like Amazon.com-backed LivingSocial, were supposed to change the very nature of small-business advertising. Instead, they were forced to revamp their business models as evidence mounts that their strategy was flawed.

This month, Groupon reported another quarter of disappointing earnings, and its stock went as low as $2.60 on Nov. 12.

Europe has been a particular problem for Groupon, partly because the sovereign debt crisis has sapped demand for higher-priced deals. Groupon was also offering steeper discounts, turning off some European merchants.

International revenue, which includes Europe, grew just 3 percent to $277 million in the third quarter, while North American revenue surged 80 percent to $292 million.

Adding to its difficulties, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into Groupon's accounting and disclosures, areas that raised questions among some analysts during its IPO.

But Mason shrugged off speculation that the company might run into a cash crunch and go bankrupt. The company has said it had $1.2 billion in cash and equivalents with no long-term debt.

"There was a period when those stories started that I'd go to my CFO and say: 'How would that happen, walk me through what would be required for us to actually go bankrupt'," Mason said. "And it's like an end of days, apocalyptic scenario. The business would have to go into severe negative growth for something like this. The scenario is so absurd there's no evidence for it."

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Rescuers stop bridge jump: 'We were running out of time'

For nearly an hour, police and firefighters waited out the man as he stood at the edge of a Loop bridge in the freezing cold and threatened to jump.

A helicopter hovered nearby. Two boats stayed at the ready in the Chicago River below.

Finally, it was time to act: The man quit talking and he seemed to be loosening his grip on the railing.

"They got close enough where they could grab him and flip him back over the rail," said Central District police Lt. John Willner.

The 43-year-old man collapsed, sobbing, and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police said.

The rescue played out around 3:35 a.m. Tuesday at the LaSalle Street bridge. The first crews to reach the man saw him perched at the edge of the bridge. He kept repeating, "I can't go back to jail, I can't go back," according to police.

Authorities said he was being sought by Bellwood police for a domestic issue.

About 45 minutes went by as negotiators talked to the man and inched closer and closer, finally getting about a foot and a half away. All the while, they tried to get him to talk. The man started to cry when a police officer asked about his grandson.

“We were running out of time,’’ said one of the firefighters on the scene, Eric Sobolewski. “It seemed like his attitude had changed a little bit. He got quiet and it was getting really cold. His hands had been on a cold railing for almost an hour.''

Then the man dropped his cell phone and keys and change from his pocket onto the ground, as if to leave them behind.

Sobolewski said the man seemed to be "making up his mind," so the firefighter began talking to him again.  “I was saying, ‘It’s not worth it, there’s a better way. . .You’ve got kids, I’ve got kids. You wouldn’t want to put them through this.' "

By this time, Sobolewski said he and another firefighter, Mike Cronin, had gotten within reach of the man. “We were getting closer and closer, and Mike and I just kind of looked at each other and grabbed him,’’ said Sobolewski, 41, who has nearly 10 years on the job as a firefighter.

Sobolewski said he and Cronin both have years of training for this kind of emergency, but it still comes as a surprise. “It was unreal. . .You’re out there in the freezing cold and you don’t imagine that these things are going to happen."

Added Cronin, “It’s nice when things work out well."

"You really, really have to have everyone working together,’’ said Cronin, who is also 41 and works out of Squad One, like Sobolewski. He’s been a firefighter for 13 years.

“I’m just glad the guy's OK,’’ Cronin said. “It might not have had a happy ending if we didn’t have everybody working and doing their jobs and preparing for something bad to happen.''

Willner singled out several police officers, including John Harrison, Belinda Flores, Calvin Blunt, Eleanor Diggs and Sgt. Craig Roberts.  "It was a tremendous effort," Willner said.

rsobol@tribune.com

Twitter: @RosemarySobol1

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Judge bows out of ‘pink slime’ suit over ABC ties

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A federal judge has recused himself from presiding over a $ 1.2 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC because his daughter-in-law works as a producer on one of the network’s morning shows.

Judge Lawrence L. Piersol recused himself from hearing the defamation lawsuit filed by South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc. against ABC because his daughter-in-law works as a producer on “Good Morning America.”

The case has been reassigned to Chief Judge Karen Schreier.

Beef Products Inc. sued ABC in September over its coverage of a meat product called lean, finely textured beef. Critics have dubbed the product “pink slime.” The meat processor claims the network damaged the company by misleading consumers into believing the product is unhealthy and unsafe.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Global Update: Investing in Eyeglasses for Poor Would Boost International Economy

BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images

Eliminating the worldwide shortage of eyeglasses could cost up to $28 billion, but would add more than $200 billion to the global economy, according to a study published last month in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

The $28 billion would cover the cost of training 65,000 optometrists and equipping clinics where they could prescribe eyeglasses, which can now be mass-produced for as little as $2 a pair. The study was done by scientists from Australia and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The authors assumed that 703 million people worldwide have uncorrected nearsightedness or farsightedness severe enough to impair their work, and that 80 percent of them could be helped with off-the-rack glasses, which would need to be replaced every five years.

The biggest productivity savings from better vision would not be in very poor regions like Africa but in moderately poor countries where more people have factory jobs or trades like driving or running a sewing machine.

Without the equivalent of reading glasses, “lots of skilled crafts become very difficult after age 40 or 45,” said Kevin Frick, a Johns Hopkins health policy economist and study co-author. “You don’t want to be swinging a hammer if you can’t see the nail.”

If millions of schoolchildren who need glasses got them, the return on investment could be even greater, he said, but that would be in the future and was not calculated in this study.

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Chicago housing recovery lags other cities

A sale is pending on this home in San Francisco. The National Association of Realtors reported a decline in sales in September. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images / October 19, 2012)

By Mary Ellen Podmolik




Tribune staff reporter

8:25 a.m. CST, November 27, 2012

The Chicago area's housing recovery continues to lag behind other metropolitan areas, according to a widely watched monthly index of home prices released Tuesday.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index found that area home prices in September fell 0.6 percent from August and were down 1.5 percent on an annualized basis. Chicago and New York City were the cities among the 20 studied where pricing was worse than their year-ago comparisons.

September's reading was the first monthly decrease for the Chicago area's home price index after five months of gains. Despite the slip in the overall market, area condo prices continued to recover, rising .9 percent in September from August, marking the six consecutive month of improvement.

Historically, condo prices remain at their spring 2001 level while the overall market's pricing is similar to its fall 2001 levels.

All combined, the 20 cities included in the home price index in September recorded a monthly gain of 0.3 percent in September. Year-over-year, prices rose 3 percent. On a quarterly basis, the national composite rose 3.6 percent in the third quarter compared with 2011's third quarter.

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

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Supreme Court blocks Illinois law prohibiting taping of police

Phone interview with ACLU legal director Harvey Grossman as he reacts to the recent Supreme Court ruling. (Content edited for time. Posted Monday, November 26, 2012).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of a controversial Illinois law prohibiting people from recording police officers on the job.

By passing on the issue, the justices left in place a federal appeals court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free-speech rights when used against people who audiotape police officers.

A temporary injunction issued after that June ruling effectively bars Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez from prosecuting anyone under the current statute. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit against Alvarez, asked a federal judge hearing the case to make the injunction permanent, said Harvey Grossman, legal director of the ACLU of Illinois.

Grossman said he expected that a permanent injunction would set a precedent across Illinois that effectively cripples enforcement of the law.

Alvarez's office will be given a deadline to respond to the ACLU request, but on Monday, Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez, said a high court ruling in the case could have provided "prosecutors across Illinois with legal clarification and guidance with respect to the constitutionality and enforcement" of the statute.

Illinois' eavesdropping law is one of the harshest in the country, making audio recording of a law enforcement officer — even while on duty and in public — a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Public debate over the law had been simmering since last year. In August 2011, a Cook County jury acquitted a woman who had been charged with recording Chicago police internal affairs investigators she believed were trying to dissuade her from filing a sexual harassment complaint against a patrol officer.

Judges in Cook and Crawford counties later declared the law unconstitutional, and the McLean County state's attorney cited flaws in the law when he dropped charges in February against a man accused of recording an officer during a traffic stop.

Alvarez argued that allowing the recording of police would discourage civilians from speaking candidly to officers and could cause problems securing crime scenes or conducting sensitive investigations.

But a federal appeals panel ruled that the law "restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests."

Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has said he would favor a change allowing citizens to tape the police and vice versa.

Meanwhile, several efforts to amend the statute in Springfield have stalled in committee amid heavy lobbying from law enforcement groups in favor of the current law.

Tribune reporter Liam Ford contributed.

jmeisner@tribune.com

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Berry’s ex says he was threatened before fight

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Halle Berry‘s ex-boyfriend claims the actress’s fiance threatened to kill him during a Thanksgiving confrontation that left him with a broken rib, bruised face and under arrest.

Gabriel Aubry‘s claims are included in court filings that led a judge Monday to grant a restraining order against actor Olivier Martinez, who is engaged to the Oscar-winning actress.

Aubry, 37, was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery after his confrontation with Martinez on Thursday, but he states in the civil court filings that he was not the aggressor and that he was threatened and attacked without provocation. Martinez told police that Aubry had attacked first, the filings state.

A representative for Martinez could not be immediately reached for comment.

Aubry’s filing claims Martinez threatened him the day before the fight at an event at his daughter’s school that he and the actors attended. Aubry, a model, has a 4-year-old daughter with Berry and the former couple have been engaged in a lengthy custody battle.

The proceedings have been confidential, but Aubry states a major aspect of the case was Berry’s wish to move to Paris and take her daughter with her. The request was denied Nov. 9, Berry’s court filings state, and Aubry shares joint custody of the young girl.

Aubry claims Martinez told him, “You cost us $ 3 million,” while he was punched and kicked him in the driveway of Berry’s home. Aubry had gone to the home to allow his daughter to spend Thanksgiving with her mother, the filings state. Aubry claims Martinez threatened to kill him if Aubry didn’t move to Paris.

Berry was not in the driveway during the confrontation and neither was their daughter, the documents state.

Photos of Aubry’s face with cuts and a black eye were included in his court filing.

A judge set a hearing for Dec. 17 to consider whether a three-year restraining order should be granted. Aubry has a Dec. 13 court date for the possible battery case, which has not yet been filed by prosecutors.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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