Obama lays out 2nd-term agenda

Watch a one-minute time-lapse of the entire presidential inauguration on Jan. 21, 2013, from the pre-dawn set-up to the end of the event. (Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune)

A confident President Barack Obama kicked off his second term on Monday with an impassioned call for a more inclusive America that rejects partisan rancor and embraces immigration reform, gay rights and the fight against climate change.

Obama's ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol was filled with traditional pomp and pageantry, but it was a scaled-back inauguration compared to the historic start of his presidency in 2009 when he swept into office on a mantle of hope and change as America's first black president.

Despite expectations tempered by lingering economic weakness and a politically divided Washington, Obama delivered a preview of the priorities he intends to pursue - essentially a reaffirmation of core liberal Democratic causes - declaring Americans “are made for this moment” and must “seize it together.”

His hair visibly gray after four years in office, Obama called for an end to the partisanship that marked much of his first term in the White House in bitter fights over the economy with Republicans.

“We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate,” Obama said from atop the Capitol steps overlooking the National Mall.

Looking out on a sea of flags, Obama addressed a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people, considerably smaller than the record 1.8 million who assembled on the mall four years ago.

Speaking in more specific terms than is customary in an inaugural address, he promised “hard choices” to reduce the federal deficit without shredding the social safety net and called for a revamping of the tax code and a remaking of government.

The Democrat arrived at his second inauguration on solid footing, with his poll numbers up, Republicans on the defensive and his first-term record boasting accomplishments such as a U.S. healthcare overhaul, financial regulatory reforms, the end of the war in Iraq and the killing of Osama bin Laden.

But fights are looming over budgets, gun control and immigration. Obama, however, has sounded more emboldened because he never again needs to run for election.

SECOND TIME TAKING OATH

When Obama raised his right hand and was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts, it was his second time taking the oath in 24 hours - but this time with tens of millions of people watching on television. As he spoke, the president beamed as chants of “Obama, Obama!” rang out from the crowd.

Obama had a formal swearing-in on Sunday at the White House because of a constitutional requirement that the president take the oath on Jan. 20. Rather than stage the full inauguration on a Sunday, the main public events were put off until Monday.

It was another political milestone for Obama, the Hawaiian-born son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas.

During a triumphant parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, the president and first lady Michelle Obama thrilled wildly cheering onlookers by twice getting out of their armored limousine and walking part of the way on foot, as they had done four years ago. Secret Service agents kept close watch.

In a speech of under 20 minutes, Obama, 51, sought to reassure Americans at the mid-point of his presidency and encourage them to help him take care of unfinished business. “Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action,” he said.

The crowds on the National Mall were enthusiastic but the euphoria of 2009 was gone.

“Four years ago it was the first black president,” said local resident Greg Pearson, 42. “It doesn't have the same energy. It's more subdued. It's not quite the party it was four years ago. Our expectations are pretty low (this time): let's not default on the national debt, keep the government running.”

Touching on volatile issues, Obama ticked off a series of liberal policies he plans to push in this second term.

Most surprising was a relatively long reference to the need to address climate change, which he was unable to do in his first four years.

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Chastain horror film “Mama” takes big box office win

(Reuters) – Jessica Chastain overpowered Mark Wahlberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others as her low-budget horror flick emerged as the North American weekend box office champ and her Oscar-nominated “Zero Dark Thirty” captured the second spot as well.

Chastain’s supernatural thriller, “Mama,” pulled in $ 28.1 million from Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to studio estimates, beating out a crop of new testosterone-fueled, male-targeted releases that finished far back in the pack.

“Zero Dark Thirty,” for which Chastain is a leading best actress Oscar contender, took in $ 17.6 million, while another late 2012 release and Oscar favorite, “Silver Linings Playbook,” finished third with $ 11.35 million.

“Broken City,” a crime thriller starring Wahlberg and Russell Crowe, finished fifth with $ 9 million behind “Gangster Squad’s” $ 9.1 million, while Schwarzenegger’s new action film, “The Last Stand,” earned $ 6.3 million for a dismal 10th place.

“Mama” stars Chastain as a guitarist who doesn’t want children but is forced to take care of two orphaned nieces who have been living in the woods. She and her husband try to re-adjust the little girls to normal life.

Based on a 2008 short film, the movie was produced for roughly $ 15 million.

“This is a great result, one we never would have expected especially for a film of this genre,” said Nikki Rocco, Universal’s president for domestic distribution.

“The timing was perfect,” she said, noting “the key was it’s a PG-13 movie that appealed to the under-25 female audience.”

The studio said it was hopeful that as the only PG-13 film in release this month it would continue to find an audience.

Chastain is a best actress Oscar nominee for her role as a dogged CIA agent in “Zero Dark Thirty,” the weekend’s second-place film about the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden. The movie has taken in $ 55.9 million since late December.

“Silver Linings Playbook,” an Oscar-nominated romantic comedy about a former mental patient trying to rebuild his life, expanded nationwide for a strong third-place finish and a $ 55.3 million total since the movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence opened in late autumn.

Both Oscar contenders handily beat out a pair of new, male-oriented films, as did crime thriller “Gangster Squad.”

“The Last Stand” features Schwarzenegger’s return to a starring, big-screen role after a seven-year break while he was serving as governor of California, but managed only $ 6.3 million to finish 10th. The former “Terminator” will star in three movies over the next 12 months.

Schwarzenegger plays a retired Los Angeles policeman who works to protect a tiny border town from a notorious drug kingpin. The film was produced for about $ 45 million.

The studio noted that the weekend was crowded with several movie-going choices, and that two films were competing for the same audience, referring to the weekend’s other new movie, “Broken City,” which stars Wahlberg as a former New York cop who uncovers a scandal involving the mayor, played by Russell Crowe.

The top 10 movies were rounded out by “A Haunted House,” “Django Unchained,” “Les Miserables” and “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”

“Zero Dark Thirty” was released by Sony Corp’s movie studio.

“The Last Stand” was distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment.

“The Hobbit” and “Gangster Squad” were released by Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

“A Haunted House” was released by Open Road Films, a joint venture between theater owners Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment Inc.

“Django Unchained” and “Silver Linings Playbook” were distributed by Weinstein Co.

“Broken City” was distributed by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

“Les Miserables” and “Mama” were distributed by Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine and Chris Michaud; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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The Week: A Roundup of This Week’s Science News

“Science,” a colleague once said at a meeting, “is a mighty enterprise, which is really rather quite topical.” He was so right: as we continue to enhance our coverage of the scientific world, we always aim to keep the latest news front and center.

His observation seemed like a nice way to introduce this column, which will highlight the week’s developments in health and science news and glance at what’s ahead. This past week, for instance, the mighty enterprise of science addressed itself to such newsy topics as the flu (there’s still time to get vaccinated!), and mental illness and gun control.

In addition to the big-headline stories that invite wisdom from scientists, each week there is a drumbeat of purely scientific and medical news that emerges from academic journals, fieldwork and elsewhere. These developments, from the quirky to the abstruse, often make their way into the daily news cycle, depending on the strength of the research behind them. (Well, that’s how we judge them, anyway.)

Many discoveries are hard to unravel. “In a way, science is antithetical to everything that has to do with a newspaper,” the same colleague observed. “You couldn’t imagine anything less consumer-friendly.”

Let’s aim to fix that. Below, a selection of the week’s stories.

DEVELOPMENTS

Health

Strange, but Effective

People with a bacterial infection called Clostridium difficile — which kills 14,000 Americans a year — have a startling cure: a transplant of someone else’s feces into their digestive system, which introduces good bacteria that the gut needs to fight off the bad. For some people, antibiotics don’t fix this problem, but an infusion of diluted stool from a healthy person seems to do the trick.

Genetics

Dig We Must

Hillery Metz and Hopi Hoekstra/Harvard University

Evolutionary biologists at Harvard took a tiny species of deer mice, known for building elaborate burrows with long tunnels, and bred it with another species of deer mice, which builds short-tunneled burrows. Comparing the DNA of the original mice with their offspring, the biologists pinpointed four regions of genetic code that help tell the mice what kind of burrow to construct.

Aerospace

Launch, Then Inflate

Uncredited/Bigelow Aerospace, via Associated Press

NASA signed a contract for an inflatable space habitat — roughly pineapple-shaped, with walls of floppy cloth — that will ideally be appended to the International Space Station in 2015. NASA aims to use the pod to test inflatable technology in space, but the company that builds these things, Bigelow Aerospace, has bigger ambitions: think of a 12-person apartment and laboratory in the sky, with two months’ rent at north of $26 million.

Biology

What’s Green and Flies?

Jodi Rowley/Australian Museum

National Geographic reported on an Australian researcher working in Vietnam who discovered a great-looking new species of flying frog. Described as having flappy forearms (the better for gliding), the three-and-a-half-inch-long frog likes to “parachute” from tree to tree, Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney, told the magazine. She named it Helen’s Flying Frog, for her mother.

Privacy

That’s Joe’s DNA!

People who volunteer their genetic information for the betterment of science — and are assured anonymity — may find that their privacy is not a slam dunk. A researcher who set out to crack the identities of a few men whose genomes appeared in a public database was able to do so using genealogical Web sites (where people upload parts of their genomes to try to find relatives) as well as some simple search tools. He was trying to test the database’s security, but even he did not expect it to be so easy.

Genetics

An On/Off Switch for Disease

Geneticists have long puzzled over what it is that activates a disease in one person but not in another — even in identical twins. Now researchers from Johns Hopkins and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who studied people with rheumatoid arthritis have identified a pattern of chemical tags that tell genes whether to turn on or not. In rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system attacks the body, and it is thought the tags enable the attack.

Planetary Science

That Red Planet

Everybody loves Mars, and we’re all secretly hoping that NASA’s plucky little rover finds evidence of life there. Meanwhile, a separate NASA craft — the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been looping the planet since 2006 — took some pictures of a huge crater that looks as if it once held a lake fed by groundwater. It is too soon to say if the lake held living things, but NASA’s news release did include the happy phrase “clues to subsurface habitability.”

COMING UP

Animal Testing

Retiring Chimps

Emily Wabitsch/European Pressphoto Agency

A lot of people have strong feelings about the use of chimpanzees in biomedical and behavioral experiments, and the National Institutes of Health has been listening. On Tuesday, the agency is to release its recommendations for curtailing chimp research in a big way. This will be but a single step in a long process and it will apply only to the chimps the agency owns, but it may well stir big reactions from many constituencies.

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Investigators probe 787 battery maker

U.S. and Japanese aviation safety officials investigating problems with Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner visited the headquarters of the plane's battery maker on Monday, seeking clues into why one of the technologically advanced aircraft made an emergency landing last week.

A spokesman for GS Yuasa Corp., which makes batteries for the 787, said the company was fully cooperating with the investigation, and its engineers were working with the officials from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau (CAB) at the company's compound in Kyoto, where it makes airplane batteries.

CAB official Tatsuyuki Shimazu told reporters the investigating team had been briefed by GS Yuasa and had toured the plant, looking at battery design, production and quality. The Japanese investigation at the plant will continue on Tuesday on a more detailed level, including tracking battery batch numbers and production dates, he said.

Authorities around the world last week grounded the new lightweight Dreamliner, and Boeing halted deliveries after a problem with a lithium-ion battery prompted an All Nippon Airways 787 into the emergency landing at Takamatsu airport during a domestic flight. Earlier this month, a similar battery caught fire in a Japan Airlines' 787 parked at Boston Logan International Airport.

EXPANDED PROBE

U.S. safety investigators on Sunday ruled out excess voltage as the cause of the Boston battery fire on Jan. 7, and said they were expanding their probe to look at the battery's charger and the jet's auxiliary power unit. The battery is one part of the 787's complex electrical system, built by French company Thales SA.

“Results have shown the battery was abnormal in both the Boston and Takamatsu (incidents). They were the most damaged,” Shigeru Takano, a senior safety official at the CAB, told reporters ahead of the on-site visit to GS Yuasa. “We will look into if the work that took place, from design to manufacturing, was appropriate.”

Shares in GS Yuasa, valued at close to $1.5 billion, rose 1 percent on Monday, having dropped nearly 10 percent since the Boston fire. The benchmark Nikkei fell 1.5 percent.

The company, which employs nearly 12,300 staff, expects revenue of 288 billion yen ($3.2 billion) in the year to end-March - with only around 1 percent of that coming from its aircraft battery business. The company's batteries are used primarily in motorbikes, industrial equipment and power supply devices.

GS Yuasa, in which automaker Toyota Motor Corp has a 2.7 percent stake, reported an operating profit of around $160 million in the year to last March.

MORE FLIGHTS CANCELLED

The grounding of the Dreamliner, an advanced carbon-composite plane with a list price of $207 million, has forced ANA to cancel 151 domestic and 26 international flights scheduled for Jan. 23-28, affecting more than 21,000 passengers, the airline said on Monday.

The cancellations add to the 72 flights scheduled for Jan. 19-22 that ANA called off last week. ANA, which flies the most Dreamliners of any airline, said it will announce on Thursday its plans on flight cancellations for dates from Jan. 29.

ANA said it had not yet decided whether to seek compensation from Boeing for losses as a result of the 787's grounding. “At this point we're concentrating on getting the Dreamliner back in service, rather than considering requesting compensation,” said spokesman Ryosei Nomura.

Rival JAL said it cancelled four flights on its Tokyo-San Diego route for Jan. 27-28, adding to the 8 flights originally scheduled for Jan. 19-25 on the same route it called off last week. It said it had yet to decide changes for flights slated for Jan. 26.

“We've been able to rearrange routes originally scheduled to use the Dreamliner with alternative aircraft,” said JAL spokeswoman Sze Hunn Yap, adding there was no talk about compensation at this stage.

Japan is the biggest market to date for the Dreamliner, with JAL and ANA flying 24 of the 50 passenger jets that Boeing has delivered.
 

data by YCharts

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Atari US files for Ch. 11 to separate from parent

NEW YORK (AP) — Video game maker Atari’s U.S. operations have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to separate from their French parent company.

In a statement, Atari says the move is necessary to secure investments it needs to grow in mobile and digital gaming.

Atari’s U.S. operations have shifted to focus on digital games and licensing, including developing mobile games, and have become a growth engine for its owner. France’s Infogrames Entertainment first took a stake in Atari in 2000. It acquired the remaining stake in 2008 and changed its name to Atari S.A.

But the U.S. operations have been better performing than the rest of the company. In fiscal 2012 digital and licensing revenue both grew significantly and contributed 70 percent of revenue, while sales in bricks-and-mortar stores declined.

In December, Atari S.A. said a credit agreement it entered into with investor BlueBay would lapse at the end of the year and the company was seeking other ways to raise capital. It added that it expects to report a “significant loss” for fiscal 2012.

Atari, which turned 40 last year, was a videogame pioneer with games like “Pong” and “Centipede,” but has changed owners several times amid financial problems. In its filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, Atari said it had $ 1 million to $ 10 million in assets and $ 10 million to $ 50 million in debt. It is seeking approval for $ 5.25 million in debtor-in-possession financing from private investment firm Tenor Capital Management.

Atari said it expects to sell its assets or confirm a restructuring plan within the next three to six months.

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With Wrigley renovation plan released, ball is in mayor's court

The Ricketts family at the annual Cubs Convention.

The Cubs put on a full-court press Saturday, revealing their renovation plans at the team’s convention with a slideshow and presentations from representatives of the marketing, baseball and business departments.

Now the ball is in Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s court. The Cubs have spoken to Emanuel’s representatives, and business President Crane Kenney said he believes he’ll be amenable to the new proposal.

“The mayor has been terrific in our conversations about understanding what’s at stake here,” Kenney said. “He appreciates as much as anyone, given we were in his (congressional) district, how important Wrigley Field is. He wants to protect the taxpayers. We understand that.”

Here’s a rundown of some renovation-related issues:

Cubs clubhouse: Kenney said the home clubhouse would be the top priority in the first season of the rebuild. General manager Jed Hoyer compared it to a Double-A clubhouse the first time he visited. “It was eye-opening, to say the least,” he said. Why do the Cubs players need a cushier clubhouse? “We’re paying them a lot of money to preserve their bodies,” Hoyer said. “We’re expecting them to go out and entertain us every single night over the course of the summer. This is the way we should treat them — as first-class athletes.”

Batting tunnels: The Cubs will have batting cages underneath the park for the first time. Unfortunately for the Cubs, an artist’s rendering of the cages had home plate facing the wrong way.

Signage: The Cubs did not say where they would like to place signs, but the outfield is the most lucrative spot in terms of revenue. Purists might complain that more ad signage mars the vista, though the real complaints could come from rooftop owners whose views might be blocked by a large sign, like the Toyota sign in left field.

Patio areas: After creating a premium-priced patio section in the right-field bleachers last year, the Cubs plan to create a similar patio in left field, left of the foul pole.

Triangle area: The plans for a so-called “Triangle building” on the parking lot west of the ballpark was scrapped for an open-air area that can be used for a farmer’s market, ice rink, movie-watching and other activities. Mike Lufrano, executive vice president/community affairs, said “on game days, fans like me with small children, wanted more interactive spaces.” The previous option, which included parking there for 400 vehicles, also was scrubbed.

LED boards: The Cubs will remove the LED board that has been under the center-field scoreboard since 1983. They hope to add one above the wall in left field. Alex Sugarman, vice president of strategy and development, said surveys of season tickets holders showed 80 percent of fans liked the LED board installed last year in right field because of the game-day information and stats.

Jumbotron: The Cubs are considering a mini-Jumbotron. “We found 60 percent would actually be in favor of a video board as long as it didn’t interfere with the historic scoreboard,” Sugarman said. The location would be important, since it probably would block the view of one of the rooftops, unless the Cubs can get an agreement to put one on a rooftop.

Seats: With 50 million pounds of concrete and steel removed and replaced, and new seats installed, will they be properly angled down the lines to watch the game without craning one’s neck? Kenney said the re-pouring of concrete will give them an opportunity to “adjust some of the seat levels and angles toward the field.” The Cubs also will install new handrails.

Posts: One thing that won’t change is the posts that obstruct some fans’ views in the grandstand. Vice president of ballpark operations Carl Rice said “to keep the historic charm and the overhang of the upper deck being so close to the lower deck, we really need to keep all of those columns in place.”

Visitors clubhouse: The visitors clubhouse at Wrigley is the smallest in baseball and regarded by players as the worst. Some feel that’s a competitive advantage for the Cubs. Will the renovations change anything? Kenney said visitors will get new batting tunnels, but “they won’t get the other things.”

Exits: Congestion caused by the lack of entrances/exits should be relieved with a new gate on the west side of Wrigley Field. Currently the only entrance points are in the left- and right-field corners and at the corner of Clark Street and Addison Street.

Restaurants: Vice president of ticket sales Colin Faulkner said the team will introduce a club-level lounge under the press box, where the current patio overlooking Clark and Addison exists. They also plan to open a restaurant in the old administrative offices behind home plate, an area that has been empty for a year, and another behind first base.

Hotel: The hotel planned on the property housing a McDonald’s on Clark Street will be about 175 rooms, Tom Ricketts said. “Nothing overwhelming,” he said. Obviously it’ll be an in-season destination for tourists, but the Cubs also believe it will be good for the neighborhood in the offseason.

Special events: Lufrano said the neighbors “overwhelmingly” want more special events, like the concerts, the Northwestern-Illinois football game and the Winter Classic hockey game. “We want to continue to bring world-class entertainment events to Lakeview, and want to do it in a way that’s sensitive to our community,” Lufrano said.

Elevators: Rice said the Cubs will add six new elevators, in left and right field and behind home plate “to allow fans to be able to move up and down to the upper deck with ease.” Currently there is only one little-used elevator, in left field.

Bathrooms: The Cubs will increase bathroom capacity by 42 percent, they said, including more in the upper deck. “I never thought we’d have focus groups about troughs in the men’s restrooms,” Kenney cracked. He did not say whether the troughs would be replaced, saying fans were “evenly divided” on the issue.

psullivan@tribune.com

Twitter @PWSullivan

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ABC News’ Barbara Walters hospitalized after fall

NEW YORK (AP) — Veteran ABC newswoman Barbara Walters has fallen at an inauguration party at an ambassador’s home in Washington and has been hospitalized.

Walters, 83, fell Saturday night on a step at the residence of Britain’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Westmacott, ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said. The fall left Walters with a cut on her forehead, he said.

Walters, out of an abundance of caution, went to a hospital for treatment of the cut and for a full examination, Schneider said on Sunday. She was alert and was “telling everyone what to do, which we all take as a very positive sign,” he said.

It was unclear when Walters might be released from the hospital, which ABC didn’t identify.

Walters was TV news’ first female superstar, making headlines in 1976 as a network anchor with an unprecedented $ 1 million annual salary. During more than three decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, her exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers have brought her celebrity status. In 1997, she created “The View,” a live weekday talk show that became an unexpected hit.

Walters had heart surgery in May 2010 but returned to active duty on “The View” that September, declaring, “I’m fine!”

Even in her ninth decade, Walters continues to keep a busy schedule, including appearances on “The View,” prime-time interviews and her annual special, “10 Most Fascinating People,” on which, in December, she asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie if he considered himself fit enough to be president someday. (Christie, although acknowledging he is “more than a little” overweight, replied he would be up to the job.)

Last June, Walters apologized for trying to help a former aide to Syrian President Bashar Assad land a job or get into college in the United States. She acknowledged the conflict in trying to help Sheherazad Jaafari, daughter of the Syrian ambassador to the United States and a one-time press aide to Assad. Jaafari helped Walters land an interview with the Syrian president that aired in December 2011.

Walters said she realized the help she offered Jaafari was a conflict and said, “I regret that.”

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Steel company forges ahead with new South Side plant

One evening during a Cubs game in 1988, A. Finkl & Sons Co. received a frantic phone call: The ballpark's lights were flickering. Could the steelmaker please turn off its furnaces to ward off a potential outage?

The anecdote illustrates one reason why Finkl is phasing out production at its century-old facility just west of the city's Lincoln Park neighborhood as it completes its move this year to 1355 E. 93rd St. on the South Side.

The new factory, equipped with the latest technology, improved production lines, better access to transportation and its own electric substation, will enable Finkl to boost its production fivefold to a half-million tons of steel a year.

"It's a huge step forward for Finkl," said John Guliana, the company's vice president of engineering and planning, explaining that workers will operate machines by pressing buttons on computer monitors. In contrast, the North Side plant, laid out over 22 acres separated by city streets, depended on manual labor, people working "with shovels and things like that," he said. Space was so tight that recycled metals and finished product sat out in the open.

So far, Finkl has spent more than $180 million on equipping buildings on the 53-acre South Side site that will house the melt, forge and machining shops, and offices as well as recycled metals and finished product. The new site is making steel and executives say it will handle 100 percent of production by the end of the year.

Finkl produces specialty steels made from recycled metals that are melted and forged into blocks. The blocks are sold to make molds, dies and large parts primarily used in the oil and gas industry.

At the old plant, those blocks sat out for up to two weeks before Finkl could load them onto rail cars, said Bruce Liimatainen, Finkl's chairman and chief executive. In that same amount of time, Finkl can now deliver steel to as far away as California, because the new plant's rail lines connect to the Norfolk Southern Railway yard just a few miles away.

"Literally, we can call them and within an hour they would be here," Liimatainen said. "It's the difference between competing overseas or not."

With its new capacity, Finkl is aiming to increase market share outside the U.S. and tap into the stainless steel market, sell bigger blocks of its specialty steels and offer roughly finished products.

Finkl's investments stand in contrast to what some other players are doing. Big steelmakers are battling declining prices and growing inventories of steel as China's economy cools and Europe continues to struggle with its own economic crisis. In December, ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker by volume, took a $4.3 billion write-down of its European businesses. Europe's economic crisis, it said, led to lower demand for its steel, which is used to build bridges, car parts and pipes.

At the end of 2012, Finkl's sales were essentially flat from the year before, Liimatainen said.

Meanwhile, future development of the company's property on the North Side could lead to debate over the future of manufacturing there. Some residents want the site cleared for housing because it has river views. To do so, however, aldermen would have to end the area's designation as a "planned manufacturing district," which protected it from encroaching residential development a quarter-century ago.

"The site is a very important site to my ward and presents us with a historic opportunity, and we are looking at it very closely," said Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd. "Certainly, we would like jobs to come from there." Finkl's factory is in Smith's ward but will become part of the 2nd Ward in 2015.

Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, said one idea is to try to attract green manufacturers, which might blend more easily with the neighborhood.

Some also have questioned Finkl's move from an upscale, predominantly white neighborhood to a predominantly black neighborhood dotted with boarded-up houses. Finkl has ringed the site with pine trees.

"What can we do now? Nothing," said Peggy Montes, president of the Bronzeville Children's Museum, located two blocks east of the new factory. She said the time to question Finkl's move has long passed. Going forward, Montes said, the conversation should be focused on how the company can help the community. "We don't have a YMCA; we are missing a lot of community-type services."

A 2008 Tribune investigation found that among Chicago factories, Finkl ranked worst for dangerous air pollution. At the time, its emissions of chromium, lead, manganese, nickel and zinc accounted for nearly a third of the city's total health risk from industrial pollution, according to the newspaper's analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.

Liimatainen said equipment purchased for its new plant is the most energy-efficient on the market and therefore produces the lowest emissions. The investment, he said, makes the company more cost-competitive.

"The best way (to be environmentally conscious), is to use the lowest amount of energy," Liimatainen said.

For example, Finkl purchased a 70-ton electric arc furnace to make molten steel. The furnace's technology has reduced the time to make a batch of steel to about 40 minutes from roughly 4.5 hours.

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Galaxy S IV benchmarks may confirm 1.8GHz CPU and Android 4.2

Apple needs a new product targeting its next generation of customers which will be fueled by this newly announced product

“iPotty: Brilliant, or worst idea ever? Experts weigh in on new potty training device – Unveiled last week at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the base of the iPotty looks like a regular ol’ plastic toilet with removable bowl— but there’s an adjustable stand attached, specifically for an iPad.”

Something easy to clean which will survive toddlers dropping them into their training potty.

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