Lawmaker from Chicago indicted on bank fraud charges

State Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, shares a laugh with a colleague on the House Chamber floor at the Capitol Building in Springfield, Ill. on Feb. 7, 2012. (Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune / February 7, 2012)

Staff report

3:04 p.m. CST, November 29, 2012

A state legislator from Chicago was indicted Thursday on federal charges he made false statements to a bank to obtain a $500,000 increase on a line of credit.

LaShawn K. Ford, 40, was charged with using the money to pay for personal expenses rather than to rehab properties in the city as he had claimed he would to the bank, prosecutors said.

Ford was first elected in 2006 to represent the 8^th House District on Chicago’s West Side and several western suburbs.

The charges allege that Ford fraudulently obtained $373,500 in advances from the line of credit to rehabilitate six real estate properties on the West Side. But he used part of that money to pay off car loans, credit cards, mortgages, casino debts and expenses for his 2006 campaign, prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, Ford submitted false tax returns that inflated his personal and business income to increase the line of credit to $1.5 million at ShoreBank.

Ford’s state biography lists him as a real estate entrepreneur and founder of Ford Desired Realty Inc.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

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Microsoft Windows 8 makes lukewarm debut: sales tracker

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Consumer sales of Windows-powered personal computers fell 21 percent overall last month, figures released by a leading retail research firm showed on Thursday, indicating a lackluster debut for Microsoft Corp's Windows 8 operating system.

Many in the industry said Windows 8 might revive slack PC sales, but a report by NPD Group, which tracks computer sales weekly using data supplied by retailers, dampened those hopes.

On the same day, Microsoft announced pricing for its latest device designed to break Apple Inc's stranglehold on the tablet and lightweight laptop market. It is offering the Surface tablet running the full version of Windows 8 from $899, pitching it somewhere between Apple's latest iPad and MacBook Air laptop.

Since the launch of Windows 8 on October 26, Windows laptop sales are down 24 percent, while desktop sales are down 9 percent compared with the same period last year, making an overall 21 percent dip, NPD Group said.

Usually, a Microsoft release boosts PC sales because many consumers hold off purchases for several months so they can obtain the latest software immediately.

If the NPD's sales trends are borne out over the rest of the holiday shopping season, it would be a huge disappointment for Microsoft and PC makers such as Dell Inc, HP and Lenovo.

"After just four weeks on the market, it's still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "We still have the whole holiday selling season ahead of us, but clearly Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for."

NPD's data neither includes Microsoft's first Surface tablet, which is only available in its own stores, nor takes account of sales of PCs to businesses, which has recently been a much stronger market.

LARGER TABLET AVAILABLE JANUARY

Microsoft's first Surface tablet runs a version of Windows called RT, created to work on the low-power chips designed by ARM Holdings, which dominate smartphones and tablets but are incompatible with old Windows applications.

A larger, heavier tablet -- officially called 'Surface with Windows 8 Pro' -- will be on sale from January, running on an Intel Corp chip that works with all Microsoft's Windows and Office applications.

Microsoft said on Thursday it would price the new Surface at $899 for a 64 gigabyte version and $999 for a 128 GB version. That does not include the optional cover, which doubles as a keyboard, costing $120 to $130.

The company describes the wifi-only device as "a full PC and a tablet". It is priced above Apple's 64 GB wifi-only iPad at $699 and at the low end of Apple's MacBook Air line of lightweight laptops which start at $999.

The Intel-based Surface is thicker and heavier than both the iPad and Surface running Windows RT, but at 2 lbs (0.9 kg) is lighter than the MacBook Air.

Since Microsoft introduced Windows 8, it has accounted for only 58 percent of Windows computing device unit sales, compared to the 83 percent Windows 7 accounted for at the same point after its launch in 2009, NPD said. That was partly caused by poor back-to-school sales that left many Windows 7 PCs on retailers' shelves, NPD said.

One patch of light for Microsoft is strong sales of touchscreen Windows 8 laptops, which accounted for 6 percent of Windows laptop sales, according to NPD.

It is still unclear how successful Microsoft's Windows 8 will be in the long term. The touch-optimized, tablet-friendly system was designed to appeal to younger users with a colorful, app-based interface, but has confused some traditional Windows customers more used to keyboard and mouse commands. Beneath the new interface design, it does not offer any radical new computing power.

On Monday, a top Windows executive said Microsoft had sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in the month since the launch. That is ahead of Windows 7 at the same stage, but it was not clear how many of those were pre-orders, discounted upgrades, or bulk sales to PC makers.

According to tech research firm StatCounter, about 1 percent of the world's 1.5 billion or so personal computers - making a total of around 15 million - are actually running Windows 8.

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Bernard Orr and Grant McCool)

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Steelers QB Roethlisberger testing hurt shoulder

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Ben Roethlisberger doesn't sound like a guy who plans on playing against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.

The injured Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback said Thursday he's still in significant pain from the sprained right shoulder and dislocated ribs that have forced him to sit out Pittsburgh's last two games.

Roethlisberger said "there's always a chance" he could play against the Ravens but isn't sure his injured arm will cooperate. When asked if the issue is pain or arm strength, Roethlisberger said "both."

The Steelers (6-5) are 0-2 since Roethlisberger left in the third quarter of a 16-13 overtime win against Kansas City on Nov. 12. It's unlikely Pittsburgh can catch the Ravens (9-2) even with a win this week, but Roethlisberger said that won't affect the team's decision on whether to rest him another week or not.

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Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

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Lohan charged with NYC assault and Calif. crash

NEW YORK (AP) — Actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested Thursday in New York City after police said she hit a woman during an argument, then hours later was charged in California with lying to police and reckless driving for a June crash in which her Porsche slammed into a dump truck.

The "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday" star was arrested at 4 a.m. and charged with third-degree assault.

She left a police precinct nearly four hours later with a black jacket pulled over her head. Lohan was wearing leggings, a green mini dress and high-heels. She drove off in a black SUV with a driver, a woman and another man who was seen going in and out of the precinct.

Lohan, 26, allegedly got into the spat with another woman at Club Avenue, in Manhattan's Chelsea section. She struck the woman in the face with her hand, police said. The woman did not require medical attention.

Lohan's attorney, Shawn Holley, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The charges come just after Lohan's portrayal of Elizabeth Taylor in the Lifetime movie "Liz & Dick" premiered to harsh reviews from critics and the public.

After the June crash, the actress told police her assistant was driving, but detectives determined Lohan was behind the wheel, police said. Prosecutors charged her with three misdemeanors: providing false information to police, reckless driving and willfully obstructing a police officer from their duties. No date for Lohan's arraignment was announced, but the charges are likely to trigger a probation violation for a 2011 necklace theft case.

Lohan's newest arrest is her latest brush with law enforcement in New York City.

She was involved in a New York Police Department investigation in September after alleging a man had assaulted her in a New York hotel, but charges against the man were later dropped.

Also in September, the actress was accused of clipping a man with her car outside another Manhattan nightclub, but prosecutors chose not to move ahead with charges.

In October, police were called to her childhood home on Long Island after a report of a fight between her and her mother. An investigation revealed "no criminality."

The Los Angeles case comes nearly six months after the actress crashed while on her way to a movie set. She was taken to the hospital but returned to the set of the film "Liz and Dick" hours later.

Lohan has become more of a tabloid and courthouse mainstay in recent years than an actress, and her crash while on the way to the set of "Liz and Dick" demonstrated the risk of casting her in films. A week after the accident, paramedics were summoned to Lohan's hotel room in an episode her publicist attributed to exhaustion and dehydration, and shooting on the film was again briefly delayed.

In May, she was cleared of allegations that she struck a Hollywood nightclub manager with her car.

She recently filmed "The Canyons," an indie film written by "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" author Bret Easton Ellis.

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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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Powerball jackpot hits $550 million: 'I've got it'

The record Powerball jackpot just keeps rising. It now stands at $550 million after officials say brisk sales keep driving up the payout amount.

The jackpot was boosted to $500 million on Tuesday and raised again Wednesday morning to $550 million. A winner taking the cash option would get $360.2 million before taxes. The numbers are an estimate and could be increased again as the drawing nears.

Powerball officials say they now believe there is a 75 percent chance that the winning combination of numbers will be drawn Wednesday night.

But many of the customers who lined up at a 7-Eleven store at Wacker and Wabash believed they had a 100 percent chance of winning tonight.

"I've got it," Marvin Harvey, 48, told the store clerk. "This is it."

And Harvey has plans. First off, having a private jet fly him and about 40 others to the SoHo neighborhood in New York City to eat and shop.

"Then take it to Paris and then go on a Mediterranean cruise," he said. "Then come back and share it with the world."

He would also give about 10 percent to churches and maybe start an organization to help the homeless. "You have so much money you have to share it," he said.

Martin Ho, 34, said he has given more thought about how to better his chances at winning the jackpot than he has about what he would do with the money.

"My goal is to have 100 different numbers between all the pools," he said. "I think I'm at (about) 90 numbers."

Ho popped into the 7-Eleven store this morning with colleague Whitney McKedy to purchase about 10 tickets jointly.

Ho said he is part of a handful of pools, including one with 50 numbers split between 10 people. He has also bought some tickets for himself.

As for what he would do with the money? "Change my name, hire a lawyer," he joked.  "I don't really think about it. It's more about the energy."

Zafer Aksit, 63, was a long way from home when he threw in $10 for lottery tickets. The radiologist flew into the city last week from Instanbul, Turkey for a medical conference. While he was in his hotel room in the Loop, he saw on the news that the jackpot had gotten up to $500 million and thought it was worth a shot.

"I thought, 'Why not?' "

Aksit insisted he wouldn't spend the money on lavish gifts on himself. "I wouldn't go on a shopping spree," he said.

He thinks the money would be better spent as investments in local businesses and non-profits, like a breast cancer clinic.

Powerball has not had a winner for two months.  Powerball is sold in Illinois and 41 other states, as well as Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The chance of winning the Powerball jackpot are about one in 175 million, compared to about one in 280,000 for being struck by lightning.

Despite the long odds, the record payout has drawn interest from around the world, said Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery, where Powerball is based. Lottery officials have received calls and emails from people outside the United States asking if they can buy a ticket from afar. They cannot.

"Sales across the country are just through the roof. It means lots of people are having fun with this, but it makes it difficult to keep up with the (jackpot) estimate."

The previous top Powerball prize of $365 million was won in 2006 by ConAgra slaughterhouse workers in Nebraska.

A $656 million Mega Millions jackpot set a world lottery record in March. That prize was split three ways. One of the winning tickets was held by Merle and Patricia Butler of Red Bud in southern Illinois. The retired couple took home nearly $119 million.

Tribune reporter Naomi Nix, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed

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Microsoft CEO defends its innovation record, financial results

BELLEVUE, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer defended his company's record on innovation and financial performance at the annual shareholders' meeting, but conceded that he should have moved faster to get into the booming tablet market dominated by Apple Inc's iPad.

Bill Gates, co-founder and now chairman of the world's largest software company, was one of the first to champion tablet-sized devices more than 10 years ago, but Microsoft failed to come up with a product that worked as well as the iPad. Gates was silent throughout the meeting, attended by about 450 shareholders.

"We're innovating on the seam between software and hardware," said Ballmer, asked why his company had fallen behind rival Apple. "Maybe we should have done that earlier."

A month ago, Microsoft launched the Surface tablet - its first own-brand computer - but has not revealed sales figures.

In the tablet market, "we see nothing but a sea of upside," Ballmer said, an acknowledgement that until now Microsoft has effectively had zero presence in the tablet market.

"I feel pretty good about our level of innovation," he added.

Ballmer said smartphones running Microsoft's new Windows software were selling four times as much as they did at this time last year. Microsoft has never given sales numbers of Windows phones, primarily made by Nokia, Samsung and HTC.

Windows currently has 2 to 4 percent of the global smartphone market, according to various independent data providers. Its overall market share will not likely grow in proportion to its own sales, given that sales of other smartphones - mostly running Google's Android system - are also growing quickly.

Ballmer, flanked by Gates and Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein, was asked by several shareholders to explain Microsoft's lackluster share price, which has been stuck for a decade, and has been outperformed by Apple and Google Inc stock in recent years.

"I understand your comment," he told one shareholder. He went on to explain that Microsoft had "done a phenomenal job of driving product volumes" and was focusing on profiting from that growth.

He suggested that whether investors recognized that value at any given time was out of his hands.

"The stock market's kind of a funny thing," he said, adding that Microsoft had handed back $10 billion in dividends and share buybacks to investors in the last fiscal year.

Several shareholders at the meeting in Bellevue, an upscale suburb of Seattle, complimented the executives on how they had grown and managed the company.

Microsoft's shares rose almost 18 percent during fiscal 2012, which ended in June of this year, compared with a 3 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's 500.

Despite such fluctuations, Microsoft's shares stand around the same level they did 10 years ago.

To see a graphic on U.S. tech share price performance, 1990 to present, click on http://link.reuters.com/rug53t

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill)

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Bonds, Clemens, Sosa on Hall ballot for first time

NEW YORK (AP) — The most polarizing Hall of Fame debate since Pete Rose will now be decided by the baseball shrine's voters: Do Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa belong in Cooperstown despite drug allegations that tainted their huge numbers?

In a monthlong election sure to become a referendum on the Steroids Era, the Hall ballot was released Wednesday, and Bonds, Clemens and Sosa are on it for the first time.

Bonds is the all-time home run champion with 762 and won a record seven MVP awards. Clemens took home a record seven Cy Young trophies and is ninth with 354 victories. Sosa ranks eighth on the homer chart with 609.

Yet for all their HRs, RBIs and Ws, the shadow of PEDs looms large.

"You could see for years that this particular ballot was going to be controversial and divisive to an unprecedented extent," Larry Stone of The Seattle Times wrote in an email. "My hope is that some clarity begins to emerge over the Hall of Fame status of those linked to performance-enhancing drugs. But I doubt it."

More than 600 longtime members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America will vote on the 37-player ballot. Candidates require 75 percent for induction, and the results will be announced Jan. 9.

Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and Curt Schilling also are among the 24 first-time eligibles. Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines are the top holdover candidates.

If recent history is any indication, the odds are solidly stacked against Bonds, Clemens and Sosa. Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro both posted Cooperstown-caliber stats, too, but drug clouds doomed them in Hall voting.

Some who favor Bonds and Clemens claim the bulk of their accomplishments came before baseball got wrapped up in drug scandals. They add that PED use was so prevalent in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s that it's unfair to exclude anyone because so many who-did-and-who-didn't questions remain.

Many fans on the other side say drug cheats — suspected or otherwise — should never be afforded the game's highest individual honor.

Either way, this election is baseball's newest hot button, generating the most fervent Hall arguments since Rose. The discussion about Rose was moot, however — the game's career hits leader agreed to a lifetime ban in 1989 after an investigation concluded he bet on games while managing the Cincinnati Reds, and that barred him from the BBWAA ballot.

The BBWAA election rules allow voters to pick up to 10 candidates. As for criteria, this is the only instruction: "Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

"Everyone has their own way of dealing with the issue, and in the absence of hard and fast rules, there will continue to be a wide diversity of opinions," Stone said.

Clemens was acquitted this summer in federal court on six counts that he lied and obstructed Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs.

Bonds was found guilty in 2011 by a federal court jury on one count of obstruction of justice, ruling he gave an evasive answer in 2003 to a grand jury looking into the distribution of illegal steroids. Bonds is appealing the verdict.

McGwire is 10th on the career home run list with 583, but has never received even 24 percent in his six Hall tries. Big Mac has admitted to using steroids and human growth hormone.

Palmeiro is among only four players with 500 homers and 3,000 hits, yet has gotten a high of just 12.6 percent in his two years on the ballot. He drew a 10-day suspension in 2005 after a positive test for PEDs, and said the result was due to a vitamin vial given to him by teammate Miguel Tejada.

Biggio topped the 3,000-hit mark — which always has been considered an automatic credential for Cooperstown — and spent his entire career with the Houston Astros.

"Hopefully, the writers feel strongly that they liked what they saw, and we'll see what happens," Biggio said last week.

Schilling was 216-146 and won three World Series championships, including his "bloody sock" performance for the Boston Red Sox in 2004.

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A Minute With: Pop star Ke$ha on new album “Warrior”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop star Ke$ ha made a name for herself with infectious dance-pop hits but the singer-songwriter is stepping out of her Auto-Tune comfort zone on “Warrior”, out this week.

Ke$ ha, 25, stormed the charts with hit songs about drinking, partying and having a good time, such as “TiK ToK” and “Your Love is my Drug” from her 2010 platinum-selling album “Animal”.

Ke$ ha talked with Reuters about the pressures of following up the success of her first album and responding to her critics.

Q: Did you feel additional pressure while working on this album after the success of your debut, “Animal”?

A: “Everybody keeps asking me about pressure, and I think a lot of other people maybe are feeling pressure about this record, but I just want to make a good record. If I sat around trying to make a number one record, I’d just be too consumed with that. I just want to make an awesome, kick-ass record that I love and that my fans love.”

Q: Was there anything that you weren’t happy with on the first album and that you wanted to change for the second?

A: “I just wanted to make sure my entire personality was presented more accurately. I feel like people really got to know the super-wild side of me but then sometimes a more vulnerable side. I didn’t really feel comfortable expressing it. So this time I kind of forced myself to express a little bit more vulnerability, less Auto-Tune, less vocal trickery. It’s a little more raw.”

Q: You received a lot of criticism for your use of Auto-Tune, masking your true singing voice. Was that a valid criticism for you, when many others use it?

A: “I remember having this conversation with my producer, and him saying, ‘We’re using a lot of vocal tricks,’ and I said, ‘People will get to know me as my career goes on, I just want it to sound really weird and cool and clubby right now, and super electronic.’ I made a conscious decision to use Auto-Tune for effect, as ear candy, and vocoders and chop up my words.

“This time around, I have heard so many different people say I can’t sing, it’s quite frankly irritating, so I … made a five-song acoustic EP (‘Deconstructed’, out on December 4) that’s kind of like my middle finger to all those people that said I couldn’t sing, and there’s more of my voice on this record. You know, haters are going to hate, you just have to do what you want to do.”

Q: Talk us through some of the collaborations on “Warrior”. There’s quite a variety, such as with Iggy Pop and Ben Folds.

A: “Ben Folds is a friend of mine. He gave me a giant glitter grand piano that’s in my house, so that one was natural. The Flaming Lips was probably surprising for a lot of people because we’re two super-different genres of music but we had the most fun and we made so many songs, it was super insane. We’re like best friends, we text everyday now, so that kind of came naturally. The one that I really have been working on for years was a collaboration with Iggy Pop. He’s one of my favorite musicians and artists of all time, so that was super exciting for me, because I respect him so much.”

Q: You’ve written tracks for Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears, and you’ve written all the songs for “Warrior”. What did you want to bring out in your lyrics this time round?

A: “I definitely wanted to maintain the irreverence, because that’s why my fans like me. It’s because I’m super honest, not always PG rated … but I didn’t want to let the haters somehow cramp my style or get the best of me, so I maintain my irreverence … I also really wanted to show the other side of my personality, which kind of is more nerve-wracking to show people, being a real person and the vulnerable side of my personality and voice. So there are tracks on this record that are super vulnerable and were hard even to write. I had to force myself to sit down and write these songs.”

Q: You’ve carved a distinctive image and also just launched your latest collaboration with Baby-G watches. How do you want to evolve your career in the future?

A: “I think that with this record, I really wanted to show that there are no rules or boundaries in art, at all, like I sing and I can use crazy Auto-Tune vocoders and I can rap and I can do a song with Iggy Pop. You can do all these things that make sense. You don’t have to just be one thing, like, you don’t adhere to any sort of stereotype or any boundaries or any rules, so for me it’s really fun to break down these boundaries.”

Q: You came in at the forefront of the electronic dance music explosion in the pop charts two years ago. Why do you think EDM is doing so well?

A: “Dancing is one of the ways we, as adult human beings, still get to play and it’s socially acceptable. Little kids play all the time, but as we grow up, we’re supposed to just not play anymore, so our version of that is going out and dancing, and I think it’s one way people are still visceral and animal-like.”

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Dale Hudson)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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