Plot spoilers pose 'Downton Abbey' challenge

LOS ANGELES (AP) — There are many delicious reasons to watch the returning "Downton Abbey" and an exasperating one to skip it: The cover's been blown on major plot twists.

In what may be outsized revenge for the American Revolution — or payback for years of exporting lousy U.S. TV and fast food — the Brits are sharing "Downton Abbey" with us, but only after first airing each season.

That wouldn't matter much in the drama's early 20th-century setting but we're not there, are we, PBS and U.K. network ITV? A little gimmick called the Internet makes it impossible to keep story developments from spreading like germ warfare.

As with sports fans who must avoid all media and big-mouthed friends to keep game scores a surprise, "Downton Abbey" addicts are forced to shun rude news reports and blogs about what happens to character A, B or C (no spoilers here, promise).

Heedlessly type in "Downton Abbey season three" online and you risk stumbling into the startling truth that ... well, never mind. If you know, you have our sympathy. If you don't, live in blessed ignorance and careful isolation from Sunday's debut until the Feb. 17 season finale.

"It is unfair that England gets to see 'Downton Abbey' before us because we beat them in a war" was the saucy comment posted on Twitter by producer Damon Lindelof of "Lost" fame.

It's certainly a development galling enough to draw insults. But as Downton's courtly master, Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), once rebuked a blunt-spoken visitor: Steady on, sir, the ladies have suffered quite enough of a shock!

Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of PBS' "Masterpiece" showcase that's home to "Downton," contends it's premature to assess the impact here of the U.K. airing that wrapped Christmas Day. Will ratings be dented by dampened enthusiasm or piracy?

"It will be difficult to say until it airs in this country," Eaton said, with the size of the audience providing a key measurement.

The bar is high compared with last year, when "Downton Abbey" became the most-watched series ever for "Masterpiece" with more than 17 million viewers across seven episodes. With its swooning, buzz-worthy romances, the drama also fed social media and gave PBS a new veneer of cool.

But what's to be done if the season endgame is stuck in your brain? As a famous Brit said in more dire circumstances, never surrender! Go along for the ride that the beautifully produced soap opera-cum-fairy tale offers, admiring how the devilishly clever Julian Fellowes, its creator and writer, foreshadows the events to come.

As Downton's residents adjust to post-War War I England, "there are chills and spills involved in that for all the characters, some laughs and some tears," as Fellowes neatly summed it up.

Knowing the destination doesn't mean you can't appreciate the scenery, including these highlights:

— Newcomer Shirley MacLaine as an American visitor, talking smack with British in-law Violet (Maggie Smith), each wittily knocking the other's nation and values. MacLaine wears pasty, kabuki-like makeup as armor; Smith meets insults with world-weary eyes.

— Michelle Dockery keeping it real as Lady Mary, who's surrendered to love with Matthew (Dan Stevens) while barely softening her sharp edges and steely devotion to family tradition. Bonus: The willowy actress was born to wear sleek 1920s dresses.

— Fashion and its evolution, as Downton's upstairs ladies move from lovely but fussy wardrobes to sassier, clean-lined garb and (except for steadfast Mary) shorter hair, reflections of liberating changes that include the promise of universal suffrage for all British women.

— Stevens as golden-boy Matthew, emerging intact from World War I and still conflicted about his future role as lord of the manor. A side game: See if Stevens, smart as he is, looks distracted by the novels he read on the set as a judge for Britain's Man Booker Prize.

— Cultural, medical and other period tidbits, which are fascinating and a reminder that wise historians never would choose to live in a time before their own. In one instance, a character who may have cancer is told that test results will take up to two nerve-shattering months.

— Fellows' charming faith in the tender side of revolutionaries, at least ones that mate with landed gentry. Irish chauffeur-turned-activist Tom Branson (Allen Leech), who previously turned moist-eyed over the murder of the Russian royal family, loses it again in season three over fiery political warfare.

— A stately house, but fast-paced action. Fellowes said he took a cue from the American mash-up approach to storytelling perfected in shows like "ER" and "The West Wing," with stories big and small, sad and funny and "all sort of plotted up together." The look is period but the energy is "much more modern," as Fellowes put it.

But modernity can be troublesome, proof being the Internet imperiling the drama's surprises for U.S. viewers. Whatever the outcome, Eaton said "Masterpiece" will tread carefully in making changes.

ITV is the primary funder of "Downton Abbey" and has international premiere rights. While a September debut fits the U.K. TV marketplace, it would mean stiffer competition for "Downton" as U.S. networks launch their fall slates, Eaton said.

"We want to make sure we don't do something with 'Downton' that will hurt it in the long run," she said — which, for now, extends to the drama's fourth season set to air on "Masterpiece," its co-producer with Carnival Films.

As for the current run, Eaton, who's no spoilsport, had only this to say: "I think it's the best season yet."

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Online:

http://www.pbs.org

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lynn Elber is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. She can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org.

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Google puts Motorola campus on market

Smartphone maker Motorola Mobility will move its headquarters from Libertyville to the Merchandise Mart in the summer of 2013, relocating 3,000 employees to downtown Chicago, the company and Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Thursday. (Source: WGN - Chicago)

Tribune staff

10:47 a.m. CST, January 3, 2013

Google has put up for sale Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s 1.1 million-square-foot headquarters in Libertyville.

The asking price for the property is not being disclosed, according to a spokeswoman for Binswanger, exclusive agent on the property.

The 20-year-old corporate campus, which was used for office space and research and development labs, consists of four connected, multistory buildings and includes a daycare center, cafeteria, full-service gym and other recreational facilities. Renovations to the buildings were undertaken in 1998 through 2005. There also is parking for 3,400 vehicles.

In May, Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. Two months later, the company announced it would move Motorola Mobility's headquarters to the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago in 2013.

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Field of Dreams baseball site sold to group led by Oak Lawn couple

They bought it, and now they hope even more people will come.

An investor group led by an Oak Lawn couple has completed its purchase of the famed "Field of Dreams" movie site in Iowa with plans to preserve it and build an adjacent baseball training and tournament complex. The 193-acre property includes the field and farmhouse made famous in the 1989 Kevin Costner baseball classic.

Go the Distance Baseball LLC, which counts baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs among its members, closed on the Dyersville, Iowa, property last week for $3.4 million plus interest in a deal that was 2 1/2 years in the making.

"We've got that big milestone under our belt now, and we're just getting into the business of opening the (site)," said Denise Stillman, president and CEO of Go the Distance. She and her husband, Mike, began their pursuit of the land, near Dubuque, in July 2010.

All-Star Ballpark Heaven is scheduled to open with 12 fields and 60 team clubhouses in 2014, before doubling the number of each by 2017. Once complete, the complex will also include a community center, banquet facilities and an auditorium, among other amenities, according to Go The Distance. Construction is to begin this spring.

"My family's farm has been part of the landscape for more than a century," seller Don Lansing said in a news release announcing the deal's completion. "I have been honored to care for it my entire life and know the Stillmans and their group will care for the movie site like I did."

Lansing grew up in the farmhouse shown in the film. He and his wife, Becky, will continue to work with the new owners, such as by helping maintain the property and by leading tours, Stillman said.

The Stillmans have said they saw "Field of Dreams" on one of their first dates and decided to try buying the property shortly after they learned it was for sale. The deal was first announced Oct. 30, 2011, pending investor support, tax incentives and zoning approval. The Stillmans said at that time that the existing field attracts about 65,000 visitors each year.

"I'm just really excited about what lies ahead," Denise Stillman said Wednesday. "We've got so much work to do to get the field ready to open again April 1. That's when the tourist site opens."

rmanker@tribune.com

Twitter: @RobManker

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Apple testing new iPhone, iOS 7: report

(Reuters) - Apple Inc has started testing a new iPhone and the next version of its iOS software, news website The Next Web reported.

The company's shares rose as much as 4.3 percent but eased a little to trade up 3 percent at $546.11 by mid-day on the Nasdaq.

Application developers have found in their app usage logs references to a new iPhone identifier, iPhone 6.1, running iOS 7 operating system, the website reported.

Apple's iPhone 5 bears the identifiers "iPhone 5.1" and "iPhone 5.2" and is powered by the iOS 6 operating system.

Developer logs show that the app requests originate from an internet address on Apple's Cupertino campus, suggesting that Apple engineers are testing compatibility for some of the popular apps, the website said.

"Although OS and device data can be faked, the unique IP footprint leading back to Apple's Cupertino campus leads us to believe this is not one of those attempts," the website said.

Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt, however, expects the next version of the iconic smartphone to be called iPhone 5S and not iPhone 6.

Apple typically tags the interim version of its phones with an "S" before moving on to a new version. iPhone 3GS followed iPhone 3G and the iPhone 4S followed iPhone 4.

McCourt also said he wouldn't be surprised if Apple looked at an earlier launch because of the stress on its supply chain caused by late-year launches.

Apple launched iPhone 5 in September and it has been reported that the new iPhone will be released in the middle of 2013.

Techradar.com reported last month that Apple could unveil the next version of its iPhone as early as the spring of 2013.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

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Pa. governor sues NCAA over Penn State sanctions

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — In a bold challenge to the NCAA's powers, Pennsylvania's governor claimed in a lawsuit Wednesday that college sports' governing body overstepped its authority and "piled on" when it penalized Penn State over the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.

Gov. Tom Corbett asked that a federal judge throw out the sanctions, which include an unprecedented $60 million fine and a four-year ban on bowl games, arguing that the measures have harmed students, business owners and others who had nothing to do with Sandusky's crimes.

A small number of top NCAA officials inserted themselves "into an issue they had no authority to police under their own bylaws and one that was clearly being handled by the justice system," Corbett said at a news conference.

The case, filed under federal antitrust law, could define just how far the NCAA's authority extends. Up to now, the federal courts have allowed the organization broad powers to protect the integrity of college athletics.

In a statement, the NCAA said the lawsuit has no merit and called it an "affront" to Sandusky's victims.

Penn State said it had no role in the lawsuit. In fact, it agreed not to sue as part of the deal with the NCAA accepting the sanctions, which were imposed in July after an investigation found that football coach Joe Paterno and other top officials hushed up sexual-abuse allegations against Sandusky, a former member of Paterno's staff, for more than a decade for fear of bad publicity.

The penalties include a cut in the number of football scholarships the university can award and a rewriting of the record books to erase 14 years of victories under Paterno, who was fired when the scandal broke in 2011 and died of lung cancer a short time later.

The lawsuit represents a reversal by the governor. When Penn State's president consented to the sanctions last summer, Corbett, a member of the Board of Trustees, embraced them as part of the university's effort to repair the damage from the scandal.

Corbett said he waited until now to sue over the "harsh penalties" because he wanted to thoroughly research the legal issues and did not want to interfere with the football season.

The deal with the NCAA has been unpopular with many fans, students and alumni. Corbett, who is up for re-election next year, deflected a question about whether his response has helped or hurt him politically.

"We're not going to get into the politics of this," he said.

An alumni group, Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, applauded the lawsuit but said Corbett should have asked questions when the NCAA agreement was made.

"If he disapproved of the terms of the NCAA consent decree, or if he thought there was something illegal about them, why didn't he exercise his duty to act long before now?" the group said.

Paterno's family members said in a statement that they were encouraged by the lawsuit. Corbett "now realizes, as do many others, that there was an inexcusable rush to judgment," they said.

Corbett's lawsuit accuses the NCAA of cynically exploiting the Sandusky case, saying its real motives were to "gain leverage in the court of public opinion, boost the reputation and power of the NCAA's president" and "enhance the competitive position of certain NCAA members." It said the NCAA has not cited a rule that Penn State broke.

Corbett charged that the NCAA violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits agreements that restrain interstate commerce. Legal experts called it an unusual case whose outcome is difficult to predict.

The NCAA has faced antitrust litigation before, with a mixed record of success. In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA's exclusive control over televised college football games. And in 1998, the Supreme Court let stand a ruling that said the NCAA's salary cap for some assistant coaches was unlawful price-fixing.

But federal courts have consistently rejected antitrust challenges to NCAA rules and enforcement actions designed to preserve competitive balance, academic integrity and amateurism in college athletics.

In this case, the courts might not be as sympathetic to the NCAA, said Matthew Mitten, director of the National Sports Law Institute at Marquette University Law School.

"It's difficult to justify the sanctions as necessary to protect the amateur nature of college sports, preserve competitive balance or maintain academic integrity," he said.

Joseph Bauer, an antitrust expert at the University of Notre Dame law school, said of Corbett's line of reasoning: "I don't think it's an easy claim for them to make, but it's certainly a viable claim."

Sandusky, 68, was convicted in June of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period, some of them on Penn State's campus. He is a serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence.

Michael Boni, a lawyer for one of the victims, said he does not consider the lawsuit an affront. But he said he hopes Corbett takes a leading role in pushing for changes to state child-abuse laws.

"I really question who he's concerned about in this state," Boni said.

Michael Desmond, a businessman who appeared with Corbett at the news conference, said business at his five State College eating establishments was down about 10 percent during Penn State home game weekends this year.

"The governor's actions are going to be immensely popular with all Penn State alumni," Desmond said.

Corbett, a Republican, said his office did not coordinate its legal strategy with state Attorney General-elect Kathleen Kane, who is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 15. Instead, the current attorney general, Linda Kelly, granted the governor authority to pursue the matter.

Kane, a Democrat, ran on a vow to investigate why it took prosecutors nearly three years to charge Sandusky. Corbett was attorney general when his office took over the case in 2009.

Kane had no comment on the lawsuit because she was not consulted about it by Corbett's office.

State and congressional lawmakers have objected to use of the NCAA fine to finance child-abuse prevention efforts in other states. Penn State has already made the first $12 million payment, and an NCAA task force is deciding how it should be spent.

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Associated Press writers Peter Jackson in Harrisburg, Pa., and Michael Rubinkam contributed.

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From “Les Misérables” to “The Hobbit,” holiday movies are getting longer

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Moviegoers rushing out to catch “Django Unchained” or “The Hobbit” over New Year’s should consider packing an overnight bag.

The average length of a holiday movie has been larded up by nearly 10 minutes since 2011, according to a survey of the running times of the top 10 box office films of the final weekend of the year. They ran well over two hours.

Moreover, the top 10 grossing holiday movies of 2012 were nearly 25 minutes longer than they were just two years ago.

Of the five top earners last weekend, only one film, the family flick “Parental Guidance,” clocks in at under two hours. In contrast, three of those movies, “Django Unchained,” “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and “Les Misérables,” eat up roughly 160 minutes of ticket-buyers’ time.

And that group doesn’t even take into account hits like “Skyfall” (143 minutes), “The Avengers” (143 minutes) and “The Dark Knight Rises” (165 minutes) or limited release films such as “Zero Dark Thirty” (160 minutes), all of which boast the kind of languorous pacing usually reserved for a David Lean epic.

The capacious running times are testing moviegoers’ patience, as well as bladders. In the Los Angeles Times Monday, Steven Zeitchik bemoaned the series of false endings in films like “Lincoln” and “Life of Pi.” He argued that several accomplished filmmakers are piling on the climaxes and prolonging the ending credits in a way that undermines the emotional impact of their word.

“Hollywood films are struggling to find the exit,” Zeitchik wrote. “Stories that seem to end, end again, and then end once more. Climactic scenes wind down, then wind up. Movies that appear headed for a satisfying resolution turn away, then try to stumble back.”

Also crying out for a bloodier approach in the editing suite was Variety’s Josh Dickey. The swollen run times aren’t just artistically necessary, he noted – they actually damage a film’s box-office take.

“It turns out that a long runtime causes no positive or negative reaction during a film’s marketing period,” Dickey wrote. “And for really big event movies, viewers sometimes feel a longer movie gave them their money’s worth (call it the TGI Friday’s portion-size effect). But once a film gets playing, social response suggests long length can stall its word-of-mouth momentum, usually emerging as secondary complaint – but a persistent one.”

It’s certainly true that exhibitors favor shorter running times for films, because it allows them to cram in more showings on a given day. Despite Dickey’s fears, however, the expansive lengths of movies like “Lincoln” (145 minutes) and “Les Misérables” (157 minutes) haven’t scared off moviegoers.

Both movies will likely gross more than $ 100 million domestically.

Overall, the domestic box office is poised to shatter records with $ 10.8 billion in revenue. Attendance will also likely be up 6 percent by the time 2012 wraps up.

Admittedly, surveying the top 10 grossing films of a particular calendar weekend is a small sample size, but it does appear that audiences and critics are noticing that they are checking their watches more frequently as they follow Bilbo’s adventures in Middle-Earth or Jean Valjean’s travails.

It’s not clear, however, that this is a seasonal anomaly. A decade ago, films like “Gangs of New York” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” similarly strained audience’s endurance. The average length of the top 10 films during 2002 was 126.6 minutes, just two minutes shorter than the average this year.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

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Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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'Tennessee Waltz' singer Patti Page dies at 85

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Unforgettable songs like "Tennessee Waltz" and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window" made Patti Page the best-selling female singer of the 1950s and a star who would spend much of the rest of her life traveling the world.

When unspecified health problems finally stopped her decades of touring, though, Page wrote a sad-but-resolute letter to her fans late last year about the change.

"Although I feel I still have the voice God gave me, physical impairments are preventing me from using that voice as I had for so many years," Page wrote. "It is only He who knows what the future holds."

Page died on New Year's Day in Encinitas, Calif., according to publicist Schatzi Hageman, ending one of pop music's most diverse careers. She was 85 and just five weeks away from being honored at the Grammy Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy.

Page achieved several career milestones in American pop culture, but she'll be remembered for indelible hits that crossed the artificial categorizations of music and remained atop the charts for months to reach a truly national audience.

"Tennessee Waltz" scored the rare achievement of reaching No. 1 on the pop, country and R&B charts simultaneously and was officially adopted as one of two official songs by the state of Tennessee. Its reach was so powerful, six other artists reached the charts the following year with covers.

Two other hits, "I Went To Your Wedding" and "Doggie in the Window," which had a second life for decades as a children's song, each spent more than two months at No. 1. Other hits included "Mockin' Bird Hill," ''Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," and "Allegheny Moon." She teamed with George Jones on "You Never Looked That Good When You Were Mine."

Page was one of the last surviving American singers who was popular in the pre-Elvis Presley era when songs on the pop charts leaned more toward innocence than rock 'n' roll's overt obsession with sex. Page proved herself something of a match for the rockers, continuing to place songs on the charts into the 1960s.

Page never kept track, but was told late in life that she'd recorded more than 1,000 songs. That's not what she had in her mind growing up as young Clara Ann Fowler.

"I was a kid from Oklahoma who never wanted to be a singer, but was told I could sing," she said in a 1999 interview. "And things snowballed."

Her popularity transcended music. She became the first singer to have television programs on all three major networks, including "The Patti Page Show" on ABC.

She was popular in pop music and country and became the first singer to have television programs on all three major networks, including "The Patti Page Show" on ABC. In films Page co-starred with Burt Lancaster in his Oscar-winning appearance of "Elmer Gantry," and she appeared in "Dondi" with David Janssen and in "Boy's Night Out" with James Garner and Kim Novak.

She also starred on stage in the musical comedy "Annie Get Your Gun."

In 1999, after 51 years of performing, Page won her first Grammy for traditional pop vocal performance for "Live at Carnegie Hall — The 50th Anniversary Concert." Page was planning to attend a special ceremony on Feb. 9 in Los Angeles where she was to receive a lifetime achievement award from The Recording Academy.

Neil Portnow, the Academy's president and CEO, said he spoke with Page and she had been "grateful and excited" to receive the honor. "Our industry has lost a remarkable talent and a true gift, and our sincere condolences go out to her family, friends and fans who were inspired by her work."

Page was born Nov. 8, 1927, in Claremore, Okla. The family of three boys and eight girls moved a few years later to nearby Tulsa.

She got her stage name working at radio station KTUL, which had a 15-minute program sponsored by Page Milk Co. The regular Patti Page singer left and was replaced by Fowler, who took the name with her on the road to stardom.

Page was discovered by Jack Rael, a band leader who was making a stop in Tulsa in 1946 when he heard Page sing on the radio. Rael called KTUL asking where the broadcast originated. When told Page was a local singer, he quickly arranged an interview and abandoned his career to be Page's manager.

A year later she signed a contract with Mercury Records and began appearing in nightclubs in the Chicago area.

Her first major hit was "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming," but she got noticed a few years earlier in 1947 with "Confess."

She created a distinctive sound for the music industry on that song by overdubbing her own voice when she didn't have enough money to hire backup singers for the single.

"We would have to pay for all those expenses because Mercury felt that I had not as yet received any national recognition that would merit Mercury paying for it," Page once said.

"Confess" was enough of a hit that Rael convinced Mercury to let Page try full four-part harmony by overdubbing. The result was "With My Eyes Wide Open I'm Dreaming." The label read, "Vocals by Patti Page, Patti Page, Patti Page and Patti Page."

"Tennessee Waltz," her biggest selling record, was a fluke.

Because Christmas was approaching, Mercury Records wanted Page to record "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus" in 1950.

Page and Rael got hold of "Tennessee Waltz," convinced that a pop artist could make a smash hit out of it. Mercury agreed to put it on the B-side of the Christmas song.

"Mercury wanted to concentrate on a Christmas song and they didn't want anything with much merit on the flip side," Page said. "They didn't want any disc jockeys to turn the Christmas record over. The title of that great Christmas song was "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus," and no one ever heard of it."

"Tennessee Waltz" became the first pop tune that crossed over into a big country hit.

The waltz was on the charts for 30 weeks, 12 of them in the top 10, and eventually sold more than 10 million copies, behind only "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby at the time.

She received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music in 1980. She also is a member of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.

In her later career, Page and husband Jerry Filiciotto spent half the year living in Southern California and half in an 1830s farmhouse in New Hampshire. He died in 2009.

Page is survived by her son, Daniel O'Curran, daughter Kathleen Ginn and sister Peggy Layton.

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Dow soars 2% after deal to avoid 'cliff'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks kicked off the new year with their best day in over a year on Wednesday, sparked by relief over a last-minute deal in Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that threatened to derail the economy's growth.

In 2013's first trading session, the S&P 500 achieved its biggest one-day gain since December 20, 2011, pushing the benchmark index to its highest close since September 14.

Concerns over Washington's ability to sidestep the cliff had driven the S&P 500 down for five straight sessions, before signs that a resolution was near sent the benchmark index higher on the final trading session of 2012.

The CBOE Volatility Index or the VIX , a gauge of investor anxiety, dropped 18.5 percent to 14.68 at the close. The VIX has fallen 35.4 percent over the past two sessions.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 308.41 points, or 2.35 percent, to 13,412.55 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index gained 36.23 points, or 2.54 percent, to 1,462.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 92.75 points, or 3.07 percent, to end at 3,112.26.

U.S. markets were closed on Tuesday for New Year's Day.

Market breadth reflected the strong rally, with 10 stocks rising for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 of the S&P 500 industry sector indexes gained at least 1 percent. The S&P financial index shot up 2.9 percent.

The S&P Information Technology index gained 3.2 percent, including Hewlett-Packard , which climbed 5.4 percent to $15.02. HP's gain followed a miserable 2012 when the stock fell nearly 45 percent as one of the worst performers on the S&P 500 for 2012.

On Tuesday, Congress passed a bill to prevent huge tax hikes and delay spending cuts that would have pushed the world's largest economy off a "fiscal cliff" and possibly into recession.

The vote avoided steep income-tax increases for a majority of Americans, but failed to resolve a major showdown over cutting the budget deficit, leaving investors and businesses with only limited clarity about the outlook for the economy. Spending cuts of $109 billion in military and domestic programs were temporarily delayed, and another fight over raising the U.S. debt limit also looms.

"We got through the fiscal cliff. The next big thing, and probably more contentious thing, is negotiating the debt ceiling and possibly entitlement reform in early 2013," said Jim Russell, senior equity strategist for U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Cincinnati.

Hard choices about budget cuts and the critical need to raise the debt ceiling will confront Congress about the same time in two months "so the fur will be flying," Russell said.

U.S. stocks ended 2012 with the S&P 500 up 13.4 percent for the year, as investors largely shrugged off worries about the fiscal cliff. For the year, the Dow gained 7.3 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 15.9 percent.

Bank shares rose following news that U.S. regulators are close to securing another multibillion-dollar settlement with the largest banks to resolve allegations that they unlawfully cut corners when foreclosing on delinquent borrowers.

Bank of America Corp rose 3.7 percent to $12.03 and Citigroup Inc gained 4.3 percent to $41.25. The KBW bank index rose 3.2 percent.

Shares of Zipcar Inc surged 47.8 percent to $12.18 after Avis Budget Group Inc said it would buy Zipcar for about $500 million in cash to compete with larger rivals Hertz and Enterprise Holdings Inc. Avis advanced 4.8 percent to $20.77.

Shares of Apple rose 3.2 percent to $549.03, helping to lift the S&P information technology index up 3.2 percent following a report that the most valuable tech company has started testing a new iPhone and a new version of its iOS software.

Economic data from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. manufacturing ended 2012 on an upswing despite fears about the fiscal cliff, but the Commerce Department reported that construction spending fell in November for the first time in eight months.

Volume was heavy, with about 7.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE MKT and the Nasdaq, well above the 2012 daily average of 6.42 billion.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Chicago ends 2012 with 506 homicides, a 16 percent rise

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks to Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, at a event in support of tighter gun control legislation Dec. 20. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune / January 1, 2013)

By Jeremy Gorner




Tribune reporter

3:53 p.m. CST, January 1, 2013

Chicago ended the year with 506 homicides, according to an unofficial tally released today, making 2012 the first year the city has had more than 500 homicides in four years, and marking an increase of more than 16 percent over last year’s total.

Crime experts caution not to read too much into year-to-year increases in homicides, especially since 2011’s and 2010’s 435 homicides were the lowest the city had seen in more than 40 years. But Chicago’s tally in 2012 was the highest since 2008 and the second highest since 2003.

Although it’s difficult to pinpoint a single cause for last year’s increase, statistics show the early part of 2012 suffered the biggest spike in homicides. Experts and some law enforcement sources believe the unseasonable warmth that hit Chicago during that period contributed to a homicide spike as high as 66 percent in April, and the month of March—the warmest March on record in Chicago--was especially hit hard when there were 53 homicides, up from 23 in March 2011.

Some law enforcement sources have also said the disbanding of two specialized units that swooped into “hot spots” to reduce violent crime has had an impact. Since police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was installed in May 2011 as the city’s top cop, he’s eliminated those strike forces whose success relied on swarming streets, intimidating and harassing gang members, and clamping down on any violence in the neighborhoods they targeted.

But McCarthy decided last year to move those roughly 450 officers to beat patrols in the hopes they would have more meaningful and positive interactions with the community. He’s replaced the strike forces with “area teams” to be used for saturation missions that are smaller than the old units but can be deployed by commanders closer to problem spots.

McCarthy has also said the proliferation of guns on Chicago’s streets and the division of gangs into smaller factions are to blame for the homicide surge.

Even though Chicago has the most police officers per 100,000 people out the five major U.S. cities, many within the department and the police union have argued that more officers are needed on the street to combat the gun violence.

jgorner@tribune.com

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