Reward increased to $30,000 in Hadiya Pendleton slaying

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









As community members marched in memory of Hadiya Pendleton today, officials announced the reward for information in the slaying of the King College Prep sophomore has been increased to $30,000.


Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and other police officials were expected to join several pastors at her high school, King College Prep, to announce the increased reward. After that, an anti-violence march in Hadiya's honor started at King, 4445 S. Drexel Blvd.


Hadiya had just finished her final exams at King College Prep, and was hanging out with friends from the school's volleyball team when she was gunned down Tuesday in Harsh Park, in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue. Thursday afternoon, police announced the reward for information leading to an arrest in the shooting had increased to $24,000, up from $11,000 announced Wednesday.








Dozens of adults and children marched this afternoon from King Prep High School to Harsh Park, the scene of the shooting.

They were escorted by at least six police vehicles as the crowd chanted, urging anyone with information about Pendleton's slaying to come forward.

"If you know who did this, turn them in!" shouted Melvin, a man who led the march but did not want to provide his last name out of fear of retaliation. "If you don't support this, next it might be you!"

When the march reached Harsh Park, Melvin urged Chicago police to hire more new officers, not just redistribute desk workers.


Raven Barnes, 18, a King College Prep senior who was friends with Hadiya, said she "always had a smile on her face."
 
"I never thought it would happen to Hadiya because she's one of the nicest people," Barnes said. "She didn't deserve it."
 
Hadiya recently broke up an "altercation" between Barnes and another girl, Barnes recalled. She said Hadiya convinced her to avoid the conflict and swear off fighting with other girls for good.
 
"She just was a person who hated violence," Barnes said. "She didn't want any violence ... ever. It's just so sad that violence took her life."


Darcell Igbo, who was Hadiya's volleyball coach since her freshman year, remembered her as "goofy" and always having a positive attitude. "She was one of the nice kids," he said.

Igbo recalled one game where he hollered Hadiya's name from the sidelines, and she looked toward him just before the ball smacked her in the leg.
 
"She just kind of shook it off," he said, chuckling. "She laughed at it. We all laughed at it."
 
Igbo said he hopes Hadiya's death raises awareness for the "senselessness" of the gun violence plaguing Chicago streets.
 
"I don't know how many more lives it's going to take," he said, tears streaming down his face. "It should only take one."


Hadiya and the others had sought shelter from a rainstorm under a canopy at the park around 2:20 p.m. Tuesday when a gunman jumped a fence, ran toward them and opened fire, police said.

As the teens scattered, Hadiya and two teenage boys were shot. Hadiya was hit in the back and pronounced dead at Comer Children's Hospital less than an hour after the shooting. The wounds suffered by the boys were not life-threatening.


Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy stressed that neither Hadiya nor anyone in the group she was with were involved with gangs. But it appears the gunman mistook the students for members of a rival gang, he said. The shooter was last seen fleeing in a white Nissan.

“These were good kids by everything that I learned," McCarthy said at a Wednesday news conference. "Wrong place at the wrong time.”


Pastor Courtney Maxwell, the family’s pastor, has offered $6,000, increasing the reward to $30,000, according to the statement. 

Hadiya was shot a little more than a week after performing with the King College Prep band in the Washington, D.C. area during President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities. The shooting occurred in a park about a mile north of Obama's Kenwood home.

The shooting has drawn the attention of both the White House, which is pushing for national gun control, and City Hall as Chicago closes on a violent January. Hadiya was the 42nd homicide victim this year in the city, where killings last year climbed above 500.

Hadiya's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, pleaded for someone to step forward and bring the 15-year-old's killer to justice.

"She was destined for great things," he said.

Hadiya was a majorette with the band at King, one of the city's elite selective-enrollment schools. She dreamed of going to Northwestern University and talked about becoming a pharmacist or a journalist, maybe a lawyer.

Police have reported no arrests.


Chicago Tribune reporter Patrick Svitek contributed.


chicagobreaking@tribune.com





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Apple edges out Samsung for mobile phone sales lead in fourth quarter


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc became the top mobile phone seller for the first time in the lucrative U.S. market during the fourth quarter of 2012, outshining arch rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, a report by Strategy Analytics showed.


Apple's share of the U.S. mobile phone market, including feature phones and smartphones, jumped to 34 percent from 26 percent, while Samsung's share grew to 32.3 percent from 31.8 percent, the research firm said.


Samsung had been the top mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, the firm said. Indeed, for the full year, Samsung still held the crown for mobile phone sales; it had a 31.8 percent share of the U.S. market in 2012, against Apple's 26.2 percent.


Apple investors have recently been anxious about the future growth prospects for the company amid intense competition from Samsung's cheaper phones, powered by Google's Android software, and signs the premium smartphone market may be close to saturation in developed markets.


Overall, mobile phone shipments rose 4 percent to 52 million units in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 2012, driven by strong demand for 4G smartphones and 3G feature phones.


But in all of 2012, U.S. mobile phone shipments fell 11 percent to 166.9 million, Strategy Analytics said.


Apple sold 17.7 million iPhones in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, up 38 percent from the previous year, driven by aggressive marketing of its new iPhone 5 and steep carrier subsidies, the firm said. Samsung shipped 16.8 million phones during the same period.


In the international arena, Samsung Electronics, with a range of handsets, has overtaken Apple as the world's top smartphone seller.


(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Bernadette Baum)



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NFL's Goodell: Proper tackling, HGH key issues


NEW ORLEANS (AP) — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league needs to make football safer by doing more to eliminate blows to the head and knees and by suspending players for illegal hits.


During his annual news conference two days before the Super Bowl, Goodell also said Friday he wants a "new generation" of the Rooney Rule because "we didn't have the outcomes we wanted" when none of 15 recent coach and general manager jobs were given to a minority candidate.


Goodell hopes and expects testing for human growth hormone to start next season, even though the league and the players' union are still at an impasse after 18 months of back-and-forth.


He vowed to be "relentless" about keeping pay-for-pain bounties out of the game.


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“30 Rock” closes its doors with a sentimental farewell






LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning TV comedy “30 Rock” bowed out after seven seasons on Thursday with bittersweet farewells but giving all its zany characters a happy ending.


The satirical show-within-a-show about the inside workings of a fictional television sketch series saw Tina Fey‘s hapless writer Liz Lemon try to round up her unruly cast for a last hurrah.






Along the way, unpredictable sketch star Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) causes chaos, self-centered actress Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) attempts to find her true calling on Broadway, and producer Pete Hornberger (Scott Adsit) finally achieves his dream to disappear without a trace.


The show’s simpleton page-turned-janitor Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer) finds himself in his element with his sudden promotion to head of television network NBC.


But under the jokes, the cast showed some real emotion in Thursday’s hour-long series finale.


“There’s a reason people don’t say honest goodbyes. It’s because when stuff is coming to an end, people freak out and they act crazy,” Liz tells Tracy.


Despite small audiences, “30 Rock” became a cult favorite, while Liz has been a hero for single geeky women as she tackled the male-dominated world of network television, with phrases such as “what the what,” “blerg” and “I want to go to there” becoming popular.


The show’s finale comes after perpetual unlucky-in-love Liz finally got her happy ending earlier in the season with her marriage to hot dog vendor Criss Chross (James Marsden) and they adopt two children.


But after grappling with the trials of being a stay-at-home mother, Liz and Criss agree to swap roles and she returns to work.


Liz also finds peace in her dysfunctional relationship with suave, egotistical network executive Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin).


Thursday’s show also saw the return of guest stars Julianne Moore and Salma Hayek as Jack’s ex-girlfriends, Conan O’Brien as one of Liz’s ex-boyfriends, along with appearances from “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” stars Ice-T and Richard Belzer and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, as herself.


30 Rock” was inspired by Fey’s stint as head writer for “Saturday Night Live.” It has won multiple Emmys since its 2006 premiere but has always suffered from low audience ratings.


In the show’s prime in 2008-2009, an average of 7.5 million viewers tuned in each week, but the final season has garnered an average of 4 million viewers per episode.


In honor of the show’s finale, ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s announced a new flavor, the “Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yogurt,” which will be available this spring.


30 Rock,” which is aired in more than 20 countries around the world, has skyrocketed Fey’s career, and she has appeared in films including “Baby Mama,” “Date Night” and the upcoming “Admission.”


Both Fey and Baldwin won the best TV comedy actor and actress accolades at the Screen Actor’s Guild awards last Sunday, with Baldwin tweeting, “What a nice note for @nbc30rock to end on.”


(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Obama offers faith groups new birth control rule


WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a wave of lawsuits over what government can tell religious groups to do, the Obama administration on Friday proposed a compromise for faith-based nonprofits that object to covering birth control in their employee health plans.


Some of the lawsuits appear headed for the Supreme Court, threatening another divisive legal battle over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, which requires most employers to cover birth control free of charge to female workers as a preventive service. The law exempted churches and other houses of worship, but religious charities, universities, hospitals and even some for-profit businesses have objected.


The government's new offer, in a proposed regulation, has two parts.


Administration officials said it would more simply define the religious organizations that are exempt from the requirement altogether. For example, a mosque whose food pantry serves the whole community would not have to comply.


For other religious employers, the proposal attempts to create a buffer between them and contraception coverage. Female employees would still have free access through insurers or a third party, but the employer would not have to arrange for the coverage or pay for it. Insurers would be reimbursed for any costs by a credit against fees owed the government.


It wasn't immediately clear whether the plan would satisfy the objections of Roman Catholic charities and other faith-affiliated nonprofits nationwide challenging the requirement.


Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing religious nonprofits and businesses in lawsuits, said many of his clients will still have serious concerns.


"This is a moral decision for them," Duncan said. "Why doesn't the government just exempt them?"


Neither the Catholic Health Association, a trade group for hospitals, nor the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had an immediate reaction, saying the regulations were still being studied.


Some women's advocates were pleased.


"The important thing for us is that women employees can count on getting insurance that meets their needs, even if they're working for a religiously affiliated employer," said Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women's Health Network.


Policy analyst Sarah Lipton-Lubet of the American Civil Liberties Union said the rule appeared to meet the ACLU's goal of providing "seamless coverage."


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that the compromise would provide "women across the nation with coverage of recommended preventive care at no cost, while respecting religious concerns."


The birth-control rule, first introduced a year ago, became an election issue, with some advocates for women praising the mandate as a victory but some religious leaders decrying it as an attack on faith groups.


The health care law requires most employers, including faith-affiliated hospitals and nonprofits, to provide preventive care at no charge to employees. Scientific advisers to the government recommended that artificial contraception, including sterilization, be included in a group of services for women. The goal, in part, is to help women space out pregnancies to promote health.


Under the original rule, only those religious groups that primarily employ and serve people of their own faith — such as churches — were exempt. But other religiously affiliated groups, such as church-affiliated universities, Catholic Charities and hospitals, were told they had to comply.


Catholic bishops, evangelicals and some religious leaders who have generally been supportive of Obama's policies lobbied fiercely for a broader exemption. The Catholic Church prohibits the use of artificial contraception. Evangelicals generally accept the use of birth control, but some object to specific methods such as the morning-after contraceptive pill, which they argue is tantamount to abortion, and is covered by the policy.


Obama had promised to change the birth control requirement so insurance companies — and not faith-affiliated employers — would pay for the coverage, but religious leaders said more changes were needed to make the plan work.


Since then, more than 40 lawsuits have been filed by religious nonprofits and secular for-profit businesses contending the mandate violates their religious beliefs. As expected, this latest regulation does not provide any accommodation for individual business owners who have religious objections to the rule.


Questions remain about how the services ultimately will be funded. The Health and Human Services Department has not tallied an overall cost for the plan, according to Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, an HHS deputy policy director.


However, in its new version of the rule, the department argues that the change won't impose new costs on insurers because it will save them money "from improvements in women's health and fewer child births."


The latest version of the mandate is now subject to a 60-day public comment period. The overall mandate is to take effect for religious nonprofits in August.


___


Zoll reported from New York. Associated Press writer David Crary in New York contributed.


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CNN's Sanjay Gupta adds fiction to his workload


LOS ANGELES (AP) — When doctors get called on the carpet by other doctors, it's productive but not always pretty, as neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta describes it.


Closed-door meetings in which physicians candidly dissect cases that went awry can verge on "dignified versions of street fights," said CNN's globe-trotting correspondent.


He drew on such sessions — commonplace for hospitals, if little publicly known — for his first novel, "Monday Mornings," and is a writer-producer on a new TNT series based on the 2012 book.


The drama, from veteran producer David E. Kelley ("Boston Legal," ''The Practice") and with a heavyweight cast that includes Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina and Bill Irwin, debuts Monday (10 p.m. EST). That's also the day the show's fictional Chelsea General Hospital holds its weekly reviews.


In the real world, such meetings to scrutinize complications and mistakes in patient care can lead to new guidelines, Gupta said.


"They can be simple, like never sedate a patient until they're strapped in on the table," he said, the outcome of an unrestrained patient having taken a tumble. "Some changes are big, some are small, but they are always important. We are always redefining medicine."


In the first episode of "Monday Mornings," brash but dedicated neurosurgeon Dr. Tyler Wilson (Jamie Bamber, "Battlestar Galactica") is grilled for failing to check a patient's medical history. Gupta said he learned his own "searing" lesson, about carefully reviewing lab results, without any harm to the patient.


Do the forums ever become a stage for office politics?


"People do jockey for position in these situations," Gupta replied. "If someone's at the lectern (under scrutiny), anyone can ask questions, not just the chairperson of the department. So the nature and tone of it can change pretty quickly."


The most disturbing inquiries involve an apparently reckless M.D. with "a disregard for the person on the operating table or in the hospital," he said. "You can imagine your own mother or loved in the position of the patient, and those are the most indelible ones of all."


The meetings make for gripping drama on "Monday Mornings." But is a show that focuses on medicine's failures as well as its triumphs potentially a hard sell for audiences?


"ER," TV's once-reigning hospital drama, aired a powerful first-season episode in which decisions by Dr. Mark Greene, the caring, steady lead character played by Anthony Edwards, cost a pregnant woman her life. The story line was a rarity on the show that routinely focused on medical heroics.


The key to making the TNT series work is the "likability" of its physicians, said Bill D'Elia, a producer on "Monday Mornings."


It's crucial to "understand their motivation, understand how good they are, how much they care. So it's not black-and-white" when a character blows it, D'Elia said.


As is the case with non-TV doctors, Gupta said.


A mistake is made and "you think that's a bad doctor. You may even think that's a bad human being, and in some cases you might be right," he said. "But a lot of times you're not, and I think showing the rest of the story, how it may continue to get discussed" is illuminating.


Besides writing for "Monday Mornings," Gupta, 43, makes sure it depicts surgery and the world of medicine accurately.


How Gupta fits the tasks into his already demanding schedule is a medical mystery. As D'Elia said, he never knows if he's talking to the doctor in Atlanta, where Gupta lives with his family and practices, or in another city, sometimes far-flung, as part of his award-winning work for CNN (which, like TNT, is part of Time Warner subsidiary Turner).


"When I talk to him I have this (mental) picture of him in front of a green screen so he can input wherever he is," D'Elia said. "He's as likely to be in Pakistan as New York."


Since joining CNN in 2001, Gupta has covered events including the quake and tsunami in Japan, Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. In 2003, while embedded with a Navy medical unit, he reported from Iraq and Kuwait and acted as a doctor as well as a reporter, performing brain surgeries in a desert operating room.


That same year, he got a spot on People magazine's list of the "sexiest men alive."


He anchors the weekend medical affairs program, "Sanjay Gupta MD," is on the staff and faculty at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and is an associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital.


In 2009, he was approached for the position of surgeon general in the new Obama administration, a post he says he declined because it would have halted his work as a neurosurgeon. He's said he's a supporter of the Affordable Care Act and wants to see it fully implemented to give more Americans coverage.


Gupta learned his work ethic from his parents, who moved from India in the 1960s to work at a Ford plant in Detroit, where he grew up, and is surprised when people ask how he does it all.


"There's a lot of people who work a lot harder than I do and aren't known," he said.


___


Online:


http://www.tntdrama.com


___


Lynn Elber can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org and on Twitter (at)lynnelber.


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Apple phones outsell Samsung in the U.S. in the fourth quarter









Bolstered by sales of its iPhone 5, Apple sold more mobile phones in the U.S. in the fourth quarter than any other maker, including its rival Samsung.


It marks the first time since 2008 that Samsung was not the top phone seller in a quarter.


Still, Samsung retained its crown for all of 2012, selling 53 million devices. Apple was second with 43.7 million phones sold.





For the fourth quarter, Apple sold 17.7 million units, or 34% of the phones sold in the quarter, according to a report released Friday morning by Strategy Analytics. That was up from 12.8 million devices sold in the year-earlier period.

Samsung was next with 16.8 million phones, or 32% of all phones sold in the quarter. Total sales  represented an increase for Samsung, which sold 13.5 million phones a year earlier. 


QUIZ: Test your Apple knowledge


"This was a good performance from Samsung, as its market share (of phones sold in the fourth quarter) rose 5 points from 27% a year earlier, but it was not enough to hold off a surging Apple," the report says.


Samsung "will surely be keen to recapture that title in 2013 by launching improved new models such as the rumored Galaxy S4," the report says. 


Third place in the U.S. was LG, which sold 6.9 million phones, 9% of all phones sold during the fourth quarter.


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Huge fire out at Wis. plant: 'There are 300 workers without a job'









A raging fire at a Wisconsin egg processing plant was brought under control shortly before noon today, but Burlington Mayor Bob Miller said its impact will be felt for a long time in his community and beyond.

Echo Lake Farms Produce Company “is one of the largest employers of the city,” Miller said at a news conference. “There are now 300 workers without a job.”






“I have not seen a fire with this impact,” added Burlington Fire Chief Richard “Dick” Lodle, who has headed the department in southeastern Wisconsin since 1992.

Firefighters from 88 departments in Wisconsin and northern Illinois helped battle the blaze, which started at about 6 p.m. Wednesday. Lodle said the firefighters from other companies have been sent home.

The investigation into the cause continues. It started in a 25,000-square-foot production area of the 70,000-square-foot facility. The second shift was working at the time, but Lodle could not say how many employees were in the area. He noted there we no injuries.

The production area, called “the breaking room,” is where workers separate eggs from their shells. The egg is then sold to restaurants, grocery stores and food suppliers, according to Miller.

“We hope to rebuild and reopen as soon as possible,” Miller said. “We want them to rebuild and put people back to work.”

Company representatives were not available for comment.

Lifelong Burlington resident Scott Ebert called the city a "wonderful, close-knit community."

A maintenance man at the Veterans Terrace banquet hall, where firefighters all morning came in to warm up and grab some food supplied by local business, Ebert said many friends from high school work at Echo Lake.

"Hopefully they'll be able to get back to work," he said.

Miller noted that a meeting is scheduled for workers on Wednesday, when company officials will explain benefits that are available to them.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas





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Apple loses a U.S. appeals bid in Samsung patent fight


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected Apple Inc's request to revive its bid for a sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dashing the iPhone maker's attempt to recover crucial leverage in the global patent wars.


Apple had asked the full Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to revisit a decision in October by a three-judge panel of the same court. The panel rejected Apple's request to impose a sales ban on Samsung's Nexus smartphone ahead of a trial set for March 2014.


An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. A Samsung representative could not immediately be reached.


The fight in appeals court comes after Apple won a $1.05 billion verdict last year against Samsung in a U.S. District Court in California. The same trial judge will preside over the legal battle surrounding the Nexus phone, which involves a patent not included in the earlier trial.


The fight has been widely viewed as a proxy war between Apple and Google Inc. Samsung's hot-selling Galaxy smartphones and tablets run on Google's Android operating system, which Apple's late co-founder, Steve Jobs, once denounced as a "stolen product."


In its October ruling against Apple, the appeals court raised the bar for potentially market-crippling injunctions on product sales based on narrow patents for phone features. The legal precedent puts Samsung in a much stronger position by allowing its products to remain on store shelves while it fights a global patent battle against Apple over smartphone technology.


U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, in San Jose, California, who has presided over much of the Apple/Samsung litigation in the United States, cited the appeals' court decision in a December order rejecting Apple's request for permanent sales bans on several Samsung phones. Apple has appealed Koh's ruling.


Apple wanted the full Federal Circuit of Appeals, made up of nine active judges, to reverse the earlier ruling. But in a brief order on Thursday, the court rejected Apple's request without detailed explanation or any published dissents.


Several experts had believed that Apple faced long odds, as the legal issues in play were not considered controversial enough to spur full court review.


Apple could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the high court has made it more difficult for patent plaintiffs to secure sales injunctions in recent years.


The case in the Federal Circuit is Apple Inc. vs Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 12-1507.


(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by John Wallace, Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)



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Ready to rumble: Super Bowl fans get in the game


NEW YORK (AP) — You don't have to be a football player to be a part of the action on Super Bowl Sunday.


Coca-Cola is asking people to vote for an online match between three groups competing in a desert for a Coke on Game Day. Pepsi and Toyota are using viewers' photos in their ads. Audi let people choose the end of its Super Bowl ad, while Lincoln based its spot on more 6,000 tweets from fans about their road trips.


These are just some ways advertisers have found to get viewers involved in the excitement on Game Day by luring them online. And they're going well beyond encouraging fans to tweet or "like" their ads on websites like Twitter Facebook.


They're trying to get the most of their Super Bowl ads, which cost nearly $4 million for a 30-second spot, by drawing people online. Companies that advertise during the Super Bowl get a 20 percent increase in Web traffic on the day of the game, according to the analytics arm of software maker Adobe. They also have a higher online audience than average in the week after.


"We're seeing better and more unique ways of getting people involved," said Robert Kolt, an advertising instructor at Michigan State University. "You want people to be engaged."


PepsiCo, which is sponsoring the Super Bowl halftime show, said its goal was to create buzz online with a monthlong campaign that went well beyond a voiceover saying "brought to you by Pepsi."


For about two weeks, Pepsi asked fans online and via a digital billboard in New York's Times Square to submit their photos for a chance to appear in a 30-second "intro" spot to air right before the halftime show.


The company said the effort was more popular than it expected: Pepsi expected to get 2,000 photos, but got 100,000 instead. About 1,000 photos were chosen to be a part of the intro. They will be stitched together in a "flipbook" style video that appears to show one person jumping to the tune of "Countdown," a song by Beyoncé, who is performing during the halftime show.


"We don't just want (viewers) on pepsi.com, we want them telling their friends 'I just did something with Pepsi," said Angelique Krembs, vice president of trademark Pepsi marketing. "You want the friend to tell the friend about Pepsi. You don't want Pepsi to always be the one talking about Pepsi."


Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln enlisted Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," to sift through thousands of tweets submitted by fans about road trips for its Super Bowl spot.


The story line for the 30-second ad, which was developed from 6,117 tweets, features rapper Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons and Wil Wheaton, who acted in the iconic science-fiction series "Star Trek: The Next Generation."


"We drove passed an alpaca farm, a few of them were meandering on the highway and my sister screamed, "It's the Alpacalypse!," reads one tweet.


"Drove through a movie set in Palmdale, Calif., and didn't realize it. Got out and enjoyed the catered food," reads another tweet.


Coca-Cola created an online game that pits a troupe of showgirls, biker-style "badlanders" and cowboys against each other in a race to find a Coke in the desert. Viewers are encouraged to vote for their favorite group and set up obstacles that delay other groups on CokeChase.com. Obstacles include a traffic light or getting a pizza delivered, which waste time.


The game is alluded to in a Super Bowl ad and the winning group — which has the most "for" votes and the least "obstacle" votes will be announced after the game. Coke will also give the first 50,000 people who vote a free Coke. The campaign is more interactive than Coca-Cola's online effort last year, which featured a real-time animation of Polar Bears reacting to what was happening during the Super Bowl.


"Last year's effort was much more passive. It was you watching bears watching the game," said Pio Schunker, senior vice president of integrated marketing. "This year we thought, 'Can we up ante on the fun factor by handing the reins over to consumers?'"


Audi let viewers choose one of three possible endings for its Game Day spot by voting online on Jan. 25 for 24 hours.


The ad shows a boy who gets enough confidence from driving his father's Audi to the prom to kiss his dream girl, even though he is then decked by her boyfriend. Audi allowed people to vote for one of three potential endings for the ad.


In one possible ending, the boy drives home alone in triumphant. Another ending shows him palling around with friends. The third shows the boy going home and finding a prom picture of his parents in which his dad has a similar black eye.


The first ending, called "Worth it," won.


Audi, which declined to say how many people voted, said "Worth It," was by far the most popular, getting more than half of the total views and the most "thumbs up" out of all three versions


"This year, Audi wanted to elevate fan interaction by allowing them to take part in the creative process and have a voice in how our spot should end," said Loren Angelo, Audi's general manager of brand marketing. "


The strategy seems to be working. On YouTube, the Audi ad is the third-most viewed Super Bowl ad so far, with 2.5 million views, behind a Toyota ad staring Kaley Cuoco of CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" and a teaser for Mercedes-Benz featuring supermodel Kate Upton, according to YouTube.com


________


Online:


Coca-Cola "Coke Chase" campaign: www.cokechase.com


Pepsi's "Halftime" campaign: http://halftime.pepsi.com/


Toyota's "Wish Granted" ad: http://www.youtube.com/user/ToyotaUSA?feature=watch


Ford's Lincoln "Steer the Script" campaign: http://www.steerthescript.com/


Audi's "Prom" ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANhmS6QLd5Q


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