U.S. warns on Java software as security concerns escalate

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable Oracle Corp's Java software, amplifying security experts' prior warnings to hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses that use it to surf the Web.

Hackers have figured out how to exploit Java to install malicious software enabling them to commit crimes ranging from identity theft to making an infected computer part of an ad-hoc network of computers that can be used to attack websites.

"We are currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem," the Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in a posting on its website late on Thursday.

"This and previous Java vulnerabilities have been widely targeted by attackers, and new Java vulnerabilities are likely to be discovered," the agency said. "To defend against this and future Java vulnerabilities, disable Java in Web browsers."

Oracle declined to comment on the warning on Friday.

Java is a computer language that enables programmers to write software utilizing just one set of code that will run on virtually any type of computer, including ones that use Microsoft Corp's Windows, Apple Inc's OS X and Linux, an operating system widely employed by corporations.

Computer users access Java programs through modules, or plug-ins, that run Java software on top of browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The U.S. government's warning on Java came after security experts warned earlier on Thursday of the newly discovered flaw.

It is relatively rare for government agencies to advise computer users to completely disable software due to a security bug, particularly in the case of widely used programs such as Java. They typically recommend taking steps to mitigate the risk of attack while manufacturers prepare an update, or hold off on publicizing the problem until an update is prepared.

In September, the German government advised the public to temporarily stop using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to give it time to patch a security vulnerability that opened it to attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security said attackers could trick targets into visiting malicious websites that would infect their PCs with software capable of exploiting the bug in Java.

It said an attacker could also infect a legitimate website by uploading malicious software that would infect machines of computer users who trust that site because they have previously visited it without experiencing any problems.

They said developers of several popular tools, known as exploit kits, which criminal hackers use to attack PCs, have added software that allows hackers to exploit the newly discovered bug in Java to attack computers.

Security experts have been scrutinizing the safety of Java since a similar security scare in August, which prompted some of them to advise using the software only on an as-needed basis.

At the time they advised businesses to only allow their workers to use Java browser plug-ins when prompted for permission by trusted programs such as GoToMeeting, a Web-based collaboration tool from Citrix Systems Inc.

Adam Gowdiak, a researcher with Polish security firm Security Explorations, subsequently said he had found other security bugs in Java that continued to make computers vulnerable to attack.

Java suffered another setback in October when Apple began removing old versions of the software from Internet browsers of Mac computers when its customers installed new versions of its OS X operating system. Apple did not provide a reason for the change and both companies declined comment at the time.

(Editing by Scott Malone, Steve Orlofsky and Bernadette Baum)

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Browns introduce Rob Chudzinski as new coach

CLEVELAND (AP) — Rob Chudzinski is back for his third tour with the Cleveland Browns, and this time he's calling the shots.

Chudzinski, who spent the past two seasons as Carolina's offensive coordinator, was introduced as the club's sixth fulltime coach on Friday. He'll inherit a young roster he'll try to develop into a contender with the Browns, who have lost at least 11 games in each of the past five seasons.

The 44-year-old previously worked as an assistant with the Browns, most recently as offensive coordinator in 2008. Chudzinski has no previous head coaching experience, but he's familiar with the Browns and their history. He rooted for the Browns while growing up in Toledo, Ohio.

"I would not miss the chance for the world." Chudzinski said. "We're going to win here."

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N. Dakota, Washington win Miss America prelims

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Miss North Dakota and Miss Washington have picked up prizes in the third day of preliminary Miss America competition in Las Vegas.

Miss North Dakota Rosie Sauvageau took top honors Thursday after her piano and vocal rendition of “To Make You Feel My Love.” The 24-year-old from Fargo, N.D., will take a $ 2,000 Amway scholarship home from the competition at Planet Hollywood resort.

Miss Washington Mandy Schendel took the trophy for the third round of the Lifestyle and Fitness category after modeling a strapless white Catalina swimsuit. The 22-year-old from Newcastle, Wash., earned a $ 1,000 Amway scholarship for it.

Contestants are divided into three groups and compete in different categories during three nights of preliminaries. Their scores will factor in the finals that will be broadcast live on Saturday.

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Lung cancer scans backed for older, heavy smokers

After decades of qualms about lung cancer screening, the American Cancer Society says there now is enough evidence to recommend it, but only for current and former heavy smokers ages 55 to 74 and after a frank talk about risks and benefits.

The new guidelines, announced Friday, are a cautious but exciting step against the world's most deadly cancer, doctors who wrote the advice say.

It is based on a big study in 2011 that found annual, low-dose CT scans — a type of X-ray — could cut the chances of dying of lung cancer by 20 percent and from any cause by nearly 7 percent.

The study only included older people who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 30 years or the equivalent, such as two packs a day for 15 years. Whether screening would help others isn't known, so scans were not advised for them.

"We're trying to make sure we restrict harm that might come from screening," such as unneeded biopsies and follow-up procedures when scans falsely suggest cancer, said Dr. Richard Wender, family medicine chief at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Lung cancer is fairly rare before age 55, so "the benefits of screening are going to be less if you start at a younger age."

Wender, a former Cancer Society president, led the guidelines panel. Three of its 20 members have ties to companies that make cancer treatment or imaging products. The scans cost $100 to as much as $400 and are not covered by Medicare or private insurers.

"We believe insurance companies should cover this test for the right people — not for everybody," Wender said.

More than 160,000 people die of lung cancer in the United States alone each year, and the vast majority are diagnosed after the disease has spread.

Cancer screening has provoked great argument in recent years, especially over when and how often women should get mammograms and whether men should have PSA blood tests to look for prostate cancer.

Some of the most influential guidelines come from a government-appointed panel — the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — but it hasn't considered lung cancer screening since 2004, when it said there wasn't enough evidence to recommend for or against it. An update is in the works now.

The Cancer Society used to recommend screening with chest X-rays but withdrew that advice in 1980 after studies showed they weren't saving lives. Since then, the CT scans have come into wider use, and several medical groups backed limited screening with them.

Many private companies also market CT scans directly to the public, including for some who are at lower risk for lung cancer than the people in major studies have been.

WellStar Health System, a network of hospitals and private doctors in suburban Atlanta, has screened nearly 900 people since 2008. Less than 3 percent were referred for lung biopsies because of suspicious findings, and of those, 70 percent turned out to have lung cancer, said screening coordinator Vickie Beckler.

The system generally follows the advice of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a group of top cancer centers, but eligibility for scans is "a very fluid area" that's being refined, she said. Patients younger than 50 need a doctor's referral for a scan, but if they want one and have major risk factors, "it should be their prerogative to have access to screening as long as they understand the risks and benefits involved and come to that decision with their physician," she said.

Kathy DeJoseph, 62, of suburban Atlanta, is glad she was screened as part of a study at WellStar. Several years of scans found nothing but last year, one detected cancer.

"I'd have been dead had I not had that scan," she said. "I was very, very lucky."

She also finally quit smoking after 40 years to qualify for lung cancer surgery.

Counseling smokers on how to quit is part of the Cancer Society's guidance. Having a scare from a scan "is a great motivator for people to quit smoking — fear that they might have had lung cancer, that they dodged a bullet, really causes people to change and take a look at their behavior," Wender said.

People also should be told that a normal scan doesn't mean no change is needed.

"The absolute worse thing that would happen" is people thinking "now I'm safe and I can continue smoking," he said.

___

Online:

Cancer Society: www.cancer.org

National Cancer Institute: http://1.usa.gov/UZq7Vt

___

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

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Seattle bankruptcy hearing to decide Tully's sale

SEATTLE (AP) — The auction for beleaguered coffee company Tully's will likely conclude Friday in federal bankruptcy court, with an ownership group led by actor Patrick Dempsey in position to take over the chain. But Starbucks isn't' out of the running.

Dempsey — dubbed "McDreamy" in the "Grey's Anatomy" hospital TV drama — claimed victory last week after an auction.

But a company that teamed up with Starbucks to bid for the Tully's chain filed an objection Wednesday. AgriNurture Inc. says it's still willing to proceed with its combined bid with Starbucks of about $10.6 million. The bid from Dempsey's company, Global Baristas LLC, was for $9.2 million.

Tully's has 47 shops in Washington and California with more than 500 employees. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.

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U.S. to review Boeing 787 amid more mishaps

Two new incidents involving the Boeing 787 Dreamliner have been reported in Japan -- a crack in the cockpit and an oil leak. Norah O'Donnell reports.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it will launch a high-priority and comprehensive review of Chicago-based Boeing's new 787's critical systems, following a rash of malfunctions this week, such as a battery fire and fuel leaks. However, federal transportation officials also supported Boeing, saying repeatedly that the plane is safe.

"We are confident about the safety of this aircraft," said Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta, adding that a priority in the review will be the plane's electrical systems. He said he would not speculate on how long the review would take.

The review, an unusual move for the FAA that will not ground planes or halt production of new 787s, will exame the plane's design, manufacture and assembly, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

"Through it, we will look for the root causes of recent events and do everything we can to make sure these events don't happen again," he said. "I believe this plane is safe and I would have absolutely no reservation of boarding one of these planes and taking a flight."

The announcement comes amid yet more reports Friday of problems with the highly anticipated "Dreamliner" jet, including a cracked cockpit window and another oil leak on a Japanese carrier. They add to a rash of other reported problems this week, most seriously a battery fire on a parked 787 in Boston, an incident under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The plane model is in use in Chicago for temporary United Airlines flights between Chicago O'Hare and Houston. Chicago-based United has five other 787s in service domestically. "We continue to have complete confidence in the 787 and in the ability of Boeing, with the support of the FAA, to resolve these early operational issues," a United spokeswoman said. "We will support Boeing and the FAA throughout their review."

Next week, LOT Polish Airlines plans to begin operating the region's first regular flight on a 787 between O'Hare and Warsaw, Poland. That inaugural flight is still planned for Wednesday, a spokeswoman said. All told, Boeing has delivered 50 Dreamliners to customers around the world, many to Japanese carriers.

Aviation experts have said the planes are safe and that glitches are common on new models of planes, especially ones as revolutionary as the 787, which uses mostly composite materials instead of metals to create an aircraft that's more lighter, more fuel-efficient and more comfortable for passengers. However, other observers have said the concentration of problems in a short period and the media attention they garner is damaging the reputation of Boeing, which was already under scrutiny for delivering the Dreamliner to customers more than three years late. The plane's list price is about $207 million.

The latest problems came Friday, when Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways said a domestic flight from Tokyo landed safely at Matsuyama airport in western Japan after a crack developed on the cockpit windscreen, and the plane's return to Tokyo was cancelled.

"Cracks appear a few times every year in other planes. We don't see this as a sign of a fundamental problem" with Boeing aircraft, a spokesman for the airline said. The same airline later on Friday said oil was found leaking from an engine of a 787 Dreamliner after the plane landed at Miyazaki airport in southern Japan. An airline spokeswoman said it later returned to Tokyo after some delay. No one was injured in either incident.

Boeing said Friday the 787 logged 50,000 hours of flight, with more than 150 flights occurring daily, and that its performance has been on par with the Boeing 777, which it calls "the industry's best-ever introduction" of a new airplane. "More than a year ago, the 787 completed the most robust and rigorous certification process in the history of the FAA," Boeing said in a statement. "We remain fully confident in the airplane's design and production system."

Ray Conner, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said Friday that the recent problems were not caused by Boeing's outsourcing of production or by ramping up production too quickly.

"We are fully committed to resolving any issue that affects the reliability of our airlines," he said.

gkarp@tribune.com

Reuters contributed

 

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Jewel-Osco up for sale

Jewel-Osco stores will be sold to a consortium of investors led by Cerberus Capital Management, Jewel's parent Supervalu said Thursday.

The deal, valued at $3.3 billion, also includes the Albertsons, Acme, and Shaw stores.

The announcement ends months of speculation that all or parts of the troubled grocery chain would be sold to New York-based Cerberus, an investment firm. Supervalu acquired Jewel in 2006 as part of a larger, complex acquisition of the Albertsons company.

Supervalu also reported earnings of $16 million, or 8 cents per share, in the third quarter ended on Dec. 1, compared with a year-earlier loss of $750 million, or $3.54 per share.

Excluding an after-tax gain related to a cash settlement from credit card companies and after-tax charges primarily related to store closures, it earned $5 million, or 3 cents per share.

As part of the deal, which includes $100 million in cash and $3.2 billion in debt, the five grocery chains will be acquired by AB Acquisition, an affiliate of Cerberus. Other investors in the deal include Kimco Realty Corp, Klaff Realty, Lubert-Adler Partners and Schottenstein Real Estate Group.

Following the sale, which is expected to close in the spring, a newly formed entity called Symphony Investors, led by Cerberus, will purchase up to 30 percent of Supervalu's outstanding shares for $4 each, representing a 50 percent premium over the stock's 30-day average. If Symphony cannot acquire at least 19.9 percent of the outstanding shares at that price, Supervalu must issue additional stock.

Wall Street has long expected Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Supervalu to sell some or all of its assets.

Following the deal, Supervalu will consist of its wholesale grocery business, the Save-A-Lot discount chain, and traditional grocery chains like Cub, Shop N' Save and Hornbacher's.

In a call with investors, outgoing CEO Wayne Sales said the deal brings Supervalu "a very strong balance sheet," and the ability to focus on investments in price reductions, fresh produce, and customer experience at its remaining chains. 

The new company is smaller, "with more bandwidth and leadership" to focus on its wholesale business, Save-A-Lot, and its traditional grocery stores, he said.

Sam Duncan, 61, will replace Wayne Sales as CEO. Duncan was CEO of Office Max from 2005 to 2011, and prior to that, was CEO of ShopKo, a Midwestern grocery chain. Five unidentified board members will resign as part of the deal, making room for Duncan, Albertsons CEO Robert Miller, and three new appointees. The size of the board will shrink from 10 to seven.

Concurrent with the announcement, Supervalu announced that it has secured access to a $900 million asset-based credit facility, and a $1.5 billion loan.

This deal ends a long and difficult year for one of the country's largest grocers.

Last April, Supervalu reported a loss of $1.04 billion for fiscal 2012, which included a $519 million operating loss and $509 million in interest expense. Sales also declined 3 percent, to $27.9 billion. In July, the company said it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale. Soon after, the company dismissed CEO Craig Herkert, with Chairman Wayne Sales stepping in to helm the troubled grocer.

Cerberus, an investor in the deal to acquire Albertsons in 2006 was long seen as the leading candidate. Last week, rumors that Supervalu was near a deal with Cerberus sent stock soaring nearly 15 percent.

In September, Supervalu said it would 60 underperforming stores, primarily from the Save-A-Lot and Albertsons chains. No Jewel locations were identified at the time. The announcement was particularly troubling to investment community because Save-A-Lot, a hard discount chain, has been Supervalu's primary growth vehicle.

Supervalu has long acknowledged that many of its stores are not price competitive. In 2012, it homed in on Jewel-Osco and the Chicago market. Supervalu surveyed customers and lowered prices throughout the store. When the company reported results for its second fiscal quarter in September, (Supervalu CEO Wayne) Sales said that Jewel had been "competitively priced throughout the store" for about six weeks.

Sales said that the initiative had resulted in "dramatic improvement" in how consumers "think about the quality of products we sell, how they feel about the service they get in various departments" and that the company was pleased with increased unit sales.

Traditional supermarkets, large stores built for one-stop-shopping, have suffered as Walmart and Target have added grocery departments, and discount chains like Aldi and Save-A-Lot have proliferated. Dollar stores have also expanded food offerings. And none of these competitors are tied to union contracts, making it easier to keep labor costs, and consequently prices, low.

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Lumia sales lift Nokia results, raise turnaround hopes

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia said strong sales of Lumia smartphones helped its mobile phone business achieve underlying profitability in the fourth quarter, raising hopes the struggling handset maker may be past the worst.

The Finnish company, which has been losing market share to Samsung and Apple, said the better-than-expected result was also helped by 50 million euros ($65.2 million) in patent fees, cost cuts and a stronger-than-expected performance from its Nokia Siemens Networks unit.

The update lifted some pressure from Chief Executive Stephen Elop, who has been trying to prove his February 2011 decision to switch to Microsoft Windows software was the right one.

Many investors had said he was running out of time to produce results. Success of the high-end Lumia smartphones has been considered particularly crucial for the company's survival.

"We're very pleased with the Lumia response," Elop said, although he added that sales of the latest 920 models, which use the new Windows Phone 8 software, had been constrained by a shortage of supplies.

Nokia estimated fourth-quarter operating margin in its mobile phone business was between break-even to 2 percent. It previously forecast the margin to be around minus 6 percent.

Official results, including more details on its profit and cash position, are due on January 24.

However, the company said that the competitive environment remains tough and forecast the margin to be minus 2 percent in the first quarter of this year.

Fourth-quarter net sales in devices and services were about 3.9 billion euros ($5.09 billion), Nokia said. It sold a total of 86.3 million devices. Smartphones accounted for 6.6 million units, of which 4.4 million were the Windows-based Lumia handsets.

Nokia shares were up 12.8 percent at 3.38 euros by 1558 GMT as investors cheered the rare positive announcement from Nokia.

"I think it's a good start," said Mirabaud Securities analyst Susan Anthony. But she, and other analysts, were slightly cautious on whether the Lumia strategy was really succeeding.

"We still need evidence that the good initial momentum can continue and will not stall as happened with its Windows Phone 7 devices," she said.

Nokia would not say how many of the 4.4 million Lumias sold were the newest models rather than the heavily discounted ones launched earlier, leaving some analysts sceptical.

Redeye analyst Greger Johansson said it was too early to call it a turnaround.

"They will have to prove a lot more until you can say that," he said. "I'm not still convinced that they are going to manage to succeed with those new smartphones. They have to sell a lot more in volumes until you can say that."

($1 = 0.7667 euros)

(Additional reporting by Terhi Kinnunen and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by David Goodman and Sophie Walker)

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Jaguars fire Mularkey after team's worst season

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The Jacksonville Jaguars fired coach Mike Mularkey Thursday after just one season, the worst in franchise history.

New general manager David Caldwell made the announcement, giving him a clean slate heading into 2013. Caldwell said he made the move just 48 hours after he was hired because he wants to immediately explore every avenue possible to turn the Jaguars around.

"For that to happen as seamlessly as we want, and as quickly as our fans deserve, I feel it is in everyone's best interests for an immediate and clean restart," Caldwell said.

Mularkey, who went 2-14 this season, looked like he would be one and done when owner Shad Khan parted ways with general manager Gene Smith last week. Even though Khan ultimately hired Mularkey, Smith directed the coaching search last January that started and ended with the former Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator.

"Mike Mularkey is leaving our organization with my utmost respect," Khan said. "Mike gave the Jaguars everything he had on and off the field, and his efforts as our head coach will always be appreciated."

Mularkey's brief tenure — he didn't even last a year — was filled with mistakes. His biggest one may have been his loyalty to Smith, who assembled a roster that lacked talent on both sides of the ball.

Mularkey probably stuck with Smith's franchise quarterback, Blaine Gabbert, longer than he should have. And the coach's insistence that the team was closer than outsiders thought and his strong stance that he had the roster to turn things around became comical as the losses mounted. The Jaguars lost eight games by at least 16 points, a staggering number of lopsided losses in a parity-filled league.

Mularkey would have been better served had he said publicly what he voiced privately: that the Jaguars didn't have enough playmakers or a starting-caliber quarterback.

Instead, he never conceded that Jacksonville was a rebuilding project that needed time.

Mularkey signed a three-year contract on Jan. 11, 2012, getting a second chance to be a head coach six years after resigning with the Buffalo Bills.

His return was shaky from the start.

His best player, running back Maurice Jones-Drew, skipped offseason workouts as well as training camp and the preseason in a contract dispute. His first draft pick, receiver Justin Blackmon, was arrested and charged with aggravated DUI in June. And his team was riddled with injuries, including key ones to linebacker Daryl Smith and Jones-Drew.

Even things he had control over went awry.

He had to backtrack after saying Chad Henne would compete with Gabbert for the starting job in March. He created a stir by threatening to fine players up to $10,000 for discussing injuries. He initially played rookie receiver Kevin Elliott over Cecil Shorts III early on. And he really irked some players with tough, padded practices late in a lost season.

Throw in the way he handled injuries to receiver Laurent Robinson (four concussions before going on IR) and Jones-Drew (admittedly should have had foot surgery sooner), and there were reasons to doubt whether Mularkey was cut out to be a head coach. Dating back to his final season in Buffalo, Mularkey has lost 20 of his last 23 games.

Nonetheless, if Khan really wanted to fire Mularkey, he would have done after the season finale along with Smith.

So this was Caldwell's call.

Caldwell and Mularkey spent four years together in Atlanta, getting to know each other well enough that Caldwell didn't need a sit down with Mularkey after he got the GM job Tuesday.

Caldwell and Khan have a news conference scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

Potential replacements for Mularkey include former Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith, Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator Bruce Arians and San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman.

Roman's name has been linked to the Jaguars since Caldwell became the leading candidate to replace Smith.

Roman and Caldwell were teammates and roommates in the 1990's while attending John Carroll University.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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‘Lincoln’ leads Oscars with 12 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The Civil War saga “Lincoln” leads the Academy Awards with 12 nominations, including best picture, director for Steven Spielberg and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

Also among the nine nominees for best picture Thursday: the old-age love story “Amour”; the Iran hostage thriller “Argo”; the independent hit “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; the slave-revenge narrative “Django Unchained”; the musical “Les Miserables”; the shipwreck story “Life of Pi”; the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook“; and the Osama bin Laden manhunt chronicle “Zero Dark Thirty.”

“Life of Pi” surprisingly ran second with 11 nominations, ahead of “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Les Miserables,” which had been considered potential front-runners.

More surprising were snubs in the directing category, where three favorites missed out: Ben Affleck for “Argo” and past Oscar winners Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty” and Tom Hooper for “Les Miserables.” Bigelow was the first woman ever the win the directing Oscar for 2009′s “The Hurt Locker,” while Hooper won a year later for “The King’s Speech.”

The best-picture category also had surprising omissions. The acclaimed first-love tale “Moonrise Kingdom” was left out and only got one nomination, for original screenplay. Also snubbed for best-picture was “The Master,” a critical favorite that did manage three acting nominations for Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Two-time winner Spielberg earned his seventh directing nomination, and also in the mix are past winner Ang Lee for “Life of Pi” and past nominee David O. Russell for “Silver Linings Playbook.” The other slots went to surprise picks who are first-time nominees: Michael Haneke for his French-language “Amour” and Benh Zeitlin for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

“Amour” also was a best-picture surprise. The film, which won the top prize at last May’s Cannes Film Festival, mainly had been considered a favorite in the foreign-language category, where it also was nominated. “Amour” had five nominations, including original screenplay and best-actress for Emmanuelle Riva.

The year’s second-biggest box-office hit, “The Dark Knight Rises,” was shut out entirely, even for visual effects. The omission of its predecessor, “The Dark Knight,” from best-picture consideration for 2008, was largely responsible for the expansion of the Oscar category from five nominees to 10 the following year. “The Dark Knight” had earned eight nominations and won two Oscars.

Chronicling Abraham Lincoln’s final months as he engineers passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, “Lincoln” stars best-actor contender Day-Lewis in a monumental performance as the 16th president, supporting-actress nominee Field as the notoriously headstrong Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting-actor prospect Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Joining Day-Lewis in the best-actor field are Bradley Cooper as a psychiatric patient trying to get his life back together in “Silver Linings Playbook”; Hugh Jackman as Victor Hugo’s tragic hero Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables”; Phoenix as a Navy vet who falls in with a cult in “The Master”; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in “Flight.”

Cooper had been a bit of a longshot. John Hawkes, a potential best-actor favorite, missed out for his role as a man in an iron lung aiming to lose his virginity in “The Sessions.”

Nominated for best actress are Jessica Chastain as a CIA operative hunting bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty”; Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow struggling to heal in “Silver Linings Playbook”; Riva as an ailing woman tended by her husband in “Amour”; Quvenzhane Wallis as a spirited girl on the Louisiana delta in “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; and Naomi Watts as a mother caught up in a devastating tsunami in “The Impossible.”

Best actress had a wild age range: Riva is the oldest nominee ever in the category at 85, while Wallis is the youngest ever at 9.

Along with Field, supporting-actress nominees are Adams as a cult leader’s devoted wife in “The Master”; Anne Hathaway as an outcast mother reduced to prostitution in “Les Miserables”; Helen Hunt as a sex surrogate in “The Sessions”; and Jacki Weaver as an unstable man’s doting mom in “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Besides Jones, the supporting-actor contenders are Alan Arkin as a wily Hollywood producer in “Argo”; Robert De Niro as a football-obsessed patriarch in “Silver Linings Playbook”; Hoffman as a dynamic cult leader in “The Master”; and Christoph Waltz as a genteel bounty hunter in “Django Unchained.”

“Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, who will host the Feb. 24 Oscars, joined Emma Stone to announce the Oscar lineup, and he scored a nomination himself, original song for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend,” the tune he co-wrote for his big-screen directing debut “Ted.”

“That’s kind of cool I got nominated,” MacFarlane deadpanned at the announcement. “I get to go to the Oscars.”

Walt Disney predictably dominated the animated-feature category with three of the five nominees: “Brave,” ”Frankenweenie” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Also nominated were “ParaNorman” and “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.”

“I’m absolutely blown away,” Rich Moore, director of “Wreck-It Ralph” said by phone. “It is weird at 5:30 in the morning to hear Emma Stone say your name. It’s surreal.”

“Lincoln” is Spielberg’s best awards prospect since his critical peak in the 1990s, when he won best-picture and directing Oscars for “Schindler’s List” and a second directing Oscar for “Saving Private Ryan.” The 12 nominations for “Lincoln” matched Spielberg’s personal best on “Schindler’s List,” which won seven Oscars.

Spielberg’s latest film could vault him, Day-Lewis and Field to new heights among Hollywood’s super-elite of multiple Oscar winners.

A best-picture win for “Lincoln” would be Spielberg’s second, while another directing win would be his third, a feat achieved only by Frank Capra and William Wyler, who each earned three directing Oscars, and John Ford, who received four.

“Lincoln” also was the ninth best-picture nominee Spielberg has directed, moving him into a tie for second-place with Ford. Only Wyler directed more best-picture nominees, with 13.

Day-Lewis and Field both have two lead-acting Oscars already, he for “My Left Foot” and “There Will Be Blood” and she for “Norma Rae” and “Places in the Heart.” A third Oscar for either would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn is the record-holder with four acting Oscars.

An Oscar for Jones would be his second supporting-actor prize; he previously won for “The Fugitive.”

“Lincoln” composer John Williams — whose five Oscars include three for the music of three earlier Spielberg films, “Jaws,” ”E.T. the Extra-terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List” — earned his 43rd nomination for best score, extending his all-time record in the category.

The Oscars feature a best-picture field that ranges from five to 10 films depending on a complex formula of ballots from the 5,856 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Winners for the 85th Oscars will be announced Feb. 24 at a ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

___

Online:

http://www.oscars.org

___

AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire contributed to this report.

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