‘Dallas’ returns with J.R. Ewing’s final schemes

NEW YORK (AP) — J.R. Ewing wouldn’t hesitate to cheat his fellow man. He also famously cheated death.

In the second-season finale of “Dallas” back in 1980, he was shot by an unknown assailant in his office and left for dead. But he recovered nicely, and the cliffhanger question that gripped the nation (Who shot J.R.?) was answered that November in an episode seen by 80 million viewers.

This time, J.R. won’t get off so easy. During the second season of TNT’s rebooted “Dallas,” J.R. cashes in his chips and goes to his reward … wherever that may be.

Meanwhile, viewers, however braced they are for J.R.’s demise, will have to reckon with the loss of arguably TV’s greatest villain, and bid farewell to the actor who portrayed him so indelibly and also cheated death for years. Larry Hagman, who died of cancer at 81 the day after Thanksgiving, was diagnosed in 1992 with cirrhosis of the liver from a life of heavy drinking and, three years later, when a malignant tumor was discovered on his liver, successfully underwent a transplant.

This double loss would be a burden for any show to bear. “Dallas,” returning at 9 p.m. EST Monday, comes fully loaded.

“I think viewers want closure,” said Linda Gray, who plays J.R.’s long-suffering ex-wife, Sue Ellen. “They want to mourn Larry Hagman and J.R. Ewing. They want to know they can grieve the fact he won’t be around.”

But all that comes later. With its two-hour season premiere, “Dallas” carries on in familiar fashion, with the expected two-timing, squabbles, a kidnapping revealed, a stolen identity and assorted other mischief.

And never fear: J.R., though visibly frail, continues his reign as a scheming oilman and rascally Ewing patriarch.

“I came over to deliver some muffins to the pretty little secretaries,” he announces on making an unannounced visit to Ewing Energies headquarters before he laments, “Who could have guessed so many would turn out to be MEN? Where’s the sport in THAT?”

In another scene, J.R. shares sly counsel with his son, John Ross, on double-crossing other members of the family: “Love, hate, jealousy: Mix ‘em up and they make a mean martini. And when we take over Ewing Energies, you’ll slake your thirst — with a twist!”

The new “Dallas,” which debuted last June, is stocked with a troupe of young regulars (including Josh Henderson, who plays John Ross), as well as veterans of the original CBS series, notably Gray and Patrick Duffy as J.R.’s ever-upright brother, Bobby. J.R. will appear in a minimum of five or as many as seven of the season’s episodes before he meets his fate.

After that, can “Dallas” survive the dual deaths of its central character and legendary star?

“Larry being gone doesn’t eliminate the influence of the character of J.R.,” Duffy pointed out. Who knows what land mines J.R. will have left behind? “We can find business deals he did or schemes he started that now are coming home to roost, and they can turn up for years to come.”

“Whatever will happen on the show, we will be talking about J.R. Ewing and he will have done things that have a ripple effect,” Gray agreed. “He will always be there.”

“There’s a lot of driving forces on the show — not just J.R.,” added “Dallas” executive producer Cynthia Cidre, who, interviewed by phone a couple of weeks ago, was parked outside a posh Dallas social club where the wake for J.R. was about to be filmed.

She said this season she tried to use Hagman sparingly.

“He was the most delightful man and a total professional,” she said, “but he wasn’t well and we didn’t want to overtax him.”

Now, with his passing, “we want to give J.R., and Larry, the proper send-off.”

But she insisted there had been no contingency plan for how to plot J.R.’s demise in the event Hagman died in mid-season.

“We didn’t have a Plan B, on purpose,” said Cidre. “We just knew that we had Larry, so let’s use him, let’s enjoy him, and if something happens, we’ll scramble and fix it. I had great faith in the writers’ room. We knew the day might come and what we would do then: Figure it out.”

That day came in late November when she got a call from Duffy. “He told me, ‘Larry’s in the hospital and it isn’t good. He’s saying goodbye.’ In 24 hours we had fixed one of the scripts. We had two more scripts that had to be adjusted, and then this episode we’re shooting now, the Goodbye Episode.”

Roughly 85 percent of the season’s story line remains intact, she said, supplemented by the death of J.R. and the mystery surrounding it: Who Killed J.R.?

“The mystery has all the machinations of a great J.R. business deal, as opposed to a whodunit,” said Duffy. “Cynthia constructed a really interesting plot, of which I know Bobby’s portion” — including whodunit — “but I don’t know other stuff.”

“We all know, up to a point,” Gray said. “But they’ve got secret pages that we’ve not seen.”

“I hope that we have come up with something really wonderful and enticing,” said Cidre, “and by the time you’re done watching episode 208, which I call the Funeral Episode, I hope you’re saying, ‘Omigod, I didn’t see that coming, and I can’t wait to watch the rest of the season.’”

The mystery, she said, will continue through episode 15, “with a giant, delightful, delicious climax in the season finale.”

To get there, shooting continues until April on the Dallas set, where, even two months after Hagman’s passing, “I’m lonely because my best friend isn’t there to play with,” Duffy said. “I was with him from 1978 until his final hours in the hospital. But I have no regrets. Every day I think of him and smile.”

“I keep expecting him to walk in the door,” Gray said. “He’s so missed. But his presence is everywhere!”

___

Online:

http://www.tntdrama.com

___

Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: ‘Dallas’ returns with J.R. Ewing’s final schemes
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/dallas-returns-with-j-r-ewings-final-schemes/
Link To Post : ‘Dallas’ returns with J.R. Ewing’s final schemes
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Damon 'hijacks' Kimmel's ABC show

NEW YORK (AP) — Matt Damon had his revenge.

The butt of a long-running joke on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," the actor opened Thursday night's show as a kidnapper who tied Kimmel to a chair with duct tape and gagged him with his own tie.

"There's a new host in town and his initials are M.D.," Damon said. "That's right, the doctor is in."

For years, Kimmel has joked at the end of his show that he ran out of time and was unable to bring Damon on as a guest. Kimmel was the silent one Thursday, watching from the back of the stage as Damon did his job.

Damon tormented Kimmel by bringing on a succession of big-name guests. Robin Williams stopped by to finish the monologue. Ben Affleck had a walk-on role. Sheryl Crow was the bandleader and performed her new single. Nicole Kidman, Gary Oldman, Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon and Demi Moore all crowded the talk show's couch.

"I've been waiting for this moment for a long, long time," Damon said. "This is like when I lost my virginity, except this is going to last way longer than one second."

Damon's guest hosting turn came at a key time for Kimmel. ABC earlier this month moved the show to 11:35 p.m. ET and PT after a decade of airing it a half hour later, putting him in direct competition with Jay Leno and David Letterman.

Thursday's special program aimed for the same water-cooler status as a memorably lewd short film Damon made for the show a few years ago with Kimmel's then-girlfriend, Sarah Silverman. It went viral and remains probably the best-known skit in the show's history.

To twist the knife even further, Damon brought Silverman on as his final guest Thursday night, with Kimmel looking on forlornly as she likened their five-year relationship to an unfortunate trip to a hot dog vendor.

"Is there anything you'd like to say to Jimmy?" Damon asked.

"No, I'm good," Silverman replied.

Then came the sweetest revenge of all, with Damon promising to ungag Kimmel in the show's final minutes.

"Wait," he said. "I'm sorry. We're out of time."

Read More..

Burnt circuit boards snag Japan's 787 probe

The chairman of the NTSB said the seriousness of two recent Boeing Dreamliner battery incidents "cannot be understated." (Source: CBS)

A device seen as key to explaining why a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner jet made an emergency landing in Japan last week is burnt and unlikely to provide safety inspectors with data they need, said a person with knowledge of the ongoing investigation.

Circuit boards that control and monitor the performance of the plane's lithium-ion battery unit were charred and may be of little use to the teams investigating why the battery effectively melted, forcing safety investigators to scramble for possible clues from other components in the plane's electronics, said the person, who didn't want to be named as the probe is ongoing.

Aviation authorities in Japan face a painstaking reconstruction that may take months before they can unravel what caused one of the batteries to overheat, triggering warnings in the plane's cockpit.

That relatively inexpensive circuit boards may be keeping $10 billion worth of futuristic aircraft idle underscores how dependent the Boeing jet is on advanced electronics rather than more traditional, but less fuel-efficient, parts, experts said.

"The circuit board (system) is badly damaged. We'll see how much we can learn from examining it, but we'll also have to look at other recording devices on the aircraft to try and find out what happened," the person with direct knowledge of the investigation told Reuters.

BATTERY "BRAIN"

The circuit boards, known as the battery monitoring unit, are the "brains" of the battery, experts said. About the size of a laptop computer, the boards monitor functions of the lithium-ion battery's eight cells and feed this information to the charger. That effectively makes the boards responsible for preventing a battery from overcharging.

One key question for safety investigators is how the battery's eight individual cells became volatile even though the overall voltage to the battery was steady and didn't exceed the 32-volt capacity, officials have said. That data is not recorded in the Dreamliner's "black box" flight-data recorder.

U.S, Japanese and Boeing representatives have this week been at the Kyoto headquarters of GS Yuasa Corp, which makes batteries for the 787, looking at everything from manufacturing quality to technical standards.

The main battery from the All Nippon Airways flight is still at the GS Yuasa plant, where it is being cleaned and disassembled for further checks. Once they are done, Japanese safety officials plan to take the damaged circuit boards to the manufacturer, Fujisawa-based Kanto Aircraft Instrument, for a detailed inspection.

All 50 of Boeing's Dreamliners in service were grounded last week after the ANA-operated flight's emergency landing on a domestic flight. That followed an auxiliary battery fire in a Japan Airlines Co. Ltd 787 parked at Boston Airport.

"There is a possibility that a fire destroyed the elements that caused the problem and if so, it will become difficult to investigate the cause," said Hideaki Horie, project professor at the Institute of Industrial Science at Tokyo University.

Horie said Boeing should re-think the design of the battery safety and data recovery system even while it investigates what caused the recent Dreamliner incidents.

The 787 uses two lithium-ion batteries, which are about twice as large as a car battery. The batteries weigh less than a conventional battery and provide more power. They are Boeing's first step toward hybrid power systems like those used by automakers General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp .
 

Read More..

Girl: 'My sister's on fire'

3 children were injured, 1 critically after a fire started inside their apartment. (WGN - Chicago)

A 4-year-old girl was in critical condition this morning after she was pulled from a burning bed in her South Side home by neighbors who heard the desperate screams of her older sister, officials said.

"She came downstairs and was knocking on everyone's door," said Sandra Gray. "She was screaming, 'My sister's on fire.' "

Gray said she and her husband and a neighbor ran up the stairs of the four-flat and saw the bottom of a bunk bed on fire. "All I saw was that the bed was on fire and the baby was burned," Gray said. "You could see the bed on fire."

She said the older sister, 16, tried to pull the girl from the bed and burned her hands. Gray's husband and the neighbor finally put the fire out with water as firefighters and paramedics arrived, she said.

Gray said the girl was conscious but badly burned.

Clyde Harden, who rushed up with Gray, said he grabbed hold of the little girl and helped put out the fire. “I believe that she was sheltered by God already,” he told reporters on the scene. “Somebody was there for her.”

The girls, along with a 10-year-old brother, were taken to Comer Children's Hospital. The young girl was listed in critical condition and the other two were in good condition, according to fire officials.

The 4-year-old remained in critical condition today with burns to more than 50 percent of her body, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

The girl was on a breathing tube, she said. “She’s intubated."

Gray said the teenager told her the children were alone in their apartment in the 1000 block of West 76th Street Wednesday evening. The 16-year-old said she was in a back bedroom doing her homework when the boy ran to her room around 7:15 p.m.

"The 10-year-old ran back there to tell her [their sister] was on fire," Gray said.

Though an official cause has not been determined, authorities are looking into the possibility that someone inside the home had been playing with a lighter or matches, Langford said.

Police News Affairs Officer Jose Estrada said the blaze does not appear to be suspicious. “It looks like it may have been accidentally started,’’ he said.

csadovi@tribune.com

Read More..

Apple shares slide by most in over four years on disappointing iPhone sales

(Reuters) - Apple Inc's shares fell by as much as 12 percent on Thursday, staging their biggest percentage drop in over four years and slicing more than $50 billion from the company's market value, as disappointing holiday-period iPhone sales reinforced fears it is losing its dominance in smartphones.

Eighteen brokerages, including Barclays Capital, Mizuho Securities USA, Credit Suisse, and Raymond James cut their price targets on the stock of the world's biggest publicly traded company by an average $132 to $612.

Apple's shares slid to $450.66 at the open on the Nasdaq, before recouping some of their losses.

The stock hit a peak close of $702.10 on September 19, valuing the company at $658 billion. Since then, it has lost about $225 billion, or 35 percent, of its in market value -- or about the entire worth of Chevron Corp, the second biggest U.S. oil company.

Jefferies & Co cut its rating on Apple's stock to "hold" from "buy" and slashed its share price target by $300 to $500.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who has previously raised red flags about Apple cutting orders to suppliers, said the iPhone slowdown was "real and material" and here to stay.

"We think Apple is losing the screen-size wars," Misek said, noting that demand was moving away from the iPhone's 3.5-inch and 4-inch screens to screens of 5 inches offered by rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, HTC Corp and Nokia Oyj.

Samsung, which is at the same time Apple's chief rival and biggest component supplier, overtook Apple as the biggest seller of smartphones in the third quarter, selling close to 500 handsets a minute.

Apple said it shipped a record 47.8 million iPhones in the December quarter, but this was well below the average analyst forecast of 50 million units.

The company's margins were also hit, sliding to 38.6 percent from 44.7 percent a year earlier, partly because its iPad is cannibalizing its high-margin Macintosh computers.

Expectations heading into the results had been subdued by news of possible production cutbacks, putting pressure on Chief Executive Tim Cook to keep up the company's momentum.

NEW PRODUCTS NEEDED

Analysts said Apple's growth would hinge on new products, but added that a new launch wasn't on the horizon.

"To re-accelerate growth, Apple likely needs to launch new products, yet few seem likely before June," Nomura's Stuart Jeffrey said.

The company has been long rumored to be working on a television but has so far deflected questions on its existence. Apple hasn't launched a new line of products in almost three years, apart from a smaller version of the iPad.

Some analysts questioned the company's strategy of betting its fortunes on one phone, while others said a cheaper iPhone could arrest losses of market share.

"Apple's modus operandi to date has been to cream the high-end off each market, but as the company's grown it may now need to target more of the mainstream," Evercore Partners analysts said.

Up to Wednesday, 24 analysts had lowered their price targets since October when Apple reported its fourth-quarter results, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Apple shares were down 10.3 percent at $460.66 in late morning trading.

The disappointing results also hit shares of some of Apple's suppliers. Cirrus Logic Inc, which gets nearly 80 percent of its revenue from Apple, fell 10 percent while shares of Skyworks Solutions Inc, which depends on Apple for about a quarter of its revenue, slipped 5 percent.

Cirrus makes audio-related chips while Skyworks provides power amplifiers for Apple products.

Apple is the lowest ranked stock among the marquee technology firms in the United States based on the change in analyst sentiment, or Analysts Revision Model (ARM), according to StarMine.

Apple's global ARM score of 10 is well below Google Inc's 34 and Microsoft Corp's 19 out of a possible 100. Nokia and Samsung have scores of 82 and 89, respectively.

Research in Motion Ltd has a perfect score of 100, according to the model, which measures analysts' revision of key indicators such as earnings and revenue estimates and changes to their ratings.

(Additional reporting by Saqib Ahmed; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Rodney Joyce and Ted Kerr)

Read More..

NCAA announces problems with Miami investigation

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — The NCAA's probe of Miami's athletic compliance practices is ramping up again.

Only this time, the Hurricanes aren't exactly the subject of the inquiry.

In a bizarre twist, the college sports' governing body is being investigated after NCAA President Mark Emmert acknowledged on Wednesday "a very severe issue of improper conduct" by former investigators working the long, complex Miami case.

The NCAA said its investigation was based, at least in part, on information that it should not have had access to, the testimony of those who appeared under subpoena to be deposed in the bankruptcy case involving former Miami booster Nevin Shapiro, one of the most notorious Ponzi scheme architects in history.

The NCAA does not have subpoena power. Shapiro's attorney did, and used it — and apparently entered into some sort of contractual agreement with the NCAA, one that apparently either was not or should never have been approved.

"We cannot have the NCAA bringing forward an allegation ... that was collected by processes none of us could stand for," Emmert said. "We're going to move it as fast as possible, but we have to get this right."

Speaking Thursday from Providence, R.I. in a telephone interview, Shapiro's attorney, Maria Elena Perez, told The Associated Press that she has done nothing wrong.

"The dubious party is not me. What I have done is 150 percent above board," Perez said.

Perez said she could not divulge the nature of whatever her contract status with the NCAA, though said she is planning to release a statement in the coming days after meeting with her own attorney.

"I am a victim of the enforcement staff," said Perez, who is a Miami graduate. "Me."

The revelations Wednesday mean the notice of allegations against Miami — the NCAA's findings of wrongdoing, a document that was nearly completed and was expected to be released by the end of this week — will be delayed for at least a few more weeks, if not longer. The long-term ramifications could be more damning for the NCAA, especially if the outside investigator they have commissioned to look into the mess finds more problems.

"As we have done since the beginning, we will continue to work with the NCAA and now with their outside investigator hoping for a swift resolution of the investigation and our case," Miami President Donna Shalala said.

Emmert said two depositions are involved in this allegation of improper conduct by former enforcement-office staffers. One of those two depositions was given Dec. 19, 2011, by former Miami equipment-room staffer Sean Allen — who has been linked to Shapiro and many of the allegations that he made against the university.

Among the questions Allen was asked in that deposition:

— "Did you ever witness Mr. Shapiro paying any money to any University of Miami football or basketball players?"

— "Would it be fair to say that Mr. Shapiro did, in fact, confer various financial benefits on the University of Miami Athletic Program and its players?"

— "Did you ever overhear any of the coaches or any other staff for the University of Miami providing Mr. Shapiro with inside information regarding, you know, the condition of any particular athlete for the purposes of Mr. Shapiro's gambling?"

It's unknown which of Allen's answers caught the NCAA investigators' attention.

What is known publicly now, and has been suspected by some for months, is that those investigators never should have known those questions were asked.

"How in the world can you get this far without it being recognized that this was an inappropriate way to proceed?" Emmert asked.

That's the question that the NCAA wants answered, and fast.

Emmert spoke angrily at times during a half-hour conference call to discuss the findings, in which he revealed that he briefed the NCAA's executive committee and the Division I board presidents with some information about the Miami matter. He said he developed a better understanding of what went on in the days that followed, which led to the hiring of Kenneth L. Wainstein of the firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP to conduct the external review of what happened.

Wainstein, Emmert said, will begin his probe on Thursday, with the NCAA hoping that he can finish within two weeks.

"We want to make sure that any evidence that's brought forward is appropriately collected and it has the integrity that we expect and demand," Emmert said.

It was part of a stunning day for Hurricane athletics: The 25th-ranked men's basketball team routed No. 1 Duke later Wednesday, 90-63.

Emmert said the NCAA was trying to find out why part of the investigation was based on depositions specific to the bankruptcy case against Shapiro, who will have to repay $82.7 million to his victims as part of his sentence. And the timing of this also is curious. Several people who were to be named in the NCAA's notice of allegations against Miami have been told that the document was in the final stages of preparation — and one person who spoke with the AP said at least one person who was to face a charge of wrongdoing was told the letter was scheduled for delivery to Miami on Tuesday.

Now it's anyone's guess when that will happen.

Emmert said the NCAA learned of the alleged misconduct, in part, through legal bills presented by Shapiro's attorney for work that was not properly approved by the organization's general counsel's office.

"One of the questions that has to be answered, unequivocally, is what was the nature of that contractual arrangement and what was all the activity that that individual was involved with," Emmert said. "There is some uncertainty about all of that and it's one of the first orders of business for the firm that we've hired to investigate."

The Hurricanes' athletic compliance practices have been probed by the NCAA for nearly two years. Allegations of wrongdoing involving Miami's football and men's basketball programs became widely known in August 2011 when Yahoo Sports published accusations brought by Shapiro, who is serving a 20-year term in federal prison for masterminding a $930 million Ponzi scheme.

Miami has self-imposed two football postseason bans in response to the investigation. The Hurricanes also would have played in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game this past season, meaning they could have qualified for the Orange Bowl.

"In my two-and-a-half years I've certainly never seen anything like this, and don't want to see it again," Emmert said.

Read More..

Charlie Brown voice actor pleads not guilty to threats, stalking

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – The former child actor who was the voice of Charlie Brown in the 1960s “Peanuts” animated television specials pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges he threatened his girlfriend and a surgeon who carried out her breast enhancement surgery.

Peter Robbins, 56, from Oceanside, California, pleaded not guilty in San Diego Superior Court to two counts of stalking and 10 counts of criminal threats. If convicted, he could face up to nine years in prison, Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth McClutchey said.

Robbins was arrested on Sunday on outstanding warrants by U.S. Customs officers at the San Ysidro port of entry as he returned to San Diego from Mexico. He remains in jail.

McClutchey said on December 31 Robbins threatened Dr. Lori Saltz, the plastic surgeon he paid to perform breast enhancement surgery on his girlfriend, Shawna Kern.

The prosecution also alleged Robbins left several threatening phone messages for Kern, saying in one, “You better hide Shawna, I’m coming for you … and I’m going to kill you.”

Robbins allegedly threatened to kill a police sergeant who arrested him on January 13 after he refused to pay a restaurant bill at the San Diego hotel where he was staying.

Robbins was released on $ 50,000 bond the following day and given a January 28 court date.

McClutchey urged Judge David Szumowski to keep Robbins’ bail set at $ 550,000 because Kern and Saltz believed Robbins was a “desperate man” and “had nothing to lose.”

Defense attorney Marc Kohnen said the bail was excessive because Robbins had no criminal record and had never been in trouble with the law.

Robbins was 9 years old in 1965 when he became the voice of the world-weary yet optimistic title character of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the first of many animated TV specials based on the popular “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles Schulz.

With its jazz-inflected music score and a storyline involving Charlie Brown’s search for the true meaning of Christmas in a season corrupted by commercialism, it became a holiday TV classic.

The actor went on to voice Charlie Brown in “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” “You’re In Love, Charlie Brown” and “A Boy Named Charlie Brown,” which aired in the 1960s. He was replaced in later versions of the animated specials.

(Reporting by Marty Graham; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Steve Gorman and Gunna Dickson)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Charlie Brown voice actor pleads not guilty to threats, stalking
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/charlie-brown-voice-actor-pleads-not-guilty-to-threats-stalking/
Link To Post : Charlie Brown voice actor pleads not guilty to threats, stalking
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Burger King drops supplier linked to horsemeat

LONDON (AP) — British and Irish burger fans could face a Whopper shortage. Burger King says it has stopped buying beef from an Irish meat processor whose patties were found to contain traces of horsemeat.

The fast food chain said in a statement Thursday that it had dropped Silvercrest Foods as a supplier for its U.K. and Ireland restaurants as a "voluntary and precautionary measure."

Last week Silvercrest, which is owned by ABP Food Group, shut down its production line and recalled 10 million burgers from supermarket shelves in Britain and Ireland after horse DNA was found in some beef products.

Burger King said the decision to drop the supplier "may mean that some of our products are temporarily unavailable." It stressed that "this is not a food safety issue."

The presence of horsemeat in beef is a sensitive issue in Britain and Ireland, which do not have a tradition of eating horses. The British tabloid The Sun reported the Burger King story under the headline "Shergar King," a reference to a famous racehorse.

Products from another Irish firm and one in Britain also were contaminated by horsemeat. Most had only small traces, but one burger of a brand sold by the British supermarket chain Tesco contained 29 percent horsemeat.

Irish food officials say an ingredient imported from an unspecified European country and used as filler in cheap burgers is the likely source of the horsemeat contamination.

Burger King says its patties are made from 100 percent beef.

Officials say the horsemeat poses no risk to human health, but the episode has raised food security worries.

More concern arose Thursday when lawmaker Mary Creagh, environment spokeswoman for Britain's opposition Labour Party, said that several horses slaughtered in the country last year had tested positive for phenylbutazone, an anti-inflammatory drug given to horses that can cause cancer in humans.

"It is possible that those animals entered the human food chain," she said.

The Food Standards Agency confirmed that meat from five horses had tested positive for the drug, but said none had been approved for sale in Britain. It said the relevant food safety authorities were informed in cases where the meat was exported to other countries.

The agency said no horsemeat in the current scandal contained phenylbutazone.

Very little horsemeat is sold in Britain but the country sends thousands of horses a year abroad to be killed for meat.

Read More..

Joe McGinniss has cancer, but feels 'terrific'

NEW YORK (AP) — Author-journalist Joe McGinniss says he was diagnosed in May with advanced prostate cancer but is responding well to treatment and feels "terrific."

The 70-year-old McGinniss is best known for controversial works such as "The Selling of the President" and "Fatal Vision." On Wednesday, he posted on his Facebook page that he had "inoperable, terminal, metastatic prostate cancer." He confirmed the diagnosis in response to an email from The Associated Press and in a subsequent Facebook posting.

McGinniss told the AP that he has no symptoms and is eager to write more books and magazine articles.

Read More..

U. of I. launching Chicago tech center

Plans to launch a University of Illinois-affiliated technology research center in Chicago will be unveiled Thursday — the latest regional effort to stem an exodus of high-tech brainpower and entrepreneurship to the coasts.

A private, not-for-profit company, to be called UI Labs, is expected to open offices in or near the Loop to foster collaboration between the region's scientists and engineers from academia, industry and government.

The project, expected to be financed by private donations, corporate partnerships and federal grants, will be outlined for U. of I. trustees Thursday. The goal is to raise $20 million for first-year operations.

The aim is build a research and engineering powerhouse that will attract a range of industries to Chicago, along the lines of what the former Bell Labs did for the East Coast. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will offer up its vast tech resources, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and its Blue Waters supercomputer. It is anticipated other local universities and national research centers will participate.

"I was in India last week, talking with firms that were thinking of coming to Illinois to engage with university scientists," said U. of I. President Robert Easter. "And they say, 'We have a presence in Chicago or we're thinking of having a presence in Chicago, and it would be much more convenient if we could work with you there.'"

Or as project adviser James Duderstadt, president emeritus of the University of Michigan, put it, the U. of I. is among the top five universities in the nation in such high-tech fields as computer science and engineering, "but it's down there in the cornfields."

"All the pieces are there, but some of the things Chicago is lacking are things Urbana-Champaign has," he said.

The idea is to marry the two, helping Chicago attain the sort of direct scientific underpinnings that long have fostered tech hotbeds in Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.

"This is an opportunity to essentially build some of the glue and connective tissue … and that's needed to keep students from leaving and, frankly, to grow some companies in Chicago," said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of innovation and networks for the Kansas City, Mo.-based Kauffman Foundation, which focuses on entrepreneurship.

Chicago faces intense competition nationwide, as many cities aim for technological prowess and growth. The start of the year brought the launch of a Cornell NYC Tech campus, for instance, a graduate program in applied sciences that will turn out high-level scientists in New York City.

In Illinois, the challenge is retaining talent. One telling statistic: 32 percent of computer science graduates from the U. of I. in Urbana-Champaign get jobs in California, said Larry Schook, the university's vice president for research.

Among U. of I. grads who made their names out West are Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape; software entrepreneur Thomas Siebel, a major U. of I. donor; and Ray Ozzie, who recently retired as chief software architect for Microsoft Inc.

The goal of this project, supported by Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is to retain the next generation of Illinois-trained innovators.

The University of Illinois will have an affiliation agreement with the lab that would outline the flow of personnel, resources and services between them. The goal is to attract 250 faculty fellows during the first three years. Additionally, more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to participate in UI Labs training and entrepreneurial programs during the first five years.

"Some students and researchers prefer the city to a smaller community … so this could increase the quality of the faculty," said Bruce Rauner, a prominent Chicago venture capitalist who has worked on the development of this plan. "This can drive better research."

The intent is to develop a "junior year abroad program" as well, with the aim of attracting top students from overseas.

The UI Labs project will start within the next month or so, Schook said, with the naming of board members and a director search.

"We'd love to have … the smartest tech students in the world come to participate and stay here to create companies," Schook said.

Rauner, who made his fortune as co-founder of private equity firm GTCR and heads venture firm R8 Capital Partners, said he intends to participate in fundraising and to donate millions personally. Ultimately, to bring the center to world-class status, it may be necessary to raise a $300 million endowment, he said.

The University of Illinois has programs aimed at linking businesses to applicable academic research, including the University of Illinois at Chicago's Innovation Center and research parks at Chicago and Urbana. While those attempt to match faculty research with companies that could use it, the UI Labs model would aim for even deeper collaborative brainstorming, Easter said.

"A company struggling with a problem related to its technology could come in and sit with faculty who do theoretical work to see if those principles could lead to a solution," he said. "Out of that will come innovation, and that will drive economic growth."

kbergen@tribune.com

Twitter @kathy_bergen

Read More..