Why U.S. needs tougher child labor rules

Cristina Traina says in his second term, Obama must address weaknesses in child farm labor standards

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Cristina Traina: Obama should strengthen child farm labor standards


• She says Labor Dept. rules allow kids to work long hours for little pay on commercial farms


• She says Obama administration scrapped Labor Dept. chief's proposal for tightening rules


• She says Labor Dept. must fix lax standards for kid labor on farmers; OSHA must enforce them

Editor's note: Cristina L.H. Traina is a Public Voices Op Ed fellow and professor at Northwestern University, where she is a scholar of social ethics.

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama should use the breathing space provided by the fiscal-cliff compromise to address some of the issues that he shelved during his last term. One of the most urgent is child farm labor. Perhaps the least protected, underpaid work force in American labor, children are often the go-to workers for farms looking to cut costs.

It's easy to see why. The Department of Labor permits farms to pay employees under 20 as little as $4.25 per hour. (By comparison, the federal minimum wage is $7.25.) And unlike their counterparts in retail and service, child farm laborers can legally work unlimited hours at any hour of day or night.

The numbers are hard to estimate, but between direct hiring, hiring through labor contractors, and off-the-books work beside parents or for cash, perhaps 400,000 children, some as young as 6, weed and harvest for commercial farms. A Human Rights Watch 2010 study shows that children laboring for hire on farms routinely work more than 10 hours per day.

As if this were not bad enough, few labor safety regulations apply. Children 14 and older can work long hours at all but the most dangerous farm jobs without their parents' consent, if they do not miss school. Children 12 and older can too, as long as their parents agree. Unlike teen retail and service workers, agricultural laborers 16 and older are permitted to operate hazardous machinery and to work even during school hours.

In addition, Human Rights Watch reports that child farm laborers are exposed to dangerous pesticides; have inadequate access to water and bathrooms; fall ill from heat stroke; suffer sexual harassment; experience repetitive-motion injuries; rarely receive protective equipment like gloves and boots; and usually earn less than the minimum wage. Sometimes they earn nothing.

Little is being done to guarantee their safety. In 2011 Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis proposed more stringent agricultural labor rules for children under 16, but Obama scrapped them just eight months later.

Adoption of the new rules would be no guarantee of enforcement, however. According to the 2010 Human Rights Watch report, the Department of Labor employees were spread so thin that, despite widespread reports of infractions they found only 36 child labor violations and two child hazardous order violations in agriculture nationwide.

This lack of oversight has dire, sometimes fatal, consequences. Last July, for instance, 15-year-old Curvin Kropf, an employee at a small family farm near Deer Grove, Illinois, died when he fell off the piece of heavy farm equipment he was operating, and it crushed him. According to the Bureau County Republican, he was the fifth child in fewer than two years to die at work on Sauk Valley farms.

If this year follows trends, Curvin will be only one of at least 100 children below the age of 18 killed on American farms, not to mention the 23,000 who will be injured badly enough to require hospital admission. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries. It is the most dangerous for children, accounting for about half of child worker deaths annually.

The United States has a long tradition of training children in the craft of farming on family farms. At least 500,000 children help to work their families' farms today.

Farm parents, their children, and the American Farm Bureau objected strenuously to the proposed new rules. Although children working on their parents' farms would specifically have been exempted from them, it was partly in response to worries about government interference in families and loss of opportunities for children to learn agricultural skills that the Obama administration shelved them.

Whatever you think of family farms, however, many child agricultural workers don't work for their parents or acquaintances. Despite exposure to all the hazards, these children never learn the craft of farming, nor do most of them have the legal right to the minimum wage. And until the economy stabilizes, the savings farms realize by hiring children makes it likely that even more of them will be subject to the dangers of farm work.

We have a responsibility for their safety. As one of the first acts of his new term, Obama should reopen the child agricultural labor proposal he shelved in spring of 2012. Surely, farm labor standards for children can be strengthened without killing off 4-H or Future Farmers of America.

Second, the Department of Labor must institute age, wage, hour and safety regulations that meet the standards set by retail and service industry rules. Children in agriculture should not be exposed to more risks, longer hours, and lower wages at younger ages than children in other jobs.

Finally, the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration must allocate the funds necessary for meaningful enforcement of child labor violations. Unenforced rules won't protect the nearly million other children who work on farms.

Agriculture is a great American tradition. Let's make sure it's not one our children have to die for.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Cristina Traina.

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Quinn to name former prosecutor Fitzgerald to UI board

Gov. Pat Quinn will name former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, the Tribune has learned.

Fitzgerald will replace first term trustee Lawrence Oliver II, according to a source who was informed of the decision.

The appointment would mark a quick return to the public eye for Fitzgerald, a career prosecutor who left the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago for private law practice in 2012 after a long run that included putting former Govs. George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich behind bars.

Oliver told the Tribune he received a call from Quinn's office Wednesday afternoon with the news that he would not be reappointed. Oliver, who was appointed as a political independent and maintains that affiliation, said he suspects he was not reappointed because he voted in a 2010 Democratic primary.

By law, U. of I. can have no more than five members from any political party, and there are already five Democrats on the board.

Both of the other two board members whose terms expire Monday say they were told they were reappointed to another six-year term. James Montgomery, a Democrat and a Chicago attorney, refused the governor's call to resign during the university scandal over politically connected admissions to the school. Dr. Timothy Koritz, an anesthesiologist at Rockford Memorial Hospital, was appointed by Quinn when he revamped the board in 2009. Koritz, a Republican, was told Wednesday that he would serve a second term.

Quinn’s office is expected to announce the appointments prior to U. of I.'s board meeting next week.

Oliver, chief counsel for investigations at the Boeing Co. who served on Quinn's Illinois Reform Commission, said he was disappointed by the governor's decision. He said he voted in the 2010 Democratic primary to support David Hoffman for U.S. Senate.

U. of I.'s  nine-member board has to be politically balanced, according to state statute. The current board has five Democrats, three Republicans and one Independent.

The U. of I. board is scheduled to meet next Thursday, at which time it will take its annual vote on a chairman and other officers of the board.

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Hostages still held after Sahara assault

ALGIERS (Reuters) - At least 22 foreign hostages remained unaccounted for on Friday after Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist gunmen, an operation in which dozens of the hostages were killed.

With Western leaders clamoring for details of the assault they said Algeria had launched on Thursday without consulting them, a local source said the gas base was still surrounded by Algerian special forces and some hostages remained inside.

Thirty hostages, including several Westerners, were killed during the storming on Thursday, the source said, along with at least 11 of their captors, who said they had taken the site as retaliation for French intervention against Islamists in neighboring Mali.

Fourteen Japanese were among those still unaccounted for by the early hours of Friday, their Japanese employer said, while Norwegian energy company Statoil, which runs the Tigantourine gas field with Britain's BP and Algeria's national oil company, said eight Norwegian employees were still missing.

An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops whose commanders said they moved in about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

The crisis posed a serious dilemma for Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers' al Qaeda allies in Mali. It also left question marks over the ability of OPEC-member Algeria to protect vital energy resources and strained its relations with Western powers.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Some 600 local Algerian workers, less well guarded, survived.

A diplomatic source said Britain had not received any information to suggest the hostage situation had ended. "The situation is still really fluid on the ground. We have no information from the Algerian authorities that it's over."

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cancelled part of his trip in Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip since taking office, and will fly home early due to the hostage crisis, Japan's senior government spokesman said on Friday.

"The action of Algerian forces was regrettable," said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding Tokyo had not been informed of the operation in advance.

Americans, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured by the militants, who call themselves the "Battalion of Blood" and have demanded France end its week-old offensive in Mali.

Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational Islamist insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send hundreds of troops to Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including the squad's leader.

The bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman - all assumed to have been hostage-takers - were found, the security source said.

The group had claimed to have dozens of guerrillas on site and it was unclear whether any militants had managed to escape.

The overall commander, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s. He appears not to have been present and has now risen in stature among a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from chaotic Libya, whom Western powers fear could spread violence far beyond the desert.

"NO TO BLACKMAIL"

Algeria's government made clear it remains implacably at odds with Islamist guerrillas who remain at large in the south, years after the civil war in which some 200,000 people died. Communication Minister Mohamed Said repeated their refusal ever to negotiate with hostage-takers.

"We say that in the face of terrorism, yesterday as today as tomorrow, there will be no negotiation, no blackmail, no respite in the struggle against terrorism," he told APS news agency.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who cancelled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said through a spokesman that he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid.

A Briton and an Algerian were also killed on Wednesday.

U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans, though a U.S. military drone had flown over the area. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's move to protect the Malian capital by mounting air strikes last week and now sending 1,400 ground troops to attack Islamist rebels.

A U.S. official said on Thursday it would provide transport aircraft to help France with a mission whose vital importance, President Francois Hollande said, was demonstrated by the attack in Algeria. Some fear, however, that going on the offensive in the remote region could provoke more bloodshed closer to home.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of security measures that are outwardly draconian.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; writing by Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher; editing by Peter Millership, Michael Perry and Will Waterman)

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European shares retreat on corporate worries, growth outlook

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares edged down on Thursday as concerns grow over the outlook for growth and corporate earnings, while oil prices gained support after Islamist militants attacked an Algerian gas field.

Worries about the global economic outlook have revived since the World Bank cut its 2013 forecast for global growth to 2.4 percent from its previous estimate of 3 percent, citing the prospect of poor performance across the developed world.

A massive $14 billion writedown at global mining giant Rio Tinto amid fears weak growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 will result in poor corporate results has further undermined investor confidence.

"The market will remain predominantly in a consolidation mood following a cautious outlook on earnings. I think European companies will disappoint a bit," said Christian Stocker, equity strategist at UniCredit in Munich.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares slipped nearly 0.1 percent to 1,159.00 points in early trade. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were flat to 0.3 percent lower.

"There's been a mixed bag on the earnings front so far," said Darren Easton, director of trading at Logic Investments.

"In the short-term, we're in the bear camp," he added.

MSCI's broadest index of Asian shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.2 percent, extending declines for a third consecutive session.

The falls were led by a slump in Chinese stocks as investors retreated ahead a slew of key economic data due on Friday including fourth-quarter GDP, December industrial output, retail sales and house prices.

Oil prices, which are under pressure from the prospects of weaker demand in 2013, gained support from concerns about supplies being affected by military activity in Algeria and Mali.

Islamist fighters seized dozens of Western and Algerian hostages in a dawn raid on a natural gas facility deep in the Sahara on Wednesday and demanded France halt a new offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.

Brent added 2 cents to $109.70 a barrel, though U.S. oil slipped 10 cents to $94.14.

In the debt market, yields on safe-have German bonds were creeping lower as equity markets softened, but investors were reluctant to make big bets before a Spanish debt sale.

Spain plans to tap the market for up to 4.5 billion euros in short and long-term bonds and is expected to see good demand and sharply lower yields as the European Central Bank's promise to support the debt of struggling nations has encouraged investors.

The dollar and the euro were choppy, as both currencies pared back some of their recent big gains against the yen after a Japanese official this week expressed concerns about excessive yen weakness.

The yen is expected to remain on a weakening trend amid expectations for bolder BOJ monetary easing measures at its January 21-22 policy meeting as part of the new government's push to drive Japan out of years of deflation and economic slump.

The dollar rose 0.25 percent to 88.60 yen, off its peak since June 2010 of 89.67 touched on Monday, while the euro gained 0.4 percent to 117.95 yen, after surging to its highest since May 2011 of 120.13 yen on Monday.

"The BOJ will probably disappoint to some degree. They'll deliver what the market expects but no more than that," said Gareth Berry, G10 FX strategist for UBS in Singapore.

(Reporting by Richard Hubbard; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Manti Te'o girlfriend's death apparently a hoax

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Not long before Notre Dame played Michigan State last fall, word spread that Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te'o had lost his grandmother and girlfriend within hours of each other.

Te'o never missed a practice and made a season-high 12 tackles, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery in a 20-3 victory against the Spartans. His inspired play became a stirring story line for the Fighting Irish as they made a run to the national championship game behind their humble, charismatic star.

Te'o's grandmother did indeed die. His girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never existed.

In a shocking announcement Wednesday night, Notre Dame said Te'o was duped into an online relationship with a woman whose "death" from leukemia was faked by perpetrators of an elaborate hoax. The goal of the scam wasn't clear, though Notre Dame said it used an investigative firm to dig into the details after Te'o disclosed them three weeks ago.

The hoax was disclosed hours after Deadspin.com posted a lengthy story, saying it could find no record that Kekua ever existed. The story suggests a friend of Te'o may have carried out the hoax and that the football player may have been in on it — a stunning claim against a widely admired All-American who led the most famed program in college football back to the championship game for the first time since 1988.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. "

However, he stopped short of saying he had ever met her in person or correcting reports that said he had, though he did on numerous occasions talk about how special the relationship was to him.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," he said. "In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

Word of the hoax spread quickly and raised questions about whether the school somehow played a role in pushing the tale.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference that Te'o told coaches on Dec. 26 that he had received a call from Kekua's phone number while at an awards ceremony during the first week of December.

"When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same person he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead. Manti was very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said the school hired investigators and their report indicated those behind the hoax were in contact with each other, discussing what they were doing.

The investigators "were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that was certainly the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking," Swarbrick said. "The casualness among themselves they were talking about what they accomplished."

Swarbrick said for Te'o "the pain was real."

"The grief was real. The affection was real," he said. "That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."

Swarbrick added: "Nothing about what I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te'o one iota."

Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not take the matter to the police, saying that the school left it up to Te'o and his family to do so. He added that Notre Dame did not plan to release the findings of its investigation.

"We had no idea of motive, and that was really significant to us. ... Was somebody trying to create an NCAA violation at the core of this? Was there somebody trying to impact the outcome of football games by manipulating the emotions of a key player? Was there an extortion request coming? When you match the lack of sort of detail we lacked until we got some help investigating it with the risk involved, it was clear to me until we knew more we had to just to continue to work to try to gather the facts," Swarbrick said.

The Deadspin report changed all that.

Friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told Deadspin they believe he created Kekua. The website said Te'o and Tuiasosopo knew each other. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Tuiasosopo by telephone were unsuccessful.

As for Kekua, Deadspin said she does not have a death certificate. Stanford, where she reportedly went to school, has no record of anybody by that name, the website said. Deadspin said a record search produced no obituary or funeral announcement. There is no record of her birth in the news.

There are a few Twitter and Instagram accounts registered to Lennay Kekua, but the website reported that photographs identified as Kekua online and in TV news reports are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua.

Te'o talked freely about their relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in The South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted an anecdote about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. He said Kekua had told Te'o not to miss a game if she died. The linebacker turned in one of his best performances of the season and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season. He finished second in Heisman voting.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life," Te'o said in his statement.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been."

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life," he said in his statement, "and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL draft."

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Scientology ad crossed the line

The Church of Scientology is also at fault for thinking the advertorial would survive The Atlantic readers' scrutiny, Ian Schafer says.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The Atlantic published and pulled a sponsored Scientology "story"


• Ian Schafer: On several levels, the ad was a mistake


• He says the content was heavy-handed and comments were being moderated


• Schafer: Experimenting to raise revenue makes sense, but standards should be clear

Editor's note: Ian Schafer is the founder and CEO of a digital advertising agency, Deep Focus, and the alter ego of @invisibleobama. You can read his rants on his blog at ianschafer.com.

(CNN) -- "The Atlantic is America's leading destination for brave thinking and bold ideas that matter. The Atlantic engages its print, online, and live audiences with breakthrough insights into the worlds of politics, business, the arts, and culture. With exceptional talent deployed against the world's most important and intriguing topics, The Atlantic is the source of opinion, commentary, and analysis for America's most influential individuals who wish to be challenged, informed, and entertained." -- The Atlantic 2013 media kit for advertisers

On Monday, The Atlantic published -- and then pulled -- a story titled "David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year." This "story" went on to feature the growth of Scientology in 2012.

Ian Schafer

Any regular reader of The Atlantic's content would immediately do a double-take upon seeing that kind of headline, much less the heavy-handed text below it, shamelessly plugging how well Scientology's "ecclesiastical leader" Miscavige has done in "leading a renaissance for the religion."

This "story" is one of several "advertorials" (a portmanteau of "advertising" and "editorials") that The Atlantic has published online, clearly designated as "Sponsor Content." In other words, "stories" like these aren't real stories. They are ads with a lot of words, which advertisers have paid publications to run on their behalf for decades. You may have seen them in magazines and newspapers as "special advertising sections."

The hope is that because you are already reading the publication, hey, maybe you'll read what the advertiser has to say, too -- instead of the "traditional" ad that they may have otherwise placed on the page that you probably won't remember, or worse, will ignore.

There's nothing wrong with this tactic, ethically, when clearly labeled as "sponsored" or "advertising." But many took umbrage with The Atlantic in this particular case; so many, that The Atlantic responded by pulling the story from its site -- which was the right thing to do -- and by apologizing.

At face value, The Atlantic did the right thing for its business model, which depends upon advertising sales. It sold what they call a "native" ad to a paying advertiser, clearly labeled it as such, without the intention of misleading readers into thinking this was a piece of journalism.

But it still failed on several levels.

The Atlantic defines its readers as "America's most influential individuals who wish to be challenged, informed, and entertained." By that very definition, it is selling "advertorials" to people who are the least likely to take them seriously, especially when heavy-handed. There is a fine line between advertorial and outright advertising copywriting, and this piece crossed it. The Church of Scientology is just as much at fault for thinking this piece would survive The Atlantic readers' intellectual scrutiny. But this isn't even the real issue.

Bad advertising is all around us. And readers' intellectual scrutiny would surely have let the advertorial piece slide without complaints (though snark would be inevitable), as they have in the past, or yes, even possibly ignored it. But here's where The Atlantic crossed another line -- it seemed clear it was moderating the comments beneath the advertorial.

As The Washington Post reported, The Atlantic marketing team was carefully pruning the comments, ensuring that they were predominantly positive, even though many readers were leaving negative comments. So while The Atlantic was publishing clearly labeled advertiser-written content, it was also un-publishing content created by its readers -- the very folks it exists to serve.

It's understandable that The Atlantic would inevitably touch a third rail with any "new" ad format. But what it calls "native advertising" is actually "advertorial." It's not new at all. Touching the third rail in this case is unacceptable.

So what should The Atlantic have done in this situation before it became a situation? For starters, it should have worked more closely with the Church of Scientology to help create a piece of content that wasn't so clearly written as an ad. If the Church of Scientology was not willing to compromise its advertising to be better content, then The Atlantic should not have accepted the advertising. But this is a quality-control issue.

The real failure here was that comments should never have been enabled beneath this sponsored content unless the advertiser was prepared to let them be there, regardless of sentiment.

It's not like Scientology has avoided controversy in the past. The sheer, obvious reason for this advertorial in the first place was to dispel beliefs that Scientology wasn't a recognized religion (hence "ecclesiastical").

Whether The Atlantic felt it was acting in its advertiser's best interest, or the advertiser specifically asked for this to happen, letting it happen at all was a huge mistake, and a betrayal of an implicit contract that should exist between a publication of The Atlantic's stature and its readership.

No matter how laughably "sales-y" a piece of sponsored content might be, the censoring of readership should be the true "third rail," never to be touched.

Going forward, The Atlantic (and any other publication that chooses to run sponsored content) should adopt and clearly communicate an explicit ethics statement regarding advertorials and their corresponding comments. This statement should guide the decisions it makes when working with advertisers, and serve as a filter for the sponsored content it chooses to publish, and what it recommends advertisers submit. It should also prevent readers from being silenced if given a platform at all.

As an advertising professional, I sincerely hope this doesn't spook The Atlantic or any other publication from experimenting with ways to make money. But as a reader, I hope it leads to better ads that reward me for paying attention, rather than muzzle my voice should I choose to interact with the content.

After all, what more could a publication or advertiser ask for than for content to be so interesting that someone actually would want to comment on (or better, share) it?

(Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said native advertising accounts for 59% of the Atlantic's ad revenue. Digital advertising, of which native advertising is a part, accounts for 59% of The Atlantic's overall revenue, according to the company.)

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ian Schafer.

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Man killed after high school game ends in melee

The Simeon and Morgan Park High School basketball teams ended their game at Chicago State University with a melee between players on the court. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune)

Staff report

12:17 a.m. CST, January 17, 2013

A 20-year-old man was shot and killed outside a Chicago Public Schools high school basketball game at Chicago State University Wednesday night after a melee broke out in a handshake line after the game.

The man was taken in serious condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

The shooting happened about 9:20 p.m. outside the campus gymnasium near 95th Street and King Drive, said police News Affairs Officer Daniel O’Brien. He was pronounced dead at Christ hospital Wednesday night.

Chicago State Police put out a quick message to nearby officers, asking them to watch for a jeep that was pulled over east of the school a short time later, police said, citing early reports. Two people were taken into custody and police found a gun inside the jeep.

The game was between Simeon Career Academy and Morgan Park High School, both schools located on Vincennes Avenue about 30 blocks apart, at 81st and 111th Streets.

An argument in a handshake line after the game preceeded the shooting, police said. The gym was tense and word spread through the gym that someone had been shot.

Police said the argument spilled into the parking lot and someone pulled out a weapon and shot the 20-year-old.

Each team was held for longer than normal in the locker rooms after the game. Nothing outside ordinary bumps and physical contact happened during the game.

Chicago police responded to the scene but are not involved with the investigation, O'Brien said.

Chicago State Police refused to comment about the incident and city police referred inquiries to them and Illinois State Police, who said they were not involved in the investigation.

Check back for details.

Contributor Mike Helfgot and Tribune reporters Peter Nickeas, Rosemary Regina Sobol and Jeremy Gorner contributed to this story.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com
Twitter: @chicagobreaking

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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global

ALGIERS/BAMAKO - (Reuters) - Islamist fighters have opened an international front in Mali's civil war by taking dozens of Western hostages at a gas plant in the Algerian desert just as French troops launched an offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.

More than 24 hours after gunmen stormed the natural gas pumping site and workers' housing before dawn on Wednesday, little was certain beyond a claim by a group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood" that it was holding 41 foreign nationals, including Americans, Japanese and Europeans, at Tigantourine, deep in the Sahara.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed one Briton had been killed and "a number" of other British citizens were being held. Algerian media said an Algerian was killed in the assault. Another local report said a Frenchman had died.

The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed.

The militants said seven Americans were among their hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm. Norwegian oil company Statoil said nine of its Norwegian staff and three Algerian employees were captive. Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held.

"This is a dangerous and rapidly developing situation," Britain's Hague told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.

"We have sent a rapid deployment team from our Foreign Office in order to reinforce our embassy and consulate staff there. The safety of those involved and their co-workers is our absolutely priority and we will work around the clock to resolve this crisis."

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Vietnam on the first leg of a Southeast Asian tour, told reporters that "Japan will never tolerate such an act", according to the Jiji news agency. His government held an emergency meeting and said it was working with other countries to free Japanese citizens.

One thing is clear: as a headline-grabbing counterpunch to this week's French buildup in Mali, it presents French President Francois Hollande with stark choices and spreads fallout from Mali's war against loosely allied bands of al Qaeda-inspired rebels far beyond Africa, challenging Washington and Europe.

Led by an Algerian veteran of guerrilla wars in Afghanistan, the group demanded France halt its week-old intervention in Mali, an operation endorsed by Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven.

Hollande, who won wide praise for ordering air strikes and sending troops to the former French colony Mali last week, said little in response. In office for only eight months, he has warned of a long, hard struggle and now faces a risk of attacks on more French and other Western targets in Africa and beyond.

The Algerian government ruled out negotiating and the United States and other Western governments condemned what they called a terrorist attack on a facility, now shut down, that produces 10 percent of Algeria's gas, much of which is pumped to Europe.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles at the base, near the town of In Amenas close to the Libyan border.

They said they had repelled a raid by Algerian forces after dark on Wednesday. There was no government comment on that. Algerian officials said earlier about 20 gunmen were involved.

LIVES AT RISK

The militants issued no explicit threat but made clear the hostages' lives were at risk: "We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.

They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.

The group also said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end."

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria, whose government fought a bloody war against Islamists in the 1990s, release dozens of prisoners from its jails.

The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervises some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told BFM television the local staff was being prevented from leaving but was otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.

"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.

"Direct action seems very difficult. ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."

Norway's Statoil operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach.

"Our total focus is on fixing this situation and returning our colleagues home," Statoil CEO Helge Lund told a news conference in Stavanger, western Norway. "Family, friends and colleagues are waiting for news from them."

Lund will travel later Thursday to Bergen, western Norway, to a crisis centre set up in a hotel by the company where some relatives of the hostages are gathering.

Japan's JGC Corp. said in a statement it was cooperating with the government but would not comment the number of its employees kidnapped.

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

French forces, which began air strikes against the Mali rebels last Friday, were hours from a ground attack on Wednesday, army chief Edouard Guillaud said.

Mali residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles had set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.

Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks, although some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.

Hollande has sent hundreds of paratroopers and marines to fight the Mali rebels who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali last year and imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheading.

The rebels include fighters from al Qaeda's mainly Algerian-based North African wing AQIM as well as home-grown Malian groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA. Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.

Panetta said Washington was still studying legal and other issues before providing more help to France in the war in Mali.

The United Nations has authorized an African force to fight the rebels. It was expected to start only in September, but the French intervention speeded the timetable; about 2,000 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other states are expected soon.

Chad's foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, told Radio France International his country alone would send 2,000 troops, suggesting plans for the regional force were already growing.

A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.

Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation.

The conflict, in a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.

But many who have lived for many months under harsh and violent Islamist rule said they welcomed the French.

"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome, Andrew Quinn in Washington, Jane Wardell in Sydney and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Graff)

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World shares slip as growth concerns re-emerge

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares slipped while safe-haven bonds and gold firmed on Wednesday as poor economic data from Europe rekindled investors' caution about the health of the global economy.

The euro was under pressure following weak German GDP figures on Tuesday and a warning from the chairman of the euro zone finance ministers' group, Jean-Claude Juncker, that the common currency was now "dangerously high".

Germany's economy shrank at the fastest pace in almost three years in the final part of 2012, and data on Wednesday showed demand for new cars in Europe fell in December to the lowest level since 1995.

"Following the German growth numbers yesterday there is simply a realization the recession in the euro zone in the fourth quarter will be much bigger than the previous consensus and that is pushing up German (bond) yields and putting downward pressure on equities," said Daiwa Securities economist Tobias Blattner.

The MSCI world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was down 0.3 percent at around 349 points, while Europe's FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top shares dipped roughly 0.2 percent in choppy early trade to 1,158.52 points.

London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were flat to 0.3 percent lower.

Following the data and Juncker's comments, the euro was roughly 0.2 percent lower against the dollar at $1.3283 by 0815 GMT down 1 percent against the yen at 116.95 yen.

The yen - which had been sharply sliding against the dollar in recent weeks on expectations of aggressive Japanese policy easing under new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - rose for a second day after a Japanese cabinet minister warned of the possible harm of excessive yen weakness.

Bond markets in Europe were largely quiet before Germany's first sale of the year of benchmark 10-year bonds.

Bund yields, which have risen to attractive levels compared with recent months, are expected to draw in buyers. Yields rose as much as 23 basis points during early January before retracing slightly as buyers re-emerged.

Wall Street posted modest gains on Tuesday after encouraging retail sales data although futures prices point to it giving back some of those gains on Wednesday.

Asian markets largely struggled, with Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> shedding 2.6 percent in its largest daily fall in eight months.

Assets traditionally viewed as offering protection against risk have been boosted this week as U.S. political wrangling has begun again over raising its self-imposed debt limit.

Spot gold was up 0.2 percent to $1,681.55 an ounce, underpinned by the jitters, and the benchmark gold futures contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange hit a record high for a third consecutive session.

U.S. crude was up 0.2 percent to $93.44 a barrel while Brent was up 0.3 percent to $110.61.

(editing by David Stamp)

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Anti-doping officials want Armstrong under oath

A televised confession by Lance Armstrong isn't enough.

Anti-doping officials want the disgraced cyclist to admit his guilt under oath before considering whether to lift a lifetime ban clouding his future as a competitive athlete. That was seconded by at least one former teammate whom Armstrong pushed aside on his way to the top of the Tour de France podium.

"Lance knows everything that happened," Frankie Andreu told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "He's the one who knows who did what because he was the ringleader. It's up to him how much he wants to expose."

Armstrong has been in conversations with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials, touching off speculation that he may be willing to cooperate with authorities there and name names.

Interviewer Oprah Winfrey didn't say if the subject was broached during the taping Monday at a downtown Austin hotel. In an appearance on "CBS This Morning," she declined to give details of what Armstrong told her, but said she was "mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers."

Asked whether the disgraced cyclist appeared genuinely contrite after a decade of fierce denials, Winfrey replied, "I felt that he was thoughtful, I thought that he was serious, I thought that he certainly had prepared for this moment. I would say that he met the moment."

She was promoting what has become a two-part special, Thursday and Friday, on her OWN network.

Around the same time, World Anti-Doping Agency officials issued a statement saying nothing short of "a full confession under oath" would cause them to reconsider Armstrong's lifetime ban from sanctioned events.

The International Cycling Union also urged Armstrong to tell his story to an independent commission it has set up to examine claims that the sport's governing body hid suspicious samples from the cyclist, accepted financial donations from him and helped him avoid detection in doping tests.

The ban was only one of several penalties handed to Armstrong after a scathing, 1,000-page report by USADA last year. The cyclist was also stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, lost nearly all of his endorsements and was forced to cut ties with the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997.

The report portrayed Armstrong as the mastermind of a long-running scheme that employed steroids, blood boosters such as EPO, and a range of other performance-enhancers to dominate the tour. It included revealing testimony from 11 former teammates, including Andreu and his wife, Betsy.

"A lot of it was news and shocking to me," Andreu said. "I am sure it's shocking to the world. There's been signs leading up to this moment for a long time. For my wife and I, we've been attacked and ripped apart by Lance and all of his people, and all his supporters repeatedly for a long time. I just wish they wouldn't have been so blind and opened up their eyes earlier to all the signs that indicated there was deception there, so that we wouldn't have had to suffer as much.

"And it's not only us," he added, "he's ruined a lot of people lives."

Armstrong was believed to have left for Hawaii. The street outside his Spanish-style villa on Austin's west side was quiet the day after international TV crews gathered there hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Nearby, members of his legal team mapped out a strategy on how to handle at least two pending lawsuits against Armstrong, and possibly a third.

The AP reported earlier Tuesday that Justice Department officials were likely to join a whistleblower lawsuit against Armstrong by former teammate Floyd Landis, citing a source who works outside the government and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.

The lawsuit by Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive, alleges that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government by repeatedly denying he used performance-enhancing drugs. The deadline to join the False Claims Act lawsuit, which could require Armstrong to return substantial sponsorship fees and pay a hefty penalty, is Thursday.

Landis is hardly the only one seeking money back from Armstrong.

During his long reign as cycling champion, Armstrong scolded some critics in public, didn't hesitate to punish outspoken riders during the race, and waged legal battles against still others in court.

The London-based Sunday Times has already filed a lawsuit to recover about $500,000 it paid Armstrong to settle a libel case, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny him a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million awarded by an arbitration panel.

In Australia, the government of the state of South Australia said it will seek the repayment of several million dollars in appearance fees paid to Armstrong for competing in the Tour Down Under in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

"We'd be more than happy for Mr. Armstrong to make any repayment of monies to us," South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said.

___

Litke reported from Chicago, Vertuno from Austin, Texas. Pete Yost in Washington and John L. Mone in Dearborn, Mich., also contributed to this report.

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