Case of Wall Street greed gone too far




Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was one of the executives whose stock award was accelerated to beat higher tax rate.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Goldman Sachs granted $65 million in stock to execs before new tax rates began

  • Susan Antilla says the firm's CEO had endorsed higher rates, called for entitlement cuts

  • She says Goldman benefits from the implicit promise that U.S. will bail it out

  • Antilla: It was unseemly for Goldman to rush the payments to shield execs from new rates




Editor's note: Susan Antilla is a columnist at Bloomberg View and a contributor to TheStreet.com. She has written about finance for more than 30 years. She is author of "Tales From the Boom-Boom Room: The Landmark Legal Battles That Exposed Wall Street's Shocking Culture of Sexual Harassment." Follow her on Twitter @antillaview.


(CNN) -- Nobody likes to pay taxes, so can you blame the good folks at Goldman Sachs & Co. for doing what they could to avoid the higher rates that kicked in on January 1?


While the rest of us were donning our party clothes on New Year's Eve, the legal worker bees at Goldman were pushing the send button on 10 regulatory filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.


By the time the ball dropped in Times Square, regulators had been notified that $65 million in Goldman stock had been granted a month early, helping a cluster of powerful multimillionaire executives trim their tax tab.


Among the 10 who shared that $65 million, Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn and Chief Financial Officer David Viniar wound up with $8.4 million apiece in Goldman stock.



Susan Antilla

Susan Antilla



Blankfein's compensation in 2011 was $16.2 million. Cohn and Viniar that year made $15.8 million. Even Gordon Gekko would be impressed to see that bosses making that much money were able to catch a tax break for a couple hundred thousand.


The 10 executives who skirted 2013's higher rates were not the only Goldmanites who benefited from the "accelerated" vesting. Michael DuVally, a Goldman spokesman, acknowledged there was "a group larger than" the 10 but declined to say how many. DuVally would not comment on who made the decision to grant the shares early.


The shrewd Goldman move is hardly unique among rich business executives or even 99 percenters of more modest means. It was no secret that higher taxes were coming this year, and taxpayers of all shapes and sizes did what they could to ensure that "tax events" would occur in 2012.



Even environmental activist and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore tried, albeit without success, to unload his Current TV to Al Jazeera before the new year dawned.


What makes the Goldman move distasteful is that it wasn't even two months ago that CEO Blankfein was mouthing off in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he endorsed tax increases "especially for the wealthiest" -- along with a plug to cut entitlements to all you freeloaders out there.








If you're pushing the position that the rich should pay more to help fix the deficit, it doesn't quite follow to employ a tax dodge, says Dennis Kelleher, president of the Washington-based public interest group Better Markets Inc.


"Goldman's quickie year-end tax shenanigans deprived the government of what it otherwise would get," he says. "So they either cause the debt to go up, or cause others to pay more by the taxes they are avoiding."


DuVally, the Goldman spokesman, declined to comment when I asked whether it was inconsistent for Goldman to make a move for its executives to avoid taxes after Blankfein endorsed increases for the wealthy.


I've got to hand it to Goldman. The firm is a master of the "have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too" brand of politics and public relations. One minute, Goldman is cranking out press releases about its devotion to women entrepreneurs in its philanthropic "10,000 women" program. The next, it is announcing its annual list of new partners that includes a paltry 10 women but 60 men.


Goldman was a victim on the defensive when Greg Smith, a former employee, wrote a New York Times op-ed on March 14, blasting the firm for having "morally bankrupt people" who needed to be weeded out. You could almost feel sorry for poor Goldman, which shipped out a memo reminding employees that their estimable employer had been named one of the best places to work in the United Kingdom only weeks before the London-based Smith's "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs" essay.


By the time Smith published a book seven months later, the firm had turned ruthless revenge-seeker, even sharing parts of Smith's self-evaluations with the media. A "best place to work?" Really? Careful what you say in the press -- and in your HR file -- if you get your paycheck from a Goldman-style operation.


The brouhaha over Smith's op-ed and book stirred up debate of the "What did you expect of an investment bank operating in capitalistic society?" type.


Fair enough. Banks are not in the philanthropy business -- even if they spend as much time as Goldman does talking about its good deeds and famous "business principles." ("Our clients always come first" is famously No. 1 on the list.)


At Goldman and other "too big to fail" banks, though, employees walk through the doors each morning knowing that the rest of us will be forced to bail them out again should another crisis ensue. We taxpayers provide the insurance policy that they enjoy without ever sending us premiums. In October of 2008, Goldman got $10 billion in taxpayer money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which it ultimately paid back.


Blankfein, like other bank CEOs, would later make the case that Goldman wasn't "relying on" that government help.


But leaf through the tomes of some of the regulators who lived through the crisis, and you start to wonder whether our tax-dodging heroes might be out of jobs today if the public hadn't fronted a bailout.


From "Bull by the Horns," by former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Sheila Bair: Goldman and Morgan Stanley were "teetering on the edge" in the fall of 2008.


From "Bailout: An Inside Account of how Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street," by Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general to oversee the Troubled Assets Relief Program: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke "confided that he believed that Goldman Sachs would have been the next to go" after Morgan Stanley.


We need to change the conversation here.


Goldman and its too-big-to-fail brethren are banks that accepted welfare and are in debt to U.S. taxpayers for averting disaster. This hasn't been about hard-nosed capitalism since those first TARP wire transfers made their way into Goldman Sachs' coffers.


As for the bank's recent tax-reduction maneuver, it's another reminder that Goldman's management is either clueless about how bad it looks or doesn't care. Sometimes bad PR is a just a cost of doing business.


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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Susan Antilla.






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Attorney: Poisoned lottery winner's widow has 'nothing to hide'









The widow of a West Rogers Park man who died of cyanide poisoning weeks after winning a $1 million lottery jackpot was questioned extensively by Chicago police last month after the medical examiner's office reclassified the death as a homicide, her attorney told the Tribune on Tuesday.


Authorities investigating the death of Urooj Khan also executed a search warrant at the home he had shared with his wife, Shabana Ansari, according to Steven Kozicki, her attorney. Ansari later was interviewed by detectives for more than four hours, answering all their questions, the attorney said.


"She's got nothing to hide," Kozicki said.





The mystery surrounding Khan's death — first reported by the Tribune in a front-page story Monday — has sparked international media interest.


Cook County authorities said Tuesday that they plan to go to court in the next few days for approval to exhume Khan's remains at Rosehill Cemetery. In a telephone interview Tuesday, Medical Examiner Stephen J. Cina said he sent a sworn statement to prosecutors laying out why the body must be exhumed.


"I feel that a complete autopsy is needed for the sake of clarity and thoroughness," Cina said.


Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office, confirmed that papers seeking the exhumation would be filed soon in the Daley Center courthouse.


Khan, who owned a dry cleaning business on the city's North Side, died unexpectedly in July at 46, just weeks after winning a million-dollar lottery prize at a 7-Eleven store near his home. Finding no trauma to his body and no unusual substances in his blood, the medical examiner's office declared his death to be from natural causes and he was buried without an autopsy.


About a week later, a relative told authorities to take a closer look at Khan's death. By early December, comprehensive toxicology tests showed that Khan had died of a lethal amount of cyanide, leading the medical examiner's office to reclassify the death a homicide and prompting police and prosecutors to investigate.


While a motive has not been determined, police have not ruled out that Khan was killed because of his big lottery win, a law enforcement source has told the Tribune. He died before he could collect the winnings — about $425,000 after taxes and because he decided to take a lump-sum payment.


According to court records obtained by the Tribune, Khan's brother has squabbled with Ansari over the money in probate court. The brother, Imtiaz, raised concern that because Khan left no will, his 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage would not get "her fair share" of her father's estate. Khan and Ansari did not have children.


Al-Haroon Husain, an attorney for Ansari in the probate case, said the money was all accounted for and the estate was in the process of being divided up by the court. Under Illinois law, the estate typically would be split evenly between the surviving spouse and Khan's only child, he said.


Kozicki, Ansari's criminal defense attorney, said his client adored her husband and had no financial interest in seeing harm come to him.


"Now in addition to grieving her husband, she's struggling to run the business that he essentially ran while he was alive," Kozicki said. "Once people analyze it, they (would) realize she's in a much worse financial position after his death than she was before."


Reached by phone Tuesday evening at the family dry cleaners, Ansari denied reports that she had fed her husband a traditional Indian meal of ground beef curry before he died. She said he wasn't feeling well after awakening in the middle of the night. She said he sat in a chair and soon collapsed. She then called 911.


Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, speaking Tuesday at an unrelated news conference, remarked that he had never seen a case like this in 32 years in law enforcement.


"So I'll never say that I've seen everything," he told reporters.


jmeisner@tribune.com


jgorner@tribune.com



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U.S. does not rule out removing all troops from Afghanistan


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration does not rule out a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after 2014, the White House said on Tuesday, just days before President Barack Obama is due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai.


The comments by U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes were the clearest signal yet that, despite initial recommendations by the top military commander in Afghanistan to keep as many as 15,000 troops in the country, Obama could opt to remove everyone, as happened in Iraq in 2011.


Asked about consideration of a so-called zero-option once the NATO combat mission ends at the end of 2014, Rhodes said: "That would be an option that we would consider."


Rhodes made clear that a decision on post-2014 troop levels is not expected for months and will be made based on two U.S. security objectives in Afghanistan - denying a safe haven to al Qaeda and ensuring Afghan forces are trained and equipped so that they, and not foreign forces, can secure the nation.


"There are, of course, many different ways of accomplishing those objectives, some of which might involve U.S. troops, some of which might not," Rhodes said, briefing reporters to preview Karzai's visit.


In Iraq, Obama decided to pull out all U.S. forces after failing in negotiations with the Iraqi government to secure immunity for any U.S. troops who would remain behind.


The Obama administration is also insisting on immunity for any U.S. troops that remain in Afghanistan, and that unsettled question will figure in this week's talks between Obama and Karzai and their aides.


"As we know from our Iraq experience, if there are no authorities granted by the sovereign state, then there's no room for a follow-on U.S. military mission," said Douglas Lute, special assistant to Obama for Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Jeffrey Dressler, an Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War who favors keeping a larger presence in Afghanistan, questioned whether the White House comments might be part of a U.S. bargaining strategy with Kabul.


"I can't tell that they're doing that as a negotiating position ... or if it is a no-kidding option," Dressler said. "If you ask me, I don't see how zero troops is in the national security interest of the United States."


SHOULDN'T JUST "LEAVE THEM"


U.S. officials have said privately that the White House had asked for options to be developed for keeping between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in the country, a lower range than was put forward initially by General John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.


Allen suggested keeping between 6,000 and 15,000 troops in Afghanistan.


Retired General Stanley McChrystal, a former U.S. commander of the Afghan mission who resigned in 2010, said in an interview with Reuters on Monday there was a value to having an overt U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014 - even if it wasn't large.


"The art, I would say, would be having the smallest number so that you give the impression that you are always there to help, but you're never there either as an unwelcome presence or an occupier - or any of the negatives that people might draw," he said, without commenting on any specific numbers.


The United States now has about 66,000 troops in Afghanistan and Rhodes confirmed there would be steady reductions in troop levels through 2014.


Also on the agenda for the Obama-Karzai talks are tentative reconciliation efforts involving Taliban insurgents. Those efforts have shown flickers of life after nearly 10 months of limbo.


Still, hopes for Afghan peace talks have been raised before, only to be dashed. Last March, the Taliban suspended months of quiet discussions with Washington aimed at getting the insurgents and the Karzai government to the peace table.


Washington has also had a strained relationship with Karzai, who in October accused the United States of playing a double game in his country by fighting the war in Afghan villages instead of going after those in Pakistan who support insurgents.


Karzai will give a joint press conference with Obama on Friday and will visit the Pentagon on Thursday, meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the U.S. top military officer, General Martin Dempsey.


Still, it is unclear what, if any, concrete agreements might emerge from Karzai's visit to Washington.


Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at Brookings, cautioned against expecting too much from the visit, which he said is best seen as an opportunity for Washington and Kabul to "shore up this partnership that has had such a troubled status and a weak foundation."


"There are a lot of scars in this relationship. There are a lot of hurt feelings," O'Hanlon said. "It's sort of like a bad marriage and it's very easy for just the wrong word to immediately set people off in an emotional way."


(Additional reporting by David Alexander.; Editing by Eric Beech and Christopher Wilson)



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Wall Street edges off five-year high, awaits earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks lost ground on Monday, as investors drew back from recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high, in anticipation of sluggish growth in corporate profits.


Shares of financial companies dipped after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay a total of $8.5 billion to end a government inquiry into faulty mortgage foreclosures. The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.3 percent.


Other sectors were hit as well, most notably energy and utilities. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 0.8 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.1 percent.


The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high, boosted by a budget deal and strong economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week, the best weekly gain in more than a year.


"It's a little bit of taking some risk off the table ahead of profit season, you're not going to see anything all that great" on earnings, said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.


Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Fourth-quarter earnings growth is expected to come in at 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Aluminum company Alcoa Inc begins the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares fell 1.7 percent at $9.10.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 50.92 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,384.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.58 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,461.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 2.84 points, or 0.09 percent, to 3,098.81.


Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America , Citigroup , JPMorgan , and Wells Fargo - agreed on Monday to pay $8.5 billion to end a case-by-case review of foreclosures required by U.S. regulators.


In a separate case, Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.


The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.


Bank of America shares lost 0.2 percent at $12.09 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings jumped 16.8 percent to $38.83.


Citigroup shares were up 0.09 percent to $42.47, and Wells Fargo shares fell 0.5 percent to $34.77.


"The financials probably have the wind behind them now with a lot of the regulations coming out ... the market has to absorb a lot of the gains, and for that reason there's a pullback from this level," said Warren West, principal at Greentree Brokerage Services in Philadelphia.


Shares of U.S. jet maker Boeing Co dropped 2 percent after a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday morning.


Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.46.


Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 3.4 percent to $99.20 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.


Walt Disney Co stock fell 2.3 percent to $50.97. The company started an internal cost-cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.


Volume was lower than average, as 4.78 billion shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq. This is well below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion per session.


Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,629 to 1,363, while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers 1,438 to 1,066.


(Reporting By Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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'Bama bashes Notre Dame 42-14 in BCS title game


MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Barely taking time to celebrate their latest national championship, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide are ready to get back to work.


That's how they make it look so easy.


In what must be an increasingly frustrating scene for the rest of college football, another season ended with Saban and his players frolicking in the middle of a confetti-strewn field. Eddie Lacy ran all over Notre Dame, AJ McCarron turned in another dazzling performance through the air, and the Tide defense shut down the Fighting Irish until it was no longer in doubt.


The result was a 42-14 blowout in the BCS title game Monday night, not only making Alabama a back-to-back champion, but a full-fledged dynasty with three crowns in four years.


This one was especially satisfying to Saban.


"People talk about how the most difficult thing is to win your first championship," he said. "Really, the most difficult one to win is the next one, because there's always a feeling of entitlement."


Rest assured, that feeling won't last long in Tuscaloosa.


While Saban insisted he was "happy as hell" and "has never been prouder of a group of young men," it was hard to tell. He was already talking about reporting to the office Wednesday morning and getting started on next season.


"One of these days, when I'm sitting on the side of the hill watching the stream go by, I'll probably figure it out even more," Saban said. "But what about next year's team? You've got to think about that, too."


So, in short order, he'll be talking with underclassmen about entering the NFL draft, making sure everyone goes back to class on schedule, and getting started on that next depth chart.


"The Process," as he calls it, never stops.


"We're going to enjoy it for 24 hours or so," Saban said.


No. 2 Alabama quieted the top-ranked Irish on the very first drive — so much for waking up the echoes — and could've started the celebration at halftime, heading to the locker room with a commanding 28-0 lead.


The Tide (13-1) pushed it out to 35-0 midway through the third quarter on the third of McCarron's four touchdown passes, a 34-yarder to Amari Cooper with a defender nowhere in sight.


At that point, Alabama was on a 69-0 blitz in national title games, having scored the last 13 points in its 2010 triumph over Texas and blanked LSU 21-0 for last year's BCS crown.


When Everett Golson finally scored for Notre Dame (12-1) with about 4 minutes remaining in the third, it snapped a scoreless stretch of nearly two full games — 108 minutes and 7 seconds — by the Tide.


"It was just a complete game by the offense, defense and special teams," said Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley, the defensive MVP with eight tackles, one of them behind the line.


Despite the dazzling numbers by McCarron — 20 of 28 for 264 yards — he was denied a second straight offensive MVP award in the title game. That went to Lacy, who finished with 140 yards rushing on 20 carries and scored two TDs. Not a bad finish for the junior, who surely helped his status in the NFL draft should he decide to turn pro.


Lacy also was MVP of the Southeastern Conference championship game, rushing for a career-best 181 yards in the thrilling victory over Georgia that gave Alabama a chance to repeat as champion.


The Tide will have some big holes to fill, no matter who decides to leave school early, with offensive tackle D.J. Fluker and cornerback Dee Milliner also pondering their draft prospects. There's not a lot of seniors on the roster, but All-America linemen Barrett Jones and Chance Warmack and safety Robert Lester are among those who definitely won't be back.


But Alabama had some huge holes to fill a year ago, too, with five players drafted in the first 35 picks.


That worked out just fine.


The Crimson Tide wrapped up its ninth Associated Press national title, breaking a tie with Notre Dame for the most by any school and gaining a measure of redemption for a bitter loss to the Irish almost four decades ago: the epic 1973 Sugar Bowl in which Ara Parseghian's team edged Bear Bryant's powerhouse 24-23.


"The process is ongoing," said Saban, tightlipped as ever and showing little emotion after the fourth BCS national title of his coaching career. "We have a 24-hour rule around here. We enjoy everything for 24 hours."


Notre Dame went from unranked in the preseason to the top spot in the rankings by the end of the regular season, winning two games in overtime and three other times by seven points or less.


But the long wait for a championship — the Irish haven't finished No. 1 since 1988 — will have to wait at least one more year.


"They just did what Alabama does," moaned Manti Te'o, Notre Dame's star linebacker and Heisman Trophy finalist, trying to digest an embarrassing loss in his final college game.


Golson will be back.


He completed his first season as the starter by going 21 of 36 for 270 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. But the young quarterback got no help from the running game, which was held to 32 yards — 170 below its season average.


"We've got to get physically stronger, continue close the gap there," said Brian Kelly, the Irish's third-year coach. "Just overall, we need to see what it looks like. Our guys clearly know what it looks like now — a championship football team. That's back-to-back national champions. That's what it looks like. That's what you measure yourself against there. It's pretty clear across the board what we have to do."


Kelly vowed this was only beginning, insisting the bar has been raised in South Bend no matter what the outcome.


"We made incredible strides to get to this point," he said. "Now it's pretty clear what we've got to do to get over the top."


Alabama is already there but still longing for more, not content even after the second-biggest rout of the BCS era that began in 1999. The only title game that was more of a blowout was USC's 55-19 victory over Oklahoma in the 2005 Orange Bowl, a title that was later vacated because of NCAA violations.


You could almost hear television sets around the country flipping to other channels as Alabama poured it on, a hugely anticipated matchup between two of the nation's most storied programs reduced to a laugher when the Tide scored on its first three possessions.


"We're going for it next year again," said offensive tackle Cyrus Kouandijo, only a sophomore and already the owner of two rings. "And again. And again. And again. I love to win. That's why I came here."


___


Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963


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Analyst cuts ratings for coal cos. on weak demand






NEW YORK (AP) — A Raymond James analyst on Monday cut his ratings for a trio of coal companies, saying that mild winter weather has driven down the price of natural gas and reduced demand for coal.


THE OPINION: James Rollyson said that after a tough 2012, he was originally optimistic about coal company prospects in 2013, as natural gas companies slowed their production growth and natural gas prices began to rise.






Rollyson thought that higher natural gas prices would prompt some utilities to switch from gas to coal, boosting demand for the coal companies.


But while natural gas prices did rise a bit, the number of heating days in in November and December ran about 13 percent below normal and 2 percent below last year’s mild winter. In addition the weather in many parts of the country is expected to remain mild, at least for the near term, further reducing heating demand, Rollyson said.


Natural gas futures prices have fallen from about $ 4 per 1,000 cubic feet in November to $ 3.27 on Monday, a drop of more than 18 percent.


Rollyson said that while natural gas prices, and demand for coal, should still be up from last year’s levels, they won’t be as high as previously expected and will probably delay a recovery in U.S. coal prices.


As a result he cut his ratings for Cloud Peak Energy Inc. and James River Coal Co. to “Market Perform” from “Outperform” and for Consol Energy Inc. to “Outperform” from “Strong Buy.”


THE SHARES: In afternoon trading, Cloud Peak shares fell 33 cents to $ 19.13; James River lost 12 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $ 3.48; and Consol dropped 60 cents to $ 31.83.


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Why Al Jazeera deal doesn't seem right






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Al Gore sold Current to al Jazeera and could net an estimated $70 million

  • Howard Kurtz: Gore's Current network failed to gain an identity or viewers

  • He says it's odd that the former vice president is selling to an oil-rich potentate

  • Kurtz: Al Jazeera may have a tough time getting traction with U.S. viewers




Editor's note: Howard Kurtz is the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and is Newsweek's Washington bureau chief. He is also a contributor to the website Daily Download.


(CNN) -- So Al Gore starts a liberal cable network, which turns into a complete and utter flop, then sells it to a Middle East potentate in a deal that will bring him an estimated $70 million.


Is America a great country or what?


There is something highly unusual -- OK, just plain weird -- about a former vice president of the United States doing this deal with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.



Howard Kurtz

Howard Kurtz



Al Jazeera, owned by said emir's government, is trying to buy its way into the American television market by purchasing Current TV for a half billion dollars. The only thing stranger would be if Gore had sold Current to Glenn Beck -- oh wait, Beck did try to buy it and was told no way within 15 minutes.


So the sale was in part about ideology, which opens the door to examining why Gore believes Al Jazeera gives "voice to those who are not typically heard" and speaks "truth to power."


Bill O'Reilly, on Fox News, calls the network "anti-American." Fox pundit Dick Morris says Gore has sold to a fount of "anti-Israel propaganda." Such labels are rooted in the network's role during the height of the war on terror, when it aired smuggled videos of Osama bin Laden and was denounced by Bush administration officials.


Watch: How Lance Armstrong lied to me about doping



But Al Jazeera English, the spinoff channel launched in 2006, doesn't have the same reputation. In fact, no less a figure than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised it as "real news," and the channel has won journalism awards for its reporting on the Arab Spring and other global events.


To be sure, the main Al Jazeera network gives a platform to such figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He's the Muslim cleric in Egypt who, The Washington Post gas reported, frequently appears on air to castigate Jews and America and has praised suicide bombings. But when I went to the home page of Al Jazeera English the other day, there was video of David Frost, the acclaimed British journalist who now works for the main network, interviewing Israeli President Shimon Peres.




That's not to say Al Jazeera America, the working name for the new channel, won't have its own biases. Al Jazeera English is sometimes determined to paint the U.S. in a negative light.


During a report on President Barack Obama signing a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which entails a legitimate controversy over civil liberties, the reporter said flatly that the law "violate(s) U.S. constitutional rights in the name of national security."


Watch: Can Al Jazeera make it in the American market?


Dave Marash, the ABC News veteran who once worked for Al Jazeera English, told me the network has a "post-colonial" view of America and its stories can be infused with that attitude.


And there are real questions about how independent these channels are from the Qatar government that helps bankroll them. The director-general of Al Jazeera, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, is a member of the country's royal family and has no background in journalism.


Such details add to the odd spectacle of the ex-veep, who would have been running Mideast policy had he won a few more votes in Florida, selling -- and some say selling out -- to the emir. Not to mention that the crusader against climate change is taking petrodollars from an empire built on oil, the bete noire of environmentalists.


Watch: Hey Fox, Hillary Clinton was sick after all


But what is Al Jazeera buying? The network is going to have a tough time cracking the American market.


Its earlier reputation makes the company highly controversial, and other cable carriers might follow the lead of Time Warner Cable (which is no longer owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner) in refusing to carry it. These carriers agreed to air Current TV, after all, and contracts generally require them to approve a major change in programming.


Global politics aside, it may just be bad business. There's a reason Al Jazeera English, which will supply 40% of the content to the new channel, has barely gotten a foothold in the United States. Most Americans aren't lusting for a steady diet of international news.


Watch: Did Nancy Pelosi go too far in photoshopping picture of congresswomen?


There's no denying that Gore, a onetime newspaper reporter who had testy relations with the press during his 2000 campaign, presided over a lousy cable channel. No one quite knew what Current was during the years when it aired mostly low-rent entertainment fare and was famous mainly for North Korea taking two of its correspondents, including Lisa Ling's sister Laura, into custody.


Then Gore tried to relaunch it as a talking head channel to the left of MSNBC, hiring Keith Olbermann -- a relationship that ended with his firing and mutual lawsuits -- along with the likes of Eliot Spitzer and Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan governor. Gore himself offered commentary during major political events.


It was the utter failure of that incarnation of Current that prompted Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt to put the thing up for sale.


Some detractors have slammed Gore for hypocrisy because, while he has advocated higher taxes on the rich, he tried to get the Al Jazeera deal done by December 31 to avoid the Obama tax hike. (The sale didn't close until January 2.) I don't see a problem trying to legally take advantage of changes in the tax code, no matter what your political stance.


Nor do I want to prejudge Al Jazeera America. The marketplace will decide its fate.


But there is something unsettling about Gore making off with such a big payday from a government-subsidized channel after making such bad television. Nice work if you can get it.


Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter


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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz.






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Magical run for Irish ends in rout

Notre Dame lost 42-14 on Monday.









MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — On a flawless South Florida night, Notre Dame players saw a legend emerge in present time. To their bone-deep disbelief, it was not them.


The eruption of streamers and confetti and joy surrounded them, and their shock and desolation filled the spaces in between. A program lost for a quarter-century might not be directionless, but the top looked far away from here.


A moment the Irish believed they were meant to have ended in a quiet walk out of sight and into another year of what might be. Alabama is the national champion, again, the SEC's marauding run extended to a seventh straight year with a 42-14 humiliation of Notre Dame in the BCS title game Monday, the Irish's first loss also their most excruciating.








Most left the field with distant gazes as the Crimson Tide hoisted newspapers with headlines blaring, "BAMA AGAIN." Nose guard Louis Nix limped off slowly. Tailback Theo Riddick pulled a towel over his head to hide his tears, which then burst forth by his locker stall. Across the room, freshman cornerback KeiVarae Russell tried to laugh through crying he couldn't stop.


Twenty-four years since that last title in 1988, wandering through losses and death and empty promise. When everyone saw the light at the end of it all, what they saw was that crystal football hoisted skyward. It remained far, far beyond their grasp at Sun Life Stadium and claimed by a different reborn college football dynasty.


"They're back-to-back national champs," Irish coach Brian Kelly said. "So that's what it looks like. Measure yourself against that, and it was pretty clear across the board what we have to do."


It was an oppressive deluge of unprepared and nerve-racked play from the start, the most yards (529) surrendered by Notre Dame (12-1) all year and the most points ever surrendered by Notre Dame in a bowl game. Eddie Lacy rampaged for 140 yards, AJ McCarron threw for 264 and four touchdowns and Alabama (13-1) did, basically, whatever it wanted.


Alabama players called a meeting shortly after their arrival in Florida, and some mused that it reflected a fracture in the focus of the defending champs. But the stoicism they demonstrated all week turned out to be determination to kick the ever-loving tar out of the nation's No. 1 team.


"We knew one team would break," Alabama defensive end Damion Square said, "and it wasn't going to be us."


It required only five plays for Alabama to find the end zone. Lacy was the sledgehammer, and it was 7-0 after the longest touchdown drive and the first first-quarter touchdown allowed by Notre Dame all season.


The curb-stomping didn't end. McCarron threw a touchdown pass, then set up a T.J. Yeldon score with 25- and 28-yard passes, then dumped a short toss to Lacy that the junior hauled into the end zone. It was a 28-0 lead, arrived at brutally, with special indifference to destiny and fortune.


"They did not dominate us," Nix said. "We just didn't play our ballgame, man. We didn't make tackles. Everything we did or had lined up should have worked."


In whatever context or interpretation, Alabama was destroying everything Notre Dame built over a brilliant season, stomping validation into a million little pieces.


"It felt like we were sinking in quicksand," guard Chris Watt said. "We couldn't get out of it."


It was 35-0 before Notre Dame at last responded with an 85-yard drive to an Everett Golson 2-yard option keeper, ending the Tide's 108-minute shutout streak in BCS championship appearances. When McCarron answered with another scoring toss to Amari Cooper, all that was left was getting out alive and figuring where to go from here.


After that last title in 1988, the pall descended. Lou Holtz left, and then it was Bob Davie and George O'Leary's resume and Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis' decided schematic advantage. Then Kelly arrived, and there was no definable reason to expect a title run to happen this year, and then it did.


It seemed, regardless of the outcome, Notre Dame might be a fully functional college football leviathan humming along. Then came the mighty Tide and a dent in the validation.


So, yes, the Irish making it this far proved a great deal.


"Nobody had us in this position to start the season," said receiver DaVaris Daniels, a bright spot with 115 receiving yards, "and look how far we've come, so quick."


And yet the Irish absorbing such a bracing setback means they must prove so much more.


"At Notre Dame, you're expected to win national championships," Watt said. "A lot of the things we did this season were just unbelievable. Those were all wonderful things. But it doesn't really mean anything when you don't win a national championship. You can't really win anything else here."


So off they went, dazed and empty-handed. All around them the new college football dynasty celebrated. All around them, Notre Dame saw what it desperately wanted to become.


Off they went, into the tunnels, a brilliant season ending well short of legend. And the Irish would do what everyone before them had done for a quarter-century, and wake up in the morning just waiting to get back.


bchamilton@tribune.com


Twitter @ChiTribHamilton





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Afghan peace efforts show flickers of life


WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will discuss matters of war, including future U.S. troop levels and Afghanistan's army, when they meet on Friday, but matters of peace may be the most delicate item on their long agenda.


After nearly 10 months in limbo, tentative reconciliation efforts involving Taliban insurgents, the Karzai government and other major Afghan factions have shown new signs of life, resurrecting tantalizing hopes for a negotiated end to decades of war.


Pakistan, which U.S. and Afghan officials have long accused of backing the insurgents and meddling in Afghanistan, has recently signaled an apparent policy shift toward promoting its neighbor's stability as most U.S. combat troops prepare to depart, top Pakistani and Afghan officials said.


In another potentially significant development, Taliban representatives met outside Paris last month with members of the Afghan High Peace Council - although not directly with members of the Karzai government, which they have long shunned.


U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the developments are promising - but that major challenges remain to opening negotiations, let alone reaching an agreement on the war-ravaged country's political future.


Hopes for Afghan peace talks have been raised before, only to be dashed. Last March, the Taliban suspended months of quiet discussions with Washington aimed at getting the insurgents and the Karzai government to the peace table.


Obama is expected to press the Afghan president to bless the formal opening of a Taliban political office in the Gulf state of Qatar as a way to jump-start inter-Afghan talks.


Karzai has been lukewarm to the idea, apparently fearing his government would be sidelined in any negotiations.


TRIP AT A TURNING POINT


Karzai's meeting with Obama, at the end of a three-day visit to Washington, is shaping up to be one of the most critical encounters between the two leaders, as the White House weighs how rapidly to remove most of the roughly 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and how large a residual force to leave after 2014.


Obama, about to begin his second term in office, appears determined to wrap up U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan. On Monday, he announced as his nominee for Pentagon chief former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who appears likely to favor a sizeable U.S. troop drawdown.


Other issues on the agenda have plenty of potential for causing friction: the future size and focus of the Afghan military; a festering dispute over control of the country's largest detention center; and the future of international aid after 2014.


Karzai's trip "is one of the most important ones because the discussions we are going to have with our counterparts will define the relations between (the) United States and Afghanistan," Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul told the lower house of parliament this month.


No final announcement on post-2014 U.S. troop levels is expected during Karzai's visit, and the issue is further complicated by Washington's insistence on legal immunity for American troops that remain.


General John Allen, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, recommended keeping between roughly 6,000 and 15,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but the White House is considering possibly leaving as few as 3,000 troops.


A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House had asked for options to be developed for keeping between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in the country.


PAST PEACE HOPES DASHED


Last year, the Obama administration hoped to kick-start peace talks with a deal that would have seen Washington transfer five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay prison. In return, the Taliban would renounce international terrorism and state a willingness to enter talks with Karzai's representatives.


That deal never came off, and the question now is whether it, or an alternative peace process, can get under way as the U.S. military presence rapidly winds down.


Looking at developments in the last few months, "you could see that there are things happening," said one U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak for the record.


At the end of 2012, Pakistan released four Afghan Taliban prisoners who were close to the movement's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. It appeared to be a step toward meeting Afghanistan's long-standing insistence that Islamabad free those who could help promote reconciliation. A senior Afghan official welcomed the release.


A member of Pakistan's parliament closely involved in Afghan policy-making said there are signs of a shift in the thinking of Pakistan's powerful military. Some in the military, which has long regarded Afghanistan as a battleground in its existential conflict with rival India, are now saying that the graver threat comes from Pakistan's own militants.


"Yes, there is skepticism. The hawks are there. But the fact is that previously there were absolutely no voices in the army with this kind of positive thinking," the parliamentarian said.


"Pakistan has also realized that there won't be a complete withdrawal of the U.S. from Afghanistan," the lawmaker said. "The security establishment realizes it has to compromise somewhere. Hence the Taliban releases. ... Hence the statements from even the most skeptical Afghan officials that there is a change in Pakistani thinking."


Ghairat Baheer, who represented the Hezb-e-Islami faction at last month's peace talks in the Paris suburb of Chantilly, rejected a continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, but praised the Pakistan prisoner release as a sign of its good intentions.


WAITING FOR THE TALIBAN


After more than a year of frustration, Obama administration officials are skeptical about luring the Taliban to peace talks, citing what appears to be a deep fissure within the movement between moderates who favor entering the political process and hard-liners committed to ousting both NATO troops and Karzai.


The Taliban's lead negotiator, Tayeb Agha, whom the Obama administration regards as a reliable interlocutor, offered to resign last month in apparent frustration, the Daily Beast website reported.


Taliban envoys have yet to meet officially with Karzai's government, and the insurgents demand a rewriting of the Afghan constitution.


"I don't think anyone knows where (reconciliation) stands. And I mean that because there are a lot of reconciliation talks and a lot of games that are being played in a lot of places," said Fred Kagan, a military analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.


"The likelihood of getting an acceptable deal that actually secures our interests is vanishingly small," he said. "But the probability that you could get the deal and have it implemented in time to make this drawdown timeline make sense is nonsense."


(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander in Washington, and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul. Editing by Christopher Wilson)



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Global shares, oil slide, but growth outlook limits falls

LONDON (Reuters) - World equities and oil prices eased on Monday as some investors booked profits after last week's strong gains, but optimism over the global growth outlook limited the falls.


Data from the United States on Friday showed employers kept up a steady pace of hiring in December and its vast services sector was expanding at a brisk rate, while manufacturing surveys pointed to growing activity in China.


This compounded the boost to markets last week when U.S. lawmakers averted a budget crisis, at least for the moment.


"There is a lot of optimism in the market because the U.S. 'fiscal cliff' has been avoided, Europe's debt crisis has eased and the Chinese economy seems to be growing again," said Koen De Leus, senior economist at KBC Group.


The FTSE Eurofirst <.fteu3> index of top European shares was little changed near its 22-month high hit last week, while the MSCI's broad world equity index <.miwd00000pus> dipped 0.1 percent but remained close to an 18-month peak.


Financial shares outperformed the broader market after global regulators relaxed plans for tough new liquidity rules on Sunday. The STOXX 600 European banking index <.sx7p> was up by 1.2 percent.


"The move gives the banking sector some breathing space, which would be good for the economy as a whole," De Leus said.


Brent crude oil futures slipped 40 cents to $110.89 per barrel after rising 0.6 percent last week.


Investors were beginning to look to the first policy meetings of the year at the European Central Bank and Bank of England on Thursday when no rate moves are expected but new euro zone forecasts are due.


Some analysts expect the ECB to point to the chances of an easing in rates early this year, a week after the U.S. Federal Reserve indicated it may pursue less accommodative policies in future. More immediately, the Bank of Japan is set to take major steps to stimulate the country's economy as the new government aims to end deflation and recession.


The possibility of less monetary stimulus in 2013 from the Fed and more from the Bank of Japan sent the dollar to a two-and-a-half year peak against the yen last week but profit taking saw it ease on Monday by 0.5 percent to 87.75 yen.


Against the euro, the dollar gained 0.3 percent to $1.3030.


In the European bond markets German Bund futures rose 0.4 percent after their steep falls last week with investors focused on auctions by Spain and Italy later in the week.


Last week's revelation of a more cautious Fed attitude to further monetary stimulus will put much attention on 10- and 30-year U.S. Treasury debt sales this week.


(Additional reporting by Atul Prakash; editing by David Stamp)



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Here come the big boys


Here come the big boys.


The NFL's wild-card weekend is over, with nary an upset. Moving on are division winners Green Bay, Houston and Baltimore, along with NFC West runner-up Seattle and the only rookie quarterback still standing: Russell Wilson.


Ahead are some daunting challenges as the Ravens visit Denver, the Texans go to New England, the Packers head to San Francisco and the Seahawks journey to Atlanta.


Only the Seahawks-Falcons isn't a rematch.


Seattle isn't intimidated one bit about facing the NFC's top seed.


"Despite the fact that we have a 'nobody' team," Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman said after Sunday's convincing 24-14 comeback win at Washington, "a team not full of first-rounders and things like that, we have a lot of guys that play at a high level."


Of course, so do the Falcons (13-3), Broncos (13-3), Patriots (12-4) and 49ers (11-4-1).


"They have a great coach and a great quarterback and they have great role players on their team," Texans running back Arian Foster said of the Patriots, who routed Houston 42-14 last month. "I have a lot of respect for them, but we can play ball, too."


The Texans beat Cincinnati 19-13 on Saturday, then Green Bay took out Minnesota 24-10. In Sunday's other game, Baltimore eliminated Indianapolis 24-9.


The playoffs continue next Saturday with Baltimore (11-6) at Denver, followed by Green Bay (12-5) at San Francisco. The Broncos beat the Ravens 34-17 three weeks ago, while the 49ers knocked off the Packers 30-22 in the season opener.


On Sunday, it's Seattle (12-5) at Atlanta, followed by Houston (13-4) visiting New England.


___


Ravens at Broncos


Not only is Baltimore thrilled to keep playing and keep star linebacker Ray Lewis' career going, but the Ravens got the opponent they sought for the divisional round.


"I wanted Denver," said Anquan Boldin, who set a franchise record with 145 yards receiving, including the clinching touchdown against Indianapolis (11-6). "Because they beat us. We'll make it different."


Lewis made 13 tackles in his first game back in nearly three months. He ended his last home game in Baltimore before his impending retirement by lining up at fullback for the final kneel-down. Then Lewis went into a short version of his trademark dance before being mobbed by teammates. He followed with a victory lap, his right triceps, covered by a brace, held high in salute to the fans.


Joe Flacco became the first quarterback to win a postseason game in each of his first five seasons and John Harbaugh is the first coach to do so.


"I love our team," Lewis said, "and I'm really looking forward to going out there and playing them next week."


The loss ended the Colts' turnaround season in which they went from 2-14 to the playoffs in coach Chuck Pagano's first year in Indianapolis. Pagano missed 12 weeks while undergoing treatment for leukemia and returned last week.


Andrew Luck completed 28 of 54 passes, the most attempts by a rookie in a playoff game, for 288 yards.


Packers at 49ers


It's been a long time since these teams met on kickoff weekend, and much has changed.


Green Bay has become a bit more balanced on offense and somewhat stingier on defense than it was back in September. San Francisco has second-year quarterback Colin Kaepernick instead of Alex Smith, and receiver Michael Crabtree finally has developed into a threat.


The Packers held league rushing king Adrian Peterson to 99 yards in beating the Vikings (10-7), 100 yards less than he got on them the previous week.


"I don't think we had our identity at that point," QB Aaron Rodgers said of the Packers team San Francisco beat. "We were trying a lot of different things."


Seahawks at Falcons


Atlanta has flopped in its last three playoff games, including losing at home to Green Bay two years ago in a similar scenario.


Seattle won't bring as high-powered an offense as the Packers did to Atlanta, but it's versatile enough with the creative Wilson, bulldozing halfback Marshawn Lynch and a deep group of receivers.


The most significant challenge for the Falcons, though, will be a defense that completely shut down the Redskins and a hobbling Robert Griffin III for the final three quarters of their wild-card game.


Washington (10-7) had 129 yards in the first quarter and 74 for the rest of the game.


"Seventy yards in 3½ quarters is ridiculously good defense," coach Pete Carroll said after his Seahawks won their sixth straight and snapped Washington's seven-game winning streak.


Texans at Patriots


Both teams say the Monday night romp by New England on Dec. 10 is not an indicator of what's ahead. For their sake, the Texans better hope that is true.


"We didn't play our best football up there and we hurt ourselves with penalties and mistakes," said Foster, who rushed for 140 yards and a TD against the Bengals (10-7). "Anytime you give (the Patriots) opportunities, they'll take advantage of them. But we'll play our best up there."


They have no choice, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick fully expects a tighter game.


"When you play a team twice during the season, the games are totally different. They never go the same way," Belichick said. "We'll be able to certainly look at some of the matchups individually, guys that faced each (other) in the game. As far as plays and calls and things like that matching up, I'm sure they'll have some new wrinkles. I'm sure we'll have some, too. It will be totally different."


___


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


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California storm bringing round of odd weather






The latest winter storm to move into California brought some odd weather to the region, including thunderstorms in Northern California and snow in the mountains of Southern California, forecasters said.


Thunderstorms were in the forecast Sunday for the San Mateo and Monterey County coasts, with lightning strikes reported early Sunday, the National Weather Service reported Sunday.






Snow was also expected in some of the higher elevations of the Santa Lucia Mountains, a mountain range that runs from Monterey County south to San Luis Obispo.


In Southern California, the storm dropped snow as low as 3,500 feet early Sunday, and winds with gusts topping out at 50 mph were expected in some mountain areas and in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley. The storm could dump up to four inches of snow before moving out Southern California Monday morning, forecasters said.


Along the beaches, officials were warning about dangerous rip currents and waves as high as 15 feet from Big Sur south to Point Conception in Santa Barbara County.


A high surf advisory was in effect through Monday night for the area.


In the Sierra Nevada, forecasters said snow showers were expected throughout Sunday, with the heaviest snow falling in Mono County, where up to five inches was expected to accumulate.


Near Lake Tahoe, ski resorts in the area were expected see about two inches of new snow, on top of the one or two inches of snow that fell Saturday and early Sunday.


Officials said Sunday that tire chains were required on all vehicles except four-wheel drives on Highway 50 over Echo Summit and on Highway 88 over Carson Pass.


Tire chains or snow tires were also required on a 75-mile section of Highway 395 along the eastern Sierra between Bridgeport and Carson City, Nev.


Weather News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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U.S. isn't ready for superstorms












































Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


Long, slow recovery from Superstorm Sandy


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Police: Good Samaritans foil North Side robbery













Jose Rodriguez, 30.


Jose Rodriguez, 30.
(Chicago Police Department / January 6, 2013)


























































A screwdriver-wielding parolee was tackled by two good Samaritans after he stole a woman's purse in the Lincoln Park neighborhood Saturday night, police said.


About 11:45 p.m., Jose Rodriguez, 30, approached a woman from behind in the 800 block of West Diversey Parkway, the Chicago Police Department said in a news release. 


Rodriguez held an arm around the 29-year-old woman's neck, placed a screwdriver against her torso, and demanded money, police said.





Rodgriguez ran off with the woman's purse shortly after, police said.


A 20-year-old witness took off in pursuit, and when Rodriguez approached a 24-year-old man walking in the opposite direction, the 20-year-old yelled for him to stop the robber, police said.


Together, the men tackled Rodriguez and restrained him until police showed up, police said.


Rodriguez was arrested and charged with armed robbery with a dangerous weapon and a parole violation.


asege@tribune.com


Twitter: @AdamSege






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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by foes


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.


Although the speech was billed as the unveiling of a new peace plan, Assad offered no concessions and even appeared to harden many of his positions. He rallied Syrians for "a war to defend the nation" and disparaged the prospect of negotiations.


"We do not reject political dialogue ... but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don't believe in any language but killing and terrorism?" Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.


"Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?"


It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital's outskirts.


George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did "not even deserve to be called an initiative":


"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he said.


"The appropriate response is to continue to resist this unacceptable regime and for the Free Syrian Army to continue its work in liberating Syria until every inch of land is free."


The speech was seen by many as a response to U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been meeting U.S. and Russian officials to try to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow over a peace plan. Brahimi also met Assad in Syria late last month.


"Lakhdar Brahimi must feel foolish after that Assad speech, where his diplomacy is dismissed as intolerable intervention," said Rana Kabbani, a Syrian analyst who supports the opposition.


The United States, European Union, Turkey and most Arab states have called on Assad to quit. Russia, which sells arms to and leases a naval base from Syria, says it backs a transition of power but that Assad's departure should not be a precondition for any talks.


REPETITIONS


Assad's foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech. "His remarks are just repetitions of what he's said all along," said Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign minister of Syria's northern neighbor and former friend Turkey.


"It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."


The U.S. State Department said Assad's speech "is yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power and does nothing to advance the Syrian people's goal of a political transition".


"His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people," said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.


EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".


The 47-year-old Assad, tall and mustachioed, in a business suit and tie, spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!"


At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling president waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as "martyrs" of the conflict so far.


"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."


Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.


Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could be intended as a show of strength by a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.


Critics saw irony in the venue: "Assad speech appropriately made in Opera House!" tweeted Rami Khouri, a commentator for Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "It was operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building."


DEATHS


The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge in two years of revolts in Arab states.


Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.


But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.


Assad, an eye doctor, has ruled since 2000, succeeding his late father Hafez, who had seized power in a 1970 coup.


The rebels are drawn mainly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls.


The conflict has heightened confrontation in the Middle East between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab rulers, particularly those in the Gulf who are allied with the West against Tehran.


The plan unveiled in Sunday's speech could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.


Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist radicals. Washington has also labeled one of the main rebel groups a terrorist organization and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.


Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with Moscow vetoing U.N. resolutions against Assad.


U.N. mediator Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss his own peace proposal, which does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.


National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni said Assad's speech appeared timed to prevent a breakthrough in those talks, by taking a position that could not be reconciled with diplomacy.


"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.


(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Kevin Liffey)



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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.


Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.


That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.


Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.


In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.


"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.


Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.


U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.


Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.


"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.


Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.


REVENUE WORRIES


One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.


S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.


On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.


For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.


Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.


In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.


"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.


Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.


Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Packers show off depth in 24-10 win over Vikes


GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Deep on offense and scary-good on defense, the Green Bay Packers were way too much for the Minnesota Vikings.


Maybe everyone else in the NFC, too.


Aaron Rodgers, Charles Woodson and the Packers reminded everyone of how dangerous they can be when they're at full strength Saturday night, overwhelming the Vikings 24-10 in an NFC wild-card game that was never really close.


"Our defense played great," Rodgers said. "Our defense tonight played at a championship level and that's what you need in the playoffs."


John Kuhn scored two touchdowns, DuJuan Harris added another and Rodgers connected with an NFL playoff-record 10 receivers as he threw for 274 yards in his first playoff victory at home. Defensively, the Packers (12-5) finally managed to contain Adrian Peterson and were all over Vikings backup Joe Webb, pressed into service because of Christian Ponder's triceps injury.


Peterson was held to 99 yards — an improvement after gaining 199 and 210 in the first two games against Green Bay. It was only the second time in the last 11 games that he was held below 100 yards. Webb, who hadn't thrown a pass all season, was sacked three times and off target all night. His only highlight was a 50-yard scoring pass to Michael Jenkins late in the fourth quarter, but it was far too late for the Vikings (10-7).


"No disrespect to Ponder, but ... it's about one guy and that's Adrian Peterson," said Woodson, who played his first game since breaking his right collarbone Oct. 21. "Our main focus, whether it was Ponder or Webb, was to keep 28 (Peterson) from getting off. And if we were going to keep him from getting off, put the ball in the quarterback's hands, whatever quarterback it was, we felt good about what was going to happen."


With a little over a minute left, Packers fans began taunting the Vikings (10-7) with chants of "Nah-nah-nah-nah ... goodbye." The win snapped a two-game losing streak at Lambeau Field in the playoffs, and sent the Packers to San Francisco next Saturday for an NFC divisional game with the 49ers. The teams met in the season opener, with San Francisco winning 30-22.


"A lot has happened since we played San Francisco," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. "We're a different team."


This was the third game in six weeks between Green Bay and the Vikings, and second in six days. The Packers' loss in Minnesota last weekend cost them the No. 2 seed in the NFC, along with a bye this weekend, and left them looking — dare we say it? — vulnerable going into the playoffs. But with Woodson back and Rodgers having all four of his top receivers for, essentially, the first time since Sept. 30, Green Bay looked like a team that could make the kind of deep run it did two years ago when it won the Super Bowl.


Rodgers used so many different options other NFL quarterbacks must have been drooling. He went with Harris on Green Bay's first scoring drive, mixed it up between James Jones, Tom Crabtree and Greg Jennings on the second, and had 22- and 23-yard completions to Jordy Nelson before Kuhn scored on a 3-yard run that put the Packers up 17-3 just before the half.


And pretty much everyone got in on the fun on the last score, a 12-play, 80-yard drive that chewed up more than 5 ½ minutes. Rodgers connected with Jones on a 19-yard completion to put the Packers in Packers territory, then connected with Harris for 14 yards two plays later to reach the red zone. Rodgers threw incompletes on second and third downs, but just when the Packers thought they'd have to settle for a field goal, the Vikings were whistled for 12 men on the field, giving Rodgers another crack at the end zone.


He found Kuhn for the 9-yard score, and the game was all but over.


"That was tough. We were down seven and they went and scored and they were coming out of the half, too, getting the ball, too, and they got it and scored again," Antoine Winfield said. "Can't do that against the Green Bay Packers."


Harris, who didn't play in the first game against Minnesota this season because he'd only been elevated from the practice squad a day earlier, led the team in receiving (five catches for 61 yards) and rushing (47 yards on 17 carries). Jennings and Jones had four catches each and Nelson had three before hobbling off late in the fourth quarter.


"We have some stuff to work on," Rodgers said. "We've got to help our defense out more, close a team out like that. Tough test next week back in San Francisco."


Hey, at least the Packers are still playing. That's more than the Vikings can say.


Ponder was hurt last weekend when Morgan Burnett slammed into him on a blitz. Though initially thought to be an elbow injury, Ponder said it was actually a deep bruise in his right triceps. It limited his flexibility along with his power and, though it is better, there simply wasn't enough time to recover with the short, six-day turnaround.


After testing the arm before the game, the Vikings decided to go with Webb, whose only playing time this year was a couple of handoffs at the end of a blowout of Tennessee in early October.


"I can play with pain. The biggest thing is the loss of flexibility," Ponder said. "I couldn't get the ball in the position to where I could throw it normally and lost a lot of power and everything. It wouldn't have been wise to play."


It was the first time Buffalo's Frank Reich in 1993 a quarterback had started a playoff game after not starting during the regular season, according to STATS Inc. And, in the first series at least, he seemed to have caught the Packers off guard. That or they were too busy trying to bottle up Peterson, who bulldozed them for 409 yards in their first two games, to pay attention.


With what seemed like every Packers defender focused on Peterson, Webb converted a third-and-3 with a 17-yard pickup. His 5-yard run four plays later put the Vikings at the Green Bay 13. But Webb's first pass of the night went into the ground, and the Vikings were forced to settle for Blair Walsh's 33-yard field goal that gave them a 3-0 lead.


But the Packers quickly settled down and Webb and the Vikings never stood a chance. Especially with Peterson not allowed to roam free as he's done against the Packers in the past.


"The energy level was at an all-time high," Woodson said. "This week, like last week, we buzzed around. But this week we made the tackles, we didn't allow (Peterson) to get through the line of scrimmage and get yards after first contact. We just kept putting heat on them. That was the difference."


Notes: With two sacks of Webb, Matthews joined Reggie White as the only Packers to have two or more sacks in two postseason games. ... Minnesota had 157 of its 324 yards in the fourth quarter, when the game was out of hand. ... Kuhn is the only player in the NFL to score a touchdown in each of the last four postseasons. ... Mason Crosby's 20-yard field goal in the second quarter was his sixth straight in the postseason, a Packers record. ... Vikings S Harrison Smith left the game briefly with a left knee injury, but was able to return. Minnesota coach Leslie Frazier said after the game he was fine.


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