Belinelli scores 17 off bench in Bulls' 87-77 win

Marco Belinelli said he has repeated himself 100 times about how his love of basketball obviously means he would love to play as much as possible.

He got what he wanted Saturday night.

Despite returning to the bench as Richard Hamilton returned from injury to the starting lineup, Belinelli's playing time wasn't diminished much as he scored a game-high 17 points in 33 minutes in the Bulls' 87-77 victory over the Wizards before a crowd of 22,447 at the United Center.

"I think what's more important is confidence in myself," he said. "The first couple of weeks of the season I didn't have much. Now it's different."

The Bulls' belief in Belinelli is better than that. On a night when they shot only 39.1 percent as a team, his 7 of 16 marksmanship was essential.

"I thought Marco was terrific," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. "He has been playing well for a long time. He hit big shots and made big plays."

The Bulls needed a lift after losing back-to-back games. But they still struggled against the Wizards, the NBA's worst team with a 4-24 overall record, 1-13 record on the road.

The Wizards, playing without injured leading scorer Jordan Crawford, shot only 36.5 percent but kept the Bulls within reach most of the game. They led by eight points in the first quarter and trailed only 79-76 with 5 minutes, 19 seconds remaining.

After that, Belinelli hit a 3-pointer and the Bulls locked in defensively, holding the Wizards without a field goal.

"Right now, we're not playing our best basketball, but we just found a way," Joakim Noah said. "It was a good win for us."

Hamilton played after missing 12 games with a torn plantar fascia in his left foot, finishing with nine points in almost 15 minutes.

"I thought he had a pretty good rhythm going," Thibodeau said. "That was a big plus."

Deng also returned from a right ankle injury that he sustained in the Christmas loss to the Rockets. He scored 11 points on 4 of 13 shooting.

The Bulls consider the victory a step forward after losing back-to-back games to the Rockets and Hawks. "The win was huge," Deng said.

Deng sat much of the fourth quarter, but Thibodeau said that was because he liked the lineup he at the time and not because of Deng's injury.

"It's good," Deng said of his ankle. "I'm glad I'm back on the court."

Belinelli's role going forward is undetermined, Thibodeau said. But it's clear he values Hamilton, a 14-year veteran, returning to the court.

"I am not sure yet," Thibodeau said of Belinelli's role. "We are going to go back and forth. 'Rip' was good today, taking everything into consideration. We need his minutes, we need his shots, and we need his points."

sryan@tribune.com

Twitter @sryantribune

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Lakers beat Knicks 100-94 to get to .500

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The pieces of the puzzle that have been the Lakers' confounding season so far are starting to fall into place.

Kobe Bryant engineered a second-half comeback, the defense stepped up, and Los Angeles beat the New York Knicks 100-94 on Tuesday, extending its winning streak to five games.

"We're .500," a smiling Dwight Howard said. "We did it on Christmas, too. I knew this day would come."

Bryant scored 34 points in his NBA-record 15th Christmas Day game and Metta World Peace added 20 points and seven rebounds while defending Carmelo Anthony, whose 34 points led the Knicks. Anthony said he hyperextended his left knee, but expects to play on Wednesday in Phoenix.

Bryant, the league's leading scorer, has topped 30 or more points in nine straight games.

"If you're going to play on Christmas, it's always better to win. Makes it all worthwhile," said Bryant, who would soon hop a flight to Denver, getting there ahead of the Nuggets, who played the Clippers in the other half of the holiday doubleheader at Staples Center.

The Lakers improved to 14-14 — 9-9 under new coach Mike D'Antoni — and upped their holiday record to 21-18, including 13-9 at home. They returned to .500 for the first time since they were 8-8 on Nov. 30.

"It's so early in the season to have turned a corner," Bryant said. "We have everybody in the lineup and we're starting to see how we want to play."

The Knicks controlled most of the game behind Anthony and J.R. Smith, who had 24 points. But they struggled offensively in the fourth, when Anthony was limited to seven points and Smith had five as the Lakers' defense clamped down. World Peace fouled out with 1:58 to play and the Lakers ahead by four.

World Peace credited his defense on Anthony to "old-school basketball."

"I'm back in shape and it's a little tough to guard me," he said.

Steve Nash said: "This is what he's been doing all year. He gets his hands on a lot of balls, pounds on the other team's best guy. You can't win without that type of effort."

Smith's 3-pointer pulled New York to 96-94. After Pau Gasol made one of two free throws, Smith missed another 3 that would have tied the game at 97 with 32 seconds left.

"We missed a lot of easy shots, a lot of little chippers around the basket, shots that we normally make," Anthony said. "There were some plays that we thought should have went our way down the stretch, but for the most part, we fought. I'll take this effort any night. If we continue to play with this effort, we'll win a lot of games."

With Bryant double-teamed, Nash passed to Gasol, who dunked with 12 seconds to go, punctuating a win that sent Lakers fans, frustrated by the team's struggles and coaching change, home happy. The Lakers avenged a 116-107 loss in New York on Dec. 13.

A smiling Howard called Gasol's driving slam "a submarine dunk because he was very low to the ground."

Gasol responded, "I don't dunk as often as I used to so it felt good. I took it right down the lane and finished strong."

Nash had 16 points, 11 assists and six rebounds in his second game in nearly two months. He missed 24 straight games while recovering from a small fracture in his lower left leg. Howard had 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Gasol had 13 points and eight rebounds.

"It was an important win for us as we were a little bit desperate," Nash said. "We've gone through a lot since Mike Brown — new coach, new offense. It's been a difficult transition."

Bryant had eight of the Lakers' first 10 points to open the fourth during a run that provided their first lead since the opening quarter in a game matching the two teams that have played the most on Christmas Day.

They took the lead for good on Bryant's basket with 7:38 remaining. Anthony and Tyson Chandler were in foul trouble in the fourth, with Chandler fouling out late.

"They just were a little bit more aggressive," Anthony said. "Kobe got it going and Steve Nash hit some big shots down the stretch. When you have a guy like Nash doing that, it's kind of tough. Those guys know how to play. They've been waiting for Steve Nash to get back, so it's just a matter of then sticking it out until he did."

The Knicks opened the third on a 15-5 run, with Anthony setting up on the perimeter and hitting two 3-pointers as part of his 10 points that stretched their lead to 61-53. His jumper provided the Knicks' largest lead of the game, 69-60.

Bryant and Nash ignited the quiet atmosphere by leading a 17-9 run that drew the Lakers to 78-77 going into the fourth. They combined to score 15 points, although Bryant missed two free throws to end the third that would have given the Lakers their first lead since early in the game.

The Knicks' earlier roll dissolved in missed shots and a technical on Chandler for arguing a call.

"We were more determined, fought for everything," Nash said about the second half.

World Peace scored 16 points in the second quarter, including eight in a row, when the Lakers played catch-up most of the way. His 3-pointer gave the Lakers their first lead of the period with 1:10 remaining. Smith tied it up with a free throw before Nash's jumper sent the Lakers into halftime leading 51-49.

"We're playing really well together," World Peace said. "Kobe is really playing excellent now. He's still being aggressive on the offensive end, but he's giving everybody a chance to be aggressive. Pau is making strong, aggressive moves."

Bryant scored the Lakers' final nine points of the first quarter to give them a 25-23 lead. D'Antoni's plan of having Darius Morris guard Anthony didn't last long after he scored five of the Knicks' first seven points.

"I thought he'd get warmed up before he started firing," World Peace said.

NOTES: Bryant surpassed Oscar Robertson as the league's all-time Christmas Day scorer with 383 points. Robertson had 377. ... Knicks F/C Amare Stoudemire shot some before the game. He's been out all season after left knee surgery. "I'm not quite there yet, but I'm making progress," he said. "I've just got to stay patient and stay ready. We've been doing extremely intense work, as far as cardio." ... Knicks C Marcus Camby had four points and four rebounds in 8 minutes. He's been sidelined by a sore left foot and barely played this season. ... Asked about Bryant as an MVP candidate, D'Antoni said, "You can't put anybody MVP if you're below .500." ... In their only other Christmas Day meeting in 1963, the Lakers beat the Knicks 134-126 behind 47 points by Jerry West and 27 from Elgin Baylor. ... Nash said the gift bags in their lockers with the tag, "From Kobe Merry Xmas 2012" contained headphones. "Can't ever have enough," he said. ... The Lakers were all in white, while the Knicks were all in orange down to their socks in a color similar to Syracuse. ... Among the celebs holidaying at Staples Center were Rihanna and Chris Brown, Adam Levine, Samuel L. Jackson, George Lopez and Richard Lewis. Vanessa Bryant and her two young daughters sat courtside opposite the Lakers bench.

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Praying Hitler in ex-Warsaw ghetto sparks emotion

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees is on display in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the place where so many Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by Hitler’s regime, and it is provoking mixed reactions.

The work, “HIM” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has drawn many visitors since it was installed last month. It is visible only from a distance, and the artist doesn’t make explicit what Hitler is praying for, but the broader point, organizers say, is to make people reflect on the nature of evil.

In any case, some are angered by the statue’s presence in such a sensitive site.

One Jewish advocacy group, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, this week called the statue’s placement “a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis’ Jewish victims.”

“As far as the Jews were concerned, Hitler’s only ‘prayer’ was that they be wiped off the face of the earth,” the group’s Israel director, Efraim Zuroff, said in a statement.

However, many others are praising the artwork, saying it has a strong emotional impact. And organizers defend putting it on display in the former ghetto.

Fabio Cavallucci, director of the Center for Contemporary Art, which oversaw the installation, said, “There is no intention from the side of the artist or the center to insult Jewish memory.”

“It’s an artwork that tries to speak about the situation of hidden evil everywhere,” he said.

The Warsaw ghetto was an area of the city which the Nazis sealed off after they invaded Poland. They forced Jews to live in cramped, inhuman conditions there as they awaited deportation to death camps. Many died from hunger or disease or were shot by the Germans before they could be transported to the camps.

The Hitler installation is just one object in a retrospective of Cattelan’s work titled “Amen,” a show that explores life, death, good and evil. The other works are on display at the center itself, which is housed in the Ujazdowski Castle.

The Hitler representation is visible from a hole in a wooden gate across town on Prozna Street. Viewers only see the back of the small figure praying in a courtyard. Because of its small size, it appears to be a harmless schoolboy.

“Every criminal was once a tender, innocent and defenseless child,” the center said in a commentary on the work.

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said he was consulted on the installation’s placement ahead of time and did not oppose it because he saw value in the artist’s attempt to try to raise moral questions by provoking viewers.

He said he was reassured by curators who told him there was no intention of rehabilitating Hitler but rather of showing that evil can present itself in the guise of a “sweet praying child.”

“I felt there could be educational value to it,” said Schudrich, who also wrote an introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue in which he says art can “force us to face the evil of the world.”

On Friday, a stream of people walked by to view the work, and many praised it.

“It had a big emotional impact on me. It’s provocative, but it’s not offensive,” said Zofia Jablonska, a 30-year-old lawyer. “Having him pray in the place where he would kill people — this was the best place to put it.”

Cattelan caused controversy in Warsaw in 2000 when another gallery showed his work “La Nona Ora” — or “The Ninth Hour” — which depicts the late Pope John Paul II being crushed by a meteorite. That offended many in Poland, which is both deeply Catholic and was John Paul’s homeland.

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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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FCC acts to expand in-flight Internet service

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski addresses the media at the agency's headquarters in 2010. (Alex Wong/Getty Images / December 28, 2012)

Reuters

3:04 p.m. CST, December 28, 2012

The Federal Communications Commission has cleared the way for wider adoption of in-flight Internet services, aiming to cut by as much as 50 percent the time needed for regulatory approval.

Newly adopted rules should boost competition in this part of the U.S. mobile telecommunications market and promote "the widespread availability of Internet access to aircraft passengers," the FCC said in a statement Friday.

Since 2001, the commission has cleared companies case-by-case to market in-flight broadband services via a satellite antenna fixed to an aircraft's exterior.

Under a new framework, the licensing procedures will be simpler, the commission said.

Airlines will be able to test systems that meet the commission's standards, establish that they do not interfere with aircraft systems and then get approval of the Federal Aviation Administration, the FCC statement said.

The FAA, a Labor Department arm responsible for operating the nation's air traffic control system, said in response that the FCC's effort to establish standards "will help to streamline the process" for airlines to install Internet hookups on planes.

The goal is to speed the processing of applications by up to 50 percent, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a separate statement.

The FCC drive to promote broadband aboard planes does not change a ban on the in-flight use of cell phones, which is tied to concerns about interference with ground stations.

Genachowski earlier this month urged the Federal Aviation Administration to allow more electronics on aircraft.

The FAA announced in August that it was forming a government-industry group to study aircraft operators' policies to determine when portable electronic devices may be used safely during flight.

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Chicago marks 500 homicides

Chicago police investigate the scene of a fatal shooting in the 1000 block of North Lavergne on Chicago's West Side. (Chris Sweda/ Chicago Tribune)

On the surface, Nathaniel Jackson fit the profile of the vast majority of Chicago's homicide victims in 2012 — he had a lengthy arrest record and alleged gang ties.

But when Jackson was shot and killed Thursday night, just months after getting out of prison, he also earned the unfortunate distinction of being the 500th homicide victim in Chicago this year, a grim milestone the city reached for the first time in four years.

While Chicago had almost twice as many slayings 20 years ago as it did this year, the number 500 is a largely symbolic threshold, a reminder of the year's escalated violence and a numerical bar the city had not reached since 513 were killed in 2008.

By mid-November the city already had tallied the most homicides in four years. As of Friday, Chicago had an estimated 17 percent increase in homicides over 2011, and an 11 percent increase in shootings, according to police.

The city's rising homicide tally has been a thorny issue for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police Superintendent Garry McCarthy for much of the year.

"It was a milestone on those days when we had zero murders and zero shootings. Those are milestones. This is a negative one, something that we never wanted," McCarthy told the Tribune Thursday afternoon, hours before Jackson, 40, was killed. "But in perspective, there's no such thing as an acceptable murder number. Even if we cut it down to 300 next year, it's still … unacceptable."

The department went back and forth Friday over whether Jackson was the 500th homicide victim so far this year, at first confirming it and then denying it, saying a homicide last week had been reclassified as a death investigation, therefore making Jackson the 499th homicide. But by late afternoon, the department once again confirmed there had been 500 homicides.

"The city has seen its 500th homicide for 2012, a tragic number that is reflective of the gang violence and proliferation of illegal guns that have plagued some of our neighborhoods," McCarthy said in a statement. "Every homicide in Chicago is unacceptable to me and the hardworking men and women of the Chicago Police Department, who, this year, achieved a record drop in overall crime throughout our city."

Chicago's homicide rate also remains a major issue for Emanuel heading into the new year. Beyond the very real human cost, there's a perception problem for the city.

The homicide rate in Chicago far exceeds the rates in New York City and Los Angeles. While the homicide rate in LA has remained relatively flat and New York's has gone down — homicides there have fallen by more than 20 percent this year — Emanuel, known for carefully trying to craft the narrative of his tenure as mayor, has seen Chicago's violence attract national attention.

The mayor was on vacation Friday with his family but issued a statement to the Tribune:

"Chicago has reached an unfortunate and tragic milestone, which not only marks a needless loss of life but serves as a reminder of the damage that illegal guns and conflicts between gangs cause in our neighborhoods," Emanuel said, adding that his efforts to lengthen the public school day and provide before- and after-school programs for youths were part of the eventual solution.

Emanuel last week also noted that overall crime in Chicago was down about 8.5 percent for the year.

This previous winter was particularly violent. In the first three months of 2012, when the city experienced unseasonable warmth, homicides ran about 60 percent ahead of the 2011 rate. As the year went on, the increase in killings leveled out but still remained higher than in previous years.

In his statement Friday, McCarthy lauded the overall drop in crime in the city and said department efforts resulted in less violence in the latter part of 2012.

"CPD has put the right people in the right places to accomplish our long-term goal of reducing crime and ensuring that our streets and our neighborhoods belong to the residents of this city," McCarthy said in his statement. "Since the gang violence reduction strategy was adopted, we have seen drastic reductions in shootings and homicides that spiked early in the year."

Some within the department feel the disbanding of two specialized units that swooped into "hot spots" to reduce violent crime had a negative impact on this year's rate. After McCarthy was installed last year as the city's top cop, he eliminated those strike forces to move those officers to beat patrols, in the hope they would have more meaningful and positive interactions with the community. The department now uses cops who work all over the city to fulfill the same function as the strike forces, but these "area teams" comprise fewer officers.

McCarthy has blamed the proliferation of guns on Chicago's streets and the splintering of large street gangs into small factions as reasons for the homicide spike.

In October, the Tribune reported that 1 in 4 homicide victims this year were affiliated with the Gangster Disciples, the city's largest street gang, and one also riddled with internal conflict.

Jackson, who authorities described as being affiliated with the Four Corner Hustlers street gang, falls into a category shared by more than 80 percent of Chicago's 2012 homicide victims: those with criminal histories.

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Apple loses another copyright lawsuit in China: Xinhua

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Chinese court has fined Apple Inc 1 million yuan ($160,400) for hosting third-party applications on its App Store that were selling pirated electronic books, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Apple is to pay compensation to eight Chinese writers and two companies for violating their copyrights, the Beijing No.2 Intermediate People's Court ruled on Thursday, Xinhua said.

Earlier in the year, a group of Chinese authors filed the suit against Apple, saying an unidentified number of apps on its App Store sold unlicensed copies of their books. The group of eight authors was seeking 10 million yuan in damages.

"We are disappointed at the judgment. Some of our best-selling authors only got 7,000 yuan. The judgment is a signal of encouraging piracy," Bei Zhicheng, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters.

Apple said in a statement that it takes copyright infringement complaints "very seriously".

"We're always updating our service to better assist content owners in protecting their rights," Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu said.

China has the world's largest Internet and mobile market by number of users, but piracy costs software companies billions of dollars each year.

Apple, whose products enjoy great popularity in China, has faced a string of legal headaches this year. In July, Apple paid 60 million yuan to a Chinese firm, Proview Technology, to settle a long-running lawsuit over the iPad trademark in China.

($1 = 6.2360 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom and Melanie Lee; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Matt Driskill)

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Clippers beat Jazz 116-114 for 16th straight win

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Chris Paul scored 29 points and the Los Angeles Clippers rallied from a 19-point deficit in the third quarter to beat the Utah Jazz 116-114 on Friday night, stretching their winning streak to 16 games.

Ex-Clipper Randy Foye's 3-pointer at the buzzer was contested by Matt Barnes, but no foul was called. Foye finished with a season-high 28 points for Utah.

Paul scored the Clippers' final seven points, most from the free throw line, as Los Angeles extended the NBA's longest winning streak this season.

The Jazz led 74-55 with 8:08 left in the third on a pair of free throws by Paul Millsap. But the Clippers outscored Utah 29-14 the rest of the quarter to pull to 88-84 going into the fourth.

Paul provided the offense with 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting in the third. He added nine points in the fourth and led six Clippers in double figures. Blake Griffin added 22 points and 13 rebounds, and DeAndre Jordan had 16 points and 10 rebounds.

Al Jefferson added 22 points for Utah. Gordon Hayward had 17 off the bench.

The Jazz were handed their first home loss this season on Dec. 3 when the Clippers beat them 105-104. Utah led by as many as 14 in that one before Paul came on strong down the stretch.

This time, Caron Butler's four-point play tied it at 90 with 9:09 remaining.

The Jazz built another five-point lead thanks to a three-point play by Derrick Favors. Los Angeles went on a 7-0 run to surge ahead 109-106, but Jefferson scored four straight to put Utah up 110-109.

Paul made five of six free throws down the stretch, and his 17-footer with 23 seconds left gave the Clippers a 113-110 lead.

Foye countered with two free throws and Jefferson tied it at 114 from the line after grabbing Paul's lone miss in the fourth and getting fouled.

Jefferson, however, was called for a foul of his own as Paul cut inside on a pick. Paul's free throws sealed it with 3.4 seconds left.

The Jazz certainly made the Clippers work for this one. Utah used a 36-point second quarter to turn a seven-point deficit into a 58-48 halftime lead. Jazz reserves did most of the damage.

Alec Burks and Earl Watson pushed the pace, big men Enes Kanter and Favors established their presence inside and Hayward found ways to score after missing his first few shots.

Kanter's block of Ronny Turiaf ignited the crowd. Hayward's 3-pointer tied it at 34 with 7:04 left in the second and he scored 10 points straight for the Jazz, who forced eight turnovers in the quarter and held the Clippers to 37.5 percent shooting.

Foye, who kept Utah close in the first with a 13-point quarter on 4-of-5 shooting, gave the Jazz their biggest lead of the half, 54-41, with two more free throws.

Los Angeles led by as many as eight points in the first as Griffin hit four of his first five shots.

NOTES: An unidentified Jazz employee was disciplined and had his access to the team Twitter account discontinued after what team officials deemed an inappropriate tweet regarding the firing of Nets coach Avery Johnson and Brooklyn's interest in Phil Jackson. The tweet said Jackson only wants "great players," an apparent reference to ex-Jazz point guard Deron Williams, who had criticized Johnson's offense. ... Jazz point guard Mo Williams still has swelling in his sprained right thumb and remains out indefinitely. ... The Clippers got a scare late in the first quarter when Lamar Odom came up limping. He returned in the second and finished with 12 points.

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Fans to join Beyonce onstage at Super Bowl

NEW YORK (AP) — All the single ladies — and fellas — will have a chance to join Beyonce onstage at the upcoming Super Bowl.

Pepsi announced Friday that 100 fans will hit the stage when the Grammy-winning diva performs on Feb. 3 at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet tapping and hip shaking. Those pictures will be used in a TV ad introducing Beyonce’s halftime performance, and 50 people — along with a friend — will be selected to join the singer onstage.

The photo contest — at www.pepsi.com/halftime — ends Jan. 19, but Jan. 11 is the cut-off date for those interested in appearing onstage with Beyonce.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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FCC acts to expand in-flight Internet service

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski addresses the media at the agency's headquarters in 2010. (Alex Wong/Getty Images / December 28, 2012)

Reuters

3:04 p.m. CST, December 28, 2012

The Federal Communications Commission has cleared the way for wider adoption of in-flight Internet services, aiming to cut by as much as 50 percent the time needed for regulatory approval.

Newly adopted rules should boost competition in this part of the U.S. mobile telecommunications market and promote "the widespread availability of Internet access to aircraft passengers," the FCC said in a statement Friday.

Since 2001, the commission has cleared companies case-by-case to market in-flight broadband services via a satellite antenna fixed to an aircraft's exterior.

Under a new framework, the licensing procedures will be simpler, the commission said.

Airlines will be able to test systems that meet the commission's standards, establish that they do not interfere with aircraft systems and then get approval of the Federal Aviation Administration, the FCC statement said.

The FAA, a Labor Department arm responsible for operating the nation's air traffic control system, said in response that the FCC's effort to establish standards "will help to streamline the process" for airlines to install Internet hookups on planes.

The goal is to speed the processing of applications by up to 50 percent, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a separate statement.

The FCC drive to promote broadband aboard planes does not change a ban on the in-flight use of cell phones, which is tied to concerns about interference with ground stations.

Genachowski earlier this month urged the Federal Aviation Administration to allow more electronics on aircraft.

The FAA announced in August that it was forming a government-industry group to study aircraft operators' policies to determine when portable electronic devices may be used safely during flight.

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Gulf War General Schwarzkopf dies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the hard-charging U.S. Army general whose forces smashed the Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War, has died at the age of 78, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

The highly decorated four-star general died at 2:22 p.m. EST (1922 GMT) at his home in Tampa, Florida, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Schwarzkopf, a burly Vietnam War veteran known to his troops as Stormin' Norman, commanded more than 540,000 U.S. troops and 200,000 allied forces in a six-week war that routed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait in 1991, capping his 34-year military career.

Some experts hailed Schwarzkopf's plan to trick and outflank Hussein's forces with a sweeping armored movement as one of the great accomplishments in military history. The maneuver ended the ground war in only 100 hours.

Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, who built the international coalition against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait, said he and his wife "mourn the loss of a true American patriot and one of the great military leaders of his generation," according to a statement released by his spokesman.

Bush has been hospitalized in Houston since late November.

In a statement, the White House called Schwarzkopf "an American original" whose "legacy will endure in a nation that is more secure because of his patriotic service."

PHYSICAL PRESENCE

Schwarzkopf was a familiar sight on international television during the war, clad in camouflage fatigues and a cap. He conducted fast-paced briefings and reviewed his troops with a purposeful stride and a physical presence of the sort that clears bar rooms.

Little known before Iraqi forces invaded neighboring Kuwait, Schwarzkopf made a splash with quotable comments. At one briefing he addressed Saddam's military reputation.

"As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist," he said, "he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want you to know that."

Schwarzkopf returned from the war a hero and there was talk of him running for public office. Instead, he wrote an autobiography - "It Doesn't Take a Hero" - and served as a military analyst.

He also acted as a spokesman for the fight against prostate cancer, with which he was diagnosed in 1993.

Schwarzkopf was born August 22, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., the head of the New Jersey State Police. At the time, the older Schwarzkopf was leading the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh's infant son, one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century.

The younger Schwarzkopf graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1956. He earned a masters degree in guided-missile engineering from the University of Southern California and later taught engineering at West Point.

Schwarzkopf saw combat twice - in Vietnam and Grenada - in a career that included command of units from platoon to theater size, training as a paratrooper and stints at Army staff colleges.

CHESTFUL OF MEDALS

He led his men in firefights in two tours of Vietnam and commanded all U.S. ground forces in the 1983 Grenada invasion. His chestful of medals included three Silver and three Bronze Stars for valor and two Purple Hearts for Vietnam wounds.

In Vietnam, he won a reputation as an officer who would put his life on the line to protect his troops. In one particularly deadly fight on the Batangan Peninsula, Schwarzkopf led his men through a minefield, in part by having the mines marked with shaving cream.

In 1988, Schwarzkopf was put in charge of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, with responsibility for the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. In that role, he prepared a plan to protect the Gulf's oil fields from a hypothetical invasion by Iraq. Within months, the plan was in use.

A soldier's soldier in an era of polished, politically conscious military technocrats, Schwarzkopf's mouth sometimes got him in trouble. In one interview, he said he had recommended to Bush that allied forces destroy Iraq's military instead of stopping the war after a clear victory.

Schwarzkopf later apologized after both Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney fired back that there was no contradiction among military leaders to Bush's decision to leave some of Saddam's military intact.

After retirement, Schwarzkopf spoke his mind on military matters. In 2003, when the United States was on the verge of invading Iraq under President George W. Bush, Schwarzkopf said he was unsure whether there was sufficient evidence that Iraq had nuclear weapons.

He also criticized Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense at the time, telling the Washington Post that during war-time television appearances "he almost sometimes seems to be enjoying it."

Schwarzkopf and his wife, Brenda, who he married in 1968, had two daughters and one son.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta praised Schwarzkopf as "one of the great military giants of the 20th century."

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he "embodied the warrior spirit," and called the victory over Hussein's forces the hallmark of his career.

(Reporting by David Alexander, Ian Simpson and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Stacey Joyce and Todd Eastham)

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Apple CEO's pay takes big hit vs. record 2011 package

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook's 2012 compensation package of $4.17 million is a huge cut on paper for the top executive of the most valuable U.S. corporation, after a 2011 package fattened by more than $376 million in long-term stock awards.

Cook received the largest single pay package awarded to a company CEO in about a decade when he replaced Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in August last year, shortly before the Silicon Valley legend's death in October 2011.

The maker of the iPhone and iPad made the 2012 compensation disclosures in a regulatory filing on Thursday. Cook, 52, has been with Apple since 1998.

Virtually all of Cook's $376 million stock bonus in 2011 was in awards that vest in two chunks - one in 2016 and the other in 2021. This structure was intended to keep Jobs' longtime lieutenant at the helm for many years, as the value of the stock will depend on how well the company is doing in 2016 and 2021.

Cook, who is credited with masterminding a sprawling but efficient Asian supply chain, has generally received high marks for his first year for shepherding several successful gadget launches, including the iPhone 5.

But he was forced to make a public apology in September after the company launched a mapping service application riddled with glaring geographical errors. The Maps app fiasco contributed to the departure of fellow Apple veteran and software chief Scott Forstall.

In addition, some analysts questioned whether Cook, whose only major new product since taking the helm was a smaller version of the iPad that Jobs propelled into the mainstream in 2010, has the vision to produce the next big product category and sustain historically stellar growth for Apple as global mobile competition intensifies.

"The jury is still out in terms of the job he is doing," said fund manager Tim Ghriskey, whose Solaris Group counts Apple stock as the biggest holding among the approximately $2 billion it manages.

But he added that the company's long-term prospects look strong, particularly if it rolls out oft-rumored television products in the next few years.

As of Thursday's close, Apple shares were almost 37 percent higher than when Cook became CEO 16 months ago. However, since a record-high close of $702.10 on September 19, the stock has fallen almost 27 percent.

Ghriskey said Wall Street remained nervous about the growing popularity of Google Inc's Android phone software, used by global smartphone leader Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, and potential margin pressure from that intensifying competition.

BY THE NUMBERS

In terms of base salary, Cook actually received a 50 percent increase to $1.4 million for 2012, and the same 200 percent non-equity bonus other top Apple executives like CFO Peter Oppenheimer earned, Apple said in the Thursday filing ahead of a February 27 shareholders' meeting.

Cook's 2012 package includes a nonequity bonus of $2.8 million.

Despite the increase, Apple said Cook's target annual cash compensation is "significantly below the median annual cash compensation level for CEOs at peer companies." It also said that Cook will not receive any stock awards for 2012.

Cook's latest compensation package also pales in comparison to his package in 2010, when he was chief operating officer. That package was 14 times higher.

A company spokesman would not comment beyond the filing.

Jobs famously received $1 a year in salary in the three years before he stepped down, though in 2000 he too received a stock option that analysts say was valued at almost $600 million at the time.

Looking beyond Apple, Yahoo Inc's CEO, Marissa Mayer, a former Google Inc high-flyer hired this year to try to turn around the struggling Internet icon, won a pay package worth more than $70 million. [ID:nL1E8LJJB5] Despite her lack of a track record as CEO and Yahoo's tiny size in comparison, her basic pay is comparable to Cook's, with about $1 million in annual salary and up to $2 million in an annual bonus.

Oracle Corp's Larry Ellison, one of the most highly paid U.S. chief executives - and also the world's sixth-richest man, according to Forbes - received total compensation for the year ended May 31, 2012, of $96.2 million - almost all of it in stock options. That compared with $77.6 million in 2011.

According to a study of the Fortune 500 conducted by Forbes this year, CEOs were paid a base salary of $1.1 million in 2011 on average, with the mean annual bonus at $2.4 million and average total compensation - including stock awards - at around $17 million.

Apple shares closed up 0.4 percent at $515.06 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew and Liana Baker in New York, Jim Finkle and Tim McLaughlin in Boston and Edwin Chan in San Francisco; editing by Kenneth Barry and Matthew Lewis)

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Net loss: Brooklyn fires coach Avery Johnson

NEW YORK (AP) — Coach of the month in November, out of a job by New Year's.

The Brooklyn Nets have elevated expectations this season, and a .500 record wasn't good enough. Coach Avery Johnson was fired Thursday, his team having lost 10 of 13 games after a strong start to its first season in Brooklyn.

"We don't have the same fire now than we did when we were 11-4," general manager Billy King said at a news conference in East Rutherford, N.J. "I tried to talk to Avery about it and we just can't figure it out. The same pattern kept on happening."

Assistant P.J. Carlesimo will coach the Nets on an interim basis, starting Friday night with a home game against Charlotte. King said the Nets might reach out to other candidates, but for now the job was Carlesimo's. The GM wouldn't comment on a report that the team planned to get in touch with former Lakers coach Phil Jackson.

King said the decision to dismiss Johnson was made by ownership after a phone discussion Thursday morning. Owner Mikhail Prokhorov had expressed faith in Johnson before the season.

"With the direction we were going we felt we had to make a change," King said.

Johnson was in the final year of a three-year, $12 million contract.

"It's a really disappointing day for me and my family. It's my wife's birthday. It's not a great birthday gift," Johnson said. "I didn't see this coming. But this is ownership's decision. It's part of the business. Fair or unfair, it's time for a new voice and hopefully they'll get back on track."

The Nets have fallen well behind the first-place New York Knicks, the team they so badly want to compete with in their new home. But after beating the Knicks in their first meeting Nov. 26, probably the high point of Johnson's tenure, the Nets went 5-10 and frustrations have been mounting.

"Our goal is to get to the conference finals," King said. "We started out good and then we stumbled. We have to get back to playing winning basketball. It's the entire team. It's not like golf, where Tiger Woods can blame the caddie. It takes five guys on the court and they're all struggling. We have to figure out the ways to get back to winning. I don't know what happened. I'm not sure. But unfortunately, it did happen."

The Nets were embarrassed by Boston on national TV on Christmas, then were routed by Milwaukee 108-93 on Wednesday night for their fifth loss in six games.

Star guard Deron Williams recently complained about Johnson's offense, and Nets CEO Brett Yormark took to Twitter after the loss to Celtics to voice his displeasure with the performance.

King said the change was not made because Williams was unhappy, and he added the point guard himself has to play better.

Johnson also stood by Williams.

"From Day One, I always had a really good relationship with him. I don't think it's fair for anyone to hang this on Deron," Johnson said. "We were just going through a bad streak, a bad spell. It's not time for me to be down on one player. That would be the easy way."

Brooklyn started the season 11-4, winning five in a row to end November, when Johnson was Eastern Conference coach of the month. But he couldn't do anything to stop this slump, one the Nets never anticipated after a $350 million summer spending spree they believed would take them toward the top of their conference.

Johnson has been the Nets' coach for a little more than two seasons. He went 60-116 with the Nets, who moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn to start the season. Johnson coached the Dallas Mavericks to a spot in the NBA Finals in 2006.

"You don't always get a fair shake as a coach," Johnson said. "I'm not the owner. If I were the owner, I wouldn't have fired myself today. But life is not always necessary fair. It's a business and in this business, the coach always gets blamed."

This is the NBA's second coaching change this season following the dismissal of Mike Brown by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Johnson arrived in New Jersey with a 194-70 record, a .735 winning percentage that was the highest in NBA history, but had little chance of success in his first two seasons while the Nets focused all their planning on the move to Brooklyn.

They looked to make a splash this summer when they re-signed Williams and fellow starters Gerald Wallace, Brook Lopez and Kris Humphries, traded for Atlanta All-Star Joe Johnson, and added veteran depth with players such as Reggie Evans, C.J. Watson and Andray Blatche.

Johnson didn't have a contract beyond this season but seemed to have the confidence of Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who before the season said he had faith in "the Avery defense system."

Some thought the Nets would finish as high as second in the East behind defending champion Miami, and the predictions seemed warranted when the Nets started quickly amid much fanfare. But all the good publicity faded in recent weeks once the losing started.

Williams, who has struggled this season, stirred the waters when he expressed his preference for the offense he ran under Jerry Sloan in Utah before a loss to the Jazz. Williams and Johnson, nicknamed "Brooklyn's Backcourt" and expected to be one of the best in the NBA, have shot poorly and rarely meshed.

The Nets were embarrassed near the end of their 93-76 loss to Boston, when fans exited early amid a chant of "Let's go Celtics!"

"Nets fans deserved better," Yormark tweeted after the game. "The entire organization needs to work harder to find a solution. We will get there."

Not under Johnson, though.

The Nets should be able to entice a big-name coach with Prokhorov's billions and the chance to play in a major market at Barclays Center, the $1 billion arena that has drawn praise in the city and from visiting teams.

Carlesimo has previous NBA head coaching experience in Portland, Golden State and Seattle/Oklahoma City. He has a career coaching record of 204-296 in the regular season and 3-9 in the playoffs.

"Right now, P.J. is our coach and I told him to coach the team like he'll be here for the next 10 years," King said.

___

AP Sports Writer Tom Canavan in East Rutherford and AP freelancer Jim Hague contributed to this report.

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Elvis Presley, The Beatles top list of most-forged autographs

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Elvis Presley and The Beatles top the list of most-forged celebrity signatures in 2012, with less than half of their autographs for sale certified as genuine, memorabilia authenticators PSA/DNA said on Thursday.

The King and The Fab Four British rockers, who topped the list two years ago when it was last released, joined notable figures such as former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and late pop star Michael Jackson on the list of most-forged celebrity signatures.

Late American astronaut Neil Armstrong landed at No. 3 on the list, after fake Armstrong signatures rose significantly after his death in July.

One reason forgeries of Armstrong’s autograph soared was that he rarely signed for fans during his life, Joe Orlando, president of Newport Beach-based PSA/DNA, told Reuters.

“Armstrong is someone who is very conscious of the value of his own autograph,” Orlando said. “Even before he passed away he was very tough to get…It really heightens the level of his market.”

Secretaries and assistants responding to huge volumes of fan mail are one reason for fake signatures floating through the marketplace, said Margaret Barrett, director of entertainment and music memorabilia at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles.

“Back in the day, the kids would write to the movie studios,” Barrett said.

“There was absolutely no financial gain 50 years ago and secretaries and assistants just wanted to make them happy. A lot of times people stumble upon an old box of signed photographs in grandma’s attic and don’t know they’re forged.”

Barrett, whose specialty is late Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe’s autographs, said that official documents such as contracts and checks are reliable sources to verify whether or not a signature is forged.

“A good rule of thumb is to compare it a signed contract,” she said. “Sometimes (celebrities) would have secretaries or other sign photos and letters but they couldn’t have a contract signed by a proxy.”

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Katie Holmes' Broadway play 'Dead Accounts' closes

NEW YORK (AP) — Katie Holmes' return to Broadway will be much shorter than she would have liked.

The former Mrs. Cruise's play "Dead Accounts" will close within a week of the new year. Producers said Thursday that Theresa Rebeck's drama will close on Jan. 6 after 27 previews and 44 performances.

The show, which opened to poor reviews on Nov. 29, stars Norbert Leo Butz as Holmes' onstage brother who returns to his Midwest home with a secret. Rebeck created the first season of NBC's "Smash" and several well-received plays including "Seminar" and "Mauritius."

Holmes, who became a star in the teen soap opera "Dawson's Creek," made her Broadway debut in the 2008 production of "All My Sons." She was married to Tom Cruise from 2006 until this year.

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Online: http://www.deadaccountsonbroadway.com

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McCormick Place development fight held over to 2013

The lengthy battle for control over property slated for hotel development adjacent to McCormick Place will extend into 2013 after a federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday gave the long-time property owners more time to show their plans have financial viability.

Judge Jack Schmetterer this month had given Olde Prairie Block Owner LLC until Thursday to show him it had plausible plans to repay its lenders, chief among them CenterPoint Properties Trust.

Olde Prairie, whose principals include Pamela Gleichman, her husband, Karl Norberg, and Gunnar Falk, have proposed selling portions of the properties for hotel development, with two deals projected to bring in $180 million. The developers said this would be sufficient to pay back lenders in full and develop the properties.

The lender, CenterPoint Properties Trust, contends the plan is not financially viable, in part because the sales agreements contained contingencies. As well, it argued that the structure of the deals would not provide sufficient funds to fully repay lenders.

Schmetterer gave Olde Prairie until Jan. 10 to show the potential buyer of the larger parcel had a firm financing commitment. He also is seeking greater clarity in the sales contract language.

The case has been closely watched because it involves parcels long eyed for development linked to McCormick Place. Speculation has swirled around possibilities,from hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues, including a possible casino, to an arena that could host the DePaul men's basketball team as well as corporate and religious assemblies.

The properties include a 3.67-acre parcel at 330 E. Cermak Rd., directly north of the administrative offices of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, and a 1.23-acre parcel directly west of it at 230 E. Cermak, across the street from the center's West Building.

The authority, known as McPier, this month purchased a separate parcel on the 230 E. Cermak block, with an eye toward gathering enough property to expand hotel, restaurant and entertainment amenities near the convention campus.

kbergen@tribune.com

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Parking meter rates to rise again

In an annual ritual that has become as predictable if not as joyous as a New Year’s Eve countdown to midnight, Chicago drivers again will have to dig a little deeper to pay to park at meters in 2013.

Loop rates will go up 75 cents to $6.50 an hour as part of scheduled fee increases included in Mayor Richard Daley’s much-criticized 2008 lease of the city’s meters to Chicago Parking Meters LLC.

Paid street parking in neighborhoods near the Loop will rise 25 cents and reach $4 an hour. Metered spaces in the rest of Chicago also will increase by a quarter per hour, to $2, according to the company.

Come the new year, workers will begin adjusting the now-familiar pay boxes to reflect the new rates in the Loop, from there working outward into the neighborhoods, the company said in a news release Wednesday.

Chicago Parking Meters hopes to have all the meters set to the new rates by the end of February, and drivers won’t have to pay the steeper rate until the box they’re using has been changed.

This is the last of the explicitly defined yearly meter jumps included in the company’s 75-year, $1.15 billion lease. But Chicago drivers shouldn’t expect the cost of parking to level out — starting in 2014, prices can be adjusted annually using a formula tied to the rate of inflation.

Daley’s parking meter deal has become something of a political boogeyman in Chicago over the years.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has opted to bash it, talking occasionally about the bad deal reached by his predecessor and saying he won’t simply pay up when the company hands the city invoices for lost meter revenue due to street closures and other reasons.

The city's unpaid tab for lost parking meter revenue now tops $61 million as Emanuel disputes bills the company has sent. It’s unclear how much the city will be able to knock off that total.

Some aldermen, stung by constituents’ criticism of their overwhelming support of the meter lease barely two days after Daley handed them the proposal, have called on Emanuel to give them more time to consider far-reaching deals. Still, Emanuel’s digital billboard agreement quickly sailed through the council 43-6 this month despite opponents drawing comparisons to the parking meter deal.

Most parking meters in Chicago neighborhoods cost 25 cents an hour after the City Council approved the meter lease by a  40-5 vote in December 2008.

Neighborhood meters went up to $1 an hour in January 2009 and have increased each year since, along with those downtown.

jebyrne@tribune.com
Twitter @_johnbyrne

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Analysis: Amazon's Christmas faux pas shows risks in the cloud

(Reuters) - A Christmas Eve glitch traced to Amazon.com Inc that shuttered Netflix for users from Canada to South America highlights the risks that companies take when they move their datacenter operations to the cloud.

While the high-profile failure - at least the third this year - may cause some Amazon Web Services customers to consider alternatives, it is unlikely to severely hurt a fast-growing business for the cloud-computing pioneer that got into the sector in 2006 and has historically experienced few outages.

"The benefits still outweigh the risks," said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.

"When it comes to the cloud, Amazon has got it right."

The latest service failure comes at a critical time for Amazon, which is betting that AWS can become a significant profit generator even if the economy continues to stagnate. Moreover, it is increasingly targeting larger corporate clients that have traditionally shied away from moving critical applications onto AWS.

AWS, which Amazon started more than six years ago, provides data storage, computing power and other technology services from remote locations that group thousands of servers across areas than can span whole football fields. Their early investment made it a pioneer in what is now known as cloud computing.

Executives said last month at an Amazon conference in Las Vegas they could envision the division, which lists Pinterest, Shazam and Spotify among its fast-growing clients, becoming its biggest business, outpacing even its online retail juggernaut. Evercore analyst Ken Sena expects AWS revenue to jump 45 percent a year, from about $2 billion this year to $20 billion in 2018.

The service has boomed because it is cheap, relatively easy to use, and can be shut off, scaled back or ramped up quickly depending on companies' needs. As the longest-running player in the game, Amazon now boasts the widest array of datacenter products and services, plus a broader stable of clients than rivals like Google Inc, Rackspace Inc and Salesforce.com Inc.

Outages such as the one that took down Netflix and other websites on the eve of one of the biggest U.S. holidays are part and parcel of the nascent business, analysts say. Moreover, outages have been a problem long before the age of cloud computing, with glitches within corporate datacenters and telecommunications hubs triggering myriad service disruptions.

COMING SOON: POST-MORTEM

Amazon's latest service failure comes months after two high-profile outages that hit Netflix and other popular websites such as photo-sharing service Instagram and Pinterest. Industry executives, however, say its downtimes tend to attract more attention because of its outsized market footprint.

Netflix - which CEO Reed Hastings said relies on AWS for 95 percent of its datacenter needs - would not comment on whether they were pondering alternatives. Analysts say the video streaming giant is unlikely to try a large-scale switch, partly because all cloud providers experience outages.

"Despite a steady stream of these service outages, the demand for cloud services offered by AWS, Google, etc. continues to escalate because these services are still reliable enough to satisfy customer expectations," said Jeff Kaplan, managing director of consultancy ThinkStrategies Inc.

"They offer cost-savings and elasticities that are too attractive for companies to ignore."

But "Netflix and other organizations which rely on AWS will have to reexamine how they configure their services and allocate their service requirements across multiple providers to mitigate over-dependency and risks."

AWS spokeswoman Rena Lunak said the outage was traced to a problem affecting customers at its oldest data center, run out of northern Virginia, which was linked also to the June failure.

The latest glitch involved a service known as Elastic Load Balancing, which automatically allocates incoming Web traffic across multiple servers in order to boost the performance of a website. She declined to provide further details about the outage, saying the company would be publishing a full post-mortem within days.

AWS has traditionally been used by start-up tech companies and smaller businesses that anticipate rapid growth in online traffic but are unwilling or unable to shell out on IT equipment and management upfront.

The company has more recently started winning more and more business from larger corporations. It has also set up a unit that caters to government agencies.

Regardless, Amazon's clientele would do well not to put all their eggs in one basket, analysts say.

"Service outages do occur, but they are not common enough to cause users of these services to abandon today's Cloud service providers at significant rates. In fact, every major Cloud service provider has experienced outages," Kaplan said.

"Therefore, organizations that rely on these services are putting backup and recovery systems and protocols in place to mitigate the risks of future outages."

(Additional reporting; editing by Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)

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