Jail escapee appears in court, is ordered held without bond

Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Meisner on the recent arrest of Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber who escaped from federal jail in December. (Posted on: Jan. 4, 2013.)









Escaped bank robber Kenneth Conley is being held in custody without bond after appearing in federal court this morning.


Conley, who was wheeled into court in a wheelchair, waived his right to a bond hearing and was ordered by U.S. District Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan to remain in federal custody without bond. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. Jan. 17 in front of Judge Finnegan.


The maximum penalty for escape is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to federal officials. The maximum penalty for bank robbery is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.








The spectacular jailbreak — the first at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in almost 30 years — embarrassed federal authorities and seemed to be meticulously planned. Conley, 38, and Joseph "Jose" Banks, 37, rappelled to freedom using a rope fashioned from bedsheets. But like Banks, who was arrested two days after the escape in the North Side neighborhood where he was raised, Conley had no apparent plan for life on the run and was found holed up in an area where he had known ties.


Palos Hills police said a maintenance worker at a building in the 10200 block of South 86th Terrace called police about 3:30 p.m. to report the "suspicious person" who might be sleeping at the premises. Officers arrived to find a man walking down the street in an overcoat and pretending to use a cane. He appeared to be trying to look older than his actual age, police said.


"Our officers stopped to talk to him and he said he was just visiting," Deputy Chief James Boie told the Tribune. "He gave them a phony name, and while they're trying to run the information, he got wise that they were going to figure it out, and he pushed one of the officers down and took off running."


Boie said two additional officers responding to the scene caught Conley about a block away as he was trying to force his way into the Scenic Tree apartment complex, which is across the street from the police headquarters. He was wrestled down but did not offer any other resistance. Conley and one officer were taken to Palos Community Hospital for observation, he said.


Police found a BB pistol in Conley's pocket. He had no cash or other weapons, Boie said.


According to court records, Conley once lived in an apartment near the scene of his arrest. Boie said Conley was known to Palos Hills police because he'd had multiple resisting and obstructing arrests in 2004.


Conley, 38, was awaiting sentencing for a single bank holdup when authorities said he and Banks removed a cinder block from their cell wall and scaled down about 15 stories of the sheer wall of the jail, located at 71 W. Van Buren Street, early on Dec. 18.


The cellmates were last accounted for during a routine bed check, authorities said. About 7 a.m. the next day, jail employees arriving for work saw the bedsheets dangling from a hole in the wall down the south side of the facade.


The FBI said a surveillance camera a few blocks from the jail showed the two wearing light-colored clothing hailing a taxi at Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue about 2:40 a.m. They also appeared to be wearing backpacks, according to the FBI.


A high-ranking employee in the facility told the Tribune last month that video surveillance had captured the men making their descent but that the guard who was supposed to be watching the video monitors for suspicious activity might have been called away on other duties.


In the hours after they were discovered missing, Conley and Banks were traced to the southwest suburbs where Conley's family lives.


A brother of Conley's who asked that his name not be printed told the Tribune last month that a short time after the escape, Conley and Banks arrived at the family home in Tinley Park pounding on the door. Conley came in looking frazzled, claiming he had been freed on bond, the brother said. He said their mother gave him a winter coat and turned him away.


Banks was arrested Dec. 20 after an informant led authorities to the home of a boyhood friend of Banks' in the 2300 block of North Bosworth Avenue, less than five miles from the jail.


Meanwhile, Conley tasted two more weeks of freedom but did not get much farther. His arrest was just over 21 miles from the downtown jail.


According to court records, Conley has a long criminal history. He has been convicted in Cook County of offenses ranging from retail theft to weapons violations and was sentenced to eight years in prison for an armed robbery in 1996. He also was sentenced to six years in prison in San Diego County for petty theft with a prior conviction, according to California records.


Less than a year after his parole in 2010, Conley robbed a bank in suburban Homewood of less than $4,000 cash, the heist that landed him in the federal lockup.


Conley's mother, Sandra, answered the phone at her Tinley Park home Friday and said she had heard of her son's arrest but had no details or comment.


"I'm just glad it's over. That's my only comment," she said.


asweeney@tribune.com


Twitter: @Annie1221





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The Secret iPad List to Bring Down Boehener






When the failed House Republican revolution came, it came by iPad. Now that House Speaker John Boehner has survived the rebellion, all of D.C. now knows which conservative House members were conspiring to mount a challenge, thanks to a list that one of the coup’s leaders brandished on the House floor during the vote.


RELATED: United Nation Fights the ‘Asshole Factor’






A Politico photographer captured Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas (pictured above), who Boehner had removed from a committee for refusing to cooperate, tapping his iPad during the roll call, checking off a list of names of other Congressmen he thought might join him in voting against Boehner. The list was titled, appropriately, “You would be fired if this goes out,” Politico’s Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan report. They hedge, “It’s not clear that any of the Republicans on Huelskamp’s list knew they were on it, or even knew of the list’s existence,” but let’s look at who were at least expected to vote against Boehner:


RELATED: Boehner Puts Down House Republican Coup


  • Steve King of Iowa

  • Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming

  • Paul Gosar of Arizona

  • Scott Garrett of New Jersey

  • Steve Fincher of Tennessee

  • Scott Desjarlais of Tennessee

Earlier this week, outgoing Louisiana Rep. Jeff Landry bragged to Breitbart News that the anti-Boehner ranks were 17 to 20 members strong, though in the end, only nine voted against their speaker, while two didn’t vote, and one voted present. Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle reports on Friday that there were several more names on Huelskamp‘s list:


RELATED: Boehner Was Afraid Issa Would Go Full Pumpkin-Shooter on His Holder Probe


  • Jeff Duncan of South Carolina

  • Mo Brooks of Alabama

  • Sam Graves of Missouri

  • Steve Southerland of Florida

  • Trey Gowdy of South Carolina

  • David Schweikert of Arizona

  • Tom Cotton of Arkansas

  • Brett Guthrie of Kentucky

Perhaps Huelskamp anticipated some would chicken out, since if some poor aide risked being “fired” for the list getting out, surely a House member might fear the wrath of Boehner for actually voting against him.


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Boyz II Men to Vegas for extended gig at the Mirage






(Reuters) – One-time boy band Boyz II Men is Vegas-bound for an extended stay at the Mirage hotel and casino, the group said on Friday.


The Grammy-award winning R&B trio will begin performances on March 1, with 78 shows slated through December 2013.






“We’ve been dreaming of this day since we performed an extended holiday show two years ago in Las Vegas,” said founding member Nathan Morris in a statement, adding “we can’t wait to take the stage in March and be a part of the Las Vegas community.”


Formed in 1990 and known for hits including “I’ll Make Love To You” and “End of the Road,” the group includes tenors Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman, in addition to baritone Morris.


With more than 60 million albums sold, it is reportedly the best-selling R&B group of all time.


(Reporting by Chris Michaud, editing by Jill Serjeant and Sandra Maler)


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The New Old Age: Murray Span, 1922-2012

One consequence of our elders’ extended lifespans is that we half expect them to keep chugging along forever. My father, a busy yoga practitioner and blackjack player, celebrated his 90th birthday in September in reasonably good health.

So when I had the sad task of letting people know that Murray Span died on Dec. 8, after just a few days’ illness, the primary response was disbelief. “No! I just talked to him Tuesday! He was fine!”

And he was. We’d gone out for lunch on Saturday, our usual routine, and he demolished a whole stack of blueberry pancakes.

But on Wednesday, he called to say he had bad abdominal pain and had hardly slept. The nurses at his facility were on the case; his geriatrician prescribed a clear liquid diet.

Like many in his generation, my dad tended towards stoicism. When he said, the following morning, “the pain is terrible,” that meant agony. I drove over.

His doctor shared our preference for conservative treatment. For patients at advanced ages, hospitals and emergency rooms can become perilous places. My dad had come through a July heart attack in good shape, but he had also signed a do-not-resuscitate order. He saw evidence all around him that eventually the body fails and life can become a torturous series of health crises and hospitalizations from which one never truly rebounds.

So over the next two days we tried to relieve his pain at home. He had abdominal x-rays that showed some kind of obstruction. He tried laxatives and enemas and Tylenol, to no effect. He couldn’t sleep.

On Friday, we agreed to go to the emergency room for a CT scan. Maybe, I thought, there’s a simple fix, even for a 90-year-old with diabetes and heart disease. But I carried his advance directives in my bag, because you never know.

When it is someone else’s narrative, it’s easier to see where things go off the rails, where a loving family authorizes procedures whose risks outweigh their benefits.

But when it’s your father groaning on the gurney, the conveyor belt of contemporary medicine can sweep you along, one incremental decision at a time.

All I wanted was for him to stop hurting, so it seemed reasonable to permit an IV for hydration and pain relief and a thin oxygen tube tucked beneath his nose.

Then, after Dad drank the first of two big containers of contrast liquid needed for his scan, his breathing grew phlegmy and labored. His geriatrician arrived and urged the insertion of a nasogastric tube to suck out all the liquid Dad had just downed.

His blood oxygen levels dropped, so there were soon two doctors and two nurses suctioning his throat until he gagged and fastening an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

At one point, I looked at my poor father, still in pain despite all the apparatus, and thought, “This is what suffering looks like.” I despaired, convinced I had failed in my most basic responsibility.

“I’m just so tired,” Dad told me, more than once. “There are too many things going wrong.”

Let me abridge this long story. The scan showed evidence of a perforation of some sort, among other abnormalities. A chest X-ray indicated pneumonia in both lungs. I spoke with Dad’s doctor, with the E.R. doc, with a friend who is a prominent geriatrician.

These are always profound decisions, and I’m sure that, given the number of unknowns, other people might have made other choices. Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide; I could ask my still-lucid father.

I leaned close to his good ear, the one with the hearing aid, and told him about the pneumonia, about the second CT scan the radiologist wanted, about antibiotics. “Or, we can stop all this and go home and call hospice,” I said.

He had seen my daughter earlier that day (and asked her about the hockey strike), and my sister and her son were en route. The important hands had been clasped, or soon would be.

He knew what hospice meant; its nurses and aides helped us care for my mother as she died. “Call hospice,” he said. We tiffed a bit about whether to have hospice care in his apartment or mine. I told his doctors we wanted comfort care only.

As in a film run backwards, the tubes came out, the oxygen mask came off. Then we settled in for a night in a hospital room while I called hospices — and a handyman to move the furniture out of my dining room, so I could install his hospital bed there.

In between, I assured my father that I was there, that we were taking care of him, that he didn’t have to worry. For the first few hours after the morphine began, finally seeming to ease his pain, he could respond, “OK.” Then, he couldn’t.

The next morning, as I awaited the hospital case manager to arrange the hospice transfer, my father stopped breathing.

We held his funeral at the South Jersey synagogue where he’d had his belated bar mitzvah at age 88, and buried him next to my mother in a small Jewish cemetery in the countryside. I’d written a fair amount about him here, so I thought readers might want to know.

We weren’t ready, if anyone ever really is, but in our sorrow, my sister and I recite this mantra: 90 good years, four bad days. That’s a ratio any of us might choose.


Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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Shares in Jewel parent soar on report of deal









Stock in Jewel-Osco parent Supervalu soared 13.5 percent Friday on speculation that the company is on the brink of a deal with Cerberus Capital Management.

Shares for the Eden Prairie, Minn-based grocery company closed at $2.94.

Supervalu spokesman Mike Siemienas said the company is in talks with several suitors, though a deal is not assured.  A representative for Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based investment firm, declined to comment for this story.

The Eden Prarie, Minn-based company, which also owns Albertsons, Cub, Acme and Save-A-Lot stores, said it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale, in July. Days later, Supervalu dismissed CEO Craig Herkert, and Chairman Wayne Sales stepped in to run the troubled grocer.

Supervalu sales and earnings have lagged those of competitors for years. In 2012, the company's stock price fell 69.6 percent and return on investment declined 68.6 percent, according to Bloomberg. Average stock prices in the broader consumer staples market rose 7.4 percent and returns gained 10.7 percent in the period.

For the fiscal year ended Feb. 25, Supervalu reported a loss of $1.04 billion, which included a $519 million operating loss and $509 million in interest expense. Sales declined 3 percent, to $27.9 billion. The company has carried an onerous debt load since buying Albertsons, which included Chicago's Jewel-Osco chain, in 2006, making Supervalu the subject of bankruptcy  speculation.

Cerberus is rumored to be in the mix to buy parts of the company. The firm has experience in the food retail sector and was an investor in the 2006 Albertsons deal. Cerberus still holds a stake in Albertsons and Strategic Restaurants, a Burger King franchisee with more than 250 restaurants.

eyork@tribune.com | twitter: @emilyyork

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Judge: No felony for dad in Facebook posting









A Cook County judge today reversed himself, reducing the conviction to a misdemeanor for a dad who posted a Facebook photo of his 22-month-old bound and gagged with tape.

Judge Lawrence Flood had convicted Andre Curry in November of aggravated domestic battery and aggravated battery, both felonies, and was scheduled to sentence him today when he did an abrupt about-face.


In reducing Curry’s conviction to misdemeanor domestic battery, the judge said that after reviewing the law, he found no intent to obstruct the child's breathing. He sentenced Curry to 18 months of probation and ordered him to take parenting classes.





Despite his change of heart, Flood said that Curry showed an extreme "lack of judgment."


"In your rush to show everyone how funny you were, you used...a helpless 22-month-old child who was completely dependent on you as a prop," Flood said. “This was not funny, OK? I want you to understand the gravity of your lack of judgment in this case."


Curry thanked the judge in a soft voice and apologized to his family.


"I'm sorry for everybody who’s been on the edge of their seats out there," he said. 


Curry, 22, had been free on bond since his felony conviction but had faced up to 7 years in prison before the judge changed his mind.


At trial, Flood had acquitted Curry of unlawful restraint but found him guilty of the two battery counts, saying in a brief ruling that by placing tape over the girl's mouth, he had obstructed her breathing for his own enjoyment.


"To use a child...as a toy or a prop in an odd attempt at humor is conduct of an insulting or provoking nature," Flood said at the time.


Curry told police he was playing with his daughter one night at their South Side home and used blue painter’s tape to bind her ankles and wrists and cover her mouth. He then snapped a photo and uploaded it on his Facebook page.


Across the top of the photo were the words: "This is wut happens wen my baby hits me back," according to prosecutors and police reports. The message was followed with a winking emoticon.


Family members have said that Curry is playful and the photograph was meant to be a joke.


But the image went viral on the Internet, prompting a flood of calls to police and state child-welfare authorities from Curry’s friends on Facebook and others who had seen it.


jmeisner@tribune.com





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Did Microsoft Just Announce the Next Xbox with a Countdown? Probably.






Go countdowns, saving marketing departments untold piles of cash! Microsoft’s Larry Hryb, colloquially known by his Xbox LIVE handle “Major Nelson,” just threw one up on his blog, and it’s causing precisely the sort of speculative stir the company doubtless intended.


“And it’s on…” reads the ultra-austere post, followed by a simple Flash-based timer titled “Counting down to E3 2013″ (cribbed from a generic countdown-building site).






“O rly?” as a certain memetic predator might say.


I won’t speculate past the probability of the new console itself — everything I’ve noticed about specs and pricing amounts to echo chamber gossip. If you’d rather just goof around, hop on over to NeoGAF, where gamers go mostly to make fun of each other (and everything between), and you’ll find a rollicking thread full of cracks, quips, the usual goofy/creepy animated GIFs and occasional chants of “Let’s go, Durango” (“Durango” is supposedly what the next Xbox’s development kits are codenamed).


Could the countdown be to anything but the next Xbox? At this point, much as I’d like to see Microsoft wait another year or two before introducing new hardware to give developers more time to do amazing things with the Xbox 360′s more than competent internals, and as gimmicky as countdowns are, this one’s punchline feels inexorable.


Besides, imagine the disappointment in five months if it turned out to be simply a new franchise, the next Halo or heaven forbid, a standalone “Kinect 2.”


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Actor Dempsey: Coffee chain bid appears successful






SEATTLE (AP) — Actor Patrick Dempsey said it appears his bid to buy a small coffee chain has prevailed in a bankruptcy auction that included Starbucks Corp.


Late Thursday night, Dempsey announced that his company, Global Baristas LLC, made the winning bid for Tully’s Coffee. He noted in a KOMO-TV interview that a bankruptcy judge will have the final say on Jan. 11. Still, Dempsey tweeted “We got it! Thank you Seattle!”






Dempsey’s company will pay $ 9,150,000 for Tully’s and complete the purchase later this month after the court hearing, he said in a statement.


“I’m thrilled that we won and I’m even more excited about saving Tully’s Coffee and its hundreds of jobs,” he said. “Tully’s is a great company with committed employees, and with its base in Seattle, one of the world’s greatest cities, I’m confident we will be able to successfully build the brand and help grow the economy. “


Tully’s Coffee has 47 company-owned locations in Washington and California. The company, with more than 500 employees, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.


Dempsey, who gained the nickname “McDreamy” on the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy” set in a fictional Seattle hospital, has said he wants to rescue the chain.


Seattle has been very good to me over my career, and I am honored to have the privilege to own Tully’s and work closely with the company’s employees,” he said in his statement.


After Thursday’s auction, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson confirmed his company participated and “is currently in a back-up position” for some of Tully’s assets. The final certification of the winning bid won’t occur until the Jan. 11 bankruptcy court hearing, Hutson said.


“We have to wait until next week to make sure everything — I believe the 11th — to make sure it’s all finalized,” Dempsey told KOMO-TV.


The Starbucks spokesman said his company made an offer for 13 of Tully’s company-owned stores in the Puget Sound region plus 12 outlets at Boeing Co. sites. Hutson said another bidder made an offer for all other assets — and is in a back-up position for those.


Also in the running was Baristas Coffee, which operates a chain of drive-thru espresso stands featuring female employees in skimpy outfits.


Both Starbucks and Tully’s are based in Seattle.


The auction process was not public.


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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks





Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.




Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.


The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.


“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.


Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.


Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.


As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.


Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.


“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”


A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.


In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.


Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.


Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.


On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.


But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.


Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.


Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.



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U.S. unemployment holds at 7.8%

CBS News business and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis talks to Norah O'Donnell and Anthony Mason about the final jobs report of 2012 to be released later today.









The pace of hiring by U.S. employers eased slightly in December, pointing to a lackluster pace of economic growth that was unable to make further inroads in the country's still high unemployment rate.

Payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. That was in line with analysts' expectations and slightly below the level for November.






Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to health care.

That should reinforce expectations that the economy will grow about 2 percent this year, unlikely to quickly bring down the unemployment rate or make the U.S. Federal Reserve rethink its easy-money policies, which have been propping up the recovery.

"It's not a booming economy, but it is growing," Jim O'Sullivan, an economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, said before the data was released.

The jobless rate held steady at 7.8 percent in December, down nearly a percentage point from a year earlier but still well above the average rate over the last 60 years of about 6 percent.

The Labor Department raised its estimate for the unemployment rate in November by a tenth of a point to 7.8 percent, citing a slight change in the labor market's seasonal swings.

Most economists expect the U.S. economy will be held back by tax hikes this year as well as by weak spending by households and businesses, which are still trying to reduce their debt burdens.

Friday's data nonetheless gave signals of growing momentum in the labor market's recovery from the 2007-09 recession. Many economists had expected December's payroll gains to be padded by one-time factors like the recovery from a mammoth storm that hit the East Coast in late October.

The government had said last month the storm had no substantial impact on the November data, and many economists expected the government to recant by revising downward in Friday's report its estimate for payroll gains in November. Instead, the government revised its estimate for November payrolls upward by 15,000.

"There is some evidence that underlying jobs growth has improved," Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said before the report was released.

AUSTERITY'S BITE

Despite the signs of some momentum in hiring, a wave of government spending cuts due to begin around March loom over the economy.

Many economic forecasts assume the cuts - which would hit the military, education and other areas - will ultimately be pushed into next year as part of a deal sought by lawmakers to reduce gradually the government's debt burden.

Initially, the cuts were planned to have begun this month as part of a $600 billion austerity package that also included tax hikes. Hiring in December may have been slowed by uncertainty over the timing of the austerity, economists say.

Congress this week passed legislation to avoid most of the tax hikes and postpone the spending cuts.

Even with the last-minute deal to avoid much of the "fiscal cliff," most workers will see their take-home pay reduced this month as a two-year cut in payroll taxes expires.

That leaves the Fed's efforts to lower borrowing costs as the main program for stimulating the economy.

The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008, and in September promised open-ended bond purchases to support lending further. On Thursday, however, minutes from the Fed's December policy review pointed to rising concerns over how the asset purchases will affect financial markets.

Analysts ahead of the report expected some of the strength in job creation in December would be due to the Fed's policies.

"Despite the end-of-year angst over the ‘fiscal cliff,' financial conditions remained supportive of job growth in December," economists at Nomura said in a note to clients earlier in the week.
 

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