Kuwait sentences second man to jail for insulting emir: lawyer






DUBAI (Reuters) – A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison on Monday for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, his lawyer said, the second to be jailed for the offence in as many days.


The U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state has clamped down in recent months on political activists who have been using social media websites to criticize the government and the ruling family.






Kuwait has seen a series of protests, including one on Sunday night, organized by the opposition since the ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, used emergency powers in October to change the voting system.


The court sentenced Ayyad al-Harbi, who has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter, to the prison term two months after his arrest and release on bail.


Harbi used his Twitter account to criticize the Kuwait government and the emir. He tweeted on Sunday: “Tomorrow morning is my trial’s verdict on charges of slander against the emir, spreading of false news.”


His lawyer, Mohammed al-Humidi, said Harbi would appeal against the verdict. “We’ve been taken by surprise because Kuwait has always been known internationally and in the Arab world as a democracy-loving country,” Humidi told Reuters by telephone. “People are used to democracy, but suddenly we see the constitution being undermined.”


On Sunday, Rashid Saleh al-Anzi was given two years in prison over a tweet that “stabbed the rights and powers of the emir”, according to the online newspaper Alaan. Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal.


Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.


In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.


Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.


Public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, and Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that has ousted four veteran Arab dictators in the past two years.


But tensions have risen between Kuwait’s hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.


(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Mark Heinrich)


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Women dominate UK film’s “rising star” shortlist






LONDON (Reuters) – Actresses dominated the shortlist for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts‘ Rising Star awards on Monday, taking four of the five places.


Juno Temple, who appeared in the 2007 drama “Atonement”, and Andrea Riseborough, best known for her leading role in Madonna‘s biopic of Wallis Simpson “W.E.”, represent British interests on the list.






They are up against U.S. actress Elizabeth Olsen of the acclaimed 2011 drama “Martha Marcy May Marlene“, and Sweden’s Alicia Vikander, who starred in Danish period drama “A Royal Affair” and last year’s adaptation of the novel “Anna Karenina”.


Suraj Sharma is the youngest on the list at 19 and the sole male representative, having been picked from 3,000 hopefuls to star in Ang Lee’s recent 3D picture “Life of Pi” despite no previous acting experience.


The Rising Star Award is handed out on February 10 at the main BAFTA prize ceremony, Britain’s top film accolades. It is the only category voted for by the public, who can cast their votes at ee.co.uk/bafta.


Previous winners of the award aimed at spotting stars of the future include James McAvoy, Eva Green, Shia LaBeouf and Kristen Stewart.


(This story has been refiled to change word in headline to “women” from “females”)


(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)


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Books Of Style: Three Books on Becoming a Better You — Books of Style





The Beauty Experiment: How I Skipped Lipstick, Ditched Fashion, Faced the World Without Concealer, and Learned to Love the Real Me, by Phoebe Baker Hyde. Da Capo Press. 248 pp. $16.




Wheat Belly Cookbook: 150 Recipes to Help You Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health, by William Davis, M.D. Rodale Books. 352 pp. $27.99.


Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick, by Jeremy Dean. Da Capo Press. 256 pp. $26.


OH, those pesky Mayans. It was bad enough that their ancient astro-forecast led many people to quake all year long for fear that the end of the world was not only nigh but specifically nigh — as in, Dec. 21 nigh. But when, on Dec. 22, the human race discovered that doomsday had come and gone without apparent incident, more Mayan mischief kicked in: mankind found itself with only 10 days to come up with New Year’s resolutions, a necessity too many had assumed would be made moot by apocalypse.


Remarkably, three books have emerged since the nonfateful winter solstice that can help everyone become a finer creature in the brave new world of 2013. All of these books — one about self-image, one about diet and one about habits — would seem, on the face of it, to be counterintuitive. That’s an appropriate attribute for a year that never was supposed to exist.


The first thing you might like to know about “The Beauty Experiment,” a memoir by Phoebe Baker Hyde, is the improbable fact that the author’s picture was taken by a 4-year-old. What woman, what writer, would make such a devil-may-care move? Experiment, indeed. Ms. Hyde’s book is a testament to her hard-won conviction that, when it comes to appearance, externals do not matter. In her early 30s, after giving birth to her first child (a daughter), Ms. Hyde “bought thicker makeup and brighter lipstick” and a flashy red velvet dress, hoping to glamorize the “zombie” she saw in the mirror. A photo of herself in the velvet togs showed her that she looked “not sexy, but shaggy; not ‘Red-Hot,’ but hangdog,” and made her cry, “because I was stupid, vain, heartbroken and ashamed of all of it.”


In February 2007, woebegone and “at war with myself,” she decided to shun cosmetics, hair salons and pricey clothes for an entire year to see if she could shore up her self-esteem by making peace with her unadorned raw materials. The antidote to her feelings of inadequacy, she decided, was “to be free of illusions.” Getting a short haircut at her husband’s barbershop, eschewing lipstick and even earrings, she “dragged an oppressive sense of plain Janeness” around for a month, but soon began to feel empowered by her “Momnisexual” look. After having another child (a son), she stuck with a pared-down approach. These days, she writes, when she spots her reflection in a mirror, she no longer sees “wrinkles, anxiety, zits, or exhaustion, although they are all there. Instead, I see a face, a person, a personality, a life.”


Ms. Hyde’s postpartum funk was caused in part by baby weight she could not shed, but childbirth is not the only spur to extra poundage. Dr. William Davis, a preventive cardiologist in Milwaukee, argued in his best-selling 2011 book “Wheat Belly” that wheat — yes, even whole-grain wheat — the ingredient of everyone’s daily bread, is unhealthy. “I recognize that declaring wheat a malicious food is like declaring that Ronald Reagan was a Communist,” he concedes.


Nevertheless, the doctor not only stuck to his guns, but also issued a manifesto expounding his wheatless worldview, in the form of the “Wheat Belly Cookbook,” which he dedicates to “everyone who has come to understand the liberation that emerges with wheatlessness.”


Over the last decade, Dr. Davis put himself and thousands of his patients who were “at risk for heart disease, diabetes, and the myriad destructive effects of obesity” on wheat-free regimens. He says he watched them not only lose 20, 30, 50, even 100 pounds or more, but also recover from chronic diseases like ulcerative colitis and diabetes.


Investigating these results, he learned that a high-yield hybrid “dwarf” strain of wheat had been developed in the United States in the middle of the last century, and adopted not only here but also around the world. This “Frankengrain” as he calls it, thickens waistlines and causes ills from acne, psoriasis, depression and migraines to arthritis, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Worse, the doctor contends, it contains a protein called gliadin that stimulates appetite and dupes gullible neurons into craving food the body does not need. In his cookbook, Dr. Davis says that gliadins tempt people to eat 440 calories more per day than their grandparents did. Gliadins are opiates, he explains, which “generate a need for more ... and more, and more.”


Whether or not you’re persuaded, such arguments have played a part in starting the gluten-free wave that engulfs the country. But the doctor warns against assuming that every glitch is gluten. Though he considers wheat the worst offender, he mistrusts other grains as well, and warns gluten-free converts to read labels closely, because “rice starch, cornstarch, potato starch, and tapioca starch” send blood sugar levels soaring.


In his cookbook, with scores of grain-free recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even dessert — brownies, cupcakes and Key lime pie, made with flour ground from beans, nuts and flaxseed — he points another way forward. Cooking, baking and eating without wheat is a “cataclysmic revelation for most people,” he admits. “It’s unsettling, it’s upsetting, it’s downright inconvenient.” Still, he asks, what is a bit of inconvenience, weighed against the rapture of watching a “protuberant, flop-over-the-belt belly vanish?”


If you were to try to give up wheat for the new year, how long do you think you would be able to stick it out before you crumbled and ordered a bagel? Jeremy Dean, a London psychologist and pop psychology blogger, notes in “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” that conventional wisdom holds that it takes the “magic figure of 21 days” to form a new habit. This reckoning turns out to be faulty, Mr. Dean explains, if the habit is complicated or replaces an existing one. Sixty-six days — a little more than two months — is a more reasonable span, he suggests; but 254 days is not out of the question.


Demonstrating how a person might forge a new pattern of behavior, Mr. Dean describes the notional measure of switching to whole-wheat bread from white over a period of several weeks. “I intended to eat more healthily, and now I am,” he explains. Obviously, Dr. Davis would beg to differ — not that Mr. Dean, who addresses generalities, not gastrointestinal realities, and motivation rather than medicine, would care, in all likelihood. “Why, exactly, do you want to make a new habit?” he asks. “Sometimes, the reasons are obvious and don’t need any further soul-searching, but this isn’t always the case.”


This statement hints that he might suspect that the business of making habits and breaking habits, fraught and chancy as it may sometimes be, is not the end of the world.


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 7, 2013

An earlier version of this column misstated in a passing reference the equivalent length of time that Jeremy Dean, the author of “Making Habits, Breaking Habits: Why We Do Things, Why We Don’t, and How to Make Any Change Stick,” believes is reasonable for forming a new habit. As the column stated, Mr. Dean believes it is 66 days. But that is equivalent to a little more than two months, not three. 



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BofA to pay $3.6B to Fannie Mae




















CBS MoneyWatch's Alexis Christoforous reports for CBS2. (1/7/2013)




















































Bank of America on Monday announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans, in a series of deals meant to help the bank move past its disastrous 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp.

The settlements and transactions and other charges will result in Bank of America posting only a small profit for 2012's fourth quarter. The bank is due to report results Jan. 17.






Bank of America is paying $3.6 billion to Fannie Mae and buying back $6.75 billion of bad loans from the mortgage company to clear up all claims that government-owned Fannie Mae had made against the bank.

Fannie Mae and its sibling, Freddie Mac, have been pushing banks to buy back loans they sold to the two companies that never should have been sold to them because the loans did not meet the companies' criteria for purchasing.

Bank of America said most of the settlement would be covered by reserves, and another $2.5 billion, before taxes, that it set aside in the fourth quarter.

A separate settlement over foreclosure delays will result in Bank of America paying $1.3 billion to Fannie Mae, the mortgage company said. Bank of America had already set aside money to cover most of that, but took another $260 million charge in the fourth quarter to cover the balance.

Bank of America also sold the rights to collect payments on about $306 billion of loans to Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management Corp. Nationstar is paying $1.3 billion for the right to service some $215 billion of loans, while Walter Investment is paying $519 million for the right to service about $93 billion of mortgages.

Reuters first reported that Bank of America was talking to Nationstar and Walter Investment on Friday.


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Man killed in I-94 shooting




















There is one person dead and another injured after a fatal shooting on the Dan Ryan.




















































An early morning shooting on Interstate 94 near Canalport Avenue left a 22-year-old man dead and another man injured, authorities said.


Both men were traveling northbound in a Nissan Sentra when shots rang out about 2:35 a.m., Trooper Ivan Bukaczyk of the Illinois State Police said.


Following the shooting, the damaged car pulled up to Rush University Medical Center, with two of its occupants bleeding from gunshot wounds.








The driver was not hurt in the shooting, according to a police spokeswoman. A fourth person, who was sitting next to the driver at the time of the shooting, fled from the vehicle at some point, according to the spokeswoman.


Police said they believe the shots came from another vehicle but they have been unable to come up with a description of the other vehicle.


The two men who had been shot were rear-seat passengers. The deceased man was sitting directly behind the driver as bullets hit the body and shattered the windows of the vehicle, the spokeswoman said.


Lavonshay Cooper, of the 4200 block of West Cortez Street. was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.


The other man who was shot was transferred to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was treated and later released, police said. Reports had earlier listed him in critical condition, the spokeswoman said.


State Police officers located the scene of the shooting and were able to collect evidence, Bukaczyk said.


chicagobreaking@tribune.com


Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking






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10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes






Photo courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution.


Click here to view this gallery.






[More from Mashable: 5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home]


If for some reason you didn’t believe no two snowflakes were alike, here’s your proof.


In 1885, Wilson A. Bentley successfully photographed over 5,000 snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope (and in turn honing the field of Photomicrography). His photographs supported his and others’ beliefs that all snowflakes were unique.


[More from Mashable: 20+ Online Resources for Planning a Winter Getaway]


Bentley become fascinated with snow as a child on a Vermont farm. He later spent time experimenting with ways to view individual snowflakes and their crystalline structure, which eventually came in handy when he had to be quick enough to capture a flake in a picture before it melted.


These photographs quickly became popular with dozens of scientists who studied Bentley’s work and published the images in several scientific magazines. In 1903, Bentley sent about 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian, hoping they would be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langley.


The Smithsonian now has his vintage pics on display, undeniably proveing that snow is just so, so pretty.


Gallery photos courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution. Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr, AMagill.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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French actor Depardieu meets Putin, picks up Russian passport






MOSCOW (Reuters) – French film star Gerard Depardieu met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea town of Sochi and obtained his Russian passport, the Kremlin said on Sunday, after he left his homeland to avoid a new tax rate for millionaires.


Putin signed a decree on Thursday granting Russian citizenship to Depardieu, who objected to French Socialist president Francois Hollande‘s plan to impose the 75 percent tax rate. His decision to quit France had prompted accusations of national betrayal.






The Russian president and Depardieu were shown on state-run Channel One shaking hands and hugging each other early on Sunday during what the Kremlin said was a private visit by the actor to Russia.


“A brief meeting between the president and Depardieu took place,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “On the occasion of his visit to Russia, he was handed a Russian passport.”


Peskov did not say whether Putin personally gave Depardieu the passport or if he picked it up through standard procedures. He said the actor also told Putin about his career plans.


Depardieu, star of the movies “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “Green Card”, is a popular figure in Russia, where he has appeared in many advertising campaigns, including for ketchup. He also worked there in 2011 on a film about the eccentric Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.


Putin asked Depardieu whether he was pleased with his work in the movie, TV footage of their meeting showed, with the French actor saying he had already sent Putin some excerpts from it.


Depardieu bought a house in Belgium last year to avoid the French income tax increase. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called Depardieu’s decision to seek Belgian residency “pathetic” and unpatriotic, prompting an angry response from the actor.


Putin said last month that Depardieu would be welcome in Russia, which has a flat income tax rate of 13 percent, compared to the 75 percent on income over 1 million euros ($ 1.30 million) that Hollande wants to levy in France.


He offered Depardieu a Russian passport, saying he had a close, special relationship with France and had developed warm ties with the actor, even though they had rarely met.


Some of Putin’s critics said the passport move was a stunt and pointed out that the president announced last month a campaign to prevent rich Russians keeping their money offshore.


($ 1 = 0.7666 euros)


(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by Pravin Char)


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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums





Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.







Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.







Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.


In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.


 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.


The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.


Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.


The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.


New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.


The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.


Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.


“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.


While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.


The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.


Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.


“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.


Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.


“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.


As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.


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Chicago restaurateurs shrug off economic worries









Chicago may have lost a few of its Michelin-starred restaurants in 2012 and waved goodbye to the inimitable Charlie Trotter's, but the higher-end restaurant scene is powering up in ways not seen since prerecession days, according to industry players and observers.


Local operators with a hit or two are embarking on ambitious ventures, though keeping an eye on startup costs and menu prices. A handful of chefs with established followings, among them Curtis Duffy and Iliana Regan, are sticking out their necks with riskier fine-dining ventures. And some prominent out-of-towners are investing on a grand scale, with a Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse just opened in the former Esquire Theater on Oak Street, and an Italian food and wine marketplace, Eataly, planned for the former ESPN Zone site in River North.


The flurry of activity is seen by some as a signal the economy has stabilized, at least for now.





"People are out spending money again, and corporations are hosting expensive dinners again, and there was a period when that was not happening," said Neil Stern, senior partner at McMillanDoolittle, a retail consultancy. "It affects the high end significantly."


Still, the bubbling of enthusiasm for the upper end of the market is something of an anomaly. The rebound in Chicago restaurant startups across all price ranges is tenuous. The city issued 1,458 new retail food licenses in 2012, only 11 more than in 2010 and below the 1,589 issued in 2007, the year leading into the recession.


Just as there are new arrivals, there were some big losses last year in this notoriously volatile business. Notable exits include Charlie Trotter's, Crofton on Wells, Il Mulino, One Sixtyblue, Pane Caldo and Ria at the Waldorf Astoria, one of several luxury hotels to step away from fine dining.


Weak economic conditions played a role for some, and the forecast for 2013 remains uncertain.


"It's a precarious market, and one economic blip really can take demand out of the market very, very quickly," Stern said.


Still, upscale-restaurant operators are moving ahead, betting on Chicagoans' seemingly endless fascination with food trends, dining out and the city's robust roster of accomplished chefs.


"When I was a child, people would go to each other's homes for a dinner party every week and would rarely go to restaurants — now it is almost the opposite," said David Flom, who with his business partner Matthew Moore hit a grand slam with Chicago Cut Steakhouse in River North, which opened in 2010. Steaks range from $34 to $114; soup, salad, sauces, vegetables and potatoes all are extra.


In December, they opened The Local at the Hilton Suites in Streeterville, a more modestly priced venue where executive chef Travis Strickland, formerly of the Inn at Blackberry Farm, is serving locally sourced comfort food. Meatloaf made with prime dry-aged beef goes for $24, rotisserie chicken pot pie for $22.


"People can use The Local as an everyday restaurant," Flom said. "People can say, 'Let's just grab a burger at The Local.' It doesn't have to be $100 a person, it can be $25."


At Chicago Cut, the average check, per person, is $82, including drinks, versus $44 at The Local, he said.


Industry observer Ron Paul, president and CEO of Technomic Inc., said he is particularly intrigued by the growing strength of such emerging independents, who are nipping at the heels of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc., even as that homegrown powerhouse continues to churn out winning concepts.


As restaurant real estate broker Randee Becker, president of Restaurants!, put it: "People who are doing north of $8 million to $10 million of sales are expanding in a big way."


After establishing a high-style, large-scale foothold in River North with the opening of Epic in 2009, proprietors Steve Tavoso and Jeff Krogh last fall embarked on a second act in the neighborhood. They engaged prominent chefs — Thomas Elliott Bowman and Ben Roche, who worked together at Moto — but kept their initial investment more modest this time.


Their latest entry, the eclectic Baume & Brix, opened last fall in the former Rumba space, which had most of the necessary mechanical, electrical, plumbing and kitchen elements in place. Startup costs were about $1.5 million, compared with more than $5 million spent to open Epic. "I took raw space (for Epic) — I would never do that again," Tavoso recalled.


Mercadito Hospitality, whose Chicago offerings include high-energy Latin American tapas spots Mercadito and Tavernita, also is watching its pennies on startups, its most recent being Little Market Brasserie in the Talbott Hotel. Led by chef/partner Ryan Poli, the restaurant has quietly opened with a Parisian decor and American small plates. Its grand opening is expected Jan. 18.


"We are aware of the fact the economy is not fully recovered, so we try to keep our expenses down without sacrificing quality," said managing partner Alfredo Sandoval.


The Chicago-based group intends to keep expanding. It just signed a lease at a River North spot with a 4 a.m. liquor license, with plans to open a drinks-focused venue there in 2013.





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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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