Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Steel company forges ahead with new South Side plant









One evening during a Cubs game in 1988, A. Finkl & Sons Co. received a frantic phone call: The ballpark's lights were flickering. Could the steelmaker please turn off its furnaces to ward off a potential outage?


The anecdote illustrates one reason why Finkl is phasing out production at its century-old facility just west of the city's Lincoln Park neighborhood as it completes its move this year to 1355 E. 93rd St. on the South Side.


The new factory, equipped with the latest technology, improved production lines, better access to transportation and its own electric substation, will enable Finkl to boost its production fivefold to a half-million tons of steel a year.





"It's a huge step forward for Finkl," said John Guliana, the company's vice president of engineering and planning, explaining that workers will operate machines by pressing buttons on computer monitors. In contrast, the North Side plant, laid out over 22 acres separated by city streets, depended on manual labor, people working "with shovels and things like that," he said. Space was so tight that recycled metals and finished product sat out in the open.


So far, Finkl has spent more than $180 million on equipping buildings on the 53-acre South Side site that will house the melt, forge and machining shops, and offices as well as recycled metals and finished product. The new site is making steel and executives say it will handle 100 percent of production by the end of the year.


Finkl produces specialty steels made from recycled metals that are melted and forged into blocks. The blocks are sold to make molds, dies and large parts primarily used in the oil and gas industry.


At the old plant, those blocks sat out for up to two weeks before Finkl could load them onto rail cars, said Bruce Liimatainen, Finkl's chairman and chief executive. In that same amount of time, Finkl can now deliver steel to as far away as California, because the new plant's rail lines connect to the Norfolk Southern Railway yard just a few miles away.


"Literally, we can call them and within an hour they would be here," Liimatainen said. "It's the difference between competing overseas or not."


With its new capacity, Finkl is aiming to increase market share outside the U.S. and tap into the stainless steel market, sell bigger blocks of its specialty steels and offer roughly finished products.


Finkl's investments stand in contrast to what some other players are doing. Big steelmakers are battling declining prices and growing inventories of steel as China's economy cools and Europe continues to struggle with its own economic crisis. In December, ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker by volume, took a $4.3 billion write-down of its European businesses. Europe's economic crisis, it said, led to lower demand for its steel, which is used to build bridges, car parts and pipes.


At the end of 2012, Finkl's sales were essentially flat from the year before, Liimatainen said.


Meanwhile, future development of the company's property on the North Side could lead to debate over the future of manufacturing there. Some residents want the site cleared for housing because it has river views. To do so, however, aldermen would have to end the area's designation as a "planned manufacturing district," which protected it from encroaching residential development a quarter-century ago.


"The site is a very important site to my ward and presents us with a historic opportunity, and we are looking at it very closely," said Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd. "Certainly, we would like jobs to come from there." Finkl's factory is in Smith's ward but will become part of the 2nd Ward in 2015.


Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, said one idea is to try to attract green manufacturers, which might blend more easily with the neighborhood.


Some also have questioned Finkl's move from an upscale, predominantly white neighborhood to a predominantly black neighborhood dotted with boarded-up houses. Finkl has ringed the site with pine trees.


"What can we do now? Nothing," said Peggy Montes, president of the Bronzeville Children's Museum, located two blocks east of the new factory. She said the time to question Finkl's move has long passed. Going forward, Montes said, the conversation should be focused on how the company can help the community. "We don't have a YMCA; we are missing a lot of community-type services."


A 2008 Tribune investigation found that among Chicago factories, Finkl ranked worst for dangerous air pollution. At the time, its emissions of chromium, lead, manganese, nickel and zinc accounted for nearly a third of the city's total health risk from industrial pollution, according to the newspaper's analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data.


Liimatainen said equipment purchased for its new plant is the most energy-efficient on the market and therefore produces the lowest emissions. The investment, he said, makes the company more cost-competitive.


"The best way (to be environmentally conscious), is to use the lowest amount of energy," Liimatainen said.


For example, Finkl purchased a 70-ton electric arc furnace to make molten steel. The furnace's technology has reduced the time to make a batch of steel to about 40 minutes from roughly 4.5 hours.





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2 shot to death in separate attacks on South, Northwest sides

About 9:15 p.m., a man was shot to death inside a Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen, 5500 W. North Ave. (January 19, 2013)









Two young men were shot to death during another night of gun violence in Chicago Friday: One inside a well-lit restaurant along a West Side thoroughfare, the other in a dark gangway on a South Side block populated by vacant brick buildings.


The Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen at 5500 W. North Ave. where Marshall Fields-Hall died is fortified: a chain link fence with barbed and razor wire encircles part of the roof near cooling units and thick glass separates the dining area from the cash registers. Food and money exchange hands through small openings at the counter.


Fields-Hall's killer was on foot when he fired four shots into the restaurant from the outside about 9:15 p.m., police said, close enough to the glass window that detectives had to step over shell casings and red tape when they opened the door to get inside. The holes in the glass, spiderwebbed by the impact, were all within a couple inches of each other, and there were bits of glass on a small ledge inside.





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Reggie Stiff was working in the back of the restaurant preparing an order when the shooting began. The pops didn't sound like gunfire, he said, but more like "a hammer hitting a table real hard."


He came out from the back and the workers up front were "just looking dazed," he said.


Fields-Hall, 21, who lived nearby on the 1500 block of North Luna Avenue, was unresponsive on the scene when police found him but was taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, police said. He was pronounced dead there at 9:55 p.m.


Across the street, separated by three police cars and crime scene tape stretched by strong wind, Fannie White stood with her two great grandchildren, who were playing on a small concrete stoop in front of a boarded-up sandwich shop, running in circles around a brick pillar on the corner of a patio.


"I adopted him as my grandson," Fannie White said. "It's really hard."


White said she wasn't sure how she was going to explain the death to the children, who knew Fields-Hall.


Trese Butler stood next to White and the children, trying to understand what happened after someone had called her to say her friend was shot and that people were talking about it on Facebook.


"He just made 21. We're all trying to piece this together," said Butler, who walked to the scene from her home about a block away. "To me, he's still a baby."


After a couple minutes, the four left together, westbound on North Avenue. The four-lane road with parking on both sides is dotted with liquor stores, sandwich shops and blue-light police department cameras.


"This is the first Friday ever ain't nobody outside," Butler said before she left, adding that the block was usually bustling. "It's very rare. Very rare."


Across town, about the same time Fields-Hall was being taken to the hospital, police found 19-year-old Jovantay Alexander lying dead on his back between two brick buildings in the Back of the Yards neighborhood with a gunshot wound to the head.


Police had responded to a shots fired call and found Alexander where he had been shot. Police said nobody in the neighborhood, along the 5400 block of South Laflin Street, knew the man, who authorities said lived in the 1800 block of East 72nd Street in the South Shore neighborhood. It doesn't appear that he affiliated with a gang.


A handful of detectives stood over Alexander with large flashlights, examining the rest of his body for wounds and other evidence. A single officer blocked northbound traffic on the one-way street, north of an alley that runs parallel to Garfield Boulevard.


Fields-Hall was the 28th person killed in Chicago this year. Alexander was the 29th. They were among at least eleven people shot Friday afternoon into Saturday morning across the city.


In the other shootings:


• A 35-year-old man told police he "heard shots and felt pain" when someone shot him just before 4 a.m. Saturday morning in the 1600 block of North Sawyer Avenue, police said. The man, who police said was a gang member, was taken from the Logan Square crime scene to Stroger hospital in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the arm, police said.


The victim had been paroled in 2011 after having served about 18 years in prison on first degree murder charges filed in 1993, when he was 16, according to state records. Police said he is a gang member who was shot at by the passenger in a white vehicle that approached him from the south as he tried to get into his car.





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Dotcom says new site legal, no revenge for Megaupload saga






AUCKLAND (Reuters) – Kim Dotcom, founder of outlawed file-sharing website Megaupload, said his new “cyberlocker” was not revenge on U.S. authorities who planned a raid on his home, closed Megaupload and charged him with online piracy for which he faces jail if found guilty.


Dotcom said his new offering, Mega.co.nz, which will launch on Sunday even as he and three colleagues await extradition from New Zealand to the United States, complied with the law and warned that attempts to take it down would be futile.






“This is not some kind of finger to the U.S. government or to Hollywood,” Dotcom told Reuters at his sprawling estate in the bucolic hills of Coatesville, just outside Auckland, New Zealand, a country known more for sheep, rugby and the Hobbit than flamboyant tech tycoons.


“Legally, there’s just nothing there that could be used to shut us down. This site is just as legitimate and has the right to exist as Dropbox, Boxnet and other competitors,” he said, referring to other popular cloud storage services.


His lawyer, Ira Rothken, added that launching the site was compliant with the terms of Dotcom’s bail conditions. U.S. prosecutors argue that Dotcom in a statement said he had no intention of starting a new internet business until his extradition was resolved.


CODES AND KEYS


Dotcom said Mega was a different beast to Megaupload, as the new site enables users to control exactly which users can access uploaded files, in contrast to its predecessor, which allowed users to search files, some of which contained copyrighted content allegedly without permission.


A sophisticated encryption system will allow users to encode their files before they upload them on to the site’s servers, which Dotcom said were located in New Zealand and overseas.


Each file will then be issued a unique, sophisticated decryption key which only the file holder will control, allowing them to share the file as they choose.


As a result, the site’s operators would have no access to the files, which they say would strip them from any possible liability for knowingly enabling users to distribute copyright-infringing content, which Washington says is illegal.


“Even if we wanted to, we can’t go into your file and snoop and see what you have in there,” the burly Dotcom said.


Dotcom said Mega would comply with orders from copyright holders to remove infringing material, which will afford it the “safe harbor” legal provision, which minimizes liability on the condition that a party acted in good faith to comply.


But some legal experts say it may be difficult to claim the protection if they do not know what users have stored.


The Motion Pictures Association of America said encrypting files alone would not protect Dotcom from liability.


“We’ll reserve final judgment until we have a chance to analyze the new project,” a spokesman told Reuters. “But given Kim Dotcom’s history, count us as skeptical.”


The German national, who also goes by Kim Schmitz, expects huge interest in its first month of operation, which would be a far cry from when Megaupload went live in 2005.


“I would be surprised if we had less than one million users,” Dotcom said.


A YEAR ON


Mega’s launch starts the next chapter of the Dotcom narrative, dotted with previous cyber crime-related arrests and whose twists and turns have been scrutinized by all facets of the entertainment industry, from film studios and record labels to internet service companies and teenage gamers.


The copyright infringement case, billed as the largest to date given that Megaupload in its heyday commanded around four percent of global online traffic, could set a precedent for internet liability laws and depending on its outcome, may force entertainment companies to rethink their distribution methods.


A year on, the extradition hearing has been delayed until August, complicated by illegal arrest warrants and the New Zealand government’s admission that it had illegally spied on Dotcom, who has residency status in the country.


Last January, New Zealand’s elite special tactics forces landed by helicopter at dawn in the grounds of Dotcom’s mansion, worth roughly NZ$ 30 million ($ 25.05 million) and featuring a servants’ wing, hedge maze and life-size statues of giraffes and a rhinoceros, to arrest him and his colleagues at the request of the FBI.


Police armed with semi-automatic weapons found Dotcom cowering alone in a panic room in the attic, while outside, a convoy of police cars and vans pulled up in the driveway. Around 70 officers took part in the raid.


They left with computers, files and some of Dotcom’s fleet of Rolls-Royces, Mercedes and a vintage pink Cadillac tricked with personalized license plates screaming “HACKER”, “EVIL”, and “MAFIA”.


“Every time you hear a helicopter, you automatically think, ‘Oh, another raid’, so it’s something that stays with you for a long time,” said Dotcom, who says he and his wife still panic when they hear sudden, loud noises in the house.


Dotcom was coy about the details of the launch party as builders put the finishing touches to a festival-sized concert stage in the mansion’s grounds, while two helicopters circled overhead.


But if the impromptu, Willy Wonka-styled ice cream social he threw in Auckland earlier in the week is any indication, the party could be a more wholesome affair compared with the well-documented soirees of Dotcom’s past, where nightclubs, hot tubs and scantily clad women were a common fixture.


“I had to grow up, you know, I was a big baby,” he said. “Big baby with too much money usually leads to baby craziness.


“I am going to be more of a person that wants to help to make things better and help internet innovation to take off without all these restrictions by governments. That is going to be my primary goal if this business is successful.”


($ 1 = NZ$ 1.2)


(Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Nick Macfie)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Lance Armstrong biopic in the works from Paramount, J.J. Abrams






LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Paramount Pictures and “Star Trek” producer J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot company have purchased the film rights to a forthcoming book about cyclist Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.


Armstrong, whose name and celebrity status helped build a multimillion dollar cancer foundation, admitted on Thursday that he used performance-enhancing drugs to win a record seven consecutive Tour de France championships after denying doping allegations for years.






The forthcoming book, “Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong” by New York Times reporter Juliet Macur, traces his recovery from cancer, inspirational return to cycling, and his fall to disgraced ex-champion.


The book is set for a June publication by HarperCollins.


Neither Paramount nor Bad Robot would comment on the deal, which was first reported on the Deadline Hollywood entertainment site.


Abrams, the producer and director of the forthcoming science-fiction thriller film “Star Trek into Darkness,” co-founded Bad Robot with producer Bryan Burk.


Paramount will distribute the big-budget “Star Trek,” which is scheduled for release in May. Paramount has distributed other Abrams-produced films, including 2011′s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” starring Tom Cruise.


Paramount Pictures is a subsidiary of Viacom Inc and HarperCollins is owned by News Corp.


(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control



Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency of urinary incontinence,” Dr. Hylton V. Joffe, director of the F.D.A.’s reproductive and urologic products division, said in a statement. “Today’s approval provides an important additional treatment option for patients with overactive bladder, a condition that affects an estimated 33 million men and women in the United States.”


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Chicago seeks investors for potential Midway Airport deal









Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration on Friday began testing the investment market's appetite for a potential deal to privatize Midway Airport, launching the process for finding prospective bidders.


The city posted a "request for qualifications," seeking expressions of interest and documentation of credentials from teams interested in financing, operating, maintaining and improving the Southwest Side airport, which is the nation's 26th busiest, with about 9 million passengers passing through annually.


The document reiterates a framework, laid out by Emanuel earlier, aimed at providing city taxpayers with a better deal than the widely criticized 75-year agreement to privatize parking meter operations, carried out during former Mayor Richard Daley's administration. Proceeds from the earlier deal were used to plug operating deficits, and meter rates rose sharply.





This time, proposed leases must be less than 40 years, which locks in the city for a shorter period.


Rather than awarding the city only an upfront payment, the private operator also must share revenue with the city on an ongoing basis. Initial proceeds would be used to pay down debt issued since 1996 to rebuild the airport, the mayor's office said. There is about $1.4 billion in outstanding debt.


Longer term, cash flow would be directed to city infrastructure needs. The mayor has pledged proceeds would not be used to pay for city operations.


The city also is seeking assurances that prices for parking, food and beverages will be kept reasonable.


This is the second time Chicago has looked at privatizing Midway. A 99-year lease that would have brought in $2.5 billion died in 2009 when the financial markets froze up.


Prospective bidders will be asked to prove their ability to raise the needed financing, said Tom Alexander, a spokesman for the mayor.


As in the first go-round, the city is using Credit Suisse Securities LLC as its lead financial adviser.


"The city's process and approach will be thorough and open," Lois Scott, the city's chief financial officer, said in a written statement.


Southwest Airlines, the airport's dominant carrier, supports the move.


Some observers have said a structure with a shorter lease and greater control for the city could translate into lower bids.


But Alexander said the city was confident investors "would gladly meet our terms and still make very attractive offers." The city has declined to estimate how much such a deal could garner.


The request for proposal states "there is significant potential to increase commercial revenue both in terms of variety of activities and increases in sales per passenger."


The city posted the request for qualifications shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration accepted its preliminary application to privatize the airport, clearing the way for the city to move forward in its evaluation process.


Prospective bidders were asked to formally express their interest by Feb. 22. If the city moves forward and seeks proposals, a privatization plan could be submitted to the City Council this summer.


kbergen@tribune.com


Twitter @kathy_bergen





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Autopsy today for lottery winner poisoned by cyanide

The body of poisoned lottery winner Urooj Khan is in the hands of the Cook County medical examiner in hopes to learn more about how he died.









Officials will conduct an autopsy this morning on the body of a West Rogers Park man who was exhumed from Rosehill Cemetery on Chicago's North Side after dying of cyanide poisoning last summer after winning a million-dollar lottery.


A hearse was being opened in front of a green tent set up at the grave site just north of Peterson Avenue and Urooj Khan's body was loaded into it. An evidence technician snapped a photo of it before the hearse's rear doors were closed up and the vehicle began driving away across the grass on the cemetery, escorted by a Chicago police evidence technician squad car and several other marked and unmarked police vehicles. They exited west onto Peterson Avenue.


The whole exhumation process lasted about two hours.








Khan's body was not frozen, officials said, and his autopsy will be today. A medical examiner's office spokeswoman, Mary Paleologos, said Khan's body will be buried again on Monday.


Dr. Marta Helenowski, the forensic pathologist who originally handled Khan's case, will be performing the autopsy this morning at the medical examiner's office, 2121 W. Harrison St., Paleologos said in a telephone interview.


The pathologist is going to be taking samples of Khan's lungs, liver and spleen for further testing. She will also be looking at the contents of Khan's stomach and intestines and taking bone, nail and hair samples, all for further examination, according Paleologos.


"Depending on the condition of the body and the quality of the samples, (the medical examiner's office) will hopefully be able to determine how the cyanide entered his body," Paleologos said.


Chief Medical Examiner Stephen J. Cina will hold a 2:30 p.m. news conference about the autopsy. He will likely only be able to discuss whether Khan's body is in good condition and if the samples taken from it are good quality.


It'll be two or three weeks before the medical examiner's office knows how the cyanide got into Khan's system. The office will also have to wait for independent lab test results.


Helenowski and a few medical examiner's office personnel were on hand for the exhumation. An imam also was present to say prayers at the grave site as the exhumation went on.


Several helicopters hovered over Rosehill Cemetery this morning and a backhoe and three or four pickup trucks were stationed at the grave site in the middle of the cemetery's northern section, where a beam of light could be seen shining over Khan's headstone. The backhoe soon began its work digging into the ground at the grave site. In addition to the backhoe, one or two workers were seen helping dig up the body with shovels.


A large tent was set up at the site where some two dozen police officers were gathered. Among the officers are two Chicago police evidence technicians, Paleologos said. One was taking still photos of the exhumation, while the other was shooting video.


An unmarked police car and two blue barricades blocked off the Peterson Avenue gate to Rosehill, the only entrance and exit in the northern section of the cemetery.


Four TV trucks sat parked along the fence about 100 yards west of the grave site along Oakley Avenue, the designated staging area for the media. A group of about a dozen photographers, a videographer and TV reporters stood along the Peterson Avenue fence, next to where traffic moved along the busy thoroughfare like any normal morning rush hour.


A few passersby gazed at the police activity at the grave site from Oakley Avenue. One, curious about large presence inside the cemetery, was surprised to learned from a Tribune reporter that it was Khan's body being dug up. Another thought someone was having a funeral.


The exhumation of Khan's remains – scheduled to begin at about 7 a.m. – will come about six months after he was buried at Rosehill. In court papers last week, Cina said it was important to exhume the remains "as expeditiously as possible" since Khan's body was not embalmed.

In court papers, Cina said it was necessary to perform a full autopsy to "further confirm the results of the blood analysis as well as to rule out any other natural causes that might have contributed to or caused Mr. Khan's death."


The exhumation comes after the Tribune broke the story on Jan. 7 about Khan's mysterious death, sparking international media interest in the case.


The medical examiner's office initially ruled Khan's July 20 death was from hardening of the arteries when there were no signs of trauma on the body and a preliminary blood test didn't raise any questions. But the investigation was reopened about a week later after a relative suggested to authorities that Khan's death "may have been the result of poisoning," prosecutors said in a court filing seeking the exhumation.


The medical examiner's office contacted Chicago police Sept. 11 after tests showed cyanide in Khan's blood. By late November, more comprehensive toxicological tests showed lethal levels of the toxic chemical and the medical examiner's office declared his death a homicide.


Khan's widow, Shabana Ansari, who has hired a criminal-defense lawyer, told the Tribune last week that she had been questioned for more than four hours by detectives and had fully cooperated.  She said the detectives had asked her about ingredients she used to prepare his last meal of lamb curry, shared by Ansari, her father-in-law Fareedun Ansari and Khan's daughter from a previous marriage, Jasmeen, 17.


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


According to court records obtained by the Tribune, Khan's brother has squabbled with Shabana Ansari over the lottery winnings in probate court. The brother, ImTiaz Khan, raised concern that since Khan left no will, Jasmeen Khan would not get "her fair share" of her father's estate.


Khan and Ansari did not have children together. Since her father's death, Jasmeen Khan has been living with Khan's siblings.


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


In addition, almost two years ago, the Internal Revenue Service placed liens on Khan's residence on West Pratt Boulevard in an effort to collect more than $120,000 in back taxes from his father-in-law,  Fareedun Ansari, who still lives at the home with his daughter.


Fareedun and Shabana Ansari have denied involvement in Khan's death.


jgorner@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking





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Morrisons to launch online kitchenware business






LONDON (Reuters) – Britain‘s fourth largest supermarket group Wm Morrison said on Friday it would extend its online presence in the spring with the launch of a kitchenware website in partnership with specialist Lakeland.


The joint venture will be Morrisons‘ third fully transactional website following the launch of wine website MorrisonsCellar.com in November and the purchase of baby care retailer Kiddicare.com in 2011.






“We believe the future for retailing many non-food products is online rather than in supermarkets,” said Chief Executive Dalton Philips.


Unlike the other grocers that make up Britain’s so called “big four” – market leader Tesco, Wal-Mart’s Asda and J Sainsbury – Morrisons does not have a website for the home delivery of food.


Earlier this month Morrisons posted a weak Christmas trading update that it partly attributed to its lack of an online food offer.


The firm is researching the possibility and plans to say more when it publishes full year results in March. Most analysts expect it to launch a trial this year.


(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kate Holton)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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“Breaking Bad” star Betsy Brandt is Michael J. Fox’s new TV wife






NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – “Breaking Bad” star Betsy Brandt has been cast as Michael J. Fox’s TV wife.


NBC is eyeing the series, which has already been ordered for a full season, for fall. Brandt will play the wife of Fox’s character, a New York news anchor coping – like Fox – with Parkinson’s disease. He’ll also have the usual sitcom troubles, like juggling family and his career.






Brandt’s “Breaking Bad” husband, Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) also struggled with health problems: Brandt’s character nursed him back to health after he was shot and had to re-learn to walk.


She joins a cast that also includes Connor Romero and Jack Gore as the couple’s children, Katie Finneran as the sister of Fox’s character, and “The Wire” star Wendell Pierce as his boss.


The second half of the fifth and final season of “Breaking Bad” will air this summer. Both “Breaking Bad” and the Fox show come from Sony Pictures Television.


The as-yet-untitled series, is written by “Cougar Town” scribe Sam Laybourne and helmed by “Easy A” director Will Gluck.


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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