U.S. to review Boeing 787 amid more mishaps

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it will conduct a comprehensive review of Chicago-based Boeing's new 787's critical systems, following a rash of glitches this week, which included a battery fire and fuel leaks.

However, federal transportation officials also supported Boeing on Friday, saying repeatedly that the plane is safe.

"We are confident about the safety of this aircraft," said Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta, adding that a priority in the review will be the plane's electrical systems. He said he would not speculate on how long the review would take.

The review will involve examining the plane's design, manufacture and assembly, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

"Through it, we will look for the root causes of recent events and do everything we can to make sure these events don't happen again," he said. "I believe this plane is safe, and I would have absolutely no reservation of boarding one of these planes and taking a flight."

The announcement comes amid yet more reports Friday of problems with the highly anticipated "Dreamliner" jet, including a cracked cockpit window and another oil leak on a Japanese carrier. They add to a rash of other reported problems this week, the most serious of which was a battery fire on a parked 787 in Boston, an incident under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The plane model is in use in Chicago for temporary United Airlines flights between Chicago O'Hare and Houston. Chicago-based United has five other 787s in service domestically. Next week, LOT Polish Airlines plans to begin operating the region's first regular flight on a 787 between O'Hare and Warsaw, Poland. All told, Boeing has delivered 50 Dreamliners to customers around the world.

Aviation experts have said the planes are safe and that glitches are common on new models of planes, especially ones as revolutionary as the 787, which uses mostly composite materials instead of metals to create an aircraft that's more lighter, more fuel-efficient and more comfortable for passengers.

However, other observers have said the concentration of problems in a short period and the media attention they garner is damaging the reputation of Boeing, which was already under scrutiny for delivering the Dreamliner to customers more than three years late. The plane's list price is about $207 million.

The latest problems came Friday, when Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways said a domestic flight from Tokyo landed safely at Matsuyama airport in western Japan after a crack developed on the cockpit windscreen, and the plane's return to Tokyo was cancelled.

"Cracks appear a few times every year in other planes. We don't see this as a sign of a fundamental problem" with Boeing aircraft, a spokesman for the airline said. The same airline later on Friday said oil was found leaking from an engine of a 787 Dreamliner after the plane landed at Miyazaki airport in southern Japan. An airline spokeswoman said it later returned to Tokyo after some delay. No one was injured in either incident.

Boeing said Friday the 787 logged 50,000 hours of flight, with more than 150 flights occurring daily, and that its performance has been on par with the Boeing 777, which it calls "the industry's best-ever introduction" of a new airplane.

"More than a year ago, the 787 completed the most robust and rigorous certification process in the history of the FAA," Boeing said in a statement. "We remain fully confident in the airplane's design and production system."

Ray Conner, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said Friday that the recent problems were not caused by Boeing's outsourcing of production or by ramping up production too quickly.

"We are fully committed to resolving any issue that affects the reliability of our airlines," he said.

gkarp@tribune.com

Reuters contributed

 

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'Lincoln' leads Academy Award contenders with 12 nominations

With a conspicuous diss of Kathryn Bigelow, the un-nominated director of “Zero Dark Thirty,” the Academy Awards nominations were announced Thursday morning.

“Zero Dark Thirty” was one of nine films given the best picture nomination nod. The others: “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; “Silver Linings Playbook”; “Lincoln”; “Les Miserables”; “Life of Pi”; “Amour”; “Django Unchained”; and “Argo.” With 12 nominations total, director Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” led this year’s pack, unusually full of films that have reached a broad mainstream audience. “Life of Pi” came in with 11 nominations; “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Les Miserables” received eight.

The best actress Oscar nominees include the oldest-ever performer in that category (Emmanuelle Riva, 85, for “Amour”) as well as the youngest (Quvenzhane Wallis, 9, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”). They’ll compete for the Feb. 24 Oscars against Naomi Watts (“The Impossible”), Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty”) and Jennifer Lawrence (“Silver Linings Playbook”).

To the surprise of no one on this planet or any other, Daniel Day-Lewis led the best actor competition for “Lincoln.” His fellow nominees: Denzel Washington, “Flight”; Hugh Jackman, “Les Miserables”; Bradley Cooper, “Silver Linings Playbook”; and in the year’s most unsettling performance, Joaquin Phoenix, “The Master.”

“Silver Linings Playbook” fared well, against some predictions, scoring a supporting actor nomination for Robert De Niro and a supporting actress nod for Jacki Weaver. Other supporting actors nominated include Christoph Waltz for “Django Unchained”; Philip Seymour Hoffman, “The Master”; Alan Arkin, “Argo”; and Tommy Lee Jones,” Lincoln.” All have won Oscars before.

Along with Weaver, Sally Field received a supporting actress nomination, hers for “Lincoln.” The competition: Anne Hathaway, singing her guts out all the way to the podium on Feb. 24 (I’m guessing) for “Les Miserables”; Helen Hunt for “The Sessions” (more of a leading role, in fact); and Amy Adams as the Lady Macbeth of the action in “The Master.”

It’s a huge showing for “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” whose director, Benh Zeitlin, goes toe to toe against his fellow directing nominees David O. Russell (“Silver Linings Playbook”), Ang Lee (“Life of Pi”), Michael Haneke (“Amour”) and Spielberg. Along with “Zero Dark Thirty” director Bigelow, “Argo” helmer Ben Affleck, widely expected to be nominated ... wasn’t.

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‘Lincoln’ leads Oscars with 12 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The Civil War saga “Lincoln” leads the Academy Awards with 12 nominations, including best picture, director for Steven Spielberg and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

Also among the nine nominees for best picture Thursday: the old-age love story “Amour”; the Iran hostage thriller “Argo”; the independent hit “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; the slave-revenge narrative “Django Unchained”; the musical “Les Miserables”; the shipwreck story “Life of Pi”; the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook“; and the Osama bin Laden manhunt chronicle “Zero Dark Thirty.”

“Life of Pi” surprisingly ran second with 11 nominations, ahead of “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Les Miserables,” which had been considered potential front-runners.

More surprising were snubs in the directing category, where three favorites missed out: Ben Affleck for “Argo” and past Oscar winners Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty” and Tom Hooper for “Les Miserables.” Bigelow was the first woman ever the win the directing Oscar for 2009′s “The Hurt Locker,” while Hooper won a year later for “The King’s Speech.”

The best-picture category also had surprising omissions. The acclaimed first-love tale “Moonrise Kingdom” was left out and only got one nomination, for original screenplay. Also snubbed for best-picture was “The Master,” a critical favorite that did manage three acting nominations for Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Two-time winner Spielberg earned his seventh directing nomination, and also in the mix are past winner Ang Lee for “Life of Pi” and past nominee David O. Russell for “Silver Linings Playbook.” The other slots went to surprise picks who are first-time nominees: Michael Haneke for his French-language “Amour” and Benh Zeitlin for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

“Amour” also was a best-picture surprise. The film, which won the top prize at last May’s Cannes Film Festival, mainly had been considered a favorite in the foreign-language category, where it also was nominated. “Amour” had five nominations, including original screenplay and best-actress for Emmanuelle Riva.

The year’s second-biggest box-office hit, “The Dark Knight Rises,” was shut out entirely, even for visual effects. The omission of its predecessor, “The Dark Knight,” from best-picture consideration for 2008, was largely responsible for the expansion of the Oscar category from five nominees to 10 the following year. “The Dark Knight” had earned eight nominations and won two Oscars.

Chronicling Abraham Lincoln’s final months as he engineers passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, “Lincoln” stars best-actor contender Day-Lewis in a monumental performance as the 16th president, supporting-actress nominee Field as the notoriously headstrong Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting-actor prospect Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Joining Day-Lewis in the best-actor field are Bradley Cooper as a psychiatric patient trying to get his life back together in “Silver Linings Playbook”; Hugh Jackman as Victor Hugo’s tragic hero Jean Valjean in “Les Miserables”; Phoenix as a Navy vet who falls in with a cult in “The Master”; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in “Flight.”

Cooper had been a bit of a longshot. John Hawkes, a potential best-actor favorite, missed out for his role as a man in an iron lung aiming to lose his virginity in “The Sessions.”

Nominated for best actress are Jessica Chastain as a CIA operative hunting bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty”; Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow struggling to heal in “Silver Linings Playbook”; Riva as an ailing woman tended by her husband in “Amour”; Quvenzhane Wallis as a spirited girl on the Louisiana delta in “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; and Naomi Watts as a mother caught up in a devastating tsunami in “The Impossible.”

Best actress had a wild age range: Riva is the oldest nominee ever in the category at 85, while Wallis is the youngest ever at 9.

Along with Field, supporting-actress nominees are Adams as a cult leader’s devoted wife in “The Master”; Anne Hathaway as an outcast mother reduced to prostitution in “Les Miserables”; Helen Hunt as a sex surrogate in “The Sessions”; and Jacki Weaver as an unstable man’s doting mom in “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Besides Jones, the supporting-actor contenders are Alan Arkin as a wily Hollywood producer in “Argo”; Robert De Niro as a football-obsessed patriarch in “Silver Linings Playbook”; Hoffman as a dynamic cult leader in “The Master”; and Christoph Waltz as a genteel bounty hunter in “Django Unchained.”

“Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, who will host the Feb. 24 Oscars, joined Emma Stone to announce the Oscar lineup, and he scored a nomination himself, original song for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend,” the tune he co-wrote for his big-screen directing debut “Ted.”

“That’s kind of cool I got nominated,” MacFarlane deadpanned at the announcement. “I get to go to the Oscars.”

Walt Disney predictably dominated the animated-feature category with three of the five nominees: “Brave,” ”Frankenweenie” and “Wreck-It Ralph.” Also nominated were “ParaNorman” and “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.”

“I’m absolutely blown away,” Rich Moore, director of “Wreck-It Ralph” said by phone. “It is weird at 5:30 in the morning to hear Emma Stone say your name. It’s surreal.”

“Lincoln” is Spielberg’s best awards prospect since his critical peak in the 1990s, when he won best-picture and directing Oscars for “Schindler’s List” and a second directing Oscar for “Saving Private Ryan.” The 12 nominations for “Lincoln” matched Spielberg’s personal best on “Schindler’s List,” which won seven Oscars.

Spielberg’s latest film could vault him, Day-Lewis and Field to new heights among Hollywood’s super-elite of multiple Oscar winners.

A best-picture win for “Lincoln” would be Spielberg’s second, while another directing win would be his third, a feat achieved only by Frank Capra and William Wyler, who each earned three directing Oscars, and John Ford, who received four.

“Lincoln” also was the ninth best-picture nominee Spielberg has directed, moving him into a tie for second-place with Ford. Only Wyler directed more best-picture nominees, with 13.

Day-Lewis and Field both have two lead-acting Oscars already, he for “My Left Foot” and “There Will Be Blood” and she for “Norma Rae” and “Places in the Heart.” A third Oscar for either would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn is the record-holder with four acting Oscars.

An Oscar for Jones would be his second supporting-actor prize; he previously won for “The Fugitive.”

“Lincoln” composer John Williams — whose five Oscars include three for the music of three earlier Spielberg films, “Jaws,” ”E.T. the Extra-terrestrial” and “Schindler’s List” — earned his 43rd nomination for best score, extending his all-time record in the category.

The Oscars feature a best-picture field that ranges from five to 10 films depending on a complex formula of ballots from the 5,856 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Winners for the 85th Oscars will be announced Feb. 24 at a ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

___

Online:

http://www.oscars.org

___

AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire contributed to this report.

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Institute of Medicine Studying Concussions in Young Athletes

The Institute of Medicine, a federally financed research group, has started a 15-month investigation into sports-related concussions sustained by young athletes.

An ad hoc committee of scientists, which held its first meeting Monday, “will conduct a study on sports-related concussions in youth, from elementary school through young adulthood, including military personnel and their dependents,” according to the Web site of the institute, part of the National Academies of Science.

The committee will look at the causes of concussions and the “relationships to hits to the head or body during sports, and the effectiveness of protective devices and equipment.”

The committee will also review screening, diagnosis, treatment and long-term consequences of concussions and head hits.  

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Jewel-Osco stores to be sold to Cerberus group

Jewel-Osco stores will be sold to a consortium of investors led by Cerberus Capital Management, Jewel's parent Supervalu said Thursday.

The deal, valued at $3.3 billion, also includes the Albertsons, Acme, and Shaw stores.

The announcement ends months of speculation that all or parts of the troubled grocery chain would be sold to New York-based Cerberus, an investment firm. Supervalu acquired Jewel in 2006 as part of a larger, complex acquisition of the Albertsons company.

Supervalu also reported a profit of $16 million, or 8 cents per share, in the third quarter ended on Dec. 1, compared with a year-earlier loss of $750 million, or $3.54 per share, Reuter reported.

Excluding an after-tax gain related to a cash settlement from credit card companies and after-tax charges primarily related to store closures, it earned $5 million, or 3 cents per share.

As part of the deal, which includes $100 million in cash and $3.2 billion in debt, the five grocery chains will be acquired by AB Acquisition, an affiliate of Cerberus. Other investors in the deal include Kimco Realty Corp, Klaff Realty, Lubert-Adler Partners and Schottenstein Real Estate Group.

Following the sale, which is expected to close in 10 days, a newly formed entity called Symphony Investors, led by Cerberus, will purchase up to 30 percent of Supervalu's outstanding shares for $4 each, representing a 50 percent premium over the stock's 30-day average. If Symphony cannot acquire at least 19.9 percent of the outstanding shares at that price, Supervalu must issue additional stock.

Wall Street has long expected Eden Prairie, Minn-based Supervalu to sell some or all of its assets.

Following the deal, Supervalu will consist of its wholesale grocery business, the Save-A-Lot discount chain, and traditional grocery chains like Cub, Shop N' Save and Hornbacher's.

Sam Duncan, 61, will replace Wayne Sales as CEO. Duncan was CEO of Office Max from 2005 to 2011, and prior to that, was CEO of ShopKo, a Midwestern grocery chain. Five unidentified board members will resign as part of the deal, making room for Duncan, Albertsons CEO Robert Miller, and three new appointees. The size of the board will shrink from 10 to seven.

Concurrent with the announcement, Supervalu announced that it has secured access to a $900 million asset-based credit facility, and a $1.5 billion loan.

This deal ends a long and difficult year for one of the country's largest grocers.

Last April, Supervalu reported a loss of $1.04 billion for fiscal 2012, which included a $519 million operating loss and $509 million in interest expense. Sales also declined 3 percent, to $27.9 billion. In July, the company said it was exploring strategic alternatives, including a sale. Soon after, the company dismissed CEO Craig Herkert, with Chairman Wayne Sales stepping in to helm the troubled grocer.

Cerberus, an investor in the deal to acquire Albertsons in 2006 was long seen as the leading candidate. Last week, rumors that Supervalu was near a deal with Cerberus sent stock soaring nearly 15 percent.

In September, Supervalu said it would 60 underperforming stores, primarily from the Save-A-Lot and Albertsons chains. No Jewel locations were identified at the time. The announcement was particularly troubling to investment community because Save-A-Lot, a hard discount chain, has been Supervalu's primary growth vehicle.

Supervalu has long acknowledged that many of its stores are not price competitive. In 2012, it homed in on Jewel-Osco and the Chicago market. Supervalu surveyed customers and lowered prices throughout the store. When the company reported results for its second fiscal quarter in September, (Supervalu CEO Wayne) Sales said that Jewel had been "competitively priced throughout the store" for about six weeks.

Sales said that the initiative had resulted in "dramatic improvement" in how consumers "think about the quality of products we sell, how they feel about the service they get in various departments" and that the company was pleased with increased unit sales.

Traditional supermarkets, large stores built for one-stop-shopping, have suffered as Walmart and Target have added grocery departments, and discount chains like Aldi and Save-A-Lot have proliferated. Dollar stores have also expanded food offerings. And none of these competitors are tied to union contracts, making it easier to keep labor costs, and consequently prices, low.

But Supervalu sales and earnings have also lagged traditional supermarket competitors, like Cincinnati-based Kroger, and Dominick's parent, Pleasanton, Calif-based Safeway. Returns for investors have also lagged. According to Bloomberg, Supervalu's stock price fell 81 percent from 2010 through 2012, while Safeway stock fell 15 percent and Kroger's grew 27 percent.

Supervalu acquired Jewel-Osco stores in 2006, as part of a complex acquisition of the Albertsons company. The deal, led by Cerberus Capital Management, divided the Albertsons grocery chain, with part going to Cerberus, and part going to Supervalu.

Until the 2006 deal, Supervalu had been primarily a wholesale company, although it had slowly been adding retail assets. But the Albertsons deal vastly increased Supervalu's retail business, and saddled the company with an onerous debt.

That debt obligation has made it difficult for the company to fend off low-priced competitors like Walmart, which sacrifices gross margin for sales volume, or make capital investments to improve the look and experience of its stores, and better compete with upscale chains like Whole Foods.

Cerberus, with more than $20 billion under management, areas of focus include distressed securities and assets, commercial mid-market lending and real-estate related investments.

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.

Separately, experts have suggested that Jewel may be particularly attractive to a large chain without a major Chicago presence, such as Kroger.

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

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Poisoned lottery winner's wife has 'nothing to hide,' attorney says

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

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

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

The mystery surrounding Khan's death — first reported by the Tribune Monday — has sparked international media interest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

jmeisner@tribune.com

jgorner@tribune.com

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Lawyers in Ohio football rape case want trial moved

(Reuters) – Attorneys for two Ohio teenage football players accused of raping a 16-year-old student have asked that the trial be moved because potential witnesses are afraid to come forward in defense of the boys, one of the lawyers said on Monday.

Walter Madison, the attorney for one of the accused rapists, Ma’lik Richmon, said social media efforts to bring the alleged rape into the national spotlight have led to an atmosphere of intimidation and coercion.

“This has a chilling effect on witnesses who could come forward to be part of this process so my client can get a fair and full proceeding,” he told Reuters. “So, we’re left without the opportunity to make our case. That’s pretty serious.”

Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16 and members of the Steubenville High School football team, are charged with raping a 16-year-old fellow student at a party last August.

The two students are set to be tried as juveniles in February in Steubenville, a city of 19,000 about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh.

Madison said his client’s mother has had to change her cell phone number multiple times due to threats and harassment.

Last week, the online activist group Anonymous made public a picture allegedly of the rape victim, being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men, and of a video that showed several other young men joking about an alleged assault.

Madison said that Richmond is not seen in the video.

A county sheriff under fire for how he has handled the high school rape investigation faced down a crowd of protestors on Saturday and said no new charges will be brought against anyone involved in the case.

Activists say there had been a cover-up by local officials to protect the integrity of the high school’s football program.

Meanwhile, a petition to the White House calling for the two rape suspects to be tried as adults reached 25,000 signatures Monday, the threshold required to receive a response from the Obama Administration.

Moving the case to the adult court system would allow for a jury trial and a more severe penalty, the petition says.

“This is a serious offense and this needs to be an example for everyone that this type of behavior should not, and will not be tolerated in our society,” it says.

The petition, created December 25, more than doubled its number of supporters overnight. It had 11,000 signatures on Sunday.

It was submitted to the White House through its online petition website, We The People. Now that it has the required 25,000 signatures, the Obama Administration will give an official statement at some point in the future. The petition has no legal impact.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Andrew Hay)

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Fox to Launch Late-Night ‘Animation Domination High-Def’ Block in July

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Fox will launch Animation Domination High-Def, a late-night offshoot of its Sunday night Animation Domination comedy block, on July 27, the network said.

The block, which will feature the voice talents of Mandy Moore, Ken Marion, Patton Oswalt and others, will run from 11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Saturday nights.

The first season of Animation Domination High-Def will include several 15-minute animated programs, including “Axe Cop,” “High School USA” and an as-yet-untitled project from sibling comedy duo Kenny and Keith Lucas, aka The Lucas Brothers.

During a panel on the new animation block on Tuesday, Animation Domination High-Def head Nick Weidenfeld, formerly the head of development for the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, said that the block will provide a forum for “experimental and more interesting forms of animation.” He also noted that it’s possible that some of the projects could end up transitioning to the network’s primetime Animation Domination block.

However, he added, “the stuff that we’re making is not the exact same fare as a Sunday night broad comedy show… those shows need to be huge hits.”

Featuring a cast that includes Oswalt, “Breaking Bad” alum Giancarlo Esposito and Jonathan Banks, and “Community” creator Dan Harmon, “Axe Cop” is the brainchild of five-year-old Malachai Nicolle and his 30-year-old brother, Ethan Nicolle. The series will follow a superhero who lives on a steady diet of birthday cake and dispenses his own unique brand of vigilante justice. Weidenfeld and “American Dad” vet Judah Miller developed the series, with Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser of “Drawn Together” serving as executive producers and showrunners.

Meanwhile, “High School USA” revolves around a group of super-positive millennial students as they tackle modern perils such as cyber-bullying, Adderall addiction and embarrassing sexting incidents. “Community” and “TV Funhouse” veteran Dino Stamatopoulos created and is writing the show, which boasts a cast including Vincent Kartheiser of “Mad Men” and “Mandy Moore.”

The untitled Lucas Brothers project, which is based on the siblings’ stand-up comedy routine, follows the pair as they attempt to run a moving company, dubbed Va¢ation Boy$ , after inheriting an old van from their uncle.

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Gaps Seen in Therapy for Suicidal Teenagers

Most adolescents who plan or attempt suicide have already received at least some mental health treatment, raising questions about the effectiveness of current approaches to helping troubled youths, according to the largest in-depth analysis to date of suicidal behaviors in American teenagers.

The study, in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found that 55 percent of suicidal teenagers had received some therapy before they thought about suicide, planned it or tried to kill themselves, contradicting the widely held belief that suicide is due in part to a lack of access to treatment.

The findings, based on interviews with a nationwide sample of more than 6,000 teenagers and at least one parent of each, linked suicidal behavior to complex combinations of mood disorders like depression and behavior problems like attention-deficit and eating disorders, as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

The study found that about one in eight teenagers had persistent suicidal thoughts at some point, and that about a third of those who had suicidal thoughts had made an attempt, usually within a year of having the idea.

Previous studies have had similar findings, based on smaller, regional samples. But the new study is the first to suggest, in a large nationwide sample, that access to treatment does not make a big difference.

The study suggests that effective treatment for severely suicidal teenagers must address not just mood disorders, but also behavior problems that can lead to impulsive acts, experts said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,386 people between the ages of 13 and 18 committed suicide in 2010, the latest year for which numbers are available.

“I think one of the take-aways here is that treatment for depression may be necessary but not sufficient to prevent kids from attempting suicide,” said Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, who was not involved in the study. “We simply do not have empirically validated treatments for recurrent suicidal behavior.”

The report said nothing about whether the therapies given were state of the art or carefully done, said Matt Nock, a professor of psychology at Harvard and the lead author, and it is possible that some of the treatments prevented suicide attempts. “But it’s telling us we’ve got a long way to go to do this right,” Dr. Nock said. His co-authors included Ronald C. Kessler of Harvard and researchers from Boston University and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Margaret McConnell, a consultant in Alexandria, Va., said her daughter Alice, who killed herself in 2006 at the age of 17, was getting treatment at the time. “I think there might have been some carelessness in the way the treatment was done,” Ms. McConnell said, “and I was trusting a 17-year-old to manage her own medication. We found out after we lost her that she wasn’t taking it regularly.”

In the study, researchers surveyed 6,483 adolescents from the ages of 13 to 18 and found that 9 percent of male teenagers and 15 percent of female teenagers experienced some stretch of having persistent suicidal thoughts. Among girls, 5 percent made suicide plans and 6 percent made at least one attempt (some were unplanned).

Among boys, 3 percent made plans and 2 percent carried out attempts, which tended to be more lethal than girls’ attempts.

(Suicidal thinking or behavior was virtually unheard-of before age 10.)

Over all, about one-third of teenagers with persistent suicidal thoughts went on to make an attempt to take their own lives.

Almost all of the suicidal adolescents in the study qualified for some psychiatric diagnosis, whether depression, phobias or generalized anxiety disorder. Those with an added behavior problem — attention-deficit disorder, substance abuse, explosive anger — were more likely to act on thoughts of self-harm, the study found.

Doctors have tested a range of therapies to prevent or reduce recurrent suicidal behaviors, with mixed success. Medications can ease depression, but in some cases they can increase suicidal thinking. Talk therapy can contain some behavior problems, but not all.

One approach, called dialectical behavior therapy, has proved effective in reducing hospitalizations and suicide attempts in, among others, people with borderline personality disorder, who are highly prone to self-harm.

But suicidal teenagers who have a mixture of mood and behavior issues are difficult to reach. In one 2011 study, researchers at George Mason University reduced suicide attempts, hospitalizations, drinking and drug use among suicidal adolescent substance abusers. The study found that a combination of intensive treatments — talk therapy for mood problems, family-based therapy for behavior issues and patient-led reduction in drug use — was more effective than regular therapies.

“But that’s just one study, and it’s small,” said Dr. Brent of the University of Pittsburgh. “We can treat components of the overall problem, but that’s about all.”

Ms. McConnell said that her daughter’s depression had seemed mild and that there was no warning that she would take her life. “I think therapy does help a lot of people, if it’s handled right,” she said.

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Lampert plans to be a new kind of merchant

He's been a big-time investor in the retail sector for more than 15 years and was chairman of Kmart after it emerged from bankruptcy about a decade ago. A few years later, he paired it with once-dominant Sears.

Yet even as Eddie Lampert is poised next month to add the role of chief executive to that of chairman at retail giant Sears Holdings, he's still characterized generally as just a hedge fund guy.

This, Lampert suggested in a rare interview Tuesday, fails to acknowledge changes in the 21st century retail industry as well as the Hoffman Estates-based company he seeks to revive.

"The most successful guy in retail right now is Jeff Bezos, and he was a (Wall Street) hedge fund guy," Lampert, 50, said by phone. "I think a lot of times when people talk about merchants it's almost a nostalgic look back at the time where the world moved at a very different pace and information was very different."

Lampert has decided to succeed Lou D'Ambrosio, who is leaving to tend to a family health issue. Critics complain that this is just the latest missed opportunity to have a world-class merchandiser run the struggling company.

"So it's Eddie Lampert who's going to be there, and he's a smart guy and insightful when it comes to doing deals, but he doesn't have a track record at running a retail operation," said Evan Mann, an analyst with Gimme Credit.

Lampert argues that a new kind of sales, one that encompasses e-commerce, traditional bricks-and-mortar, mobile and more, requires a new kind of merchant.

"Trying to move the volume of products we're talking about from place to place to get it ultimately into the customer's hands, to price these items, to market these items, I think the retail business is incredibly complex," Lampert said. "But if you get it right, it's a beautiful thing."

"I'm not denying that there are still great merchants," he said. "But to operate a company of the size of Sears Holdings or Wal-Mart or Target or Home Depot or Lowe's, you need a combination of skills, and each of those skills needs to be sufficiently strong."

Lampert can make the case that he is a modern-day merchant. He still hasn't proved he's a good one. For six successive years, Sears Holdings has seen no top-line growth, due to slipping sales and store closings.

"I understand and I appreciate people looking at same-store sales as an indicator," D'Ambrosio said during the call. "I think when you look at the financial shape of the company, there's clear progress."

D'Ambrosio noted four consecutive quarters of EBITDA growth and the fact the company raised $1.8 billion of liquidity in 2012 while reducing net debt by $400 million.

Overshadowed in Monday's news of the leadership change were other glimmers of hope: Sears' domestic comparable-store sales for the nine weeks ended Dec. 29 were up 0.5 percent.

Meanwhile, the strategy of technological convergence, which included a loyalty program, has yielded a wellspring of consumer data and changed customers' relationship with the retailer. Kmart and U.S. Sears' online sales are up 20 percent.

"It's never a good time for a transition, but what I would tell you is, five years ago, we put in place a more distributed leadership structure," Lampert said. "Despite what people may have said or written, there is a difference between a chairman role and a CEO role, and I've never been in the CEO role in this company."

D'Ambrosio predicted Lampert will offer strategic continuity. But handicappers have long questioned whether the old horse had any giddy-up left in its step to catch up to and keep pace with Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon.

And not to beat a dead metaphor, but the suspicion among many all along has been that Lampert saw neither a thoroughbred nor tireless workhorse in the parent of Sears and Kmart as so many parts to be cut up, boiled down and sold off.

"I was very clear why we put these companies together and what our goals were," Lampert said. "It was really to allow both Sears and Kmart to compete in what I thought was going to be a more challenging but evolving industry. The framework which was placed upon me and the company was: 'OK, this was all about real estate. It's about selling real estate.' Then when we didn't sell real estate, it became: 'Well, they missed the opportunity in 2006, 2007 to sell the real estate.'

"I've never denied there was substantial real estate value in the company," he said. "Suffice it to say that … the most value can be created if we actually transform it."

Fortune in 2006 called Lampert "the best investor of his generation." A Forbes contributor last year ranked him No. 2 on a list of the worst CEOs, and while acknowledging Lampert was Sears Holdings' chairman and not CEO, the contributor argued that "Lampert has called the shots, he's missed every target" and that he had "destroyed Sears."

D'Ambrosio said he doesn't recognize the Lampert he sometimes sees described by critics.

"I've never worked with somebody who understands business models and how to re-imagine a business model and has a view on the way buying will change going forward better than Eddie," D'Ambrosio said.

It turns out, his image is the thing he's least interested in selling at Sears Holdings.

"I do think what we've been trying to do at the company has been very clear," Lampert said. "If people want to doubt it or put a spin on it, they're entitled to do it. We just have to perform."

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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