Ex-Gov. Ryan arrives at halfway house: 'He has paid a severe price'

A somber and silent George Ryan arrived at a West Side halfway house this morning after the former governor was released from a federal prison in Indiana.

Wearing a gray sports coat, white shirt and maroon tie, Ryan was surrounded by TV cameras as he walked down the street and entered the four-story red brick building at Ashland Avenue and Monroe Street shortly before 7 a.m.

Ryan smiled tightly as he refused to answer questions from reporters. Ryan's son, George Ryan Jr. and former Gov. Jim Thompson accompanied Ryan into the house.

After Ryan checked in, Thompson came back out and told reporters "today is another step in a long journey for George Ryan. . .He would like me to tell you he's grateful to leave the penitentiary. He's grateful also for the encouragement and support from many people. He has paid a severe price. The loss of his wife and brother while he was in the penitentiary, the loss of his pension, his office, his good name and 5 1/2 years of imprisonment. Now near 80 years old, that is a significant punishment. But he is going to go forward."

Ryan left the prison early this morning and managed to escape the notice of media camped at the facility. The first indication that Ryan has been released was around 6:45 a.m. when he left a building down the street and started walking toward the halfway house.

His son put his left hand on his father and guided him out the door. Ryan kept his head down, his hands in his pockets as he talked to his son and walked slowly through the knot of TV cameras.

As they neared the halfway house, a worker opened the door and tried to clear a path through the cameras. Ryan raised his head, his hands still in his pockets, his son to his right, as he walked down five steps and into the halfway house.

Thompson said Ryan didn't speak much during the van trip to Chicago.

"He didn't talk much, just small talk," Thompson said. "He looks good. He's been lifting weights. . .He knows something about carpentry now.

"He tied his own tie this morning, he hasn't forgotten that," Thompson said. "He's in decent spirits. He has to become accustomed to seeing things differently. . .We came down Michigan Avenue and he was looking at the lights left over from Christmas. That was sort of wonderful, I think. He hasn’t seen the city of Chicago in 5 1/2 years.”

Thompson said people forget that Ryan "was a very good governor." But he added that Ryan "is not bitter, he's not angry. He's accepting. This has been a long fight."

Ryan completed more than 5 years of a a 6 1/2-year prison sentence in Terre Haute, Ind. for a corruption conviction. 

Ryan entered prison on Nov. 7, 2007. His wife of more than 50 years, Lura Lynn, died of cancer in June 2011.

If Ryan does well at the halfway house, he would be eligible to move to home confinement at his Kankakee residence to finish out his sentence, which ends July 4.

The halfway house, operated by the Salvation Army a few blocks east of the United Center, has been a way station for about 20,000 men and women since opening in 1975. Many corrupt Illinois politicians have finished their sentences at the facility. Among the most recent graduates was former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak.

Ryan's conviction for fraud, racketeering and other charges was the culmination of the federal Operation Safe Road investigation that exposed rampant bribery in state driver's license facilities while he was secretary of state as well as misdeeds as governor.

After a six-month trial, a federal jury convicted Ryan in 2006 of steering millions of dollars in state business to lobbyists and friends in return for vacations, gifts and other benefits to Ryan and his family.

The conviction overshadowed Ryan's long career in government.

The Kankakee native rose from speaker of the Illinois House to win statewide election as lieutenant governor, secretary of state and then one term as governor. His actions as governor included placing a moratorium on the death penalty and emptying death row, moves that won him international acclaim.

Thompson said Ryan may become involved in death penalty issues after his sentence ends in July. "It's way too soon to tell."

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RIM starts glitzy BlackBerry 10 launch parties

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Wednesday kicked off a string of global launch parties for a long-delayed line of smartphones it says will put it on the comeback trail in a market it once dominated.

The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple‘s iPhone and devices using Google‘s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.

They boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large app library.

(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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Spielberg seen winning director Oscar for “Lincoln”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – American filmmaker Steven Spielberg is clear favorite among the public to win the best director award for his film about President Abraham Lincoln at the Academy Awards this year, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

While the race to win best film at the February 24 ceremony was shaken up by “Argo” stealing the thunder of “Lincoln” at two award ceremonies last weekend, the best director statuette was deemed destined for one man.

Spielberg, 66, who has been nominated seven times for best director at the Oscars and won twice – for the World War Two dramas “Schindler’s List” in 1993 and “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998 – was seen as far ahead in the all-male field of five.

A Reuters Ipsos poll of 1,641 Americans found 41 percent thought Spielberg should win and 38 percent said he was most likely to win for his U.S. Civil War-era drama in which British actor Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln.

Almost half of the respondents to the survey conducted Friday through Tuesday were unsure who should or was most likely to be voted best director. The accuracy of the poll uses a statistical measure called a “credibility interval” and is precise to within 2.8 percentage points.

The online poll comes before the Directors Guild of America awards on Saturday in Los Angeles. Since 1948, there have been only six occasions where the winner of the DGA Award for Feature Film has not gone on to win the Oscar for best director.

But this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose members choose Oscar winners, overlooked the directors of four of the year’s biggest movies – Ben Affleck (“Argo”), Kathryn Bigelow (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Quentin Tarantino (“Django Unchained”) and Tom Hopper (“Les Miserables”) – opening the possibility of a rare split in February in the best film and best director categories.

Betting agencies also have earmarked Spielberg as clear favorite, with William Hill offering odds of 1-5 on Spielberg.

“Our theory is that Spielberg will win best director but not best film,” said Rupert Adams, a spokesman for bookmaker William Hill. “If you listen to what people are saying it is that ‘Lincoln’ is a brilliant film in terms of direction but it is not that exciting to watch unlike ‘Argo.’”

Ang Lee, with his 3-D film adaptation of the best-selling novel “Life of Pi” about an Indian boy adrift at sea with a tiger, was ranked second in the Reuters poll with about one in 10 respondents saying he should or was most likely to win.

The Taiwanese director won the Academy Award for best director in 2005 for the gay-themed Western romance “Brokeback Mountain.”

David O. Russell with the quirky comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” was rated third in the poll with about 5 percent.

The two surprise contenders in the race ranked fourth and fifth: Benh Zeitlin, 30, with his first feature, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” and Austrian director Michael Haneke with the French-language drama “Armour” about illness and old age.

The exclusion of Bigelow for her film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden has been controversial in the run-up to the 85th Academy Awards. Bigelow, 61, is the only woman to win a best director Oscar, for “The Hurt Locker” in 2009.

Affleck, 40, whose Iran hostage thriller “Argo” swept the board at last weekend’s Hollywood awards shows, was also notable by his absence, as were Hooper and Tarantino. However, all four of their movies are in the running for best film at the Oscars.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Belinda Goldsmith)

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Phys Ed: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.

The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal ski gear and schuss or ride down the slopes at their preferred speed. Although they hadn’t informed the volunteers, their primary aim was to determine whether wearing a helmet increased people’s willingness to take risks, in which case helmets could actually decrease safety on the slopes.

What they found was reassuring.

To many of us who hit the slopes with, in my case, literal regularity — I’m an ungainly novice snowboarder — the value of wearing a helmet can seem self-evident. They protect your head from severe injury. During the Big Air finals at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., this past weekend, for instance, 23-year-old Icelandic snowboarder Halldor Helgason over-rotated on a triple back flip, landed head-first on the snow, and was briefly knocked unconscious. But like the other competitors he was wearing a helmet, and didn’t fracture his skull.

Indeed, studies have concluded that helmets reduce the risk of a serious head injury by as much as 60 percent. But a surprising number of safety experts and snowsport enthusiasts remain unconvinced that helmets reduce overall injury risk.

Why? A telling 2009 survey of ski patrollers from across the country found that 77 percent did not wear helmets because they worried that the headgear could reduce their peripheral vision, hearing and response times, making them slower and clumsier. In addition, many worried that if they wore helmets, less-adept skiers and snowboarders might do likewise, feel invulnerable and engage in riskier behavior on the slopes.

In the past several years, a number of researchers have attempted to resolve these concerns, for or against helmets. And in almost all instances, helmets have proved their value.

In the Innsbruck speed experiment, the researchers found that people whom the questionnaires showed to be risk takers skied and rode faster than those who were by nature cautious. No surprise.

But wearing a helmet did not increase people’s speed, as would be expected if the headgear encouraged risk taking. Cautious people were slower than risk-takers, whether they wore helmets or not; and risk-takers were fast, whether their heads were helmeted or bare.

Interestingly, the skiers and riders who were the most likely, in general, to don a helmet were the most expert, the men and women with the most talent and hours on the slopes. Experience seemed to have taught them the value of a helmet.

Off of the slopes, other new studies have brought skiers and snowboarders into the lab to test their reaction times and vision with and without helmets. Peripheral vision and response times are a serious safety concern in a sport where skiers and riders rapidly converge from multiple directions.

But when researchers asked snowboarders and skiers to wear caps, helmets, goggles or various combinations of each for a 2011 study and then had them sit before a computer screen and press a button when certain images popped up, they found that volunteers’ peripheral vision and reaction times were virtually unchanged when they wore a helmet, compared with wearing a hat. Goggles slightly reduced peripheral vision and increased response times. But helmets had no significant effect.

Even when researchers added music, testing snowboarders and skiers wearing Bluetooth-audio equipped helmets, response times did not increase significantly from when they wore wool caps.

So why do up to 40 percent of skiers and snowboarders still avoid helmets?

“The biggest reason, I think, is that many people never expect to fall,” says Dr. Adil H. Haider, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-author of a major new review of studies related to winter helmet use. “That attitude is especially common in people, like me, who are comfortable on blue runs but maybe not on blacks, and even more so in beginners.”

But a study published last spring detailing snowboarding injuries over the course of 18 seasons at a Vermont ski resort found that the riders at greatest risk of hurting themselves were female beginners. I sympathize.

The takeaway from the growing body of science about ski helmets is in fact unequivocal, Dr. Haider said. “Helmets are safe. They don’t seem to increase risk taking. And they protect against serious, even fatal head injuries.”

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, of which Dr. Haider is a member, has issued a recommendation that “all recreational skiers and snowboarders should wear safety helmets,” making them the first medical group to go on record advocating universal helmet use.

Perhaps even more persuasive, Dr. Haider has given helmets to all of his family members and colleagues who ski or ride. “As a trauma surgeon, I know how difficult it is to fix a brain,” he said. “So everyone I care about wears a helmet.”

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Airlines had earlier 787 battery issues

U.S. Transportation regulators are asking Boeing for a complete history of the lithium-ion batteries used on 787 Dreamliners. Battery problems have grounded all 50 787s in use around the world. (Jan. 30)

Boeing Co. said Wednesday that numerous replacements of potentially flammable lithium-ion batteries by airlines flying the new 787 Dreamliner were not made because of safety concerns.

"We have not seen 787 battery replacements occurring as a result of safety concerns," the company said in a statement. "Batteries are a replaceable unit on airplanes, regardless of the technology used."

The statement comes after All Nippon Airways Co. and Japan Airlines Co., Japan's two biggest airlines, said they had repeatedly replaced sub-par lithium-ion batteries on their Dreamliners in the months before the two incidents that led to the 787 groundings.

Boeing said: "The batteries are being returned because our robust protection scheme ensures that no battery that has been deeply discharged or improperly disconnected can be used. The third-highest category for battery returns is exceeding the battery shelf life -- this is a fact of life in dealing with batteries; they sometimes expire and must be returned."

Comments from All Nippon, the Boeing jetliner's biggest customer to date, and JAL pointed to reliability issues with the batteries long before one caught fire on a JAL 787 at Boston's airport and a second was badly charred and melted on an ANA domestic flight that was forced into an emergency landing.

ANA said it changed 10 batteries on its 787s last year, but did not inform accident investigators in the United States because the incidents, including five batteries that had unusually low charges, did not compromise the plane's safety, spokesman Ryosei Nomura said on Wednesday.

JAL also replaced batteries on the 787 “on a few occasions”, said spokeswoman Sze Hunn Yap, declining to be more specific on when units were replaced or whether these were reported to authorities.

ANA did, however, inform Boeing of the faults that began in May, and returned the batteries to their manufacturer, GS Yuasa Corp. A spokesman for the battery maker declined to comment on Wednesday. Shares of the company fell 1.2 percent.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said the airplane maker could not comment as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has indicated this is now part of their investigation.

LITTLE HEADWAY

The New York Times earlier quoted an NTSB spokeswoman as saying the agency would include these “numerous issues” with the 787 battery in its investigations.

Under aviation inspection rules, airlines are required to perform detailed battery inspections once every two years.

Officials are carrying out detailed tests on the batteries, chargers and monitoring units in Japan and the United States, but have so far made little headway in finding out what caused the battery failures.

Japan's transport ministry said the manufacturing process at the company which makes the 787 battery's monitoring unit did not appear to be linked to the problem on the ANA Dreamliner that made the emergency landing.

The NTSB said on Tuesday it was carrying out a microscopic investigation of the JAL 787 battery. Neither it nor the Japan Transport Safety Board has been able to say when they are likely to complete their work.

The global fleet of 50 Dreamliners - 17 of which are operated by ANA - remain grounded, increasing the likely financial impact to Boeing, which is still producing the aircraft but has stopped delivering them, and the airlines that fly the Dreamliner.

Boeing is due to report its latest quarterly earnings later on Wednesday, and ANA posts its earnings on Thursday. ANA shares rose 0.56 percent on Wednesday.
 

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Woman charged with DUI in crash that killed 2 changing tire

Chicago police are investigating a fatal car accident that killed 2 people as they were changing a tire.

Staff report

9:17 a.m. CST, January 29, 2013

Police say a Humboldt Park woman was intoxicated when her car struck and killed two people changing a tire in the Parkview neighborhood.

Delia Aguila, 27, has been charged with driving under the influence, reckless driving and a handful of other felonies and misdemeanors, police said.

Aguila was driving in the 3800 block of West 87th Street about 10:45 p.m. Saturday when she swerved and struck two people who were outside a vehicle.

Killed were William Brunson, 39, of the 8200 block of South Harper Avenue in Chicago, and Victoria R. Means, 34, of the 14100 block of South School Street in south suburban Riverdale.

Brunson was pronounced dead at the scene at 10:55 p.m. and Means was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:21 p.m., according to the medical examiner.

Aguila, of the 900 block of North Lawndale Avenue, is due in bond court Tuesday.

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Cricket-Australia board play straight bat to Warne twitter rant

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland has defended the organisation following a scathing attack aimed at them by spin great Shane Warne, who panned the board in a series of Twitter rants.

Sutherland added that he was prepared to meet with Warne and discuss the 43-year-old’s criticism of CA’s player rotation policy and his claim that “rubbish” decisions were turning Australian cricket into a “big joke”.

After venting his initial anger on Monday, Warne reiterated his views a day later.

“As I said last night we need cricket people running the team & who understand cricket & what’s required at the top level, not muppets,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

Warne questioned the logic of having former rugby union international Pat Howard as the board’s high performance manager but Sutherland threw his weight behind the former Wallaby back.

“I have every confidence in Pat Howard and his team, and what they’re doing,” Sutherland told local media on Tuesday.

“Personally I find it a little bit disappointing to read about that (Warne’s criticisms) in the fashion that I have.

“Ideally you’d like to be able to sit down with Shane and understand a little bit more deeply his opinions.”

Australia won all three tests in a recent series against Sri Lanka but were held 2-2 in the subsequent one-day internationals after resting skipper Michael Clarke for the first two matches.

The hosts, however, lost both Twenty20 internationals and were left debating the merits of a controversial rotation policy CA has introduced to manage injuries and the workload of their frontline players.

While Warne insisted Australia needed to field their best 11 players every time they stepped out, fast bowling great Dennis Lillee has backed CA’s approach.

“He’s 100 percent in agreement with the selection panel with managing the load and development of players,” Sutherland said of Lillee, who captured 355 wickets in 70 tests.

“Who’s right here?

“You’ve got Shane Warne saying one thing, Dennis Lillee saying another. It’s not a black and white issue.”

Warne retired from test cricket in 2007 after taking 708 wickets in 145 tests. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by John O’Brien)

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Philadelphia opera co.: New name, new vision

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Opera Company of Philadelphia is getting a name change that officials say is in better harmony with its move toward more innovative programming and greater diversity in its repertoire.

The company said Tuesday it will now be known simply as Opera Philadelphia. The new name and logo will appear on all of its brochures and ads.

The announcement was made in conjunction with the unveiling of the 2013-2014 season.

The company plans to continue bringing opera to new audiences with surprise “pop-up” concerts in famous Philadelphia locations. Past performances at a downtown Macy’s and the Reading Terminal Market have received millions of views on YouTube.

Opera Philadelphia says it has five new operas in development and aims to present challenging contemporary works along with classics like “Carmen” and “La Boheme.”

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Well: Celery Recipes for Health

For many people, celery is best used as a garnish, part of a snack tray or perhaps to stir a Bloody Mary. But to Martha Rose Shulman, the Recipes for Health columnist, celery can be a main course. She writes:

I’m a big fan of celery, both raw and cooked, as the main ingredient or as one of several featured ingredients in a dish. You can do the traditional thing with raw celery and dice it up and add it to a potato, tuna or egg salad, or you can make a celery salad, slicing the branches as thin as you can get them and tossing them with herbs, radishes, oil and vinegar, and blue cheese. If you are cooking with celery, don’t stop at one branch when you make soup. The celery contributes a wonderful herbal flavor dimension. It retains its texture for a long time when you cook it, so I used it as the main vegetable in a risotto and loved the way it stood up to the creamy rice.

Here are five ways to move celery off the snack tray and on to center plate.

Lentil, Celery and Tomato Minestrone: With extra celery, traditional minestrone soup takes on a whole new layer of flavor.

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Pan-Cooked Celery With Tomatoes and Parsley: A way to serve celery as a side dish, or as a topping for grains or pasta.

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Celery and Radish Salad With Gorgonzola: Use the delicate hearts of celery for this light and delicious salad.

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Celery Risotto With Dandelion Greens or Kale: Celery contrasts nicely with the rice in this aromatic risotto.

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Puréed Broccoli and Celery Soup: A broccoli soup with an added dimension of flavor.

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Chicago home price recovery lags

The Chicago area's housing recovery continued to lag behind other cities and the nation, as prices in November fell 1.3 percent from a month earlier, according to a widely watched barometer of the housing market.

On an annual basis, home prices in the Chicago area rose only 0.8 percent in November, the smallest positive gain recorded among the 20 cities included in the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, released Tuesday.

Nationally, home prices rose 5.5 percent annually for the 20-city composite. Much of that gain can be traced to market improvements in once hard-hit places like Phoenix, where home prices have risen 22.8 percent in 12 months. Other cities recording strong yearly increases included Detroit, up 11.9 percent; Las Vegas, up 10 percent; San Francisco, up 12.7 percent; and Minneapolis, up 11.1 percent.

"Housing is clearly recovering," said David Blitzer, chairman of S&P Dow Jones Indices' index committee. "Prices are rising as are both new and existing home sales."

Most cities saw prices decrease in November from their October levels, which Blitzer tied with the housing market's typical winter weakness.

Nevertheless, Chicago turned in the worst monthly performance among the 20 cities. It was the third consecutive monthly decline for local home prices, which showed signs of strength earlier in 2012.

Condominium values in the Chicago market also fell for the second consecutive month. In November, they were down .9 percent from October but rose 2.7 percent from November 2011.

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

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