FBI: Second escaped bank robber caught in Palos Hills

The second inmate who made a daring escape last month from a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop was captured today in South Suburban Palos Hills, according to FBI officials.

Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber, was awaiting sentencing when he and cellmate Joseph “Jose” Banks scaled down the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Dec. 18 with a rope fashioned from bedsheets.

FBI Spokeswoman Joan Hyde said Conley was apprehended at an apartment complex at about 4 p.m. by Palos Hills police.

Palos Hills Police Deputy Chief James Boie said officers apprehended Conley with the help of two maintenance men working in the 10200 block of South 86th Terrace, who called police at about 3:30 p.m. to report a “suspicious person” walking down the street.

Two officers found a man dressed in an overcoat and pretending to use a cane. He had a dark hat pulled down low over his head and appeared to be trying to look older than he actually was, Boie said.

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

Boie said two additional officers responding to the scene caught the man -- later identified as Conley -- about a block away as he was trying to force his way into an apartment complex. He was wrestled down but did not offer any other resistance. Conley and one officer were taken to Palos Community Hospital for observation, he said.

Police found a BB pistol in Conley’s pocket. He had no money, ID or other weapons, Boie said.

Boie said that U.S. Marshals had been in the area days earlier after getting a tip that Conley had knocked on the door of a former acquaintance.

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

“I’m just glad it’s over. That’s my only comment,” she said.

Banks was apprehended late at night on Dec. 20 less than five miles from the jail in the home of a boyhood friend on the North Side.

Banks and Conley were last accounted for during a routine bed check, authorities said. About 7 a.m. the next day, jail employees arriving for work saw ropes made from bedsheets dangling from a hole in the wall near the 15th floor and down the south side of the facade.

The two had put clothing and sheets under blankets in their beds to throw off guards making nighttime checks and removed a cinder block to create an opening wide enough to slide through, authorities said.

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

The daring escape was an embarrassment for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and a rarity for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where the only previous successful escape took place in 1985.

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

Tribune reporter Carlos Sadovi contributed.

asweeney@tribune.com

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Clearwire investor seeks to block sale to Sprint

(Reuters) – A large Clearwire Corp shareholder on Friday stepped up its campaign against the planned sale of the wireless service provider to its majority owner, Sprint Nextel Corp, saying it plans to ask the U.S. telecoms regulator to block the deal.

Crest Financial’s general counsel also said on a call with reporters that it will ask the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to block Sprint’s plan to sell 70 percent of itself to Softbank Corp of Japan for $ 20 billion.

Going to the FCC is a new line of attack on the Sprint deal by Crest, which has also filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Clearwire investors. Dave Schumacher, Crest’s general counsel, said the fund said other minority investors told Crest they did not support the Sprint deal, but he did not provide details.

The investment fund, which owns around 8 percent of Clearwire, has said Sprint’s offer of $ 2.97 share for the roughly 50 percent of Clearwire it does not currently own, “grossly undervalues Clearwire.” Sprint’s offer is worth about $ 2.2 billion, but Schumacher said Crest had not done its own valuation and was basing its criticism of the price on estimates by analysts.

In going to the FCC, Crest will argue that the Clearwire deal artificially undervalues the company’s spectrum holdings, Schumacher said. That in turn potentially devalues future revenue for the U.S. government when it auctions off spectrum licenses.

“The merger is therefore a bad deal all around for Clearwire shareholders and also for the public at large,” said Schumacher.

Sprint spokesman Scott Sloat said the deal with Clearwire was the right one for Sprint, Clearwire and American consumers. He said the class action lawsuit was baseless.

A spokesman for Clearwire, Mike DiGioia, declined to comment on Crest’s intention to go to the FCC. He said a special committee of the board conducted a rigorous evaluation of the company’s options before agreeing to the Sprint deal.

Clearwire’s chief executive, Erik Prusch, has said the company does not have attractive alternatives as it seeks funding to continue to upgrade its own network and could risk bankruptcy if the Sprint deal does not succeed.

Crest has sued Clearwire in the Court of Chancery in Delaware, where the company is incorporated, to permanently block the deal.

The Delaware court will hear arguments next week on Crest’s request to expedite the case and Schumacher said Crest hopes to move to a trial in April.

The deal needs approval by a majority of Clearwire’s minority shareholders and Sprint has said it has the support of three large Clearwire investors – Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC – which hold 13 percent of Clearwire stock. Schumacher said the fund would try to prevent the three from voting because of their affiliation with Sprint.

As Clearwire’s fight with its shareholders heats up, Sprint has its own shareholders to contend with.

A Kansas court on Friday declined Sprint’s request for an early dismissal of a lawsuit by a union pension fund that holds Sprint stock.

The lawsuit alleged that Sprint’s chief executive, Daniel Hesse, rushed merger talks with Softbank and did not get a fair price.

The ruling by Thomas Sutherland, the judge for the District Court of Johnson County, Kansas, will allow the pension fund to begin to demand documents and witnesses as it tries to prove its case.

Sloat, the Sprint spokesman, said the ruling only addressed the technical adequacy of the pension fund’s pleading and did not address the merits of the case. He said Sprint continued to believe the case was without merit.

(Reporting By Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr and David Gregorio)

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’56 UP’ Review: The Kids Are All Right – If Wrinkled, Heavier and Hurt by the Economy

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – It’s like catching up with old friends. They’re a little heavier than when we last saw them and have a few more wrinkles, but they’re still very much who they always were.

We know that because, even as we’re looking at their 56-year old selves up on the screen, it is intercut with footage of them at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 or 49 years old, answering the same question or explaining how they were feeling then.

“56 UP” is the latest installment in director Michael Apted‘s extraordinary documentary series that began in 1964 as “Seven UP,” a television documentary in Great Britain. That first film, on which a then young Apted (he’s now 71) served as a researcher, attempted to examine the British class system by profiling 14 kids, each one a 7-year old, who came from various strata in society.

The film, which opens Friday in New York and January 18 in L.A., took as its inspiration the Jesuit maxim, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”

Every seven years since then, even as he became a major Hollywood director (“The World Is Not Enough”), Apted has served as director of the series. Backed by a camera crew, he visits individually with members of the original group of interviewees to see how their lives are turning out.

In “56 UP,” 13 of the original 14 allowed Apted to interview and film them. (The only one missing is Charles Furneaux, one of three upper-class boys who sat together on a couch as 7 year olds and talked dismissively of “poor children.” He became a television documentarian himself – he produced “Touching the Void” – and has not participated since “21 UP.”)

The series would seem to indicate that England’s class system is still firmly in place. A few of subjects have moved up the social ladder; Sue Davis, a working class girl from London’s East End, has ended up a college administrator and Nick Hitchon, a Yorkshire farm lad, is now a university professor in the U.S.

One of the middle-class kids, Neil Hughes, who dreamed of being an astronaut at 7, had an apparent breakdown as young adult and has led a lonely and emotionally troubled life. He seems, though, at 56, to have found a small measure of contentment living in a small town, where he ekes out a minimal living as a local council representative.

In the “56 UP” installment, it’s clear that the recent worldwide recession and subsequent government austerity measures in the U.K. have affected several of the film’s subjects, costing them jobs, social benefits or putting a serious crimp in their retirement plans.

Many of the participants are now grandparents, some with a first spouse, some with a second. But Bruce Balden, a math teacher who didn’t wed until he was in his 40s, is at 56 the involved father to two young sons, who watch with amusement as their portly pop tries to erect a tent and play cricket.

One has the usual quibbles with the “UP” series: only four of the original 14 subjects were girls, which means the film has been limited in its ability to portray the feminist revolution. Only one participant, Symon Basterfield, was a person of color, which means the movie missed out on examining another major shift in the British population in the last half-century. And none of the kids turned out to be gay (or if they are, they’re not telling Apted), so that too is a missing element.

But overall, the “UP” series remains an amazing achievement. What’s most fascinating about the film is how everyone here, now well into middle age, is still completely engaged in life, is generally upbeat (despite some real struggles for several of them) and intends to carry on.

During the course of the film’s 144-minutes, as Apted skillfully cuts back and forth between his subjects now and then, it’s apparent that the more people change the more they stay the same. But, and this is where the series shines, it’s equally clear that people have an amazing capacity to change, grow and show enormous resilience when faced with daunting challenges.

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Skin Deep: Questions Surround Iris Implant Procedure – Skin Deep

ANITA ADAMS was born with one green eye and one brown eye. While differently colored irises, a condition otherwise known as heterochromia, may look exotic on David Bowie and Kate Bosworth, Ms. Adams did not like them on herself.

“I wanted my irises to match,” said Ms. Adams, 41, who works as a caretaker for at-risk adolescents in Grand Junction, Colo.

In mid-2008, she began looking online to see if there was any solution other than colored contact lenses (which comprised about 20 percent of the $7.8 billion global contact lens market in 2011, according to a January 2012 report published by BCC Market Research). She found a company, New Color Iris, marketing a device invented by a Panamanian ophthalmologist, Dr. Alberto Delray Kahn, that could apparently implant an artificial or prosthetic iris over her natural one.

The device was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, nor were there any clinical studies or peer-reviewed publications about it. But Ms. Adams found Facebook posts and YouTube testimonials from patients whose eyes had gone from drab brown to an icy blue and were thrilled with the results. On his Web site, Kahnmedical.com, Dr. Kahn wrote that he supported “programs for the prevention of blindness in the Kuma and Embera Indians of Panama,” who have high rates of ocular albinism, which makes them sensitive to light. 

Ms. Adams was impressed. At the company’s request, she went for routine tests to her ophthalmologist, who told her he had never heard of the procedure and advised against it. She didn’t listen. “I went, ‘Oh, whatever,’ ” she said. “I don’t think anything was going to convince me not to do it. At that point my mind was made up.”

Ms. Adams is not alone in her quest for symmetry, whatever the risk.

Dr. Gregory J. Pamel, a corneal and refractive surgeon in Manhattan and a clinical assistant professor of ophthalmology at New York University, said that for the last two years he has received about three inquiries a month from patients who have learned from his Web site that he implants artificial irises for medical reasons. “They’d want to enroll in the clinical trial, and I would say, ‘There’s nothing available in the U.S.,’ ” he said. “There are no approved devices in the U.S. to change the eye color cosmetically. There are no clinical trials to date that are looking into this. There’s nothing on the horizon.”

There are, however, iris implants for patients with serious conditions like aniridia, a rare hereditary absence or partial absence of the iris, that are available under a special “compassionate use” F.D.A. provision. The provision allows patients with serious or life-threatening medical conditions to be treated with devices that have not been approved by the F.D.A., but “we can only use it for people with trauma,” Dr. Pamel said. “I would be very hesitant and skeptical about any technology that purports to change the iris color for cosmetic reasons.” 

Dr. Kenneth Steinsapir, an oculofacial surgeon and ophthalmologist in Los Angeles, also received calls from patients wanting their eye color changed, so he began investigating New Color Iris. He found no positive reports, but he did find a number of studies reporting serious complications. In July 2010, he blogged about it on his Web site, lidlift.com. “The colored disk that is put in the eye has been shown to cause harm,” he wrote.  “If you are not albino and missing iris pigment or have part of the iris missing either from a birth defect or from trauma, then there is no compelling medical reason for this surgery.” 

But Ms. Adams was determined to fix her perceived imperfection. In September 2008, she wired nearly $2,000 to New Color Iris, and a month later flew with her mother (paying their airfare) to Panama. She was told the surgery would present no complications other than a slight risk of glaucoma. She signed a consent form, paid an additional $5,000 and underwent the 15-minute procedure.

For two days, Ms. Adams’s vision was blurry, which she was told was normal. By the third day, she could see well enough to tour around the city. “I was happy with the experience at the time,” she said.

She appeared on “Inside Edition” to talk about how delighted she was, for which she said New Color Iris paid her $500, promising an additional $500 for every future media appearance she did. She also allowed the company to use her likeness on its Web site and on YouTube.

Ms. Adams was pleased with her matching irises for about two years. But in fall 2010, she said, her vision grew “spotty,” and she was “scared to death I was going blind.” She repeatedly tried to contact Dr. Kahn as well as the company in New York, but said she received no response. She started a Facebook page (now dismantled) highlighting her negative experience, noticing that other people had shared similar stories.

And when she returned to the New Color Iris Web site, she was redirected to another site, Brightocular.com, which was marketing another implant to cosmetically change eye color and offering more glowing testimonials.

Ms. Adams said she contacted it using a fake name and was told that the procedure was being offered in Istanbul and soon “in all of Europe” and that the company was not affiliated with New Color Iris. Convinced this was untrue, she contacted Dr. Steinsapir in February 2011, and he began blogging about a possible relationship between the two companies. On Aug. 16, 2011, Dr. Steinsapir received a certified letter from Kevin J. Abruzzese, a lawyer in Mineola, N.Y., representing Stellar Devices, which owns the trademark for Brightocular, that denied that any association existed between the two companies. The letter also asserted that Stellar Devices was working with Minnesota Eye Consultants, in Minneapolis, to obtain “F.D.A. compassionate approval for a patient with aniridia,” and ordered  the doctor to remove “any and all defamatory content” about Brightocular.

Still skeptical, Dr. Steinsapir found a registered trademark for Brightocular, originally filed March 18, 2010 and granted registration on April 19, 2011.

But the company to which the trademark was registered was not Stellar Devices, but New Color Iris. What’s more, New Color Iris and Stellar Devices shared the same Midtown Manhattan address. Dr. Steinsapir later published his findings. He said he also arranged surgery for people who had iris color surgery and needed urgent help.

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

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U.S. unemployment holds at 7.8%

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AUSTERITY'S BITE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Gay marriage, assault weapons ban votes delayed in Senate

SPRINGFIELD—

The Illinois Senate was poised to leave the State Capitol later today without voting on measures to legalize gay marriage and outlaw assault weapons, leaving the fate of those controversial issues in doubt.

A committee prepared to take up the same-sex marriage bill late this afternoon, but the sponsor acknowledged she did not have enough votes to win approval on the Senate floor.

Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, dismissed a question on whether she ever had a solid 30 votes lined up to pass the legislation. "Oh, no, no, no," Steans said. "We really did have the votes. We were just missing members today."

Such are the political dynamics of a lame-duck session in Springfield: some lawmakers who are in their final days of service don't show up to work, making it difficult to pass tough legislation.

The Senate’s failure to take a final vote also came after a furious lobbying pushback by the Catholic Conference of Illinois and Cardinal Francis George.

The Senate Executive Committee advanced the measure on an 8-5 vote following a lengthy debate that featured testimony from both sides of the issue.

"It's not often that we really have a chance in this chamber to be taking a look at something providing a basic civil right and advancing fairness," said sponsoring Sen. Steans. "Same-sex couples want to marry for the same reasons we all do--for commitment, family, mutual responsibility.

Steans said gay couples have suffered from the 2nd-class status. Underscoring Steans' point was emotional testimony from Mercedes Santos and Theresa Volpe, a lesbian couple from Rogers Park who got a civil union in Illinois.

"Right now, we are in a civil union, but it is not enough," testified Theresa Volpe.

Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki testified against the proposal, saying, "It would radically redefine what marriage is for everybody." He maintained the "natural family" is undermined by the legislation.

"Neither two men nor two women can possibly form a marriage," Paprocki said. "Our law would be wrong if it said that they could.

"The basic structure of marriage as the exclusive and lasting relationship of a man and a woman, committed to a life with the potential of having children, is given to us in human nature, and thus by nature's God," Paprocki said.

At the same time, an effort to ban semi-automatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines --- backed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel --- also lacked the votes needed for passage. Opponents argued the measure was too broad and unworkable.

With no action on those two controversial issues, senators were preparing to return home. A final day of the Senate’s lame-duck session remains an option for Tuesday, the day before the next General Assembly is inaugurated. But that could depend on whether the House takes any action. House members are scheduled to be in Springfield from Sunday through Tuesday.

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6 takeaways from Google’s antitrust settlement with US regulators

Google Inc. has settled an U.S. antitrust probe that largely leaves its search practices alone. In a major win for Google, the Federal Trade Commission unanimously concluded that there is not enough evidence to support complaints from rivals that the company shows unfair bias in its search results toward its own products.

Below are six of the biggest takeaways from the decision announced Thursday:

— Google promised to license hundreds of important mobile device patents to rivals that make gadgets such as smartphones, tablets and gaming devices, on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,” the FTC said. Google got the patents as part of its $ 12.4 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility last year. The patents cover wireless connectivity and other Internet technologies.

— Upon receiving a request to do so, the online search leader pledged to stop using snippets of content from other websites, such as the reviews site Yelp Inc., in its search results. It had already scaled back this practice before the FTC settlement after a complaint from Yelp that triggered the FTC probe. Under the agreement, specialty websites such as those on shopping and travel can request that Google stop including such snippets in the search results, while still providing links to those websites.

— Google pledged to adjust its online advertising system so marketing campaigns can be more easily managed on rival networks. Some FTC officials had worried that Google’s existing service terms with advertisers make that difficult.

— The FTC’s unanimous conclusion that Google does not practice unfair “search bias” to promote its own properties against competitors is a major victory for the online search leader. It means it won’t have to change its search formula, considered to be the company’s crown jewel.

— Not everyone was happy with the results. FairSearch, a group whose members include rival Microsoft Corp., said the FTC’s “inaction on the core question of search bias will only embolden Google to act more aggressively to misuse its monopoly power to harm other innovators.”

— Next up, European regulators are expected to wrap up a similar investigation of Google’s business practices in the coming weeks.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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”Lincoln,” ”Zero Dark Thirty,” among Producers Guild nods

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Steven Spielberg‘s presidential drama “Lincoln,” musical “Les Miserables” and Kathyrn Bigelow‘s Osama bin Laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” were among 10 films earning Producers Guild Award nominations on Wednesday, as the Hollywood awards season gathered momentum.

Ben Affleck and George Clooney, two of the producers behind Affleck’s Iran hostage drama “Argo,” and the team that brought Quentin Tarantino‘s darkly humorous slavery Western “Django Unchained” to the screen also won nods for the awards handed out by the Producers Guild of America.

The critically acclaimed James Bond blockbuster “Skyfall,” which last weekend surpassed $ 1 billion at the worldwide box office, got a big boost to its Oscar hopes when producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson were included.

They joined an eclectic list that featured Ang Lee’s shipwreck tale “Life of Pi,” and quirky comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” and mythical indie film “Beasts of the Southern Wild” rounded out the feature film nominations, the PGA said in a statement.

The Producers Guild Awards will be handed out at a ceremony in Los Angeles on January 26 and will be a key indication of Hollywood sentiment ahead of the Oscars on February 24.

Many of the PGA-nominated movies are expected to feature strongly on the list of Oscar nominations when those are announced on January 10. Eight of the movies are also in the running for best picture Golden Globe trophies on January 13.

But the PGA had nothing for “The Hobbit” from director Peter Jackson. It also left early awards hopeful “The Master” out of the running in a sign that the cult tale starring Philip Seymour Hoffman may be losing steam in Hollywood.

Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” also failed to make the list.

The PGA nominated the producers of five films for its animated movie honors – Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie,” Disney family films “Wreck-it-Ralph” and “Brave,” and “ParaNorman” and “Rise of the Guardians.”

The PGA also named its picks for producers of television movies and miniseries. Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story,” the team behind HBO film “Game Change” about Sarah Palin’s 2008 vice presidential bid, and Britain’s modern twist on detective Sherlock Holmes “Sherlock” were among the five making the cut.

They were joined by “Hatfields & McCoys,” about a legendary family feud starring Kevin Costner who was also one of the producers, and the PBS chronicle of the 1930s drought “The Dust Bowl.”

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Google puts Motorola campus on market

Smartphone maker Motorola Mobility will move its headquarters from Libertyville to the Merchandise Mart in the summer of 2013, relocating 3,000 employees to downtown Chicago, the company and Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Thursday. (Source: WGN - Chicago)

Tribune staff

10:47 a.m. CST, January 3, 2013

Google has put up for sale Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s 1.1 million-square-foot headquarters in Libertyville.

The asking price for the property is not being disclosed, according to a spokeswoman for Binswanger, exclusive agent on the property.

The 20-year-old corporate campus, which was used for office space and research and development labs, consists of four connected, multistory buildings and includes a daycare center, cafeteria, full-service gym and other recreational facilities. Renovations to the buildings were undertaken in 1998 through 2005. There also is parking for 3,400 vehicles.

In May, Google completed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. Two months later, the company announced it would move Motorola Mobility's headquarters to the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago in 2013.

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