2012 stock report: Pains and gains

If you invested heavily in Illinois companies that provide consulting services, you had little reason to celebrate in 2012.

While the Standard & Poor's 500 index ended the year up 13 percent, most large businesses in the region that counsel other companies on how to improve their operations saw their stock prices drop.

Business support services was one of the few sectors getting clobbered in a 2012 Tribune ranking of Illinois and northwest Indiana stocks' performance.

Stock prices gained at about 70 percent of the 127 companies on the list, and about half outperformed the S&P 500. Bank owners such as Taylor Capital Group emerged from their 2011 doldrums, and Ulta Salon Cosmetics & Fragrance Inc. and Discover Financial Services marked their second consecutive year of soaring stock prices.

The year's biggest decliner, down 76 percent, was Groupon, as once-torrid revenue growth at the daily deals offerer started slowing.

Career Education was the second-worst performer; its stock fell 56 percent. The highly scrutinized for-profit school chain said it would close campuses and cut jobs amid sinking revenue and financial losses.

Sectors boosted by broad gains in 2012 included electrical parts and equipment, industrial machinery, and specialty chemicals.

Of seven Illinois banks on the list, all but one outperformed the S&P 500, with price appreciation of those six ranging from 16 to 86 percent.

In contrast, stocks of four of five professional services firms — Navigant Consulting, Huron Consulting Group, Heidrick & Struggles International and R.R. Donnelley & Sons — closed down 2 to 38 percent.

Each had its own set of issues.

Navigant's services, for example, include advising companies that face disputes, litigation and investigations, including government probes, as well as businesses that need help valuing potential mergers and acquisitions.

"You see fewer government investigations during an election year, as regulators are leaving their jobs, and they don't want to start new ones," said Tobey Sommer, a SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst. "Also, worries about the 'fiscal cliff' slowed M&A because CEOs didn't want to look foolish acquiring a company in September ahead of the fiscal cliff when they might have been able to buy it for 20 percent less in January had we gone off."

Meanwhile, Heidrick's troubles included a slowing market for executive searches. In early 2012, analysts expected Heidrick's annual earnings to be in the range of about $1.30 per share. It appears that it will earn closer to 57 cents a share.

Huron's earnings estimates during 2012 were also trimmed, to about $2.10 from about $2.40 a share as the timing of fee payments to its health care consulting business proved volatile.

"Its underlying demand is strong," but an increasing number of clients had signed contracts where a larger portion of revenue was contingent on the outcome of Huron's consulting work, said Randle Reece, analyst with Avondale Partners LLC. That made it harder for the company and the analysts who cover it to predict the timing of revenues, since they are deferred.

For investors interested in "Dumpster diving," Morningstar Inc. considers Exelon, WMS Industries and Caterpillar to be high quality yet undervalued this year, said Heather Brilliant, chief equities strategist.

Navigant is among the region's beaten-down stocks liked by stock research firm EVA Dimensions LLC. "Its fundamentals are improving, and it's really cheap," said EVA analyst Andrew Zamfotis.

Best of the best

Here are the top three stock gainers of 2012:

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Family friend: Man 4th sibling to be killed by gunfire

At the north end of the 1100 block of South Mozart Street in the Lawndale neighborhood, two people were shot. One also died there, police said. (Posted Jan. 26th, 2013)

A man slain on the West Side early this morning had two brothers and a sister who also were fatally gunned down in the city, according to a close family friend.

"He was the last one," said Laverne Smith, 30, who said his mother no longer has any children. "I know she's hurting."

Smith said it's unthinkable this could have happened again to the family.

"It's ridiculous," Smith said. "We need to get the guns off the street and build a good life for our babies. We need to really get together and stop fighting."

Smith heard loud gunfire about 2 a.m. and ran outside in the 1100 block of South Mozart Street to find her close friend Ronnie Chambers shot in the head. He died in her arms.

"All his siblings passed a long time ago," Smith said. "It was a hysterical thing."

Smith said she also knew Ronnie Chambers' sister, LaToya Chambers, and had grown up with them in the Cabrini Green neighborhood on the Near North Side. LaToya was a classmate of hers, about two years ahead, at the Edward Jenner school.

LaToya was killed at age 15 on April 26, 2000. Her brothers Carlos and Jerome also were gunshot victims, Carlos at age 18 shortly after Thanksgiving in 1995 and Jerome at age 23 on July 26, 2000.

Chambers' mother Shirley told the Tribune's Dawn Turner Trice in 2000 that "I have one child left, and I'm afraid that [the killing] won't stop until he's gone too."

According to that 2000 story, Ronnie has these tattoos on his forearms to remind him of his dead siblings: A crucifix with a ribbon draped across it commemorates Carlos; a tombstone with a crucifix and blood says R.I.P. for Jerome; and another tombstone with a cross is for LaToya.

"They say you can't outrun death, but I can try to dodge it," Ronnie said then. "I don't even try to live day by day anymore; it's more like second by second."

"He was my everything," Smith said of Ronnie's death. "I lost a part of me."

"Nothing that anyone can say can make me feel better," said Smith, who said Chambers was recently on the Ricki Lake show and was trying to help an aspiring rapper, YK.

Smith said Ronnie, whose nickname was "Scooby," had been "trying to change his life."

Ronnie Chambers had just returned from a promotion or listening party for YK when the shooting occurred.

Smith stood crying at one end of a vacant lot in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side early this morning while Chambers lay covered by a white sheet behind a maroon van at the other end.

Chambers, 33, of Chicago, had been in the driver's seat of the van, which had just arrived in the 1100 block of South Mozart Street when one person, probably two, opened fire, police said. Chambers was identified by family members at the scene and later by police. 

Smith wore a pink blood-stained shirt under a pink jacket, white pants dotted with drops of blood, and pink sandals. She paced the crime scene, at the north end of Mozart Drive where it ends at Fillmore Street, letting out occasional screams and leaning on her friend for support.

"I held him, they had to pry me from him," she said, crying. "He was breathing, gasping."

At least one other man, 21, was inside the van when the shooting started, police said. He had jumped from the front passenger seat to the back, quick thinking that police said probably saved his life. He was wounded in the thigh and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital. Police did not say how many people were inside the van. They also did not say exactly how many shooters there were, but did say seven shots were fired.

The shooting happened across the street from Safer Foundation North Lawndale, an Illinois Department of Corrections transitional facility for adults with criminal records, and half a block west of a fire station.

Family and friends, none of whom wanted to give their names, circled the north end of the scene, marked by yellow tape hung around trees, light poles and cop cars.

A young man at the scene who refused to give his name but said he saw the shooting called the gun used a "big boy."

"Look at that (bullet) hole," the young man said, motioning to the passenger side door on the van. "That's a full nickel."

An east-facing car sat abandoned in the T intersection formed by Mozart and Fillmore. Police weren't sure whether the people who abandoned the car were involved in the shooting or freaked out and fled the scene. Police found casings from two weapons – one a rifle – whose bullets had entered the van from both sides.

"He was gangsta with his (expletive)," the man said of the individual or individuals who did the shooting. "He knew what he was doing."

Despite his apparent proximity to the attack, he explained to a detective that he could not help police do their jobs. He later complained to a supervisor about their response time – he said 27 minutes but police said 3. Police said that they received one 911 call about shots being fired in the area.

A 16-year-old boy who said he was with the victims when the shooting happened wandered around the lot, looking toward the ground most of the time. He looked emotionally spent after being held by police for a short time at the scene.

"I just want to go home," he said, though he had no ride home. "It just happened so fast. I'm tired of explaining myself."

In another fatal overnight shooting, three men were shot about 4 a.m. outside of a diner at the corner of Wallace Street and Pershing Road in the Bridgeport neighborhood on the South Side, police said. Two men died at the scene.

pnickeas@tribune.com

Twitter: @PeterNickeas

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How to Share Vine Videos on Tumblr

When Twitter launched Vine Thursday it omitted one important social network from its sharing options: Tumblr. Looped GIF images are extremely popular on Tumblr, so the audience there for Vine videos is potentially huge.

Just because there’s no native way to share Vines on Tumblr, doesn’t mean you can’t share your creations on the site. Here are few different ways you can include Vine videos in your Tumblr posts:

[More from Mashable: Facebook Explains Why Vine Can’t Access Your Friends]

Upload Directly To Tumblr

If you want to share your Vine on Tumblr, one of the easiest ways is to just upload it directly to your Tumblr from your iOS device using Tumblr’s app.

Every Vine you create is automatically saved to the camera roll on your device. To upload to Tumblr:

[More from Mashable: John Tesh Thanks 500 Helpful Tweeters With $ 5 Gift Cards]

• Launch the Tumblr app on your phone


• Create a new post


• Select video from the options


• Choose existing video


• Select the Vine you’d like to upload from the video clips stored on your phone

Vine videos shared this way will just play through once rather than loop. To get that looped effect, you can import the video clip into your favorite mobile video editor (Splice is a good example, but there are many others) and copy it several times, laying the copies down on the timeline, one after another. Once you’ve reached your desired length, export the video and upload it just as you would a traditional video through Tumblr.

If you don’t have a video editor on your phone, you can email the clip to yourself from your phone’s Photo Library and edit it on your computer instead.

Embed a Tweet

Embedding a tweet on Tumblr is the easiest way to share the looped version of your Vine. To embed a tweet:

• Share your Vine on Twitter


• Go to Twitter.com


• Click on the More button on the tweet associated with your Vine


• Select Embed Tweet


• Copy the code generated by Twitter and add it to a post on Tumblr

If you don’t want to share all your Vines through your own Twitter stream but want the ability to embed them, consider creating a Twitter account just for your Vines. Once you tweet them, you’ll be able to copy/paste tweets or links to your Vine from your special account to your main account fairly easily, and you won’t pollute your traditional Twitter stream.

Upload To Your Favorite Video Service

iOS devices offer the ability to upload video clips directly from your Photo Library to YouTube.

Vine video files are saved as MOV’s so you can upload the file to almost any video service and then embed that player into your Tumblr blog.

The file can also be downloaded onto your computer and uploaded to Tumblr (or other sites) any way you’d like.

Have you tried sharing Vine videos on Tumblr, or another site? Let us know your own tips and tricks for sharing the video clips in the comments.

Click here to view the gallery: How To Use Vine

Photo by Emily Price, Mashable

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Kutcher takes on tech idol Steve Jobs in ‘jOBS’

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Ashton Kutcher says playing Steve Jobs on screen “was honestly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever tried to do in my life.”

The 34-year-old actor helped premiere the biopic “jOBS” Friday, which was the closing-night film at the Sundance Film Festival.

Kutcher plays the Apple Inc. founder from the company’s humble origins in the 1970s until the launch of the first iPod in 2001. A digital entrepreneur himself, Kutcher said he considers Jobs a personal hero.

“He’s a guy who failed and got back on the horse,” Kutcher said. “I think we can all sort of relate to that at some point in life.”

Kutcher even embodied the Jobs character as he pursued his own high-tech interests off-screen.

“What was nice was when I was preparing for the character, I could still work on product development for technology companies, and I would sort of stay in character, in the mode of the character,” he said. “But I didn’t feel like I was compromising the work on the film by working on technology stuff because it was pretty much in the same field.”

But playing the real-life tech icon who died in 2011 still felt risky, he said, because “he’s fresh in our minds.”

“It was kind of like throwing myself into this gauntlet of, I know, massive amounts of criticism because somebody’s going to go ‘well, it wasn’t exactly…,’” Kutcher said.

While the filmmakers say they tried to be as historically accurate as possible, there was also a disclaimer at the very end of the credits that said portions of the film might not be completely accurate.

Still, realism was always the focus for Kutcher, who watched “hundreds of hours of footage,” listened to Jobs’ past speeches and interviewed several of his friends to prepare for the role.

The actor even adopted the entrepreneur’s “fruitarian diet,” which he said “can lead to some serious issues.”

“I ended up in the hospital two days before we started shooting the movie,” he said. “I was like doubled over in pain, and my pancreas levels were completely out of whack, which was completely terrifying, considering everything.”

Jobs died of complications from pancreatic cancer.

Still, Kutcher was up to the challenge of playing Jobs, in part because of his admiration for the man who created the Macintosh computer and the iPod.

“I admire this man so much and what he’s done. I admire the way he built things,” Kutcher said. “This guy created a tool that we use every day in our life, and he believed in it when nobody else did.”

The film also shows Jobs’ less appealing side, withholding stock options from some of the company’s original employees and denying child support to the mother of his eldest child.

Kutcher still found the man inspiring. Jobs had a singular focus, Kutcher said, and felt like anyone could change the world.

“I don’t know if there’s ever been an entrepreneur who’s had more compassion and care for his consumer than Steve Jobs,” Kutcher said. “He wanted to put something in your hand that you could use and you could use it easily… and he really cared about that.”

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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Religious Groups and Employers Battle Contraception Mandate

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

President Obama, with his health secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, offering a compromise on the contraception mandate last year.

In a flood of lawsuits, Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Mennonites are challenging a provision in the new health care law that requires employers to cover birth control in employee health plans — a high-stakes clash between religious freedom and health care access that appears headed to the Supreme Court.

In recent months, federal courts have seen dozens of lawsuits brought not only by religious institutions like Catholic dioceses but also by private employers ranging from a pizza mogul to produce transporters who say the government is forcing them to violate core tenets of their faith. Some have been turned away by judges convinced that access to contraception is a vital health need and a compelling state interest. Others have been told that their beliefs appear to outweigh any state interest and that they may hold off complying with the law until their cases have been judged. New suits are filed nearly weekly.

“This is highly likely to end up at the Supreme Court,” said Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia and one of the country’s top scholars on church-state conflicts. “There are so many cases, and we are already getting strong disagreements among the circuit courts.”

President Obama’s health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, was the most fought-over piece of legislation in his first term and was the focus of a highly contentious Supreme Court decision last year that found it to be constitutional.

But a provision requiring the full coverage of contraception remains a matter of fierce controversy. The law says that companies must fully cover all “contraceptive methods and sterilization procedures” approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including “morning-after pills” and intrauterine devices whose effects some contend are akin to abortion.

As applied by the Health and Human Services Department, the law offers an exemption for “religious employers,” meaning those who meet a four-part test: that their purpose is to inculcate religious values, that they primarily employ and serve people who share their religious tenets, and that they are nonprofit groups under federal tax law.

But many institutions, including religious schools and colleges, do not meet those criteria because they employ and teach members of other religions and have a broader purpose than inculcating religious values.

“We represent a Catholic college founded by Benedictine monks,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has brought a number of the cases to court. “They don’t qualify as a house of worship and don’t turn away people in hiring or as students because they are not Catholic.”

In that case, involving Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, a federal appeals court panel in Washington told the college last month that it could hold off on complying with the law while the federal government works on a promised exemption for religiously-affiliated institutions. The court told the government that it wanted an update by mid-February.

Defenders of the provision say employers may not be permitted to impose their views on employees, especially when something so central as health care is concerned.

“Ninety-nine percent of women use contraceptives at some time in their lives,” said Judy Waxman, a vice president of the National Women’s Law Center, which filed a brief supporting the government in one of the cases. “There is a strong and legitimate government interest because it affects the health of women and babies.”

She added, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Contraception was declared by the C.D.C. to be one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.”

Officials at the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department declined to comment, saying the cases were pending.

A compromise for religious institutions may be worked out. The government hopes that by placing the burden on insurance companies rather than on the organizations, the objections will be overcome. Even more challenging cases involve private companies run by people who reject all or many forms of contraception.

The Alliance Defending Freedom — like Becket, a conservative group — has brought a case on behalf of Hercules Industries, a company in Denver that makes sheet metal products. It was granted an injunction by a judge in Colorado who said the religious values of the family owners were infringed by the law.

“Two-thirds of the cases have had injunctions against Obamacare, and most are headed to courts of appeals,” said Matt Bowman, senior legal counsel for the alliance. “It is clear that a substantial number of these cases will vindicate religious freedom over Obamacare. But it seems likely that the Supreme Court will ultimately resolve the dispute.”

The timing of these cases remains in flux. Half a dozen will probably be argued by this summer, perhaps in time for inclusion on the Supreme Court’s docket next term. So far, two- and three-judge panels on four federal appeals courts have weighed in, granting some injunctions while denying others.

One of the biggest cases involves Hobby Lobby, which started as a picture framing shop in an Oklahoma City garage with $600 and is now one of the country’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 stores in 41 states.

David Green, the company’s founder, is an evangelical Christian who says he runs his company on biblical principles, including closing on Sunday so employees can be with their families, paying nearly double the minimum wage and providing employees with comprehensive health insurance.

Mr. Green does not object to covering contraception but considers morning-after pills to be abortion-inducing and therefore wrong.

“Our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and have supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families,” Mr. Green said in a statement. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit last month turned down his family’s request for a preliminary injunction, but the company has found a legal way to delay compliance for some months.

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Shedd Aquarium looks to slice energy bill

Bob Wengel's job at Shedd Aquarium makes your typical thermostat war seem laughable.

For him, keeping everybody comfortable means manufacturing a 2 p.m. sunset for penguins attuned to the daylight rhythms of South America. It means maintaining 3 million gallons at a cool 58 degrees for blubber-laden whales while also satisfying tiny neon fish that won't tolerate less than 78 degrees.

"The first thing you've got to make sure is that your animals are happy," said Wengel, Shedd's vice president of facilities. "Then, your guests come next and, after that, the people who work here."

Until now it has also meant forking over $1.4 million for electricity and $154,000 for natural gas each year.

The Chicago cultural institution is in the early stages of a massive energy overhaul aimed at cutting energy consumption by half at the 83-year-old building. Under a plan developed pro bono by a public-private consortium, Shedd plans to swap out light bulbs, buy solar panels and sell "negawatts" (getting paid to power down) to the electrical grid to achieve its goal by 2020.

The idea: To create a road map other cultural institutions can follow.

"What we're talking about is bigger than the Shedd," said Mark Harris, president and CEO of the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition, which led the consortium that developed Shedd's energy saving plan.

The task won't be easy. Keeping 32,500 animals healthy, happy and well-lit takes a lot of, well, energy. Part zoo, part art space, the building is a life-support system for 1,500 species operating under the parameters of just about every time zone on the planet. Lighting clings to nearly every floor, ceiling and exhibit, mimicking sunlight, guiding visitors and attractively framing columns.

Most days a small ocean of water is chilled or run through heat exchangers, with excess heat released through cooling towers on the aquarium roof.

Staff members bike to work, diligently compost and exchange unwanted items instead of trashing them, and for years the aquarium has tracked its energy use and made changes where appropriate. Still, the energy consumed at Shedd has it claiming the carbon footprint of an endless 2,200-car traffic jam.

"If you ask me — 'What is sustainability?' — to someone like me who runs a facility, it's energy, waste, water," Wengel said.

In 2011, Shedd used so much energy that, if harnessed, it could power nearly 1,500 homes for a year.

If done right, Shedd's energy-shaving work will be mostly invisible.

Discerning visitors may notice a lighting change in Shedd's main entrance, where 600 light bulbs in the aquarium's octopuslike chandeliers were fitted this week with highly efficient LED bulbs, a change that will cut $7,000 a year off its electricity bills.

The sunlight that appears to grace the colorful, bustling exhibit of 450 reef dwellers just inside the main entrance is actually six LED lights that were first tested for their ability to mimic natural light.

"The solar on the rooftop will be visible," said Tom Hulsebosch, managing director for energy and utilities for West Monroe Partners in Chicago, the consulting firm that helped create Shedd's energy road map. "They might notice the subtlety of the LED lighting, but a lot of it is really behind the scenes."

Shedd's goal is to create an intelligent aquarium that is constantly communicating its energy needs to Wengel and his staff. That means letting them know in real time if a system is using more power than usual and where inefficiencies lie in everything from HVAC systems to life-support pumps.

According to the road map the coalition developed, the aquarium plans to participate in a program that pays big energy users to power down on days when the electric grid is strained by demand from air conditioners. But first that means finding out what in the aquarium can be safely powered down.

To start with, Shedd is installing individual meters on everything from lighting systems to chillers so it can track and analyze how and when energy is being used. From there it can determine which systems could safely be powered down without harming the animals or causing a disruption to patrons, and which could be used or timed differently to save money.

"They cannot compromise experience both on the visitor's side and on the animal side, and they cannot compromise performance because they have a life-support system they have to maintain. So just the fact that they can do this, with those huge barriers, is an incredible example," said Karen Weigert, chief sustainability officer for the city of Chicago, which worked with a coalition that developed the energy plan. Also part of the coalition were the Institute for Sustainable Energy Development and Citizens Utility Board.

The aquarium would simultaneously switch to a pricing scheme that rewards it for using the most energy at the times of day when demand is lowest and electricity prices are cheaper.

Also on the docket: solar panels with batteries for storing excess energy that could be sold back to the electric grid in the same way that power plants sell their power.

The plans are in line with that of Illinois, which in October 2011 approved a 10-year, $2.6 billion upgrade to the electrical grid that serves Shedd and the rest of the Chicago area. Half of that is being spent to create a smart grid that, according to ComEd, will bring 100-year-old electrical grid technology into the digital age, automatically reporting problems, rerouting power and eliminating the need for meter readers.

With a smart grid, Shedd could power up some systems while powering down others, and sell or buy electricity from the grid in real time according to the demands of the electrical grid.

To pay for these changes, Shedd plans to seek government grants and private donations. In time, say coalition members, those investments will reap dividends, financially, educationally and environmentally.

"The Shedd's in a unique position. It's been there for 100 years and it's going to be there for another 100 more; so, when you look at a 15-year return on investment, that's not too bad," Hulsebosch said.

jwernau@tribune.com

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More than 40 apply to replace Ald. Sandi Jackson

Ald. Sandi Jackson, 7th, sits between Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, and Michelle Harris, 8th, during a Chicago City Council meeting in October 2012. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune / October 31, 2012)

By John Byrne




Clout Street

5:29 p.m. CST, January 25, 2013

Mayor Rahm Emanuel received completed applications from 42 people who want to replace Sandi Jackson as 7th Ward alderman, the administration announced today.

The mayor's office did not release the names of those who applied online by today's 5 p.m. deadline. Emanuel will "soon"name a four-person panel with community representatives to vet the applicants and present him with a list of finalists, mayoral spokesman Tom Alexander said in a news release.

Emanuel hopes to pick Sandi Jackson's replacement by mid-February.

Ald. Jackson was 20 months into her second term when she resigned earlier this month as controversy continued to swirl around her husband, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. He resigned shortly after his November re-election, citing his bipolar depression and acknowledging federal ethics probes into his use of campaign funds.

Sandi Jackson recently told supporters she wants her chief of staff to succeed her, prompting Emanuel to tell reporters Jackson was welcome to submit names via the online application.

This will be Emanuel's first chance to appoint an alderman, and he has said he hopes this type of process becomes the standard going forward.

jebyrne@tribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne

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Spanish newspaper sorry for “false photo” of Venezuela’s Chavez

MADRID/CARACAS (Reuters) – Spain‘s influential El Pais newspaper apologized on Thursday for splashing a “false photo” of Venezuela‘s cancer-stricken leader Hugo Chavez on its front page, prompting a furious response from the government in Caracas, which vowed to take legal action.

Within minutes of posting the image online as a global exclusive, El Pais said it had discovered from social media that the photo was not of Chavez. It removed it from its website and withdrew its print edition.

Venezuela’s government said the publication of the photo – which showed the head of a man lying down with a breathing tube in his mouth – was “grotesque,” while Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez, a close ally of Chavez, called it vile.

“El Pais apologizes to its readers for the damage caused. The newspaper has opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of what happened and the errors that were committed in the verification of the photo,” the paper said.

Chavez, 58, is fighting to recover in Cuba after undergoing his fourth cancer operation in just 18 months. He has not spoken or appeared in public for six weeks, fuelling speculation about how serious his condition is.

El Pais, one of the world’s biggest Spanish-language publications and an institution both in Spain and in Latin America, said it received the grainy image from the agency Gtres Online, which it said represents 60 other agencies in Spain.

In a statement, El Pais said the newspaper was told it had been taken seven days earlier by a Cuban nurse who was part of Chavez’s medical team, and was then sent to the nurse’s sister, who lives in Spain.

“The agency has acknowledged it was deceived by those who provided the material and will take legal action,” El Pais said.

The photo was on the newspaper’s website for half an hour and also appeared in early editions of the print version that were then pulled from newsstands and replaced with a new edition with a different front page.

In Venezuela, anxious Chavez supporters and opponents alike are waiting for any new picture, video or audio message from the socialist leader, who is famed for filling the airwaves with long-winded speeches, jokes and withering jabs at his foes.

NO SIGHT OF CHAVEZ

Officials say his condition is improving after he suffered multiple complications, including unexpected bleeding and a severe respiratory problem following the December 11 surgery.

But, in contrast to Chavez’s previous visits to Havana, officials have not published any evidence of his condition. In 2011, with great fanfare, they broadcast video footage of him reading a newspaper, walking in a garden, and chatting with his friend and mentor, Cuba’s ex-leader Fidel Castro.

In the absence of such proof this time, many Venezuelans are questioning the terse official bulletins and suspect Chavez’s extraordinary 14 years in power could be coming to an end.

The president has never said exactly what type of cancer he has, only that the initial tumor found in mid-2011 was in his pelvic area and was the size of a baseball.

Venezuelan opposition leaders have long accused the government of secrecy over his illness, while supporters accuse “bourgeois” local and foreign media of being in league with the opposition to spread rumors he is at death’s door.

The handling of information relating to Chavez’s health has become as contentious as the man himself, and his administration’s updates have been confusing and contradictory.

The government says it has never been more transparent. It described El Pais’s publication of the picture – a screengrab from an unrelated 2008 video – as part of efforts by far-right political forces to attack Chavez’s self-styled revolution.

It said it would take appropriate legal action, and that the newspaper’s apology to its readers was not enough.

“Neither their disgusting photos nor their systematic campaigns will stop the president’s advance,” Information Minister Ernesto Villegas told a news conference in Caracas.

“Would El Pais publish a similar photo of a European leader? Of its director? Sensationalism is valid if the victim is a revolutionary ‘sudaca’,” he added, using a pejorative term that is sometimes used in Spain to refer to Latin Americans.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

(This story was refiled to correct the spelling of Venezuela in the headline)

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Brooke Shields signs up for a hitch on Lifetime’s “Army Wives”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Brooke Shields has signed up for the Air Force – or at least the Air Force as it’s portrayed on “Army Wives.”

“Pretty Baby” star Shields will join the cast of the Lifetime series for its seventh season, the network said Thursday.

Shields will play Katherine “Kat” Young, a brash, brilliant Air Force colonel and crack C-17 pilot who clashes with Gen. Michael Holden (Brian McNamara) shortly after arriving at Joint Base Marshall Bring.

But after Young and Holden’s Air Force-Army rivalry gets underway, Holden discovers that Young has a tragic past — and more in common with him than he first thought.

The ABC Studios-produced “Army Wives” returns for its seventh season March 10 at 9 p.m. with a drastically revamped cast. In addition to Shields, singer/actress Ashanti, Torrey DeVitto of “Pretty Little Liars,” Bring It On” alum Elle McLemore and singer Jesse McCartney have joined the cast. Meanwhile, Kim Delaney has departed the series, and former series regular Sally Pressman will only appear “in several episodes” of the new 13-episode season.

“We’re all very excited about season seven, in which a new tribe emerges from the shadow of tragedy,” executive producer Jeff Melvoin said of the upcoming season on Wednesday.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Pro-life activists made their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Supreme Court during the March for Life in Washington on Friday.

WASHINGTON — Three days after the 40th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion, tens of thousands of abortion opponents from around the country came to the National Mall on Friday for the annual March for Life rally, which culminated in a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court building.

On a gray morning when the temperature was well below freezing, the crowd pressed in close against the stage to hear more than a dozen speakers, who included Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council; Representative Diane Black, Republican of Tennessee, who recently introduced legislation to withhold financing from Planned Parenthood, and Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky; Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston; and Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania and Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Santorum spoke of his wife’s decision not to have an abortion after they learned that their child — their daughter Bella, now 4 — had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18.

“We all know that death is never better, never better,” Mr. Santorum said. “Bella is better for us, and we are better because of Bella.”

Jeanne Monahan, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said that the march was both somber and hopeful.

“We’ve lost 55 million Americans to abortion,” she said. “At the same time, I think we’re starting to win. We’re winning in the court of public opinion, we’re winning in the states with legislation.”

Though the main event officially started at noon, the day began much earlier for the participants, with groups in matching scarves engaged in excited chatter on the subway and gaggles of schoolchildren wearing name tags around their necks. Arriving on the Mall, attendees were greeted with free signs (“Defund Planned Parenthood” and “Personhood for Everyone”) and a man barking into a megaphone, “Ireland is on the brink of legalizing abortion, which is not good.”

The march came two months after the 2012 campaign season, in which social issues like abortion largely took a back seat to the focus on the economy. But the issue did come up in Congressional races in which Republican candidates made controversial statements about rape or abortion. In Indiana, Richard E. Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the Senate, said in a debate that he believed that pregnancies resulting from rape were something that “God intended,” and in Illinois, Representative Joe Walsh said in a debate that abortion was never necessary to save the life of the mother because of “advances in science and technology.” Both men lost, hurt by a backlash from female voters.

Recent polls show that while a majority of Americans do not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned entirely, many favor some restrictions. In a Gallup poll released this week, 52 percent of those surveyed said that abortions should be legal only under certain circumstances, while 28 percent said they should be legal under all circumstances, and 18 percent said they should be illegal under all circumstances. In a Pew poll this month, 63 percent of respondents said they did not want Roe v. Wade to be overturned completely, and 29 percent said they did — views largely consistent with surveys taken over the past two decades.

“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”

“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.

The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”

Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.

Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America started a new Web site, and on Tuesday, its president, Cecile Richards, released a statement supporting abortion rights.

“Planned Parenthood understands that abortion is a deeply personal and often complex decision for a woman to consider, if and when she needs it,” she said. “A woman should have accurate information about all of her options around her pregnancy. To protect her health and the health of her family, a woman must have access to safe, legal abortion without interference from politicians, as protected by the Supreme Court for the last 40 years.”

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