Secret message found with carrier pigeon may never be deciphered

British man finds carrier pigeon skeleton in his fireplace with unbreakable secret code (Reuters)

Before military forces had secure cell phones and satellite communications, they used carrier pigeons. The highly trained birds delivered sensitive information from one location to another during  World War II. Often, the birds found the intended recipient. But not always.

A dead pigeon was recently discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, England. There for roughly 70 years, the bird had a curious canister attached to its leg. Inside was a coded message that has stumped the experts.

The code features a series of 27 groups of five letters. According to Reuters, nobody from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters has been able to decipher it. The message was sent by a Sgt. W. Scott to someone or something identified as “Xo2.”

A spokesperson remarked, “Although it is disappointing that we cannot yet read the message brought back by a brave carrier pigeon, it is a tribute to the skills of the wartime code-makers that, despite working under severe pressure, they devised a code that was indecipherable both then and now.”

The bird was discovered by a homeowner doing renovations earlier this month. In an interview with Reuters, David Martin remarked that bits of birds kept falling from the chimney. Eventually, Margin saw the red canister and speculated that it might contain a secret message. And it seems as if the message will always be secret.

Carrier pigeons played a vital role in wars due to their incredible homing skills. All told, U.K. forces used about 250,000 of the birds during World War II.

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Larry Hagman dead at 81, portrayed notorious TV villain J.R. Ewing

(Reuters) – Larry Hagman, who created one of American television’s most supreme villains in the conniving, amoral oilman J.R. Ewing of “Dallas,” died on Friday, the Dallas Morning News reported. He was 81.

Hagman died at a Dallas hospital of complications from his battle with throat cancer, the newspaper said, quoting a statement from his family. He had suffered from liver cancer and cirrhosis of the liver in the 1990s after decades of drinking.

Hagman’s mother was stage and movie star Mary Martin and he became a star himself in 1965 on “I Dream of Jeannie,” a popular television sitcom in which he played Major Anthony Nelson, an astronaut who discovers a beautiful genie in a bottle.

“Dallas,” which made its premiere on the CBS network in 1978, made Hagman a superstar. The show quickly became one of the network’s top-rated programs, built an international following and inspired a spin-off, imitators and a revival in 2012.

“Dallas” was the night-time soap-opera story of a Texas family, fabulously wealthy from oil and cattle, and its plot brimmed with back-stabbing, double-dealing, family feuds, violence, adultery and other bad behavior.

In the middle of it all stood Hagman’s black-hearted J.R. Ewing – grinning wickedly in a broad cowboy hat and boots, plotting how to cheat his business competitors and cheat on his wife. He was the villain TV viewers loved to despise during the show’s 356-episode run from 1978 to 1991.

“I really can’t remember half of the people I’ve slept with, stabbed in the back or driven to suicide,” Hagman said of his character in Time magazine.

In his autobiography, “Hello Darlin’: Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales About My Life,” Hagman wrote that J.R. originally was not to be the focus of “Dallas” but that changed when he began ad-libbing on the set to make his character more outrageous and compelling.

‘WHO SHOT J.R.?’

To conclude its second season, the “Dallas” producers put together one of U.S. television’s most memorable episodes in which Ewing was shot by an unseen assailant. That gave fans months to fret over whether J.R. would survive and who had pulled the trigger. In the show’s opening the following season, it was revealed that J.R.’s sister-in-law, Kristin, with whom he had been having an affair, was behind the gun.

Hagman said an international publisher offered him $ 250,000 to reveal who had shot J.R. and he considered giving the wrong information and taking the money, but in the end, “I decided not to be so like J.R. in real life.”

The popularity of “Dallas” made Hagman one of the best-paid actors in television and earned him a fortune that even a Ewing would have coveted. He lost some of it, however, in bad oil investments before turning to real estate.

“I have an apartment in New York, a ranch in Santa Fe, a castle in Ojai outside of L.A., a beach house in Malibu and thinking of buying a place in Santa Monica,” Hagman said in a Chicago Tribune interview.

An updated “Dallas” series began in June 2012 on the TNT network with Hagman reprising his J.R. role with original cast members Linda Gray, who played J.R.’s long-suffering wife, Sue Ellen, and Patrick Duffy, who was his brother Bobby. The show was to focus on the sons of J.R. and Bobby.

Hagman had a wide eccentric streak. When he first met actress Lauren Bacall, he licked her arm because he had been told she did not like to be touched and he was known for leading parades on the Malibu beach and showing up at a grocery store in a gorilla suit. Above his Malibu home flew a flag with the credo “Vita Celebratio Est (Life Is a Celebration)” and he lived hard for many years.

In 1967, rock musician David Crosby turned him on to LSD, which Hagman said took away his fear of death, and Jack Nicholson introduced him to marijuana because Nicholson thought he was drinking too much.

Hagman had started drinking as a teenager and said he did not stop until the moment in 1992 when his doctor told him he had cirrhosis of the liver and could die within six months. Hagman wrote that for the past 15 years he had been drinking about four bottles of champagne a day, including while on the “Dallas” set.

LIVER TRANSPLANT

In July 1995, he was diagnosed with liver cancer, which led him to quit smoking, and a month later he underwent a liver transplant.

After giving up his vices, Hagman said he did not lose his zest for life.

“It’s the same old Larry Hagman,” he told a reporter. “He’s just a littler sober-er.”

Hagman was born on September 21, 1931, in Weatherford, Texas, and his father was a lawyer who dealt with the Texas oil barons Hagman would later come to portray. He was still a boy when his parents divorced and he went to Los Angeles with Martin, who would become a Broadway and Hollywood musical star.

Hagman eventually landed in New York to pursue acting, making his stage debut there in “The Taming of the Shrew.” In New York, he married Maj Axelsson in 1954 while they were in a production of “South Pacific. The marriage produced two children, Heidi and Preston.

Hagman served in the Air Force, spending five years in Europe as the director of USO shows, and on his return to New York he took a starring role in the daytime soap “The Edge of Night.” His breakthrough came in 1965 when he landed the “I Dream of Jeannie” role opposite Barbara Eden.

In his later years, Hagman became an advocate for organ transplants and an anti-smoking campaigner. He also was devoted to solar energy, telling the New York Times he had a $ 750,000 solar panel system at his Ojai estate, and made a commercial in which he portrayed a J.R. Ewing who had forsaken oil for solar power. He was a longtime member of the Peace and Freedom Party, a minor leftist organization in California.

Hagman told the Times that after death he wanted his remains to be “spread over a field and have marijuana and wheat planted and harvest it in a couple of years and then have a big marijuana cake, enough for 200 to 300 people. People would eat a little of Larry.”

(Writing by Bill Trott in Washington; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuszinkis in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Scientists See Advances in Deep Learning, a Part of Artificial Intelligence

Hao Zhang/The New York Times

A voice recognition program translated a speech given by Richard F. Rashid, Microsoft’s top scientist, into Mandarin Chinese.

Using an artificial intelligence technique inspired by theories about how the brain recognizes patterns, technology companies are reporting startling gains in fields as diverse as computer vision, speech recognition and the identification of promising new molecules for designing drugs.

The advances have led to widespread enthusiasm among researchers who design software to perform human activities like seeing, listening and thinking. They offer the promise of machines that converse with humans and perform tasks like driving cars and working in factories, raising the specter of automated robots that could replace human workers.

The technology, called deep learning, has already been put to use in services like Apple’s Siri virtual personal assistant, which is based on Nuance Communications’ speech recognition service, and in Google’s Street View, which uses machine vision to identify specific addresses.

But what is new in recent months is the growing speed and accuracy of deep-learning programs, often called artificial neural networks or just “neural nets” for their resemblance to the neural connections in the brain.

“There has been a number of stunning new results with deep-learning methods,” said Yann LeCun, a computer scientist at New York University who did pioneering research in handwriting recognition at Bell Laboratories. “The kind of jump we are seeing in the accuracy of these systems is very rare indeed.”

Artificial intelligence researchers are acutely aware of the dangers of being overly optimistic. Their field has long been plagued by outbursts of misplaced enthusiasm followed by equally striking declines.

In the 1960s, some computer scientists believed that a workable artificial intelligence system was just 10 years away. In the 1980s, a wave of commercial start-ups collapsed, leading to what some people called the “A.I. winter.”

But recent achievements have impressed a wide spectrum of computer experts. In October, for example, a team of graduate students studying with the University of Toronto computer scientist Geoffrey E. Hinton won the top prize in a contest sponsored by Merck to design software to help find molecules that might lead to new drugs.

From a data set describing the chemical structure of 15 different molecules, they used deep-learning software to determine which molecule was most likely to be an effective drug agent.

The achievement was particularly impressive because the team decided to enter the contest at the last minute and designed its software with no specific knowledge about how the molecules bind to their targets. The students were also working with a relatively small set of data; neural nets typically perform well only with very large ones.

“This is a really breathtaking result because it is the first time that deep learning won, and more significantly it won on a data set that it wouldn’t have been expected to win at,” said Anthony Goldbloom, chief executive and founder of Kaggle, a company that organizes data science competitions, including the Merck contest.

Advances in pattern recognition hold implications not just for drug development but for an array of applications, including marketing and law enforcement. With greater accuracy, for example, marketers can comb large databases of consumer behavior to get more precise information on buying habits. And improvements in facial recognition are likely to make surveillance technology cheaper and more commonplace.

Artificial neural networks, an idea going back to the 1950s, seek to mimic the way the brain absorbs information and learns from it. In recent decades, Dr. Hinton, 64 (a great-great-grandson of the 19th-century mathematician George Boole, whose work in logic is the foundation for modern digital computers), has pioneered powerful new techniques for helping the artificial networks recognize patterns.

Modern artificial neural networks are composed of an array of software components, divided into inputs, hidden layers and outputs. The arrays can be “trained” by repeated exposures to recognize patterns like images or sounds.

These techniques, aided by the growing speed and power of modern computers, have led to rapid improvements in speech recognition, drug discovery and computer vision.

Deep-learning systems have recently outperformed humans in certain limited recognition tests.

Last year, for example, a program created by scientists at the Swiss A. I. Lab at the University of Lugano won a pattern recognition contest by outperforming both competing software systems and a human expert in identifying images in a database of German traffic signs.

The winning program accurately identified 99.46 percent of the images in a set of 50,000; the top score in a group of 32 human participants was 99.22 percent, and the average for the humans was 98.84 percent.

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Walmart protests draw crowds, shoppers largely unfazed

Dozens of local workers, and hundreds nationally, took advantage of Black Friday crowds and camera crews at major retailers like Walmart to call for wage increases.

But there was little evidence that the chanting disrupted holiday shoppers.

Steven Restivo, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said the chain had done its "best Black Friday event ever" despite protests organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Chicago and other cities.

At a Walmart in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood on the south side, only one of the store's 500 employees took part in the demonstration, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said. "Almost all the folks you'll see protesting today are not Walmart associates," Restivo said. "I guess you can't believe everything you read in a union press release."

According to the union, protests took place in Miami and Washington, D.C., with additional events planned at Midwestern and Southern stores.

Walmart has so far avoided a union presence, which has become cumbersome for competitors like Jewel-Osco and Dominick's Finer Foods. Those chains have been closing stores as Walmart has expanded locally.

Separately Friday, dozens of members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago and its supporters marched from the Loop to the Magnificent Mile to demand a $15 minimum wage and union contracts for downtown workers. Organized on November 15, the union has about 150 members and has received financial support from Service Employees International Union, Action Now and Stand Up Chicago.

Deborah Sims, marching Friday, said she worked at Macy's for 12 years, eventually making $13 an hour, before losing her job during the recession. She was rehired last holiday season, but at $8.50 an hour, with no benefits.

Sims said she expects retailers to turn to younger, less-experienced workers because "$8.25 an hour is going to look good to them."

Macy's did not respond to a request for comment.

Peter Gill, a spokesman for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, called the demand for a $15 minimum wage dangerous "because people are out looking for jobs and it's tough in this economy."

He explained that if retailers were forced to nearly double the starting hourly wage, "you're going to have to cut the number of employees."

Reuters contributed to this story.

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Black Friday shopping gets an early start in Chicago

After dinner at a Maggiano's restaurant, the Tannehill/Schroeder clan headed over to Sears at Woodfield Mall in search of a 50-inch flat-screen TV for less than $300.

After 10 minutes of waiting in line, they breezed into the store. That's when Terri Schroeder, of Chicago, began to yell. "Hurry, grab a TV," she said to her sister-in-law, Margie Tannehill, of West Chicago. Both women laughed.

As it turns out, the family of eight waited in the wrong line at the wrong door at Sears. Vouchers for the 50-inch TV and other discounted "door-busters" were given out at another entrance, and they missed their chance to snag the coveted TV.

After making their way through the swarming crowd, they found another TV, and both women grabbed it. They settled on a smaller, less expensive 32-inch flat-screen set that at $250 was on sale but not a door-buster that had throngs of shoppers waiting in line at Sears since Thursday afternoon.

"This is not the one we wanted, but we're keeping it," Schroeder said with a giggle.

She joined throngs of shoppers who cut off Thanksgiving celebrations to turn their attention to preparing for the December holiday season, which typically accounts for up to 40 percent of retailers' sales.

Black Friday historically launched the day after Thanksgiving. But in recent years, stores have opened at 4 a.m., then midnight. Last year, retailers created a stir by opening at 10 p.m. Thursday. This year, Wal-Mart upped the ante when it announced plans to open at 8 p.m.

Taryan Sanders and Maurice Boston, both 25, were among those hanging out at the Wal-Mart in Humboldt Park, waiting for the 8 p.m. round of door-busters.

With a cart already filled with playthings like a Monster High doll, toy puppy and scooter (they'd been at the store since 4 p.m.), the couple stationed themselves near a pallet of Nerf gun sets that would go on sale for $10 each, items they eyed for Sanders' younger brothers.

"Gotta get the door-busters for my daughter and two brothers," Sanders said. "I already ate, and I'm out ready to get my shop on!"

This year, holiday spending is expected to rise 4.1 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year, more than 24 percent of Black Friday shoppers were out before midnight, and nearly 39 percent of shoppers were in the stores before 5 a.m.

A recent survey from the consulting firm Deloitte shows that Chicago-area consumers plan to spend about 10 percent more on gifts this year, shelling out an average of $450. Most also expect the national economy to pick up in 2013 — their most positive outlook since 2009.

Beyond early Thanksgiving openings, retailers have also vied to outdo one another by offering Black Friday-esque discounts — in stores and online — nearly a week early.

"First blood is everything," said Wendy Liebmann, CEO and chief shopper at WSL Strategic Retail, a New York-based consumer behavior research firm. "This is really the first year where we've seen a vast majority of retailers decide that Thanksgiving Day is no longer sacrosanct."

Retailers are pulling out all the stops, from offering gift cards as incentives to shoppers who buy higher-priced items to touting deeper-than-ever discounts on popular items such as televisions and tablets. They'll send coupons to shoppers' phones, and many will promise to match rivals' prices.

"The earlier you can get people to open their wallets, the better," Liebmann said. "The uncertainty of life is such that you don't know what people will spend throughout the (holiday) season. So get 'em when you can."

With Black Friday bleeding into Thursday, the type of shopper prowling for good deals was expected to change, industry watchers said.

Mothers and families typically hit the stores Friday. But this year, retail watchers say men were expected to make a strong showing Thursday night. Big-spending millennials might also be inclined to soak up the partylike atmosphere.

The earlier hours open a window to "appeal to a wider array of customers," said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm NPD Group.

Some things stay the same, though. As in years past, shoppers are angling to get more bang for their buck. Flat-screen TVs have always been big Black Friday sellers, but this year, they are expected to be larger and cheaper. TVs and laptops, annual best-sellers, are expected to hit a new price low, experts say.

Wal-Mart greeted Thursday night shoppers with deeply discounted TVs, video game consoles and Blu-ray players. At Sears, shoppers were met with on-sale tablet computers, washer and dryer sets, refrigerators and more TVs, among other items.

To prepare for the crowds, retailers have bolstered employee ranks and stepped up training. They have also staggered door-buster deals.

Toys R Us, which opened at 8 p.m. Thursday, distributed tickets to shoppers lined up for door-buster deals such as a 16-gigabyte iPod accompanied by $50 in gift cards, to avoid a "mad rush," CEO Jerry Storch told the Tribune in an interview. "It de-stresses the crowd," he said.

At electronics seller Best Buy, which opened at midnight, store managers have been giving staff crash courses in customer service and product knowledge, said Mitchell Zelasko, sales manager at the retailer's Bucktown location. The chain has hired more than 20,000 employees nationwide for its stores, distribution centers and customer service centers to support the holiday rush.

Locally, Best Buy planned to boost security for the shopping kickoff Friday, keep employees well-fed and in the store by ordering food and bringing in off-duty Chicago police officers to help keep order.

"Things can change very quickly in a mob situation," Zelasko said. "We keep things under control and we keep it fun."

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.

crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter @corilyns

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Chicago shopping frenzy gets early start

After dinner at a Maggiano's restaurant, the Tannehill/Schroeder clan headed over to Sears at Woodfield Mall in search of a 50-inch flat-screen TV for less than $300.

After 10 minutes of waiting in line, they breezed into the store. That's when Terri Schroeder, of Chicago, began to yell. "Hurry, grab a TV," she said to her sister-in-law, Margie Tannehill, of West Chicago. Both women laughed.

As it turns out, the family of eight waited in the wrong line at the wrong door at Sears. Vouchers for the 50-inch TV and other discounted "door-busters" were given out at another entrance, and they missed their chance to snag the coveted TV.

After making their way through the swarming crowd, they found another TV, and both women grabbed it. They settled on a smaller, less expensive 32-inch flat-screen set that at $250 was on sale but not a door-buster that had throngs of shoppers waiting in line at Sears since Thursday afternoon.

"This is not the one we wanted, but we're keeping it," Schroeder said with a giggle.

She joined throngs of shoppers who cut off Thanksgiving celebrations to turn their attention to preparing for the December holiday season, which typically accounts for up to 40 percent of retailers' sales.

Black Friday historically launched the day after Thanksgiving. But in recent years, stores have opened at 4 a.m., then midnight. Last year, retailers created a stir by opening at 10 p.m. Thursday. This year, Wal-Mart upped the ante when it announced plans to open at 8 p.m.

Taryan Sanders and Maurice Boston, both 25, were among those hanging out at the Wal-Mart in Humboldt Park, waiting for the 8 p.m. round of door-busters.

With a cart already filled with playthings like a Monster High doll, toy puppy and scooter (they'd been at the store since 4 p.m.), the couple stationed themselves near a pallet of Nerf gun sets that would go on sale for $10 each, items they eyed for Sanders' younger brothers.

"Gotta get the door-busters for my daughter and two brothers," Sanders said. "I already ate, and I'm out ready to get my shop on!"

This year, holiday spending is expected to rise 4.1 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year, more than 24 percent of Black Friday shoppers were out before midnight, and nearly 39 percent of shoppers were in the stores before 5 a.m.

A recent survey from the consulting firm Deloitte shows that Chicago-area consumers plan to spend about 10 percent more on gifts this year, shelling out an average of $450. Most also expect the national economy to pick up in 2013 — their most positive outlook since 2009.

Beyond early Thanksgiving openings, retailers have also vied to outdo one another by offering Black Friday-esque discounts — in stores and online — nearly a week early.

"First blood is everything," said Wendy Liebmann, CEO and chief shopper at WSL Strategic Retail, a New York-based consumer behavior research firm. "This is really the first year where we've seen a vast majority of retailers decide that Thanksgiving Day is no longer sacrosanct."

Retailers are pulling out all the stops, from offering gift cards as incentives to shoppers who buy higher-priced items to touting deeper-than-ever discounts on popular items such as televisions and tablets. They'll send coupons to shoppers' phones, and many will promise to match rivals' prices.

"The earlier you can get people to open their wallets, the better," Liebmann said. "The uncertainty of life is such that you don't know what people will spend throughout the (holiday) season. So get 'em when you can."

With Black Friday bleeding into Thursday, the type of shopper prowling for good deals was expected to change, industry watchers said.

Mothers and families typically hit the stores Friday. But this year, retail watchers say men were expected to make a strong showing Thursday night. Big-spending millennials might also be inclined to soak up the partylike atmosphere.

The earlier hours open a window to "appeal to a wider array of customers," said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at the Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm NPD Group.

Some things stay the same, though. As in years past, shoppers are angling to get more bang for their buck. Flat-screen TVs have always been big Black Friday sellers, but this year, they are expected to be larger and cheaper. TVs and laptops, annual best-sellers, are expected to hit a new price low, experts say.

Wal-Mart greeted Thursday night shoppers with deeply discounted TVs, video game consoles and Blu-ray players. At Sears, shoppers were met with on-sale tablet computers, washer and dryer sets, refrigerators and more TVs, among other items.

To prepare for the crowds, retailers have bolstered employee ranks and stepped up training. They have also staggered door-buster deals.

Toys R Us, which opened at 8 p.m. Thursday, distributed tickets to shoppers lined up for door-buster deals such as a 16-gigabyte iPod accompanied by $50 in gift cards, to avoid a "mad rush," CEO Jerry Storch told the Tribune in an interview. "It de-stresses the crowd," he said.

At electronics seller Best Buy, which opened at midnight, store managers have been giving staff crash courses in customer service and product knowledge, said Mitchell Zelasko, sales manager at the retailer's Bucktown location. The chain has hired more than 20,000 employees nationwide for its stores, distribution centers and customer service centers to support the holiday rush.

Locally, Best Buy planned to boost security for the shopping kickoff Friday, keep employees well-fed and in the store by ordering food and bringing in off-duty Chicago police officers to help keep order.

"Things can change very quickly in a mob situation," Zelasko said. "We keep things under control and we keep it fun."

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.

crshropshire@tribune.com | Twitter @corilyns

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1 dead, 6 wounded in separate South Side shootings

A man was killed and six other people wounded in separate shootings on the city's South Side since Wednesday morning, police said.

About 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, a 19-year-old man was found shot multiple times in his back on the 4500 block of South Halsted Street, police said.

Police responded to a "man down" call and found him there, dead from his wounds. He was found in a gangway. The man identifies with a local gang, police said, and had recently served time in prison for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.

He was paroled from Shawnee Correctional Center on Oct. 25 and was scheduled to have his parole discharged on the same date in 2013.

He was pronounced dead at 9:55 a.m. at the scene, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's office. A spokesman for the office said they do not have the dead man's name.

An 18-year-old man was shot about 11 p.m. in the 6400 block of South Normal Avenue, Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said. He was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County with a wound to the upper right leg. Someone inside a dark sedan shot the teen while he was on the sidewalk, Alfaro said.

A 15-year-old girl was shot in the head about 9:35 p.m., Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said. She was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in serious condition from the 1100 block of West 104th Street.

Two people were shot about 5:15 p.m. An 18-year-old woman and 27-year-old man were shot in the 6200 block of South Campbell Avenue, Purkiss said. The pair were shot by two people who opened fire from the mouth of a nearby alley, police said, and shell casings were recovered near the scene.

The woman was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Purkiss said, and the man to Mount Sinai Hospital. Both suffered multiple wounds and were transported in serious condition, he said.

Another man, 21, was shot about 4:15 p.m. on the 4700 block of South Champlain Avenue in the city's Bronzeville neighborhood. He suffered a wound to his right leg and drove himself to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, said Purkiss. His condition was not immediately available.

About 30 minutes earlier, a 28-year-old man was shot in the city's West Chesterfield neighborhood. That shooting happened on the 8700 block of South King Drive, Purkiss said. The man suffered a wound to his foot and his condition was stabilized, Purkiss said. There was no immediate information available about the circumstances leading up to the attack or about where he was taken for treatment.

Area South and Area Central detectives were investigating.

dawilliams@tribune.com
Twitter: @neacynewslady

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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“Price Is Right” model wins $7.7 million in discrimination suit

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A former model on the U.S. daytime television game show “The Price is Right” was awarded $ 7.7 million in punitive damages by a Los Angeles court on Wednesday after suing the show for not letting her return to work after giving birth.

The amount was in addition to $ 775,000 in compensatory damages awarded to 41-year-old Brandi Cochran on Tuesday, after the jury in the case ruled that the producers of the show had acted with malice by not taking her back after her pregnancy.

The jury rejected Cochran’s claim for mental hardship she said she had suffered.

“I hope my case will help other women in the same situation,” Cochran told reporters outside the courtroom after the trial.

Producers for “The Price is Right” said they planned to appeal.

Cochran, who is married to soap-opera actor Dean Cochran, told the Los Angeles Superior Court the show’s producers began treating her poorly after she told them in December 2008 that she was expecting twins.

The former Miss USA and Miss Teen USA told the court that once she was pregnant, producers made disparaging remarks about her eating habits and weight, and removed her from the show’s website.

The show’s comedian host Drew Carey backed the producers in testimony earlier this month.

Cochran worked as model on the show from 2002 until January 2009. Her son was stillborn in February 2009 and her daughter was born prematurely the following month. Cochran said she asked to return to the show, but was turned down in February 2010.

Cochran said she was encouraged to sue by actress Hunter Tylo’s successful 1997 pregnancy discrimination suit against the producers of the TV show “Melrose Place,” who fired Tylo after she announced she was expecting a child.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and David Brunnstrom)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Recipes for Health: Apple Pear Strudel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer.

Filling for 2 strudels:

1/2 pound mixed dried fruit, like raisins, currants, chopped dried figs, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries

1 1/2 pounds apples (3 large) (I recommend Braeburns), peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons unsalted butter for cooking the apples

1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup (30 grams) chopped or slivered almonds

3/4 pound (1 large or 2 small) ripe but firm pears, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice

For each strudel:

8 sheets phyllo dough

7/8 cup (100 grams) almond powder, divided

1 1/2 ounces butter, melted, for brushing the phyllo

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment.

2. Place the dried fruit in a bowl and pour on hot or boiling water to cover. Let sit 5 minutes, and drain. Toss the apples with the lemon juice.

3. Heat a large, heavy frying pan over high heat and add 2 tablespoons butter. Wait until it becomes light brown and carefully add the apples and the sugar. Do not add the apples until the pan and the butter are hot enough, or they won’t sear properly and retain their juice. But be careful when you add them so that the hot butter doesn’t splatter. When the apples are brown on one side, add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds, flip the apples and continue to sauté until golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the pears and dried fruit, then scrape out onto one of the lined sheet pans and allow to cool completely. Divide into two equal portions (easiest to do this if you weigh it).

4. Place 8 sheets of phyllo dough on your work surface. Cover with a dish towel and place another, damp dish towel on top of the first towel. Place a sheet of parchment on your work surface horizontally, with the long edge close to you. Lay a sheet of phyllo dough on the parchment. Brush lightly with butter and top with the next sheet. Continue to layer all eight sheets, brushing each one with butter before topping with the next one.

5. Brush the top sheet of phyllo dough with butter. Sprinkle on half of the almond powder (50 grams). With the other half, create a line 3 inches from the base of the dough, leaving a 2 1/2-inch margin on the sides. Top this line with one portion of the fruit mixture. Fold the bottom edge of the phyllo up over the filling, then fold the ends over and roll up like a burrito. Using the parchment paper to help you, lift the strudel and place it on the other parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with butter and make 3 or 4 slits on the diagonal along the length of the strudel. Repeat with the other sheets of phyllo to make a second strudel. If you are freezing one of them, double-wrap tightly in plastic.

6. Place the strudel in the oven and bake 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush again with butter, rotate the pan and return to the oven. Continue to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Yield: 2 strudels, each serving 8

Advance preparation: The fruit filling will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator. The strudel can be baked a few hours before serving it. Recrisp in a medium oven for 10 minutes. It can also be frozen before baking, double-wrapped in plastic. Transfer directly from the freezer to the oven and add 10 minutes to the baking time.

Nutritional information per serving: 259 calories; 13 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 15 milligrams cholesterol; 34 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams dietary fiber; 91 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Judge to let Hostess liquidation proceed

Hostess Brands Inc. on Wednesday won permission from a U.S. bankruptcy judge to begin shutting down, and expressed optimism it will find new homes for many of its iconic brands, which include Twinkies, Drake's cakes and Wonder Bread.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York authorized management, led by restructuring specialist Gregory Rayburn, to immediately begin efforts to wind down the 82-year-old company, a process expected to take one year.

"It appears clear to me that the debtors have taken the right course in seeking to implement the wind-down plan as promptly as possible," Drain said near the end of a four-hour hearing.

The judge authorized Hostess to begin the liquidation process one day after his last-ditch mediation effort between the Irving, Texas-based company and its striking bakers' union broke down.

Roughly 15,000 workers were expected to lose their jobs immediately, and most of the remaining 3,200 would be let go within four months.

"This is a tragedy, and we're well aware of it," Heather Lennox, a lawyer for Hostess, told the judge. "We are trying to be as sensitive as we can possibly be under the circumstances to the human cost of this."

Lennox said Hostess has received a "flood of inquiries" from potential buyers for several brands that could be sold at auction, and expects initial bidders within a few weeks.

Joshua Scherer, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, which is advising Hostess, said the company was in "active dialogue" over its Drake's brand with one "very interested" party that had toured a New Jersey plant on Tuesday.

He said that regional bakeries, national rivals, private equity firms and others have also expressed interest in various brands and that more than 50 nondisclosure agreements have been signed.

"These are iconic brands that people love," Scherer said.

While prospective buyers were not identified at the hearing, bankers have said rivals including Flowers Foods Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV were likely to be interested in some of the brands.

Representatives of neither company responded on Wednesday to requests for comment.

Scherer said Hostess could be worth $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion in a normal bankruptcy, an amount equal to its annual revenue. It also has about $900 million of secured debt and faces up to about $150 million of administrative claims.

Scherer expects a discount in this case because plants have already been closed and Hostess' value could fall further if the liquidation were dragged out.

"I've had buyers tell me, 'Josh, the longer it takes, the less value I'm going to be able to pay you,' " he said.

Hostess decided to liquidate on Nov. 16, saying it was losing about $1 million per day after the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, representing close to one-third of its workers, went on strike a week earlier.

The bakers union walked out after Drain authorized Hostess to impose pay and benefit cuts, which the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Hostess' largest union, had accepted.

Hostess has about 33 plants, plus three it decided to close after the strike began, as well as 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores.

Many of the 3,200 workers expected to stay on will help shut these properties and prepare them for sale. Hostess expects to need only about 200 employees by late March.

Rayburn, a former chief restructuring officer for the bankrupt phone company WorldCom Inc., said that letting 15,000 workers go now helps preserve their ability to obtain unemployment benefits.

"I need to maximize the value of the estate, but I need to do the best I can for my employees," he said.

Hostess filed for Chapter 11 protection on Jan. 11, its second bankruptcy filing in less than three years.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

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