Armstrong better, Green Day to resume tour in 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Green Day is going back on the road.

The Grammy-winning punk band announced new tour dates Monday.

The band canceled the rest of its 2012 club schedule and postponed the start of a 2013 arena tour after singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong's substance abuse problems emerged publicly in September when he had a profane meltdown on the stage of the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas. The band's rep announced later that Armstrong was headed to treatment for substance abuse.

"I just want to thank you all for the love and support you've shown for the past few months," Armstrong told fans in a statement Monday. "Believe me, it hasn't gone unnoticed and I'm eternally grateful to have such an amazing set of friends and family. I'm getting better every day. So now, without further ado, the show must go on."

The tour is scheduled to begin March 28 at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago area. Tickets for postponed shows will be honored on the new dates, and refunds will be available for canceled shows.

"We want to thank everyone for hanging in with us for the last few months," the band said. "We are very excited to hit the road and see all of you again, though we regret having to cancel more shows."

The band released their most recent album, "Tre," on Dec. 11, more than a month ahead of schedule.

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Online:

http://www.greenday.com/

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U.S. Birthrate Dips, Especially for Hispanics

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hispanic women in the United States, who have generally had the highest fertility rates in the country, are choosing to have fewer children. Both immigrant and native-born Latinas had steeper birthrate declines from 2007 to 2010 than other groups, including non-Hispanic whites, blacks and Asians, a drop some demographers and sociologists attribute to changes in the views of many Hispanic women about motherhood.

As a result, in 2011, the American birthrate hit a record low, with 63 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, led by the decline in births to immigrant women. The national birthrate is now about half what it was during the baby boom years, when it peaked in 1957 at 122.7 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age.

The decline in birthrates was steepest among Mexican-American women and women who immigrated from Mexico, at 25.7 percent. This has reversed a trend in which immigrant mothers accounted for a rising share of births in the United States, according to a recent report by the Pew Research Center. In 2010, birthrates among all Hispanics reached their lowest level in 20 years, the center found.

The sudden drop-off, which coincided with the onset of the recession, suggests that attitudes have changed since the days when older generations of Latinos prized large families and more closely followed Roman Catholic teachings, which forbid artificial contraception.

Interviews with young Latinas, as well as reproductive health experts, show that the reasons for deciding to have fewer children are many, involving greater access to information about contraceptives and women’s health, as well as higher education.

When Marucci Guzman decided to marry Tom Beard here seven years ago, the idea of having a large family — a Guzman tradition back in Puerto Rico — was out of the question.

“We thought one, maybe two,” said Ms. Guzman Beard, who gave birth to a daughter, Attalai, four years ago.

Asked whether Attalai might ever get her wish for a little brother or sister, Ms. Guzman Beard, 29, a vice president at a public service organization, said: “I want to go to law school. I’m married. I work. When do I have time?”

The decisions were not made in a vacuum but amid a sputtering economy, which, interviewees said, weighed heavily on their minds.

Latinos suffered larger percentage declines in household wealth than white, black or Asian households from 2005 to 2009, and, according to the Pew report, their rates of poverty and unemployment also grew more sharply after the recession began.

Prolonged recessions do produce dips in the birthrate, but a drop as large as Latinos have experienced is atypical, said William H. Frey, a sociologist and demographer at the Brookings Institution. “It is surprising,” Mr. Frey said. “When you hear about a decrease in the birthrate, you don’t expect Latinos to be at the forefront of the trend.”

D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center and an author of the report, said that in past recessions, when overall fertility dipped, “it bounced back over time when the economy got better.”

“If history repeats itself, that will happen again,” she said.

But to Mr. Frey, the decrease has signaled much about the aspirations of young Latinos to become full and permanent members of the upwardly mobile middle class, despite the challenges posed by the struggling economy.

Jersey Garcia, a 37-year-old public health worker in Miami, is in the first generation of her family to live permanently outside of the Dominican Republic, where her maternal and paternal grandmothers had a total of 27 children.

“I have two right now,” Ms. Garcia said. “It’s just a good number that I can handle.”

“Before, I probably would have been pressured to have more,” she added. “I think living in the United States, I don’t have family members close by to help me, and it takes a village to raise a child. So the feeling is, keep what you have right now.”

But that has not been easy. Even with health insurance, Ms. Garcia’s preferred method of long-term birth control, an IUD, has been unaffordable. Birth control pills, too, with a $50 co-payment a month, were too costly for her budget. “I couldn’t afford it,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing is condoms.”

According to research by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, the overwhelming majority of Latinas have used contraception at some point in their lives, but they face economic barriers to consistent use. As a consequence, Latinas still experience unintended pregnancy at a rate higher than non-Hispanic whites, according to the institute.

And while the share of births to teenage mothers has dropped over the past two decades for all women, the highest share of births to teenage mothers is among native-born Hispanics.

“There are still a lot of barriers to information and access to contraception that exist,” said Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas, 36, the executive director of the institute, who has one son. “We still need to do a lot of work.”

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Tribune Co. looks to television after bankruptcy

The new owners of Tribune Co. are betting that television is the key to its future.

With 23 local TV stations in 19 cities, including KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles, and a national cable network, Tribune has an array of potentially strong properties that will be the foundation of the newly constituted company.

Its television station group has been valued at close to $3 billion. In 2011, Tribune's broadcasting operations had revenue of $1.1 billion.

"Those stations are great properties in wonderful markets," said Alan Bell, a veteran broadcast industry executive. "There is a real opportunity there if sharp management steps in and really pulls up their socks."

Tribune emerged from bankruptcy Monday with new ownership and a new board of directors, several of whom are entertainment industry veterans. Peter Liguori, a former top Fox and Discovery Communications executive, was named to the board and is expected to become chief executive of the new company later this month.

The new Tribune, which will continue to be based in Chicago, is likely to be smaller than its current incarnation. In the next few months, Tribune's board plans to scrutinize the assets to see whether they should be sold or remain within the company, according to people involved in the process.

Analysts believe that Tribune's eight newspapers, which include the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, will eventually be sold. Potential suitors for The Times include Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and Aaron Kushner, a former greeting card executive who bought the Orange County Register and a string of other California newspapers last year.

Also in the mix is Austin Beutner, a former venture capitalist and ex-deputy mayor of Los Angeles. He told The Times in October that he had begun reaching out to civic-minded investors who would be willing to put up money to acquire the news organization.

However, members of Tribune's leadership said they did not plan to sell assets immediately. Instead, they would like to spend several months reviewing each asset's prospects and potential.

Tribune sought Bankruptcy Court protection in December 2008. A leveraged buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell had saddled the company with $12.9 billion in debt as the U.S. economy entered recession and advertising revenue collapsed.

Tribune's post-bankruptcy debt was reduced to $1.1 billion, plus a $300-million credit line.

"We did not put a lot of debt on the reorganized company, which provides us an option," said Kenneth Liang, a managing director at Oaktree Capital Management, the Los Angeles investment firm that owns roughly 23% of the remade Tribune.

"It allows us either to hold or sell existing assets or acquire additional assets," Liang said. "But we're not going to be forced into a decision because of financial constraint."

Tribune's newspapers, TV stations and other holdings have a combined value of about $4.5 billion, according to an analyst's estimate filed in Bankruptcy Court. The newspapers were valued at about $623 million in April, a significant decline from their value even one year earlier, the report said.

"It's way worse now than it was four years ago" for the newspapers, said Craig Huber, a media analyst with Huber Research Partners in Connecticut. "We have had four additional years of compounded declines for newspaper advertising."

In addition to KTLA, Tribune owns WPIX-TV New York, WPHL in Philadelphia and WGN-TV in Chicago, which has the distinction of being both a local station and a national cable channel.

People familiar with the thinking of Tribune's new controlling owners — hedge funds Oaktree Capital Management and Angelo, Gordon & Co. and investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. — said rejuvenating the TV stations and improving WGN's programming were top priorities.

The Tribune stations have suffered from a bad economy, which depressed local advertising spending, and also from the parent company's ongoing financial woes and persistent management changes at the local stations.

"They haven't been run very well," Bell said.

But local advertising, the engine of any television station, has improved in recent months. Car manufacturers and dealerships — heavy buyers of local television time — have resumed spending.

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Congress edges closer to 'fiscal cliff' deal but can't close it

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill inched toward a compromise to avert part of the so-called fiscal cliff but remained unable to close a deal as each side struggled with internal tensions as well as the remaining gap between them.

Lawmakers have been trying to beat a deadline of midnight Monday, when tax rates are scheduled to go up for the vast majority of Americans. But they could continue chasing a deal for days — even until the new Congress is sworn in at noon Thursday. After that, the political dynamics could shift with the entrance of new members.

If Congress fails to act, the combination of new taxes and sharp cuts in defense spending and domestic programs, which also would take effect with the new year, could tip the economy back into recession, economists have warned.

On Sunday, talks hit a standstill early in the day after Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky proposed slowing Social Security cost-of-living increases as part of the spending package. Democrats rejected the idea, and many Republicans quickly disavowed it.

In response to a request from McConnell, the Obama administration assigned Vice President Joe Biden to broker further negotiations.

"I'm willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "The sticking point appears to be a willingness, an interest, or courage to close the deal."

Biden and McConnell talked by phone throughout the afternoon as the two sides appeared to close in on a potential compromise.

Republicans have said they are willing to raise taxes on wealthier households while stopping the tax increases for most Americans. The two sides have not agreed on an income threshold for the tax increases. Republicans suggested starting about $550,000 in taxable income for couples and $450,000 for single households. The most recent offer from Democrats had set the tax level slightly lower, about $450,000 for couples and $360,000 for singles.

But Republicans were also seeking to preserve inheritance taxes at the current rate of 35%, while Democrats have sought to raise them. Republicans want to keep the automatic spending cuts in place for now, while Democrats suggest easing them. Democrats also want to continue long-term unemployment benefits as part of the year-end package.

Other sticking points remain over adjustments to the rates Medicare pays doctors and fixing the tax code to protect middle-income Americans from the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to prevent tax avoidance by the wealthy. Both provisions involve laws that are not indexed for inflation and have required annual adjustments by Congress.

The closer the two sides edged toward compromise Sunday, the more divisions within their ranks became apparent.

Republican senators, worried they would be blamed for harming seniors, openly revolted once the McConnell proposal to trim Social Security benefits became public.

After a closed-door meeting, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) articulated the public relations challenge the proposal posed his party: "What [Democrats] are saying now is, 'Republicans want to preserve tax breaks for rich people and give up seniors' Social Security.' It should be off the table. And I think most Republicans believe it should be off the table."

"I'm not a fan," said retiring Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). "I don't think it should be part of it, and I think there are others who shared that view."

Democrats rejected the proposal. An aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) "was taken aback and disappointed" by the idea. "We feel we are further apart than we were 24 hours ago."

Adjusting the cost of living for recipients of government benefits, including Social Security, had been offered by President Obama in talks with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) when they were negotiating a broader deficit reduction deal. But Democrats have rejected including the idea in the more limited package now under discussion.

At the same time, some Democrats worried that Biden, who has closed several deals before with McConnell, might be too eager to compromise compared with Reid. White House officials have been more worried than many congressional Democrats about the potential economic damage that the tax cuts and spending reductions could cause.

Obama made clear the line of attack that the White House would use against Republican leaders if Congress could not find a resolution.

"They have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers," Obama said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," which was recorded Saturday.

"If they can't do a comprehensive package of smart deficit reductions, let's at minimum make sure that people's taxes don't go up and that 2 million people don't lose their unemployment insurance."

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14 Solutions to Your New Year’s Midnight Kiss

Find a Baby

There’s got to be one crawling around somewhere. What’s cuter than kissing a baby’s fat cheek? Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Here’s a Depressing Look at Man’s Impact on Earth]

Do you find yourself in a panic every New Year’s Eve because everyone’s counting down and Billy Crystal has yet to explain all of the reasons why he’s madly in love with you?

No? Oh okay — me neither.

[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]

But the final holiday of the year can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. We want to end and begin each year with a bang — this often means the perfect outfit, an amazing soiree and the midnight kiss that will sweep you off your feet.

Instead of starting 2013 in a state of panic, then promising to be better later, enjoy New Year’s Eve and stop worrying about a silly superstition. We’ve come up with a couple solutions to the big smooch at the end of the night.

Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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'The Hobbit' stays atop box office for third week

LOS ANGELES (AP) — "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" continues to rule them all at the box office, staying on top for a third-straight week and capping a record-setting $10.8 billion year in moviegoing.

The Warner Bros. fantasy epic from director Peter Jackson, based on the beloved J.R.R. Tolkien novel, made nearly $33 million this weekend, according to Sunday studio estimates, despite serious competition from some much-anticipated newcomers. It's now made a whopping $686.7 million worldwide and $222.7 million domestically alone.

Two big holiday movies — and potential Academy Awards contenders — also had strong openings. Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti Western-blaxploitation mash-up "Django Unchained" came in second place for the weekend with $30.7 million. The Weinstein Co. revenge comedy, starring Jamie Foxx as a slave in the Civil War South and Christoph Waltz as the bounty hunter who frees him and then makes him his partner, has earned $64 million since its Christmas Day opening.

And in third place with $28 million was the sweeping, all-singing "Les Miserables," based on the international musical sensation and the Victor Hugo novel of strife and uprising in 19th century France. The Universal Pictures film, with a cast of A-list actors singing live on camera led by Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe has made $67.5 million domestically and $116.2 worldwide since debuting on Christmas.

Additionally, the smash-hit James Bond adventure "Skyfall" has now made $1 billion internationally to become the most successful film yet in the 50-year franchise, Sony Pictures announced Sunday. The film stars Daniel Craig for the third time as the iconic British superspy.

"This is a great final weekend of the year," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "How perfect to end this year on such a strong note with the top five films performing incredibly well."

The week's other new wide release, the Billy Crystal-Bette Midler comedy "Parental Guidance" from 20th Century Fox, made $14.8 million over the weekend for fourth place and $29.6 million total since opening on Christmas.

Dergarabedian described the holding power of "The Hobbit" in its third week as "just amazing." Jackson shot the film, the first of three prequels to his massively successful "Lord of the Rings" series, in 48 frames per second — double the normal frame rate — for a crisper, more detailed image. It's also available in the usual 24 frames per second and both 2-D and 3-D projections.

"I think people are catching up with the movie. Maybe they're seeing it in multiple formats," he said. "I think it's just a big epic that feels like a great way to end the moviegoing year. There's momentum there with this movie."

"Django Unchained" is just as much of an epic in its own stylishly violent way that's quintessentially Tarantino. Erik Lomis, The Weinstein Co.'s president of theatrical distribution, said the opening exceeded the studio's expectations.

"We're thrilled with it, clearly. We knew it was extremely competitive at Christmas, particularly when you look at the start 'Les Miz' got. We were sort of resigned to being behind them. The fact that we were able to overtake them over the weekend was just great," Lomis said. "Taking nothing away from their number, it's a tribute to the playability of 'Django.'"

"Les Miserables" went into its opening weekend with nearly $40 million in North American grosses, including $18.2 on Christmas Day. That's the second-best opening ever on the holiday following "Sherlock Holmes," which made $24.9 million on Christmas 2009. Tom Hooper, in a follow-up to his Oscar-winner "The King's Speech," directs an enormous, ambitious take on the beloved musical which has earned a CinemaScore of "A'' from audiences and "A-plus" from women.

Nikki Rocco, Universal's head of distribution, said the debut for "Les Miserables" also beat the studio's expectations.

"That $18.2 million Christmas Day opening — people were shocked ... This is a musical!" she said. "Once people see it, they talk about how fabulous it is."

It all adds up to a record-setting year at the movies, beating the previous annual record of $10.6 billion set in 2009. Dergarabedian pointed out that the hits came scattered throughout the year, not just during the summer blockbuster season or prestige-picture time at the end. "Contraband," ''Safe House" and "The Vow" all performed well early on, but then when the big movies came, they were huge. "The Avengers" had the biggest opening ever with $207.4 million in May. The raunchy comedy "Ted" and comic-book behemoth "The Dark Knight Rises" both found enormous audiences. And Paul Thomas Anderson's challenging drama "The Master" shattered records in September when it opened on five screens in New York and Los Angeles with $736,311, for a staggering per-screen average of $147,262.

"We were able to get this record without scratching and clawing to a record," he said.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $32.9 million ($106.5 million international).

2."Django Unchained," $30.7 million.

3."Les Miserables," $28 million ($38.3 million international).

4."Parental Guidance," $14.8 million ($7 million international).

5."Jack Reacher," $14 million ($18.1 million).

6."This Is 40," $13.2 million.

7."Lincoln," $7.5 million.

8."The Guilt Trip," $6.7 million.

9."Monsters, Inc. 3-D," $6.4 million.

10."Rise of the Guardians," $4.9 million ($11.6 million).

___

Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1."The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $106.5 million.

2."Life of Pi," $39.2 million.

3."Les Miserables," $38.3 million.

4."Wreck-It Ralph," $20.4 million.

5."Jack Reacher," $18.1 million.

6."Rise of the Guardians," $11.6 million.

7."Parental Guidance," $7 million.

8."The Tower," $6.6 million.

9."Pitch Perfect," $6.2 million.

10."De L'autre Cote Du Periph," $4 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Revolutionary in the Study of the Brain, Dies at 103

Fabio Campana/European Pressphoto Agency

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini in 2007. She discovered chemical tools the body uses to direct cell growth and build nerve networks.

Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning neurologist who discovered critical chemical tools that the body uses to direct cell growth and build nerve networks, opening the way for the study of how those processes can go wrong in diseases like dementia and cancer, died on Sunday at her home in Rome. She was 103.

Her death was announced by Mayor Gianni Alemanno of Rome.

“I don’t use these words easily, but her work revolutionized the study of neural development, from how we think about it to how we intervene,” said Dr. Gerald D. Fishbach, a neuroscientist and professor emeritus at Columbia.

Scientists had virtually no idea how embryo cells built a latticework of intricate connections to other cells when Dr. Levi-Montalcini began studying chicken embryos in the bedroom of her house in Turin, Italy, during World War II. After years of obsessive study, much of it at Washington University in St. Louis with Dr. Viktor Hamburger, she found a protein that, when released by cells, attracted nerve growth from nearby developing cells.

In the early 1950s, she and Dr. Stanley Cohen, a biochemist also at Washington University, isolated and described the chemical, known as nerve growth factor — and in the process altered the study of cell growth and development. Scientists soon realized that the protein gave them a new way to study and understand disorders of neural growth, like cancer, or of degeneration, like Alzheimer’s disease, and to potentially develop therapies.

In the years after the discovery, Dr. Levi-Montalcini, Dr. Cohen and others described a large family of such growth-promoting agents, each of which worked to regulate the growth of specific cells. One, called epidermal growth factor and discovered by Dr. Cohen, plays a central role in breast cancer; in part by studying its behavior, scientists developed drugs to combat the abnormal growth.

In 1986, Dr. Levi-Montalcini and Dr. Cohen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work.

Dr. Cohen, now an emeritus professor at Vanderbilt University, said Dr. Levi-Montalcini possessed a rare combination of intuition and passion, as well as biological knowledge. “She had this feeling for what was happening biologically,” he said. “She was an intuitive observer, and she saw that something was making these nerve connections grow and was determined to find out what it was.”

One of four children, Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in Turin on April 22, 1909, to Adamo Levi, an engineer, and Adele Montalcini, a painter, both Italian Jews who traced their roots to the Roman Empire. In keeping with the Victorian customs of the time, Mr. Levi discouraged his three daughters from entering college, fearing that it would interfere with their lives as wives and mothers.

It was not a future that Rita wanted. She had decided to become a doctor and told her father so. “He listened, looking at me with that serious and penetrating gaze of his that caused me such trepidation,” she wrote in her autobiography, “In Praise of Imperfection” (1988). He also agreed to support her.

She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Turin medical school in 1936. Two years later, Mussolini issued a manifesto barring non-Aryan Italians from having professional careers. She began her research anyway, setting up a small laboratory in her home to study chick embryos, inspired by the work of Dr. Hamburger, a prominent researcher in St. Louis who also worked with the embryos.

During World War II, the family fled Turin for the countryside, and in 1943 the invasion by Germany forced them to Florence. The family returned at the close of the war, in 1945, and Dr. Hamburger soon invited Dr. Levi-Montalcini to work for a year in his lab at Washington University.

She stayed on, becoming an associate professor in 1956 and a full professor in 1958. In 1962, she helped establish the Institute of Cell Biology in Rome and became its first director. She retired from Washington University in 1977, becoming a guest professor and splitting her time between Rome and St. Louis.

Italy honored her in 2001 by making her a senator for life.

An elegant presence, confident and passionate, she was a sought-after speaker until late in life. “At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20,” she said in 2009.

She never married and had no children. In addition to her autobiography, she was the author or co-author of dozens of research studies and received numerous professional awards, including the National Medal of Science.

“It is imperfection — not perfection — that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain,” Dr. Levi-Montalcini wrote in her autobiography, “and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 30, 2012

An earlier version of this obituary misstated the year Mussolini issued a manifesto barring non-Aryan Italians from having professional careers. It was 1938, not 1936.

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Tribune Co. set to exit bankruptcy protection

Tribune Co. is expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection Monday with a new board of directors composed largely of entertainment-industry veterans.

Exiting bankruptcy would mark a milestone for Tribune, the parent of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper and television properties.

Tribune sought Bankruptcy Court protection in December 2008 after a leveraged buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell saddled the company with $12.9 billion in debt just as advertising revenue was collapsing. It is one of the longest bankruptcy cases in U.S. corporate history.

Tribune will emerge as a slimmed-down entity with a more stable financial base. But the media conglomerate will still be buffeted by the larger forces pounding the newspaper industry, specifically uncertainty over whether papers can generate sufficient revenue from digital operations.

"Tribune is far stronger than it was when we began the Chapter 11 process four years ago and, given the budget planning we've done, the company is well-positioned for success in 2013," Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune's chief executive, wrote in a note to employees Sunday night.

Tribune's new board of directors is expected to be made up of a who's who of Hollywood players. Most have no hands-on experience running newspapers and television stations, which are Tribune's biggest assets.

Five of the seven members have ties to the entertainment and media industries, including Hartenstein and Peter Liguori, a former News Corp. executive who is expected to succeed Hartenstein as Tribune CEO in the next few weeks.

Also expected to be named to the board are Peter Murphy, previously a longtime executive at Walt Disney Co.; Ross Levinsohn, former head of global media at Yahoo Inc.; and Craig A. Jacobson, a veteran entertainment attorney.

The board will be rounded out by Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree Capital Management, the Los Angeles investment firm that owns about 23% of the new Tribune; and Kenneth Liang, an Oaktree managing director.

Tribune owns 23 local television stations, eight daily newspapers and Internet and other media properties.

Those holdings include KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Tribune, and national cable station WGN-TV. Tribune also holds slightly less than one-third of the Food Network cable channel and about a 25% stake in the CareerBuilder website.

Liguori is also a former Discovery Communications senior executive whose resume is in programming and marketing. He headed both the FX cable network and Fox Broadcasting at News Corp. At Discovery he served as chief operating officer of the cable programming giant.

Murphy spent almost two decades at Disney, rising to the position of chief strategist. He founded private investment firm Wentworth Capital Management. He has close ties to Angelo, Gordon & Co., an investment firm that will own roughly 9% of the new Tribune Co.

Levinsohn is a former head of global media at Yahoo. He also served briefly as its interim CEO before Google Inc.'s Marissa Mayer being tapped for that job. Levinsohn also is a former News Corp. executive who headed its interactive unit.

Jacobson, an attorney at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush & Kaller is one of Hollywood's more prominent deal-makers. His clients have included several high-profile executives and performers such as Ryan Seacrest.

Tribune remained profitable throughout the bankruptcy, building cash reserves of more than $2.5 billion as of Nov. 18, according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing this month. Creditors are expected to immediately take nearly $3 billion in cash out of the new company, some of it coming from a new $1.1-billion loan that was approved as part of the bankruptcy.

The value of Tribune's newspaper properties has sunk to $623 million, a fraction of their value a few years earlier, according to an estimate filed in Bankruptcy Court in April.

A key question still to be answered is what Tribune will do with its newspapers. Some analysts believe the company will seek to sell the slower-growing newspapers to focus on TV holdings.

As for the Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has expressed interest, according to people familiar with the matter.

Aaron Kushner, owner of the Orange County Register, and Doug Manchester, the San Diego real estate developer who last year bought the local Union Tribune newspaper, also have shown interest.

Austin Beutner, the former venture capitalist and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, told The Times in October that he has reached out to civic-minded investors who would consider acquiring the paper.

walter.hamilton@latimes.com

joe.flint@latimes.com

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Officials warn holiday revelers against firing weapons

By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2012, 8:59 p.m.

Los Angeles officials are warning that anyone discharging a firearm into the air to celebrate the new year not only risks killing someone but could also face a lengthy prison sentence.

"Firing into the air weapons in celebration puts innocent lives at risk," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said last week. "Nothing ruins the holiday season like an errant bullet coming down and killing an innocent."

Villaraigosa said the misuse of firearms is on everyone's mind in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that left six adults and 20 children dead. The mayor vowed that authorities will pursue criminal charges for anyone caught in possession of a weapon in public.

For more than a decade, city and county leaders have tried to quell celebratory gunfire.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said a bullet discharged into the air falls at a rate of 300 to 700 mph, depending on the weapon — "easily enough to crack the human skull."

"Please celebrate New Year's with your family, not in [Sheriff] Lee Baca's jail or my jail," Beck said, pledging to capture anyone firing a weapon. "Firing a gun in the air isn't only dangerous and a crime but socially unacceptable."

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said that anyone caught firing a weapon — even if they don't hit someone — will face a felony charge and a fine of up to $10,000 and a possible three-year sentence. A conviction would be considered a strike offense and the suspect would lose the right to own a firearm.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said that in some county areas, special equipment has been deployed to spot shots within seconds and track their locations.

"The madness of gun violence has to stop," he said. "This is a matter of physics. What goes up must come down."

richard.winton@latimes.com

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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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