United Dreamliner makes emergency landing in New Orleans









A brand-new United Airlines "Dreamliner" airplane bound for Newark was diverted Tuesday morning, making an emergency landing in New Orleans because of an undisclosed mechanical problem.

The highly acclaimed Boeing 787 Dreamliner recently began service in North America in a debut last month with United Airlines. United and Boeing are both based in Chicago.

On Tuesday, the 7:30 a.m. United flight 1146 from Houston to Newark was diverted to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and landed safely there at 9:25 a.m., the airline said. The plane, the third delivered to United recently, carried 174 customers and 10 crew members. Neither United nor Boeing would describe the problem except to say it was a "mechanical issue."

"We are reaccommodating the customers on a different aircraft to Newark," United said in a statement. "United will work with Boeing to review the diversion and determine the cause."

The Federal Aviation Administration "is looking into it," an FAA spokesman said.

Flights can be diverted for many reasons, from serious problems to a simple malfunction of a cockpit warning light. And flight diversions are not exceptionally uncommon. There were 816 diversions among large U.S. carriers in September alone and double that number in July, for example, according to federal statistics.

The 787 Dreamliner, a new-model aircraft that features greater passenger comforts and fuel efficiency compared with similar planes, is a big deal for both United and Boeing and has been highly touted by both the airline and the aircraft-maker.

However, any hint of a problem with a 787 is noticed. The plane has gotten mostly rave reviews, but is being delivered more than three years late because of design and production problems. The Dreamliner is different because instead of being made mostly of metal, half the plane, including the fuselage and wings, is made of strong, light composite materials.

gkarp@tribune.com

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Daley nephew indicted in '04 death of David Koschman









A special Cook County grand jury indicted former Mayor Richard Daley's nephew on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of David Koschman in a drunken confrontation on the city’s Near North Side, the special prosecutor said today.

The grand jury found that Richard J. Vanecko "recklessly performed acts which were likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another" in Koschman’s death in 2004, according to the indictment.






Koschman, 21, had been drinking in the Rush Street nightlife district early on April 25 2004 when he and friends quarreled with a group that included Vanecko. During the altercation, Koschman was knocked to the street, hitting the back of his head. He died 11 days later.


Former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb, appointed special prosecutor in the case last spring, noted that at 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds, Vanecko towered over Koschman, who was 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds. There is no statute of limitations on a charge of involuntary manslaughter.


Koschman’s mother, Nanci Koschman, told a news conference that she planned to visit her son's grave and "I'm going to tell David tomorrow that he can finally have peace."


She said she refused to believe, over the years, that the fight was her son's fault, as detectives had told her. "You have to find the strength to go on," Koschman said. "I wanted his name cleared."


Koschman said she never sought vengeance, but accountability. "I want to thank the grand jury," she said. But she added, "It doesn't bring David back. And that's all I wanted."


Vanecko’s attorneys issued a statement saying they were disappointed by the indictment. According to the lawyers, Koschman’s blood-alcohol content was nearly three times the .08 legal limit for motorists – though he was on foot at the time of the confrontation.

Koschman “was clearly acting in an unprovoked, physically aggressive manner,” Vaneckos’ legal team said. “We are confident that when all the facts are aired in a court of law, the trier of fact will find Mr. Vanecko not guilty.”

Vanecko’s lawyers defended the work of police and prosecutors, saying “these agencies professionally investigate these types of incidents on a daily basis.”

“These decisions were not because of favoritism but because the facts did not warrant felony charges,” the lawyers said.


Vanecko, who currently lives in California, is expected to appear for arraignment at 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building at 26th Street and California Avenue. Plans call for him to post $10,000 cash bond and be released pending trial. He faces 2 to 5 years in prison, or probation, if convicted of involuntary manslaughter.


Lawyers for Koschman’s mother sought a special prosecutor last year after an investigative series by the Chicago Sun-Times raised questions about whether police and prosecutors intentionally concealed evidence for political reasons.


In a statement released this afternoon, Webb said the grand jury continues “at a vigorous pace” to look into how authorities handled their investigation of Koschman’s death.


Locke Bowman, an attorney with Northwestern University's MacArthur Justice Center who represents Nanci Koschman, said he was encouraged that the investigation was continuing.

"Why has this taken so long?" he asked, wondering if the the clout of the powerful Daley family was at work. "Clearly, we need to have answers."


Webb said thousands of documents have been reviewed and more than 50 witnesses interviewed so far in the seven-month investigation.


Among the  issues Webb was tasked to sort out were whether clout tainted the original investigation in addition to whether Vanecko, now 38, should be charged criminally in connection with the death.


Judge Michael Toomin took the rare step of appointing Webb as a special prosecutor in April after concluding that Chicago police and county prosecutors mishandled the investigation.


The charges mark a dramatic twist in a case that seemed to fizzle out in 2004 as the investigation went nowhere.

Police initially said that witnesses gave conflicting accounts of what occurred and some claimed Koschman was the aggressor in the confrontation.

Almost two weeks after Koschman died of his injuries, a top prosecutor in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office was called to the Belmont Area headquarters on the day detectives put Vanecko in several lineups, all of which police said ended with witnesses failing to identify him as the assailant.

Vanecko had come to the station with his attorney, Terence Gillespie, who told police his client would not answer questions.

Dan Kirk, chief of staff for current State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez told the Tribune in an interview earlier this year that there was no admissible evidence that could have been used to file charges at the time.


Kirk said police had no positive identification from any of the lineups they conducted, no statements from the main suspect, no statement from the victim and no physical evidence.


jmeisner@tribune.com





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Facebook voting begins on Instagram data-sharing, email privacy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc opened the polls on Monday for its roughly 1 billion users to vote on a variety of changes to the social network's policies, including a proposal to scrap the user voting system that Facebook introduced in 2009.


Facebook also said it had "clarified" some of the proposed changes, specifying that a new policy allowing it to share user data with recently acquired photo-application Instagram will be carried out in compliance with applicable laws and that Facebook will seek user consent when necessary.


The proposed changes, which Facebook announced on November 21, generated roughly 89,000 user comments as well as concerns from some privacy-advocacy groups and a request for more information from the Data Protection Commission in Ireland, where Facebook's European business has its headquarters.


"Based on your feedback and after consultation with our regulators, including the Irish Data Protection Commissioner's Office, we've further clarified some of our proposals," said Elliot Schrage, Facebook Vice President of Communications, Public Policy and Marketing in a post on Facebook's company blog on Monday.


Facebook is proposing to eliminate the 4-year-old system that allows users to vote on changes to its governance policies. The company says the voting system hasn't functioned as intended and is no longer suited to its current situation as a large publicly traded company subject to oversight by various regulatory agencies.


Facebook said on Monday that it would incorporate user suggestions for creating new tools to "enhance communication" on privacy and governance matters.


Another proposal would loosen the restrictions on how members of the social network can contact other members using the Facebook email system. The company said it planned to replace the "Who can send you Facebook messages" setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.


Facebook's potential information sharing with Instagram, a photo-sharing service for smartphone users that it bought in October, flows from proposed changes that would allow the company to share information between its own service and other businesses or affiliates it owns.


The change could open the door for Facebook to build unified profiles of its users that include people's personal data from its social network and from Instagram, similar to recent moves by Google Inc.


Facebook said on Monday that the proposed change was "standard in the industry" and "promotes the efficient and effective use of the services Facebook and its affiliates," such as allowing users in the U.S. to interact with users in Europe.


"This provision covers Instagram and allows us to store Instagram's server logs and administrative records in a way that is more efficient than maintaining totally separate storage systems," the company wrote in a separate post on its website Monday titled "explanation of changes".


"Where additional consent of our users is required, we will obtain it," Facebook said.


Facebook users have until December 10 to vote on the policies using a special third-party application provided by Facebook and Facebook said the results will be certified by an independent auditor.


The vote is only binding if at least 30 percent of users take part, and two prior votes never reached that threshold.


(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andrew Hay)


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A-Rod needs hip surgery, will miss season's start

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Alex Rodriguez will start the season in what's become a familiar place: the disabled list.

The New York Yankees said Monday the third baseman will have surgery on his left hip, an injury that could sideline him until the All-Star break and may explain his spectacularly poor performance during the playoffs.

"It's a significant blow," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. "But we've dealt with significant blows and, hopefully, we'll be able to deal with this one, as well."

A 14-time All-Star and baseball's priciest player at $275 million, Rodriguez has a torn labrum, bone impingement and a cyst. He will need four to six weeks of physical therapy to strengthen the hip before surgery, and the team anticipates he will be sidelined four to six months after the operation.

This will be Rodriguez's sixth trip to the disabled list in six seasons. A-Rod had right hip surgery on March 9, 2009, and returned that May 8.

"It is a more complicated surgery with a longer recovery time because there is a little bit more that needs to be done," Cashman said, citing the bone impingement. "I don't think it's age related. Butt at the same time, the older you are, the slower you're going to recover regardless. But the bottom line and the message I've been receiving is that this is a solvable issue."

Rodriguez, who turns 38 in July, complained to manager Joe Girardi of a problem with his right hip the night Raul Ibanez pinch hit for him — and hit a tying ninth-inning home run — against Baltimore during Game 3 of the AL division series in October. He went to New York-Presbyterian Hospital's emergency room and was checked out then.

"Up to this point, there was no complaints of any nature at all from his hip, or anything really," Cashman said. "At that point Joe went to Alex in the dugout and said, 'I'm going to pinch hit for you and we're going to pinch hit Ibanez,' and Alex said to Joe at that moment, 'OK,' he said, 'I've got to talk to you about something. I think my right hip needs to be looked at. I just don't feel like I'm firing on all cylinders.'"

Cashman said the test on the right hip "was clean" and the left hip was not examined.

"I can tell you if a patient shows up in the emergency room with a complaint, they're going to focus on where the complaint is, not something else," he said.

Rodriguez, owed $114 million by New York over the next five years, remained a shell of his former self on the field. He was benched in three of nine postseason games and pinch hit for in three others. He batted .120 (3 for 25) with no RBIs in the playoffs, including 0 for 18 with 12 strikeouts against right-handed pitchers.

A-Rod broke his left hand when he was hit by a pitch from Seattle's Felix Hernandez on July 24. He returned Sept. 3 and hit .195 with two homers and six RBIs over the final month of the regular season.

Cashman said Rodriguez's left hip injury was detected last month when he had an annual physical in Colorado with Dr. Marc Philippon, who operated on the right hip 3 1-2 years ago. Rodriguez got a second opinion from Dr. Bryan Kelly of New York's Hospital for Special Surgery, who will operate on A-Rod next month, and the injury was made public Monday by the New York Post.

Cashman said "they're not your typical injuries" but wouldn't speculate whether they are related to steroids use. Rodriguez admitted in 2009 that he used steroids while with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03.

"It doesn't matter what I wonder," Cashman said.

With Derek Jeter, who turns 39 in June, coming off surgery to repair a broken ankle, the left side of the Yankees' infield could be even more of a defensive problem.

Jeter expects to be ready for opening day. Eric Chavez, who filled in for Rodriguez for parts of the last two seasons, is a free agent and Cashman said there are few options on the market.

Rodriguez had a strained quadriceps in 2008, the hip surgery in 2009, a strained calf in 2010, knee surgery in 2011 and the broken hand this year. While he is fifth on the career list with 647 home runs, he had just 34 the last two seasons.

"When he's healthy — obviously at one point he was spectacular," Cashman said. "One player doesn't make a team, and so we have a full roster of guys plus our farm system behind that that's going to have to fill in. We've done it before."

NOTES: Toronto claimed C Eli Whiteside off waivers from the Yankees, who claimed him from San Francisco last month.

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Turkey fines TV channel for “The Simpsons” blasphemy












ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey‘s broadcasting regulator is fining a television channel for insulting religious values after it aired an episode of “The Simpsons” which shows God taking orders from the devil.


Radio and television watchdog RTUK said it was fining private broadcaster CNBC-e 52,951 lira ($ 30,000) over the episode of the hit U.S. animated TV series, whose scenes include the devil asking God to make him a coffee.












“The board has decided to fine the channel over these matters,” an RTUK spokeswoman said but declined further comment, saying full details would probably be announced next week.


CNBC-e said it would comment once the fine was officially announced.


Turkey is a secular republic but most of its 75 million people are Muslim. Religious conservatives and secular opponents vie for public influence and critics of the government say it is trying to impose Islamic values by stealth.


Elected a decade ago with the strongest majority seen in years, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party have overseen a period of unprecedented prosperity in Turkey. But concerns are growing about authoritarianism.


Erdogan last week tore into a chart-topping soap opera about the Ottoman Empire’s longest-reigning Sultan and the broadcasting regulator has warned the show’s makers about insulting a historical figure.


“The Simpsons” first aired in 1989 and is the longest-running U.S. sitcom. It is broadcast in more than 100 countries and CNBC-e has been airing it in Turkey for almost a decade.


“I wonder what the script writers will do when they hear that the jokes on their show are taken seriously and trigger fines in a country called Turkey,” wrote Mehmet Yilmaz, a columnist for the Hurriyet newspaper.


“Maybe they will add an almond-moustached RTUK expert to the series,” he said, evoking a popular Turkish stereotype of a pious government supporter.


($ 1 = 1.7873 Turkish liras)


(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Paul Casciato)


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Fossil fuel subsidies in focus at climate talks

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.

"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."

To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.

Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.

"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.

His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.

Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.

In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.

"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.

He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.

The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.

Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.

"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.

Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.

The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.

When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.

Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.

Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.

"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."

The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.

The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."

In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.

Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.

In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.

"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report

____

Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter

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'Bully,' 'Chasing Ice' are among Oscar contenders

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The anti-bullying film "Bully," the climate-change study "Chasing Ice" and the AIDS chronicle "How to Survive a Plague" are among 15 features on the short list for the Academy Award for best documentary.

Other contenders announced Monday are the Ethel Kennedy documentary "Ethel," the health care exploration "The Waiting Room" and the music portrait "Searching for Sugar Man," tracing the fate of acclaimed but obscure 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez.

The other documentaries are "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," ''Detropia," ''5 Broken Cameras," ''The Gatekeepers," ''The House I Live In," ''The Imposter," ''The Invisible War," ''Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God" and "This Is Not a Film."

Members of the academy's documentary branch will narrow the list to five nominees. Nominations come out Jan. 10, with the Oscar show following on Feb. 24.

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Heat is on Groupon's Andrew Mason









In June 2011, Groupon Inc. Chief Executive Andrew Mason took the stage at a conference hosted by influential technology blog AllThingsD.


When co-executive editor Kara Swisher asked him whether an initial public offering was coming soon, he shot her what she later dubbed his "death stare."


The audience laughed and broke into applause.





The tone was decidedly more subdued last week, when Mason found himself at another tech industry confab, fielding questions from Business Insider's Henry Blodget, this time about whether Groupon's directors were going to fire him at their meeting the next day. AllThingsD had reported a day earlier, citing anonymous sources, that Groupon's board of directors was considering replacing Mason with a more experienced CEO to lead the Chicago-based daily deal company's turnaround.


The contrast between those two appearances underscores the swift and dramatic tumble of Mason's standing in tech and business circles within a few years. The young founder and CEO graced the cover of Forbes in 2010 and was named Ernst & Young's National Entrepreneur of the Year in the "emerging" category a year later.


Those accolades are a far cry from the cloud hanging over Mason, 32, and the company he launched four years ago. The leak to AllThingsD appeared to be deliberately timed to embarrass the executive, forcing him to field questions about his own competence at a scheduled appearance. This public hint of internal strife has fueled speculation around Mason's fate even as other public tech companies, such as Facebook and social game-maker Zynga, have also seen their stock prices drop since their IPOs.


Groupon's board met Thursday and took no action on the CEO's job, with company spokesman Paul Taaffe saying the board and management were "working together with their heads down to achieve Groupon's objectives."


Markets, however, seemed unconvinced. Groupon's beleaguered stock closed slightly higher Thursday but dropped 8.7 percent to $4.14 Friday. Shares debuted at $20 in November 2011.


Investors "want experience in leadership," said Raman Chadha, a clinical professor at DePaul University and co-founder of the Junto Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, a training program for startup founders. "And as a result, where Andrew's background was cool and sexy — and maybe even bordering on amusing — when Groupon was a pure startup, that's in the mindset of those of us who are observers and supporters … and fellow entrepreneurs. I think in the minds of the investor community and Wall Street, (it's different) because now the company has a lot more to lose. And if it's going to fall, it's going to fall really hard and really far."


For Chadha, Mason's unconventional pedigree as a music major-turned-startup-founder was part of the appealing, media-friendly story of Groupon's origin. The company was launched as recession-weary consumers were eager for deals, and it achieved rapid growth while earning a reputation for antics like decorating a conference room in the style of a fictional, possibly deranged tenant of Groupon's headquarters who had lived there before the startup moved into the offices.


The scrutiny of Groupon was tremendous given the "high-flying" nature of the company, said David Larcker, a corporate governance expert at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.


"You have a founder as CEO," he said. "He's the public face of the company. He has set the culture. All of that stuff."


That culture, driven in large part by Mason, turned from a lovable quirk to a major liability as the company ran into controversy over its poorly received Super Bowl ads in February 2011 and a series of missteps in the run-up to its IPO. Then, within months of its public debut, it disclosed an accounting flaw that forced it to restate financial results.


The larger question surrounding Groupon is the long-term viability of its basic business model. The company has been expanding offerings beyond its core daily deals, which have seen growth rates tail off. It's also dealing with a recession in the key European market as well as continued competition in the U.S.


But the biggest challenge facing Mason now is probably his own performance, or rather the perception that he isn't up to the task of running the global, publicly traded business worth billions that he founded but that now needs a turnaround. The stock is down 80 percent from its IPO price.


"It's an oft-told, oft-expected story that the genius entrepreneur steps aside when he or she succeeds at building a company big enough to need an experienced CEO," said Erik Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan.


The example Gordon and others cite is Google, which flourished after its co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin made way for a more seasoned executive in Eric Schmidt.


"The Google guys did it, and the results were spectacular," Gordon said.


Chadha said many startups tend to become more corporate in outlook, and less quirky, as they grow, because they bring in experienced executives from large companies that may have difficulty adapting to an entrepreneurial culture or reject it outright as not professional enough.


"I think that's where Google is very different," Chadha said. "(The company) sought out entrepreneurial, startup types — people that became part of their management team." That free-form element of Google's culture comes out in such things as the Google doodles — the offbeat tributes to notable anniversaries or famous people that pop up on the main search page.


Mason has acknowledged areas where Groupon needs to improve and has hired senior executives with experience at more mature tech companies. That hasn't always worked either. Margo Georgiadis, who came from Google as chief operating officer, returned to that company after five months.


Whether there's still room for Mason on the top management team remains to be seen. He was direct in his interview last week with Blodget, offering a minimum of jokes as he focused on discussing the job he and others at Groupon must accomplish.


"I care far more about the success of the business than I care about my role as CEO," he said.


A year ago, when he spoke to author Frank Sennett for his book "Groupon's Biggest Deal Ever," Mason was unapologetic about his management style.


"You only live once, and all I'm doing is being myself," he told Sennett. "I think a normal CEO is trying to appear in some way that's not actually them. That's probably not what they're like."


In the same book, former President and Chief Operating Officer Rob Solomon offered this blunt assessment of his ex-boss: "Andrew at thirty-five and forty is going to hate Andrew at twenty-nine and thirty; I guarantee it."


Melissa Harris and Bloomberg News contributed.


wawong@tribune.com


Twitter @VelocityWong





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Two girls pulled from trench in Tinley Park









Tinley Park officials say two young girls rescued from a trench were "conscious and breathing" when they were taken to hospitals this afternoon.


The incident occurred late Sunday morning in the 18300 block of White Oak Court in the southwest suburb, said Pat Carr, Director of Emergency Management for Tinley Park.


Officials determined four children were playing in the excavation site when mud collapsed on two of them, a statement sent by Tinley Park police said.





The children who weren't in the mud called 911 and rescue crews used their hands to dig the other two free, the statement said. Emergency personnel were able to talk to the children throughout the incident.


"We did remove two individuals ... they were conscious and breathing when they were taken to hospitals," Carr said.

The children were taken by ambulance to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, according to the statement.


Carr could not elaborate on how the children became trapped. Another Tinley Park official said the two girls were 9 or 10 years old.


Emergency crews received a call about 11 a.m. of a foundation collapse at a vacant lot at 18307 White Oak Court where a single family home was being built, said Tinley Park spokesman Scott Niehaus.


"On arrival, they identified two girls about 9 or 10 who needed assistance to get out," Niehaus said.


Niehaus said that at about 12:30 p.m., they were rescued.


"They were both extricated, and were responsive," said Niehaus.


The girls were taken by ambulance to hospitals to be checked out for precautionary measures, he said.


Niehaus did not know how the girls became trapped but said there were no walls constructed on the home.


rsobol@tribune.com


Twitter: @RosemarySobol1





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Zynga shares slide after privileged status with Facebook ends

(Reuters) - Shares of gaming company Zynga Inc fell as much as 10 percent, a day after the "Farmville" creator reached an agreement with Facebook Inc that reduces its dependence on the social networking giant.


The companies reported in regulatory filings on Thursday that they have reached an agreement to amend a 2010 deal that was widely seen as giving Zynga privileged status on the world's No.1 social network.


Zynga gets a freer hand to operate a standalone gaming website, but gives up its ability to promote its site on Facebook and to draw from the thriving social network of about 1 billion users.


"Although Zynga investors have reacted negatively to Thursday's announcements so far, we view them as a long-term positive for both companies," Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said in a note to clients.


"Zynga now has an advantage to offer more payment options which could result in additional subscribers who are not Facebook users," he said, maintaining his "outperform" rating and price target of $4 on the stock.


Both internet companies have been trying to reduce their interdependence, with Zynga starting up its own Zynga.com platform, and Facebook wooing other games developers.


In recent quarters, fees from Zynga contributed 15 percent of Facebook's revenue, while Zynga relies on Facebook for roughly 80 percent of its revenue.


Francisco-based Zynga's shares were down 7 percent at $2.44 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.


Facebook shares were down more than 1 percent at $26.98.


(Reporting By Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)


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