Fox cuts ties to commentator Dick Morris

NEW YORK (AP) — Political commentator Dick Morris' prediction of a huge landslide for Mitt Romney didn't pan out. And now he's lost his job at Fox News Channel.

Network spokeswoman Dana Klinghoffer said Tuesday that Fox wasn't renewing its contract with Morris, who was steadfast throughout the campaign in his prediction of a big Romney win over President Barack Obama. He has made few appearances on Fox since the election.

Morris had also been criticized for accepting paid advertisements on his website from candidates that he discussed on the air at Fox.

On his website, Morris said he'll be appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan show Wednesday to talk politics.

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Jewel to close 3 stores -- in Chicago, Aurora, Niles

Jewel-Osco plans to close three stores by April 5, the company has confirmed.

According to a company spokeswoman, Jewel has decided not to renew the leases of its stores at at 1270 N. Lake St., Aurora, which will close Feb.15., and at 8203 W. Golf Rd. in Niles, and 3940 E. 106th St., Chicago, which will both close April 5.

Some 300 employees will be affected, but they will have the opportunity to transfer to other locations, the spokeswoman said.

The decision comes weeks after Jewel parent Eden Prairie-based Supervalu said that it will sell the chain and four others including Albertsons to Cerberus Capital Management. The deal is scheduled to close this spring.

In an internal memo obtained by the Tribune, Jewel President Brian Huff told employees that "this decision was necessary to ensure our continued strength in challenging times," and "is not a result of or related to the recent transaction between Cerberus Capital Management and Supervalu."

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

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$5 million bail in 'exceptionally brutal' Aurora murder

She was beaten to death with a hammer, then burned beyond recognition. It's the first murder in Aurora in more than a year.

She was a hardworking teenager and loving family member, who wanted to become a police officer, former co-workers and relatives said Monday.

So when Abigail Villalpando didn't show up for her waitressing job Thursday, family members called authorities. They later learned that the West Aurora High School senior had been struck repeatedly with a hammer, her body doused with gasoline and set ablaze in a barrel in the backyard of an Aurora home. Her car was torched and left at another location.

The teen's remains were so badly burned that officials had to use dental records to identify her, authorities said.

Police charged three men in Villalpando's slaying, one for her death and two for concealing her homicide. Police said the victim knew the man charged with her death, but authorities did not disclose a motive in court. It was the first slaying in Aurora in more than a year.

The victim's brother, Ricardo "Ricky" Villalpando, 21, said he and his sister moved into an apartment together in September. Abby, as she liked to be called, wanted to be a police officer because of her love of children, and she planned to go to college after her summer graduation, he said.

"My sister was the most responsible 18-year-old I knew," said Villalpando, the oldest of four. "Everything she had — her car, her insurance, her clothes — she paid for on her own."

Ricky Villalpando described the suspects as his sister's best friends. They met in middle school, Villalpando said.

He said Juan Garnica Jr., the man charged with the slaying, was jealous that she was seeing someone else and was "obsessed with her."

Police have not talked about a motive.

The killing of Villalpando, who worked at Denny's, shocked those who respected her for her work ethic and buoyant personality.

Her sweet demeanor — which kept regulars coming back to the restaurant where she worked after school — made it almost impossible for those who knew her to comprehend her death.

"They can't understand why something like this would happen," said Ben Richter, manager at the restaurant where Villalpando worked for three years and where shocked customers called to express condolences. "She will be missed."

Garnica, 18, of Aurora, was ordered held on $5 million bail for beating Villalpando to death with a hammer Thursday, authorities said.

The two men charged with concealing the homicide are Enrique Prado, 19, and Jose Becerra, 20.

Villalpando was a caring person who had told family members she was trying to make some personal changes, said a friend of the family, Jose Ocampo.

"She was trying to change her life around," he said.

Villalpando transferred in mid-December from East Aurora High School, according to Mike Chapin, community relations director for School District 129.

Students at the high school were alerted of Villalpando's death in a morning announcement.

School officials spent the weekend preparing teachers and a crisis team of social workers and psychologists to help the 3,500-student population to cope, Chapin said.

"As long as any student needs assistance working through this, there will be resources," Chapin said. "It's a horrible thing for the students to even try to comprehend."

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Dell closer to buyout as price talks narrow: source

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dell Inc moved closer to a nearly $24 billion buyout deal, with price negotiations narrowing to $13.50 to $13.75 a share in what would be the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.

Talks between Dell, the world's No. 3 computer maker, and a consortium led by its founder and chief executive, Michael Dell, to take the company private were in the final stages on Monday, a person familiar with the matter said.

An outcome is expected soon, the person said, cautioning that no final agreement had been reached and negotiations could still break down.

Dell shares fell 2.6 percent to $13.27 in afternoon trading.

Microsoft Corp, which provides its Windows software for Dell computers and is also part of the investment consortium, is expected to invest around $2 billion in the deal, while private equity firm Silver Lake is expected to put in about $1 billion, the source said.

Michael Dell is expected to roll over his roughly 16 percent stake and put in some of his own money so he has control of the company, the source added.

Dell and Silver Lake declined to comment and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

The $13.50 to $13.75 per share price range being negotiated translates into an equity valuation for Dell of between $23.5 billion to $23.9 billion.

The $13.75 per share is a premium of about 23 percent to the average of $11 per share Dell traded before news of the deal talks broke and is far below the $17.61 that the shares were trading a year ago."

Dell has steadily ceded market share in PCs to nimbler rivals such as Lenovo Group and is struggling to re-ignite growth. That's in spite of Michael Dell's efforts in the five years since he retook the helm of the company he founded in 1984, following a brief hiatus during which its fortunes waned rapidly.

Any deal that Michael Dell negotiates would need the approval of a majority of the shareholders. Deals that involve the considerable stake of a founder who is also the chief executive of the company are also likely to come in for extra scrutiny over whether the board exercised its fiduciary duty.

Dell has formed a special committee to take a close look at any potential deals on the table, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters earlier.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta; editing by Carol Bishopric and Kenneth Barry)

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Cause of Super Bowl power outage remains unclear

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Who turned out the lights?

The day after the 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl, the exact cause — and who's to blame — were unclear.

Although the cause of the blackout remains under investigation, a couple of potential culprits had been ruled out.

It wasn't Beyonce's electrifying halftime performance, according to Doug Thornton, manager of the state-owned Superdome, since the singer had her own generator. And it apparently wasn't a case of too much demand for power. Meters showed the 76,000-seat stadium was drawing no more electricity than it does during a typical New Orleans Saints game, Thornton said.

However, documents released Monday by the state board that oversees the Superdome show that stadium officials were worried about a power outage several months before the big game.

An Oct. 15 memo prepared for the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District says that tests on Superdome electrical feeders showed they had "some decay and a chance of failure."

Entergy New Orleans, the company that supplies the stadium with power, and the structure's engineering staff "had concerns regarding the reliability of the Dome service from Entergy's connection point to the Dome," the memo says. Those concerns were due in part to "circumstances that have previously occurred with the electrical service regarding transient spikes and loads."

The memo also cites 2011 blackouts that struck Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco 49ers were playing a nationally televised Monday night football game, as a reason for ordering the tests.

The board later authorized spending nearly $1 million on Superdome improvements, including more than $600,000 for upgrading the dome's electrical feeder cable system.

"As discussed in previous board meetings, this enhancement is necessary to maintain both the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena as top tier facilities, and to ensure that we do not experience any electrical issues during the Super Bowl," says a LSED document dated Dec. 19.

An attorney for the state board that oversees the Superdome said the blackout did not appear to be related to the replacement in December of electrical equipment connecting the stadium to Entergy. Officials with the utility and the Superdome noted that an NFL game, the Sugar Bowl and another bowl game were played there in recent weeks with no apparent problems.

The lights-out game Sunday proved an embarrassment for the Big Easy just when it was hoping to show the rest of the world how far it has come since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But many fans and residents were forgiving, and officials expressed confidence that the episode wouldn't hurt the city's hopes of hosting the championship again.

To New Orleans' great relief, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the city did a "terrific" job hosting its first pro football championship in the post-Hurricane Katrina era, and added: "I fully expect that we will be back here for Super Bowls."

Fans watching from their living rooms weren't deterred, either. An estimated 108.4 million television viewers saw the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31, making it the third most-viewed program in television history. Both the 2010 and 2011 games hit the 111 million mark.

The problem that caused the outage was believed to have happened around the spot where a line that feeds current from the local power company, Entergy New Orleans, connects with the Superdome's electrical system, officials said. But whether the fault lay with the utility or with the Superdome was not clear.

Determining the cause will probably take days, according to Dennis Dawsey, a vice president for distribution and transmission for Entergy. He said the makers of some of the switching gear have been brought in to help figure out what happened.

The blackout came after a nearly flawless week of activity for football fans in New Orleans leading up to the big game.

"I hope that's not what they'll remember about this Super Bowl," French Quarter artist Gloria Wallis said. "I hope that what they'll remember is they had a great time here and that they were welcomed here."

Ravens fan Antonio Prezioso, a Baltimore native who went to the game with his 11-year-old son, said the outage just extended the experience.

"The more time we could spend at the game was a good thing, as long as it ended the way it did," he said, laughing.

The city last hosted the Super Bowl in 2002, and officials were hoping this would serve as the ultimate showcase for the city's recovery. Hurricane Katrina in 1985 tore holes in the roof of the Superdome and caused water damage to its electrical systems, and more than $330 million was spent repairing and upgrading the stadium.

Sunday's Super Bowl was New Orleans' 10th as host, and officials plan to make a bid for an 11th in 2018.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu told WWL-AM on Monday that the outage won't hurt the city's chances, and he joked that the game got better after the blackout: "People were leaving and the game was getting boring, so we had to do a little something to spice it up."

The chairwoman of the New Orleans City Council's Utility Committee has called an emergency meeting for Friday to discuss the power outage.

Jarvis DeBerry, a columnist for nola.com and The Times-Picayune, wrote that the power outage gave the media "an opportunity to laugh at the apparent ineptitude or suggest that the ghosts of Hurricane Katrina were haunting the Superdome."

"That's not the kind of attention the city was looking for, obviously," he wrote, "but it's certainly too soon to say if people will remember the power shortage over San Francisco's furious comeback attempt against Baltimore or if this will harm the city's future opportunities to host the Super Bowl."

Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's Center for Hospitality and Sports Management, said the episode shouldn't hurt the city's reputation as a big convention destination. "I think people view it for what it was: an unusual event with a near-record power draw," he said. "It was the equivalent of a circuit breaker flipping."

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Associated Press writers Beth Harpaz, Brett Martel, Stacey Plaisance and Barry Wilner contributed to this report.

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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NJ Gov. Christie, Letterman laugh about fat jokes

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and David Letterman have shared some laughs about the many fat jokes the comedian has made about the lawmaker's ample girth.

Christie has termed his plumpness "fair game" for comedians. And during his first appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman" on Monday, the outspoken Republican and potential 2016 presidential contender read two of Letterman's jokes that he said were "some of my personal favorites."

The governor also drew loud laughs when he pulled out a doughnut and started eating it while Letterman asked him if he was bothered by the digs that have been made about his weight. Christie said he wasn't, noting that he laughs at the jokes if he finds them funny.

"Late Show" airs on CBS at 11:35 p.m. Eastern time.

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Boeing asks FAA to allow Dreamliner test flights

Aerospace giant Boeing Co. has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to let it begin test flights on its grounded 787 Dreamliner passenger jet.

The new plane has been grounded since Jan. 16 by the FAA because of numerous incidents and high-profile fires involving the onboard lithium-ion batteries. Investigators around the world are looking into the matter.

The company disclosed its request for in-flight testing Monday in an email.

“Boeing has submitted an application to conduct test flights, and it is currently under evaluation by the FAA,” said Marc Birtel, a company spokesman, who would not comment further.

The FAA is reportedly looking into Boeing request, but would not comment.

The 787's battery systems were called into question Jan. 7 when a smoldering fire was discovered on the underbelly of a Dreamliner in Boston operated by Japan Airlines after the 183 passengers and 11 crew members had deplaned at the gate.

The National Transportation Safety Board is examining what went wrong. On Friday, the NTSB released its seventh update on the investigation into the lithium-ion battery systems. It said it has begun CT scanning the battery cells to examine their internal condition.

In addition, the NTSB disclosed that a battery expert from the Department of Energy joined the investigative team to lend additional expertise to ongoing testing.

In a separate incident Jan. 16 involving a 787 operated by All Nippon Airways in southwestern Japan, smoke was seen swirling from the right side of the cockpit after an emergency landing related to the plane's electrical systems. All 137 passengers and crew members were evacuated from the aircraft and slid down the 787's emergency slides.

The Japan Transport Safety Board, the country's version of the NTSB, is heading the investigation into All Nippon's emergency landing and reported fire.

No passengers or crew members were reported injured in the incidents. But the recent events have become a public relations nightmare for Boeing, which has long heralded the Dreamliner as a forerunner of 21st century air travel.

The 787, a twin-aisle aircraft that can seat 210 to 290 passengers, is the first large commercial jet with more than half its structure made of composite materials rather than aluminum sheets. It's also the first large commercial aircraft that extensively uses electrically powered systems involving lithium-ion batteries.

Boeing's lithium-ion batteries are made in Japan by Kyoto-based GS Yuasa Corp.

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Ravens stave off 49ers' rally to win Super Bowl 34-31

The Baltimore Ravens held off a furious second-half charge by the San Francisco 49ers en route to a 34-31 triumph in Super Bowl XLVII. It marked the Ravens' first title since the 2000 season, when they defeated the New York Giants, 34-7.

Coach John Harbaugh squeezed out a win over his younger brother, Jim Harbaugh, while the Ravens sent star linebacker Ray Lewis into retirement with another Super Bowl ring.

The game wasn't decided until 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sailed a pass incomplete toward Michael Crabtree on fourth-and-goal deep in Ravens' territory. Jim Harbaugh was animated in his disgust with the call, pleading for a pass interference penalty.

Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco paved the way for the Ravens, completing 22 of 33 passes for 287 yards with three touchdowns. Flacco did not throw an interception in the postseason.

Ravens kick returner Jacoby Jones tied an NFL record with a 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to start the second half. The play appeared to give Baltimore all the momentum, until a 34-minute power outage changed that. The delay appear to ignite the 49ers as they slowly chipped away at the lead and made it quite a game.

Kaepernick, who took the starting job away from Alex Smith midseason, showed the poise of a seasoned veteran. But his late-game heroics, including a 15-yard touchdown run, weren't quite enough.

Kaepernick's score was the longest for a quarterback in Super Bowl history. He finished by completing 16 of 28 passes for 302 yards with a touchdown and interception.

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Hackers target Twitter, could affect 250,000 user accounts

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Anonymous hackers attacked Twitter this week and may have gained access to passwords and other information for as many as 250,000 user accounts, the microblog revealed late on Friday.

Twitter said in a blog post that the passwords were encrypted and that it had already reset them as a "precautionary measure," and that it was in the process of notifying affected users.

The blog post noted recent revelations of large-scale cyber attacks against the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but unlike the two news organizations, Twitter did not provide any detail on the origin or methodology of the attacks.

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter said. "The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."

Privately held Twitter, which has 200 million active monthly users, said it was working with government and federal law enforcement officials to track down the attackers.

The company did not specifically link the attacks to China in the blog post, in contrast to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which both said the hackers originated in China.

Twitter, the social network known for its 140-character messages, could not speculate on the origin of the attacks as its investigation was ongoing, said spokesman Jim Prosser.

"There is no evidence right now that would indicate that passwords were compromised," said Prosser.

The attack is not the first time that hackers have breached Twitter's systems and gained access to Twitter user information. Twitter signed a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission in 2010, subjecting the company to 10 years of independent privacy reviews, for failing to safeguard users' personal information.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Gary Hill and Lisa Shumaker)

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