'Ones to Watch' in 2013

Tom Ricketts will try to finally clinch a deal to improve Wrigley Field with some taxpayer support.

Andrew Mason will fight for his legacy, and his job, at Groupon.

And Lewis Campbell hopes to turn around Navistar to the point that his services are no longer needed.

Tribune editors and reporters identified some of the Chicago business executives most likely to make news in 2013. Here are the "Ones to Watch."

Tom Ricketts

Title: Chairman, Chicago Cubs

Why we're watching: Expect City Hall to cut a deal with the Ricketts family, owner of the Cubs, in 2013 to help finance a $300 million renovation of Wrigley Field.

No one's talking specifics. Ricketts last proposed using $150 million of city amusement tax revenue to help pay for it. He would raise the remaining $150 million by extracting additional revenue from relaxed rules on advertising and concerts at the ballpark.

But that level of public subsidy is entirely off the table, according to a source close to the team. Asked whether Ricketts would accept less taxpayer assistance in exchange for greater freedom from historic preservation and other regulations, he said "probably," but that my description of the trade-off was "oversimplified."

"We have to compete against rooftops every day that … undercut us on price," Ricketts said. "We have limits on what we can do to our stadium and inside our stadium. We have limits on what time we can hold games and when we can host events. Our position is: Let us run our business. And if we can do that, we can unlock a lot of economic potential."

The Lake View Citizens' Council reportedly is open to more night games and concerts in exchange for contributions from the Cubs to community projects and traffic- and parking-related protections. Still, Ald. Tom Tunney, whose district includes Wrigley, said he opposes a Cubs request to open Sheffield Avenue for "family-fun entertainment" during games, among other issues.

"There will be some decisions made on a community level, on a zoning level," said Tunney, who called 2013 a "pivotal" year for the team. "As for the public financing, that's bigger than me."

Ricketts said he had not spoken in the past six months with either Mayor Rahm Emanuel or the city's chief financial officer, Lois Scott. "Our teams talk to each other," Ricketts said. "And that's not necessarily unusual. It's not like we can just not talk to the city. But no matter when or what a final deal looks like, everyone has got incentives to get that done in 2013."

Andrew Mason

Title: Founder and CEO, Groupon

Why we're watching: One year from now, will Mason still be CEO of Groupon?

In November, within days of a tech conference and a company board meeting, a source close to Groupon's board anonymously suggested to an influential tech journalist that the board might fire Mason at its meeting.

If the leaker had been Groupon chairman Eric Lefkofsky, Mason would have been out of a job by now.

Mason's future hinges on his relationship with Lefkofsky. In addition to being Mason's boss, Lefkofsky is the daily deal company's largest shareholder. He also gave Mason $1 million to launch the company.

And Mason always has spoken of Lefkofsky with reverence and affection. At the height of Groupon's euphoria, he shared credit with the veteran entrepreneur at every turn, telling me in 2010: "Eric's creative and unbelievably smart and if I'd never met him, I'd never been able to be the CEO of a lemonade stand."

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Escapee's mother: 'I'm glad it's over'

Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Meisner on the recent arrest of Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber who escaped from federal jail in December. (Posted on: Jan. 4, 2013.)

The second inmate who made a daring escape last month from a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop was captured today in South Suburban Palos Hills, according to FBI officials.

Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber, was awaiting sentencing when he and cellmate Joseph “Jose” Banks scaled down the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Dec. 18 with a rope fashioned from bedsheets.

FBI Spokeswoman Joan Hyde said Conley was apprehended at an apartment complex at about 4 p.m. by Palos Hills police.

Palos Hills Police Deputy Chief James Boie said officers apprehended Conley with the help of two maintenance men working in the 10200 block of South 86th Terrace, who called police at about 3:30 p.m. to report a “suspicious person” walking down the street.

Responding personnel found a man dressed in an overcoat and pretending to use a cane. He had a dark hat pulled down low over his head and appeared to be trying to look older than he actually was, Boie said. Another police official said he also was wearing glasses as part of the disguise.

“Our officers stopped to talk to him and he said he was just visiting,” Boie said. “He gave them a phony name, and while they’re trying to run the information, he got wise that they were going to figure it out and he pushed one of the officers down and took off running.”

Boie said two additional officers responding to the scene caught the man -- later identified as Conley -- about a block away as he was trying to force his way into an apartment at a complex. He was wrestled down but did not offer any other resistance. Conley and one officer were taken to Palos Community Hospital for observation, he said. 

When police were called about the suspicious person, a lieutenant, a sergeant and an officer initially went to check it out, said police Chief Paul J. Madigan.

When Conley could not provide identification a struggle broke out, with Conley taking a swing at one of the officers before fleeing into one of the buildings, Madigan said.

Conley was finally apprehended when he tried to break into someone’s apartment, Madigan said.

Conley told police he injured his arm during the struggle and he was taken to the hospital. He remains in the custody of federal authorities, Madigan said.

The multi-unit complex is made up of clusters of 2-story, brick buildings, with a wooded area behind it. Madigan said local police have a “history” with Conley that dates back to 2004, but would not elaborate.

Police found a BB pistol in Conley’s pocket. He had no money, ID or other weapons, Boie said.

Boie said that U.S. Marshals had been in the area days earlier after getting a tip that Conley had knocked on the door of a former acquaintance.

Conley’s mother, Sandra, answered the phone at her Tinley Park home this evening and said she had heard of her son’s arrest but had no details or comment.

“I’m just glad it’s over. That’s my only comment,” she said.

Banks was apprehended late at night on Dec. 20 less than five miles from the jail in the home of a boyhood friend on the North Side.

Banks and Conley were last accounted for during a routine bed check, authorities said. About 7 a.m. the next day, jail employees arriving for work saw ropes made from bedsheets dangling from a hole in the wall near the 15th floor and down the south side of the facade.

The two had put clothing and sheets under blankets in their beds to throw off guards making nighttime checks and removed a cinder block to create an opening wide enough to slide through, authorities said.

The FBI said a surveillance camera a few blocks from the jail showed the two, wearing light-colored clothing, hailing a taxi at Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue. They also appeared to be wearing backpacks, according to the FBI.

The daring escape was an embarrassment for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and a rarity for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where the only previous successful escape took place in 1985.

A high-ranking employee in the facility told the Tribune that video surveillance had captured the men making their descent, but that the guard who was supposed to be watching the video monitors for suspicious activity may have been called away on other duties.

Tribune reporters Carlos Sadovi and Terrence Antonio James contributed.

asweeney@tribune.com

jmeisner@tribune.com

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How BuzzFeed Is Betting on Hollywood, Long-Form Writing to Grow

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Last January, BuzzFeed, then an aggregator of memes and cat videos, secured a $ 15.5 million round of venture capital to beef up a craft that most traditional media was downsizing: journalism.

It hired dozens of reporters and editors, opened bureaus in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles and became a must-read for political junkies during the 2012 presidential election.

On Thursday, the company took another step.

It added adding a fourth round of capital investment – this time worth $ 19.3 million. And it plans to expand in two major ways: literary, long-form journalism like the kind practiced by New York magazine and the New Yorker, and – with two former Los Angeles Times staffers newly on board – its Hollywood coverage.

BuzzFeed’s been on a roll. According to the privately held company‘s internal traffic numbers, the 8 million unique monthly visitors it drew in 2008 has swelled to 40 million, and revenue for 2012 may triple that of 2011, a spokeswoman for BuzzFeed told TheWrap.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Tom Gara reported that some analysts place the company’s valuation at $ 200 million and say that revenues may reach $ 40 million this year.

Most of BuzzFeed’s traffic currently comes from its odd mix of news and eccentricity on the homepage. Friday morning, spotlighted stories ranged from J.J. Abrams screening his new “Star Trek” for a dying fan and Sen. Tammy Baldwin talking about breaking the glass ceiling to: “How to Murder Your Friend’s Facebook Page” and “Here Are Some Elephants Eating Christmas Trees.”

But there’s no question things are changing.

The first thing CEO Jonah Peretti did with his 2012 investment cash was hire Ben Smith, a Politico veteran, as the site’s first editor-in-chief. Smith then kicked off a hiring spree of reporters and got to work. Already BuzzFeed is beginning to break stories and get quoted by aggregators.

McKay Coppins, the site’s political editor, embedded with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign. John Stanton, a veteran reporter in Washington, was named BuzzFeed’s first D.C. bureau chief. Michael Hastings, the dogged journalist whose Rolling Stone exposé of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s private disagreements with President Obama over Afghanistan led to his resignation, joined the team.

Then, less than a year into its political foray, the site hired former Spin magazine chief Steve Kandell to make the push for longform journalism.

It began with an experiment – a 7,118-word post from last October titled “Can You Die From a Nightmare?” that garnered more than 115,000 hits. Another in October titled “Making Mitt: The Myth of George Romney” drew nearly 130,000 views. This convinced Smith and his team that literary journalism had a niche in the viral news market.

Despite the internet school of thought that briefer is better, Kandell said he has no plans to restrict stories’ word counts.

“If someone has a story that has to be 10,000 words, I don’t know why that couldn’t be,” Kandell said.

“I don’t think people necessarily have a certain fatigue level when it gets to a certain length and people start trailing out.”

Kandell says he plans in the coming months to start publishing at least one long-form story a week and may even start packaging and selling the stories as Amazon Kindle singles or as audiobooks.

Kandell assembled a “Best of 2012″ post for his nascent section of the site. The stories ranged from the tale of BuzzFeed’s own political editor Coppins, a Mormon, watching attitudes toward his and Romney’s religion change throughout the campaign to an inside look at the “Dark World of Online Sugar Daddies.”

Plans are to cover more foreign policy and national security issues from a Washington-centered perspective – and to add Hollywood into the mix. The only hands-off topic, apparently, will be international news.

“We’ve played around with ways to make world news more sharable, just like every editor at every publication,” he said, noting that readers liked a roundup of Instagram photos of the civil war in Syria. “It’s really hard, it’s not something we want to jump into without really knowing what we’re doing.”

As for Hollywood, BuzzFeed hired Richard Rushfield, former entertainment editor of LATimes.com, and ex-Times television editor Kate Aurthur, also a former Daily Beast staffer, to jump-start its bureau.

Smith said he plans to forge a presence in Los Angeles second only to its flagship New York bureau. A Hollywood vertical is expected to launch on January 7.

To that end, the site is entering a crowded space – one dominated by publications like Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap, Vulture and the Times – but Rushfield said he plans to cover entertainment through BuzzFeed’s social-web lens: If it’s irresistibly share-worthy, it’s publishable.

“We have a unique position, despite how crowded the beat is,” Rushfield told TheWrap, adding that they won’t be competing with trades over stories concerning studio executives and casting deals. “One of our advantages is that we are not going to be going after every single story that the trades are – we have more room to take the things that we think can be interesting. What BuzzFeed is about is writing news that will be of interest to the social web.”

Now the trick is to make all these editorial investments worthwhile financially.

Revenue growth from its advertising model has been climbing, chief operating officer Jon Steinberg told TheWrap.

Forgoing the usual banners and display ads, BuzzFeed offers its clients “branded content.” For example, Scope mouthwash sponsored a “listicle” on the most “courageous” mustaches.

To that end, the advertising team, which is made up of 20 people that report to Steinberg, works with brands from General Electric to Virgin Mobile to devise sharable pieces of content.

The ratio of advertorial to editorial content on the homepage is usually about one to every six or so stories,” he said.

Those branded-content headlines garner 10-20 times the click-through rates of blinking banner and display ads, Steinberg told TheWrap.

“You compare those ads in the 1950s to modern advertising, you realize how broken modern advertising is,” Steinberg said. “Most publishers and media companies say you can’t make money on modern advertising.”

But – though he declined to reveal exact numbers, as BuzzFeed is a private company – the model helped to increase revenue last year and has allowed the publication to focus solely on its advertising stream.

He said the company has no immediate plans to enter the conference business popular with online publications including the Business Insider, AllThingsD and TheWrap.

“This is our Google ad words,” Steinberg said of the innovative advertising tool that Google pioneered in the mid-2000s. “If we were Apple, this would be our manufacturing of great hardware products.”

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Playboy founder Hugh Hefner marries his “runaway bride”

(Reuters) – Octogenarian Playboy founder Hugh Hefner briefly swapped his iconic silk pajamas for a tuxedo to marry Crystal Harris, the one-time “runaway bride” who followed through this time at a New Year’s Eve wedding.

“Happy New Year from Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Hefner!” the Playboy magazine publisher tweeted early on Tuesday.

The message accompanied a photograph of Hefner, 86, wearing what appeared to be purple silk pajamas under a black bathrobe and snuggling his bride, 26, still wearing her pale pink wedding dress. He also wore his trademark captain’s hat.

An hour earlier, Hefner posted a picture of himself in a tuxedo with his bride under an arch of pink and white flowers at the wedding ceremony in the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.

“Crystal & I married on New Year’s Eve in the Mansion with Keith as my Best Man. Love that girl!” Hefner wrote on Twitter with the picture, referring to his brother Keith Hefner, a songwriter.

The couple tied the knot more than a year after their planned 2011 wedding was scuttled when Harris got cold feet.

The blonde Playboy Playmate of the Month for December 2009 jettisoned the adult entertainment mogul in what was called a “change of heart” five days before a lavish June 2011 wedding before 300 guests.

Harris, who appeared on the July 2011 cover of the adult magazine with a “runaway bride” sticker covering her bottom half, tweeted on Monday that she was ready to commit and changed her name to “Crystal Hefner” on the micro-blogging site.

“Today is the day I become Mrs. Hugh Hefner,” Harris, who has a psychology degree, wrote on Twitter after writing “Feeling very happy, lucky, and blessed.”

The San Diego native, whose parents are British, said she asked for Christmas ornaments rather than lingerie at her pre-Christmas bridal shower to help decorate Hefner’s famed mansion.

Hefner, founder of the Playboy adult entertainment empire, has been married twice before. He and his second wife Kimberley Conrad, also a former Playmate, divorced in 2010 after a lengthy separation. His first marriage to Mildred Williams ended in divorce in 1959. He has two children from each marriage.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Paul Simao)

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Pregnancy Centers Gain Influence in Anti-Abortion Fight

Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times

Amber Jupe, right, attended a session conducted by Margo Shanks at a Care Net facility; the program addressed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.

WACO, Tex. — With free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, along with diapers, parenting classes and even temporary housing, pregnancy centers are playing an increasingly influential role in the anti-abortion movement. While most attention has focused on scores of new state laws restricting abortion, the centers have been growing in numbers and gaining state financing and support.

Largely run by conservative Christians, the centers say they offer what Roland Warren, head of Care Net, one of the largest pregnancy center organizations, described as “a compassionate approach to this issue.”

As they expand, they are adding on-call or on-site medical personnel and employing sophisticated strategies to attract women, including Internet search optimization and mobile units near Planned Parenthood clinics.

“They’re really the darlings of the pro-life movement,” said Jeanneane Maxon, vice president for external affairs at Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group. “That ground level, one-on-one, reaching-the-woman-where-she’s-at approach.”

Pregnancy centers, while not new, now number about 2,500, compared with about 1,800 abortion providers. Ms. Maxon estimated that the centers see about a million clients annually, with another million attending abstinence and other programs. Abortion rights advocates have long called some of their approaches deceptive or manipulative. Medical and other experts say some dispense scientifically flawed information, exaggerating abortion’s risks.

Jean Schroedel, a Claremont Graduate University politics professor, said that “there are some positive aspects” to centers, but that “things pregnant women are told at many of these centers, some of it is really factually suspect.”

The centers defend their practices and information. “Women who come in are constantly telling us, ‘Abortion seems to be my only alternative and I think that’s the best thing to do,’ ” said Peggy Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International, which she described as a “Christ-centered” organization with 1,100 affiliates. “Centers provide women with the whole choice.”

One pregnant woman, Nasya Dotie, 21, single, worried about finishing college and disappointing her parents, said she was “almost positive I was going to have an abortion.”

A friend at her Christian university suggested visiting Care Net of Central Texas. She met with a counselor, went home and considered her options. She returned for an ultrasound, and though planning not to look at the screen, when a clinician offered, she agreed. Then, “I was like, ‘That’s my baby. I can’t not have him.’ ”

Thirteen states now provide some direct financing; 27 offer “Choose Life” license plates, the proceeds from which aid centers. In 2011, Texas increased financing for the centers while cutting family planning money by two-thirds, and required abortion clinics to provide names of centers at least 24 hours before performing abortions. In South Dakota, a 2011 law being challenged by Planned Parenthood requires pregnancy center visits before abortions.

Cities like Austin, Baltimore and New York have tried regulating centers with ordinances requiring them to post signs stating that they do not provide abortions or contraceptives, and disclosing whether medical professionals are on-site. Except for San Francisco’s, the laws were blocked by courts or softened after centers sued claiming free speech violations. Similar bills in five states floundered. Most legal challenges to “Choose Life” license plates failed, although a North Carolina court said alternate views must be offered.

Some observers say harsh anti-abortion statements from the 2012 elections may also benefit pregnancy centers.

“Do you want some individual politician talking about rape, or some woman who says, ‘I care about you’?” Dr. Schroedel said.

Conservatives like Rick Santorum, during his presidential campaign, and the Texas governor, Rick Perry, have praised pregnancy centers.

Some centers use controversial materials stating that abortion may increase the risk of breast cancer. A brochure issued by Care Net’s national organization, for example, says, “A number of reliable studies have concluded that there is an association between abortion and later development of breast cancer.”

Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Society’s chief medical officer, who calls himself a “pro-life Catholic,” said studies showing abortion-breast cancer links are “very weak,” while strong studies find no correlation.

Other claims include long-term psychological effects. The Care Net brochure says that “many women experience initial relief,” but that “women should be informed that abortion significantly increases risk for” clinical depression, suicidal thoughts and behavior, post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems. An American Psychological Association report found no increased risk from one abortion.

With largely volunteer staffs and donations from mostly Christian sources, centers usually offer free tests and ultrasounds, services that clinics like Planned Parenthood charge for. They offer advice about baby-rearing or adoption, ask if women are being pressured to abort, and give technical descriptions of abortion and fetal development. Many offer prayer and Bible study.

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U.S. unemployment holds at 7.8%

CBS News business and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis talks to Norah O'Donnell and Anthony Mason about the final jobs report of 2012 to be released later today.

The pace of hiring by U.S. employers eased slightly in December, pointing to a lackluster pace of economic growth that was unable to make further inroads in the country's still high unemployment rate.

Payrolls outside the farming sector grew 155,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. That was in line with analysts' expectations and slightly below the level for November.

Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to health care.

That should reinforce expectations that the economy will grow about 2 percent this year, unlikely to quickly bring down the unemployment rate or make the U.S. Federal Reserve rethink its easy-money policies, which have been propping up the recovery.

"It's not a booming economy, but it is growing," Jim O'Sullivan, an economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, said before the data was released.

The jobless rate held steady at 7.8 percent in December, down nearly a percentage point from a year earlier but still well above the average rate over the last 60 years of about 6 percent.

The Labor Department raised its estimate for the unemployment rate in November by a tenth of a point to 7.8 percent, citing a slight change in the labor market's seasonal swings.

Most economists expect the U.S. economy will be held back by tax hikes this year as well as by weak spending by households and businesses, which are still trying to reduce their debt burdens.

Friday's data nonetheless gave signals of growing momentum in the labor market's recovery from the 2007-09 recession. Many economists had expected December's payroll gains to be padded by one-time factors like the recovery from a mammoth storm that hit the East Coast in late October.

The government had said last month the storm had no substantial impact on the November data, and many economists expected the government to recant by revising downward in Friday's report its estimate for payroll gains in November. Instead, the government revised its estimate for November payrolls upward by 15,000.

"There is some evidence that underlying jobs growth has improved," Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics in London, said before the report was released.

AUSTERITY'S BITE

Despite the signs of some momentum in hiring, a wave of government spending cuts due to begin around March loom over the economy.

Many economic forecasts assume the cuts - which would hit the military, education and other areas - will ultimately be pushed into next year as part of a deal sought by lawmakers to reduce gradually the government's debt burden.

Initially, the cuts were planned to have begun this month as part of a $600 billion austerity package that also included tax hikes. Hiring in December may have been slowed by uncertainty over the timing of the austerity, economists say.

Congress this week passed legislation to avoid most of the tax hikes and postpone the spending cuts.

Even with the last-minute deal to avoid much of the "fiscal cliff," most workers will see their take-home pay reduced this month as a two-year cut in payroll taxes expires.

That leaves the Fed's efforts to lower borrowing costs as the main program for stimulating the economy.

The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008, and in September promised open-ended bond purchases to support lending further. On Thursday, however, minutes from the Fed's December policy review pointed to rising concerns over how the asset purchases will affect financial markets.

Analysts ahead of the report expected some of the strength in job creation in December would be due to the Fed's policies.

"Despite the end-of-year angst over the ‘fiscal cliff,' financial conditions remained supportive of job growth in December," economists at Nomura said in a note to clients earlier in the week.
 

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Gay marriage, assault weapons ban votes delayed in Senate

SPRINGFIELD—

The Illinois Senate left the State Capitol later today without voting on measures to legalize gay marriage and outlaw assault weapons, leaving the fate of those controversial issues in doubt.

A committee advanced the same-sex marriage bill late this afternoon, but the sponsor acknowledged she did not have enough votes to win approval on the Senate floor.

Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, dismissed a question on whether she ever had a solid 30 votes lined up to pass the legislation. "Oh, no, no, no," Steans said. "We really did have the votes. We were just missing members today."

Such are the political dynamics of a lame-duck session in Springfield: some lawmakers who are in their final days of service don't show up to work, making it difficult to pass tough legislation.

The Senate’s failure to take a final vote also came after a furious lobbying pushback by the Catholic Conference of Illinois and Cardinal Francis George.

The Senate Executive Committee advanced the measure on an 8-5 vote following a lengthy debate that featured testimony from both sides of the issue.

"It's not often that we really have a chance in this chamber to be taking a look at something providing a basic civil right and advancing fairness," said sponsoring Sen. Steans. "Same-sex couples want to marry for the same reasons we all do--for commitment, family, mutual responsibility.

Steans said gay couples have suffered from the 2nd-class status. Underscoring Steans' point was emotional testimony from Mercedes Santos and Theresa Volpe, a lesbian couple from Rogers Park who got a civil union in Illinois.

"Right now, we are in a civil union, but it is not enough," testified Theresa Volpe.

Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki testified against the proposal, saying, "It would radically redefine what marriage is for everybody." He maintained the "natural family" is undermined by the legislation.

"Neither two men nor two women can possibly form a marriage," Paprocki said. "Our law would be wrong if it said that they could.

"The basic structure of marriage as the exclusive and lasting relationship of a man and a woman, committed to a life with the potential of having children, is given to us in human nature, and thus by nature's God," Paprocki said.

At the same time, an effort to ban semi-automatic assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines --- backed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel --- also lacked the votes needed for passage. Opponents argued the measure was too broad and unworkable.

With no action on those two controversial issues, senators were preparing to return home. A final day of the Senate’s lame-duck session remains an option for Tuesday, the day before the next General Assembly is inaugurated. But that could depend on whether the House takes any action. House members are scheduled to be in Springfield from Sunday through Tuesday.

rlong@tribune.com

rap30@aol.com

Twitter @RayLong

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iPad still dominates tablet Web traffic; Microsoft Surface has smaller share than PlayBook

The iPad is still by far the most widely used tablet for surfing the Web in North America, but it can no longer claim to lord over 90% of all North American tablet traffic. Via AppleInsider, the latest numbers from mobile advertising firm Chitika show that the iPad accounted for roughly 79% of all mobile traffic in the last week of December, a dominant share that was nonetheless a seven percentage point drop from the previous week.

[More from BGR: Samsung confirms plan to begin inching away from Android]

In contrast, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire HD saw its traffic grow by three percentage points over the same period to account for 7.5% of all North American tablet traffic while Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy Tab models saw their share increase by nearly 1.5 percentage points to 4.39% of all North American tablet traffic.

[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Surface was practically a non-factor in Chitika’s measurements, accounting for 0.4% of North American tablet traffic — even less than RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry PlayBook.

This article was originally published by BGR

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‘Star Wars’ creator George Lucas engaged to businesswoman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Star Wars” creator George Lucas will marry his longtime girlfriend Mellody Hobson, the director’s production company Lucasfilm Ltd said on Thursday.

Lucas, 68, and Hobson, the president of Chicago investment firm Ariel Investments LLC, have been together for the past six years. It will be Lucas’ second marriage. He was married to Oscar-winning film editor Marcia Lucas from 1969 to 1983.

No date or location for the wedding has been made public.

Hobson, 43, serves on the board of directors for Hollywood studio Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc, cosmetics company Estee Lauder Companies Inc, coffeehouse chain Starbucks Corp and Internet coupon company Groupon Inc.

Lucas, who rose to fame directing the 1971 science-fiction film “THX 1138,” launched “Star Wars” in 1977 developed it into one of the highest-grossing film franchises of all time.

Lucas sold Lucasfilm and the “Star Wars” franchise to the Walt Disney Co in November for $ 4.05 billion.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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