‘Angry Birds Star Wars’ Is More Addictive Fun Fans Want [REVIEW]

Last month, Rovio announced a major partnership with Lucasfilm to create Angry Birds Star Wars. The game, out this week, represents a hybrid of the two powerful brands, and provides enjoyable gameplay for fans of both franchises.

[More from Mashable: Viral Video Recap: Memes of the Week]

For those unsure about the union, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” Rovio has shown in Angry Birds Star Wars that it can create a fun, challenging game that doesn’t besmirch our favorite characters. Instead, laugh at images of Stormtroopers as pigs and Chewbacca as a giant, furry bird.

Angry Birds Star Wars doesn’t deviate from the main concept behind the series. The slingshot is back, and you’ve got to propel birds towards their swine foe to knock them over and destroy their fortresses. This is Rovio’s bread and butter, but it seems like each iteration of the game has been more creative, and asks more from players; Angry Birds Space added depth to the gameplay by including physics challenges, such as zero-gravity and planetary orbit.

[More from Mashable: iPad 4: A Turbocharged Tablet With Nothing to Do [REVIEW]]

Likewise, Angry Birds Star Wars creates new challenges by adding Star Wars-inspired powers to all of the birds, based on which character they portray. Red Bird, a.ka. Luke Skywalker, can swing a lightsaber to destroy objects he’s about smash into, or to take out an enemy. The bird version of Obi-Wan Kenobi can use The Force to push over obstacles while flying. Unsurprisingly, both of these powers are extremely fun to use (a lightsaber will always add entertainment value to whatever you’re doing).

The entire main cast of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is represented in bird form; each has their own power to master. Similarly, many of the films’ settings are portrayed in the game by beautifully drawn backgrounds. The levels that take place on Tantooine feature the planet’s two suns setting on the horizon.

Angry Birds also reenact classic Star Wars movie moments in cutscenes that appear between every few levels. While they may be corny, the scenes will bring a smile to any player’s face, especially when encountering the Jawas or bounty hunter Greedo rendered as birds or pigs.

There are many other touches to Angry Birds Star Wars that clearly demonstrate the game’s developers are passionate Star Wars superfans. For example, there are classic sounds that make nerd hearts flutter, such as the blaster noise that goes off whenever players hit a level’s high score. The sound editing also incorporates the film’s score with some cartoony remixes.

While Angry Birds Star Wars is playable on mobile, tablet and PC, it’s a better fit for larger screens. Players won’t be able to enjoy the tiny details of the world, not to mention the art and cinematics, as much when screen size is smaller. Targeting Angry Birds’ powers to small, specific spots also proves more difficult.

This is a must-download for fans of either franchise, and Rovio has made it available on virtually every platform at launch. Angry Birds Star Wars is out now for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows Phone, Mac, PC and Windows 8, for either $ 0.99 or $ 2.99.

Title Screen

The Angry Birds Star Wars title screen. The HD version is available for tablets, Mac, PC and Windows 8.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Springsteen, McCartney, Kanye set for Sandy show

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Kanye West will hit the stage at a Superstorm Sandy benefit concert next month at Madison Square Garden.

MSG announced Thursday that Billy Joel, The Who, Alicia Keys and Jon Bon Jovi will also perform at the Dec. 12 show, dubbed “12-12-12.” More performers will be announced at a later date.

Proceeds from the concert will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund to benefit those affected by Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Sandy’s assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages throughout the area.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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BP to pay $4.5B fine, admit guilt in Gulf spill

BP said Thursday that it will pay $4.5 billion in a settlement with the U.S. government over the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and plead guilty to criminal charges related to the deaths of 11 workers and lying to Congress.

The day of reckoning comes more than two years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill. The figure includes nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines — the biggest criminal penalty in U.S. history — along with payments to certain government entities.

A person familiar with the settlement said two BP employees will also face manslaughter charges over the deaths of 11 people in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the spill. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Up to now, the only person charged in the disaster was a former BP engineer who was arrested in April on obstruction of justice charges. He was accused of deleting text messages about the company's response to the spill, not what happened before the explosion.

"We believe this resolution is in the best interest of BP and its shareholders," said Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP chairman. "It removes two significant legal risks and allows us to vigorously defend the company against the remaining civil claims."

The settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, includes payments of nearly $2.4 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences and about $500 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

London-based BP PLC said in a statement that the settlement would not cover any civil penalties the U.S. government might seek under the Clean Water Act and other laws. Nor does it cover billions of dollars in claims brought by states, businesses and individuals, including fishermen, restaurants and property owners. A federal judge in New Orleans is weighing a separate, proposed $7.8 billion settlement between BP and more than 100,000 businesses and individuals harmed by the spill.

The charges BP will plead guilty to are 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect of a ship's officers, one felony count of obstruction of Congress and one misdemeanor count each under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Clean Water Act. The workers' deaths were prosecuted under a provision of the Seaman's Manslaughter Act. The obstruction charge is for lying to Congress about how much oil was spewing from the ruptured well.

Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to discuss the settlement at an afternoon news conference in New Orleans.

The penalty will be paid over five years. BP made a profit of $5.5 billion in the most recent quarter.

The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the U.S. Justice Department was a $1.2 billion fine imposed on drug maker Pfizer in 2009.

The Deepwater Horizon rig, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, sank after the April 20, 2010, explosion that was later blamed on time-saving, cost-cutting decisions made by BP and its drilling partners. The well on the sea floor spewed an estimated 206 million gallons of crude, fouling marshes and beaches, killing wildlife and shutting vast areas of the Gulf to commercial fishing.

After several failed attempts that introduced the American public to such industry terms as "top kill" and "junk shot," BP finally capped the well on July 15, 2010, halting the flow of oil after more than 85 days and putting a stop to what became one of the most closely watched shows on TV and the Internet: the live spill-camera image of the gushing well.

Nelda Winslette's grandson Adam Weise of Yorktown, Texas, was killed in the blast. She said somebody needs to be held accountable.

"It just bothers me so bad when I see the commercials on TV and they brag about how the Gulf is back, but they never say anything about the 11 lives that were lost. They want us to forget about it, but they don't know what they've done to the families that lost someone," she said.

The spill exposed lax government oversight and led to a temporary ban on deepwater drilling while officials and the oil industry studied the risks, worked to make it safer and developed better disaster plans. BP's environmentally-friendly image was tarnished, and BP CEO Tony Hayward stepped down after the company's repeated gaffes, including his statement at the height of the crisis: "I'd like my life back."

The cost of BP's spill far surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. Exxon ultimately settled with the U.S. government for $1 billion, which would be about $1.8 billion today.

The government and plaintiffs' attorneys also sued Transocean Ltd., the rig's owner, and cement contractor Halliburton, but a string of pretrial rulings by a federal judge undermined BP's legal strategy to pin blame on them.

U.S. District Carl Barbier in New Orleans will have the final say over the settlement. He is also the judge who is deciding whether to give final approval to the $7.8 billion settlement involving claims brought by Gulf Coast shrimpers, commercial fishermen, charter captains, property owners, environmental groups, restaurants, hotels and others who claim they suffered economic losses.

Relatives of workers killed in the blast have also sued. And there are still other claims against BP from financial institutions, casinos and racetracks, insurance companies and local governments.

___

Associated Press writer Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this story.

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Ex-Dixon comptroller pleads guilty in $53 million scam

A former longtime treasurer of Dixon pleaded guilty today to fraud in federal court in Rockford for stealing $53 million from the coffers of the small northwestern Illinois city over two decades.

Rita Crundwell will remain free on her own recognizance until her sentencing on Feb. 14.

When asked her plea to the one count of wire fraud, Crundwell responded quietly, “Guilty.”

Crundwell admitted to stealing the $53 million since 1990 and using the money to finance her championship quarter-horse business and a lavish lifestyle.

As part of her guilty plea, she also admitted she engaged in illegal money laundering.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, prosecutors believe Crundwell faces up to 19 ½ years in prison, while Crundwell’s lawyers contend she faces no more than 15 ½ years.

Federal prosecutors had sought to have Crundwell taken into custody.

In arguing to keep her free pending sentencing, her attorney, Paul Gaziano said, “She’s worked hard with the government.”

But the 25-page plea agreement gave no indication that Crundwell was officially cooperating with federal authorities.

Crundwell still faces 60 fraud counts in Lee County criminal court. Gaziano said he did not know how those charges would be handled in light of Crundwell’s guilty plea on the lone federal count.

Since her arrest in April, Crundwell has agreed to the sale of her assets so that some of the lost money can be repaid to Dixon, bext known as the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan.

So far, about $7.4 million has been raised by auctioning off about 400 quarter horses, a luxury motor home  and other equipment. Additional auctions are planned.

After court, Gaziano said that, with her guilty plea, Crundwell is “saving the government the burden and the expense of a lengthy trial.”

“Rita since the day of her arrest has worked with the government to accomplish the sale of her assets including her beloved horses all with the goal of hoping to recoup the losses for the city of Dixon,” Gaziano added as he wrapped his arm around Crundwell outside the courthouse. “I think the people of the city of Dixon ought to know that.”

Gaziano wouldn't take questions from a throng of reporters, and Crundwell had nothing to say before entering a black truck and being driven off.

At a press conference after the guilty plea, Acting U.S. Attorney Gary Shapiro, a veteran prosecutor in Chicago, called Crundwell’s embezzlement “one of the most significant  abuses of public trust I’ve ever seen in Illinois.” He also referred to Crundwell’s “incredible avarice.”

“If nothing else what we have in this case is an object lesson in how not to manage public funds,” he said. “This is a crime that never should have been allowed to occur.”

Shapiro said authorities intend to “find everything Rita Crundwell owns and liquidate it at the best possible price and return as much of the money as we can to the folks in Dixon.”

Shapiro said he doesn’t know what will happen with the Lee County charges also faced by Crundwell.

Crundwell served as comptroller of Dixon since 1983, handling all of its finances. To conceal the scheme, Crundwell told other city officials that budgetary shortfalls were due to late payments of tax revenue from the state.

Dixon’s mayor reported Crundwell to law enforcement authorities in the fall of 2011 after another city employee filled in for Crundwell during an extended unpaid vacation and discovered a secret account she had been using to funnel the money.

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Wakeman reworks rock epic Journey to Centre of Earth

LONDON (Reuters) – The story behind the upcoming re-issue of Rick Wakeman‘s 1974 concept album “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sounds almost as unlikely as the Jules Verne tale that inspired it.

Progressive rock veteran Wakeman had presumed the original orchestration to his chart-topping disc was lost for good when his record company MAM, where the manuscripts had been stored in boxes, was brought to its knees in the early 1980s.

Although he could have re-orchestrated the work from the original album, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1974, Wakeman knew it would be far from perfect.

And the original score was 55 minutes long whereas the 1974 version had to be cut to closer to 40 due to the constraints of vinyl recordings at the time.

“In about 1983 or 1984 I had an enquiry to do Journey again in America,” Wakeman recalled in a telephone interview.

“I thought ‘great’. But MAM had gone, and nobody there had any idea what had happened to all the stuff of mine,” the former Yes keyboardist told Reuters.

“Up until recently I would get phone calls to do it and I said ‘no, I can’t', there is no music any more. You just resign yourself to disappointment.”

Everything changed about four years ago when a box of papers arrived at his doorstep – a fairly regular occurrence, he explained, for a man who had been married several times and had “stuff in storage all over the place”.

Sifting through the contents, Wakeman found a pile of music that was not his own, but “something told me to empty the entire box.” At the very bottom was the long-lost conductor’s score of Journey, albeit so damp the pages were stuck together.

To this day Wakeman does not know where the box came from, and is amazed it reappeared nearly 30 years after going missing.

ORIGINAL SONGS

Once the music had been downloaded on to a computer, Wakeman set about reintroducing the songs and other sections he removed for the 1974 recording with the help of notes he had kept.

He decided to make a studio recording of the rock opera, and sought to replicate the sound of the original instruments.

For the narrator’s voice, he could not go back to David Hemmings, who died in 2003, and so invited actor Peter Egan.

The result is a re-mastered version of Journey, complete with 20 minutes of unheard music, which hits shelves on November 20. It comes in the form of a “fanback” comprising the music, a 132-page magazine and a replica of the program to the 1974 show.

For Wakeman it was a labor of love, but one he hopes will prove profitable.

“We did have record companies come forward,” the 63-year-old said. “But I don’t want an A&R (artists and repertoire) man coming in and saying it could do with this and that.

“The only way I can get this done as I believe it should be is to finance it and do it myself which we did. It broke the bank, there’s no doubt about it.”

While the concept of a rock opera based on French author Verne’s 1864 sci-fi classic may not instantly appeal to young listeners today, Wakeman believes there is a market for his latest release.

“Music audiences today don’t put a date on anything, they either like it or they don’t,” he said, adding that the “prog-rock” genre for which he is best known has made something of a comeback in recent years.

PROKOFIEV FAN

The prolific musician who has made around 100 albums and sold millions of records started piano lessons when he was seven, and at about that time the seeds of his career were sown.

“Story telling to music is something I have loved since my father took me to see ‘Peter and the Wolf’ aged eight, and (Sergei) Prokofiev became my hero,” he recalled.

By his late teens he was an established session musician and joined the band Yes in 1971 with whom he recorded the hit album “Fragile” and, the following year, “Close to the Edge”.

In 1973 he released “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” a solo concept album, and in 1974, which his official online biography calls “probably the most significant year in Rick’s career”, he made Journey and toured the world with it.

Another concept album, “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” followed in 1975, and Wakeman returned to Yes for spells throughout the 1990s.

Next week he plays six dates in South America, including the first concert performance of the new, full Journey and a rendition of The Six Wives.

The new “holy grail” following the rediscovery of Journey is to track down the original music to King Arthur, which was also lost. Wakeman is orchestrating the existing recording for a show next June, but would love to find the full score.

“All of us involved hope very much that it (Journey) makes its money back, because it would then allow me to look for the King Arthur music. We are doing a version next June and it would be lovely to say we’ve done it from the original music.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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I Was Misinformed: The Time She Tried Viagra

I have noticed, in the bragging-rights department, that “he doesn’t need Viagra” has become the female equivalent of the male “and, I swear, she’s a real blonde.” Personally, I do not care a bit. To me, anything that keeps you happy and in the game is a good thing.

But then, I am proud to say, I was among the early, and from what I gather, rare female users.

It happened when the drug was introduced around 1998. I was 50, but after chemotherapy for breast cancer — and later, advanced ovarian cancer — I was, hormonally speaking, pretty much running on fumes. Whether this had diminished my sex drive I did not yet know. One may have Zorba-esque impulses when a cancer diagnosis first comes in; but a treatment that leaves you bald, moon-faced and exhausted knocks that out of your system pretty fast.

But by 1998, the cancer was gone, my hair was back and I was ready to get back in the game. I was talking to an endocrinologist when I brought up Viagra. This was not to deal with the age-related physical changes I knew it would not address, it was more along the feminist lines of equal pay for equal work: if men have this new sex drug, I want this new sex drug.

“I know it’s supposed to work by increasing blood flow,” I told the doctor, “But if that’s true for men, shouldn’t it be true for women, too?”

“You’re the third woman who asked me that this week,” he said.

He wrote me a prescription. I was not seeing anyone, so I understood that I would have to do both parts myself, but that was fine. I have a low drug threshold and figured it might be best the first time to fly solo. My memory of the directions are hazy: I think there was a warning that one might have a facial flush or headaches or drop dead of a heart attack; that you were to take a pill at least an hour before you planned to get lucky, and, as zero hour approached, you were supposed to help things along by thinking beautiful thoughts, kind of like Peter Pan teaching Wendy and the boys how to fly.

But you know how it is: It’s hard to think beautiful thoughts when you’re wondering, “Is it happening? Do I feel anything? Woof, woof? Hello, sailor? Naaah.”

After about an hour, however, I was aware of a dramatic change. I had developed a red flush on my face; I was a hot tomato, though not the kind I had planned. I had also developed a horrible headache. The sex pill had turned into a bad joke: Not now, honey, I have a headache.

I put a cold cloth on my head and went to sleep. But here’s where it got good: When I slept, I dreamed; one of those extraordinary, sensual, swimming in silk sort of things. I woke up dazed and glowing with just one thought: I gotta get this baby out on the highway and see what it can do.

A few months later I am fixed up with a guy, and after a time he is, under the Seinfeldian definition of human relations (Saturday night date assumed) my official boyfriend. He is middle aged, in good health. How to describe our romantic life with the delicacy a family publication requires? Perhaps a line from “Veronika, der Lenz ist da” (“Veronica, Spring Is Here”), a song popularized by the German group the Comedian Harmonists: “Veronika, der Spargel Wächst” (“Veronica, the asparagus are blooming”). On the other hand, sometimes not. And so, one day, I put it out there in the manner of sport:

“Want to drop some Viagra?” I say.

Here we go again, falling into what I am beginning to think is an inevitable pattern: lying there like a lox, or two loxes, waiting for the train to pull into the station. (Yes, I know it’s a mixed metaphor, but at least I didn’t bring in the asparagus.) So there we are, waiting. And then, suddenly, spring comes to Suffolk County. It’s such a presence. I’m wondering if I should ask it if it hit traffic on the L.I.E. We sit there staring.

My reaction is less impressive. I don’t get a headache this time. And romantically, things are more so, but not so much that I feel compelled to try the little blue pills again.

Onward roll the years. I have a new man in my life, who is 63. He does have health problems, for which his doctor prescribes an E.D. drug. I no longer have any interest in them. My curiosity has been satisfied. Plus I am deeply in love, an aphrodisiac yet to be encapsulated in pharmaceuticals.

We take a vacation in mountain Mexico. We pop into a drugstore to pick up sunscreen and spot the whole gang, Cialis, Viagra, Levitra, on a shelf at the checkout counter. No prescription needed in Mexico, the clerk says. We buy all three drugs and return to the hotel. I try some, he tries some. In retrospect, given the altitude and his health, we are lucky we did not kill him. I came across an old photo the other day. He is on the bed, the drugs in their boxes lined up a in a semi-circle around him. He looks a bit dazed and his nose is red.

Looking at the picture, I wonder if he had a cold.

Then I remember: the flush, the damn flush. If I had kids, I suppose I would have to lie about it.

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Microsoft executive exits at a shaky time

Turns out Microsoft Corp.'s radical overhaul of its Windows operating system last month wasn't the only big change in store for the company.

The abrupt departure of Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows and Windows Live, is being called poor timing for the tech behemoth. It's also seen as a sign that longtime Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has no plans to step down anytime soon.

Sinofsky's exit, just weeks after the company rolled out the Windows 8 operating system, "doesn't necessarily reflect well on the company," said Kirk Materne, managing director at Evercore Partners.

"I think if you're Steve, having this happen right after creates a level of distraction that you don't want in the first place," he said. "It's never great when you've had this much turnover at the senior level of a company that is really trying to gain its footing in markets like tablet and mobile."

Shares of Microsoft slid 90 cents, or 3.2%, to $27.09 on Tuesday. Its stock has languished in the last decade — virtually unchanged — while shares of rival Apple Inc. have climbed more than 6,700%.

Microsoft is under pressure to impress consumers and investors with its latest offerings, which include Windows 8 and its new Surface device, a hybrid tablet-laptop that launched last month.

But both products have been met with lackluster interest. Windows 8 debuted to low investor expectations, and reviews for the revamped operating system have been mixed, with some users saying it's at times confusing to use.

The Surface, meanwhile, was buzz-worthy when it was first unveiled, but analysts seem unconvinced that it will make a dent in a market currently dominated by Apple's iPad. Although the hardware is sleek, the Surface lacks applications compared with the iPad, and its highly touted snap-on keyboard that doubles as a cover is difficult to accurately type on, reviewers have said.

The Windows 8 launch was said to be the biggest revamp of the operating system in nearly two decades. The latest update includes a new interface called the Start screen that was designed for tablets and touch-screen computers and features moving tiles similar to those on Windows Phone devices. Microsoft wants the new Start screen interface to be the future of Windows.

"The general conclusion of Win 8 is on the surface, it's a solid first start," Materne said. "It's not mind-blowing, it's not going to immediately recapture market share, but it gets them back in the ballgame to a certain degree."

Sinofsky, a 23-year Microsoft veteran, was in charge of the Windows 8 and Surface efforts at the Redmond, Wash., company. He was a polarizing figure in the office with a tough management style and was rumored to be in line to succeed Ballmer, who has been chief executive since 2000.

In an employee memo Monday, the day Microsoft announced his departure, Sinofsky said he had decided to leave to seek "new opportunities."

"With the general availability of Windows 8/RT and Surface, I have decided it is time for me to take a step back from my responsibilities at Microsoft," he said. "I've always advocated using the break between product cycles as an opportunity to reflect and to look ahead, and that applies to me too."

Now that Sinofsky has left, analysts — some of whom speculated there had been a rift between Sinofsky and Ballmer — say they expect a new direction for the Windows division.

"Sinofsky was a highly talented operator who hit product release dates, got delivery in Windows to be more reliable, and was pivotal to successful Office and Win 7 releases," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt said in a note to investors. "While he is a loss for Microsoft, Windows has entered a different phase where cultivation of developers, collaboration between product groups, integration with the mobile operating system and a focus on applications become more important."

Sinofsky will be replaced by Julie Larson-Green, who has been with the company since 1993 and oversaw program management, user interface design and research for Windows 7 and 8. She will lead all Windows software and hardware engineering.

Tami Reller, Windows chief financial officer and chief marketing officer, also will assume responsibility for the business of Windows.

There could be a bit of a learning curve in the meantime, said equity analyst Angelo Zino of S&P Capital IQ.

"We are surprised by the announcement, given Sinofsky's recent success as well as a belief by many that he could eventually have been the successor to CEO Steve Ballmer," he said. "While we are confident in the abilities of both individuals, we see the change increasing product development risk to future Windows releases."

andrea.chang@latimes.com

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Father of 3 killed in West Rogers Park hit-and-run

Tsering Dorjee had spent the day Monday helping his brother-in-law find an apartment for his family, due here from India next month.

As it turned evening, Dorjee and Dakpa Jorden went to get food and were crossing the street in the 6400 block of North Maplewood Avenue around 6 p.m. when they were struck by a dark blue Volkswagen that kept on driving, police said.

Dorjee, 44 and the father of three small children, was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. from head injuries, according to the medical examiner's office.

Jorden suffered a broken leg and was taken to the same hospital.

“I don’t know what to do," Dorjee's wife, Kalsang Wangmo. "I don’t know what to do now.’’

"My boys are asking, 'Where’s daddy? Where's daddy?' " she said. They are 6, 3 and 1.

Wangmo said she started getting worried when her husband wasn’t home by 7 p.m.  "Normally he comes home before 6:30 p.m," she said.

Wangmo said she called his cell phone several times but got no answer. Finally, the hospital called her at 8 p.m. "They said, ‘Your husband is in critical condition, can you come now,' " Wangmo said, her voice choking with emotion.
 
She frantically called a relative to watch her boys and got to the hospital before he died. "His eyes were all swollen," Wangmo said, and he could not talk.

As she sat by her husband side, Wangmo said she thought of their children and how she would face life without him. “I don’t know, I don’t know…I have three children,’’ she said, sobbing.

She said her husband had the day off Monday and was helping her brother find an apartment. He has been living with them, and the rest of his family was coming from India to live in Chicago next month.

Dorjee worked in the Cook County Clerk's office and was the president of the Rogers Park Chamber of Commerce.

Wangmo said she and her husband are both from India and went to same high school there. She is from Bangalore, in the Indian state of Karnataka, and her husband was from Himachal in northern India.

While living in India, Dorjee worked for the Tibetan government in exile, according to Lhakpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago.  His parents had been born in Tibet.

"It’s very distressing and very disappointing because, in our community, we have very few deaths but they are natural – sickness or old age," Tsering said. "This is the first time a hit-and-run has taken a life in our community.’’

Dorjee had felt strongly about helping other Tibetans. "He is a Tibetan himself and he believes it is very important to help the community," Tsering said. “We feel loss because our community is small -- less than 300 people in Chicago."

Tsering said the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago is planning a prayer ceremony and special gathering to honor him. “He was very active in the Tibetan community because the situation in Tibet is critical,’’ Tsering said. “He really thinks the issues are important.’’

Reuters reported last week that 68 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011 in protest against Chinese rule over Tibetan regions. At least 56 have died, according to Tibetan rights groups.

Cook County Clerk David Orr released a statement saying Dorjee "was a much-loved member of my Vital Records staff since 1998. Tsering was an incredibly kind soul and dedicated public servant. News of his death this morning brought his coworkers to tears. Our deepest condolences go to his wife, children and family. He will be dearly missed."

The car was described as a dark blue Volkswagen Beetle with the Illinois license plate P121817. Police asked anyone with information to call 312-745-4521.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @chicagobreaking

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Jason Biggs defends tweeting ways

NEW YORK (AP) — Jason Biggs is brushing off criticism he received during the recent election season for vulgar tweets that referenced the wives of both Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate in the presidential race, Paul Ryan.

The “American Pie” star took heat for off-color comments posted to his Twitter feed at the time of the Republican National Convention in August. The outpouring of criticism from parents groups, pundits and others led Nickelodeon to issue an apology for the actor’s comments on the social media website. Biggs is providing one of the voices in the cable TV station’s new animated series “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

“I made a political tweet, so I got a little bit of heat from the right,” he said.

With elections over, Biggs says he’s moving on.

He appeared Monday night in New York at the annual 24 Hour Plays event, which was sponsored by luxury pen-maker Montblanc to benefit the Urban Arts Partnership. The benefit draws more than two dozen actors who write, rehearse, and perform one of six plays that they began working on the night before.

Biggs’ tweets have also poked fun at the Kardashians, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan and the ABC show “The Bachelorette.”

“I’m more afraid of the Kardashians, than I am of the Republicans,” he said.

He said he sees Twitter as an extension of the darker side of his humor.

As a three-time performer in 24 Hour Plays benefit, Biggs says he’s grown to feel more comfortable with the process.

“It’s a little easier. But it’s still nerve-racking, man.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Q & A: Weighing the Evidence

Q. My husband weighs twice as much as I do, yet we take the same dose of over-the-counter medications, as recommended on the packaging. Shouldn’t weight be a factor?

A. There is little information about using weight as a factor in adjusting doses of either prescription or over-the-counter medications, said Dr. Steven A. Kaplan, director of the Iris Cantor Men’s Health Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital.

“We are beginning to study different responses by weight,” he said, but he and other researchers have reached no conclusions on recommendations for therapy.

“In my own field, urology,” he added, “my opinion is that it is more likely for the recommended dose to be ineffective in a larger person rather than to be toxic in a thinner adult.”

Some prescription drugs, like chemotherapy agents, already have their dosages adjusted for weight because of their highly toxic nature. As for over-the-counter drugs, recommended doses generally tend to be weighted in favor of safety rather than efficacy, Dr. Kaplan said.

He and other doctors emphasized the importance of following package directions. For example, acetaminophen (like Tylenol) can present a life-threatening risk if the liver cannot process a high dose. If you find that the recommended dose does not work for you, Dr. Kaplan said, speak to your doctor.

C. CLAIBORNE RAY

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