“The Message” deemed greatest hip hop song ever

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The 1982 hit “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was named the greatest hip hop song of all time on Wednesday, in the first such list by Rolling Stone magazine to celebrate the young but influential music genre.

“The Message,” which tops a list of 50 influential hip hop songs, was the first track “to tell, with hip hop‘s rhythmic and vocal force, the truth about modern inner-city life in America,” Rolling Stone said.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, a hip hop collective from the south Bronx in New York, was formed in 1978 and became one of the pioneers of the hip hop genre.

The full list spanned songs ranging from Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 hit “Rapper’s Delight,” which came in at No. 2, to Kanye West‘s 2004 hit “Jesus Walks,” which landed at No. 32.

“It’s a list that would have been a lot harder to do ten or 15 years ago because hip hop is so young,” Nathan Brackett, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone, told Reuters.

“We’ve reached the point now where hip hop acts are getting into the (Rock and Roll) Hall Of Fame… it just felt like the right time to give this the real Rolling Stone treatment.”

Rolling Stone‘s top 10 featured mostly hip hop veterans, such as Run-D.M.C.’s 1983 track “Sucker M.C.’s,” Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s 1992 hit “Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang,” Public Enemy’s 1990 song “Fight The Power” and Notorious B.I.G’s 1994 hit “Juicy.”

Other influential artists in the top 50 songs included Beastie Boys, who came in at No. 19 with “Paul Revere,” and recordings by Jay-Z, Eminem, Missy Elliot, Outkast, Lauryn Hill, LL Cool J, Nas and the late rapper 2Pac.

The list of 50 songs was compiled by a 33-panel of members comprising Rolling Stone editors and hip hop experts. They included musician Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots, who Brackett described as “an incredible encyclopedia” of both old and new hip hop knowledge.

Brackett noted that some songs considered to be one-hit wonders, such as Audio Two’s 1988 hit “Top Billin’,” made the final selection.

“The references in those songs become the building blocks of all these other songs down the road … they become touchstones, really part of the meat of hip hop songs going forward,” Brackett said.

The full list will be released online at RollingStone.com and in the pop culture magazine on newsstands on December7. The issue will feature four different covers of Eminem, Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Well: New Meaning and Drive in Life After Cancer

When people hear the words “You have cancer,” life is suddenly divided into distinct parts. There was their life before cancer, and then there is life after cancer.

The number of people in that second category continues to grow. In June, the National Cancer Institute reported that an estimated 13.7 million living Americans are cancer survivors, and the number will increase to almost 18 million over the next decade. More than half are younger than 70.

A new book, “Picture Your Life After Cancer,” (American Cancer Society) focuses on the living that goes on after a cancer diagnosis. It’s based on a multimedia project by The New York Times that asked readers to submit photos and their personal stories. So far, nearly 1,500 people have shared their experiences — the good, the bad, the challenging and the inspirational — creating a dramatic photo essay of the varied lives people live in the years after diagnosis.

For Susan Schwalb, a 68-year-old artist from Manhattan, a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer at the age of 62 led to a lumpectomy, followed by a mastectomy and then failed reconstruction surgery. She discovered that cancer was not only a physical challenge but a mental one as well, and she turned to friends and support groups to cope with the emotional strain. When she saw the “Picture Your Life” project, she submitted a photo of herself wearing a paint-splattered artist’s apron.

“What cancer made me do in my own professional life is to pedal faster,” Ms. Schwalb said in an interview. “I’ve encountered some people who decide to enjoy life, retire, work in a garden. I decided I had to have more of what I wanted in life, and I better move fast because maybe I don’t have the long life I imagined I would have.”

Indeed, a common theme of the “Picture Your Life” project is that cancer spurs people to take long-delayed trips, seek out adventure and spend time with their families. Photos of mountain climbs, a ride on a camel, scuba diving excursions and bicycle trips are now part of the online collage.

Dr. David Posner, associate program director of pulmonary medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, says a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer at the age of 47 has helped him relate to his own patients with cancer. The past decade has included nine operations, six recurrences and three rounds of chemotherapy, but Dr. Posner said he never missed more than three weeks of work.

“My salvation has been my family and my work,” he said. “When I was at work I wasn’t thinking about myself, and it was very therapeutic. I see my share of cancer patients, and I motivate them and they motivate me.”

Dr. Posner said he decided to be part of “Picture Your Life” because he wants to get the word out that a cancer diagnosis — even a dire one like his — doesn’t have to define your life.

“I think about someone asking me, ‘So how was your last decade — was it wasted or was it a life filled with a lot of happiness and joy?’ ” he said. “The cancer thing was a pain, but for the most part I’ve had a pretty good time.”

The “Picture Your Life” collage includes photo after photo of survivors with their pets. Sandra Elliott, 59, of Claremont, Calif., submitted a picture of herself with her two golden retrievers, Buddy and Molly. They were just puppies when she received a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer in 2003. During her recovery from surgery and chemotherapy treatments, she took the dogs to romp on the Pomona College campus, near her home, and one day a professional photographer snapped the picture.

“No matter how bad I felt that day, no matter how many chemo treatments or doctors appointments, those two little puppies with these big black eyes would look at me with their tails wagging as if to say, ‘It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to go out!’  ” Ms. Elliott recalled.

“I felt so physically horrible, and I’d look at them and the pure joy on their faces and in their bodies for just being out in nature and being able to smell the air, smell the trees, chase a squirrel — that sheer in-the-moment love of life they showed me really lifted my spirit on a daily basis.”

Ms. Elliott still lives with chronic pain as a result of nerve damage from her cancer treatment, and she can relate to others in the “Picture Your Life” project who worry that their cancer will recur or that they’ll never feel completely normal again. But she says a stronger theme runs through all the pictures and stories.

“We have all been forced to find the joy in the smallest things,” she said. “I’m sitting here looking at a geranium about to bloom. These things are out there — we just have to be reminded to look at them. And cancer is a big reminder.”

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South Loop residents oppose DePaul arena

The prospect of a DePaul University men's basketball arena being constructed on land just north of McCormick Place is drawing strong opposition from the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance, a South Loop residents' organization, according to a letter released Tuesday.
 
A survey of 700 neighbors of the site, conducted by the community group, found more than 70 percent oppose construction of a Blue Demons arena there, Tina Feldstein, president of the organization, stated in the letter.
 
An arena would not fit within the residential and historic character of the area and could put two landmark structures, the Harriet F. Rees House and the American Book Co. building, at risk, the letter stated. It would also add to traffic congestion and potential rowdiness in an area already overburdened when conventions are in progress at McCormick Place or major events, including Chicago Bears games, are taking place at Soldier Field, Feldstein said in an interview.
 
"We're not against vibrant development, which hotel and retail would bring," Feldstein said. And the group would support an arena at an alternate site on the Near South Side, she said.
 
The letter was written in support of an alternate plan for the so-called "Olde Prairie" blocks, which is being put forward in bankruptcy court by developers Pam Gleichman, Karl Norberg and Gunnar Falk. Their plan calls for hotel and retail development on property directly north of the McCormick Place administrative offices and West Building on Cermak Road.
 
If they lose control of the property, it is expected to go up for auction, making it possible for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, or other parties to make a run at it.
 
DePaul is weighing several sites, including property near McCormick Place and the United Center on the Near West Side. As well, the Allstate Arena in Rosemont is fighting to retain the team.
 
The neighborhood's opposition adds to resistance by Ald. Robert Fioretti, whose 2nd Ward includes McCormick Place.
 "That is not a place to put an arena -- far away from the school," he said. "I think there are traffic issues related, and it would be a bad deal for taxpayers in these economic times."

Fioretti noted such a project likely would require public subsidy.
 
The Olde Prairie blocks have not been officially designated as a potential site for a DePaul arena, but Fioretti said it is his understanding that they are being seriously considered.
 
Jim Reilly, chief executive officer of the exposition authority, known as McPier, has publicly acknowledged that there have been talks with DePaul. A spokeswoman on Tuesday said it would be premature to comment further at this point.

A DePaul spokesperson could not be reached for immediate comment.
 
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said he would like DePaul to bring men's basketball back to the city. A spokesman declined comment beyond that.
 kbergen@tribune.com | Twitter @kathy_bergen

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Brewer to sponsor CTA free rides on New Year's Eve

The CTA, which is hiking the price of fare passes by as much as 74 percent next year, offered a New Year’s Eve toast to riders on Tuesday by announcing free rides for eight hours starting late on Dec. 31.

MillerCoors was introduced as the first corporate sponsor of the annual CTA penny rides program, which is in effect from 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve through 4 a.m. Jan. 1, to provide a safe alternative to drunken driving.

Although the CTA is required by statute to collect fares from passengers, bus drivers and rail station attendants frequently wave revelers aboard on New Year’s Eve without paying the 1-cent fare.

Now that policy will be semi-official under the $1.3 million sponsorship that MillerCoors is paying to the CTA under the three-year deal, CTA president Forrest Claypool said Tuesday at the Clark/Lake station in the Loop, where a display of the Chicago skyline comprised of 8,000 pennies was unveiled.

In return for the sponsorship fee, MillerCoors, the maker of Miller Lite, will mount a marketing campaign called “Great Beer, Great Responsibility’’ on the CTA system and 150,000 farecards with the marketing theme will be sold to riders over the next month, said MillerCoors CEO Tom Long.

Claypool said every penny counts at the CTA – which in 2013 will raise the price of 1-day, 3-day, 7-day and 30-day passes as well as more than double the fare from O’Hare International Airport toward the city to $5 from the current $2.25 – to help balance the agency’s operating budget.

He said collecting the penny fare on New Year’s Eve has been more trouble than it is worth, saying that customers sometimes try to stick a penny into the wrong slot on bus fareboxes, jamming the machines.

An average of 150,000 bus and train rides are taken on New Year’s Eve, CTA officials said.

The CTA recently dropped a 15-year ban on alcoholic beverage advertisements on the CTA system. Alcohol ads are now allowed on CTA trains and at some rail stations, but not on buses. The new ads are projected to bring in more than $1 million a year under the current contract, and millions more under future advertising contracts, officials said.

The MillerCoors agreement is one of the CTA’s first sponsorships. Earlier this year, the transit agency solicited bids for corporate naming-rights sponsorships to assets including Bus Tracker and Train Tracker, the Holiday Train, New Year's Eve penny rides and First Day Free Rides for Chicago Public Schools students. The Chicago Sun-Times signed up to pay $150,000 to help cover the costs of the free rides to schools on Sept. 4.

The transit agency has also offered to sell businesses naming rights and sponsorships to 11 rail stations, mostly on the North Side and downtown as well as at both Chicago airports. The stations are Addison, Belmont, Fullerton, North/Clybourn, Chicago, Grand/State, 79th and 95th on the Red Line; Ashland/63rd on the Green Line; O'Hare on the Blue Line; and Midway on the Orange Line, officials said.

The offer of exclusive naming rights at "L" and subway stations was supposed to help generate more revenue from nontraditional sources and help stave off fare hikes, officials had said.

The CTA’s search for corporate naming-rights sponsorships is being conducted through IMG, a business development consultant.

In 2010, the CTA signed a $3.9 million deal with Apple Inc. to refurbish the North/Clybourn Red Line stop, partly in exchange for a possible future naming-rights contract for the station, which is near an Apple Store. No naming-rights deal has been reached.

jhilkevitch@tribune.com
Twitter @jhilkevitch

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Is the iPad Mini as Good as the iPad?

The iPad Mini‘s screen doesn’t have the same “resolutionary” Retina display as its bigger brother, but don’t worry: the Apple snobs appear to have gotten over that. After spending time with his new baby-tablet, The New York Times‘s Nick Bilton gave in, calling the gadget his new “Desert Island Device.” (It replaced his iPhone, by the way.) The inferior screen had worried Bilton like it had others, but no longer: ”I used it for two weeks and my concerns about the screen’s quality are completely irrelevant.” It’s not that Bilton prefers the “fuzzy” screen, as he called it. But the portability of the lightweight Mini outweighs that for him, making this tablet, in his opinion, really the best tablet Apple has ever made.

RELATED: Prepare for an iPad Mini This Month

Considering all the fawning over the Retina display on the iPad proper, it’s pretty amazing to see reviewers toss that upgrade for something that Steve Jobs forbid the company to create. Bilton’s not the only one to prefer the new cousin, even if it is technically worse. Noted Apple-phile Jonathan Gruber said he hadn’t touched the fourth-generation iPad that Apple released this year as well “I’ve gone small and fuzzy,” he wrote. When the Retina display first came out, Gruber called it “pure joy” for his “dream iPad.” But a funny thing happened on the way out of the hype cycle: Apple put out something the masses were supposed to like more than the techies, and that just made everyone like it even more. Call it a holiday miracle, but the Apple snobs may be snobs no more.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Fleetwood Mac readies tour and new music

NEW YORK (AP) — Fleetwood Mac is heading back on the road, and that means the top-selling group will release new music — sort of.

On its 34-city North American tour, which kicks off April 4 in Columbus, Ohio, the band will perform two new songs, and it could mean a new album will follow. Or not.

Stevie Nicks recently sang on tracks that Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie worked on, calling the sessions “great.” But Nicks also says she’s not sure where the band fits in today’s music industry.

“Whether or not we’re gonna do any more (songs), we don’t know because we’re so completely bummed out with the state of the music industry and the fact that nobody even wants a full record,” she said. “Everybody wants two songs, so we’re going to give them two songs.”

Nicks said depending on the response to the new tracks — which Buckingham calls “the most Fleetwood Mac-y stuff … in a long time” — more material could come next.

“Maybe we’ll get an EP out of it or something,” Buckingham said.

Nicks will continue to record solo albums, though. The group is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the best-selling “Rumours” album, which has moved some 20 million units in the United States. She knows that’s not possible again, despite the success of Adele’s “21,” which has sold 10 million units in America in less than two years.

“This is Adele’s ‘Rumours,’” Nicks said. “She had a baby, she’s going to take a year off to take care of her baby — that’s why I never had any kids. She’s going to go back and start writing again, you never know what the next record’s going to be. Is it going to sell 10 million records? You don’t know,” she said.

Buckingham said he initially wanted to record a new album, but Nicks “wasn’t too into that.” But the guitarist and singer knows that new music isn’t a priority for the band’s fans.

“It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t hear anything new. In a way there’s a freedom to that — it becomes not what you got, but what you do with what you got. Part of the challenge of this tour is figuring out a presentation that has some twists and turns to it without having a full album,” he said.

Fleetwood Mac, which was formed in 1967, last released an album in 2003, though they hit the road in 2009. Nicks and Buckingham — who originally joined the band in 1974 as a couple — both released solo albums and toured last year. Buckingham had suggested that Fleetwood Mac tour last year, but says getting everyone to agree was tough.

“If you look at Fleetwood Mac as a group, you can make the case of saying we’re a bunch of individuals who don’t necessarily belong in the same group together, but it’s the synergy of that that makes us so good. But it also makes the politics a little more tenuous,” he said. “You can say that not only can it be a political minefield, someone’s always causing trouble, right? I caused trouble for years so I can’t point any fingers.”

The tour also includes cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and will end June 12 in Detroit.

_____

Online:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.com/

You can follow Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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Sign Language Researchers Broaden Science Lexicon

Imagine trying to learn biology without ever using the word “organism.” Or studying to become a botanist when the only way of referring to photosynthesis is to spell the word out, letter by painstaking letter.

For deaf students, this game of scientific Password has long been the daily classroom and laboratory experience. Words like “organism” and “photosynthesis” — to say nothing of more obscure and harder-to-spell terms — have no single widely accepted equivalent in sign language. This means that deaf students and their teachers and interpreters must improvise, making it that much harder for the students to excel in science and pursue careers in it.

“Often times, it would involve a lot of finger-spelling and a lot of improvisation,” said Matthew Schwerin, a physicist with the Food and Drug Administration who is deaf, of his years in school. “For the majority of scientific terms,” Mr. Schwerin and his interpreter for the day would “try to find a correct sign for the term, and if nothing was pre-existing, we would come up with a sign that was agreeable with both parties.”

Now thanks to the Internet — particularly the boom in online video — resources for deaf students seeking science-related signs are easier to find and share. Crowdsourcing projects in both American Sign Language and British Sign Language are under way at several universities, enabling people who are deaf to coalesce around signs for commonly used terms.

This year, one of those resources, the Scottish Sensory Centre’s British Sign Language Glossary Project, added 116 new signs for physics and engineering terms, including signs for “light-year,”  (hold one hand up and spread the fingers downward for “light,” then bring both hands together in front of your chest and slowly move them apart for “year”), “mass” and “X-ray” (form an X with your index fingers, then, with the index finger on the right hand, point outward). 

The signs were developed by a team of researchers at the center, a division of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland that develops learning tools for students with visual and auditory impairments. The researchers spent more than a year soliciting ideas from deaf science workers, circulating lists of potential signs and ultimately gathering for “an intense weekend” of final voting, said Audrey Cameron, science adviser for the project. (Dr. Cameron is also deaf, and like all non-hearing people interviewed for this article, answered questions via e-mail.)

Whether the Scottish Sensory Centre’s signs will take hold among its audience remains to be seen. “Some will be adopted, and some will probably never be accepted,” Dr. Cameron said. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

Ideally, the standardization of signs will make it easier for deaf students to keep pace with their hearing classmates during lectures. “I can only choose to look at one thing at a time,” said Mr. Schwerin of the F.D.A., recalling his science education, “and it often meant choosing between the interpreter, the blackboard/screen/material, or taking notes. It was like, pick one, and lose out on the others.”

The problem doesn’t end at graduation. In fact, it only intensifies as new discoveries add unfamiliar terms to the scientific lexicon. “I’ve had numerous meetings where I couldn’t participate properly because the interpreters were not able to understand the jargon and they did not know any scientific signs,” Dr. Cameron said.

One general complaint about efforts to standardize signs for technical terms is the idea that, much like spoken language, sign language should be allowed to develop organically rather than be dictated from above.

“Signs that are developed naturally — i.e., that are tested and refined in everyday conversation — are more likely to be accepted quickly by the community,” said Derek Braun, director of the molecular genetics laboratory at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which he said was the first biological laboratory designed and administered by deaf scientists.

Since at least the 1970s, deaf scientists have tried to address the lack of uniformity by gathering common signs for scientific terms in printed manuals and on videotapes. The problem has always been getting deaf students and their interpreters to adopt them.

Often, at science conferences, “local interpreters that we never met before would often use different signs for the same terms, leading to confusion,” said Caroline Solomon, a biology professor at Gallaudet University who is deaf.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 4, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the origin of the ASL-STEM Forum.  It was developed by researchers at the University of Washington, not Gallaudet University.  Researchers at Gallaudet and the National Institute for the Deaf work with the University of Washington to provide content and help the forum grow.

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Baxter to buy Gambro for $4B

Healthcare products maker Baxter International Inc. said on Tuesday that it would buy privately held Swedish dialysis product company Gambro AB for about $4 billion to expand its kidney therapy portfolio.

Baxter, whose shares were down 1 percent, will finance the deal with debt and cash. The deal marks Baxter's biggest acquisition since Chief Executive Robert Parkinson took the helm in 2004.

Baxter manufactures kidney dialysis equipment, drug infusion pumps and blood therapy products. The Gambro acquisition will round out Baxter's renal business, which accounted for almost one-fifth of the company's 2011 revenue of $13.89 billion.

Gambro is one of the largest makers of equipment for hemodialysis, which is generally performed in a hospital or clinic. The dialysis from Baxter's machines is called peritoneal and can be performed at home.

Gambro's sales have been flat to weaker in recent years, undermined partly by capacity constraints, but Baxter executives voiced confidence during a conference call with analysts that the business can be turned around.

"This is a very large global market and...it's going to continue to grow over the long term," Parkinson told analysts.

"At the end of the day, this is an acquisition that is not dependent on any one pathway for value creation. It is not dependent on a major new product launch or technological advancement, and is not dependent on commercial assumptions that our overly optimistic. This is an acquisition that is dependent on execution," he said. "This is something we know we can do and do well."

He said the planned acquisition did not represent a change in the direction of the company, which also makes drug infusion pumps and blood therapy products.

Shares of Baxter were down 1.1 percent at $65.11 near midday on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

TOO PRICEY?

Some analysts said they were concerned by the price tag and that the company will scale back its share buyback program in order to acquire Gambro.

"I think the deal makes sense. I think it does fit well with their existing renal business and I think there probably are synergies, but at the same time it is a lot of cash they are paying for this thing. They are taking on a significant amount of debt," said Michael Matson, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA.

The Gambro deal marks further consolidation in the kidney dialysis market, where Gambro and Baxter compete against companies including U.S.-based DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc. and Germany's Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA .

Analyst Kristofer Liljeberg of Sweden's Carnegie investment bank said the Gambro deal would give Baxter the No. 2 clinical dialysis position, behind Fresenius.

"I think in the longer-term, the ambition is to try to challenge Fresenius," Liljeberg said.

However, he said, Gambro, which is owned by Swedish investment holding company Investor AB and its partly owned private equity company, EQT Corp., had been struggling in recent years with slow growth and price competition.

Liljeberg said the deal was a good one for family-owned Investor, which controls several of Sweden's top companies. Since they bought Gambro, Investor and EQT have sold off its clinics and a blood component business.

A GROWING MARKET

More than 2 million patients globally are on some form of dialysis, and that has been increasing more than 5 percent annually, in part because of the rising rates of diabetes and hypertension.

Excluding special items, Baxter expects the Gambro transaction to reduce earnings per diluted share by 10 to 15 cents in 2013 and be neutral or add modestly to them in 2014. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

Excluding the impact of special items and estimated amortization of intangible assets, the company said the deal should not affect earnings in 2013 and add 20 to 25 cents a diluted share in 2014.

Baxter said it expected the deal to add to earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, after 2014.

The suburban Chicago company said it expected over five years to increase sales by 7 to 8 percent, excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, on a compound annual basis, with earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, rising by 8 to 10 percent.

"Companies like Baxter can unlock a fair amount of value when they find strategic use for their overseas cash," said Piper Jaffray analyst Matt Miksic.

Indeed, Baxter said it planned to finance the deal with cash overseas. Multinational companies that have large international sales often have difficulties moving that cash back to the United States where they can put it to use.

J.P. Morgan was Baxter's financial adviser for the deal.

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Last-minute postponement of federal trial involving Burge

Jon Burge arrives for sentencing in January 2011. He was convicted of lying under oath about police torture. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune / December 3, 2012)

By Annie Sweeney




Tribune reporter

11:31 a.m. CST, December 3, 2012

A federal trial over allegations that former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and other detectives covered up information that would have exonerated a man who spent 26 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit was postponed today at the last minute.

U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo made the surprise announcement at about 10:15 a.m. as a jury was about to be picked.

Bucklo said the trial was postponed until Dec. 17 “due to issues that need to be resolved.”

Over the weekend, attorneys for Burge and the four detectives asked the judge to hold settlement discussions with the lawyers on both sides of the case. Attorneys for Alton Logan opposed any delay in the trial.

The trial stemming from Logan’s lawsuit would mark the first time in two decades that Burge, the disgraced former police commander, will testify in court about one of the numerous civil lawsuits filed against him.

Though he is expected to plead the Fifth Amendment, he will testify by way of videoconferencing from a federal prison in North Carolina, where he is serving a 4 1/2-year  sentence for lying about torture and physical abuse by his crew of detectives.

Logan, though, isn’t alleging he was beaten into confessing to murder by Burge and his men, but rather that they concealed evidence, even from Cook County prosecutors, that would have exonerated him.

asweeney@tribune.com

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Nokia Siemens to sell optical networks unit

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Mobile telecoms equipment joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, which is focusing on its core business, is to sell its optical fiber unit to Marlin Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum.

Up to 1,900 employees, mainly in Germany and Portugal, will be transferred to the new company, NSN said on Monday.

The company, owned by Nokia and Siemens, has sold a number of product lines since it last year announced plans to divest non-core assets and cut 17,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its total workforce.

Nordea Markets analyst Sami Sarkamies said he expected more divestments after the optical unit deal. This disposal was a small surprise, he said, because NSN needed some optical technology – where data is transmitted by pulses of light – for its main mobile broadband business.

The move may hint the company is preparing itself for further consolidation in the sector by cutting overlaps with other players, Sarkamies said.

The telecom equipment market is going through rough times with stiff competition. French Alcatel-Lucent is also cutting costs.

($ 1 = 0.7689 euro)

(Reporting by Harro ten Wold; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Dan Lalor)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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