DA: Heroin charge dropped vs. Bon Jovi's daughter

CLINTON, N.Y. (AP) — Drug charges against Jon Bon Jovi's 19-year-old daughter have been dropped, a central New York prosecutor said Thursday.

Stephanie Bongiovi was found unresponsive by medics after she apparently overdosed on heroin in a Hamilton College dorm early Wednesday. Town of Kirkland police charged Bongiovi, of Red Bank, N.J., and fellow student Ian Grant, also of Red Bank, with possession of a small amount of heroin and marijuana.

Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara said he was dismissing the charges against both students. Under state law, someone having a drug overdose or seeking help for an overdose victim can't be prosecuted for having a small amount of heroin or any amount of marijuana.

The so-called Good Samaritan 911 law signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in July 2011 was designed to reduce overdose deaths by encouraging people to call 911 without fear of being arrested for drug possession. Similar laws have been passed in several other states.

Bon Jovi, 50, is scheduled to perform at a concert to benefit Hamilton's scholarships and arts programs in Times Square on Dec. 5. He has not commented on his daughter's overdose.

He has four children, Stephanie and three sons.

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Eurozone slides back into recession

The Eurozone is back in a recession, its first in three years, as gross domestic product for the debt-plagued 17-nation bloc contracted 0.1 percent in the third quarter from the earlier quarter.

In the second quarter, the currency collective tightened 0.2 percent, according to the official European Union statistics agency, Eurostat. Two consecutive quarterly slips make a recession.

Compared with a year earlier, GDP is down 0.6 percent. Eurostat said last month that unemployment in the bloc was at a record high of 11.6 percent. Protests and strikes rippled across Europe on Wednesday.

Growth in core countries such as Germany and France couldn't counteract the plunges in long-struggling, austerity-bound nations such as Spain and Italy. Portugal took an especially nasty 0.8 percent dive.

Even countries that had been expanding took a dive, with the Netherlands experiencing a 1.1 percent squeeze and Austria contracting 0.1 percent. Germany saw its growth slow to 0.2 percent in the third quarter from 0.3 percent in the second.

France, however, reversed a string of flat or down quarters with 0.2 percent expansion.

The wider, 27-member European Union escaped recession, its GDP advancing 0.1 percent in the third quarter after tightening 0.2 percent in the second. In Britain., fresh off the Summer Olympics, the economy boomed 1 percent after a 0.4 percent drop.

A separate Eurostat report Thursday showed annual inflation in the euro-currency area down to 2.5 percent in October, from 2.6 percent the previous month.

In a speech Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi urged governments to avoid tax hikes in favor of spending cuts as a strategy for fiscal consolidation. He also stressed the need for "calm pragmatism going forward.

"It is essential that all parties involved in Europe's large and complex path of reforms stick to their commitments," Draghi said.

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Soldier Field to get new sod after rainy Bears' loss

Tribune video by Fred Mitchell.

Soldier Field will get new sod after two inches of rain fell during the Chicago Bears' 13-6 loss Sunday to the Houston Texans and left the turf in poor condition, drawing criticism from Bears kicker Robbie Gould, stadium general manager Tim LeFevour told the Tribune on Wednesday.

Gould -- who on Wednesday afternoon apologized for his remarks -- was among those who criticized Soldier Field personnel for not covering the field with a tarp before the game. 

The middle 40 yards of the field will be removed Thursday and replaced with new sod Friday, LeFevour said.  Shortly after the game, LeFevour and Bears general manager Phil Emery met to begin to take action.

"I very much appreciate our relationship with SMG and the Chicago Park District,” Emery said in a statement Wednesday.  “We have assembled a strong team of members from our staff and theirs that work together to evaluate the field and keep it in excellent condition.  They have done a great job working with us to ensure we have the best playing surface for our players.”

The entire field was resodded six weeks ago before the Notre Dame-Miami game, and the hope was another major resodding would not be necessary until the playoffs, assuming the Bears would be hosting a game.

But the damage incurred Sunday in the areas where linemen trod was too severe.  LeFevour said the areas outside the hash marks are fine and do not need to be addressed.

Addressing Gould's criticisms, LeFevour said the field was covered from Friday through Sunday morning.  Forecasts called for rain to begin between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Sunday evening. Game time was 7:20, and an NFL rule states tarps must be off the field 90 minutes prior to kickoff.

LeFevour said a 50-man crew was ready to cover the field Sunday afternoon if it had been deemed necessary.

LeFevour said it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to cover the field with a tarp, and another 30 minutes to remove it.  So the benefits of covering the field when the rains came would have been minimal, if there were any at all.

In an interview on WMVP-AM 1000, Gould asked why the field was not covered in the hours leading up to the game.  He also said the field has been uneven and treacherous the whole year.

"I don't know what's happening,” Gould said. “This year our field has been really bad. It's been tore up. There have actually been some places on the field where some portions of it have actually sunk to a new low level, and the other spots are high.”

Gould also said, “But it's been really interesting to watch this year how bad our field has really been. I know we have talked about this every single year. ... Can we please get somebody in there that watches a news report?”

LeFevour said the Soldier Field grounds crew monitors the weather constantly.  Bears groundskeepers also are involved in decision making regarding the grass.

Asked about Gould’s criticisms, LeFevour said, “Those are ridiculous comments.  He doesn’t know what he is talking about.  The field has not been an issue all year, and we haven’t heard anyone else complaining.”

LeFevour pointed out that this season after Gould complained about not having enough space on the sideline, Soldier Field roped off a special area where he can practice his kicks.

“He is never satisfied,” LeFevour said.

Told Wednesday that Soldier Field was being resodded, Gould said, "Obviously, they saw it was an issue because if it wasn't an issue, they wouldn't have to resod. Obviously, the field was in pretty poor shape. That's the only reason you resod a field."

Gould later issued this statement apologizing for his remarks:

“I need to apologize to the grounds crew at Soldier Field and our grounds crew for my recent comments regarding the field.  I have since learned a lot more about the NFL’s policies and the measures that are taken at Soldier Field to ensure a reliable and safe playing surface.  It was my mistake to speak prior to having a full understanding.”

Contributing: Vaughn McClure

dpompei@tribune.com

Twitter@danpompei

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Adobe says user forum was breached, takes site offline

BOSTON (Reuters) - Adobe Systems Inc shut down a website where customers share information about using its Connect online conferencing service after the software maker discovered it had been compromised in a data breach.

The company, whose software is frequently targeted by computer hackers because it is widely used to publish digital documents, said on Wednesday that it would reset passwords of the approximately 150,000 members of the site, Connectusers.com.

Adobe said its Connect web conferencing service and other company sites were not breached.

News of the breach surfaced on Tuesday when a hacker claimed in a posting on the Internet to have stolen log-in credentials of 150,000 Adobe customers and partners.

The hacker, who claimed to be from Egypt, released 644 records from the site, including emails, saying the release was done to point out that Adobe is slow in fixing security problems.

The hacker also promised to release data stolen from Yahoo Inc. A Yahoo spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

The Adobe breach was discovered a week after Russian security firm Group-IB said it had uncovered a flaw in Adobe's Reader software that criminals are currently exploiting to attack PCs by infecting them with malicious PDF documents.

Adobe spokeswoman Wiebke Lips said the company is still reviewing that report, though it has not yet received samples of malicious code discovered by Group-IB.

(Reporting By Jim Finkle; editing by John Wallace and Leslie Adler)

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Price edges Verlander for AL Cy Young Award

NEW YORK (AP) — David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays won the AL Cy Young Award on Wednesday in one of the closest votes ever.

Price beat out 2011 winner Justin Verlander by only four points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Other than a 1969 tie between Mike Cuellar and Denny McLain, it was the tightest race in the history of the AL award.

Runner-up two years ago, Price was the pick this time for the league's top pitching prize. He received 14 of 28 first-place votes and finished with 153 points. Verlander was chosen first on 13 ballots.

Rays closer Fernando Rodney got the other first-place vote and came in fifth.

Price went 20-5 to tie Jered Weaver for the American League lead in victories and winning percentage. The 27-year-old lefty had the lowest ERA at 2.56 and finished sixth in strikeouts with 205.

Verlander, also the league MVP a year ago, followed that up by going 17-8 with a 2.64 ERA and pitching the Detroit Tigers to the World Series. He led the majors in strikeouts (239), innings (238 1-3) and complete games (six).

Price tossed 211 innings in 31 starts, while Verlander made 33. One factor that might have swung some votes, however: Price faced stiffer competition in the rugged AL East than Verlander did in the AL Central.

Weaver came in third with 70 points, but was listed second on a pair of ballots. The right-hander threw a no-hitter and had a 2.81 ERA in his first 20-win season but missed time with injuries and totaled only 188 2-3 innings for the Los Angeles Angels.

The top pick in the 2007 amateur draft out of Vanderbilt, Price reached the majors the following year and has made three straight All-Star teams.

Despite going 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA in 2010, he finished a distant second in Cy Young voting to Felix Hernandez, who won only 13 games for last-place Seattle but dominated most other statistical categories that year.

Verlander was trying to become the first AL pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Youngs since Boston's Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000. San Francisco right-hander Tim Lincecum did it in the National League in 2008-09.

The NL Cy Young winner was to be announced later Wednesday.

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New gene triples risk for Alzheimer's disease

Scientists have identified a new gene variant that seems to strongly raise the risk for Alzheimer's disease, giving a fresh target for research into treatments for the mind-robbing disorder.

The problem gene is not common — less than 1 percent of people are thought to have it — but it roughly triples the chances of developing Alzheimer's compared to people with the normal version of the gene. It also seems to harm memory and thinking in older people without dementia.

The main reason scientists are excited by the discovery is what this gene does, and how that might reveal what causes Alzheimer's and ways to prevent it. The gene helps the immune system control inflammation in the brain and clear junk such as the sticky deposits that are the hallmark of the disease. Mutations in the gene may impair these tasks, so treatments to restore the gene's function and quell inflammation may help.

"It points us to potential therapeutics in a more precise way than we've seen in the past," said Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, which had no role in the research. Years down the road, this discovery will likely be seen as very important, he predicted.

It is described in a study by an international group published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

Until now, only one gene — ApoE — has been found to have a big impact on Alzheimer's risk. About 17 percent of the population has at least one copy of the problem version of this gene but nearly half of all people with Alzheimer's do. Other genes that have been tied to the disease raise risk only a little, or cause the less common type of Alzheimer's that develops earlier in life, before age 60.

The new gene, TREM2, already has been tied to a couple other forms of dementia. Researchers led by deCODE Genetics Inc. of Iceland honed in on a version of it they identified through mapping the entire genetic code of more than 2,200 Icelanders.

Further tests on 3,550 Alzheimer's patients and more than 110,000 people without dementia in several countries, including the United States, found that the gene variant was more common in Alzheimer's patients.

"It's a very strong effect," raising the risk of Alzheimer's by three to four times — about the same amount as the problem version of the ApoE gene does, said Dr. Allan Levey, director of an Alzheimer's program at Emory University, one of the academic centers participating in the research.

Researchers also tested more than 1,200 people over age 85 who did not have Alzheimer's disease and found that those with the variant TREM2 gene had lower mental function scores than those without it. This adds evidence the gene variant is important in cognition, even short of causing Alzheimer's.

"It's another piece in the puzzle. It suggests the immune system is important in Alzheimer's disease," said Andrew Singleton, a geneticist with the National Institute on Aging, which helped pay for the study.

One prominent scientist not involved in the study — Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and director of an Alzheimer's research program at Massachusetts General Hospital — called the work exciting, but added a caveat.

"I would like to see more evidence that this is Alzheimer's" rather than one of the other dementias already tied to the gene, Tanzi said. Autopsy or brain imaging tests can show whether the cases attributed to the gene variant are truly Alzheimer's or misdiagnosed, he said.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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NBC names new top producer for 'Today'

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is staying in-house in its effort to turn around the "Today" show.

The network on Wednesday appointed a 23-year veteran of the morning news show as its new executive producer. Don Nash began working for "Today" as a production assistant in NBC's Burbank office in 1989 and will now run the four-hour broadcast.

Nash was most recently senior broadcast producer in the show's control room. He replaces Jim Bell, who shifted to NBC Sports to run its Olympics broadcasts.

After nearly two decades of dominance, "Today" has slipped behind ABC's "Good Morning America" in the ratings.

NBC also added another layer of management for the show, appointing Alexandra Wallace as the network's executive in charge of the program.

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Corzine blamed for fall of MF Global

Poor management decisions by MF Global's former CEO Jon Corzine triggered the brokerage firm's collapse, while lax protections for customer funds contributed to the loss of an estimated $1.6 billion of customer money, U.S. congressional investigators have determined.

Evidence unearthed by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight puts the blame squarely on Corzine, the panel's chairman Rep. Randy Neugebauer, said in a preview of the report that will be released on Thursday.

"The responsibility for failing to maintain the systems and controls necessary to protect customer funds rests with Corzine," the report says. "This failure represents a dereliction of his duty as MF Global's chairman and CEO."

Corzine, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who also served as a U.S. senator and as governor of New Jersey, has denied any wrongdoing.

MF Global filed for bankruptcy more than a year ago, as investors scrambled to pull out funds after revelations the firm bet heavily on European sovereign debt and after credit downgrades.

Regulators, prosecutors and lawmakers have been looking into the estimated $1.6 billion in customer funds revealed to be missing after the firm's collapse.

The House subcommittee said it has held three hearings, interviewed more than 50 witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents from MF Global, its regulators and other sources.

The report will show that risks were exacerbated by an atmosphere at the firm in which no one could question Corzine's decisions, the subcommittee said.

Corzine also kept his own trading activities out of the firm's risk management review process, the subcommittee said. The group said it also found that regulatory agencies had not shared crucial information with each other, and other problems.

A trustee liquidating the company's broker-dealer unit released a critical report in June that said that in his attempt to build the firm into a global investment powerhouse, Corzine failed to address growing liquidity needs.

A spokesman for Corzine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Jury finds in favor of bartender in cop bar beating case

Former Chicago police Officer Anthony Abbate beats up female bartender Karolina Obrycka at Jesse's Shortstop Inn in Chicago in Feb. 2007.

A federal jury today found in favor of a female bartender who was beaten by an off-duty Chicago police officer in a notorious 2007 attack captured on security cameras.

The jury awarded the bartender, Karolina Obrycka, $850,000 in compensatory damages against the city. Obrycka’s lawyers contended a code of silence protected former chicago police officer Anthony Abbate from punishment until the damning videotape was made public.

Lawyers for the bartender contended a code of silence protected Abbate from punishment until the damning videotape was made public.

Obrycka contended during the trial that Abbate, other officers and higher-ups tried to cover up and minimize her February 2007 beating as part of an unofficial "code of silence" policy within the department.

The trial in federal court came nearly six years after Abbate attacked Obrycka at Jesse's Short Stop Inn when he went behind the bar.

The eight-woman, three-man jury found that Abbate was part of the conspiracy to cover up the beating and that the Police Department had a widespread code of silence that emboldened Abbate to beat up Obrycka.

Jurors held both the city and Abbate responsible but didn’t assess any damages against Abbate personally.

The videotape of Abbate pummeling a woman about half his size marked one of the most embarrassing chapters in recent Chicago Police Department history and contributed to the resignation of then-Superintendent Philip Cline.

Fearful that the department would not discipline Abbate, Obrycka’s lawyers have said they released the videotape to the news media, causing an Internet sensation with the graphic images.

The verdict in the high-stakes trial came after two days of deliberations and a complicated, lengthy trial that saw more than three dozen witnesses offer contradictory and colorful testimony about the beating in Jesse’s Short Stop Inn on the Northwest Side.

At the center of the trial was the allegation that a long-standing code of silence protects officers who use excessive force or engage in other misconduct. As a result, Obrycka’s lawyers maintained that Abbate acted with impunity in the bar because he was unafraid of consequences, the result of the blue wall of silence as well as department’s history of ineffective discipline action against wayward officers.

Just days after the tavern owner installed security cameras, Abbate went into a rage when Obrycka tried to prevent him from coming behind the bar. Abbate, who testified he was drunk after downing multiple alcoholic drinks and shots, tossed Obrycka to the floor and then wailed away at her with his fists and feet.

“Nobody tells me what to do,” Abbate was heard proclaiming on the videotape repeatedly played in court during the three-week trial.

City attorneys argued that Abbate’s actions were simply the result of his being so drunk. He was too intoxicated to think a code of silence would protect him, they said.

Obrycka’s lawyers urged the jury to hold Abbate personally liable for his role in the alleged cover-up that followed the beating. Abbate allegedly threatened to plant cocaine and falsely charge Obrycka if she complained about the beating or released the videotape. Obrycka’s lawyers contended the cover-up even stretched high into Police Department ranks.

At trial, high-level officials from the Police Department and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office clashed over who wanted to aggressively prosecute Abbate. He had originally been charged with just a misdemeanor – a move that one top prosecutor said his office knew nothing about and could have jeopardized plans to charge Abbate with a felony. But police officials contended that same prosecutor had voiced support for a misdemeanor.

After the verdict, Obrycka said she was "speechless."

“I am very happy, justice is served. It’s finally over,” she said as Abbate walked by

asweeney@tribune.com
jmeisner@tribune.com

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Exclusive: AMD hires bank to explore options - sources

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