Putin aide denies Russian president has health problems

TOKYO/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin is in good health, his chief of staff said on Friday after Japanese media said Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had postponed a visit to Moscow next month because the Russian president had a health problem.

A former KGB officer who enjoys vast authority in Russia, Putin has long cultivated a tough-guy image, and health issues could damage that. His condition though has been questioned in some media since he was seen limping at a summit in September.

Three Russian government sources told Reuters late in October that Putin, who began a six-year term in May and turned 60 last month, was suffering from back trouble, but the Kremlin has dismissed talk that he had a serious back problem.

Putin’s health troubles stem from a recent judo bout, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said this week.

Then on Friday Japanese news agencies Kyodo and Jiji reported that Prime Minister Noda talked about the delay of a visit planned for December in a meeting with municipal officials on the northern island of Hokkaido.

“It’s about (President Putin’s) health problem. This is not something that can easily be made public,” Jiji cited one of the officials as quoting Noda as saying.

But Putin’s chief of staff Sergei Ivanov denied there was any problem.

“Please don’t worry, don’t be concerned. Everything is in order with his health,” Putin’s said in Vienna, according to state-run Russian news agency RIA.

In an interview published on Friday in the popular Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said rumors about a spine problem were “strongly exaggerated”.

“He is working as he has before and intends to continue working at the same pace,” Peskov said.

“He also does not plan to give up his sports activities and for this reason, like any athlete, his back, his arm, his leg might sometimes hurt a little – this has never gotten in the way of his ability to work.”

Putin had been expected to make several foreign trips in late October or November, but they did not take place.

Putin is however due to visit Turkey on Monday and Turkmenistan on Wednesday.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, made amply clear the Kremlin was displeased by the public discussion of scheduling by Japanese officials and denied that Noda’s visit had been postponed, saying no date had been set.

“It is just unethical to name the dates that were discussed. There were several: at first it was October, November, December, January … then we even shifted to February,” Ushakov said, adding that the sides eventually agreed tentatively on January.

He said the diplomatic process of agreeing dates for the visit should have been “hermetically sealed”.

Putin’s image as a fit, healthy man helped bring him popularity when he rose to power 13 years ago because of the stark contrast with his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who was sometimes drunk in public and had heart surgery when president.

He has used activities like scuba diving and horseback riding to maintain that image.

On Friday, Putin met leaders of parliamentary factions in his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. He appeared in good health and was walking without any sign of a limp.

Likely to be on the agenda in talks between Russian and Japanese officials are energy cooperation and a decades-old dispute over islands north of Hokkaido known as the Southern Kurils in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

(Additional reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Tomasz Janowski and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jon Hemming)

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Doctors Who Work for Hospitals Face a New Bottom Line

For decades, doctors in picturesque Boise, Idaho, were part of a tight-knit community, freely referring patients to the specialists or hospitals of their choice and exchanging information about the latest medical treatments.

But that began to change a few years ago, when the city’s largest hospital, St. Luke’s Health System, began rapidly buying physician practices all over town, from general practitioners to cardiologists to orthopedic surgeons.

Today, Boise is a medical battleground.

A little over half of the 1,400 doctors in southwestern Idaho are employed by St. Luke’s or its smaller competitor, St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.

Many of the independent doctors complain that both hospitals, but especially St. Luke’s, have too much power over every aspect of the medical pipeline, dictating which tests and procedures to perform, how much to charge and which patients to admit.

In interviews, they said their referrals from doctors now employed by St. Luke’s had dropped sharply, while patients, in many cases, were paying more there for the same level of treatment.

Boise’s experience reflects a growing national trend toward consolidation. Across the country, doctors who sold their practices and signed on as employees have similar criticisms. In lawsuits and interviews, they describe growing pressure to meet the financial goals of their new employers — often by performing unnecessary tests and procedures or by admitting patients who do not need a hospital stay.

In Boise, just a few weeks ago, even the hospitals were at war. St. Alphonsus went to court seeking an injunction to stop St. Luke’s from buying another physician practice group, arguing that the hospital’s dominance in the market was enabling it to drive up prices and to demand exclusive or preferential agreements with insurers. The price of a colonoscopy has quadrupled in some instances, and in other cases St. Luke’s charges nearly three times as much for laboratory work as nearby facilities, according to the St. Alphonsus complaint.

Federal and state officials have also joined the fray. In one of a handful of similar cases, the Federal Trade Commission and the Idaho attorney general are investigating whether St. Luke’s has become too powerful in Boise, using its newfound leverage to stifle competition.

Dr. David C. Pate, chief executive of St. Luke’s, denied the assertions by St. Alphonsus that the hospital’s acquisitions had limited patient choice or always resulted in higher prices. In some cases, Dr. Pate said, services that had been underpriced were raised to reflect market value. St. Luke’s, he argued, is simply embracing the new model of health care, which he predicted would lead over the long term to lower overall costs as fewer unnecessary tests and procedures were performed.

Regulators expressed some skepticism about the results, for patients, of rapid consolidation, although the trend is still too new to know for sure. “We’re seeing a lot more consolidation than we did 10 years ago,” said Jeffrey Perry, an assistant director in the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Competition. “Historically, what we’ve seen with the consolidation in the health care industry is that prices go up, but quality does not improve.”

A Drive to Consolidate

An array of new economic realities, from reduced Medicare reimbursements to higher technology costs, is driving consolidation in health care and transforming the practice of medicine in Boise and other communities large and small. In one manifestation of the trend, hospitals, private equity firms and even health insurance companies are acquiring physician practices at a rapid rate.

Today, about 39 percent of doctors nationwide are independent, down from 57 percent in 2000, according to estimates by Accenture, a consulting firm.

Many policy experts praise the shift away from independent practices as a way of making health care less fragmented and expensive. Systems that employ doctors, modeled after well-known organizations like Kaiser Permanente, are better able to coordinate patient care and to find ways to deliver improved services at lower costs, these advocates say. Indeed, consolidation is encouraged by some aspects of the Obama administration’s health care law.

“If you’re going to be paid for value, for performance, you’ve got to perform together,” said Dr. Ricardo Martinez, chief medical officer for North Highland, an Atlanta-based consultant that works with hospitals.

The recent trend is reminiscent of the consolidation that swept the industry in the 1990s in response to the creation of health maintenance organizations, or H.M.O.’s — but there is one major difference. Then, hospitals had difficulty managing the practices, contending that doctors did not work as hard when they were employees as they had as private operators. Now, hospitals are writing contracts more in their own favor.

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Jewel parent says sale talks proceeding

Exterior of Jewel-Osco's first "Green Store" located at 370 N. Desplaines in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / November 29, 2012)

By Emily Bryson York




Chicago Tribune reporter

6:51 a.m. CST, November 30, 2012

Supervalu, the Minneapolis-based parent of Jewel-Osco said sale talks are proceeding after stock closed down more than 18 percent Thursday, to $2.28.

The beleaguered grocery chain was likely moving to combat reports that sale talks with suitor Cerberus Capital Management had stalled over funding.

"The company continues to be in active discussion with several parties," according to the statement. "There can be no assurance that this process will result in any transaction or any change in the Company's overall structure or its business model."

Supervalu, the third-largest U.S. grocery chain, has acknowledged sale talks since the spring. The company has been closing stores and cutting jobs as it has underperformed competitors like Dominick's parent Safeway and Kroger.

If Supervalu does not sell to Cerberus, it may have to restructure on its own or sell off individual assets, which could have big tax consequences, Bloomberg said.

Reuters reported last month that buyout firm Cerberus was preparing a takeover bid for Supervalu, the third-largest U.S. supermarket chain.

Cerberus officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

-- Reuters contributed to this report

In addition to Jewel, Supervalu owns Albertsons, Cub and other regional grocery chains.

SVU data by YCharts

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Male shot by police on South Side

An off-duty Chicago police officer who witnessed a crash during a police chase shot the driver of a stolen SUV after it struck a woman crossing the street late Thursday night, authorities said.

The SUV's drivert sustaine a non-life-threatening wound to his hand or arm, Fraternal Order of Police Spokesman Patrick Camden said.

The crash and subsequent shooting happened about 10 p.m. at the intersection of 37th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, two blocks south and three blocks east of the police department headquarters, in the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood, police said. 

A gray SUV was fleeing Wentworth District police northbound on King Drive when it made a left turn through a red light trying to head west on 37th Street, hit a light pole, hit a female pedestrian, and then hit a concrete wall that surrounds the massive three-story brick home on the corner, authorities said. 

An off-duty officer, on his way home from work with his girlfriend and his dinner, was stopped at the light facing south and saw the chase coming north up King Drive. His girlfriend was getting out of the passenger side about this time, Camden and police said. 

As the off-duty officer approached the stolen SUV, its driver tried to reverse back toward the officer, who fired twice, fearing that the SUV would hit his girlfriend. The SUV hit the officer’s black Yukon, Camden said, and its driver put the SUV into gear and tried to escape again. 

The officer fired two more times, hitting the man in the hand, who gave up and was taken to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center. 

The female pedestrian’s age wasn’t available, and she was taken to the University of Chicago Hospitals. The officer’s girlfriend, whose age wasn’t available, was also taken to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center. 

Police blocked King Drive in both directions between the 3500 block and 39th Street, and 37th Street was also blocked. The CTA rerouted buses in the area. 

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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Stephen King and Steven Spielberg’s “Under the Dome” gets series order from CBS

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Under the Dome” has landed under the wing of CBS.

The network has given a 13-episode, straight-to-series order for the project, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name.

The series will premiere in summer 2013.

King will executive-produce, along with Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Television will produce the series in association with CBS Television Studios. Neal Baer, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Stacey Snider and Brian K. Vaughan are also executive-producing. Niels Arden Oplev (“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”) will direct the first episode.

The series will revolve around a small New England town that is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an enormous transparent dome. The town’s inhabitants must deal with surviving the post-apocalyptic conditions while searching for answers to what this barrier is, where it came from and if and when it will go away.

“This is a great novel coming to the television screen with outstanding auspices and in-season production values to create a summer programming event,” CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said. “We’re excited to transport audiences ‘Under the Dome’ and into the extraordinary world that Stephen King has imagined.”

Showtime, which is owned by CBS, had previously been developing the project.

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Recipes for Health: Asian Chopped Salad With Seasoned Tofu ‘Fingers’ — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I like to serve the baked seasoned tofu “fingers” warm on top of the salad. They are delicious cold, too; it is worth making up a separate batch for the refrigerator. If you have an assortment of vegetables leftover from Thanksgiving dinner, throw them in!

For the Tofu:

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tablespoons mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon minced or grated fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil

1 pound firm tofu

For the salad:

1 romaine heart, chopped

5 cups mixed chopped or diced vegetables such as:

Green or red cabbage

Celery (from the inner heart)

Red pepper

Radishes, sliced or chopped

1/4 cup dry roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

1/4 cup chopped cilantro (more to taste)

1 serrano pepper, seeded and minced (optional)

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/4 cup tofu marinade, above

2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil

1/3 cup low-fat buttermilk or plain nonfat yogurt

1. Marinate the tofu: combine the soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, ginger and sugar in a 2-quart bowl. Whisk in the sesame oil and combine well. Drain the tofu and pat dry with paper towels. Slice into 1/3-inch thick slabs and cut the slabs in half lengthwise to get “fingers” approximately 1/3 inch thick by 3/4 inch wide. Blot each finger with paper towels. Add to the bowl with the marinade and gently toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes to an hour, or for up to a day.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment. Lift the tofu out of the marinade and arrange the pieces on the parchment-covered baking sheet. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes, until the edges are just beginning to color and the marinade sets on the surface of the tofu. Remove from the heat.

3. In a large bowl, combine all of the salad ingredients. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and toss with the salad. If desired, transfer to a platter. Garnish with the tofu strips and serve.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The chopped vegetables can be prepared up to a day ahead and refrigerated in a well covered container. The tofu marinade will keep for two days in the refrigerator. The baked seasoned tofu will keep for several days in the refrigerator.

Nutritional information per serving: 317 calories; 20 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 8 grams polyunsaturated fat; 9 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 milligram cholesterol; 19 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 470 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 16 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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U.S., state to fund battery research at Argonne

The U.S. Department of Energy has chosen Argonne National Laboratory, in suburban Lemont, to become America's capital for battery technology.

The announcement, to be made Friday, will include building a research facility to coordinate the clout and brainpower of five Department of Energy national laboratories, five universities and four private companies that independently have been working to advance battery technology.

Funded with $120 million from the DOE and a $35 million commitment from Gov. Pat Quinn, the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research is expected to develop lighter, cheaper batteries for everything from smartphones to electric vehicles that store more power and charge faster.

Chicago would be the fourth so-called Energy Innovation Hub that the DOE has established since 2010. The concept is modeled after research and development programs that spurred breakthroughs in the past, such as the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb.

Other hubs have been devoted to modeling and simulating nuclear reactors, developing fuels from sunlight, and improving energy efficiency in buildings.

Like the space race of the 1960s, the U.S. is battling other nations to be at the forefront of a rapidly growing $42 billion worldwide market for rechargeable batteries that's growing 8.6 percent per year. That number comes from research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, which predicts the industry's growth rate and revenues to double by 2018.

A breakthrough in battery technology would have major implications for the auto, wind and solar industries. In particular, the wind and solar industries are looking for affordable batteries to store intermittent power so they can provide power even when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining.

Batteries that store electricity from the electrical grid are also in demand in countries where outages are frequent or in the case of natural disasters that black out cities for days.

"We're going to be the center of the universe when it comes to charging batteries and storing energy," Quinn told the Tribune in an interview Thursday.

Quinn committed the state to giving $5 million to the project through a capital construction budget he controls designed for job creation and said he will work with legislators to garner an additional $30 million in state funding to help with the building's construction.

The DOE will dole out the $120 million over five years. News of the hub was first reported by Crain's Chicago Business.

A successful battery hub in Illinois, Quinn said, would drive companies in the industry to set up shop nearby and encourage scientists and engineers to stay in the Midwest.

"These people would have the opportunity to change the world. It's transformational," Quinn said.

Earlier this week, Smith Electric Vehicles announced it would make battery-powered trucks in Chicago and hire about 200 workers. Wanxiang, a Chinese automotive company with North American headquarters in Chicago, is vying to purchase bankrupt Massachusetts-based battery-maker A123. As of last week Woodridge-based Palladium Energy became the largest independent battery pack-maker in the Americas and Europe after acquiring competitor MicroSun Technologies LLC.

The Chicago-based Clean Energy Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating the development of clean-energy businesses in the Midwest, will be responsible for ushering technology from Argonne to the marketplace with the help of Dow Chemical Co., Applied Materials Inc. and Johnson Controls Inc., which all have a financial interest in seeing batteries advance. Johnson, based in Milwaukee, also is vying for the A123 battery assets.

In addition to its own scientists, Argonne would be coordinating the research and development from Lawrence Berkeley, Pacific Northwest, Sandia and SLAC National Accelerator as well as students and researchers at Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Michigan.

"I think this is probably the greatest opportunity that we have seen in a long time to bring federal funding that's intended to promote the creation of new companies and jobs," said U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill.

Tribune reporter Ted Gregory contributed.

jwernau@tribune.com

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Officials: Winning Powerball tickets sold in 2 states

Powerball officials say tickets sold in Arizona and Missouri matched all six numbers to win the record the record $579.9 million jackpot; now the wait for winners has begun.

The numbers drawn Wednesday night are: 5, 16, 22, 23, 29 and Powerball of 6.

A lottery official said late Wednesday that the jackpot increased to $579.9 million by the time of the drawing, making the cash option $379.8 million. The jackpot was boosted to $500 million on Tuesday and raised again Wednesday morning to $550 million.

Powerball officials said they believed there was a 75 percent chance that the winning combination of numbers would be drawn Wednesday night.

But many of the customers who lined up at a 7-Eleven store at Wacker and Wabash believed they had a 100 percent chance of winning.

"I've got it," Marvin Harvey, 48, told the store clerk. "This is it."

And Harvey has plans. First off, having a private jet fly him and about 40 others to the SoHo neighborhood in New York City to eat and shop.

"Then take it to Paris and then go on a Mediterranean cruise," he said. "Then come back and share it with the world."

He would also give about 10 percent to churches and maybe start an organization to help the homeless. "You have so much money you have to share it," he said.

Martin Ho, 34, said he has given more thought about how to better his chances at winning the jackpot than he has about what he would do with the money.

"My goal is to have 100 different numbers between all the pools," he said. "I think I'm at (about) 90 numbers."

Ho popped into the 7-Eleven store this morning with colleague Whitney McKedy to purchase about 10 tickets jointly.

Ho said he is part of a handful of pools, including one with 50 numbers split between 10 people. He has also bought some tickets for himself.

As for what he would do with the money? "Change my name, hire a lawyer," he joked.  "I don't really think about it. It's more about the energy."

Zafer Aksit, 63, was a long way from home when he threw in $10 for lottery tickets. The radiologist flew into the city last week from Instanbul, Turkey for a medical conference. While he was in his hotel room in the Loop, he saw on the news that the jackpot had gotten up to $500 million and thought it was worth a shot.

"I thought, 'Why not?' "

Aksit insisted he wouldn't spend the money on lavish gifts on himself. "I wouldn't go on a shopping spree," he said.

He thinks the money would be better spent as investments in local businesses and non-profits, like a breast cancer clinic.

Powerball has not had a winner for two months.  Powerball is sold in Illinois and 41 other states, as well as Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The chance of winning the Powerball jackpot are about one in 175 million, compared to about one in 280,000 for being struck by lightning.

Despite the long odds, the record payout has drawn interest from around the world, said Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery, where Powerball is based. Lottery officials have received calls and emails from people outside the United States asking if they can buy a ticket from afar. They cannot.

"Sales across the country are just through the roof. It means lots of people are having fun with this, but it makes it difficult to keep up with the (jackpot) estimate."

The previous top Powerball prize of $365 million was won in 2006 by ConAgra slaughterhouse workers in Nebraska.

A $656 million Mega Millions jackpot set a world lottery record in March. That prize was split three ways. One of the winning tickets was held by Merle and Patricia Butler of Red Bud in southern Illinois. The retired couple took home nearly $119 million.

Tribune reporter Naomi Nix, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed

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Facebook exec says company is reducing spam despite clogging your feed with brands you don’t like

Recent changes to Facebook’s (FB) Edgerank, the algorithm that’s responsible for displaying items on a user’s Newsfeed, have angered privacy groups who say the new policy will actually produce more spam than reducing it. According to Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici, Facebook’s VP of global marketing solutions Carol Everson said on Tuesday that the social network is reducing spam by using “Suggests Posts” – “non-connected page posts” that show a brand’s ads even if a user and their friends don’t “like” or support them. Bercovici argues that Facebook’s new approach to targeting brands at users contradicts its claims of reducing spam by doling out spam that users don’t connect with. 

As expected, Everson’s response to clogging the Newsfeed with brand ads that users don’t support was: “You may not be a fan of a brand, but maybe everyone in your network is talking about it, so we think you might be interested in it,” and she said there are “literally more than a thousand signals” that go into displaying “relevant” brand ads.

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‘The Inbetweeners’ Canceled by MTV

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “The Inbetweeners” now falls solidly in the “canceled” camp.

MTV has decided not to go forward with a second season of the scripted series, which premiered in August and was an adaptation of a British sitcom of the same name.

“While we won’t be moving forward with another season of ‘The Inbetweeners,’ we enjoyed working with the show’s creators and such a talented, funny cast,” an MTV spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement.

The series starred Joey Pollari, Bubba Lewis, Zack Pearlman, Mark L. Young and Alex Frnka as a group of “inbetweeners” – that is, kids who fall somewhere between nerds and jocks on the spectrum of teenage cliques.

The “Inbetweeners” cancelation follows the dropping of the MTV scripted effort “I Just Want My Pants Back” in May after one season.

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