Clock running out for owners of prime parcels near McCormick Place

The development team behind a long-stalled plan to build hotels and restaurants just north of McCormick Place suffered a serious setback in federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday afternoon.

Judge Jack Schmetterer granted a motion by lender CenterPoint Properties Trust to reject the latest development plan of property owner Olde Prairie Block Owner LLC, which is led by developers Pamela Gleichman, Karl Norberg and Gunnar Falk.

Schmetterer said Olde Prairie failed to show its plans were financially plausible, noting its pledges from investors were highly conditional.

"It's a maybe situation," he said. He gave them 10 days to produce a more solid plan.

"I urge them to take their best shot, because it is the last one they will get," he said. The next hearing is Dec. 17.

Gleichman said she is confident she can get more iron-clad commitments from her team's investment partners within that time frame.

If Schmetterer dismisses the bankruptcy case at the next hearing, it would open the door for a foreclosure auction of the property. This would make it possible for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, or other parties, to bid for the properties located on the north side of Cermak Road, across the street from the authority's administrative offices and the West Building of McCormick Place.

McCormick Place officials are aiming to vastly expand the amenities surrounding the convention complex to include more hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and an arena that could host large-scale corporate assemblies and potentially collegiate sports such as DePaul Blue Demons basketball.

DePaul University, which would like to bring its men's basketball back to the city from its current home at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, is weighing a number of sites. McCormick Place and United Center officials have acknowledged talks with the university.

Opposition to an arena on the Olde Prairie blocks surfaced this week, with the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance writing a letter stating an arena would be out of character in the historic residential area and would create traffic problems. Ald. Robert Fioretti, whose 2nd ward includes McCormick Place, has expressed opposition to an arena on that site as well.

kbergen@tribune.com | Twitter @kathy_bergen

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4 shot during private party at Logan Square night club

4 people were shot during a private party at a nightclub in Logan Square. (Posted Dec. 5th, 2012)

Four people were shot and wounded during a private party at a Logan Square nightclub early this morning, police said.

The Ultra Lounge at 2129 N. Milwaukee Ave. was being rented out for the night by a group of young men when shots rang out around 12:30 a.m., police said.

"There was no noticeable hostility," a spokeswoman for the club said. "It was a normal day, people were drinking. Out of nowhere. . .shots were fired, people got down and ran out and the cops were here very quickly."

A silver van parked in a driveway and blocking access to the club's fenced parking lot was stopped by police as it tried to leave the scene, he said. The occupants were questioned but no arrests were reported. Police said a gun was recovered at the scene.

One of the wounded, a 29-year-old man, showed up at Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center, nearby. Three other men -- ages 24, 26 and 33 -- were taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. All four were stable, according to police.

The club had been rented out for a private party because it had not booked a band for the evening, a spokeswoman for the club's owners said. "(This) was a pretty uncharacteristic night. It’s a rock bar," she said.

The spokeswoman, who said she was inside the club at the time, said there was no fistfight or other indication that someone was about to fire shots. "At least if there was a fight, we could try to diffuse it,” she said.

An upstairs neighbor, 26, said he heard two shots, then a pause, then three more. People started streaming out the front and back doors, he said.

Police said they were questioning witnesses and reviewing video from inside the club.

About the same time as the shooting in the club, a 24-year-old man was wounded near the intersection of Chicago and Homan avenues on the West Side, Police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said. He walked into Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center with a wound to the leg, police said.

Also Wednesday, a 18-year-old man was shot in the Uptown neighborhood about 1:10 a.m. He was taken to Weiss Memorial Hospital, Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli said. He was walking in the 4700 block of North Sheridan Road when he was shot by someone dressed in black, Mirabelli said.

Just after 5:30 a.m., a man in his 30s was shot in the 5900 block of South Wolcott Avenue. He was taken to Stroger  Hospital, Mirabelli said. He was leaving a building when someone shot him.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

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Habla el hombre que definió qué significa ser un hacker

“Soy un hacker.” La frase la pronuncia, sin titubeos, Pekka Himanen, un finlandés de 39 años que publicó, en 2001, La ética del hacker y el espíritu de la era de la información , un libro fundacional en su análisis de lo que significa la tecnología moderna en nuestra sociedad, y la influencia que tendrán los hackers en la sociedad futura.

La entrevista está por comenzar. El punto de encuentro es un hotel céntrico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, pero en lugar de recibirnos en el salón exclusivo reservado con este fin, el filósofo Himanen (recibido en la universidad de Helsinki a los 20 años) prefiere reunirse en el café del hotel, rodeado de gente y atento a su entorno.

Este hombre, que hoy es profesor en la Universidad de Arte y Diseño de Helsinki, y profesor visitante de la Universidad de Oxford y el Instituto IN3 de Barcelona, y miembro del Instituto Helsinki para la Tecnología de la Información (HIIT) es autor, también, de El Estado del bienestar y la sociedad de la información: el modelo finlandés , que realizó junto con el sociólogo español Manuel Castells.

Himanen llegó a nuestro país invitado por la Universidad Nacional de San Martín, la Universidad Diego Portales y por la Fundación OSDE, pero además de esta convocatoria también lo trajo una de sus grandes pasiones: la investigación. “Estamos estudiando, junto con Manuel Castells, qué tipo de modelo de desarrollo nuevo se necesita después de la crisis mundial. Me refiero a un modelo de desarrollo económico combinado con desarrollo humano. Creo que es fundamental combinar una economía sustentable con el bienestar sustentable”, sostiene al comenzar la entrevista. Según cuenta el filósofo, Argentina es parte de un gran estudio que está llevando a cabo en distintos países de América latina, Asia, África, Estados Unidos y Europa.

¿Usted se considera un hacker?

Sí, claro que sí. Para mí un hacker es alguien creativamente apasionado por lo que hace y quiere hacerlo con otros. No necesariamente tiene que tener que ver con las computadoras, se puede ser hacker del conocimiento o de cualquier otro campo. Es importante decir que utilizo el término hacker en el sentido original del término, que no quiere decir delincuente informático.

¿Y usted es hacker en qué área o con qué especialización?

Yo diría en la filosofía, investigación y quizás en la vida.

¿Cómo es eso?

La etica del hacker es un libro que también habla sobre la filosofía de vida, es decir, uno tiene que preguntarse a sí mismo: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa? ¿Qué es lo que le da significado a mi vida? Esas son grandes preguntas que todos deberíamos considerar.

Popularmente el término hacker tiene una mala connotación pero según usted explica, es un error. En su libro menciona otro término: cracker ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre ambos?

Hacker quiere decir que la persona es creativamente apasionada por lo que hace, y lo quiere realizar con lo que yo denomino “interacción enriquecedora”, es decir con otras personas. Cracker, en cambio, es el delincuente informático, la persona que ingresa en los sistemas informáticos y esparce virus, entre otros delitos.

¿Por qué, entonces, los hackers son considerados delincuentes?

Todo comenzó en los medios de comunicación, en los inicios del software. Por aquel entonces los medios tomaron la palabra hacker y comenzaron a utilizarla como sinónimo de delincuente informático para hacerlo más atractivo y dar impacto en sus noticias, pero la palabra hacker no tiene nada que ver con la delincuencia informática.

Según su libro los hackers informáticos ponen a disposición gratuita de los demás su creación para que la utilicen, pongan a prueba y la desarrollen. ¿Cómo un hacker se transforma en Bill Gates? En otras palabras, ¿cómo se transforma un hacker en un hombre de negocios?

La ética hacker es una ética de trabajo creativa en la era informática que reemplaza lo que Max Weber describió como “ética de trabajo industrial” pero después depende de cuán abierto es uno en el desarrollo de otras cosas. No necesita ser cerrado para ser un éxito, por ejemplo Linus Torvalds está a favor de la apertura total y también ha tenido mucho éxito. Internet corre en Linux, tres de cada cuatro smartphones en el mundo corren en Linux, porque Android está basado en Linux. Pero más allá de eso no hay contradicciones, porque uno puede tener pasión creativa como empresario. Lo importante es dar suficiente nivel de apertura.

¿Cómo ayudan a la sociedad los hackers y las redes sociales en situaciones de conflicto, injusticia social o cuando no hay libertad de expresión?

En situaciones como la guerra de Kosovo o en la Primavera Árabe -levantamientos populares de países árabes realizados entre 2010 y 2012- la difusión de lo que estaba pasando fue a través de las redes sociales. Y es muy importante tener en cuenta que las redes sociales tienen un impacto en la vida real. Si pensamos en la Primavera Árabe, por ejemplo, algunos de los peores dictadores que nosotros pensamos que nunca dejarían el poder, colapsaron. Y las redes sociales colaboraron mucho en la caída de estos dictadores porque la Primavera Árabe estuvo organizada a través de Internet. También en Europa se produjeron hechos similares. Las redes sociales tuvieron gran protagonismo en el movimiento de “Los Indignados”, que produjeron cambios políticos en España y en Grecia.

¿Le parece que lo que escribió hace más de una década sigue vigente?

Sí. El libro es más actual ahora. Si uno toma, por ejemplo, el capítulo de open source o de código abierto, su utilización ha crecido exponencialmente si tenemos en cuenta que Internet corre en software en código abierto y se diseminan en varios equipos como teléfono, grabadores digitales y televisores. Probablemente uno no se de cuenta que está utilizando código abierto, pero todos lo estamos utilizando. En cuanto al trabajo empresarial, la nueva ética de pasión creativa enriquecedora está impulsando al Silicon Valley.

¿Cómo ve a la sociedad futura?

Creo que la gran pregunta es lo que hoy estamos investigando en el proyecto que estoy realizando, donde nos damos cuenta que el viejo modelo de desarrollo ha llegado a su fin y ahora tenemos que replantear las prácticas grandes en la economía, la sustentabilidad ecológica. Creo que vamos a necesitar del potencial completo de la cultura de la creatividad y hemos de desarrollar esa nueva forma de bienestar sustentable, especialmente la sustentabilidad ecológica. Debemos tener en cuenta que el planeta no tiene problema en cuanto al cambio climático, puede continuar sin nosotros, pero nosotros no podemos continuar sin el planeta.

Por último, ¿qué trata de decirnos con su libro?

Para mí la clave es que todos debemos preguntarnos: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa, cuál es mi propósito significativo en esta vida?

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lady Gaga buys Michael Jackson’s costumes at auction

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop star Lady Gaga purchased 55 items belonging to late singer Michael Jackson in a weekend auction that raised more than $ 5 million, a portion of which will be donated to charity, Julien’s Auctions said.

The auction, held in Beverly Hills, showcased 465 lots of items spanning Jackson’s career through the years, including costumes and props used on tour and in music videos.

Highlights from the sale included the late singer’s “BAD” tour jacket raising $ 240,000, a white glove selling for $ 192,000 and one of the singer’s Pepsi and Awards jacket garnering more than $ 68,000, the auction house said in a statement.

Following Sunday’s auction, Gaga told her 31 million Twitter followers that “the 55 pieces I collected today will be archived & expertly cared for in the spirit & love of Michael Jackson, his bravery, & fans worldwide.”

Jackson died aged 50 in June 2009 in Los Angeles from an overdose of the anesthetic propofol and sedatives.

The collection of outfits, designed by Los Angeles-based collaborators Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush and gifted back to them by the late singer, were taken on a world tour earlier this year, traveling across South America, Europe and Asia.

In September, British hat designer Philip Treacy designed his first London fashion week show in a decade around Jackson’s auction costumes, which were worn by the models down the runway and accessorized with hats inspired by the late singer’s life.

Gaga not only attended Treacy’s show but was on hand to introduce the milliner’s collection.

The auction exceeded pre-sale estimates of $ 1 million to $ 2 million, and a portion of the final amount raised will benefit the Guide Dogs of America and Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas.

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

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Extended Use of Breast Cancer Drug Suggested

The widely prescribed drug tamoxifen already plays a major role in reducing the risk of death from breast cancer. But a new study suggests that women should be taking the drug for twice as long as is now customary, a finding that could upend the standard that has been in place for about 15 years.

In the study, patients who continued taking tamoxifen for 10 years were less likely to have the cancer come back or to die from the disease than women who took the drug for only five years, the current standard of care.

“Certainly, the advice to stop in five years should not stand,” said Prof. Richard Peto, a medical statistician at Oxford University and senior author of the study, which was published in The Lancet on Wednesday and presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Breast cancer specialists not involved in the study said the results could have the biggest impact on premenopausal women, who account for a fifth to a quarter of new breast cancer cases. Postmenopausal women tend to take different drugs, but some experts said the results suggest that those drugs as well might be taken for a longer duration.

“We’ve been waiting for this result,” said Dr. Robert W. Carlson, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “I think it is especially practice-changing in premenopausal women because the results do favor a 10-year regimen.”

Dr. Eric P. Winer, chief of women’s cancers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said that even women who completed their five years of tamoxifen months or years ago might consider starting on the drug again.

Tamoxifen blocks the effect of the hormone estrogen, which fuels tumor growth in estrogen receptor-positive cancers that account for about 65 percent of cases in premenopausal women. Some small studies in the 1990s suggested that there was no benefit to using tamoxifen longer than five years, so that has been the standard.

About 227,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States, and an estimated 30,000 of them would be in premenopausal women with ER-positive cancer and prime candidates for tamoxifen. But postmenopausal women also take tamoxifen if they cannot tolerate the alternative drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors.

The new study, known as Atlas, included nearly 7,000 women with ER-positive disease who had completed five years of tamoxifen. They came from about three dozen countries. Half were chosen at random to take the drug another five years, while the others were told to stop.

In the group assigned to take tamoxifen for 10 years, 21.4 percent had a recurrence of breast cancer in the ensuing nine years, meaning the period 5 to 14 years after their diagnoses. The recurrence rate for those who took only five years of tamoxifen was 25.1 percent.

About 12.2 percent of those in the 10-year treatment group died from breast cancer, compared with 15 percent for those in the control group.

There was virtually no difference in death and recurrence between the two groups during the five years of extra tamoxifen. The difference came in later years, suggesting that tamoxifen has a carry-over effect that lasts long after women stop taking it.

Whether these differences are big enough to cause women to take the drug for twice as long remains to be seen.

“The treatment effect is real, but it’s modest,” said Dr. Paul E. Goss, director of breast cancer research at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Tamoxifen has side effects, including endometrial cancer, blood clots and hot flashes, which cause many women to stop taking the drug. In the Atlas trial, it appears that roughly 40 percent of the patients assigned to take tamoxifen for the additional five years stopped prematurely.

Some 3.1 percent of those taking the extra five years of tamoxifen got endometrial cancer versus 1.6 percent in the control group. However, only 0.6 percent of those in the longer treatment group died from endometrial cancer or pulmonary blood clots.

“Over all, the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially,” Trevor J. Powles of the Cancer Center London, said in a commentary published by The Lancet.

Dr. Judy E. Garber, director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber, said many women have a love-hate relationship with hormone therapies.

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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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Off-duty cop among 11 shot in Chicago overnight

At least 11 people were shot and wounded across Chicago overnight, including five people in front of a currency exchange and an off-duty Cook County corrections officer on his way home from work, officials said.

The officer, a seven-year veteran, had just finished his shift and was driving his Jaguar north on Interstate 57 around 2 a.m. when he suspected he was being followed, according to Sheriff Tom Dart. He pulled off the expressway in the 9500 block of South State Street and a car followed him, Dart said.

The car pulled alongside the Jaguar and someone inside pulled a hoodie over his head and began firing at the officer, who was still his car, according to sheriff's spokesman Frank Bilecki. It was not known what, if anything, the gunman said to the officer.

“He was shot once in the back, once in the jaw and four times in his arm and shoulder area,’’ Bilecki said. “It’s my understanding that it may have been an attempted carjacking. It was obviously a scary situation.''

Bilecki said the officer was able to make several phone calls to family and authorities after being shot. “He sounds like superman to me,’’ Bilecki said.

The officer, whom Bilecki declined to name,was in surgery this morning at Stroger Hospital, where doctors were trying to repair his jaw.

The officer works in the minimum to medium security section of the Cook County Jail overseeing security of the detainees, said Bilecki. The officer also is in charge of making sure the prisoners are transported to and from their court destinations as well as receiving assistance programs.  He has two sons, 11 and 15, and lives in the Chicagoland area, said Bilecki.

Bilecki said no arrests have been made.

Hours earlier, a woman and four men were struck by gunfire near a currency exchange in the South Shore neighborhood, police said. Several people were standing on the sidewalk when a gunman approached on foot and began firing, police said.

The victims ranged in age from 23 to 44 years old, and their conditions were stabilized at hospitals. Sources told WGN-Channel 9 that the shooting may have been retaliation for a gang fight that happened earlier Monday afternoon.

"Oh man, it's hellish around here," a neighbor said. "It's pretty bad."

In other shootings overnight:

-- An armed robbery suspect was shot and wounded, apparently by an off-duty police officer from the Chicago State University Police Department, around 7 p.m. in the 8700 block of South Luella Avenue, police said, citing preliminary information.

The suspect was taken to Trinity Hospital but no other information was available.

A supervisor for the campus police said the department would have no comment until later today.

-- A 41-year-old man was shot several times in the 500 block of East 75th Street around 3:30 a.m., Police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said. The man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he underwent surgery and his condition was stabilized, Gaines said.

-- At 9:30 p.m. Monday, a 19-year-old man was shot while standing in the street in the 3900 block of West Lexington Avenue, Gaines said. The man suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

-- About 8:55 p.m. Monday, a 19-year-old man was shot in both legs after being approached by three men while he stood in a driveway in the 9600 block of South Luella, Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said. The man was taken to Stroger, where his condition was stabilized.

-- About 7 p.m. Monday, an 18-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 0-100 block of South Whipple Street, Alfaro said. He was taken to Mount Sinai, where he was listed in good condition.

asege@tribune.com

Twitter: @AdamSege

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Student group to go to court over Facebook privacy policy

VIENNA (Reuters) – An Austrian student group plans to go to court in a bid to make Facebook Inc, the world’s biggest social network, do more to protect the privacy of its hundreds of millions of members.

Campaign group europe-v-facebook, which has been lobbying for better data protection by Facebook for over a year, said on Tuesday it planned to go to court to appeal against decisions by the data protection regulator in Ireland, where Facebook has its international headquarters.

The move is one of a number of campaigns against the giants of the internet, which are under pressure from investors to generate more revenue from their huge user bases but which also face criticism for storing and sharing personal information.

Internet search engine Google, for example, has been told by the European Union to make changes to its new privacy policy, which pools data collected on individual users across its services including YouTube, gmail and social network Google+, and from which users cannot opt out.

Europe-v-facebook has won some concessions from Facebook, notably pushing it to switch off its facial recognition feature in Europe.

But the group said on Tuesday the changes did not go far enough and it was disappointed with the response of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), which had carried out an audit after the campaign group filed numerous complaints.

Facebook, due to hold a conference call later on Tuesday to answer customer concerns about its privacy policy, said its data protection policies exceeded European requirements.

“The latest Data Protection report demonstrates not only how Facebook adheres to European data protection law but also how we go beyond it, in achieving best practice,” a Facebook spokesman said in an emailed comment.

“Nonetheless we have some vocal critics who will never be happy whatever we do and whatever the DPC concludes.”

LOSING PATIENCE

Europe-v-facebook founder Max Schrems, who has filed 22 complaints with the Irish regulator, said more than 40,000 Facebook users who had requested a copy of the data Facebook was holding on them had not received anything several months after making a request.

“The Irish obviously have no great political interest in going up against these companies because they’re so dependent on the jobs they create,” Schrems told Reuters.

Gary Davies, Ireland’s deputy data protection commissioner, denied Facebook’s investment in Ireland had influenced regulation of the company.

“We have handled this in a highly professional and focused way and we have brought about huge changes in the way Facebook handles personal data,” he told Reuters.

Schrems also questioned why Facebook had only switched off facial recognition for users in the European Union, even though Ireland is the headquarters for all of Facebook’s users outside the United States and Canada.

Facebook is under pressure to reverse a trend of slowing revenue growth by selling more valuable advertising, which requires better profiling of its users.

Investors are losing patience with the social network, whose shares have dropped 40 percent in value since the company’s record-breaking $ 104 billion initial public offering in May.

Last month, Facebook proposed to combine its user data with that of its recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram, loosen restrictions on emails between its members and share data with other businesses and affiliates that it owns.

Facebook is also facing a class-action lawsuit in the United States, where it is charged with violating privacy rights by publicizing users’ “likes” without giving them a way to opt out.

A U.S. judge late on Monday gave his preliminary approval to a second attempt to settle the case by paying users up to $ 10 each out of a settlement fund of $ 20 million.

Europe-v-facebook said it believed its Irish battle had the potential to become a test case for data protection law and had a good chance of landing up in the European Court of Justice.

Schrems said the case could cost the group around 100,000 euros ($ 130,000), which it hoped to raise via crowd-funding – money provided by a collection of individuals – on the Internet.

(Additional reporting by Conor Humphries in Dublin; Editing by Mark Potter)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Boardwalk Empire” creator on legalizing drugs and making Nucky likeable again

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – The prohibition drama “Boardwalk Empire” wrapped its spectacular third season Sunday night just weeks after the states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana.

To “Boardwalk” creator Terence Winter, who has immersed himself in the history of prohibition to research his gangster epic, the votes feel like a move in the right direction.

“It’s great. I think they should legalize drugs in general,” Winter told TheWrap. “The war on drugs is clearly not working, and I think they should take the profit motive out of being a drug dealer. And maybe kids will go to college and do something else.”

Winter, who reassembled his writers a few weeks ago to begin work on the show’s fourth season, talked to us about whether they ever go out of their way to slow down the action, making Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) likable again, and whether things are worse today than they were in the 1920s.

TheWrap: Is ‘Boardwalk’ making a case for drug legalization?

Winter: Well, I think history made it for us with prohibition. We’re just reflecting the reality of how it went down. I’m not trying to bend the reality or the truth of what happened. It clearly didn’t work. I don’t think people were more disposed to drink when alcohol was legal.

Actually, it had the opposite effect. Women didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted and college students didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted. Leaving the mystery aside might have had a better impact on the country – keeping it legal. In my personal opinion I don’t think making drugs legal would make anybody more likely to become a heroin addict, for example.

This is going to sound strange, but I mean it as a compliment. “Boardwalk” has a way of lulling you into looking at the costumes, and listening to the dialogue, and marveling at how pretty everything is. There are times when I almost want to nod off, it’s so comforting – and then suddenly someone gets set on fire. I feel you’re making a conscious effort to use boredom to really shock us at other times. Do you ever put in a scene that’s deliberately slow?

No, we don’t. I would disagree and say – slow or boring – there is dialogue that needs to be attended to and I think you need to pay attention to what’s going on. The pacing can sometimes be slower than certainly an action scene or a scene with incredible violence. Because we have such wide-ranging characters and such wide-ranging circumstances, some things might seem slower by comparison.

Obviously a scene involving a political figure or Margaret’s storyline, as opposed to something Al Capone is doing, is just by the very nature of it going to feel slow. But no, none of it is done by design.

I mean it in a good way. If you think things are slowing down, they’re not. It’s almost a trick.

The audience is so wide-ranging, too. We have people who can’t stand the violence and they’re much more entertained by the family stuff. One person’s slow is another person’s fascinating.

With the final episodes we got to see Nucky become really likable again. He’s always been generous, but at times he seemed a little too caught up in himself to care about the people around him. Was there an effort to make him a good guy again?

One of the points of this season is that he does get caught up in himself. That all comes home to visit in a big way in episode 11. He doesn’t know anything about Eddie Kessler the guy who works really closely with him. He doesn’t know if he has a family. He doesn’t know Chalky White’s phone number. It becomes apparent that he’s spent way too much time concerned with himself and his own affairs.

If you depict any character honestly, and show all of their colors, you’re going to find something relatable or likeable with anybody. And that’s certainly the truth with Al Capone or Luciano or Tony Soprano or any other famous character.

And certainly Steve Buscemi has an inherent likable quality to him. So when you add that to the mix you can’t help but like the guy.

Imagery is so important to the show, and I feel like at one point this season you did something just because it was gorgeous. When Billie changes her hair color to blonde, was there any reason to do that besides how incredible it looked in the explosion?

Well, she was sort of finally coming to terms with who she really was. That was the episode where she dropped the façade of Billie Kent and told Nucky her real name. She was going through a metamorphosis and that sort of illustrated that a little bit. They were sort of not pretending with each other any more.

Is Billie a natural blonde?

That color wasn’t natural. She wasn’t being Billie Kent that night. She was being the real person underneath. … But I agree it did look great in the explosion. Meg Chambers Steedle, who plays Billie Kent, is absolutely one of those people the camera just falls in love with. Unfortunately the context was terrible. But it was extremely cinematic.

Harrow kind of became the hero of the show this season. His scene of taking down the entire house full of gangsters: Wow. We’ve always been fascinated with the character and for me this season I was more interested in seeing who he is as a person and seeing him take that journey and fall in love and really explore that side of him. Given the way the story was, we knew it would end in violence.

But following the trajectory from the end of season 2, we knew this guy was very loyal to Jimmy and Angela and we knew he would stick around and take care of that kid. And of course Gillian being who she is, it wasn’t going to end well.

Is Gillian kaput at this point? The last time we saw her she was in a heroin daze, and she’s kind of lost everything.

She will be back on the show. She’s certainly still alive.

Is there anybody on the show you think you can’t kill?

Nope. Everybody’s up for grabs and that’s from the top on down. Anything can happen.

We hear so much about how much trouble our country is in. Do you think things are worse than they were in the 1920s?

No, and if anything, reading about how bad things were in the 1920s is strangely comforting in terms of how we think about things today. The level of corruption and the whole idea of going to hell in a hand basket is certainly nothing new. You look back and think, this pales in comparison. I think the more things change the more they stay the same.

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Generic Drug Makers Facing Squeeze on Revenue

They call it the patent cliff.

Brand-name drug makers have feared it for years. And now the makers of generic drugs fear it, too.

This year, more than 40 brand-name drugs — valued at $35 billion in annual sales — lost their patent protection, meaning that generic companies were permitted to make their own lower-priced versions of well-known drugs like Plavix, Lexapro and Seroquel — and share in the profits that had exclusively belonged to the brands.

Next year, the value of drugs scheduled to lose their patents and be sold as generics is expected to decline by more than half, to about $17 billion, according to an analysis by Crédit Agricole Securities.“The patent cliff is over,” said Kim Vukhac, an analyst for Crédit Agricole. “That’s great for large pharma, but that also means the opportunities theoretically have dried up for generics.”

In response, many generic drug makers are scrambling to redefine themselves, whether by specializing in hard-to-make drugs, selling branded products or making large acquisitions. The large generics company Watson acquired a European competitor, Actavis, in October, vaulting it from the fifth- to the third-largest generic drug maker worldwide.

“They are certainly saying either I need to get bigger, or I need to get ‘specialer,’ ” said Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a health industry research group. “They all want to be special.”

As one consequence of the approaching cliff, executives for generic drug companies say, they will no longer be able to rely as much on the lucrative six-month exclusivity periods that follow the patent expirations of many drugs. During those periods, companies that are the first to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration, successfully challenge a patent and show they can make the drug win the right to sell their version exclusively or with limited competition.

The exclusivity windows can give a quick jolt to companies. During the first nine months of 2012, sales of generic drugs increased by 19 percent over the same period in 2011, to $39.1 billion from $32.8 billion, according to Michael Faerm, an analyst for Credit Suisse. Sales of branded drugs, by contrast, fell 4 percent during the same period, to $174.2 billion from $181.3 billion.

But those exclusive periods also make generic drug makers vulnerable to the fickle cycle of patent expiration. “The only issue is it’s a bubble, too,” said Mr. Kleinrock. He said next year, the generic industry would enter a drought that was expected to last about two years.  Of the drugs that are becoming generic, fewer have exclusivity periods dedicated to a single drug maker.

In 2013, for example, the antidepressant Cymbalta, sold by Eli Lilly, is scheduled to be available in generic form. But more than five companies are expected to share in sales during the first six months, according to a report by Ms. Vukhac.

Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, the second-largest generics company in the United States, said Wall Street analysts were obsessed with the issue. “I can’t go anywhere without being asked about the patent cliff, the patent cliff, the patent cliff,” she said. “The patent cliff is one aspect of a complex, multilayered landscape, and I think each company is going to face it differently.”

Jeremy M. Levin, the chief executive of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest global maker of generic drugs, agreed. “The concept of exclusivity — where only one generic player could actually make money out of the unique moment — has diminished,” he said. “In the absence of that, many companies have had to really ask the question, ‘How do I really play in the generics world?’ ”

For Teva, Mr. Levin said, he believes the answer will be both its reach  — it sells 1,400 products, and one in six generic prescriptions in the United States is filled with a Teva product  — and what he says is a reputation for making quality products. That focus will be increasingly important, he said, given recent statements by the F.D.A. that it intends to take a closer look at the quality of generic drugs. Mr. Levin also said he planned to cut costs, announcing last week that he intended to trim from $1.5 to $2 billion in expenses over the next five years.

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