Cuomo Bucks Tide With Bill to Lift Abortion Limits

ALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable.

Mr. Cuomo, seeking to deliver on a promise he made in his recent State of the State address, would rewrite a law that currently allows abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy only if the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. The law is not enforced, because it is superseded by federal court rulings that allow late-term abortions to protect a woman’s health, even if her life is not in jeopardy. But abortion rights advocates say the existence of the more restrictive state law has a chilling effect on some doctors and prompts some women to leave the state for late-term abortions.

Mr. Cuomo’s proposal, which has not yet been made public, would also clarify that licensed health care practitioners, and not only physicians, can perform abortions. It would remove abortion from the state’s penal law and regulate it through the state’s public health law.

Abortion rights advocates have welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s plan, which he outlined in general terms as part of a broader package of women’s rights initiatives in his State of the State address in January. But the Roman Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups are dismayed; opponents have labeled the legislation the Abortion Expansion Act.

The prospects for Mr. Cuomo’s effort are uncertain. The State Assembly is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights; the Senate is more difficult to predict because this year it is controlled by a coalition of Republicans who have tended to oppose new abortion rights laws and breakaway Democrats who support abortion rights.

New York legalized abortion in 1970, three years before it was legalized nationally by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Mr. Cuomo’s proposal would update the state law so that it could stand alone if the broader federal standard set by Roe were to be undone.

“Why are we doing this? The Supreme Court could change,” said a senior Cuomo administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the governor had not formally introduced his proposal.

But opponents of abortion rights, already upset at the high rate of abortions in New York State, worry that rewriting the abortion law would encourage an even greater number of abortions. For example, they suggest that the provision to allow abortions late in a woman’s pregnancy for health reasons could be used as a loophole to allow unchecked late-term abortions.

“I am hard pressed to think of a piece of legislation that is less needed or more harmful than this one,” the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, wrote in a letter to Mr. Cuomo last month. Referring to Albany lawmakers in a subsequent column, he added, “It’s as though, in their minds, our state motto, ‘Excelsior’ (‘Ever Upward’), applies to the abortion rate.”

National abortion rights groups have sought for years to persuade state legislatures to adopt laws guaranteeing abortion rights as a backup to Roe. But they have had limited success: Only seven states have such measures in place, including California, Connecticut and Maryland; the most recent state to adopt such a law is Hawaii, which did so in 2006.

“Pretty much all of the energy, all of the momentum, has been to restrict abortion, which makes what could potentially happen in New York so interesting,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “There’s no other state that’s even contemplating this right now.”

In most statehouses, the push by lawmakers has been in the opposite direction. The past two years has seen more provisions adopted at the state level to restrict abortion rights than in any two-year period in decades, according to the Guttmacher Institute; last year, 19 states adopted 43 new provisions restricting abortion access, while not a single significant measure was adopted to expand access to abortion or to comprehensive sex education.

“It’s an extraordinary moment in terms of the degree to which there is government interference in a woman’s ability to make these basic health care decisions,” said Andrea Miller, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York. “For New York to be able to send a signal, a hopeful sign, a sense of the turning of the tide, we think is really important.”

Abortion rights advocates say that even though the Roe decision supersedes state law, some doctors are hesitant to perform late-term abortions when a woman’s health is at risk because the criminal statutes remain on the books.

“Doctors and hospitals shouldn’t be reading criminal laws to determine what types of health services they can offer and provide to their patients,” said M. Tracey Brooks, the president of Family Planning Advocates of New York State.

For Mr. Cuomo, the debate over passing a new abortion law presents an opportunity to appeal to women as well as to liberals, who have sought action in Albany without success since Eliot Spitzer made a similar proposal when he was governor. But it also poses a challenge to the coalition of Republicans and a few Democrats that controls the State Senate, the chamber that has in the past stood as the primary obstacle to passing abortion legislation in the capital.

The governor has said that his Reproductive Health Act would be one plank of a 10-part Women’s Equality Act that also would include equal pay and anti-discrimination provisions. Conservative groups, still stinging from the willingness of Republican lawmakers to go along with Mr. Cuomo’s push to legalize same-sex marriage in 2011, are mobilizing against the proposal. Seven thousand New Yorkers who oppose the measure have sent messages to Mr. Cuomo and legislators via the Web site of the New York State Catholic Conference.

A number of anti-abortion groups have also formed a coalition called New Yorkers for Life, which is seeking to rally opposition to the governor’s proposal using social media.

“If you ask anyone on the street, ‘Is there enough abortion in New York?’ no one in their right mind would say we need more abortion,” said the Rev. Jason J. McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which is part of the coalition.

Members of both parties say that the issue of reproductive rights was a significant one in November’s legislative elections. Democrats, who were bolstered by an independent expenditure campaign by NARAL, credit their victories in several key Senate races in part to their pledge to fight for legislation similar to what Mr. Cuomo is planning to propose.

Republicans, who make up most of the coalition that controls the Senate, have generally opposed new abortion rights measures. Speaking with reporters recently, the leader of the Republicans, Dean G. Skelos of Long Island, strenuously objected to rewriting the state’s abortion laws, especially in a manner similar to what the governor is seeking.

“You could have an abortion up until the day the child would be born, and I think that’s just wrong,” Mr. Skelos said. He suggested that the entire debate was unnecessary, noting that abortion is legal in New York State and saying that is “not going to be changed.”

The Senate Democratic leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers, who is the sponsor of a bill that is similar to the legislation the governor is drafting, said she was optimistic that an abortion measure would reach the Senate floor this year.

“New York State’s abortion laws were passed in 1970 in a bipartisan fashion,” she said. “It would be a sad commentary that over 40 years later we could not manage to do the same thing.”

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1 dead, 3 wounded in 90 minutes Friday night

Chicago police were flagged down by a man on the street as they responded to the sound of gunfire Friday night and found a woman lying on the ground, bleeding from gunshot wounds to her upper body.

She and three others were wounded between about 5:55 p.m. and 7:20 p.m. on the South and West sides, according to Chicago police, among a total of six people shot Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. 

The woman, whose age wasn't available, was shot in the 1100 block of North Pulaski Road, just a bit south of Division Street in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood about 7:05 p.m. Officers in the area heard the gunfire and headed toward it - that's when they were flagged down. 

The woman was talking when taken away in an ambulance but suffered a wound to her back and a second below her armpit and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital. She may have been stepped on as people fled the scene, police said. 

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Four others survived shootings Friday night and Saturday morning. 

Before 3 a.m. a 27-year-old man was shot in the arm at a party in the 1100 block of South St. Louis Avenue in the Homan Square neighborhood. 

About 7:20 p.m., two men were shot in the 7800 block of South Merrill Avenue in the South Shore neighborhood. One was shot in the knee and the other in the ankle. The pair, 19 and 20, were at a party when someone crept up a gangway and opened fire, police said.

The older was shot in the knee and the younger in the ankle, police said.  Both were taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. 

About 5:55 p.m., a man sitting in his car near his home was shot in the leg by one of three guys who approached him on foot, police said. The 29-year-old was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where his condition had stabilized.

Earlier Friday, a 17-year-old was shot in the hand in the 7800 block of South Morgan Street in the Gresham neighborhood.

Check back for more information.

pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas

lford@tribune.com
Twitter: @ltaford

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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she wanted something permanent.

A lifelong runner, Mariash got the tattoo to mark her 10-10-10 goal to run the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10, 2010, and fund-raising efforts for Livestrong. Less than three years later, antidoping officials laid out their case against Armstrong — a lengthy account of his practice of doping and bullying. He did not contest the charges and was barred for life from competing in Olympic sports.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Mariash, of Wilson, Wyo., said of the antidoping officials’ report, released in October, and Armstrong’s subsequent confession to Oprah Winfrey. “When I look at the tattoo now, I just think of living strong, and it’s more connected to the cancer fight and optimal health than Lance.”

Mariash is among those dealing with the fallout from Armstrong’s descent. She is not alone in having Livestrong permanently emblazoned on her skin.

Now the tattoos are a complicated, internationally recognized symbol of both an epic crusade against cancer and a cyclist who stood defiant in the face of accusations for years but ultimately admitted to lying.

The Internet abounds with epidermal reminders of the power of the Armstrong and Livestrong brands: the iconic yellow bracelet permanently wrapped around a wrist; block letters stretching along a rib cage; a heart on a foot bearing the word Livestrong; a mural on a back depicting Armstrong with the years of his now-stripped seven Tour de France victories and the phrase “ride with pride.”

While history has provided numerous examples of ill-fated tattoos to commemorate lovers, sports teams, gang membership and bands that break up, the Livestrong image is a complex one, said Michael Atkinson, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied tattoos.

“People often regret the pop culture tattoos, the mass commodified tattoos,” said Atkinson, who has a Guns N’ Roses tattoo as a marker of his younger days. “A lot of people can’t divorce the movement from Lance Armstrong, and the Livestrong movement is a social movement. It’s very real and visceral and embodied in narrative survivorship. But we’re still not at a place where we look at a tattoo on the body and say that it’s a meaningful thing to someone.”

Geoff Livingston, a 40-year-old marketing professional in Washington, D.C., said that since Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey, he has received taunts on Twitter and inquiries at the gym regarding the yellow Livestrong armband tattoo that curls around his right bicep.

“People see it and go, ‘Wow,’ ” he said, “But I’m not going to get rid of it, and I’m not going to stop wearing short sleeves because of it. It’s about my family, not Lance Armstrong.”

Livingston got the tattoo in 2010 to commemorate his brother-in-law, who was told he had cancer and embarked on a fund-raising campaign for the charity. If he could raise $5,000, he agreed to get a tattoo. Within four days, the goal was exceeded, and Livingston went to a tattoo parlor to get his seventh tattoo.

“It’s actually grown in emotional significance for me,” Livingston said of the tattoo. “It brought me closer to my sister. It was a big statement of support.”

For Eddie Bonds, co-owner of Rabbit Bicycle in Hill City, S.D., getting a Livestrong tattoo was also a reflection of the growth of the sport of cycling. His wife, Joey, operates a tattoo parlor in front of their store, and in 2006 she designed a yellow Livestrong band that wraps around his right calf, topped off with a series of small cyclists.

“He kept breaking the Livestrong bands,” Joey Bonds said. “So it made more sense to tattoo it on him.”

“It’s about the cancer, not Lance,” Eddie Bonds said.

That was also the case for Jeremy Nienhouse, a 37-year old in Denver, Colo., who used a Livestrong tattoo to commemorate his own triumph over testicular cancer.

Given the diagnosis in 2004, Nienhouse had three rounds of chemotherapy, which ended on March 15, 2005, the date he had tattooed on his left arm the day after his five-year anniversary of being cancer free in 2010. It reads: “3-15-05” and “LIVESTRONG” on the image of a yellow band.

Nienhouse said he had heard about Livestrong and Armstrong’s own battle with the cancer around the time he learned he had cancer, which alerted him to the fact that even though he was young and healthy, he, too, could have cancer.

“On a personal level,” Nienhouse said, “he sounds like kind of a jerk. But if he hadn’t been in the public eye, I don’t know if I would have been diagnosed when I had been.”

Nienhouse said he had no plans to have the tattoo removed.

As for Mariash, she said she read every page of the antidoping officials’ report. She soon donated her Livestrong shirts, shorts and running gear. She watched Armstrong’s confession to Winfrey and wondered if his apology was an effort to reduce his ban from the sport or a genuine appeal to those who showed their support to him and now wear a visible sign of it.

“People called me ‘Miss Livestrong,’ ” Mariash said. “It was part of my identity.”

She also said she did not plan to have her tattoo removed.

“I wanted to show it’s forever,” she said. “Cancer isn’t something that just goes away from people. I wanted to show this is permanent and keep people remembering the fight.”

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Illinois corporate tax credits swelled to $161 million 2011

When lawmakers raised taxes on Illinois residents and businesses, they also increased corporate income tax breaks for a select group of companies.

In 2011, businesses were eligible to claim about $161 million in tax credits — double from the prior year — mostly because of the increase to 5 percent from 3 percent in the state's personal income tax rate, which is a factor in determining the value of the incentives. The boost marked the largest increase in the Economic Development for a Growing Economy tax credit program, the state's main economic development program, since its creation in 1999.

Deere & Co., Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc., whose leader severely criticized lawmakers for tax hikes, were among dozens of companies that received more robust tax breaks. Some companies' deals also allowed them to be in line to receive tax incentives even while laying off workers or lowering wages.

The EDGE program allows a business to claim a credit against its corporate income tax liability if it agrees to create and/or retain jobs and make an investment in the state of at least $1 million, for companies with fewer than 100 workers, and at least $5 million for larger companies.

Once accepted into the program, which typically lasts 10 years, a company applies on an annual basis for a tax credit certificate, similar to a voucher, which it can claim when it files its taxes.

Marcelyn Love, a spokeswoman with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which administers the program, said that under the tax credit program companies make investments and employ workers, practices that otherwise would not have occurred without the credits.

"Both the private investment and the increased employment significantly increase tax revenue collection for the state in excess of the credits given," Love said in an email. Far from adding to the tax burden, she added, these incentives actually generate revenue for the state. "Further, most of these tax credits pay for themselves within two years."

The certificates are the only way to gauge the potential cost and scope of the program, because tax filings are not public. The Tribune obtained the 2011 certificates data, the latest year available, under the state's Freedom of Information Act. Companies have as many as five years to redeem a certificate.

After a deal is finalized, a company has two years to meet its side of the bargain and begin applying for certificates. Thus, the increase in the total value of 2011 tax breaks is also the result of companies receiving certificates for the first time. For example, Ford Motor Co. began applying for its certificates in 2010 from a 2007 deal.

During Gov. Pat Quinn's administration, companies have received increasingly larger deals. Many have been for retaining jobs, according to a Tribune analysis. In 2011, Sears Holdings Corp. was offered a tax credit package worth $150 million over 10 years to keep its headquarters in the state and retain at least 4,250 full-time jobs. The company, which after the deal was announced revealed that it was closing 125 stores nationwide, has yet to apply for a certificate. Five of those stores were in Illinois. State officials have said that during a recession, when few jobs are created, it's important to focus on retaining workers.

Chris Brathwaite, a Sears spokesman, said the company's employment level at its headquarters is higher than the more than 6,000 jobs it had when the deal was approved, but he declined to provide figures.

In general, the value of a certificate equals the number of jobs created and/or retained, multiplied by wages tied to those jobs and the state's personal income tax rate.

That means companies that didn't add one worker and kept wages at the 2010 rate received a 67 percent boost to their 2011 corporate income tax break. Just like individuals, corporations also registered a tax rate increase in 2011. Lawmakers set the new corporate income tax rate at 7 percent, up from 4.8 percent. The increases in breaks partially offset that hike.

The formula under which companies become eligible to receive tax breaks was aimed at encouraging job creation and increasing employee wages. Still, the 2011 data revealed that some companies made deals to allow job cuts and still qualify for incentives, a practice known as "normal attrition."

A case in point is Motorola Mobility. For the past two years, Motorola Mobility has qualified for certificates worth a total of $22.6 million while slowly chipping away at its workforce. Late last year, the smartphone-maker, which was acquired by Google Inc. in May, announced it was laying off 20 percent of its global workforce. Locally, the company cut hundreds of workers, bringing its Illinois head count to about 2,300, a figure that would make it ineligible for a 2013 certificate unless it boosts its workforce before the end of the year.

The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity said the EDGE program played a crucial role in keeping Motorola Mobility in Illinois after it was acquired by Google. Its presence, the agency said, is drawing more technology investment and jobs to the state.

A state lawmaker wants the state to end the wiggle room practice, cap at $100 million the annual amount of tax breaks awarded and remove the investment bar so more small and medium-size businesses can qualify for breaks.

"Large multinationals are getting all the breaks," said Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, adding that his focus is to modernize the program and increase accountability.

Franks' House Bill 1336 would also limit the length of the tax breaks to five years and require that companies pay workers at least the median salary of their occupation as determined by federal data. The bill also eliminates the provision requiring companies to make a capital investment in the state of at least $1 million or $5 million, depending on their size. And it creates a nine-member board to oversee the deals, with members appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate.

Franks said that the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity shouldn't promote the program while also negotiating deals with companies, because it creates a conflict of interest.

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Passengers leave crippled ship

MOBILE, Alabama—

A crippled cruise ship that lost power for more than four days in the Gulf of Mexico was pulled into a port in Mobile, Alabama, late on Thursday as passengers cheered the end of a "hellish" voyage marked by overflowing toilets and stinking cabins.

Tugboats pulled the Carnival Triumph into port in a drama that played out live on U.S. cable news stations, creating another public relations nightmare for cruise giant Carnival Corp. Last year, its Costa Concordia luxury ship grounded off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people.

Exhausted passengers lined the ship's decks, waving towels and flashlights and cheering as it pulled into dock, while hundreds of people watched from the shore.

Carnival officials said it could take up to five hours for the more than 4,200 people on board to disembark the ship, which has only one working elevator.

Once on solid ground, many passengers still had a lengthy journey ahead. More than 100 buses were lined up waiting to carry passengers on a seven-hour bus ride to Galveston, Texas, while others had elected to stay overnight in hotels in Mobile before flying home, Carnival said.

An engine fire on Sunday knocked out power and plumbing across most of the 893-foot vessel and left it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico. The ship, which went into service in 1999, was on a four-day cruise and on its way back from a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

Over the last four days, passengers described an overpowering stench on parts of the ship and complained to relatives and media by cellphone that toilets and drainpipes overflowed, soaking many cabins and interior passages in sewage and turning the vessel into what some have described as a giant Petri dish.

"The thing I'm looking forward to most is having a working toilet and not having to breathe in the smell of fecal matter," said Jacob Combs, an Austin, Texas-based sales executive with a healthcare and hospice company.

Combs, 30, who said he had been traveling with friends and family on the Triumph, had nothing but praise for its crew members, saying they had gone through "hell" cleaning up after some of the passengers on the sea cruise.

"Just imagine the filth," Combs told Reuters. "People were doing crazy things and going to the bathroom in sinks and showers. It was inhuman. The stewards would go in and clean it all up. They were constantly cleaning," he said.

Officials greeted passengers with warm food and blankets and cell phones. Carnival Cruise Lines Chief Executive Gerry Cahill told reporters he planned to board the ship and personally apologize to passengers for their ordeal.

"I know the conditions on board were very poor," he said. "I know it was difficult. I want to apologize for subjecting our guests to that," he said.

"We pride ourselves with providing our guests with a great vacation experience and clearly we failed in this particular case."

Operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, the flagship brand of Carnival Corp, the ship left Galveston a week ago carrying 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew. It was supposed to return there on Monday.

A Coast Guard cutter escorted the Triumph on its long voyage into port since Monday, and a Coast Guard helicopter ferried about 3,000 lbs of equipment including a generator to the stricken ship late on Wednesday.

Earlier in the week, some passengers reported on the poor conditions on the Triumph. They said people were getting sick and passengers had been told to use plastic "biohazard" bags as makeshift toilets.

Smoke from the engine fire was so thick that passengers on the lower decks in the rear of the ship had to be permanently evacuated and slept the rest of the voyage on the decks under sheets, passengers said.

'VERY CHALLENGING CIRCUMSTANCES'

Cahill has issued several apologies and Carnival, the world's largest cruise company, says passengers will receive a full credit for the cruise plus transportation expenses, a future cruise credit equal to the amount paid for this voyage, plus a payment of $500 a person to help compensate for the "very challenging circumstances" aboard the ship.

Mary Poret, who spoke to her 12-year-old daughter aboard the Triumph on Monday, rejected Cahill's apology in comments to CNN on Thursday, as she waited anxiously in Mobile with a friend for the Triumph's arrival.

"Seeing urine and feces sloshing in the halls, sleeping on the floor, nothing to eat, people fighting over food, $500? What's the emotional cost? You can't put money on that," Poret said.

Some passengers said conditions onboard improved on Thursday after the generator was delivered to the ship, providing power for a grill to cook hot food.

Carnival Corp Chairman and CEO Micky Arison faced criticism in January 2012 for failing to travel to Italy and take personal charge of the Costa Concordia crisis after the luxury cruise ship operated by Carnival's Costa Cruises brand grounded on rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio. The tragedy unleashed numerous lawsuits against his company.

The cruise ship mogul has taken a low-key approach to the Triumph situation as well, even as it grabbed a growing share of the U.S. media spotlight. His only known public appearance since Sunday was courtside on Tuesday at a game played by his Miami Heat championship professional basketball team.

"I think they really are trying to do the right thing, but I don't think they have been able to communicate it effectively," said Marcia Horowitz, an executive who handles crisis management at Rubenstein Associates, a New York-based public relations firm.

"Most of all, you really need a face for Carnival," she added. "You can do all the right things. But unless you communicate it effectively, it will not see the light of day."

Carnival Corp shares closed down 11 cents at $37.35 in trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares closed down 4 percent at $37.46 on Wednesday after the company said voyage disruptions and repair costs related to Carnival Triumph could shave up to 10 cents a share off its second-half earnings.

The Triumph is a Bahamian-flagged vessel and the Bahamas Maritime Authority will be the primary agency investigating the cause of its engine room fire.

Earlier this month, Carnival repaired an electrical issue on one of the Triumph's alternators. The company said there was no evidence of any connection between the repair and the fire.

For all the passengers' grievances, they will likely find it difficult to sue the cruise operator for any damages, legal sources said. Over the years, the cruise industry has put in place a legal structure that shields operators from big-money lawsuits.

(Additional reporting by David Adams and Kevin Gray in Miami, Writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker)

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Eric Church leads line-up for country music awards

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – Singer-songwriter Eric Church grabbed the lead in one of the biggest events in country music on Wednesday with seven nominations for the Academy of Country Music Awards while country-pop darling Taylor Swift received five nods.

Church, 35, was nominated as Male Vocalist of the Year and received his second consecutive nod for Album of the Year, this time for his widely acclaimed 2011 album “Chief”, in the 48th annual Academy of Country Music Awards.

He was also nominated for Single Record and Song of the Year for “Springsteen”, which became his second No. 1 single last year, and for Video of the Year for “Creepin’”.

Newcomer Hunter Hayes, 21, garnered six nominations, including New Male Vocalist of the Year and Video of the Year for “Wanted.” Hunter is new to the country scene, having released his self-titled debut album last year.

Country music favorites Swift and Miranda Lambert, 29, whose hits include “The House That Built Me and “Over You,” received five nominations each.

Swift received her fourth consecutive nomination for Entertainer of the Year. If she wins, it will be the 23-year-old singer’s third consecutive claim to that title which is decided by country fans’ voting.

Swift is also nominated for the sixth time for Female Vocalist of the Year and for the fourth time for Video of the Year for “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

Swift was ranked last year by Forbes as the second top-earning woman in music after bringing in an estimated $ 58 million from her album, endorsements and a perfume in the past year. She was beaten to top slot by Britney Spears.

Lambert’s country singer husband Blake Shelton and Luke Bryan will co-host the annual award ceremony in Las Vegas on April 7. Shelton has hosted the show for the past three years.

(Reporting by Vernell Hackett, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Ask Well: Swimming to Ease Back Pain

Many people find that recreational swimming helps ease back pain, and there is research to back that up. But some strokes may be better than others.

An advantage to exercising in a pool is that the buoyancy of the water takes stress off the joints. At the same time, swimming and other aquatic exercises can strengthen back and core muscles.

That said, it does not mean that everyone with a case of back pain should jump in a pool, said Dr. Scott A. Rodeo, a team physician for U.S.A. Olympic Swimming at the last three Olympic Games. Back pain can have a number of potential causes, some that require more caution than others. So the first thing to do is to get a careful evaluation and diagnosis. A doctor might recommend working with a physical therapist and starting off with standing exercises in the pool that involve bands and balls to strengthen the core and lower back muscles.

If you are cleared to swim, and just starting for the first time, pay close attention to your technique. Work with a coach or trainer if necessary. It may also be a good idea to start with the breaststroke, because the butterfly and freestyle strokes involve more trunk rotation. The backstroke is another good option, said Dr. Rodeo, who is co-chief of the sports medicine and shoulder service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.

“With all the other strokes, you have the potential for some spine hyperextension,” Dr. Rodeo said. “With the backstroke, being on your back, you don’t have as much hyperextension.”

Like any activity, begin gradually, swimming perhaps twice a week at first and then progressing slowly over four to six weeks, he said. In one study, Japanese researchers looked at 35 people with low back pain who were enrolled in an aquatic exercise program, which included swimming and walking in a pool. Almost all of the patients showed improvements after six months, but the researchers found that those who participated at least twice weekly showed more significant improvements than those who went only once a week. “The improvement in physical score was independent of the initial ability in swimming,” they wrote.

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Push for online sales taxes pick up steam in Congress

U.S. states could collect millions of dollars in online sales taxes, with members of both parties in Congress sponsoring legislation Thursday that would resolve states' decades-long struggle to tax businesses beyond their borders.

"Small businesses and states alike are suffering from the inability to collect due -- not new -- taxes from purchases made online," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., adding the legislation is a "bipartisan, bicameral, common-sense solution that promotes states' rights and levels the playing field for our Main Street businesses."

Legislation on the Amazon tax, named for the colossal Internet retailer, has languished for years.

In 1992 the Supreme Court decided the patchwork of state tax laws made it too difficult for online retailers to collect and remit sales taxes. So states can tax Internet only sales made by companies with a physical presence in the states. That means online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. collect sales tax in some states and not in others.

The bills introduced on Thursday reconcile differences in legislation that the House of Representatives and Senate considered last year. The nearly identical details in the bills and strong bipartisan support mean the final bill could be sent to President Barack Obama this year.

Members of Congress recently assured state lawmakers they would pass a law in 2013.

In the last decade, Internet sales have gone from 1.6 percent of all U.S. retail sales to more than 5 percent, according to Commerce Department data, a proportion that will likely grow as shoppers make more purchases on handheld devices. In the third quarter of 2012,  "e-commerce" sales were $57 billion, the department said.

Large Internet retailers are worried the tax could drive up the cost of doing business. They would also have to create new systems and software to collect the surcharges, adding to their costs. Amazon said in July it prefers having the tax issue resolved at the federal level.

When the 2007-09 recession caused states' revenues to collapse, Republican and Democratic governors backed the tax as a financial solution that would not require federal aid.

A leader in the Republican party, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell went so far as to figure online tax revenue into his recent plan for overhauling the state's transportation funding.

"The revenue states are losing out on is legally owed, but because of a pre-Internet Supreme Court ruling, states aren't able to collect it," Sen. Deb Peters, R-S.D., said in a statement.

States and cities say they can recoup billions of dollars with the tax. Fitch Ratings estimates put the states' loss at $11 billion.

Some states are considering their own legislation. Florida is debating a bill that advocates say could bring the state more than $400 million.

Small retailers, meanwhile, have said the sales tax will will allow them to compete with massive online retailers.

"While store owners collect and remit state and local sales taxes their digital competitors are off the hook -- and benefiting because of it," said David French, the National Retail Federation's senior vice president for government relations, in a statement.

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Anxiety grows as Chicago Public Schools narrows closing list

After trimming the number of schools that could be closed to 129, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's school administration on Wednesday entered the latest and what is likely to be the most intense phase so far in trying to determine which schools should be shut.

Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett is expected to pare the preliminary list before unveiling a final one at the end of March. She said administrators will determine which schools are saved in the coming weeks amid a final round of community meetings to hear arguments from parents, teachers and community groups about why their schools should stay open.

If a hearing Wednesday night in North Lawndale was any indication, CPS still has a long way to go to gain the public's trust.

"Our schools don't need to close," Dwayne Truss, vice chairman of CPS' Austin Community Action Council, said in front of hundreds of people packed inside a church auditorium in the West Side neighborhood. "CPS is perpetrating a myth that there's a budget crisis."

CPS initially said 330 of its schools are underenrolled, the chief criterion for closing. Members of a commission assembled to gather public input on the issue told CPS officials earlier this year that closing a large number of schools would create too much upheaval. The Tribune, citing sources, said the commission indicated a far smaller number should be closed than initially feared, possibly as few as 15.

CPS then started holding its own hearings and on Wednesday, while following many of the formal recommendations made by the Commission on School Utilization, said 129 schools still fit the criteria for closing.

The new number and the latest round of hearings sets the stage for the administration to counter questions about the district's abilities to close a large number of schools and the need to do so.

For many who have already turned up to school closing meetings, this final round of hearings will be even more critical. School supporters must show how they plan to turn around academic performance and build enrollment, and also make the case for any security problems that would be created by closing their school.

"We are prepared now to move to the next level of conversation with our community and discuss a list of approximately 129 schools that still require further vetting and further conversation," Bryd-Bennett said. "We are going to take these 129 and continue to sift through these schools."

In the past, political clout has played a role in the district's final decisions. Already this year, several aldermen have spoken out on behalf of schools in their wards.

On the Near Northwest Side, for instance, the initial list of 330 underused schools included about six in the 1st Ward. Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno helped organize local school council members, school administrators and parents to fight any closing. He also took that fight to leaders in City Hall and within CPS' bureaucracy. Nearly all of the schools in the ward were excluded from the list of 129.

"It is effort and it's organizing and not just showing up at meetings and yelling. Anybody can do that," Moreno said. "Those schools that proactively work before those meetings and explain what they are doing, what they need and that they are willing to accept new students, that's when politics works.

"My responsibility in this juncture was to focus on these schools," he said. "I had to work on the inside, with CPS and with City Hall, and with my schools on the outside."

Most of the schools on the list of 129 are on the West, South and Southwest sides, many in impoverished neighborhoods that saw significant population loss over the last decade. Largely spared were the North and Northwest sides.

In all, more than 43,000 students attend those 129 schools on the preliminary list, according to CPS records.

The area with the most schools on the list is a CPS network (the district groups its schools in 14 networks) that runs roughly from Madison Street south to 71st Street and from the lake to State Street. The preliminary list includes 24 schools in that area.

The Englewood-Gresham network has the second-largest number, 19, while the Austin-North Lawndale network where Wednesday night's meeting was held still has 16 schools on the list.

CPS critics said the preliminary list is still too large to be meaningful and that the district's promise to trim it before March 31 is only a tactic to make the final number seem reasonable.

"They started out with such a far-fetched, exaggerated list of schools, many of which are nowhere near underutilized," said Wendy Katten, co-founder of the parent group Raise Your Hand. "They might appear to be looking like they're listening, but they're not. They have not done a thorough and substantive assessment of these schools."

Following the commission's recommendations, CPS last month removed high schools and schools performing at a high level academically from consideration. On Wednesday, the district said schools with more than 600 students or utilization rates of at least 70 percent have also been taken out of consideration for closing.

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Music kingpin Jimmy Iovine: “Most tech companies are culturally inept”

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will launch a new paid subscription music service this summer branded under the successful Beats headphone brand, Iovine said on Tuesday.

Speaking at AllThingsD’s conference in Laguna Beach, the chairman of Interscope-Geffen-A&M sought to explain why his service will be better than the ones currently available. One reason? It’s being designed by creative people instead of geeks.

“Most technology companies are culturally inept,” Iovine said. “The way content companies never get tech right, never get culture right. They can hire anyone they want to sing in front of advertisements, but they never get curation right.”

Iovine then said that everyone offers the same service except for Apple, for which he reserved high praise. Steve Jobs was able to create a great service because he mirrored the current generation, boasting a background in both culture and technology.

However, this new Beats service will be “completely different” from iTunes, focusing on curating playlists for its users. Iovine spent a lot of time talking about how the order of songs matters, how Bruce Springsteen spent six months determining the eight-song order of “Born to Run.”

The Beats service customize what songs plays next for each user, relying on tastemakers like Nine Inch Nails leader turned composer Trent Reznor.

“My daughter plays Patsy Cline and Beyonce on the same playlist,” Iovine said. “We can’t just give them albums. They are telling us now. How loud do they have to scream it?”

Iovine, who helped launch both Eminem and Lady Gaga, has a vested interest in helping artists profit, too. While he seemed to praise Spotify, many musicians have complained that they do not get enough money from the service. Iovine said his service would enable artists to see who was listening to their music so they could get a better sense of their fan base.

Members of the audience thought that might raise privacy issues, but Iovine just flashed his smile and said he remained optimistic.

Beats bought music service MOG last summer and revealed in January that it is planning a new subscription service. Ian Rogers, former CEO of Topspin Media, will run the new service, code-named Daisy.

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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