ComEd chief hopes to spark positive change

Every organization has its low point. For Commonwealth Edison, it was in summer 2011 when a storm left more than 850,000 people without power, some for days.

Customers flocked to the phones for information and were shocked to find that they were not only in the dark, but in the dark ages. They waited on hold for hours, only to hear the same message every 45 minutes. They couldn't find out when their power would be restored, what had caused the outage or how many other people were affected.

Residents raged about ComEd on Facebook and Twitter and to mayors, state representatives, and fire and police departments. Dealing with wires that blocked roadways, nursing homes without power and angry residents with spoiled groceries, these public officials turned back to ComEd — only to receive misinformation or no information at all.

For soon-to-be-instated CEO Anne Pramaggiore, it was a blaring wake-up call: Customers hated the utility.

"We heard our customers loud and clear that summer," Pramaggiore said. "Everything else in the world is instantaneous, and they don't understand why they have to sit and wait without power or information."

Fast-forward to today, and customers can text, call, look online, use an iPhone or Android app or communicate with a ComEd representative on Twitter or Facebook. In less than a year, the company's smartphone app has generated more than 1 million transactions and 59,000 downloads.

"We're on a mission to improve service to our customers," said Pramaggiore, 54.

The good news is that the company has nowhere to go but up. Since 1999, ComEd has consistently ranked among the worst utilities in the Midwest for customer satisfaction in surveys conducted by The American Customer Satisfaction Index and J.D. Power and Associates.

Two months ago, the company had zero pending complaints for the first time in its history after working its way out of backlog in "the thousands," according to Miguel Ortega, director of customer technology and support for ComEd.

"Anne gets it," he said. "I've been around for quite a while. I've been through a lot of CEOs. She has made it a priority to put the customer in every aspect of our business, which is a huge cultural change."

The shift comes at a time when ComEd's parent company, Exelon Corp., is squeezing its three regulated utilities for revenue. The money Exelon receives for producing its mostly nuclear-powered electricity is not what it once was because of increased competition from natural gas and wind.

As a regulated utility that is paid by customers to deliver electricity regardless of which supplier they choose, ComEd is in a position to provide a steady, predictable stream of income to its parent if it can garner support from the General Assembly to pass legislation that will benefit its bottom line. But to get there, Pramaggiore must convince legislators — the same ones who have spent years fielding complaints from constituents about ComEd's abysmal service — that the company can change.

Legislation related to funding the so-called smart grid, passed into law in 2011 as part of the Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act, is making its way through Springfield and is worth about $1 billion to ComEd.

Within four years, Pramaggiore wants the utility that customers love to hate to be the utility that customers actually like, a plan she has spent countless hours communicating to every employee in the company.

"Whether you'll love your utility, I don't know. It's not the kind of business you ultimately love," said David Kolata, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board consumer advocacy group, a frequent opponent of ComEd. "We are encouraged and do think generally that her heart is in the right place. She does want to transform the company. Will that play out? It's too early to tell."

Inspires trust

While Pramaggiore's lawyerlike ability to boil down complex regulatory issues is impressive, her power lies in her charm. Gracious and savvy, she laughs easily and often, winning over opponents with humility and a down-to-earth speaking style that inspires trust.

Gloria Castillo, a personal friend of Pramaggiore and president of Chicago United, said her ability to listen is one of her greatest assets.

"Anne is really one of the highest-ranking women in energy anywhere in the country, but you never get the feeling that she thinks about herself in a way that's different," she said. "She's so striking. She has a unique ability to be so present in a conversation."

Indeed, Pramaggiore, a soccer mom who fits in at a Paul McCartney concert as easily as in a contentious hearing in Springfield, is disarming in her remarkable ability to appear unremarkable. She described her childhood in Dayton, Ohio, as a "quiet, suburban upbringing with good schools," with a father who was a civil engineer and a mom who was president of the local PTO.

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2 hurt, 19 arrested in melee near Ford City Mall

Two people suffered minor injuries and police arrested 19 teenagers during a disturbance involving crowds of young people Saturday at Ford City Mall on the Southwest Side, authorities said.

About 4:45 p.m., a large group of disruptive teens ran yelling through the mall, which is located at 7601 S. Cicero Ave., according to a mall official.

Officials closed the mall minutes later, but the chaotic scene continued outside, where police found between 100 and 200 people damaging vehicles in the shopping center's parking lot, according to a police report.

Two people were taken to hospitals, according to Chicago Fire Department Chief Joe Roccasalva, a department spokesman.

A CTA bus driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to Holy Cross Hospital, said Roccasalva, who added he did not know what happened to him.
 
A “kid’’ was also hurt, and that person was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, also in good condition, Roccasalva said.

About 50 police squad cars assigned to multiple South Side districts, including Chicago Lawn, Englewood and Deering, and a helicopter responded to the scene, police said.

Traffic came to a standstill as teenagers jumped on cars, both parked and moving, according to a police report obtained by the Tribune. Many of those involved ignored orders to disperse, and police arrested 19 people between the ages of 13 and 17, according to police.

The teenagers all face minor misdemeanor charges.

Officers did their best to control the disturbance, "trying to get everyone out of there safely," Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Veejay Zala said.

During the disturbance the CTA had to reroute the No. 79 buses, which travel on 79th Street, as well as other buses in the immediate area.

Earlier in the afternoon, members of the teen band Mindless Behavior had appeared at the mall food court from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. to promote their new release, "All Around the World," said John Sarama, the mall's senior general manager.

The band's autograph signing drew approximately 1,000 parents and children, primarily mothers and girls between the ages of 6 and 13, Sarama said.

About 45 minutes after the band left, the chaos began, Sarama said.

"A group of older youths came into the mall with the intent of causing havoc and chaos and were running through the mall, screaming, yelling and so forth," he said.

Security staff contacted the police department, and mall officials closed the mall about 5 p.m., Sarama said.

The mall did not sustain any property damage apart from a single broken planter, and it will reopen Sunday at 11 a.m. as usual, Sarama said.

In the meantime, mall officials are at a loss as they try to understand what happened.

"Ford City is a family-oriented mall," he said. "We have not had an incident like this [in the past], and I’m still in a little bit of a state of shock actually.

"What would make these youths comes here to try and cause this kind of commotion and trouble?" he continued. "I don’t know. But they did have a plan in mind."

Tribune reporter Adam Sege contributed.

rsobol@tribune.com

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Oscar show promises music, megastars and James Bond

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Bigger stars, more music and edgier comedy are on the menu for Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, when the most coveted awards in the movie industry are handed out during a glittering Academy Awards show.

Producers of the three-hour Oscar telecast at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre are promising a faster-paced show and more face time with first-time host Seth MacFarlane, while honoring the best films not just of 2012 but also of decades past.

“We have more performances on that stage than we can ever remember there being in the past. And we are not trotting people out just to sing and dance. Every single thing you see on that stage will be related to movies,” said Craig Zadan, who is producing the Oscar telecast for the first time with Neil Meron.

“We have devised ways that we are hoping will make the pacing faster … That doesn’t mean we are not going to give as much weight to honoring the winners, but there has been a lot of dead space in the show (in the past),” Zadan told Reuters.

Steven Spielberg’s presidential movie “Lincoln” heads into Sunday’s ceremony with a leading 12 nominations, followed by Ang Lee’s shipwreck tale “Life of Pi” with 11, French Revolutionary musical “Les Miserables” and romantic comedy “Silver Linings Playbook” with eight apiece, and Iran hostage drama “Argo” with seven.

All five are competing for Best Picture, the top prize, in a tight race that has narrowed in recent weeks to “Lincoln” or “Argo” and will be the last to be announced on Sunday night.

JAMES BOND AND MUSICALS

Before then, Zadan and Meron have assembled an array of performers and presenters that almost outshine the actors, actresses, directors and screenwriters who have been waiting since early January to see if they will go home with a golden Oscar.

They include A-listers Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, John Travolta and Jennifer Aniston, along with younger stars Daniel Radcliffe, Kristen Stewart and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

But don’t count on seeing all six surviving James Bond actors on stage for the planned special 50th anniversary tribute to the British secret agent’s illustrious movie career.

“We have a tribute to James Bond which is really exciting and thrilling, but it never included the concept of six guys coming out and standing there awkwardly on the stage,” Zadan said, quashing speculation that Daniel Craig, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, Sean Connery and George Lazenby would unite on Sunday.

The nominations for “Les Miserables,” where Anne Hathaway is tipped to win Best Supporting Actress, has opened the door to a celebration of the last decade of musicals.

The tribute will feature Hathaway, her Oscar-nominated co-star Hugh Jackman, as well as “Dreamgirls” and “Chicago” Oscar winners Jennifer Hudson and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

MacFarlane, the creator of provocative animated TV series “Family Guy,” will also be showing off his vocal skills, and spending more time on stage than has been traditional for Oscar hosts.

“What happens a lot in the past is that the host comes on, talks for a lot, and then disappears for half an hour. We are not doing that. We are having Seth be there a lot, out there introducing things, and that allows for more pacing and comedy,” said Zadan.

But there will be plenty of room for the unpredictable – and that’s not even counting possible upsets when the winners’ envelopes are unsealed.

“We love the fact that people don’t quite know what they’re going to get with Seth as a host,” said Meron. “We live for the moments that happen on stage. Those are some of the great Oscar moments of the past.”

The Oscar winners are chosen by some 5,800 movie industry professionals who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Academy Awards ceremony, in its 85th year, will be broadcast live on ABC television in the United States, and to more than 225 other nations.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant editing by Jackie Frank)

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The Texas Tribune: Advocates Seek Mental Health Changes, Including Power to Detain

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

The Sherman grave of Andre Thomas’s victims.

SHERMAN — A worried call from his daughter’s boyfriend sent Paul Boren rushing to her apartment on the morning of March 27, 2004. He drove the eight blocks to her apartment, peering into his neighbors’ yards, searching for Andre Thomas, Laura Boren’s estranged husband.

Expanded coverage of Texas is produced by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit news organization. To join the conversation about this article, go to texastribune.org.

For more articles on mental health and criminal justice in Texas, as well as a timeline of the Andre Thomas case: texastribune.org

Matt Rainwaters for Texas Monthly

Laura Boren

He drove past the brightly colored slides, swings and bouncy plastic animals in Fairview Park across the street from the apartment where Ms. Boren, 20, and her two children lived. He pulled into a parking spot below and immediately saw that her door was broken. As his heart raced, Mr. Boren, a white-haired giant of a man, bounded up the stairwell, calling out for his daughter.

He found her on the white carpet, smeared with blood, a gaping hole in her chest. Beside her left leg, a one-dollar bill was folded lengthwise, the radiating eye of the pyramid facing up. Mr. Boren knew she was gone.

In a panic, he rushed past the stuffed animals, dolls and plastic toys strewn along the hallway to the bedroom shared by his two grandchildren. The body of 13-month-old Leyha Hughes lay on the floor next to a blood-spattered doll nearly as big as she was.

Andre Boren, 4, lay on his back in his white children’s bed just above Leyha. He looked as if he could have been sleeping — a moment away from revealing the toothy grin that typically spread from one of his round cheeks to the other — except for the massive chest wound that matched the ones his father, Andre Thomas (the boy was also known as Andre Jr.), had inflicted on his mother and his half-sister as he tried to remove their hearts.

“You just can’t believe that it’s real,” said Sherry Boren, Laura Boren’s mother. “You’re hoping that it’s not, that it’s a dream or something, that you’re going to wake up at any minute.”

Mr. Thomas, who confessed to the murders of his wife, their son and her daughter by another man, was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death at age 21. While awaiting trial in 2004, he gouged out one of his eyes, and in 2008 on death row, he removed the other and ate it.

At least twice in the three weeks before the crime, Mr. Thomas had sought mental health treatment, babbling illogically and threatening to commit suicide. On two occasions, staff members at the medical facilities were so worried that his psychosis made him a threat to himself or others that they sought emergency detention warrants for him.

Despite talk of suicide and bizarre biblical delusions, he was not detained for treatment. Mr. Thomas later told the police that he was convinced that Ms. Boren was the wicked Jezebel from the Bible, that his own son was the Antichrist and that Leyha was involved in an evil conspiracy with them.

He was on a mission from God, he said, to free their hearts of demons.

Hospitals do not have legal authority to detain people who voluntarily enter their facilities in search of mental health care but then decide to leave. It is one of many holes in the state’s nearly 30-year-old mental health code that advocates, police officers and judges say lawmakers need to fix. In a report last year, Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy organization, called on lawmakers to replace the existing code with one that reflects contemporary mental health needs.

“It was last fully revised in 1985, and clearly the mental health system has changed drastically since then,” said Susan Stone, a lawyer and psychiatrist who led the two-year Texas Appleseed project to study and recommend reforms to the code. Lawmakers have said that although the code may need to be revamped, it will not happen in this year’s legislative session. Such an undertaking requires legislative studies that have not been conducted. But advocates are urging legislators to make a few critical changes that they say could prevent tragedies, including giving hospitals the right to detain someone who is having a mental health crisis.

From the time Mr. Thomas was 10, he had told friends he heard demons in his head instructing him to do bad things. The cacophony drove him to attempt suicide repeatedly as an adolescent, according to court records. He drank and abused drugs to try to quiet the noise.

bgrissom@texastribune.org

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Promise, peril seen for crowd-funding investors

Crowd funding is widely seen as a revolutionary idea.

A 2012 federal law known as the JOBS Act opens the door to allowing small, privately owned businesses to market ownership stakes in their ventures to people over the Internet.

Companies will be able to sell up to $1 million in equity a year to ordinary investors without having to register the offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission or state regulators.

Before the average person can use crowd funding to stake a claim in a startup, the SEC still must draft rules that the Obama administration hopes will result in U.S. businesses growing and adding jobs. At the same time, the securities cop needs to include safeguards that protect less sophisticated individual investors drawn to inherently risky startups.

That's why equity crowd funding under JOBS, or Jumpstart our Business Startups, has some longtime regulators and securities lawyers squirming.

"It can be an invitation for fraudsters to steal money," Matthew Brown, a Katten Muchin Rosenman lawyer, said last month at a CFA Society of Chicago event at 1871, a center for digital startups in Chicago.

But Brown also noted that equity crowd funding also democratizes small-business financing, a process that historically has given access mostly to wealthier — or, as they're known in high-finance circles, "accredited" — investors.

"The world has changed dramatically, and who's to say who is smarter than anyone else?" Brown added.

Many existing crowd-funding platforms such as Kickstarter don't sell equity stakes in businesses to average investors. Rather, they give consumers the chance to donate money to an enterprise or to get an early or discounted crack at a new product. Since Kickstarter's launch in April 2009, more than $450 million has been pledged by more than 3 million people funding more than 35,000 projects, the New York-based company's website says.

Their acceptance suggests that consumers are willing to engage with companies on a deeper level. As such, enabling unaccredited consumers to invest in companies in small increments online has promise and could become part of the fundraising "ecosystem," says one Chicago entrepreneur.

Abe's Market, a Chicago-based e-commerce site selling natural and organic products from more than 1,000 suppliers, said it would consider crowd funding under the JOBS Act, saying it and its vendors have "die-hard fans" and "a core group of customers" who might like to invest in their vision.

Last month, Abe's raised $5 million from Carmel Ventures, Index Ventures, Beringea and Accel Partners, a Groupon backer. New backers include OurCrowd, a crowd-funding site for accredited investors.

"If you can get passionate people to invest in your business, you're not just gaining investors, you're gaining evangelists," Abe's Chief Executive Richard Demb said. "The challenge for any consumer brand is: How do you find not just customers, but the right customers who are going to tell their friends?"

But there would also be potential headaches for companies raising equity financing through crowd funding, he said.

"You have to make sure that expectations would be set fairly, that no one is putting their life savings into the investment, and that they don't also come back and become a challenge to manage as the business grows," Demb said. "You don't want someone who invested $250 to come back and say, 'I don't think we should expand to the West Coast.'"

Safeguards for average investors exist in the JOBS Act. They include capping nonaccredited individuals' crowd-funding investments at $2,000, or 5 percent of annual income or net worth of less than $100,000, whichever is greater.

Snapclass, launched a few weeks ago at 1871, provides software enabling businesses to provide training online. Co-founder Scott Mandel, who has financed the company himself, doesn't expect to take advantage of equity crowd funding in the future and instead would seek, say, venture capital funding.

"Not all checks are the same," said Mandel, previously a trader and professional poker player. "I'd want someone who could add more than just the cash, such as connections and experience and help with things that I'm not an expert in."

One of 1871's fastest-growing startups is MarkITx. It recently raised $1.2 million from wealthy individuals in its first fundraising round, has seven employees and is looking to add sales jobs. It's an online exchange for businesses wanting to buy and sell used information technology equipment, from iPads to Oracle servers.

"For us, it wouldn't be the sole way to raise money, but it definitely is a viable vehicle to look at raising money," MarkITx partner Marc Brooks said of equity crowd funding under the JOBS Act.

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Jail officers accused of ordering an inmate beaten

Two Cook County Jail officers overseeing a psychiatric ward ordered two inmates to beat up another inmate who had angered them and then tried to cover it up by claiming the battered victim attempted suicide, prosecutors said Friday.

"This is what happens to you (expletive) when you step out of line. You disrespect us, we disrespect you," prosecutors said the officers announced to the entire tier after the beating last February.

Delphia Sawyer, 31, and Pamela Bruce, 30, both six-year veterans with the sheriff's office, were charged with official misconduct, obstructing justice, perjury and mob action. Judge Edward Harmening set bail at $50,000 each and ordered them to turn over any firearms.

A photograph taken of the victim, Kyle Pillischafske, on the day after shows he sustained two black eyes and severe swelling on his face. Prosecutors said the damage took place despite the officers yelling for the two inmates to hit Pillischafske with "body shots" so his injuries would be less visible.

The inmate's mother, Morgan Pillischafske, of Mount Prospect, told the Tribune that she was shocked when she learned about the beating and later heard from her son that he thought he was going to die. He had been doing well there, receiving treatment for his bipolar disorder while awaiting trial on an aggravated battery charge, she said.

"Not only did these guards mistreat Kyle, they took advantage of two other inmates as well, all because they were supposedly called a name," she said Friday in a telephone interview. "You have to have thicker skin than that."

Sawyer and Bruce were working the 3 to 11 p.m. shift in the psychiatric tier in maximum-security Division 10 when inmates tried to light a makeshift cigarette in an electrical outlet, sparking a small fire and cutting power to part of the tier, Assistant State's Attorney Nicholas Trutenko said.

The officers, believing Pillischafske was partly to blame, confronted him, prompting a heated exchange, the prosecutor said.

The officers instructed "two of the larger inmates" to go into his cell and beat him, Trutenko said.

Sawyer and Bruce are alleged to have stood watch while the two inmates struck Pillischafske in the face and head. They then joined in, hitting him with their radios and kicking him in the side, the prosecutor said.

To cover up their misconduct, the officers misled a supervisor to believe that Pillischafske hurt himself by banging his head against a shower wall during a suicide attempt, the charges alleged.

The two later lied repeatedly to a grand jury investigating the beating, Trutenko said.

After their arrest Thursday, both officers were stripped of police powers and suspended with pay pending an internal disciplinary hearing next week, said Frank Bilecki, the sheriff's spokesman.

A lawsuit filed by Pillischafske against the officers, the county and Sheriff Tom Dart is pending in federal court.

Bruce, of Chicago, and Sawyer, of Justice, are both married mothers of two and have no criminal records or disciplinary history with the Sheriff's Department, according to their attorneys.

Peter Hickey, Sawyer's attorney, noted she was in charge of a very volatile tier of "psychiatrically disturbed patients."

"These aren't choir boys from St. Patrick's parish," Hickey told the judge.

Pillischafske, now 19, was jailed at the time of the beating on a charge he intentionally caused a car crash in a botched suicide attempt, injuring a woman in the other car. He pleaded guilty a few weeks later to aggravated battery and was sentenced to probation, court records show.

Pillischafske's mother said despite her son's mental health issues, he is a "pretty likable kid" who loves music, plays bass guitar and is hoping to go to college.

"Kyle needs to move on from this," she said. "The whole thing was very unfortunate."

jmeisner@tribune.com

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Who needs an Oscar? Hollywood basks in industry’s comeback

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The moguls of Hollywood might engage in more backslapping than usual at Sunday’s Oscars, and it won’t necessarily be over those golden statuettes.

The tuxedoed movie studio chiefs can boast about an unusually large number of blockbuster films in 2012 that lifted ticket sales for the first time in three years and stemmed a seven-year free fall in sales of DVDs and other home entertainment products.

But they can also show crucial progress on their home entertainment strategy, digital downloads and social media, plus lucrative long-term content deals with new players on the scene.

Tinseltown might just be striking the right balance between making what people want to see, getting it to them in a way that works and letting them share their buzz over social media.

Hollywood is a famously cyclical business that can hit a slump even in the best of economic times. But the recent spate of hit-making has put the industry on a high.

Take “The Avengers,” a mashup of Marvel comic super heroes released by Walt Disney Co, that pulled in $ 623 million in domestic sales and was one of the five 2012 movies with ticket sales of more than $ 300 million, an industry record, according to the box office unit of Hollywood.com. The movie cost about $ 220 million to make.

Two other films – Warner Brothers’ first Batman movie in four years “The Dark Knight Rises” and Lionsgate Entertainment’s “The Hunger Games” — each topped $ 400 million, more than any film released in 2011.

These three films won’t get much attention at the Academy Awards on Sunday and only “The Avengers” garnered a nomination, for Best Visual Effects. But in a another sign of Hollywood’s winning year, six of the nine competitors for Best Picture hauled in at least $ 100 million apiece at U.S. and Canadian theaters.

James Bond also returned from a four-year absence with a vengeance and snagged five Oscar nods. “Skyfall,” made jointly by MGM and Sony Pictures, grossed $ 304 million in domestic ticket sales and $ 1.1 billion internationally – the most of any of the 24 Bond films tracked by Box Office Mojo, and nearly twice as much as the second-ranked film, “Quantum of Solace,” in 2008.

“It was a terrific year,” said Universal Pictures Chairman Adam Fogelson, whose studio made “Ted” and Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” both with box office sales over $ 200 million. “Give consumers something that’s interesting and you can still get them to come out of their house.”

U.S. and Canadian movie theaters sold more than 1.3 billion tickets in 2012, a 5.3 percent hike and the second time in five years that ticket sales increased. That propelled the box office to a record $ 10.8 billion, up nearly 5.8 percent.

‘ASK ME NEXT YEAR’

The hit parade wasn’t enough to turn the tide on the prolonged slide in DVD sales, which fell another 10 percent last year. But in a sign that studios and consumers are synching up on digital offerings, movie downloads, video on demand and streaming services like Netflix saw an increase in sales of 28.5 percent to $ 5.1 billion, according to the industry’s Digital Entertainment Group.

The digital growth pushed the overall revenue figure for DVDs and home entertainment up by 0.2 percent, a step in the right direction.

“Consumers are getting comfortable with digital technology and are using it more,” said David Bishop, president of Worldwide Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

And Hollywood’s studios seem to be feeling the same thing.

News Corp’s Fox increased sales of digital downloads of its movies on services like Apple’s iTunes and Amazon.com, dropping the price from $ 20 apiece to $ 15, and making them available two weeks ahead of sales of the same movies on DVD.

“We’re making it easy for the consumer who says, ‘I didn’t see the movie or forgot to get a DVD’ to just push a button,” Fox studio Chairman Jim Gianopulos said.

“The result is that we had twice as many downloads of ‘Taken 2′ and ‘Prometheus’ than we did of ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’”, he said, the latter a 2011 film that had much higher box office sales than other of the two.

Then there were advances in getting the word out.

Lionsgate boosted ticket sales for “The Hunger Games” in what analysts say was Hollywood’s most aggressive online marketing push. The studio stoked interest among the film’s core younger audience by starting a year early with a near-constant use of Twitter and Facebook, a Tumblr blog, a YouTube Channel, and live streaming of the premiere on Yahoo.

The studios also saw a new cadre of bidders like Google, Amazon, Apple and Netflix lining up for rights to bring Hollywood movies into the living room. In December, Disney landed a deal with Netflix to stream its movies to television that could bring in an estimated $ 350 million in revenue a year, more than its current contracts.

Despite all of the advances of recent years, it is hardly certain that Hollywood can keep its winning streak going.

“It boils down to whether the industry can continue to make hit movies,” said Stephen Prough, co-founder of investment bank Salem Partners who oversees the firm’s media and entertainment investment banking.

“To answer that, ask me next year.”

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Lisa Shumaker)

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Drone Pilots Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do

U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Steve Horton

Capt. Richard Koll, left, and Airman First Class Mike Eulo monitored a drone aircraft after launching it in Iraq.

The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.

“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.

That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.

But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.

“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”

Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.

Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.

Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.

That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.

The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.

After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.

But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.

The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.

She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.

“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.

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16 airport investors show interest in Midway

An international array of airport investors and operators have shown interest in developing bids to privatize Midway Airport, the city announced Friday evening.

Sixteen parties responded to the city's "request for qualifications" by a 4 p.m. deadline, indicating they had interest in leasing, operating and improving the Southwest Side airport, the nation's 26th busiest, with about 9 million passengers passing through annually.

"The response generated from the  ... process is encouraging and provides the city with a sense of the strong level of interest in a potential lease," said Lois Scott, the city's chief financial officer. "We must evaluate fully if this could be a win for Chicagoans."

The city and its advisers will review the responses to identify qualified potential bidders.

Of the 16, seven had both the operational and financial capabilities sought in the RFQ. The city identified them as:

-- ACO Investment Group, an investor and operator with global airport experience.

-- AMP Capital Investors Limited, a manager and investor in airports, including Melbourne Airport in Australia and Newcastle Airport, in Britain.

--  Corporacion America Group, an Argentina-based airport operator with 49 airports in seven countries.

-- Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which is the controlling investor and active manager of London City Airport, London Gatwick Airport and Edinburgh Airport.

--Great Lakes Airport Alliance, which is a partnership of Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets and Ferrovial. Its airport operations include London's Heathrow, Brussels Airport and Copenhagen Airport.

-- Incheon International Airport and Hastings Funds Management, which is the sole owner and operator of Incheon International Airport in South Korea and an investor with 16 airport-related investments.

--  Industry Funds Management and Manchester Airport Group, an investor with interests in 13 airports, including Melbourne Airport and Brisbane Airport, both in Australia, and operator of Manchester Airport and East Midlands Airport, in Britain.

If the city moves forward and seeks proposals, a privatization plan could be submitted to the City Council this summer.

This is the second time Chicago has looked at privatizing Midway. A 99-year lease that would have brought in $2.5 billion died in 2009 when the financial markets froze. That deal had drawn six serious bidders.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said any second attempt would have to provide city taxpayers with a better deal than the widely criticized 75-year agreement to privatize parking meter operations, carried out during former Mayor Richard Daley's administration. Proceeds from the earlier deal were used to plug operating deficits, and meter rates rose sharply.

This time, proposed leases must be less than 40 years, which locks in the city for a shorter period.

Rather than making only an upfront payment, the private operator also must share revenue with the city on an ongoing basis. Initial proceeds would be used to pay down debt issued since 1996 to rebuild the airport, the mayor's office said. There is about $1.4 billion in outstanding debt.

Longer term, cash flow would be directed to city infrastructure needs. The mayor has pledged proceeds would not be used to pay for city operations.

kbergen@tribune.com

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Storm begins to coat Chicago area with snow

CAPTIONS

Tears
A tear drops from the eye of DePaul University student Sam Henning as she is hit by a stiff breeze on West Wacker Drive. Tears protest eyes from drying out in cold, windy weather. (John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune /February 19, 2013)

Staff report

12:51 a.m. CST, February 22, 2013

Between and inch-and-a-half and two-and-a-half inches of snow has fallen across much of the Chicago region, though the snow is expected to turn to freezing drizzle in the next couple hours.

Meteorologists have scaled back their predictions on snow fall totals from the storm, though.

Illinois State Police described conditions as "horrible" and have responded to about 15 crashes already.

State Police are in a "snow plan" and aren't responding to accidents without injuries - those are supposed to be reported later.

"It will be tapering off from the south in the next couple hours, possibly some freezing drizzle across whole area," said Mark Ratzer, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "We may end up coming in a little less."

The city of Chicago has sent 199 plows to work clearing main thoroughfares, according to the streets and sanitation department.

Check back for more information.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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