Global Update: Hand-Held Device Locates Hot Spots of Lead Contamination

Using a hand-held scanner to map hot spots where the soil is full of lead could protect children in mining towns against brain damage, scientists at Columbia University concluded in a new study.

Touched to the ground, the device, an X-ray fluorescence scanner,can measure the soil’s lead content in less than a minute, said Alexander van Geen, a geochemist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and an author of the study, which is in the current issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. The “XRF guns,” which are often used by scrap-metal sorters, cost between $15,000 and $40,000.

His team tested the scanners in Cerro de Pasco, Peru, a town in the high Andes with mines dating back 1,400 years. Samples as close as 100 yards apart showed widely variable lead levels, so it is possible to find and mark off the areas most dangerous to young children, who get fine lead dust on their hands while playing and then put their fingers in their mouths.

“People assume the contamination is everywhere, and it’s not,” Dr. van Geen said. “It could be in one backyard and not in another.” Or, he said, in an untested playground, schoolyard, or any place where children gather.

The technology could be useful anywhere families live close to mines or smelters, which is common in Latin America and Africa, he said. Lead is a byproduct not just of lead mines, but of mining for gold, silver, copper and other metals.

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HSBC to pay record $1.9B fine

British-owned bank HSBC is paying $1.9B to settle a US money-laundering probe. The bank was investigated for involvement in the transfer of funds from Mexican drug cartels and sanctioned nations like Iran. (Dec. 11)

HSBC has agreed to pay a record $1.92 billion fine to settle a multi-year probe by U.S. prosecutors, who accused Europe's biggest bank of failing to enforce rules designed to prevent the laundering of criminal cash.

The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday charged the bank with failing to maintain an effective program against money laundering and conduct due diligence on certain accounts.

In documents filed in federal court in Brooklyn, it also charged the bank with violating sanctions laws by doing business with Iran, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Cuba.

HSBC Holdings Plc admitted to a breakdown of controls and apologised for its conduct.

"We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organisation from the one that made those mistakes," said Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver.

"Over the last two years, under new senior leadership, we have been taking concrete steps to put right what went wrong and to participate actively with government authorities in bringing to light and addressing these matters."

The bank agreed to forfeit $1.256 billion and retain a compliance monitor to resolve the charges through a deferred-prosecution agreement.

The settlement offers new information about failures at HSBC to police transactions linked to Mexico, details of which were reported this summer in a sweeping U.S. Senate probe.

The Senate panel alleged that HSBC failed to maintain controls designed to prevent money laundering by drug cartels, terrorists and tax cheats, when acting as a financier to clients routing funds from places including Mexico, Iran and Syria.

The bank was unable to properly monitor $15 billion in bulk cash transactions between mid-2006 and mid-2009, and had inadequate staffing and high turnover in its compliance units, the Senate panel's July report said.

HSBC on Tuesday said it expected to also reach a settlement with British watchdog the Financial Services Authority. The FSA declined to comment.

U.S. and European banks have now agreed to settlements with U.S. regulators totalling some $5 billion in recent years on charges they violated U.S. sanctions and failed to police potentially illicit transactions.

No bank or bank executives, however, have been indicted, as prosecutors have instead used deferred prosecutions - under which criminal charges against a firm are set aside if it agrees to conditions such as paying fines and changing behaviour.

HSBC's settlement also includes agreements or consent orders with the Manhattan district attorney, the Federal Reserve and three U.S. Treasury Department units: the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Comptroller of the Currency and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

HSBC said it would pay $1.921 billion, continue to cooperate fully with regulatory and law enforcement authorities, and take further action to strengthen its compliance policies and procedures. U.S. prosecutors have agreed to defer or forego prosecution.

The settlement is the third time in a decade that HSBC has been penalized for lax controls and ordered by U.S. authorities to better monitor suspicious transactions. Directives by regulators to improve oversight came in 2003 and again in 2010.

Last month, HSBC told investors it had set aside $1.5 billion to cover fines or penalties stemming from the inquiry and warned that costs could be significantly higher.

Analyst Jim Antos of Mizuho Securities said the settlement costs were "trivial" in terms of the company's book value.

"But in terms of real cash terms, that's a huge fine to pay," said Antos, who rates HSBC a "buy".

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Daley nephew pleads not guilty in Koschman death

Richard Vanecko, the nephew of former Mayor Richard Daley, pleaded not guilty this morning to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the 2004 death of David Koschman.

The case was randomly assigned today to Judge Arthur Hill, a former prosecutor when Daley was state’s attorney.

When Vanecko appeared before the judge this morning, Hill noted he had also been appointed to the board of the Chicago Transit Authority by Daley when he was mayor. He also held the No. 2 post under State’s Attorney Dick Devine, who has strong ties to Daley.

Hill told lawyers in the case that he won’t voluntarily remove himself from presiding over the case but would understood if special prosecutor Dan Webb, who charged Vanecko, asked for another judge.

“This court believes I can be fair and impartial in this case,” Hill said.

The case will be back in court next Monday to give to give time to Webb’s team to weigh whether they will seek another judge other than Hill.

As Vanecko walked out of the courthouse flanked by his attorneys, they made no comment.

Earlier, Vanecko strode into the Leighton Criminal Court Building at 26^th Street and California just after 9 a.m. dressed in a gray suit and tie and charcoal overcoat accompanied by three of his attorneys.

A crowd of TV cameramen, photographers and reporters followed him inside, shouting questions that Vanecko did not answer.

Vanecko went through the security line and into presiding Judge Paul Biebel's first-floor courtroom.

Both sides have the option to ask for a different judge if there are conflicts of interest, something that could arise since Vanecko is such a high-profile defendant and there have been allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct surrounding the case.

Vanecko, who currently resides in Costa Mesa, Calif., turned himself in to authorities in Chicago on Friday afternoon and later posed for a mug shot in a jacket and tie.

Last week, a special grand jury found that Vanecko, who is the son of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s sister, Mary, “recklessly performed acts which were likely to cause great bodily harm to another.”

Koschman, 21, of Mount Prospect, had been drinking in the Rush Street nightlife district early on April 24, 2004, when he and his friends quarreled with a group that included Vanecko. During the altercation, Koschman was knocked to the street, hitting the back of his head on the pavement. He died 11 days later.

Police at the time said Koschman was the aggressor and closed the case without charges. In announcing the indictment, Webb, a former U.S. attorney, noted that at 6-foot-3 and 230 pounds, Vanecko towered over Koschman, who was 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds.

Webb also said the grand jury is still probing how the original investigation was conducted.

Vanecko’s attorneys issued a statement last week saying they were disappointed by the indictment and noted that at the time of the confrontation, Koschman’s blood-alcohol content was three times the legal limit for a motorist.

Koschman “was clearly acting in an unprovoked, physically aggressive manner,” Vanecko’s legal team said. “We are confident that when all the facts are aired in a court of law, the trier of fact will find Mr. Vanecko not guilty.”

If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Vanecko faces from probation up to 5 years in prison. 

jmeisner@tribune.com

gknue@tribune.com

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RIM teases BlackBerry 10 launch with image of first BB10 smartphone

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Black women battle obesity with dialogue, action

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nicole Ari Parker was motivated by frustration. For Star Jones, it was a matter of life or death. Toni Carey wanted a fresh start after a bad breakup.

All three have launched individual campaigns that reflect an emerging priority for African-American women: finding creative ways to combat the obesity epidemic that threatens their longevity.

African-American women have the highest obesity rate of any group of Americans. Four out of five black women have a body mass index above 25 percent, the threshold for being overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, nearly two-thirds of Americans overall are in this category, the CDC said.

Many black women seem to not be be bothered that they are generally heavier than other Americans.

Calorie-rich, traditional soul food is a staple in the diets of many African-Americans, and curvy black women are embraced positively through slang praising them as “thick” with a “little meat on their bones,” or through songs like the Commodore’s “Brick House” or “Bootylicious” by Destiny’s Child. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington Post earlier this year found that 66 percent of overweight black women had high self-esteem, while 41 percent of average-sized or thin white women had high self-esteem.

Still, that doesn’t mean black women reject the need to become healthier.

Historically black, all-female Spelman College in Atlanta is disbanding its NCAA teams and devoting those resources to a campus-wide wellness program. In an open letter announcing Spelman’s “wellness revolution,” president Beverly Daniel Tatum cited a campus analysis that found many of Spelman’s 2,100 students already have high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes or other chronic ailments.

“Spelman has an opportunity to change the health trajectory of our students and, through their influence, the communities from which they come,” Tatum’s letter said.

Jones, who underwent open heart surgery in 2010 at age 47 and now urges awareness about heart disease among black women, was met by an overflow crowd earlier this year when she convened a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation panel on black women and obesity.

“We have to get ourselves out of being conditioned to think that using soft words so we don’t hurt peoples’ feelings is doing them any favor,” Jones said. “Curvy, big-boned, hefty, full-figured, fluffy, chubby. Those are all words designed to make people feel better about themselves. That wasn’t helpful to me.”

Jones once embraced being large and fabulous, at 5 feet 5 inches tall and 300 pounds. But under that exterior, she said, she was morbidly obese, suffering from extreme fatigue, nausea, lightheadedness, heart palpitations and blurred vision. The attorney and TV personality also had gastric bypass surgery in 2003.

Now, she advises women to make simple changes such as reducing salt intake, exercising 30 minutes a day, quitting smoking, controlling portion sizes and making nutritious dietary choices.

Nutritionist and author Rovenia M. Brock, known professionally as Dr. Ro, agrees with Jones. She said getting active is only about 20 percent of the fight against obesity. The rest revolves around how much people eat.

“Our plates are killing us,” she said.

Brock said “food deserts,” or urban areas that lack quality supermarkets, are a real obstacle. She suggested getting around that by carpooling with neighbors to stores in areas with higher-quality grocery options or buying food in bulk. She also suggested growing herbs and vegetables in window-box gardens.

“Stop focusing on what’s not there, or what you think is not there,” Brock said. “We have to get out of this wimpy, ‘woe is me’ mentality.”

While first lady Michelle Obama has encouraged exercise through her “Let’s Move” campaign targeting childhood obesity, the spark for this current interest among black women may have been comments last year by Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, who observed publicly that women must stop allowing concern about their hair to prevent them from exercising.

Some black women visit salons as often as every two weeks, investing several hours and anywhere from $ 50 to hundreds of dollars each visit — activity that, according to the Black Owned Beauty Supply Association, helps fuel a $ 9 billion black hair care and cosmetics industry.

In an interview during a health conference in Washington last week, Benjamin said the damage sweat can inflict on costly hairstyles can affect women’s willingness to work out, and she hopes to change that. She goes to beauty industry conferences to encourage stylists to create exercise-friendly hairdos.

“I wouldn’t say we use it as an excuse, we use it as a barrier,” Benjamin said. “And that’s not one of the barriers anymore. We’re always going to have problems with balancing our lives, but we could take that one out.”

Parker, an actress who starred in “A Streetcar Named Desire” on Broadway earlier this year, understands this dilemma well. Out of personal frustration over maintaining both her workout and her hair, she created “Save Your Do” Gymwrap — a headband that can be wrapped around the hair in a way that minimizes sweat and preserves hairstyles.

“Not just as a black woman, but as a woman, since the beginning of time, beauty has been our responsibility,” Parker said in an interview. Because of that, she said, exercise has become linked with vanity instead of health.

“We’ve turned exercise into a weight-loss regimen,” Parker said. “No. Exercise is about being grateful for the body you have and sustaining the life you have. … Take all the hype out of the exercise and think of it as brushing your teeth.”

With their mutual family histories of diabetes and high blood pressure in mind, Carey, 28, and her sorority sister Ashley Hicks, 29, co-founded the running club Black Girls Run. Carey also considered it a new beginning after a bad breakup and a move across country. Since 2009, Black Girls Run has amassed 52,000 members who serve as a support system for runners.

Black Girls Run has about 60 groups nationwide that coordinate local races in Atlanta, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C, Houston and Greensboro, N.C. Most groups run at least five times a week. Next month, the national running club will take its first “Black Girls Run — Preserve the Sexy” tour to cities with high obesity rates. The tour includes health and fitness clinics with information on nutrition, hair maintenance and running gear.

“We found that when you want to get healthy and when you want to be active, it’s intimidating,” Carey said. “You don’t know where to start. There’s a little coaxing that has to go along with that.”

Parker said once African-American women place value on their bodies and longevity, everything else will follow. It costs her nothing, she said, to walk around an outdoor track with her husband, actor Boris Kodjoe, or run up and down stairs at home with her headphones.

“One good step breeds another one,” Parker said. “You’re going to have one less margarita, one less scoop of Thanksgiving macaroni … and yet you’re not doing anything fanatical or dramatic.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Doping at U.S. Tracks Affects Europe’s Taste for Horse Meat

PARIS — For decades, American horses, many of them retired or damaged racehorses, have been shipped to Canada and Mexico, where it is legal to slaughter horses, and then processed and sold for consumption in Europe and beyond.

Christinne Muschi for The New York Times

A slaughterhouse in Saint-André-Avellin, Quebec, where meat is processed for sale in Europe.

Lately, however, European food safety officials have notified Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses of a growing concern: The meat of American racehorses may be too toxic to eat safely because the horses have been injected repeatedly with drugs.

Despite the fact that racehorses make up only a fraction of the trade in horse meat, the European officials have indicated that they may nonetheless require lifetime medication records for slaughter-bound horses from Canada and Mexico, and perhaps require them to be held on feedlots or some other holding area for six months before they are slaughtered.

In October, Stephan Giguere, the general manager of a major slaughterhouse in Quebec, said he turned away truckloads of horses coming from the United States because his clients were worried about potential drug issues. Mr. Giguere said he told his buyers to stay away from horses coming from American racetracks.

“We don’t want them,” he said. “It’s too risky.”

The action is just the latest indication of the troubled state of American racing and its problems with the doping of horses. Some prominent trainers have been disciplined for using legal and illegal drugs, and horses loaded with painkillers have been breaking down in arresting numbers. Congress has called for reform, and state regulators have begun imposing stricter rules.

But for pure emotional effect, the alarm raised in the international horse-meat marketplace packs a distinctive punch.

Some 138,000 horses were sent to Canada or Mexico in 2010 alone to be turned into meat for Europe and other parts of the world, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Organizations concerned about the welfare of retired racehorses have estimated that anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the population sent for slaughter may have performed on racetracks in the United States.

“Racehorses are walking pharmacies,” said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, a veterinarian on the faculty of Tufts University and a co-author of a 2010 article that sought to raise concerns about the health risks posed by American racehorses. He said it was reckless to want any of the drugs routinely administered to horses “in your food chain.”

Horses being shipped to Mexico and Canada are by law required to have been free of certain drugs for six months before being slaughtered, and those involved in their shipping must have affidavits proving that. But European Commission officials say the affidavits are easily falsified. As a result, American racehorses often show up in Canada within weeks — sometimes days — of their leaving the racetrack and their steady diets of drugs.

In October, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers found serious problems while auditing the operations of equine slaughter facilities in Mexico, where 80 percent of the horses arrive from the United States. The commission’s report said Mexican officials were not allowed to question the “authenticity or reliability of the sworn statements” about the ostensibly drug-free horses, and thus had no way of verifying whether the horses were tainted by drugs.

“The systems in place for identification, the food-chain information and in particular the affidavits concerning the nontreatment for six months with certain medical substances, both for the horses imported from the U.S. as well as for the Mexican horses, are insufficient to guarantee that standards equivalent to those provided for by E.U. legislation are applied,” the report said.

The authorities in the United States and Canada acknowledge that oversight of the slaughter business is lax. On July 9, the United States Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to an Ohio feedlot operator who sells horses for slaughter. The operator, Ronald Andio, was reprimanded for selling a drug-tainted thoroughbred horse to a Canadian slaughterhouse.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency had tested the carcass of the horse the previous August and found the anti-inflammatory drug phenylbutazone in the muscle and kidney tissues. It also discovered clenbuterol, a widely abused medication for breathing problems that can build muscle by mimicking anabolic steroids.

Because horses are not a traditional food source in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration does not require human food safety information as it considers what drugs can be used legally on horses. Patricia El-Hinnawy, a spokeswoman for the agency, said agency-approved drugs intended for use in horses carried the warning “Do not use in horses intended for human consumption.”

She also said the case against Mr. Andio remained open.

“On the warning letter, the case remains open and no further information can be provided at this time,” Ms. El-Hinnawy said.

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McDonald's sales rebound in November

McDonald’s took Wall Street by surprise Monday morning, with a November same store sales report that beat expectations and showed particular strength in the U.S. business.

The news follows a weak performance in October that had some investors speculating about the future of the world’s largest restaurant company.

The Oak Brook-based burger giant reported U.S. same store sales up 2.5 percent on the strength of its breakfast business, value offerings, beverages and limited-time offers like the cheddar bacon onion sandwich. In Europe, same store sales grew 1.4 percent, and 0.6 percent in the chain’s Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa division.

Overall, same store sales increased 2.4 percent, beating expectations of a roughly flat performance. Company stock rose nearly 1 percent in early morning trading, to $89.35.

"We are strengthening our focus on the global priorities that are most impactful to our customers -- optimizing our menu, modernizing the customer experience and broadening accessibility to our brand to move our business forward," McDonald's CEO Don Thompson said in a statement.

While the sales report is likely to be a boon for the burger giant, investors don’t expect company performance to return to normal levels until early 2013. Winter is typically the slow period for fast food chains, with summer typically being the busiest season.

Baird analyst David Tarantino raised his fourth quarter earnings estimate by a penny Monday morning following the sales announcement. He wrote that while company performance "could remain soft" through the first quarter of 2013, "the November sales report supports our thesis that McDonald's can achieve better performance in 2013 as a whole, with results aided by planned initiatives (including increased emphasis on value plus premium offerings across markets), fewer cost pressures, and less negative currency translation."

The chain has taken a tough stance on slipping U.S. sales. The company’s October sales, which slipped 2.2 percent, marked the first decline in more than nine years. Days later, McDonald’s said U.S. president Jan Fields had resigned and would be replaced by Jeff Stratton.

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

MCD data by YCharts

MCD data by YCharts

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Kevin Smith: “Clerks III” will be my last writing/directing effort

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Clerks III” will be Kevin Smith‘s last writing/directing effort, the filmmaker tweeted on Friday morning:

“So with the ‘HIT SOMEBODY‘ shift, the minute Jeff Anderson signs on, my last cinematic effort as a writer/director will be ‘CLERKS III’”

Referring to the ice-hockey comedy he’s writing that takes place over the course of 30 years, the “shift” means now it will be not a theatrical release but a television mini-series.

“Since ‘HIT SOMEBODY’ is now gonna be a mini-series,” the 42-year-old wrote. “Yes – that leaves room for a new final flick before I retire from directing feature films.”

So pending the participation of Anderson, the actor who played Randal Graves in the first two “Clerks” films, Smith’s fans will get the ultimate goodbye gift – a complete trilogy for the convenient store comedy franchise.

The first installment was the director’s mirco-budgeted breakthrough independent film, which launched characters Jay and Silent Bob into pop culture and led to four more spinoffs.

Minimum-wage earners Randal and Dante (Brian O’Halloran) were featured in a series of “Clerks” comics in the late ’90s before becoming the focus of a short-lived animated television series in 2000 (and eventually making it back to the big screen for a quick cameo in 2001′s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”). Smith finally finished their story in 2006′s “Clerks II.”

Or so we thought. Apparently, he wants to end his film-directing career with the characters and actors that helped it begin. However, the tweet heard around the world of cinema suggests it may be somewhat of a challenge to persuade at least one half of the “Clerks” duo to come aboard.

Beyond “Hit Somebody” and “Clerks III,” Smith will keep himself busy with “SModcast,” a weekly podcast, and AMC’s “Comic Book Men,” which has been renewed for a second season.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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New Taxes to Take Effect to Fund Health Care Law

WASHINGTON — For more than a year, politicians have been fighting over whether to raise taxes on high-income people. They rarely mention that affluent Americans will soon be hit with new taxes adopted as part of the 2010 health care law.

The new levies, which take effect in January, include an increase in the payroll tax on wages and a tax on investment income, including interest, dividends and capital gains. The Obama administration proposed rules to enforce both last week.

Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate.

To help finance Medicare, employees and employers each now pay a hospital insurance tax equal to 1.45 percent on all wages. Starting in January, the health care law will require workers to pay an additional tax equal to 0.9 percent of any wages over $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.

The new taxes on wages and investment income are expected to raise $318 billion over 10 years, or about half of all the new revenue collected under the health care law.

Ruth M. Wimer, a tax lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery, said the taxes came with “a shockingly inequitable marriage penalty.” If a single man and a single woman each earn $200,000, she said, neither would owe any additional Medicare payroll tax. But, she said, if they are married, they would owe $1,350. The extra tax is 0.9 percent of their earnings over the $250,000 threshold.

Since the creation of Social Security in the 1930s, payroll taxes have been levied on the wages of each worker as an individual. The new Medicare payroll is different. It will be imposed on the combined earnings of a married couple.

Employers are required to withhold Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes from wages paid to employees. But employers do not necessarily know how much a worker’s spouse earns and may not withhold enough to cover a couple’s Medicare tax liability. Indeed, the new rules say employers may disregard a spouse’s earnings in calculating how much to withhold.

Workers may thus owe more than the amounts withheld by their employers and may have to make up the difference when they file tax returns in April 2014. If they expect to owe additional tax, the government says, they should make estimated tax payments, starting in April 2013, or ask their employers to increase the amount withheld from each paycheck.

In the Affordable Care Act, the new tax on investment income is called an “unearned income Medicare contribution.” However, the law does not provide for the money to be deposited in a specific trust fund. It is added to the government’s general tax revenues and can be used for education, law enforcement, farm subsidies or other purposes.

Donald B. Marron Jr., the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, said the burden of this tax would be borne by the most affluent taxpayers, with about 85 percent of the revenue coming from 1 percent of taxpayers. By contrast, the biggest potential beneficiaries of the law include people with modest incomes who will receive Medicaid coverage or federal subsidies to buy private insurance.

Wealthy people and their tax advisers are already looking for ways to minimize the impact of the investment tax — for example, by selling stocks and bonds this year to avoid the higher tax rates in 2013.

The new 3.8 percent tax applies to the net investment income of certain high-income taxpayers, those with modified adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for couples filing jointly.

David J. Kautter, the director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University, offered this example. In 2013, John earns $160,000, and his wife, Jane, earns $200,000. They have some investments, earn $5,000 in dividends and sell some long-held stock for a gain of $40,000, so their investment income is $45,000. They owe 3.8 percent of that amount, or $1,710, in the new investment tax. And they owe $990 in additional payroll tax.

The new tax on unearned income would come on top of other tax increases that might occur automatically next year if President Obama and Congress cannot reach an agreement in talks on the federal deficit and debt. If Congress does nothing, the tax rate on long-term capital gains, now 15 percent, will rise to 20 percent in January. Dividends will be treated as ordinary income and taxed at a maximum rate of 39.6 percent, up from the current 15 percent rate for most dividends.

Under another provision of the health care law, consumers may find it more difficult to obtain a tax break for medical expenses.

Taxpayers now can take an itemized deduction for unreimbursed medical expenses, to the extent that they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. The health care law will increase the threshold for most taxpayers to 10 percent next year. The increase is delayed to 2017 for people 65 and older.

In addition, workers face a new $2,500 limit on the amount they can contribute to flexible spending accounts used to pay medical expenses. Such accounts can benefit workers by allowing them to pay out-of-pocket expenses with pretax money.

Taken together, this provision and the change in the medical expense deduction are expected to raise more than $40 billion of revenue over 10 years.

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WGN America may be channel of change for Tribune Co.

On Sunday night, WGN-Ch. 9 will air "Bozo's Circus: The Lost Tape," a 1971 episode that an alert archivist discovered after four decades of gathering dust.

At the same time, WGN America, the station's national cable counterpart, will beam reruns of the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" to its 75 million subscribers across the country.

Part of Tribune Co.'s future may rest with programming decisions like that.

Poised to emerge from its lengthy bankruptcy, the Chicago-based media company is expected to enter the new year with its holdings intact, a clean balance sheet and a plan to sell everything eventually.

The expected decision to name television executive Peter Liguori as Tribune Co.'s chief executive — he was the architect of basic cable powerhouse FX's first-run success — points to unlocking the value of the 34-year-old superstation as integral to a profitable exit strategy for the new owners of Tribune Co.

A source close to the situation told the Tribune that Liguori sees WGN America as an undervalued cable network with tremendous potential, if it gets the programming investment required. Developing the channel will "absolutely be a focus" after Liguori joins the company, which could happen within weeks.

"I'm sure that's the plan," said Derek Baine, a senior media analyst with SNL Kagan. "It all comes down to how much money you're investing in programming to get the viewers."

The new owners, senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase, have made it clear that monetizing Tribune Co.'s publishing, broadcasting and other holdings after a four-year slog through Chapter 11 is a matter of time. The process will likely challenge the maxim that the whole of Tribune Co. — estimated to be worth $4.5 billion post-emergence — is more than the sum of its parts. That's especially true when one of those parts is national cable channel WGN America, a low-rated repository of Cubs games and reruns, whose upside potential may dwarf all of the other assets combined.

Broadcasting assets, including 23 television stations, WGN-AM 720, CLTV and WGN America, represent the core profit center and account for $2.85 billion of Tribune Co.'s value, according to financial adviser Lazard. Tribune's eight daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, are worth $623 million, and other strategic assets, such as stakes in CareerBuilder and Food Network, are valued at $2.26 billion, according to a 2012 report by Lazard.

The value of the TV stations, including KTLA-TV in Los Angeles and WPIX-TV in New York, should benefit from an improving appetite for acquisitions, according to analysts. But WGN America, with the help of a few hit shows and some rebranding, could be the sleeping giant on the books. Turner Broadcasting's TBS, for example, has five times the audience and seven times the cash flow of WGN America and carries a distinct brand. It is worth more than twice that of the entire Tribune Co.

Liguori's success at FX Networks could well be the blueprint. After joining what was a small basic cable channel in 1998, Liguori was elevated to CEO in 2001 and transformed the network by offering original programming such as "The Shield," "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," building ratings and revenues in the process.

"You just need a couple of hit shows and then you can start building a schedule around them," Baine said. "A lot of these cable networks, you take one hit show and get people hooked on it and then you can stick another one in the time slot right behind it and start building on that."

Last year, FX had a cash flow of nearly $553 million on net revenue of more than $1 billion, making the network worth nearly $8 billion, Baine said.

WGN America is often compared with TBS to illustrate the upside, and the divergent paths the two original superstations have taken as the cable network model — a dual revenue stream of affiliate fees and advertising dollars — has evolved over the last two decades.

Both WGN and WTBS were uploaded to satellite in the late '70s, filling the programming void for distant cable systems with local baseball and "Andy Griffith" reruns. TBS became a division of Time Warner in 1996 and transformed into a full-fledged cable network, shelving old reruns for off-network sitcoms, benching the Atlanta Braves for national MLB coverage and rolling out first-run programming featuring everything from Tyler Perry to Conan O'Brien. The network dropped "superstation" and rebranded itself with slogans such as "very funny."

One advantage FX, which is part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and TBS have enjoyed is the connection to a media empire with programming prowess and deep pockets.

Meanwhile, WGN has clung to the vestiges of its lower-cost superstation model, meaning cable and satellite systems can't insert local commercials and must pay copyright fees for the programming to the government. Content shifts between local and national, with Cubs baseball and Chicago news still broadcast across the country. There is a dearth of first-run programming, and the schedule is dotted with such fillers as "In the Heat of the Night" and "Walker: Texas Ranger." Even Andy Griffith remains in the mix with "Matlock," part of a block of programming to cover the "WGN Morning News," which is not broadcast nationally.

Not surprisingly, WGN America lags TBS and FX in ratings, revenue and distribution.

TBS is ranked 11th, FX is 13th and WGN America 40th in average viewership among cable networks through November, according to Nielsen.

Of the more than 114 million homes receiving cable in the U.S., TBS reaches 99.7 million, FX 97.9 million and WGN America 75 million, according to Nielsen. One of the biggest holes in WGN's coverage area is New York City, where the station has never quite found its way into the cable lineup. Nationally, TBS and FX are included in the basic packages for Dish Network and DirecTV, while WGN America is relegated to the second or third tier.

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