‘Downton,’ ‘Girls,’ ‘Idol’ and more this January

NEW YORK (AP) — Where once the post-holiday schedule was a blizzard of chilly reruns, January is aburst with premieres and finales.

Already, the much-adored British miniseries “Downton Abbey” has made its much-awaited season return Sundays on PBS.

On IFC on Fridays, the hilarious “Portlandia” is back for its third season of sketch comedy poking fun at the peculiarities of Portland, Ore., starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

And NBC‘s mystery melodrama “Deception” has arrived on Mondays. Meagan Good stars as a detective going undercover at the home of a rich family with whom she was once friendly, to investigate a murder within the clan.

On Tuesday, PBS’ “American Experience” begins a three-week documentary miniseries, “The Abolitionists,” spotlighting Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown and Angelina Grimke.

Also on Tuesday, the FX drama “Justified” is returning for its fourth season of Kentucky hill-country crime-fighting led by Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (series star Timothy Olyphant).

On Thursday, comedic action centers at the White House with the premiere of NBC‘s “1600 Penn.” Josh Gad (“The Book of Mormon”) stars as the goofball son of the incumbent U.S. president (played by Bill Pullman) who keeps the first family in a stir, yet manages to make everything turn out all right by the final fade-out.

The Gallaghers of “Shameless” are a much different family. In this dark comedy, William H. Macy stars as the boozy single father of a brood of kids who manage their ragtag Chicago homestead in spite of Dad’s overindulgences. Also starring Emmy Rossum, it returns Jan. 13 for its third season on Showtime.

Also on Jan. 13, HBO’s comedy “Girls” returns for a second season sure to be at least as ballyhooed, discussed and argued about as the first. Lena Dunham (who also writes, produces, directs and created the series) stars as one of a quartet of twentysomething gal pals in New York.

Right after “Girls,” HBO launches the second season of “Enlightened,” an affecting comedy starring Laura Dern as a confused New Age-y activist who’s bent on changing the world.

What was Carrie Bradshaw like before Sarah Jessica Parker and “Sex and the City”? Find out on “The Carrie Diaries,” which debuts on the CW on Jan. 14. AnnaSophia Robb stars as the high-school era Carrie in this likable prequel.

“American Idol” returns on Jan. 16 on Fox. Veteran judge Randy Jackson will be joined by Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban. Ryan Seacrest, as always, is the affable host.

After five seasons, Fox’s lovably inscrutable sci-fi series “Fringe” concludes its head-scratching run on Jan. 18. Stars include Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson and John Noble.

Fox’s bloody suspense drama “The Following” premieres Jan. 21. Kevin Bacon stars as a former FBI agent drafted back into service to chase a serial murderer and his vicious disciples.

My, how Spartacus‘ army has grown! Commanding thousands of freed slaves, Spartacus is primed to bring down the entire Roman Republic as the final season begins for “Spartacus: War of the Damned,” Jan. 25 on Starz. Liam McIntyre plays the rebel leader.

The world of “Dallas” will be rocked during its second season with the death of arch-villain oilman J.R. Ewing (played, of course, by Larry Hagman, who passed away in November while the series was in production). Also starring Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray, this rebooted (so to speak) version of the long-running CBS prime-time soap returns on TNT on Jan. 28.

FX weighs in with an edgy new drama “The Americans” on Jan. 30. It stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell as two KGB agents posing as the heads of a normal American household in the 1980s, as they work tirelessly to bring down the U.S. on behalf of Mother Russia.

On Jan. 31, NBC unveils a new medical drama “Do No Harm.” Steve Pasquale (“Rescue Me”) stars as a neurosurgeon with a great bedside manner who inconveniently shares a body with his sociopathic alter ego.

The same night, NBC closes the book on the brilliant mockery of “30 Rock.” This Tina Fey comedy wraps seven seasons of making fun of pop culture, modern life and especially its own real-life broadcast network — which, like the rest of the TV universe, has even more midseason goodies in store come February.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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Oil Sand Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level

Todd Korol/Reuters

An oil sands mine Fort McMurray, Alberta.

OTTAWA — The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously been believed.

For the study, financed by the Canadian government, the researchers set out to develop a historical record of the contamination, analyzing sediment dating back about 50 years from six small and shallow lakes north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the center of the oil sands industry. Layers of the sediment were tested for deposits of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, groups of chemicals associated with oil that in many cases have been found to cause cancer in humans after long-term exposure.

“One of the biggest challenges is that we lacked long-term data,” said John P. Smol, the paper’s lead author and a professor of biology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “So some in industry have been saying that the pollution in the tar sands is natural, it’s always been there.”

The researchers found that to the contrary, the levels of those deposits have been steadily rising since large-scale oil sands production began in 1978.

Samples from one test site, the paper said, now show 2.5 to 23 times more PAHs in current sediment than in layers dating back to around 1960.

“We’re not saying these are poisonous ponds,” Professor Smol said. “But it’s going to get worse. It’s not too late but the trend is not looking good.” He said that the wilderness lakes studied by the group were now contaminated as much as lakes in urban centers.

The study is likely to provide further ammunition to critics of the industry, who already contend that oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands poses environmental hazards like toxic sludge ponds, greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of boreal forests.

Battles are also under way over the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would move the oil down through the western United States and down to refineries along the Gulf Coast, or an alternative pipeline that would transport the oil from landlocked Alberta to British Columbia for export to Asia.

The researchers, who included scientists at Environment Canada’s aquatic contaminants research division, chose to test for PAHs because they had been the subject of earlier studies, including one published in 2009 that analyzed the distribution of the chemicals in snowfall north of Fort McMurray. That research drew criticism from the government of Alberta and others for failing to provide a historical baseline.

“Now we have the smoking gun,” Professor Smol said.

He said he was not surprised that the analysis found a rise in PAH deposits after the industrial development of the oil sands, “but we needed the data.” He said he had not entirely expected, however, to observe the effect at the most remote test site, a lake that is about 50 miles to the north.

Asked about the study, Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, emphasized in an e-mail that with the exception of one lake very close to the oil sands, the levels of contaminants measured by the researchers “did not exceed Canadian guidelines and were low compared to urban areas.”

He added that an environmental monitoring program for the region announced last February 2012 was put into effect “to address the very concerns raised by such studies” and to “provide an improved understanding of the long-term cumulative effects of oil sands development.”

Earlier research has suggested several different ways that the chemicals could spread. Most oil sand production involve large-scale open-pit mining. The chemicals may become wind-borne when giant excavators dig them up and then deposit them into 400-ton dump trucks.

Upgraders at some oil sands projects that separate the oil bitumen from its surrounding sand are believed to emit PAHs. And some scientists believe that vast ponds holding wastewater from that upgrading and from other oil sand processes may be leaking PAHs and other chemicals into downstream bodies of water.

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Dreamliner fuel leak is 2nd incident in 2 days

Reuters

12:30 p.m. CST, January 8, 2013

A fuel leak forced a Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines to cancel its takeoff and return to the gate at Boston's Logan International Airport Tuesday, a fire official said, the second incident in two days with the new jet.

The leak occurred on a different plane than the one that experienced an electrical fire Monday at Logan, said Richard Walsh, a Massport spokesman. That plane also was operated by Japan Airlines.

The fuel-leaking plane had left the gate in preparation for takeoff on a flight to Tokyo when the fuel spill of about 40 gallons was discovered, Walsh said. No fire or injuries occurred, and the passengers were taken off the plane, he added.

A spokeswoman for Japan Airlines, Carol Anderson, said the plane had returned to the gate because of a mechanical issue, but said exact details were not yet confirmed.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the fire that occurred on Monday, said this issue wouldn't warrant an investigation because there was no accident.

In December, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered inspections of 787s after fuel leaks were found on two aircraft operated by foreign airlines. The leaks stemmed from incorrectly assembled fuel line couplings, which could result in loss of power or engine fire, the FAA said.

Boeing shares were down 3.2 percent at $73.63 in afternoon trading. The stock fell 2 percent on Monday.
 

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Illegal immigrant driver's license plan advances in Springfield

Illinois legislature considers a bill to grant driver's licenses to a quarter million illegal immigrants.

By Rafael Guerrero

12:25 p.m. CST, January 7, 2013

SPRINGFIELD—

A bill to give illegal immigrants in Illinois a chance to get a special license to drive cleared another hurdle today, winning approval in a committee and moving one step away from the governor’s desk.

Sponsoring Rep. Eddie Acevedo, D-Chicago, could call the measure for a vote in the full House, where any roll call is expected to be close. Acevedo said he’ll probably wait until the last minute to decide whether to call the bill today, but time is running short. A new legislqature is sworn in Wednesday.

 “If I’m able to call it today, I’ll call it today,” he said.

The proposal would allow an estimated 250,000 illegal immigrants in Illinois to get three-year renewable license to drive a vehicle. They could not officially be used for other identification purposes, such as for boarding a plane, buying a gun or voting.

To become eligible, a person would have to live within Illinois for at least a year, a provision that would require applicants to provide a copy of a lease, utility bills and the like.

Under current law, people without a Social Security number or proper documentation to be in the country can't get a driver's license and often have trouble getting car insurance.

The proposal won't require somebody to have insurance before applying for a license because insurance is tied to a vehicle, but supporters note it's already illegal to drive an uninsured car whether a person has a license or not.

The bill advanced to the House floor on a 6-3 vote of a House transportation panel.

The bill already passed the Senate. Passage in the House would send the bill to the governor.

raguerrero2@tribune.com

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Kuwait sentences second man to jail for insulting emir: lawyer

DUBAI (Reuters) – A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison on Monday for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, his lawyer said, the second to be jailed for the offence in as many days.

The U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state has clamped down in recent months on political activists who have been using social media websites to criticize the government and the ruling family.

Kuwait has seen a series of protests, including one on Sunday night, organized by the opposition since the ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, used emergency powers in October to change the voting system.

The court sentenced Ayyad al-Harbi, who has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter, to the prison term two months after his arrest and release on bail.

Harbi used his Twitter account to criticize the Kuwait government and the emir. He tweeted on Sunday: “Tomorrow morning is my trial’s verdict on charges of slander against the emir, spreading of false news.”

His lawyer, Mohammed al-Humidi, said Harbi would appeal against the verdict. “We’ve been taken by surprise because Kuwait has always been known internationally and in the Arab world as a democracy-loving country,” Humidi told Reuters by telephone. “People are used to democracy, but suddenly we see the constitution being undermined.”

On Sunday, Rashid Saleh al-Anzi was given two years in prison over a tweet that “stabbed the rights and powers of the emir”, according to the online newspaper Alaan. Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal.

Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.

In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.

Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.

Public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, and Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that has ousted four veteran Arab dictators in the past two years.

But tensions have risen between Kuwait’s hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Women dominate UK film’s “rising star” shortlist

LONDON (Reuters) – Actresses dominated the shortlist for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts‘ Rising Star awards on Monday, taking four of the five places.

Juno Temple, who appeared in the 2007 drama “Atonement”, and Andrea Riseborough, best known for her leading role in Madonna‘s biopic of Wallis Simpson “W.E.”, represent British interests on the list.

They are up against U.S. actress Elizabeth Olsen of the acclaimed 2011 drama “Martha Marcy May Marlene“, and Sweden’s Alicia Vikander, who starred in Danish period drama “A Royal Affair” and last year’s adaptation of the novel “Anna Karenina”.

Suraj Sharma is the youngest on the list at 19 and the sole male representative, having been picked from 3,000 hopefuls to star in Ang Lee’s recent 3D picture “Life of Pi” despite no previous acting experience.

The Rising Star Award is handed out on February 10 at the main BAFTA prize ceremony, Britain’s top film accolades. It is the only category voted for by the public, who can cast their votes at ee.co.uk/bafta.

Previous winners of the award aimed at spotting stars of the future include James McAvoy, Eva Green, Shia LaBeouf and Kristen Stewart.

(This story has been refiled to change word in headline to “women” from “females”)

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Alexander Leaf Dies at 92; Linked Diet and Health

Alexander Leaf, a versatile physician and research scientist who was an early advocate of diet and exercise to prevent heart disease, and who traveled the world to make important discoveries about increasing human longevity and to help scientifically establish the dangers global warming poses to the human species, died on Dec. 24 in Boston. He was 92.

The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, Barbara Leaf.

Dr. Leaf’s career toggled between pure scientific research and medical practice; unusually for the medical world, he sustained achievement in both realms. He was at different times chairman of medicine and chief of medical services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, one of the nation’s premier hospitals, and led the department of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was one of the first practicing physicians ever elected to the National Academy of Sciences, in 1972.

He was probably best known for his work on heart disease, advocating prevention through exercise and diet, particularly foods low in animal fat and sodium.

Dr. Leaf’s research into the cellular biology of heart disease led him to undertake a series of expeditions in the early 1970s to study longevity in parts of the world where heart disease was rare and some people were said to live 140 years or more.

The expeditions, sponsored by the National Geographic Society, were criticized when some of the very old people in the study turned out to have lied or been misinformed about their ages. Dr. Leaf openly disavowed the project. But he never doubted the basic insights he had gleaned from the scores of interviews he conducted with people in the Caucasus Mountains, the Hunza Valley of Pakistan and the foothills of the Andes.

Whether they were 120 or older, as many of the subjects had claimed, or in their late 90s, as was later found, he concluded that people who lived in mountainous places, worked outdoors into their old age and consumed local food high in vegetable content and low in animal fat tended to live very long and healthy lives free of heart disease.

Dr. Leaf made a similar series of trips in the late 1980s, sponsored by the World Health Organization, to study the effects of climate change in Africa. His report on the study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1989, drawing praise from public health experts as one of the first to link longer, hotter summers with outbreaks of infectious diseases like malaria in regions previously untouched by them.

Dr. Arnold S. Relman, a professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of The New England Journal, said Dr. Leaf “had a moral sense that science was not just for answering basic questions about the human body, but for dealing with the broader questions of human suffering and human welfare.”

Dr. Leaf was born Alexander Livshiz on April 10, 1920, in Yokohama, Japan, where his Russian-born parents had separately fled during the Russian civil war after the Bolshevik Revolution. His parents, both dentists, changed the family name when they arrived in Seattle in 1922.

He graduated from the University of Washington as a chemistry major, received his medical degree at the University of Michigan and served his internship and residency at Massachusetts General.

Besides Mrs. Leaf, whom he met while both were students at the University of Washington, his survivors include their daughters, Caroline, Rebecca and Tamara Leaf, and two grandchildren.

Dr. Leaf’s early research focused on how sodium and potassium pass through cell walls, a process crucial to cellular health and important in understanding the causes of heart disease. His work on toad bladders was considered seminal in the development of treatments for life-threatening heart arrhythmias.

As chief of medical services at Massachusetts General from 1966 to 1981, he established one of the first programs in the country for primary-care medical residents and set up a network of free clinics in poor neighborhoods around Boston. He was a founding member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which was formed in 1961 to oppose nuclear proliferation and later added environmental and social problems to its portfolio. He led Harvard’s department of preventive medicine from 1981 to 1990.

Dr. Leaf continued his research after retiring from teaching, remaining active almost as long as the mountain-dwelling subjects of his 1970s studies.

In his 80s he began studying the effects of fish oil and fatty acids on longevity. In 2005 he was the lead author of a paper published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, describing the effectiveness of fish oil’s omega-3 fatty acids in reducing heart attacks triggered by ventricular arrhythmias, which are chaotic contractions of the heart muscles.

“There is still some uncertainty about the extent of the benefit,” Dr. Relman said, “but I dare say if you ask most cardiologists, they will tell you that as a result of that article they are taking daily doses of fish oil, myself included.”

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BofA to pay $11B to Fannie Mae to settle mortgage claims

CBS MoneyWatch's Alexis Christoforous reports for CBS2. (1/7/2013)

Reuters

9:44 a.m. CST, January 7, 2013

Bank of America on Monday announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans, in a series of deals meant to help the bank move past its disastrous 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp.

The settlements and transactions and other charges will result in Bank of America posting only a small profit for 2012's fourth quarter. The bank is due to report results Jan. 17.

Bank of America is paying $3.6 billion to Fannie Mae and buying back $6.75 billion of bad loans from the mortgage company to clear up all claims that government-owned Fannie Mae had made against the bank.

Fannie Mae and its sibling, Freddie Mac, have been pushing banks to buy back loans they sold to the two companies that never should have been sold to them because the loans did not meet the companies' criteria for purchasing.

Bank of America said most of the settlement would be covered by reserves, and another $2.5 billion, before taxes, that it set aside in the fourth quarter.

A separate settlement over foreclosure delays will result in Bank of America paying $1.3 billion to Fannie Mae, the mortgage company said. Bank of America had already set aside money to cover most of that, but took another $260 million charge in the fourth quarter to cover the balance.

Bank of America also sold the rights to collect payments on about $306 billion of loans to Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management Corp. Nationstar is paying $1.3 billion for the right to service some $215 billion of loans, while Walter Investment is paying $519 million for the right to service about $93 billion of mortgages.

Reuters first reported that Bank of America was talking to Nationstar and Walter Investment on Friday.

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Tinley Park man charged in home invasion, assault

Booking photo of Gary M. Swiercz (Photo from Tinley Park police / January 6, 2013)

Staff report

12:23 p.m. CST, January 6, 2013

A 49-year-old Tinley Park man has been charged with attempted murder in connection with a Saturday morning home invasion in the southwest suburban community in which a woman was assaulted and beaten, police said.

Gary M. Swiercz, of the 8100 block of West 168^th Place, has been charged with attempted murder, home invasion, aggravated unlawful restraint, aggravated attempted criminal sexual assault, and residential burglary, according to a press release from the Tinley Park Police Department. He will appear in bond court today.

According to sources, Swiercz is a deputy fire chief in Chicago Ridge.

According to the release, police were called to the 8100 block of 168^th Place about 2:35 a.m. Saturday for a reported home invasion. A woman at that address said an unknown male, armed with a knife, had entered her condominium, forced her to the floor and beat her. After a struggle, he left the building.

Upon arriving at the scene, police said they found Swiercz, who matched the description of the suspect, in the condominium parking lot and took him into custody.

The female was treated for minor injuries at the scene, police said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes

Photo courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home]

If for some reason you didn’t believe no two snowflakes were alike, here’s your proof.

In 1885, Wilson A. Bentley successfully photographed over 5,000 snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope (and in turn honing the field of Photomicrography). His photographs supported his and others’ beliefs that all snowflakes were unique.

[More from Mashable: 20+ Online Resources for Planning a Winter Getaway]

Bentley become fascinated with snow as a child on a Vermont farm. He later spent time experimenting with ways to view individual snowflakes and their crystalline structure, which eventually came in handy when he had to be quick enough to capture a flake in a picture before it melted.

These photographs quickly became popular with dozens of scientists who studied Bentley’s work and published the images in several scientific magazines. In 1903, Bentley sent about 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian, hoping they would be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langley.

The Smithsonian now has his vintage pics on display, undeniably proveing that snow is just so, so pretty.

Gallery photos courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution. Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr, AMagill.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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