When it happened to Fred Waitzkin, a professional writer, andhis wife, Bonnie, he wrote a book, Searching for Bobby Fischer, in1988.
Waitzkin, a chess fan, had originally planned a book thatlooked at the game and its champions. Instead, the focus was changedto show, he said, "how I felt about my son's talent and my wife,relative to the insanity of Josh and me living the chess life."
Now the movie, produced by Scott Rudin (whose "Little ManTate" was about a boy genius as well), tells the …
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added 103,000 jobs in September, a modest burst of hiring after a sluggish summer.
Still, job growth remains too weak to lower the unemployment rate, which stayed at 9.1 percent for the third straight month.
The Labor Department also revised the previous two months to show that companies hired at a better pace than first estimated.
Nearly …
Home decor retailer Pier 1 Imports Inc. said Thursday it expects fourth-quarter earnings to top analysts' expectations as it sold more goods at full price.
Shares rose 23 cents, or 3 percent, to $7.06 during afternoon trading, and reached a 52-week high of $7.20 earlier in the session.
For the quarter ended Feb. 27, Pier 1 expects a profit of 29 cents per share, compared with a loss of 33 cents per share in the year-ago period. The company said quarterly sales rose 2 percent to $396 million from $389 million, with sales in stores open at least one year up 6.5 percent.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, expect a profit of 25 cents per …
With 30 years on the force, Chicago Police Sgt. Charles G.Brougham could have retired last year. But as one of the ChicagoPolice Department's top hostage negotiators, he was too busy-andhaving too much fun.
"His team had just come together, and this year was so eventfulfor him," said his daughter, Lauren. "He taught at the Pentagon thissummer, and in Paris in the spring, about all the knowledge he wasgaining in crisis management. He was really dedicated, and having agood time."
Mr. Brougham had a heart attack while shoveling snow Monday at hishome in the Beverly neighborhood, and died soon afterward. He was 52.
His family and friends said that he worked out at …
An ordinance introduced by Alds. Michael D. Chandler (24th) and Shirley Coleman (16th) that passed the City Council earlier this week imposes stiffer penalties on fly dumpers that includes serving 6 months in jail, performing 200 hours of community services and paying up to $2,500 in fines.
"The reward money has been increased from $100 to $500 for the arrest and conviction of the illegal fly dumpers in our community," said Chandler. "It's costing the city $7.5 million annually to clean the vacant lots in the ward, which includes illegal fly dumping material," he said.
"So far this year, we've spent $3.8 million in cleaning up various city-owned lots. These dumpers are …
A security team aboard a U.S. Navy oiler sailing off the pirate-infested coast of Somalia fired warning shots at two small approaching boats and chased them away, American officials said Wednesday.
A Navy statement said that while it was not certain the boats carried pirates, it was clear "they were not following the …
Businesses in Bath are being challenged to create 25 graduateinternships in 25 days in the run-up to Christmas.
Bath Spa University has thrown down the gauntlet to businessesand charities across Bath and north east Somerset, and is offeringeligible organisations up to Pounds 1,300 per internship to takepart in the scheme.
The university says its Graduate Internship Scheme will …
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan thought Alando Tucker might be tentative after he was poked so hard in the right eye that he was left bleeding. Tucker didn't waste any time putting Ryan at ease.
The Badgers' leading scorer hit a 3-pointer as soon as he got back on the floor en route to 22 points, including 18 after the poke, and No. 12 Wisconsin beat Florida State 81-66 on Tuesday night in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
"I was surprised he took it," Ryan said of the attempt. "I thought he'd at least get used to the lights after he got back in, but that was huge."
Tucker, who briefly sported a patch in the locker room after the game, was not available for …
Irish nationalist gangs hurled gasoline bombs at police Saturday after three alleged IRA dissidents were arrested on suspicion of killing two British soldiers in an attack designed to trigger wider violence in Northern Ireland.
Police operating in armored cars and flame-retardant suits said none of their officers was injured during the rising mob violence in the Irish Catholic end of Lurgan, a religiously divided town southwest of Belfast. Rioters also blocked the main Belfast-to-Dublin railway line that runs alongside the hardline Kilwilkie neighborhood of the town.
Later, police said they arrested a 37-year-old man and 30-year-old woman, and seized a gun …
With easily identifiable and universally sleazy bad guys - drugdealers, Middle East terrorists and dirty commies, to name just a few- these might be the elements of the latest "Rambo" movie. In factthey're the formula for a genre of books that has invaded the marketwith the force of, well, The Avenger, The Cutthroat Cannibals andCody's Army.
Welcome to men's action-adventure fiction, a specialty in which16 publishers now compete in the marketplace with 66 differentseries. Last year, the classification represented 4.3 percent ofsales for the U.S. paperback market. One …
WASHINGTON (AP) — It will take several more years for the U.S. government to fully install high-tech systems to block computer intrusions, a drawn-out timeline that enables criminals to become more adept at stealing sensitive data, experts say.
As the Department of Homeland Security moves methodically to pare down and secure the approximately 2,400 network connections used every day by millions of federal workers around the world, experts suggest that technology already may be passing them by.
The department that's responsible for securing government systems other than military sites is slowly moving all the government's Internet and e-mail traffic into secure networks that …
Paraguay will reverse its historic support for Taiwan at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly, and also is reconsidering its relations with communist regimes.
President Fernando Lugo said his government wants to maintain diplomatic relations with all countries of similar interests.
"Paraguay's foreign policy will be independent under my government and will not accept conditions," Lugo said in a local television interview Sunday.
Paraguay, the last South American country to recognize Taiwan, has supported the island since 1957, voting every year in support of resolutions to admit Taiwan to the assembly. Nations that recognize …
| G FG FT PTS AVG |
| Wade, Mia. 68 734 497 2037 30.0 |
| James, Clev. 70 688 512 1999 28.6 |
| Bryant, LAL 69 699 416 1909 27.7 |
| Durant, OKC. 62 577 371 1609 26.0 |
| Nowitzki, Dall. 69 654 396 1757 25.5 |
| Granger, Ind. 56 454 328 1386 24.8 |
| Roy, Port. 66 549 362 1529 23.2 |
| Bosh, Tor. 65 513 437 1473 22.7 |
| Harris, N.J. 60 417 460 1354 22.6 |
| Paul, N.O. 65 508 379 1444 22.2 |
| Jamison, Wash. 71 586 300 1566 22.1 |
| Johnson, Atl. 68 541 261 1471 21.6 |
| Parker, S.A. 59 512 224 1265 21.4 |
| Carter, N.J. 69 519 293 1463 21.2 |
| Howard, Orl. 67 479 442 1400 20.9 |
| Gordon, Chi. 70 499 282 1427 20.4 |
| Pierce, Bos. 71 466 407 1439 20.3 |
| West, N.O. 63 475 308 1263 20.0 |
| Harrington, N.Y 60 437 184 1197 20.0 |
| Duncan, S.A. 64 492 285 1269 19.8 |
| FG Percentage |
| FG FGA PCT |
| O'Neal, Phoe. 434 709 .612 |
| Nene, Den. 373 618 .604 |
| Biedrins, G.S. 295 513 .575 |
| Howard, Orl. 479 833 .575 |
| Gasol, LAL 493 865 .570 |
| Okafor, Char. 384 687 .559 |
| Bynum, LAL 254 455 .558 |
| Lee, N.Y. 438 797 .550 |
| Yao, Hou. 495 902 .549 |
| Stoudemire, Phoe. 404 749 .539 |
| Rebounds |
| G OFF DEF TOT AVG |
| Howard, Orl. 67 289 643 932 13.9 |
| Lee, N.Y. 68 218 591 809 11.9 |
| Murphy, Ind. 65 124 641 765 11.8 |
| Duncan, S.A. 64 169 509 678 10.6 |
| Okafor, Char. 70 234 478 712 10.2 |
| Yao, Hou. 68 176 480 656 9.6 |
| Bosh, Tor. 65 170 448 618 9.5 |
| Gasol, LAL 68 223 417 640 9.4 |
| Jamison, Wash. 71 177 466 643 9.1 |
| Millsap, Utah 63 220 348 568 9.0 |
| Assists |
| G AST AVG |
| Paul, N.O. 65 709 10.9 |
| Williams, Utah 55 579 10.5 |
| Nash, Phoe. 61 587 9.6 |
| Calderon, Tor. 56 479 8.6 |
| Rondo, Bos. 69 589 8.5 |
| Kidd, Dall. 70 582 8.3 |
| B. Davis, LAC 55 441 8.0 |
| Wade, Mia. 68 515 7.6 |
| Duhon, N.Y. 66 487 7.4 |
| James, Clev. 70 508 7.3 |
TEMPE, Ariz. - US Airways Group Inc. said Wednesday it has made an $8 billion cash and stock offer for Delta Airlines Inc. in a deal that would create one of the world's largest airlines.
The offer to buy Delta once the Atlanta-based airline emerges from bankruptcy protection would give Delta's unsecured creditors $4 billion in cash and 78.5 million shares of US Airways stock.
If completed, the airline would operate under the Delta name and serve more than 350 destinations across five continents.
Lyric Opera has announced two appointments to fill DrewLandmesser's post of production and technical director when he leavesthe company May 1 to join the San Francisco Opera.
Peter Schwob, 45, assistant technical director at Lyric from 1995to 1999, will rejoin the company as technical director. From 1999 to2004 he was Goodman Theater's technical director, and in September2004 he joined Chicago Opera Theater as production manager.
Scott Maar, 43, Lyric's resident design associate since 1999, willbecome production design director.
`Lucia di Lammermoor' Texaco-Metropolitan Opera InternationalRadio Broadcasts 11:30 a.m. Saturday WFMT-FM (98.7)
In December, Christmas comes early for opera fans, as the curtaingoes up on another season of the Texaco-Metropolitan OperaInternational Radio Broadcasts.
Now in its 60th year, and heard in 33 nations worldwide, thebroadcasts have become a treasured Saturday afternoon tradition amongopera buffs. Live from the stage of New York's Metropolitan Opera,luminaries such as Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, James Morris andBryn Terfel can be heard for the ultimate bargain - free.
The first of this season's 20 matinee broadcasts bows at 11:30a.m. Saturday (an hour earlier than usual) with Ruth Ann Swenson andRamon Vargas as the tragic lovers of Donizetti's "Lucia diLammermoor." In Chicago, WFMT-FM (98.7) carries the broadcasts.
The ultimate way to while away a lazy afternoon, the Met seriesserves as a wonderful backdrop in your car as you run errands or athome as you clean house.
Each season brings the thrill of discovery. In April, countertenorDavid Daniels made his much-anticipated Met debut in Handel's "GiulioCesare." In the 1997-1998 season, the Met broadcasts introducedrestored versions of Verdi's "Stiffelio" and Mussorgsky's "BorisGodunov."
This year, the series holds special interest for Chicagoans, withbroadcasts of Boito's "Mefistofele," a big hit at Lyric, with SamRamey in one of his signature roles (Feb. 19); the world premiere ofJohn Harbison's "The Great Gatsby" (Jan. 1), in a productionscheduled for Lyric Opera's 2000-2001 season, and "Tristan undIsolde" (Dec. 18), with the Wagnerian love couple of the moment, BenHeppner and Jane Eaglen, who reprise the roles at Lyric, startingJan. 31.
The broadcast season concludes with the Valhalla of opera,Wagner's "Ring" cycle, on March 24 and April 1, 15 and 22.
A free broadcast guide can be ordered by calling 1-800-MET-8828,or via the Web sites, www.metopera.org, or www.texaco.com. Libiamo!
The once-every-10-year process of resizing Chicago's 50 wards and redistributing its citizens appears to have broken down, with black aldermen lining up on one side and Hispanic aldermen on the other, each arguing for an extra ward or two. This opens the door to the very real possibility that the issue may go to voters as a referendum in March — at an estimated cost of $30 million. A legal challenge to a map could also cost the city plenty.
As they squabble, aldermen risk wasting taxpayer dollars they know the city can ill afford.
They also risk transporting Chicago back a generation, to a time when racial politics dominated and tore the city apart. Some wounds have only begun to heal. It won't take much to rip them wide open.
It's time for the city's retro aldermen to return to 2011 and draw a map that everyone can live with. Race is not the only variable that matters. Chicagoans also care about respecting neighborhood boundaries, avoiding gerrymandered wards that undermine good service and further polarizing this city by race and ethnicity.
That said, this newspaper strongly supports ensuring adequate representation for every group, as fairness and the law demand. And in 2011, the city's Hispanic population deserves special consideration.
Despite the addition of 210,000 Hispanics to Chicago's population between 1990 and 2000, Hispanic representation in City Council barely changed after the last remap. By 2010, the city's Hispanic population had grown by another 25,000 — compared to a loss of 181,000 African-American residents during the same period. It is hard to argue against adding more majority Hispanic wards and subtracting African-American ones.
Coming up with a fair and equitable ratio is one of the things Chicagoans elected aldermen to do.
Get to it, minus the drama, minus risking one precious taxpayer dollar.
Pull Quote: A legal challenge to a map could cost the city plenty.
German daily Bild claims seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher will come out of retirement to drive for Mercedes next year.
A report in Saturday's edition of the newspaper says the two parties have agreed to a one-year contract and will announce the deal next week.
Mercedes said that "there is always speculation as long as one seat in our team is not taken."
Schumacher's spokeswoman, Sabine Kehm, declined to comment on the report.
The 41-year-old Schumacher retired in 2006 after winning a record number of F1 titles. He abandoned plans for a temporary comeback with Ferrari this year due to a neck injury in a motorcycle crash.
The Tibetan government-in-exile on Thursday denied a newspaper report that Norway has been secretly brokering talks between the Dalai Lama and China.
The Verdens Gang reported Wednesday that diplomatic efforts have gone on for several years and that Norwegian foreign ministers have kept U.S. officials informed about the meetings. It cited unnamed sources in Washington.
It did not say if there had been direct meetings between the Tibetan spiritual leader and Chinese officials, or when the peace efforts began.
"The Norwegian government is helping the Tibetans in many ways for the last many years, including providing development aid in the Tibetan settlements in India, but there is no secret diplomacy or mediating in the dialogue or negotiations between the PRC (People's Republic of China) and the envoys of His Holiness the Dalai Lama," said Thumpten Samphel, a spokesman for the Tibetan government-in-exile.
"This needs to be denied in its totality," Samphel told The Associated Press
Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tor-Henrik Andersen declined to comment on the newspaper report.
"It has been a precondition, especially from the Chinese government, that these (meetings) had to be strictly confidential," the Verdens Gang said. The meetings took place in Norway and elsewhere, and high-ranking Norwegian Foreign Ministry officials also attended, it reported.
China has governed Tibet since communist troops marched into the Himalayan region in the 1950s. The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet amid a failed uprising in 1959, says he wants more autonomy for the region, but the Chinese government labels him a "splittist" intent on seizing independence.
Early last month representatives of the Dalai Lama met Chinese officials for the first time since 2006. The talks, which yielded no concrete results, were prompted by a resurgence of violence in Tibetan areas of western China.
Despite China's vilification of the Dalai Lama, both sides have kept back channels for dialogue open.
Norway is known for helping in conflicts and organizing secret meetings between disputing parties.
In 1993, it secretly brokered the now-frayed Oslo peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians, and in 2002 it helped negotiate a truce in Sri Lanka between the government and secessionist Tamil Tiger rebels. That peace deal collapsed earlier this year. Three years ago Norway was instrumental in securing a peace accord in Sudan, but that truce has failed to stem violence in the restive Dafur region.
YANGON, Myanmar - About 20,000 protesters led by Buddhist monks and nuns on Sunday mounted the largest anti-government protest in Myanmar since a failed 1988 democratic uprising, shouting support for detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
At one point a small crowd of about 400 - about half of them monks - split off from the main demonstration and tried unsuccessfully to approach the home where Suu Kyi is under house arrest. The monks carried a large yellow banner that read: "Love and kindness must win over everything."
The march raised both expectations of possible political change and fear that the military might try to crush the demonstrations with violence, as it did in 1988 when thousands were killed nationwide.
On Saturday, more than 500 monks and sympathizers were allowed past barricades to walk to the house, where Suu Kyi greeted them from her gate in her first public appearance in more than four years. The meeting symbolically linked the current protests to the Nobel laureate's struggle for democracy, which has seen her detained for about 12 of the last 18 years.
But any optimism on the protesters' part was tempered Sunday when government security forces - who had kept a low profile for the past few days - deployed in force to block the new march to Suu Kyi's house. The junta had clearly been trying to avoid provoking the well-disciplined, widely respected monks.
"In our country the monks are the highest moral authority. When the monks take the leading role, the people will follow," said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the National Council of the Union of Burma, a coalition of opposition groups based in neighboring Thailand.
The crowd of about 400 people peacefully abandoned their attempt Sunday to get to Suu Kyi's gate after being turned back at two different approaches blocked by barbed wire barricades.
Suu Kyi, 62, is the leader of the National League for Democracy party, which won a 1990 general election but was not allowed to take power by the military. She has been under detention continuously since May 2003.
The heavy security presence, including two lines of police - the rear line armed - and a police truck and fire engine, raised tensions after several days of a hands-off approach by authorities.
The protests began on Aug. 19 as a movement against economic hardship, after the government sharply raised fuel prices, increasing the overall cost of living. Arrests and intimidation saw the movement begin to falter until last week, when monks - who have long served as the country's conscience - became the protests' vanguard.
The march of 20,000 people downtown was led by 10,000 monks who gathered at the famous golden hilltop Shwedagon Pagoda before marching downtown to Sule Pagoda and past the U.S. Embassy among other places, witnesses said. For the first time, at least 100 white-robed nuns joined the demonstration.
Some monks shouted support for Suu Kyi, while a crowd of about 10,000 sympathizers marched along, some holding hands to form a human chain to protect the maroon-robed clerics.
While authorities did not intervene in Sunday's march, plainclothes police trailed the marchers. Some, armed with shotguns, were posted at street corners along the route.
A monk gave a speech Sunday calling for Suu Kyi's release and national reconciliation, the witnesses said, again positioning their cause with her long-running struggle for democracy.
The synergy could increase pressure on the junta to decide whether to crack down or compromise.
Other monks' demonstrations took place Sunday in the cities of Mandalay, Monywa, Kalay and the Kachin state capital of Myitkyina, said reports in Myanmar exile media.
"The monks are the majority and they are leading the movement right now," Soe Aung told The Associated Press in Bangkok.
But he expressed concern the military will not stand aside forever.
"Hopefully the international community will not keep quiet, and they will do something before terrible things take place in our country," he said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration was watching the situation "very carefully."
Speaking ahead of a meeting in New York with the foreign minister of China - the junta's top diplomatic ally - she said the people of Myanmar "deserve a life to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does."
She said President Bush would discuss the military regime's "brutality" when he meets other leaders at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.
