Robert Wagner not interviewed in new Wood inquiry

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Wagner has declined to be interviewed by detectives in a renewed inquiry into the drowning death of his wife Natalie Wood three decades ago, an investigator said Thursday.

Wagner was interviewed by authorities soon after Wood’s drowning in 1981, but the actor is the only person who was on the yacht the night Wood died who has not spoken to detectives as part of the latest inquiry, despite repeated requests and attempts, sheriff’s Lt. John Corina said.

Blair Berk, an attorney for Wagner and his family, said the actor had cooperated with authorities since his wife died.

Detectives began re-investigating the case in November 2011. Since then investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, but Wagner has refused and Corina said the actor’s representatives have not given any reason for his silence.

The detective’s remarks provided new insight into the case that has remained one of Hollywood’s enduring mysteries. Earlier this week, coroner’s officials released an updated autopsy report that had been under a security hold. It detailed why Wood’s death had been reclassified from an accidental drowning to a drowning caused by “undetermined factors.”

“Mr. Wagner has fully cooperated over the last 30 years in the investigation of the accidental drowning of his wife in 1981,” Berk said in a prepared statement. “Mr. Wagner has been interviewed on multiple occasions by the Los Angeles sheriff’s department and answered every single question asked of him by detectives during those interviews.”

After 30 years, Berk said, neither Wagner nor his daughters have any new information to add. She said the latest investigation was prompted by people seeking to exploit and sensationalize the 30th anniversary of the death.

The renewed inquiry came after the yacht‘s captain Dennis Davern told “48 Hours” and the “Today” show that he heard Wagner and Wood arguing the night of her disappearance and believed Wagner was to blame for her death.

Authorities have not identified any suspects in the case.

Wood, 43, was on a yacht with Wagner, Christopher Walken and the boat captain on Thanksgiving weekend of 1981 before she somehow ended up in the water.

Corina said Walken gave a prepared statement and spoke to detectives for an hour.

Detectives have also interviewed other actors who knew both Wagner and Wood to learn more about their relationship.

Corina said detectives have tried at least 10 times to interview Wagner but have been refused. He said some of the refusals have come from the actor’s attorney, and that detectives at one point traveled to Colorado to try to speak with Wagner but were unsuccessful.

Corina said the latest inquiry had turned up new evidence.

“Most of the people we’ve talked to were never talked to 30 years ago,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of new information.”

Asked if the information might lead to criminal charges, Corina said that would be up to prosecutors if they are presented a case.

“All we can do is collect the facts,” he said. “We’re still trying to collect all the facts.”

Corina said new people have emerged with information each time the case is in the news. Detectives would like to interview other people who haven’t agreed to talk, he said.

Coroner’s officials released an update autopsy report on Monday that detailed the reasons Wood’s death certificate was changed last year from a drowning death to “drowning and other undetermined factors.”

The updated report states the change was made in part because investigators couldn’t rule out that some of the bruises and marks on Wood’s body happened before she went into the water.

“Since there are unanswered questions and limited additional evidence available for evaluation, it is opined by this medical examiner that the manner of death should be left as undetermined,” Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran wrote in the report completed in June.

Officials also considered that Wood wasn’t wearing a life jacket, had no history of suicide attempts and didn’t leave a note as reasons to amend the death certificate.

Wood was famous for roles in films such as “West Side Story” and “Rebel Without a Cause” and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Conflicting versions of what happened on the yacht have contributed to the mystery of her death. Wood, Wagner and Walken had all been drinking heavily in the hours before the actress disappeared.

Wagner wrote in a 2008 memoir that he and Walken argued that night. He wrote that Walken went to bed and he stayed up for a while, but when he went to bed, he noticed that his wife and a dinghy that had been attached to the yacht were missing.

“Nobody knows,” he wrote. “There are only two possibilities; either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened.”

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP

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Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.

That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.

Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.

How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?

Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.

The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."

Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.

"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.

Some unknowns:

—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.

—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.

—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.

—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.

—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.

—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.

"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.

One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."

Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.

"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."

Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.

He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."

"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.

Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.

The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.

Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.

Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."

Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.

"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.

What now?

CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."

Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.

Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.

"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.

"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Bolshoi's artistic director attacked in Moscow

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian police say the artistic director at the legendary Bolshoi Theater has been attacked with acid in Moscow.

The Moscow police said Friday that Sergei Filin was attacked Thursday night by a man who splashed acid onto his face as the 43-year-old former dancer came out of his car outside his home in central Moscow.

The theater's press office told Russian television that Filin's eyesight is threatened.

Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova told Channel One that Filin had received threats before and that they suspect that that he fell victim to the notorious infighting and rows between different groups of dancers and managers at the theater.

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Liguori named CEO of Tribune Co.

Television executive Peter Liguori was named the new chief executive of Tribune Co. Thursday, taking the reins of the reorganized Chicago-based media company weeks after its emergence from bankruptcy.

In a widely expected announcement, Liguori, 52, a former top executive at Fox Broadcasting and Discovery Communications, was confirmed by Tribune Co.'s new seven-member board, which met for the first time Thursday in Los Angeles. In Chicago, Tribune Co. owns the Chicago Tribune, WGN-Ch.9 and WGN-AM.

"It can be daunting; I tend to view it as being exciting," Liguori said in an interview about his new job. "It's just a company of tremendous media assets with big iconic brand names, and many of those names are in major markets."

Liguori said he looked forward to leading Tribune Co. into a new era, focusing on content development across all media platforms. And despite speculation by analysts and industry insiders that the company was unlikely to retain its full portfolio of TV stations and newspapers, Liguori said he is hoping to keep Tribune's broadcasting and publishing businesses together under one roof.

"I don't care if it's newspapers or TV or digital operations or our other media assets: I'm hoping to make them work together," Liguori said. "And I'm really interested in building the company through innovation and through commitment to our mission of creating compelling content and best-in-class services."

Liguori replaces Eddy Hartenstein, who has been CEO of Tribune Co. since May 2011. Hartenstein will remain on the board and continue as publisher of the Los Angeles Times. He also will serve as special adviser to the office of CEO, according to Liguori.

"Eddy has done an exemplary job taking this company through some very, very rough times," Liguori said. "He has done a very good job as the publisher of a key asset, and I will benefit from having his advice and counsel and institutional knowledge at my side."

Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2008, saddled with a total of $13 billion in debt after real estate investor Sam Zell completed his $8.2 billion buyout less than one year earlier. It emerged from Chapter 11 on Dec. 31, 2012, with a healthy balance sheet, owned by its senior creditors: Oaktree Capital Management; Angelo, Gordon & Co.; and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Bruce Karsh, president of Los Angeles-based investment firm Oaktree, the largest Tribune Co. shareholder with about 23 percent of the equity, was named chairman of the new board, which also includes Liguori; former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn; entertainment lawyer Craig Jacobson; Oaktree managing director Ken Liang; and Peter Murphy, a former strategy executive at Walt Disney Co.

A Bronx native and Yale graduate, Liguori is a former advertising executive who transitioned into television more than two decades ago. He is credited with turning cable channel FX into a programming powerhouse during his ascent to entertainment chief at News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting. More recently, he was chief operating officer at Discovery Communications Inc., where he helped oversee the rocky launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network. He became interim CEO in 2011 after the previous executive was forced out; he left the company when Winfrey made herself CEO of OWN. Liguori has been working since July as a New York-based media consultant for private equity firm Carlyle Group.

Liguori said job one will be assessing Tribune Co.'s diverse portfolio of assets, which include 23 television stations; national cable channel WGN America; WGN Radio; eight daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times; and other properties, all of which the reorganization plan valued at $4.5 billion after cash distributions and new financing.

Despite its roots as a newspaper company, broadcasting has supplanted the declining publishing segment as the core profit center for the company. Liguori acknowledged broadcasting will be a focus going forward, but not necessarily at the expense of Tribune Co.'s newspaper holdings.

"I'm tasked to be a chief executive officer and a general businessman, and I'm going to take the same principles that I've used in broadcasting, and (extend) them out to all of our business," he said.

Liguori became president of Fox's FX Networks in 1998, when it was a small basic cable channel airing mostly reruns. Elevated to CEO in 2001, he remade FX by offering edgy original programming such as the "The Shield," "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," creating a string of first-run successes.

Unlocking the value of WGN America, which lags top cable networks such as TBS and FX, will be a priority, Liguori said.

"In this very co-dependent media environment, it's not just sitting there and focusing on how quickly we could grow the bottom line," Liguori said. "The bottom line is the outcome of great content, great marketing, which will drive great ratings, which will attract advertisers, which will further our relationship with affiliates, and will lead to natural growth based on the fact that we have high levels of usership."

Content development will also be key for Tribune Co.'s other media properties, including newspapers, Liguori said.

"I look at the newspapers and appreciate what we do for the local communities, and do recognize that the newspaper business is challenged right now," he said. "But how do we innovate, how do we go out and create stories, create coverage, servicing community and spreading that content across all media platforms?"

In the face of digital competition and sagging publishing industry revenue, Tribune Co.'s newspaper holdings have declined to $623 million in total value, according to financial adviser Lazard. With some newspaper owners expressing interest in acquisitions, Liguori said: "I have a fiduciary responsibility to hear those out."

"Those would be evaluated on an as-come basis. However, with all that being said, it's my job to make sure it doesn't stop me from focusing on our day-to-day business and growing the assets that we have."

He added: "Newspapers are a core part of our business."

Further, Liguori said all of Tribune Co.'s assets will be assessed, with an eye toward maximizing performance, and ultimately, value for the company. That includes real estate holdings such as Tribune Tower in Chicago and Times Mirror Square in Los Angeles, which were on the block until they were taken off the market in 2009.

"In places like Chicago and LA, particularly, there's a bunch of underutilized space that's being leased and has high demand and getting very good rates," Liguori said. "As I look toward the real estate assets, I've just got to ascertain what the value of the properties are and are we best utilizing them."

With a clean balance sheet and the company operating profitably, Liguori said strategic acquisitions will also be on the table, as Tribune aspires to be more of a growth company going forward.

"I think it really changes the driving mission of Tribune versus the past four years, where it undoubtedly had to be a bit shackled," he said. "I look forward to seeing what possibilities are out there and with great financial rigor and diligence, determining whether or not acquisitions would help us."

While the first board meeting was held in Los Angeles, Liguori said it doesn't presage a westward migration for the 166-year-old Tribune Co.

"The corporate office will continue to be in Chicago, and I'm going to be spending considerable time there," Liguori said. "There's great tradition and great history of Tribune being an iconic brand in Chicago."

rchannick@tribune.com | Twitter @RobertChannick

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Man killed after high school game ends in melee

The Simeon and Morgan Park High School basketball teams ended their game at Chicago State University with a melee between players on the court. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune)

Staff report

12:17 a.m. CST, January 17, 2013

A 20-year-old man was shot and killed outside a Chicago Public Schools high school basketball game at Chicago State University Wednesday night after a melee broke out in a handshake line after the game.

The man was taken in serious condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

The shooting happened about 9:20 p.m. outside the campus gymnasium near 95th Street and King Drive, said police News Affairs Officer Daniel O’Brien. He was pronounced dead at Christ hospital Wednesday night.

Chicago State Police put out a quick message to nearby officers, asking them to watch for a jeep that was pulled over east of the school a short time later, police said, citing early reports. Two people were taken into custody and police found a gun inside the jeep.

The game was between Simeon Career Academy and Morgan Park High School, both schools located on Vincennes Avenue about 30 blocks apart, at 81st and 111th Streets.

An argument in a handshake line after the game preceeded the shooting, police said. The gym was tense and word spread through the gym that someone had been shot.

Police said the argument spilled into the parking lot and someone pulled out a weapon and shot the 20-year-old.

Each team was held for longer than normal in the locker rooms after the game. Nothing outside ordinary bumps and physical contact happened during the game.

Chicago police responded to the scene but are not involved with the investigation, O'Brien said.

Chicago State Police refused to comment about the incident and city police referred inquiries to them and Illinois State Police, who said they were not involved in the investigation.

Check back for details.

Contributor Mike Helfgot and Tribune reporters Peter Nickeas, Rosemary Regina Sobol and Jeremy Gorner contributed to this story.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com
Twitter: @chicagobreaking

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PC titans take notes from tablets to regain customers

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Personal computer makers, trying to beat back a tablet mania that's eating into their sales, are making what may be a last-ditch attempt to sway customers by mimicking the competition.

Many of the laptops to be unveiled around the world in coming months will be hybrids or "convertibles" - morphing easily between portable tablets and full-powered laptops with a keyboard, industry analysts say.

The wave of hybrids comes as Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp, long the twin leaders of the PC industry, prepare to report results this week and next. Wall Street is predicting flat to sluggish quarterly revenue growth for both, underscoring the plight of an industry that has struggled to innovate.

In 2013, some are hoping that will change.

With the release of Microsoft's touch-centric, re-imagined Windows 8 platform in October and more power-efficient chips from Intel, PC makers are trying to spark growth by focusing on creating slim laptops with touchscreens that convert to tablets and vice versa.

Microsoft, expanding beyond its traditional business of selling software, is expected this month to roll out a "Surface Pro" tablet compatible with legacy PC software developed over decades.

That's a major selling point for corporate customers like German business software maker SAP, which plans to buy Surface Pros for employees that want it, said SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann.

"The hybrid model is very compelling for a lot of users," Bussmann told Reuters last week. "The iPad is not replacing the laptop. It's hard to create content. That's the niche that Microsoft is going after. The Surface can fill that gap."

Apple's iPad began chipping away at demand for laptops in 2010, an assault that accelerated with the launch of Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire and other Google Android devices like Samsung Electronics' Note.

With sales of PCs falling last year for the first time since 2001, this year may usher in a renaissance in design and innovation from manufacturers who previously focused on reducing costs instead of adding new features to entice consumers.

"People used to be able to just show up at the party and do well just because the market was going up," Lisa Su, a senior vice president at Advanced Micro Devices, which competes against Intel. "It's harder now. You can't just show up at the party. You have to innovate and have something special."

At last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, devices on display from Intel and others underscored the PC industry's plan to bet more on convertible laptops.

Lenovo's North America President Gerry Smith told Reuters last week that over the holidays he sold out of the company's "Yoga", a laptop with a screen that flips back behind its keyboard, and the "ThinkPad Twist", another lightweight laptop with a swiveling screen.

Intel itself showed off a hybrid prototype laptop dubbed "North Cape", housed in a thin tablet screen that attaches magnetically to a low-profile keyboard. And Asus showed a hefty 18-inch, all-in-one Windows 8 PC that converts to a tablet running Google's Android operating system.

Lenovo and Asus, which have both won positive reviews for their devices in recent months, increased their PC shipments by 14 percent and 17 percent respectively last year, according to Gartner.

"The number of unique systems that our partners have developed for Windows has almost doubled since launch. That gives an indication of how much innovation is going into the PC market," Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft's Windows unit, told Reuters.

FINGER-POINTING

To be sure, hybrids with detachable or twistable screens do not yet account for a significant proportion of global PC sales, and consumers still need to be sold on their benefits.

Previous attempts by PC makers to reinvigorate the market have had limited success. Pushed by Intel, manufacturers launched a series of slimmed down laptops early last year with features popular on tablets, like solid-state memory.

They were too expensive, often at more than $1,000 apiece, and failed to arrest the PC decline.

Microsoft's Windows 8 launch in October brought touchscreen features but failed to spark a resurgence in PC sales many manufacturers had hoped for. A round of finger-pointing ensued, with PC and chip executives blaming a shortage of touchscreen components and others saying it was the manufacturers that sharply underestimated consumer demand for touch devices.

Regardless, the entire PC ecosystem is onboard for 2013. Almost half of the Windows laptops rolled out this year may have touch screens. Of those, most will be in convertible form, according to IDC analyst David Daoud.

Further blurring the distinction between kinds of devices, about a quarter of upcoming Windows 8 gadgets will be tablets that can easily act as laptops with the help of keyboard accessories, he added.

But buyers may have to wait until the second half of the year to see many of them.

"The most likely scenario today is for the industry to have these products ready for the back-to-school season," Daoud said.

(Reporting and writing by Noel Randewich; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta and Bill Rigby in Seattle; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Story of Te'o girlfriend death apparently a hoax

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The wrenching story of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o's girlfriend dying of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him to play his best all the way to the BCS championship — was dismissed by the school Wednesday as a hoax perpetrated against the linebacker.

Notre Dame said it believes the Heisman Trophy finalist was duped into an online relationship with a woman whose "death" was then faked by the perpetrators of the hoax.

The school made the statement following a lengthy story by Deadspin.com, saying it could find no record that Lennay Kekua ever existed. The website story suggests a friend of Te'o may have carried out the hoax and that the football player may have been in on it — a stunning claim against a widely admired All-American who led the most famed program in college football back to the national championship game for the first time since 1988.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. "

However, he stopped short of saying he had ever met her in person or correcting reports that said he had, though he did on numerous occasions talk about how special the relationship was to him.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," he said.

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

Word of the hoax spread quickly and raised questions about whether the school somehow played a role in pushing the tale. Te'o's grandmother died during the season and the apparent double tragedy became fueled stories about Te'o's perseverance and leadership.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference Wednesday night that Te'o told coaches on Dec. 26 he had received a call from Kekua's phone number while at an awards ceremony during the first week of December.

"When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same person he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead. Manti was very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said the school hired investigators and their report indicated those behind the hoax were in contact with each other, discussing what they were doing.

The investigators "were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that was certainly the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking," Swarbrick said. "The casualness among themselves they were talking about what they accomplished."

Swarbrick said for Te'o "the pain was real."

"The grief was real. The affection was real," he said. "That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."

Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not take the matter to the police, saying that the school left it up to Te'o and his family to do so. He added that Notre Dame did not plan to release the findings of its investigation.

"We had no idea of motive, and that was really significant to us. ... Was somebody trying to create an NCAA violation at the core of this? Was there somebody trying to impact the outcome of football games by manipulating the emotions of a key player? Was there an extortion request coming? When you match the lack of sort of detail we lacked until we got some help investigating it with the risk involved, it was clear to me until we knew more we had to just to continue to work to try to gather the facts," Swarbrick said.

The Deadspin report changed all that.

Friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told Deadspin they believe he created Kekua. The website said Te'o and Tuiasosopo knew each other. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Tuiasosopo by telephone were unsuccessful.

As for Kekua, Deadspin said she does not have a death certificate. Stanford, where she reportedly went to school, has no record of anybody by that name, the website said. Deadspin said a record search produced no obituary or funeral announcement. There is no record of her birth in the news.

There are a few Twitter and Instagram accounts registered to Lennay Kekua, but the website reported photographs identified as Kekua online and in TV news reports are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua, the website reported.

Still, Swarbrick said, "Nothing about what I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te'o one iota."

Te'o talked freely about their relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in The South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted an anecdote about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.

"My family and my girlfriend's family have received so much love and support from the Notre Dame family," he said after that game. "Michigan State fans showed some love. And it goes to show that people understand that football is just a game, and it's a game that we play, and we have fun doing it. But at the end of the day, what matters is the people who are around you, and family. I appreciate all the love and support that everybody's given my family and my girlfriend's family."

He was asked again about his girlfriend on Jan. 3 prior to the BCS title game, saying: "This team is very special to me, and the guys on it have always been there for me, through the good times and the bad times. I rarely have a quiet time to myself because I always have somebody calling me, asking, 'Do you want to go to the movies?' Coach is always calling me asking me, 'Are you OK? Do you need anything?'"

Te'o finished second in Heisman voting, and led Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship. His widely reported story was among the most heartwarming of the season.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life," Te'o said in his statement.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been."

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life," he said in his statement, "and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

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Drop Dead Diva canceled by Lifetime

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Drop Dead Diva” has been dropped.

The series has been canceled by Lifetime after four seasons, the last of which ended in September.

An individual familiar with the situation told TheWrap that the cost of producing the series had become prohibitive, and that Lifetime had approached Sony Pictures Television, which produced the series, about coming up with creative ways to keep the series on the air, apparently to no avail.

Ratings-wise, the series had performed well. In combination with “Army Wives,” “Drop Dead Diva” helped push Lifetime to the number one cable position on Sundays from 9 to 11 p.m. among the women 25-54 demographic last year.

“Drop Dead Diva” revolved around a shallow model who dies in a car crash and comes back to life in the body of a recently deceased lawyer who had led an altruistic life. Brooke Elliott, Margaret Cho and Jackson Hurst starred on the series.

Deadline first reported the news of “Drop Dead Diva”‘s cancelation.

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy

NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.

The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.

The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.

But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.

"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.

The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.

The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.

Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.

The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.

U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.

Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The vaccine is safe," she said.

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Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Obama calls for research on media in gun violence

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood and the video game industry received scant attention Wednesday when President Barack Obama unveiled sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

The White House pressed most forcefully for a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

No connection was suggested between bloody entertainment fictions and real-life violence. Instead, the White House is calling on research on the effect of media and video games on gun violence.

Among the 23 executive measures signed Wednesday by Obama is a directive to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scientific agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. The order specifically cited "investigating the relationship between video games, media images and violence."

The measure meant that media would not be exempt from conversations about violence, but it also suggested the White House would not make Hollywood, television networks and video game makers a central part of the discussion. It's a relative footnote in the White House's broad, multi-point plan, and Obama did not mention violence in entertainment in his remarks Wednesday.

The White House plan did mention media, but suggested that any effort would be related to ratings systems or technology: "The entertainment and video game industries have a responsibility to give parents tools and choices about the movies and programs their children watch and the games their children play."

The administration is calling on Congress to provide $10 million for the CDC research.

The CDC has been barred by Congress to use funds to "advocate or promote gun control," but the White House order claims that "research on gun violence is not advocacy" and that providing information to Americans on the issue is "critical public health research."

Since 26 were killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook in December, some have called for changes in the entertainment industry, which regularly churns out first-person shooter video games, grisly primetime dramas and casually violent blockbusters.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the National Association of Broadcasters, National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the Independent Film & Television Alliance responded to Wednesday's proposal in a joint statement:

"We support the president's goal of reducing gun violence in this country. It is a complex problem, and as we have said, we stand ready to be a part of the conversation and welcome further academic examination and consideration on these issues as the president has proposed."

After the Newtown massacre, Wayne Pierre, vice-president of the National Rifle Association, attacked the entertainment industry, calling it "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people." He cited a number of video games and films, most of them many years old, like the movies "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers," and the video games "Mortal Kombat" and "Grand Theft Auto."

President Obama's adviser, David Axelrod, had tweeted that he's in favor of gun control, "but shouldn't we also question marketing murder as a game?"

Others have countered that the same video games and movies are played and watched around the world, but that the tragedies of gun violence are for other reasons endemic to the U.S.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents video game publishers, referenced that argument Wednesday in a statement that embraced Obama's proposal.

"The same entertainment is enjoyed across all cultures and nations, but tragic levels of gun violence remain unique to our country," said the ESA. "Scientific research an international and domestic crime data point toward the same conclusion: Entertainment does not cause violent behavior in the real world."

Several R-rated films released after Newton have been swept into the debate. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor and action film star, recently told USA Today in discussing his new shoot-em-up film "The Last Stand": "It's entertainment. People know the difference."

Quentin Tarantino, whose new film "Django Unchained" is a cartoonish, bloody spaghetti western set in the slavery-era South, has often grown testy when questioned about movie violence and real-life violence. Speaking to NPR, Tarantino said it was disrespectful to the memory of the victims to talk about movies: "I don't think one has to do with the other."

In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. The decision claimed that video games, like other media, are protected by the First Amendment. In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer claimed previous studies showed the link between violence and video games, concluding "the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children."

In the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government can't regulate depictions of violence, which he said were age-old, anyway: "Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed."

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AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang contributed to this report from Los Angeles

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