Report: Brown threatened to shoot Ocean in fight

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An investigator's report states Frank Ocean told investigators that Chris Brown threatened to shoot him during a fight over a parking space last month.

The report was included in a prosecution motion seeking to have Brown's probation revoked over numerous discrepancies and lax supervision of his community service sentence for the 2009 beating of Rihanna.

The report says Brown punched Ocean after the pair argued over a parking space at a West Hollywood studio on Jan. 27. Ocean told police that at one point, Brown shouted he and his entourage could "bust" Ocean, which prosecutors wrote is a street slang term for shooting someone.

Ocean, who has said his first love was a man, also told investigators that he may have heard someone shout a gay slur during the confrontation.

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Deficit hits 5-year low, but cuts drag economy

WASHINGTON -- The federal deficit will drop to less than $1 trillion for the first time in five years, but massive spending cuts that have improved the budget outlook are also slowing the economy, according to a report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget office.

The nonpartisan arbiter of federal budgets said the combination of new tax revenue from the "fiscal cliff" deal as well as looming cuts that kick in March 1 will push the deficit down to $845 billion for fiscal 2013. Deficits have topped $1 trillion in recent years.

The projections will fuel the coming budget debates, which started Tuesday as President Obama was calling on Congress to steer around the coming budget cuts.

The budget office said the cuts will contribute to an economy that lags in 2013. The unemployment rate likely will remain above 7.5% through the year. It predicted that the gross domestic product will be well below its potential, growing by just 1.4%, more than half a percentage point slower than would happen if the spending cuts were averted.

At the same time, the nation's debt load is expected to fluctuate but ultimately rise to record levels this decade, largely because of increased spending on healthcare and the federal safety net for older Americans with the aging of the baby boom population.

Additionally, the outlook shows how difficult it will be for House Republicans to accomplish their goal of balancing the budget in 10 years with potentially deep austerity measures.

Even though revenue is rising and spending is decreasing, the overall budget outlook remains stark. By the end of the decade, public debt is set to rise to 77% of GDP, a decade of highs on par with debt levels in World War II.

"The projected path of the federal budget remains a significant concern," the CBO wrote.

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

Lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaroinDC

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NFL: Beyonce show had no role in Super Bowl power failure

NEW ORLEANS—

The National Football League was still working with New Orleans officials on Monday to determine what caused the power outage at Sunday's Super Bowl at the Superdome, so far dismissing any connection with the Beyonce halftime show.

With a record U.S. television audience watching along with viewers in 180 countries, about half the stadium lights went dark early in the second half of the game, in which the Baltimore Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters on Monday an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the 35-minute disruption but one possible explanation had already been eliminated.

"There's no indication at all that this was caused by the halftime show," Goodell said. "I know that's out there, that Beyonce's halftime show had something to do with it. That is not the case from anything we have at this point."

Entergy Corp, the utility providing power to the Superdome, said its distribution and transmission feeders were serving the Superdome at all times.

Early indications were that the outage resulted from an abnormality in the Superdome's power system but it was too early to speculate on what went wrong, said Doug Thornton, senior vice president of the Superdome's management company, SMG.

A piece of equipment designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system where the Superdome equipment intersects with Entergy's feed into the building, triggering an automatic cut in power, SMG and Entergy said in a joint statement.

There was never any concern the power could not be restored, but it took time because of the size of the stadium and the complexities of the power system, Thornton said.

"We had people in place that could quickly work to restore power. We had experts on site, as we normally do when we have big events like this, our electrician, our electrical consultants were there and we were able to quickly work on that," Thornton said.

"There were no injuries, people remained calm, we had a pre-programmed announcement that was actually played. These are things that we actually drilled for."

None of the players or coaches said the stoppage had any impact on the game, and Goodell said the power problem would not adversely affect future bids by New Orleans to stage the Super Bowl, the United States' most-watched sports event.

"I fully expect that we will be back here for Super Bowls," Goodell said. "I hope we will be back. We want to be back ... I don't think this will have any impact at all on what I think will be remembered for one of the greatest Super Bowl weeks."

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Dale Hudson)

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Dell closer to buyout as price talks narrow: source

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dell Inc moved closer to a nearly $24 billion buyout deal, with price negotiations narrowing to $13.50 to $13.75 a share in what would be the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.

Talks between Dell, the world's No. 3 computer maker, and a consortium led by its founder and chief executive, Michael Dell, to take the company private were in the final stages on Monday, a person familiar with the matter said.

An outcome is expected soon, the person said, cautioning that no final agreement had been reached and negotiations could still break down.

Dell shares fell 2.6 percent to $13.27 in afternoon trading.

Microsoft Corp, which provides its Windows software for Dell computers and is also part of the investment consortium, is expected to invest around $2 billion in the deal, while private equity firm Silver Lake is expected to put in about $1 billion, the source said.

Michael Dell is expected to roll over his roughly 16 percent stake and put in some of his own money so he has control of the company, the source added.

Dell and Silver Lake declined to comment and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

The $13.50 to $13.75 per share price range being negotiated translates into an equity valuation for Dell of between $23.5 billion to $23.9 billion.

The $13.75 per share is a premium of about 23 percent to the average of $11 per share Dell traded before news of the deal talks broke and is far below the $17.61 that the shares were trading a year ago."

Dell has steadily ceded market share in PCs to nimbler rivals such as Lenovo Group and is struggling to re-ignite growth. That's in spite of Michael Dell's efforts in the five years since he retook the helm of the company he founded in 1984, following a brief hiatus during which its fortunes waned rapidly.

Any deal that Michael Dell negotiates would need the approval of a majority of the shareholders. Deals that involve the considerable stake of a founder who is also the chief executive of the company are also likely to come in for extra scrutiny over whether the board exercised its fiduciary duty.

Dell has formed a special committee to take a close look at any potential deals on the table, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters earlier.

(Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta; editing by Carol Bishopric and Kenneth Barry)

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Goodell: New Orleans 'terrific,' despite blackout

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The blackout at the Superdome will not stop the Super Bowl from returning to New Orleans.

Commissioner Roger Goodell said that despite the electrical outage which delayed Sunday night's game for 34 minutes, the city did a "terrific" job hosting its first NFL championship in the post-Katrina era.

"Let me reiterate again what an extraordinary job the city of New Orleans has done," said Goodell, speaking Monday at a post-Super Bowl media conference held for the game's most valuable player, Baltimore quarterback Joe Flacco, and winning coach John Harbaugh. "The most important thing is to make sure people understand it was a fantastic week."

New Orleans has hosted 10 Super Bowls, including Baltimore's 34-31 victory over San Francisco, tied for the most with Miami.

While serving as the site of America's biggest sporting event and focus of an unofficial national holiday gets any city a lot of attention, this game had special meaning for New Orleans.

The city last hosted the Super Bowl in 2002 and officials were hoping this would serve as the ultimate showcase — on a global scale — of how far it has come since being devastated by Katrina in 2005. The storm winds tore holes in the roof of the Superdome and there was water damage from rain effecting electrical systems and causing mold to fester. More than $330 million has been spent to upgrade the facility, which has hosted the Sugar Bowl, Saints games, two BCS title games and a men's Final Four since the storm.

Yet the loss of power was an embarrassment that quickly became perhaps the game's signature moment.

Goodell said not to worry.

"I do not think this will have an effect on future Super Bowls in New Orleans," he said. "I fully expect to be back here for Super Bowls. I hope we will be back. We want to be back here."

Local officials have said they will bid to host an 11th Super Bowl in 2018 to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the city's founding. Goodell made it sound like that is still in play.

"This will not affect the view of the NFL of the success of the game here in New Orleans," Goodell continued. "We know that they have an interest in future Super Bowls and we look forward to evaluating that. Going forward, I do not think this will have an effect at all on what I think will be remembered as one of the great Super Bowl weeks."

Goodell said he had no concerns about the adequacy of the Superdome going forward because "this is clearly something that can be fixed and it's clearly something we can prepare for and we will."

For Goodell, it seemed, it was important to recognize how much fans and the league's business partners enjoyed dining at the city's renowned restaurants, attending parties in the home of Mardi Gras, and the ease of moving around with everything centrally located downtown.

"I do not think this will have an effect on future Super Bowls in New Orleans," Goodell added. "I fully expect to be back here for Super Bowls. I hope we will be back. We want to be back here."

It wasn't the first time Goodell has stuck up for the city.

He has been widely credited with working behind the scenes to get the Superdome renovated on a fast track after Katrina struck. It reopened in September 2006, in time for the Saints to return permanently to New Orleans after spending one season displaced to San Antonio.

Still, some Saints fans were critical of Goodell's handling of the league's bounty investigation of the team, and resulting sanctions that included the full season suspension of coach Sean Payton.

"After all we've been through here in New Orleans, it seems like we can't escape the worldwide attention of these kinds of events," said Doug Thornton, vice president of SMG, which manages both the Superdome and neighboring New Orleans Arena for the state. "It was an unfortunate circumstance at such a great moment for the city. I think the city was just spectacular this week. The host committee did a great job. It was a flawless event up to that point and it was just a spectacular week.

"So obviously for me, it was a disappointing moment."

Thornton said nothing inside the Superdome malfunctioned, but that the stadium's power supply was cut off from a nearby substation, and that once power was restored, everything inside the dome resumed normal operation.

Thornton also dismissed reports that the halftime show featuring Beyonce had anything to do with the outage, pointing out that that portion of the event was on independent generator power. In fact, Thornton said the dome's electrical system, which has not once failed since the storm, used less power during the Super Bowl than a typical Saints game.

Flacco also praised New Orleans as a host.

The Ravens quarterback recalled how much he enjoyed getting out on Saturday and visiting the French Quarter to clear his mind the day before the biggest game of his life. During that afternoon he stopped by Cafe du Monde, on the edge of scenic Jackson Square, where locals and tourists alike enjoy french doughnuts with powdered sugar and cafe au lait.

He added: "I really just wanted to try those beignets, or however you say it, which were unbelievable, by the way."

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Fall Out Boy ends three-year break with new album, tour

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Fall Out Boy unveiled plans for a new album and world tour on Monday, three years after the pop punk band‘s four members announced a hiatus to pursue solo projects.

“This isn’t a reunion,” the band said on its website, “because we never broke up.”

The new album, “Save Rock and Roll,” will be available worldwide on May 6-7. A tour kicks off Monday night in Chicago.

A new song, “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light Em Up),” is available on iTunes.

“When we were kids the only thing that got us through most days was music,” the band’s website statement said. “We needed to plug back in and make some music that matters to us. The future of Fall Out Boy starts now.”

Fall Out Boy soared to fame in 2005 with the album “From Under the Cork Tree.” Hit songs like “Sugar, We’re Goin Down” and “Dance, Dance” mixed energetic guitars and angst-ridden lyrics. The group released two more albums in 2007 and 2008 but went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009.

The band’s members include bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz, vocalist and guitarist Patrick Stump, guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley.

(Reporting By Nichola Groom; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

___

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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NFL: Beyonce not the cause of Super Bowl blackout

NEW YORK (AP) — Don't blame Beyonce for blowing the lights out at the Super Bowl.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday that the halftime show was not the cause of the power outage that darkened the Superdome for half an hour during Sunday's broadcast.

"There's no indication at all that this was caused by the halftime show. Absolutely not. I know that's been out there that this halftime show had something to do with it. That is not the case," Goodell said.

Beyonce was the halftime performer at Sunday night's game and used plenty of power to light up the stage. Some had joked that her electrifying performance was to blame for the outage.

But the halftime show was running on its own generator, said Goodell and Doug Thornton, a vice president of SMG, the company that manages the Superdome.

"It was not on our power grid at all," Thornton said, adding that the metered power consumption went down during halftime because the house lights were down.

Beyonce's 13-minute set included hits "Crazy in Love," ''Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" and a Destiny's Child reunion.

The energetic performance was sung live days after she admitted she sang to a pre-recorded track at President Barack Obama's inauguration. And it won applause from critics who called it a major improvement over Madonna, who sang to a backing track last year, and the Black Eyed Peas' much-criticized halftime show in 2011.

Afterward, Beyonce announced "The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour" will kick off April 15 in Belgrade, Serbia. The European leg of the tour will wrap up May 29 in Stockholm, Sweden.

The tour's North American stint starts June 28 in Los Angeles and ends Aug. 3 in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the Barclays Center.

It was also announced Monday that a second wave of the tour is planned for Latin America, Australia and Asia later this year.

___

Brett Martell contributed to this report from New Orleans.

___

Online:

http://www.beyonceonline.com/us/home

___

Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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S&P says US to sue over ratings

Standard & Poor's on Monday said it expects to be the target of a U.S. Department of Justice civil lawsuit over its ratings of mortgage bonds prior to the recent financial crisis.

The lawsuit against the McGraw-Hill Cos unit focuses on its ratings in 2007 of various U.S. collateralized debt obligations (CDO), S&P said.

It would be the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating agency over alleged illegal behavior tied to the financial crisis.

"A DOJ lawsuit would be entirely without factual or legal merit," S&P said in a statement. "The DOJ would be wrong in contending that S&P ratings were motivated by commercial considerations and not issued in good faith."

The Justice Department was not immediately available for comment.

Several state attorneys general are expected to join the case, The Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The expected charges follow the breakdown of talks between the department and S&P, the newspaper said, citing the people.

In afternoon trading, McGraw-Hill shares were down $2.39, or 4.1 percent, at $55.95.

S&P and its main rivals, Moody's Corp's Moody's Investors Service and Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings, have long faced criticism from investors, politicians and regulators for assigning high ratings to thousands of subprime and other mortgage securities that quickly turned sour.

The rating agencies are paid by issuers for ratings, a standard industry practice that has nonetheless raised concern about potential conflicts of interest.

In January 2011, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission called the agencies "essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction" and "key enablers of the financial meltdown."

McGraw-Hill had acknowledged last July that the Justice Department and SEC were probing potential violations by S&P tied to its ratings of structured products, and that it was in talks to try to avert a lawsuit.

The New York-based company had previously disclosed an SEC probe into its ratings of a $1.6 billion CDO known as Delphinus CDO 2007-1. It was not immediately clear whether that CDO is a focus of the potential lawsuits.

Last July, Mizuho Financial Group Inc agreed to a $127.5 million settlement to resolve SEC allegations that a U.S. unit obtained false credit ratings for Delphinus.

In a variety of lawsuits brought by investors, S&P has maintained that its ratings constitute opinions protected by the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Last August, a Manhattan federal judge refused to dismiss one such case, brought by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, King County in Washington state, and other investors against S&P, Moody's and Morgan Stanley over losses in Cheyne, a structured investment vehicle.

Cheyne went bankrupt in August 2007. A trial is scheduled to begin on May 6, court records show.

In its statement, S&P said it "deeply regrets" how its CDO ratings failed to anticipate the fast-deteriorating mortgage market conditions, and that it has since spent $400 million to help bolster the quality of its ratings.

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Robbery suspects charged with threatening girls with baseball bat

Photo: Carlos Alvizo (left) and Elias Martinez (February 3, 2013)

By Rosemary Regina Sobol




Tribune reporter

12:49 p.m. CST, February 3, 2013

Two Chicago men armed with a baseball bat are accused of trying to rob two 15-year-old girls during an attack  on Friday night that was foiled by two off duty police officers, police said.

Carlos Alvizo, 18, of the 5600 block of South Homan Avenue and Elias Martinez, 21, of the 2300 block of South Trumbull Avenue were both charged with two counts of attempted armed robbery of two 15-year-old girls that happened in the 3600 block South Hoyne Avenue in the city’s McKinley Park neighborhood, police said.

One of the suspects was wielding a baseball bat as they demanded “everything’’ from the girls, according to a police report.

One said: “Give me everything. I don’t want to whack you. Do you have any money? Do you have your cell phone? What do you have in your pocket?”’ according to the report.

Alvizo reached into a pocket of one of victims before but both men fled when they spotted two people – who happened to be off duty police officers from Chicago and Forest Park – who began running after them, the report said.

Both men jumped into a gray Dodge Neon but as Martinez turned on its ignition the officers were able to stop them before they drove away in the car, police said. 

The girls later identified them and they were arrested about 6:15 p.m.

rsobol@tribune.com

Twitter:@RosemarySobol1

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