Sources: American, US Airways boards approve merger

The boards of AMR Corp and US Airways Group Inc separately met on Wednesday to approve a merger that would value the combined company at around $11 billion, people familiar with the matter said.

The deal, which will be announced early on Thursday, comes more than 14 months after the bankrupt parent of American Airlines filed for bankruptcy in November 2011, and would mark the last combination of legacy U.S. carriers, following the Delta-Northwest and United-Continental mergers.

The board approval came after AMR's unsecured creditors committee, which includes all three of AMR's major unions, met earlier in the day to approve a proposed merger agreement, the people said.

The all-stock merger would give AMR creditors 72 percent of ownership in the merged entity and US Airways shareholders the rest, the people said.

The merged company will have a board of 12 members: four from US Airways including its chief executive Doug Parker, three from AMR including chief executive Tom Horton and five to be designated by the AMR creditors, one of the people said.

That will shrink to 11 members in 2014 after Horton steps down following the combined company's first annual meeting, the person added. Parker becomes chief executive of the new airline.

AMR's unsecured creditors are expected to be made whole on their claims in the form of stock in the merged company and also get accrued interest, the people said. AMR's shareholders will get a small equity stake as well, they added.

All the sources asked not to be named because the matter was not public. US Airways declined to comment while AMR representatives could not be immediately reached for comment.

A tie-up with US Airways would create the world's top airline by passenger traffic and help American and US Air better compete with United Continental Holdings and Delta Air Lines.

Some $11 billion valuation of the combined American-US Airways compares to the roughly $12.4 billion market capitalization for Delta, and $8.7 billion for United Continental.

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Ex-cop shootout: Smoke, flame amid 'tactical operation'

A person believed to be the fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop sought in three killings exchanged gunfire with authorities in the San Bernardino Mountains. (Feb. 12)

Los Angeles Times

6:40 p.m. CST, February 12, 2013

Smoke and flames were visible from the area where fugitive law enforcement officer Christopher Jordan Dorner was holed up in a Big Bear-area cabin after gun battles with law enforcement officers.

Law enforcement sources said "a tactical operation" was underway at the cabin but did not provide further details.

A tall plume of smoke was rising from the area where the standoff occurred. Hundreds of law enforcement personnel swooped down on the site near Big Bear following the gun battles between Dorner and officers that broke out in the snow-covered mountains where the fugitive had been eluding a massive manhunt since his truck was found burning in the area late last week.

Law enforcement personnel in military-style gear and armed with high-powered weapons were involved in a tense standoff after Dorner took refuge in the cabin Tuesday afternoon. 

One San San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy died of his wounds after he and another deputy were wounded in an exchange of gunfire outside the cabin in which hundreds of rounds were fired, sources told The Times. The deputy was airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he died of his wounds.

The afternoon gun battle was part of a quickly changing situation that began after Dorner allegedly broke into a home, tied up a couple and held them hostage before fleeing with their white pickup truck, authorities said. 

Then Dorner was allegedly spotted by a state Fish and Wildlife officer in the pickup truck, sources said. A vehicle-to-vehicle shootout ensued. The officer's vehicle was peppered with multiple rounds, according to authorities.

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Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

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Katherine Bouton speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.

A transcript of this interview can be found here.

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Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

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Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

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Chicago leads nation in gas-price spikes

Drivers in Chicago are seeing a painful rise in gas prices get even worse this month.

The average price of regular unleaded in the Chicago metro area on Tuesday is $3.93, according to AAA. That's up 12 cents from a week ago. A month ago, the average was $3.42. Statewide, the average is about $3.79, up 8 cents from last week and 46 cents last month.

Prices are rising at pumps across the country, too, but not as dramatically. The national average is $3.60, up about 7 cents from a week ago and 30 cents higher than this time last month.

It's not typical to see gas price spikes at this time of year. Demand is typically low and picks up in the spring before driving season. And in general, gas is cheaper to produce in the winter because refineries can use less expensive blends.

The main reason for the spike is the higher price of crude oil. The price of oil has gone from around $85 a barrel in December to around $97 now because of improving economic certainty as the country moved past the election and the fiscal cliff deadline, according to energy analyst Phil Flynn. It's also being driven by better-than-expected growth in China, the world's second largest economy.

Prices in the Chicago area are typically some the highest in the nation, but the cost of a local fill-up is accelerating at almost double the national rate.

Flynn attributes this to a number of refinery issues in the region. Some scheduled maintenance at refineries -- where gasoline and other products are produced from oil -- occurred earlier than usual, which cut off some supply, affecting prices. Many close at this time of year to start the switchover to lower-emission summer blends of gasoline.

Besides a major overhaul of BP's Whiting refinery, the largest supplier of gasoline to Midwest markets, that's believed to be driving prices higher, a fire temporarily shut down a refinery in northwest Ohio.

AAA, which tracks daily gasoline prices around the country, predicts they will continue their rapid climb as local refinery issues continue into the beginning of peak driving season.

Flynn is more optimistic.

He believes that once the major Whiting refinery overhaul is complete later this year, gas prices will stabilize.

"I'm probably in the minority but I think we are starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel," he said.

sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel

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2 charged with murder in Hadiya Pendleton slaying

Two men have  been charged in the shooting death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, prosecutors said.

Charged were Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, both of Chicago. The two face charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and aggravated battery with a firearm in the attack that also left two other teens wounded.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and other top police officials were expected to speak about the charges at the news conference at Area Central police headquarters this evening. Earlier today, McCarthy said charges were expected this evening.

"We will bring this all to closure, probably sometime this evening we're anticipating hopefully that we'll have charges," McCarthy said at a news conference with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to announce a push for stiffer jail terms for people convicted of gun crimes.

McCarthy declined to provide more specifics, saying the investigation is ongoing.

"We're still doing lineups. We're still crossing some t's and dotting some i's that we need to do before we can get charges approved for these individuals," he said.

Chicago police picked up the two men, 18 and 20, over the weekend, hours after first lady Michelle Obama attended the funeral for the teenager whose death has become a symbol of escalating violence in Chicago.

The men were pulled over near 67th Street and South Chicago Avenue late Saturday night or early Sunday morning after detectives canvassed the area of the park where she was fatally shot Jan. 29 and tracked down witnesses, the sources said.

Hadiya was shot in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park, about a mile north of President Barack Obama's Kenwood neighborhood home on the South Side. Her slaying took place a little more than a week after the honor student performed with the King College Prep band in Washington during inauguration festivities. Two other teens were wounded.

The shooting in the 4400 block of South Oakenwald Avenue happened after classes were dismissed for the day during finals week at King. Hadiya, a sophomore at King, was at the park with a group of teens, primarily other students from the school, when a male gunman climbed over a fence, ran to the group and started firing, police have said. The shooter escaped in what has been described as a white Nissan vehicle, possibly driven by a getaway driver.

One of the sources said at least one of the men brought into custody was riding in a Nissan Sentra, one of the two vehicles police pulled over when bringing the pair into custody. The source didn't know that Nissan's color.

After police News Affairs initially--and mistakenly--said that her companions included gang members, Police have said the teens in Hadiya's group who had gathered in the park were not involved in gangs. But police have been looking into whether the gunman may have mistaken them for rival gang members.

While police and neighbors have generally described Harsh Park and its immediate surroundings as safe, there has been an internal gang conflict brewing in the area between factions of the Gangster Disciples, police said. The two men who are charged are alleged members of the Gangster Disciples, sources said.

Ward pleaded guilty early last year in a 2011 aggravated unlawful use of a weapon case, and was given two years probation, according to court records. After an arrest on criminal trespass to a vehicle last summer, he was held without bond for a few weeks, but was released after a Sept. 9, 2012, hearing.

Williams was arrested on a misdemeanor retail theft charge in October 2011, but the charge was dismissed.

In addition to Hadiya's homicide, there have been at least three other shootings within blocks of Harsh Park so far this year, according to police records.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel personally called Hadiya's parents, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton, to inform them of the development, according to a source. Nathaniel Pendleton told the Tribune on Sunday night that he didn't want to say too much about the men being questioned because charges have not been filed.
“Right now, we're just happy that Chicago police have some leads and things are moving,” he said.

Shatira Wilks, a cousin of Hadiya's and a family spokesperson, said the development is a “good response” and better news than the family had Saturday.

Arrests and charges “will bring a small level of closure to the family, although (the shooter) still will be allowed to eat, drink, mingle,” Wilks said. “The thing about that is, Hadiya is no longer (able) to do so.”

On how Hadiya's family is doing, Wilks said, “Everyone keeps asking that. I don't know if you'll ever get an answer that we're feeling good or we're feeling fine.”

Hadiya's godmother, LaKeisha Stewart, said questioning the men is a good start, but she's more eager to find out when or if charges are filed.

“Until this person is off the streets for good, that an example is made to … other people like him -- that's when I'll breathe a sigh of relief,” Stewart said. “For me, when the person is in court and a judge says they are responsible for her murder … to me, that's when this will make a difference.”

Hadiya's death occurred during the deadliest January for Chicago since 2002. It also came on the heels of a homicide total last year that was the highest since 2008, and the second highest since 2003.

The playground where Hadiya was shot was the setting for an amateur rap video posted to YouTube. The video, which also highlights the intersection at South Oakenwald and East 44th Place, uses the moniker of a local gang in an opening credit and features a rapper shown leaving the Cook County Jail, then threatening to shoot down his foes.

The video ends at a house party with a smiling teenage girl flashing gang signs at the camera.

The first lady's attendance at Hadiya's funeral placed Chicago even further into the spotlight of a national debate over gun violence that has polarized Congress and led the president to take his gun-control initiatives on the road to garner more public support.

Neither the first lady nor elected officials gave remarks during the funeral. Only the friends and relatives who knew Hadiya best were allowed to speak.

In the days following Hadiya's death, clergy and community leaders raised $40,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the teen's killer or killers. McCarthy has said that detectives have received numerous tips to follow up on for the homicide investigation.

Tribune reporter Carlos Sadovi contributed to this story.

tlighty@tribune.com

jgorner@tribune.com

Jdelgado@tribune.com

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Personal Health: Getting the Right Addiction Treatment

“Treatment is not a prerequisite to surviving addiction.” This bold statement opens the treatment chapter in a helpful new book, “Now What? An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery,” by William Cope Moyers, a man who nonetheless needed “four intense treatment experiences over five years” before he broke free of alcohol and drugs.

As the son of Judith and Bill Moyers, successful parents who watched helplessly during a 15-year pursuit of oblivion through alcohol and drugs, William Moyers said his near-fatal battle with addiction demonstrates that this “illness of the mind, body and spirit” has no respect for status or opportunity.

“My parents raised me to become anything I wanted, but when it came to this chronic incurable illness, I couldn’t get on top of it by myself,” he said in an interview.

He finally emerged from his drug-induced nadir when he gave up “trying to do it my way” and instead listened to professional therapists and assumed responsibility for his behavior. For the last “18 years and four months, one day at a time,” he said, he has lived drug-free.

“Treatment is not the end, it’s the beginning,” he said. “My problem was not drinking or drugs. My problem was learning how to live life without drinking or drugs.”

Mr. Moyers acknowledges that treatment is not a magic bullet. Even after a monthlong stay at a highly reputable treatment center like Hazelden in Center City, Minn., where Mr. Moyers is a vice president of public affairs and community relations, the probability of remaining sober and clean a year later is only about 55 percent. (Hazelden also published his book.)

“Be wary of any program that claims a 100 percent success rate,” Mr. Moyers warned. “There is no such thing.”

“Treatment works to make recovery possible. But recovery is also possible without treatment,” Mr. Moyers said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What I needed and what worked for me isn’t necessarily what you or your loved one require.”

As with many smokers who must make multiple attempts to quit before finally overcoming an addiction to nicotine, people hooked on alcohol or drugs often must try and try again.

Nor does treatment have as good a chance at succeeding if it is forced upon a person who is not ready to recover. “Treatment does work, but only if the person wants it to,” Mr. Moyers said.

Routes to Success

For those who need a structured program, Mr. Moyers described what to consider to maximize the chances of overcoming addiction to alcohol or drugs.

Most important is to get a thorough assessment before deciding where to go for help. Do you or your loved one meet the criteria for substance dependence? Are there “co-occurring mental illnesses, traumatic or physical disabilities, socioeconomic influences, cultural issues, or family dynamics” that may be complicating the addiction and that can sabotage treatment success?

While most reputable treatment centers do a full assessment before admitting someone, it is important to know if the center or clinic provides the services of professionals who can address any underlying issues revealed by the assessment. For example, if needed, is a psychiatrist or other medical doctor available who could provide therapy and prescribe medication?

Is there a social worker on staff to address challenging family, occupational or other living problems? If a recovering addict goes home to the same problems that precipitated the dependence on alcohol or drugs, the chances of remaining sober or drug-free are greatly reduced.

Is there a program for family members who can participate with the addict in learning the essentials of recovery and how to prepare for the return home once treatment ends?

Finally, does the program offer aftercare and follow-up services? Addiction is now recognized to be a chronic illness that lurks indefinitely within an addict in recovery. As with other chronic ailments, like diabetes or hypertension, lasting control requires hard work and diligence. One slip need not result in a return to abuse, and a good program will help addicts who have completed treatment cope effectively with future challenges to their recovery.

How Families Can Help

“Addiction is a family illness,” Mr. Moyers wrote. Families suffer when someone they love descends into the purgatory of addiction. But contrary to the belief that families should cut off contact with addicts and allow them to reach “rock-bottom” before they can begin recovery, Mr. Moyers said that the bottom is sometimes death.

“It is a dangerous, though popular, misconception that a sick addict can only quit using and start to get well when he ‘hits bottom,’ that is, reaches a point at which he is desperate enough to willingly accept help,” Mr. Moyers wrote.

Rather, he urged families to remain engaged, to keep open the lines of communication and regularly remind the addict of their love and willingness to help if and when help is wanted. But, he added, families must also set firm boundaries — no money, no car, nothing that can be quickly converted into the substance of abuse.

Whether or not the addict ever gets well, Mr. Moyers said, “families have to take care of themselves. They can’t let the addict walk over their lives.”

Sometimes families or friends of an addict decide to do an intervention, confronting the addict with what they see happening and urging the person to seek help, often providing possible therapeutic contacts.

“An intervention can be the key that interrupts the process and enables the addict to recognize the extent of their illness and the need to take responsibility for their behavior,”Mr. Moyers said.

But for an intervention to work, Mr. Moyers said, “the sick person should not be belittled or demeaned.” He also cautioned families to “avoid threats.” He noted that the mind of “the desperate, fearful addict” is subsumed by drugs and alcohol that strip it of logic, empathy and understanding. It “can’t process your threat any better than it can a tearful, emotional plea.”

Resource Network

Mr. Moyer’s book lists nearly two dozen sources of help for addicts and their families. Among them:

Alcoholics Anonymous World Services www.aa.org;

Narcotics Anonymous World Services www.na.org;

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration treatment finder www.samhsa.gov/treatment/;

Al-Anon Family Groups www.Al-anon.alateen.org;

Nar-Anon Family Groups www.nar-anon.org;

Co-Dependents Anonymous World Fellowship www.coda.org.

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This is the second of two articles on addiction treatment. The first can be found at “Effective Addiction Treatment.”

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Maker's Mark lowering proof to meet demand

Maker's Mark announced it is reducing the amount of alcohol in the spirit to keep pace with rapidly increasing consumer demand.

In an email to its fans, representatives of the brand said the entire bourbon category is "exploding" and demand for Maker's Mark is growing even faster. Some customers have even reported empty shelves in their local stores, it said.

After looking at "all possible solutions," the total alcohol by volume of Maker's Mark is being reduced by 3 percent. Representatives said the change will allow it to maintain the same taste while making sure there's "enough Maker's Mark to go around." It's working to expand its distillery and production capacity, too.

Maker's Mark, made by Deerfield-based Beam Inc., said it's done extensive testing to ensure the same taste. It says bourbon drinkers couldn't tell the difference. It also underscored the fact that nothing else in the production process has changed.

"In other words, we've made sure we didn't screw up your whisky," the note said.

Rob Samuels, chief operating officer and grandson of Maker's Mark Founder Bill Samuels, Sr., said this is a permanent decision that won’t be reversed when demand for bourbon slows down. Samuels said that bourbon has gone from the slowest growing spirits category to the fastest over the last 18 months, driven by growth overseas and demand from younger drinkers. An average bottle of Maker’s Mark takes six and half years to produce from start to finish, and since the company doesn’t buy or trade whiskey, it’s been impossible to keep up. 

The first bottle of Maker's Mark, with its signature red wax closure, was produced in 1958.

Beam is the country's second-largest spirits company by volume. It also makes Jim Beam, Sauza tequila and Pinnacle vodka. It's still dwarfed by industry-leading Diageo, the London-based maker of Smirnoff, Tanqueray, Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker.

It's a tough time to take a risk with one of its oldest and most popular brands. Beam has promised that 25 percent of sales will come from new products, a difficult goal to attain but a critical one for investor confidence.The move met some backlash on social media sites, where some said they would boycott the bourbon if the company went ahead with its plans.

Many also complained that they'd rather see an increase in its price than a decrease in the alcohol. But observers say that by raising the price, Beam would have hurt itself by positioning Maker's Mark to compete against its own higher end brands like Basil Hayden's.

sbomkamp@tribune.com | Twitter: @SamWillTravel

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Grammy Awards: Live updates

Skrillex and the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach were the big early winners at the 55th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles with three awards.

The vast majority of the 81 awards were handed out before the television broadcast, and included some memorable moments:

Skrillex in accepting an award for his electronic-dance-music single and album, both titled “Bangarang”: “Thanks for letting us do it the weird way.”

Bonnie Raitt on her upset in the Americana category over Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers, among others: “I was not expecting this. I have enough!”

Dr. John in picking up his award for best blues album: Actually, I have no idea what he said. It was some kind of absolutely indecipherable, deep-dive New Orleans hoodoo-jive mumble, and it was wonderful. Dan Auerbach, who produced the album ("Locked Down"), accompanied the good Doctor on stage, apparently to serve as translator.

Among the best performances of the night was one that only the on-line audience witnessed, by the Chicago new-classical ensemble eighth blackbird: fierce, twisted, and definitely worthy of investigation by fans of avant-rock bands such as Radiohead and My Bloody Valentine. The group also picked up a Grammy for best chamber music/small ensemble performance.

Gotye, who won an award not only for his ubiquitous “Somebody That I Used to Know” single, but also for his far-less celebrated “Making Mirrors” album in the alternative category, beating out Tom Waits and Fiona Apple: “I’d like to thank my mom and dad for letting me put all my weird equipment in their barn (in Australia).”

Josh Smith of hard-rock/metal winners Halestorm: “Most parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers. Our parents encouraged us to join the circus.”

Brian Wilson also nailed an award for his long-brewing, once-abandoned “Smile” album, which won for best historical album. Afterward, he tweeted, “I'm so happy I could cry. I guess Van Dyke (Parks) and I were on to something after all.”

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An earlier backstage rundown from the LA Times:

6:10 p.m. (Central Time): Final update from the pre-show: The 70^th award this afternoon went to the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach for producer of the year. “Wow,” said Auerbach, who moments ago was on stage when the Black Keys’ “El Camino” took the rock album Grammy. In addition to “El Camino,” Auerbach’s production credits included the Grammy-winning Dr. John album “Locked Down.”

“Thank you so much for Nonesuch for supporting these kind of projects that I love doing,” said Auerbach. If there is any major Grammy story line emerging, it’s that album of the year is shaping up to be a showdown between rock act the Black Keys and adventurous R&B artist Frank Ocean. Among the categories the latter is up for are best new artist and urban contemporary album, awards that will be given out on the show.

6:03 p.m.: Gotye’s “Making Mirrors” won the Grammy for alternative album. “Thank you to everyone making non-alternative albums so this category can exist,” said Gotye (real name: Wouter  De Backer). He said he didn’t feel comfortable accepting the award, acknowledging that most fans still know him just for one song. He made sure to single out anyone who has listened to the “whole album.”

Gotye didn’t have to move far, as he then won the Grammy for pop duo/group performance for his “Somebody That I Used to Know” featuring Kimbra. Aside from keeping LMFAO off the Grammy stage, who were up for “Sexy and I Know It,” the win is especially noteworthy because it bests Fun.’s “We Are Young” featuring Janelle Monae. Fun. is up for album of the year and “We Are Young” is also up for record of the year. The latter, right now, would appear to be a race primarily between the Black Keys and Gotye, unless Frank Ocean sweeps on the telecast.

5:54 p.m.: Album-of-the-year watch:  “Lonely Boy” from the Black Keys won the Grammy for rock song, besting songs from fellow album of the year nominees Jack White and Mumford & Sons. Seconds later, the band won rock album for “El Camino.” “My brother, my mom and dad are in the audience,” Keys member Dan Auerbach said. “I wouldn’t be here without them. Thank you everyone in Music City for welcoming us. Nashville, Tenn., is a beautiful place.”

5:52 p.m.: Grammy rule No. 762: Do not bet against a Beatle. Paul McCartney’s “Kisses on the Bottom” won traditional pop vocal album. Then it was time for some Grammy whiplash, as Halestorm’s “Love Bites (So Do I)” took the Grammy for hard rock/metal performance. “Most parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers. Our parents encouraged us to join the circus,” said Josh Smith.

5:46 p.m.:  Little Big Town’s “Pontoon,” a goofy little ditty about partying in a boat, won the Grammy for country duo/group performance. “This is such a long time coming for us. We’re so thrilled,” said the band’s Phillip Sweet. Moments later, Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away” took the Grammy for country song. Songwriters Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins were on hand to accept the prize. 

5:42 p.m.: The late Ravi Shankar won the world music Grammy for his “Traveller.” The prize wasaccepted by his daughter Anoushka, who was also nominated. “It’s two months tomorrow since he passed away. I’m just really proud that he was making records right to the end. … If he were here, he would thank my mom,” she said.

5:12 p.m. (Central Time): Dr. John’s “Locked Down” won for blues album. He’ll be performing tonight with the Black Keys. “Locked Down,” full of wildly psychedelic keyboards, was produced by the Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who said, “I want to thank Nonesuch for their support, for footing the bill.”

5:12 p.m.: “I was not expecting this,” shouted Bonnie Raitt when accepting the award for American album. “I have enough! Thank you, though.” She was competing against some heavy hitters, namely album-of-the-year nominees Mumford & Sons and best new artist contenders the Lumineers. This would seem to spell trouble for the Mumford & Sons being able to pull off an album-of-the-year upset over Frank Ocean.  

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For Families Struggling with Mental Illness, Carolyn Wolf Is a Guide in the Darkness

When a life starts to unravel, where do you turn for help?

Melissa Klump began to slip in the eighth grade. She couldn’t focus in class, and in a moment of despair she swallowed 60 ibuprofen tablets. She was smart, pretty and ill: depression, attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

In her 20s, after a more serious suicide attempt, her parents sent her to a residential psychiatric treatment center, and from there to another. It was the treatment of last resort. When she was discharged from the second center last August after slapping another resident, her mother, Elisa Klump, was beside herself.

“I was banging my head against the wall,” the mother said. “What do I do next?” She frantically called support groups, therapy programs, suicide prevention lines, anybody, running down a list of names in a directory of mental health resources. “Finally,” she said, “somebody told me, ‘The person you need to talk to is Carolyn Wolf.’ ”

That call, she said, changed her life and her daughter’s. “Carolyn has given me hope,” she said. “I didn’t know there were people like her out there.”

Carolyn Reinach Wolf is not a psychiatrist or a mental health professional, but a lawyer who has carved out what she says is a unique niche, working with families like the Klumps.

One in 17 American adults suffers from a severe mental illness, and the systems into which they are plunged — hospitals, insurance companies, courts, social services — can be fragmented and overwhelming for families to manage. The recent shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo., have brought attention to the need for intervention to prevent such extreme acts of violence, which are rare. But for the great majority of families watching their loved ones suffer, and often suffering themselves, the struggle can be boundless, with little guidance along the way.

“If you Google ‘mental health lawyer,’ ” said Ms. Wolf, a partner with Abrams & Fensterman, “I’m kinda the only game in town.”

On a recent afternoon, she described in her Midtown office the range of her practice.

“We have been known to pull people out of crack dens,” she said. “I have chased people around hotels all over the city with the N.Y.P.D. and my team to get them to a hospital. I had a case years ago where the person was on his way back from Europe, and the family was very concerned that he was symptomatic. I had security people meet him at J.F.K.”

Many lawyers work with mentally ill people or their families, but Ron Honberg, the national director of policy and legal affairs for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said he did not know of another lawyer who did what Ms. Wolf does: providing families with a team of psychiatrists, social workers, case managers, life coaches, security guards and others, and then coordinating their services. It can be a lifeline — for people who can afford it, Mr. Honberg said. “Otherwise, families have to do this on their own,” he said. “It’s a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week job, and for some families it never ends.”

Many of Ms. Wolf’s clients declined to be interviewed for this article, but the few who spoke offered an unusual window on the arcane twists and turns of the mental health care system, even for families with money. Their stories illustrate how fraught and sometimes blind such a journey can be.

One rainy morning last month, Lance Sheena, 29, sat with his mother in the spacious family room of her Long Island home. Mr. Sheena was puffy-eyed and sporadically inattentive; the previous night, at the group home where he has been living since late last summer, another resident had been screaming incoherently and was taken away by the police. His mother, Susan Sheena, eased delicately into the family story.

“I don’t talk to a lot of people because they don’t get it,” Ms. Sheena said. “They mean well, but they don’t get it unless they’ve been through a similar experience. And anytime something comes up, like the shooting in Newtown, right away it goes to the mentally ill. And you think, maybe we shouldn’t be so public about this, because people are going to be afraid of us and Lance. It’s a big concern.”

Her son cut her off. “Are you comparing me to the guy that shot those people?”

“No, I’m saying that anytime there’s a shooting, like in Aurora, that’s when these things come out in the news.”

“Did you really just compare me to that guy?”

“No, I didn’t compare you.”

“Then what did you say?”

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The fine line between legitimate businesses and pyramid schemes

Controversy is again casting a shadow over the multilevel marketing industry, as nutritional supplement company Herbalife Inc., which has thousands of distributors in the Chicago region, has been publicly called a pyramid scheme by a prominent investor — an allegation the company vigorously denies.

Meanwhile, a different multilevel marketer, Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, was shut down in recent weeks after a lawsuit was brought by regulators and several states, including Illinois, alleging the company scammed consumers out of $169 million. The scheme affected an estimated 100,000 Americans, including some in Chicago, where it targeted Spanish-speaking consumers, the Federal Trade Commission alleged.

Most people outside the industry might have only a vague notion about multilevel marketing, also called network marketing and direct selling. It often involves personal sales of cosmetics, wellness products or home decor items — or as critics flippantly call it, "pills, potions and lotions" — usually sold through product parties hosted by friends or relatives.

For sellers, the companies offer the appeal of starting a business on the cheap with little training, working from home and being their own boss, if only for part-time money. Some might recruit friends and family to become sellers, which augments their own commissions and gives them a shot at the six-figure compensation many such marketing companies tout but few distributors attain.

The largest multilevel marketing companies, often known as MLMs, are household names: Avon, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef and Amway. MLMs have annual sales of about $30 billion, with about 16 million people in the United States selling their products, according to the industry group Direct Selling Association, which represents these firms and others.

The recent controversies might raise the question: What's the difference between a legitimate multilevel marketing company and an illegal pyramid scheme, in which only people who get in first — at the top of the pyramid-like structure — make money and everyone else is a dupe?

The harshest critics maintain there is no difference, that there's no such thing as a legitimate MLM and that the industry's secrets stay safe because of a cultlike mentality and a blind eye of regulators.

Jon M. Taylor, who was once a seller for an MLM company, said he has studied the industry for 18 years and analyzed more than 500 MLM companies. He maintains the website MLM-thetruth.com and offers a free e-book there.

"I have not yet found a good MLM — a good MLM is an oxymoron," Taylor said.

He said all MLM companies have the same flaw: They depend on endless chains of recruiting new members.  "There is no more unfair and deceptive practice than multilevel marketing," Taylor said.

Tracy Coenen, a forensic accountant and fraud investigator with Sequence Inc. in Chicago and Milwaukee, is author of the Fraud Files Blog. She is also a critic.

"Multilevel marketing companies are pyramid schemes that the government allows to operate," said Coenen. "The only difference is that Herbalife, or any multilevel marketing company, has a tangible product that they use to make their pyramid appear legitimate."

The Direct Selling Association says MLMs are legitimate businesses, and that the group has about 200 members carefully screened by the organization to ensure they are not pyramid schemes and don't use deceptive practices.

The Federal Trade Commission agrees there are legitimate MLMs. The difference between a legitimate business and pyramid scheme comes down to products.

If the company and its distributors make money primarily from the sale of products to end-users (and not boxes of product accumulating in a distributor's garage), it's OK.

By contrast, a pyramid scheme compensates those at the top of the pyramid with participation fees paid by those recruited at the bottom. It eventually collapses when the scheme can't recruit more people.

But identifying a pyramid scheme can be difficult because MLMs typically have product sales, along with recruitment fees and recruitment incentives.

"It gets cloudy when you have a situation where you have fees being paid for both," said Monica Vaca, assistant director of the FTC's division of marketing practices. "It's very nuanced."

While prosecuting an MLM can seem somewhat of a judgment call, cases have a common factor: deceptive promises about how much money distributors will earn, Vaca said.

In the Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing case filed last month, C. Steven Baker, director of the FTC's Midwest region, said, "These defendants were promising people that if they worked hard they could make lots of money. But it was a rigged game, and the vast majority of people lost money."

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