Tribune Co. set to exit bankruptcy protection

Tribune Co. is expected to emerge from bankruptcy protection Monday with a new board of directors composed largely of entertainment-industry veterans.

Exiting bankruptcy would mark a milestone for Tribune, the parent of the Los Angeles Times and other newspaper and television properties.

Tribune sought Bankruptcy Court protection in December 2008 after a leveraged buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell saddled the company with $12.9 billion in debt just as advertising revenue was collapsing. It is one of the longest bankruptcy cases in U.S. corporate history.

Tribune will emerge as a slimmed-down entity with a more stable financial base. But the media conglomerate will still be buffeted by the larger forces pounding the newspaper industry, specifically uncertainty over whether papers can generate sufficient revenue from digital operations.

"Tribune is far stronger than it was when we began the Chapter 11 process four years ago and, given the budget planning we've done, the company is well-positioned for success in 2013," Eddy Hartenstein, Tribune's chief executive, wrote in a note to employees Sunday night.

Tribune's new board of directors is expected to be made up of a who's who of Hollywood players. Most have no hands-on experience running newspapers and television stations, which are Tribune's biggest assets.

Five of the seven members have ties to the entertainment and media industries, including Hartenstein and Peter Liguori, a former News Corp. executive who is expected to succeed Hartenstein as Tribune CEO in the next few weeks.

Also expected to be named to the board are Peter Murphy, previously a longtime executive at Walt Disney Co.; Ross Levinsohn, former head of global media at Yahoo Inc.; and Craig A. Jacobson, a veteran entertainment attorney.

The board will be rounded out by Bruce Karsh, president of Oaktree Capital Management, the Los Angeles investment firm that owns about 23% of the new Tribune; and Kenneth Liang, an Oaktree managing director.

Tribune owns 23 local television stations, eight daily newspapers and Internet and other media properties.

Those holdings include KTLA-TV Channel 5, the Chicago Tribune, and national cable station WGN-TV. Tribune also holds slightly less than one-third of the Food Network cable channel and about a 25% stake in the CareerBuilder website.

Liguori is also a former Discovery Communications senior executive whose resume is in programming and marketing. He headed both the FX cable network and Fox Broadcasting at News Corp. At Discovery he served as chief operating officer of the cable programming giant.

Murphy spent almost two decades at Disney, rising to the position of chief strategist. He founded private investment firm Wentworth Capital Management. He has close ties to Angelo, Gordon & Co., an investment firm that will own roughly 9% of the new Tribune Co.

Levinsohn is a former head of global media at Yahoo. He also served briefly as its interim CEO before Google Inc.'s Marissa Mayer being tapped for that job. Levinsohn also is a former News Corp. executive who headed its interactive unit.

Jacobson, an attorney at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush & Kaller is one of Hollywood's more prominent deal-makers. His clients have included several high-profile executives and performers such as Ryan Seacrest.

Tribune remained profitable throughout the bankruptcy, building cash reserves of more than $2.5 billion as of Nov. 18, according to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing this month. Creditors are expected to immediately take nearly $3 billion in cash out of the new company, some of it coming from a new $1.1-billion loan that was approved as part of the bankruptcy.

The value of Tribune's newspaper properties has sunk to $623 million, a fraction of their value a few years earlier, according to an estimate filed in Bankruptcy Court in April.

A key question still to be answered is what Tribune will do with its newspapers. Some analysts believe the company will seek to sell the slower-growing newspapers to focus on TV holdings.

As for the Los Angeles Times, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has expressed interest, according to people familiar with the matter.

Aaron Kushner, owner of the Orange County Register, and Doug Manchester, the San Diego real estate developer who last year bought the local Union Tribune newspaper, also have shown interest.

Austin Beutner, the former venture capitalist and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles, told The Times in October that he has reached out to civic-minded investors who would consider acquiring the paper.

walter.hamilton@latimes.com

joe.flint@latimes.com

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Officials warn holiday revelers against firing weapons

By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2012, 8:59 p.m.

Los Angeles officials are warning that anyone discharging a firearm into the air to celebrate the new year not only risks killing someone but could also face a lengthy prison sentence.

"Firing into the air weapons in celebration puts innocent lives at risk," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said last week. "Nothing ruins the holiday season like an errant bullet coming down and killing an innocent."

Villaraigosa said the misuse of firearms is on everyone's mind in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that left six adults and 20 children dead. The mayor vowed that authorities will pursue criminal charges for anyone caught in possession of a weapon in public.

For more than a decade, city and county leaders have tried to quell celebratory gunfire.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said a bullet discharged into the air falls at a rate of 300 to 700 mph, depending on the weapon — "easily enough to crack the human skull."

"Please celebrate New Year's with your family, not in [Sheriff] Lee Baca's jail or my jail," Beck said, pledging to capture anyone firing a weapon. "Firing a gun in the air isn't only dangerous and a crime but socially unacceptable."

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said that anyone caught firing a weapon — even if they don't hit someone — will face a felony charge and a fine of up to $10,000 and a possible three-year sentence. A conviction would be considered a strike offense and the suspect would lose the right to own a firearm.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said that in some county areas, special equipment has been deployed to spot shots within seconds and track their locations.

"The madness of gun violence has to stop," he said. "This is a matter of physics. What goes up must come down."

richard.winton@latimes.com

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Top Comments: The Problems with Facebook, Windows and Apple

The Problem with Windows 8

In the op-ed “The Problem with Windows 8″ Mashable editor Pete Pachal elaborated on the problems he has with Windows 8. Reader Xuanlong pointed out that Windows 8 had a tough act to follow in Windows 7, and that Windows 8 represents a necessary risk for Microsoft.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Apple Spares Samsung Galaxy S III Mini From Patent Infringement Case]

As the holiday season and the year itself drew to a close this week, Mashable readers were reflective about the innovations and complications we’ve seen in the tech world in 2012. The top comments this week showcase the excitement and frustration that surround top products and services like Microsoft, Apple and Facebook.

The most commented upon story this week was was the op-ed “The Problem with Windows 8,” in which Mashable editor Pete Pachal elaborated on the problems he has with the new OS. Our readers largely agreed with Pachal’s assessment of Windows 8′s shortcomings, though several readers provided well-reasoned rebuttals of some of his points. The second-hottest story was about the rumored “smartphone watch” that Apple may be developing. Our community was split over whether or not this watch was something they wanted, or that anyone needed.

[More from Mashable: 3 Apple Computer Designs That You’ve Never Seen]

Readers also flocked to stories this week that looked at the intersection of human interaction and technology. Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi was outraged when a picture she posted on Facebook was reposted to Twitter, inciting a global online conversation about Facebook‘s privacy settings. Our commenters sounded off on everything from Randi Zuckerberg‘s reaction to Facebook’s settings themselves.

What was the topic on Mashable that you were most excited about this week? Don’t forget to let your voice be heard in the comment sections and next week you could be featured in the top comments.

It’s been a wonderful year for the Mashable community, and we want to thank all of our readers for making it fantastic. See you in 2013!

Image courtesy of Flickr, Nandor Fejer

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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McCartney, 'God particle' scientist get honors

LONDON (AP) — Stella McCartney, who designed the uniforms worn by Britain's record-smashing Olympic team, and Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the so-called "God particle," are among the hundreds being honored by Queen Elizabeth II this New Year.

The list is particularly heavy with Britain's Olympic heroes, but it also includes "Star Wars" actor Ewan McGregor, eccentric English singer Kate Bush, Roald Dahl illustrator Quentin Blake, and Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the royal aide who helped organize the watched-around-the-world wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

McCartney was honored with the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, in part for her work creating the skintight, red-white-and-blue uniforms worn by British athletes as they grabbed 65 medals during the 2012 games hosted by London. McCartney is the designer daughter of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his first wife Linda, and she has moved to make the family name almost as synonymous with fashion as it is with music, setting up a successful business and a critically-acclaimed label.

Higgs' achievements, which made him a Companion of Honor, touch on the nature and the origins of the universe. The 83-year-old researcher's work in theoretical physics sought to explain what gives things weight. He said it was while walking through the Scottish mountains that he hit upon the concept of what would later become known as the Higgs boson, an elusive subatomic particle that gives objects mass and combines with gravity to give them weight.

For decades, the existence of such a particle remained just a theory, but earlier this year scientists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said they'd found compelling evidence that the Higgs boson was out there. Or in there. Or whatever.

All of Britain's gold medalists from this year's games were on the list, with cyclist Bradley Wiggins and sailor Ben Ainslie honored with knighthoods.

Sebastian Coe, who masterminded the games as chairman of the London organizing committee, was made a Companion of Honor — a prestigious title also awarded to Higgs. But Ken Livingstone, London's former mayor, said Saturday he turned down a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, recognizing his services to the Olympics because he doesn't believe politicians should get the queen's honors.

Honors lists typically include a sprinkling of star power, and this year was no different. Ewan McGregor, who came to public attention through his role as the heroin-addled anti-hero of British drug drama "Trainspotting," was awarded an OBE. The 41-year-old actor is also known for his turn as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" prequels.

"Babooshka" singer Kate Bush said she was delighted to be made a CBE for a musical career which has resulted in a string of quirky hits including "Wuthering Heights," ''Cloudbusting," and "Man With The Child In His Eyes."

Other art world honorees included artist Tracey Emin and Quentin Blake, whose spiky, exuberant illustrations are best known through the work of his collaborator Roald Dahl.

Politicians, policemen, and spies got honors too. Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe was awarded a knighthood; former British foreign minister Margaret Beckett was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife Cherie was made a CBE for her charity work. MI5 chief Jonathan Evans was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Bath.

Also honored was the man credited with helping pull off the wedding of the decade: Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, principal private secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (as Prince William and his wife are formally known) was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order.

Britain's honors are bestowed twice a year by the monarch, at New Year's and on her official birthday in June. Although the queen does pick out some lesser honors herself, the vast majority of recipients are selected by government committees from nominations made by officials and members of the public.

In descending order, the honors are knighthoods, CBE, OBE, and MBE — Member of the Order of the British Empire. Knights are addressed as "sir" or "dame." Recipients of the other honors, such as the Order of the Companions of Honor given to Higgs and Coe or the Royal Victorian Order personally picked out by the queen, receive no title but can put the letters after their names.

The New Year's honors carried the usual batch of courtiers — even the royal household's switchboard operator got a medal — as well as senior civil servants, soldiers, charity executives, successful entrepreneurs, established academics, volunteers, and community workers. Some of the more eclectic honors included the OBE handed to card game columnist Andrew Michael Robson "for services to the game of bridge," and the OBE given to river conservationist Andrew Douglas-Home "for services to fishing."

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Elwood V. Jensen, Pioneer in Breast Cancer Treatment, Dies at 92

Tony Jones/Cincinnati Enquirer, via Associated Press

Elwood V. Jensen in 2004.

Elwood V. Jensen, a medical researcher whose studies of steroid hormones led to new treatments for breast cancer that have been credited with saving or extending hundreds of thousands of lives, died on Dec. 16 in Cincinnati. He was 92.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his son, Thomas Jensen, said.

In 2004 Dr. Jensen received the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, one of the most respected science prizes in the world.

When Dr. Jensen started his research at the University of Chicago in the 1950s, steroid hormones, which alter the functioning of cells, were thought to interact with cells through a series of chemical reactions involving enzymes.

However, Dr. Jensen used radioactive tracers to show that steroid hormones actually affect cells by binding to a specific receptor protein inside them. He first focused on the steroid hormone estrogen.

By 1968, Dr. Jensen had developed a test for the presence of estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells. He later concluded that such receptors were present in about a third of those cells.

Breast cancers that are estrogen positive, meaning they have receptors for the hormone, can be treated with medications like Tamoxifen or with other methods of inhibiting estrogen in a patient’s system, like removal of the ovaries. Women with receptor-rich breast cancers often go into remission when estrogen is blocked or removed.

By the mid-1980s, a test developed by Dr. Jensen and a colleague at the University of Chicago, Dr. Geoffrey Greene, could be used to determine the extent of estrogen receptors in breast and other cancers. That test became a standard part of care for breast cancer patients.

Scientists like Dr. Pierre Chambon and Dr. Ronald M. Evans, who shared the 2004 Lasker prize with Dr. Jensen, went on to show that many types of receptors exist. The receptors are crucial components of the cell’s control system and transmit signals in an array of vital functions, from the development of organs in the womb to the control of fat cells and the regulation of cholesterol.

Dr. Jensen’s work also led to the development of drugs that can enhance or inhibit the effects of hormones. Such drugs are used to treat prostate and other cancers.

Elwood Vernon Jensen was born in Fargo, N.D., on Jan. 13, 1920, to Eli and Vera Morris Jensen. He majored in chemistry at what was then Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, and had begun graduate training in organic chemistry at the University of Chicago when World War II began.

Dr. Jensen wanted to join the Army Air Forces, but his poor vision kept him from becoming a pilot. During the war he synthesized poison gases at the University of Chicago, exposure to which twice put him in the hospital. His work on toxic chemicals, he said, inspired him to pursue biology and medicine.

Dr. Jensen studied steroid hormone chemistry at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on a Guggenheim Fellowship after the war. While there, he climbed the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps, even though he had no mountaineering experience. He often equated his successful research to the novel approach taken by Edward Whymper, the first mountaineer to reach the Matterhorn’s summit. Mr. Whymper went against conventional wisdom and scaled the mountain’s Swiss face, after twice failing to reach the summit on the Italian side.

Dr. Jensen joined the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of surgery in 1947, working closely with the Nobel laureate Charles Huggins. He became an original member of the research team at the Ben May Laboratory for Cancer Research (now the Ben May Department for Cancer Research) in 1951, and became the director after Dr. Huggins stepped down.

He came to work at the University of Cincinnati in 2002, and continued to do research there until last year.

His first wife, the former Mary Collette, died in 1982. In addition to his son, Dr. Jensen is survived by his second wife, the former Hiltrud Herborg; a daughter, Karen C. Jensen; a sister, Margaret Brennan; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Dr. Jensen’s wife was found to have breast cancer in 2005. She had the tumor removed, he said in an interview, but tested positive for the estrogen receptor and was successfully treated with a medication that prevents estrogen synthesis.

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Individual mandate in healthcare was year's top consumer story

This was the year of the healthcare mandate. No other consumer story of 2012 comes close.

In a split decision, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. casting the deciding vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the cornerstone of President Obama's healthcare reform law, the most sweeping overhaul of our dysfunctional medical system in decades.

The so-called individual mandate requires that most people have health insurance. It's the trade-off for the insurance industry's agreement to stop denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions and to stop charging higher rates if you get sick.

It's also the trade-off for insurers to remove limits on how much treatment they'll cover annually or over your lifetime.

"It's a huge deal," said Lee Goldberg, vice president of health policy for the National Academy of Social Insurance, a Washington think tank. "Without the mandate, you're much more likely to have spiraling healthcare costs and an unsustainable market for coverage."

Critics of the mandate, and there are plenty of them, say it represents a government takeover of healthcare, a socializing of medicine. The government, they say, can't make you buy something you don't want.

But that's not how the mandate works. No one's forcing you to buy insurance. No one's forcing you to be covered.

However, there will be a tax penalty if you decide that you want to take your chances. And there's a very good reason for this: Taking your chances is foolish.

Unless you're Superman, you're going to need healthcare at some point in your life. That's just a fact.

"No one's going to throw you in jail if you don't have insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions. "But if you ever have an accident and have to use the [emergency room], that tax penalty will help to defray the cost that will be covered by those who do have insurance."

Beginning in 2014, the penalty for going uninsured will be no more than $285 per family or 1% of income, whichever is greater. The cap rises to $975 or 2% of income a year later, and then up to $2,085 per family or 2.5% of income by 2016.

Quiz: How much do you know about business news in 2012?

Opponents of healthcare reform conveniently ignore the basic economics of the insurance business. Insurers aren't service providers. They're risk managers. They examine the risk they face by covering a group or individual and price their policies accordingly.

The larger the risk pool, obviously, the cheaper the coverage. That's because the risk to health insurers goes down if younger and healthier people are included in the mix. The result: more affordable coverage for everyone.

Taken to its logical extreme, the most effective and efficient health insurance system for the United States would be something like a Medicare-for-all approach in which the risk pool comprises everybody in the country — young and old, healthy and sick.

In fact, we're already well down that road. Federal and state programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and veterans' assistance accounted for about 45% of total U.S. healthcare spending in 2010, according to a recent study by the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

The amount of public money spent on healthcare should serve as a wake-up call to all those who think the world would end if the U.S. followed Britain, France, Canada and other developed countries in enacting a national health insurance system.

For the U.S., it would simply be an expansion of a system that already exists but is hobbled by the inefficiency of denying Medicare and other programs access to healthier members of the population, thus saddling taxpayers with a disproportionately large number of higher-risk people.

The individual mandate won't radically change things. The healthcare insurance system will remain divided between a public sector that focuses primarily on aging and sick people and a private sector that, for purely financial reasons, provides increasingly less access to affordable coverage.

Average premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 62% from 2003 to 2011 to $15,022 a year, according to a recent report by the Commonwealth Fund.

Health insurance costs far outpaced people's incomes in all states during that time, the report found, with workers' average share of premiums for family plans soaring 74% and deductibles more than doubling, while the median household income rose only about 10%.

Still, the mandate is a big step toward remedying the system's economic irrationality. By extending coverage to about 30 million of the 50 million people who now lack insurance, the mandate will place medical care within reach of many who previously may have sought treatment only in emergencies.

As a result, national wellness will improve and, presumably, healthcare costs will go down, or at least will be better controlled as fewer people put off medical attention until an easily treated ailment becomes an expensive catastrophe.

"The mandate is the key to making this all work," said Devon Herrick, a healthcare economist at the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Otherwise people would just wait until they got sick before buying insurance and premiums would skyrocket."

There's still much to be done. The reform law's insurance exchanges are a work in progress, and it's unclear at this point how much coverage will be offered and how much it will cost.

But the Supreme Court has kept the ball rolling by maintaining the mandate as part of the equation. It was a decision that will change all our lives, probably for the better, and move us closer to a system under which all people can obtain affordable healthcare.

David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. he also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.

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Jean Harris dies at 89; killer of 'Scarsdale Diet' doctor

Jean Harris, the onetime headmistress of an elite girls' school whose trial in the fatal 1980 shooting of the celebrity diet doctor who jilted her generated front-page headlines and national debates about whether she was a feminist martyr or vengeful murderer, has died. She was 89.

Harris, who spent nearly 12 years in prison for the shooting death of her longtime boyfriend, "Scarsdale Diet" doctor Herman "Hy" Tarnower, died Sunday at an assisted-living facility in New Haven, Conn., of complications related to old age, her son James said.

Convicted in 1981 of second-degree murder, Harris, who had at least two heart attacks in prison, was granted clemency on her 15 years-to-life sentence on Dec. 29, 1992, by then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who cited her health and advancing age.

"I honestly thought I would die in prison," Harris said after her release.

Harris, then 68, took up residence in a New Hampshire cabin overlooking Vermont's Green Mountains, where she walked her dog, wrote and raised money for a program to help children of inmates at New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Center, where she was imprisoned after her Feb. 28, 1981, conviction.

The March 10, 1980, shooting of Tarnower — which she claimed throughout her life was her own suicide gone awry — was one of the most sensational crimes of its era.

It riveted the nation, not only because of its titillating combination of sex and violence. It raised what many experts said were important sociological issues, with some feminists rallying to Harris as a symbol of society's disregard for the plight of older women and others arguing that her case had nothing at all to do with feminism.

Women's movement icon Betty Friedan dismissed Harris as a "pathetic masochist" for staying with a man who mistreated her. But author Shana Alexander, who wrote a book on the case, described Harris as the "psychological victim of a domineering person."

Whether morality play or soap opera, the case inspired two TV movies: "The People vs. Jean Harris" (1981), in which Harris was portrayed by Ellen Burstyn, and "Mrs. Harris" (2005), which starred Annette Bening.

In 1980, Harris was the 56-year-old headmistress of the fancy, private Madeira School overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, Va. Tarnower was a 69-year-old cardiologist and best-selling author of a book on a high-protein, low-fat diet that he developed for heart patients at his medical center in well-to-do Scarsdale, N.Y.

When they met in 1966, they were so taken with each other that Tarnower — a lifelong bachelor — gave Harris a 4-carat diamond engagement ring. He quickly changed his mind, telling her that he couldn't stop seeing other women.

Harris agreed to this condition, and through the years became what she wryly described as "the broad-he-brought" to dinner parties. By 1980 the 14-year relationship was on the skids as Harris became embittered watching Tarnower, in the wake of the Scarsdale diet book, growing ever more rich and famous.

The last straw for Harris: Tarnower was "wavering" about whether to invite her or a younger woman, Lynne Tryforos, to a dinner honoring him.

After one particularly harrowing week at the school when she expelled four seniors, Harris decided on suicide. She wrote notes to her grown sons, put her papers in order, packed a .32-caliber handgun in her purse and drove five hours from Virginia to Tarnower's six-acre estate in Purchase, N.Y.

She later testified that she wanted to see her lover one last time before killing herself at the estate's duck pond. But her plans went awry after she let herself into his home, found Tarnower asleep and spotted a negligee and hair rollers in a bathroom — evidence that her rival, 38-year-old Tryforos, had recently stayed over.

Harris threw the hair rollers at a window, breaking it, and also broke a cosmetic mirror. The ruckus woke Tarnower, who struck her, Harris said. She said that she challenged him to "hit me again, Hy, make it hard enough to kill," but he withdrew. Feeling the revolver in her pocketbook, she pulled out the gun and said to him, "Never mind, I'll do it myself."

But, she testified, when she raised the gun to her temple, he grabbed the weapon, which went off and wounded him in the hand, giving her time to grab the gun again; she later testified that she thought she had time to kill herself.

In the ensuing struggle, Tarnower was struck by bullets three more times — in the chest, arm and back. A fifth bullet also was fired. Harris maintained throughout her life that Tarnower was trying to prevent her from killing herself.

The call to the White Plains police was made at 10:56 p.m. by the doctor's housekeeper, who lived on the estate. The March 12 four-column headline in the New York Times read " 'Scarsdale Diet' Doctor Is Slain; Headmistress Is Charged."

The highly publicized 64-day trial that followed included 92 witnesses — most disastrously, Harris herself.

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Android-powered Ouya console now shipping to 1,200 developers [video]

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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file

LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.

But the records, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.

Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.

The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.

A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.

"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.

Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.

"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."

Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.

The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.

For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.

A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."

That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."

"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."

Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.

The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.

For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.

"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.

___

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

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The middle class languishes as the super-rich thrive

The good news for the U.S. economy as we enter 2013 is that the election's over. The bad news is that the election's over.

What's good about it is that both parties in Washington can shed their preoccupation with the campaign theatrics that dominated our long national voyage from pre-primary jockeying through election day.

Yet the most dispiriting thing about the campaign's end is that the economic challenges facing the majority of Americans remain unaddressed. As these words are being written, the end-of-year deficit debate in Washington remains largely unresolved.

UC Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong observed last week that we're not heading toward the fiscal cliff so much as waiting for the "austerity bomb" to detonate. The lighted fuse on that bomb, he computed, has already cut likely growth in real gross domestic product for 2013 to 2.5% from 3%.

The policy positions on both sides presage smaller government, which is not the right prescription for an economy still struggling to recover. There will be lower federal spending at a time when the government participation in the economy is still crucial; there will be less take-home pay for the middle class and the working class, who pump almost everything they have into the marketplace.

The disagreement in Washington is no longer whether to cut, but where and by how much; and whether the seemingly inevitable end of the payroll tax holiday for working men and women will be balanced by continuation of their reduced income tax rates.

Notwithstanding the election results, the course of negotiations in Washington suggests that in 2013, the Americans taking it on the chin will be people defined by Mitt Romney as the 47% who refuse to "take personal responsibility … for their lives," but who are defined by more thoughtful observers of the American masses as seniors, veterans, disabled persons and the unemployed or underemployed. The progressive principles defended by President Obama on the stump, such as the sanctity of benefits promised the elderly and infirm, will be put on the table as bargaining chips to purchase modestly higher tax rates for the wealthy.

Meanwhile, the corporate CEOs who are marching on Washington under the banner of "fixthedebt.org," a product of the think tank network of Wall Street billionaire Peter G. Peterson, will continue to insist that the deficit be cut by almost any means, except raising tax rates on themselves. (Among the suggestions from fixthedebt's parent organization for a "downpayment" on tax reform: "eliminating preferences for corporate jets and second homes." Talk about shared sacrifice!)

One year ago, I wrote in this very space that candidates on both sides of the partisan divide were poised to make the economic plight of the middle class the "centerpiece of their campaigns in the coming year."

That prediction proved true. The middle-class economy was the "centerpiece." And it got the same attention from the candidates as the floral decoration at a banquet table does from the guests, who praise its elegance then grumble that it blocks their reach for the butter dish. The terms "middle class" and "middle income" were uttered by Obama or candidate Romney 63 times in their three debates, and by Vice President Joe Biden and his GOP challenger Paul Ryan an additional 33 times in theirs.

Yet the election has yielded no sign of a remedy for the middle-class malady. The sickness is made up in equal parts of snail's-pace job growth in the private sector; wholesale cutbacks of teaching jobs and other middle-class positions in the public sector; growing income inequality that narrows the economic base for all; a continuing overhang of excessive mortgage debt for homeowners; and a sharp deterioration in retirement security.

If anything, the end-of-year deficit debate points toward the exacerbation of every one of those factors.

It's proper to point out (for the umpteenth time) that spreading the fruits of economic growth as broadly as possible is an indispensable fuel for more economic growth. Concentrating wealth in a small segment of the population undermines growth; that's one reason the U.S. economy weakened markedly through the 1920s and why overall income growth in the present day has been lagging while corporate profits are soaring.

Those contradictory conditions can't persist together for long. But as the Congressional Budget Office reported last year, average after-tax household income for the top 1% of Americans nearly tripled from 1979 to 2007, while income for the middle 60% in the income range grew only 40%. Consequently, the share of income collected by the top 20% of Americans rose to nearly 60% from 50% in that period, while the share of every other income group fell.

The 2008 recession moderated that trend somewhat, but it has resumed since then with a vengeance. In 2009 and 2010, according to studies by Emmanuel Saez of UC Berkeley, the average real income per family rose 2.3% — but that of the top 1% grew 11.6%. That means that 93% of the income gains in the post-recession period went to the top 1%.

What policies are on the horizon in Washington or our 50 statehouses to reverse this trend, corrosive as it is to the social fabric and the economy at large?

Assistance for state and local governments to avert further layoffs? That would be seen in Congress as excessive spending and a path to the "fiscal cliff." Aggressive protection of employees' collective-bargaining rights to preserve middle-class incomes in the labor pool? Ask Republicans in Michigan, who exploited a solid lame-duck legislative majority to ram through a state anti-union measure in the session's final days.

Obama spoke out against the Michigan legislation before its passage, but his administration has not exactly been a beacon for workers' rights at the federal level.

Even more disturbing is Obama's apparent willingness to place retiree security on the bargaining table over the federal deficit. His last pre-Christmas offer to the GOP included a dismaying proposal to tie annual Social Security cost-of-living increases to an inflation measure known as the "chained CPI."

This index consistently runs lower than the conventional CPI by an average of about three-tenths of a percentage point per year. That means that by the time the average retiree would reach age 85, his or her benefit would be lower by about $1,000 than it would be under the current CPI; by 95, the shortfall would be nearly $1,400. In other words, it's a change that hits the neediest and the oldest retirees most severely.

Yet this stealth benefit cut may well be implemented this year without a commensurate increase in revenue for Social Security, say by an increase in the cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax that funds the program, which will be $113,700 this year.

Have any of the parties so concerned about the Social Security benefits of America's seniors put forth proposals to shore up the other pillars of retirement income — employer-funded pensions and personal savings — eaten away by corporate policies and the slipshod regulation of investment markets that led to the 2008 crash? (Don't everyone answer at once.)

The lesson that 2012 bears for 2013 is that as the "fiscal cliff" facing the middle class has drawn ever closer, the solutions proposed have become ever more irrelevant to the problems at hand and more protective of the economic segment that needs the least protection.

One year ago, there was reason for hope that such fundamental disconnects between problem and solution would at least be aired in a presidential campaign. Today, there's reason for despair that they'll even be recognized by the people in whom we entrust our economic future.

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Reach him at mhiltzik@latimes.com, read past columns at latimes.com/hiltzik, check out facebook.com/hiltzik and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

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