Sources: Liguori planned as next Tribune CEO

When Tribune Co. emerges from bankruptcy, the new owners plan to name television executive Peter Liguori as the company's chief executive, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Liguori is a former top TV executive at Fox and Discovery. The decision to name him Tribune Co.'s CEO would end months of speculation and usher in a new era for the Chicago-based media company, which owns newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, and television stations.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday signed off on waivers needed to transfer Tribune Co.'s broadcast properties to the new ownership, the final significant hurdle before the company can emerge from its long-running stay in Chapter 11.

While a date for emergence is not set, the new ownership group controlled by senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will likely take the reins by the end of the year. An initial step for the owners will be to appoint a board of directors. It will have final say on who becomes CEO, but sources say the owners have chosen Liguori.

"The decision has been made," one of the sources said.

Los Angeles Times Publisher Eddy Hartenstein has been CEO of Tribune Co. since May 2011. A Tribune Co. spokesman declined to comment.

A former advertising executive who transitioned into television more than two decades ago, Liguori, 52, is credited with turning cable channel FX into a programming powerhouse during his ascent to entertainment chief at News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting. More recently, he served as chief operating officer at Discovery Communications Inc., where he helped oversee the rocky launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Liguori is considered by some observers to be a good fit for Tribune Co. and its new owners. While the company's identity is closely connected to publishing, broadcasting is now the headline business and core profit center. One of Liguori's main jobs will be to help maximize TV ratings, advertising dollars and increasingly important affiliate fees for WGN America and Tribune Co.'s 23 local stations, according to industry insiders.

Liguori "is a very, very smart hire for Oaktree and the guys that run the company because I think what Tribune needs more than anything is somebody to kind of build the brands back and make it a true media company, as opposed to just a collection of businesses," said Jeff Shell, London-based president of NBCUniversal International, who worked with Liguori for six years at Fox beginning in 1996. Shell, whose name had once been floated as a candidate for Tribune Co. CEO, spoke recently about his former colleague's potential value as head of Tribune Co.

Liguori is also expected to address the fundamental question of whether Tribune Co. should retain its ownership of newspapers or divest them to focus on the healthier TV business. Revenues for newspapers have been halved in recent years as readership migrates to the digital world.

Liguori, who could not be reached for comment, became president of Fox's FX Networks in 1998, when it was a small basic cable channel airing reruns of everything from "M.A.S.H." to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Elevated to CEO in 2001, he remade FX by offering edgy original programming. Starting with "The Shield" in 2002, Liguori then rolled out "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," creating first-run successes that redefined FX, and perhaps basic cable, in the process.

"FX was a channel when he took over — a little, tiny cable channel losing a bunch of money," Shell said. "He made it into something big by imagining something different, and I think that's what Tribune needs."

Liguori became president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Co. in 2005, where he headed up program development and marketing. Squeezed out in 2009, he then joined Discovery as chief operating officer, where one of his responsibilities was to oversee the nascent joint venture with OWN.

In May 2011, Liguori assumed the dual role as interim CEO of OWN after inaugural head Christina Norman was forced out at the struggling network. That added responsibility evaporated two months later when Winfrey made herself CEO of OWN. Liguori left Discovery in December, and the company eliminated his chief operating officer position.

Liguori has been working since July as a New York-based media consultant for private equity firm Carlyle Group. He is on the boards of Yahoo Inc., MGM Holdings Inc. and Topps Co.

Tribune Co. has been operating under bankruptcy court protection for nearly four years, having buckled under the $13 billion in total debt it took on after its 2007 buyout. The case was prolonged by a drawn-out battle for control among creditors.

With the court having resolved the major ownership questions, the FCC's decision to grant waivers was the last major piece of the puzzle to come together.

The FCC issued the waivers of its so-called cross-ownership rules for Tribune Co. in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, South Florida and Hartford, Conn., where it owns TV stations and newspapers. In Chicago, the company's properties include WGN-Ch. 9.

Getting the waivers "will enable the company to continue moving forward toward emergence from Chapter 11, a process we expect to complete over the course of the next several weeks," Hartenstein, Tribune Co.'s CEO, said in a statement.

Tribune Newspapers reporter Jim Puzzanghera contributed.

rchannick@tribune.com

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Metra OKs hiking 10-ride ticket by 11 percent

The Metra board voted overwhelmingly today to raise the price of the popular 10-ride tickets by about 11 percent.

The 8-2 vote comes just one year after Metra riders were hit with the biggest fare hike in the commuter rail line's history.

The increase to the 10-ride ticket would range from $2.75 to $9.25, depending on the distance. In effect, 10-ride ticket buyers would be deprived of the discount traditionally associated with the ticket. Currently, 10-ride tickets cost the equivalent of nine rides.

The board took the action after about 40 minutes of discussion.

"Let's try to run this place like a business," argued board member Jack Schaffer, who supported the hike. "Smart businesses price their product well."

But board member James LaBelle said he was opposed to the increase because "I think its unfair to single out one set of riders."

Board members disagreed on even calling the hike a fare increase.

But Mike McCoy, a board member from Kane County who opposed increase, said "to phrase it any other was is disingenuous."

Ten-ride ticket users account for about 22 percent of Metra's ridership. Customers who use monthly passes — about 57 percent of Metra's riders — and those who buy single tickets would not see their fares increase.

Metra's staff estimates the fare increase would produce $8.3 million in 2013 to help meet the agency's capital needs. Those include system improvements, maintenance and equipment.

Unveiling a proposed 2013 budget totaling $713.5 million last month, Metra officials warned that they would consider "scenarios" for raising fares up to 10 percent but did not specify any options.

Friday's recommendation comes as a result of discussions among board members and Metra staff, officials said.

Spokesman Michael Gillis said Thursday that the agency wants to use the $8.3 million in additional revenue as a match to obtain federal dollars for capital needs. Metra needs about $7.4 billion over the next 10 years to keep the commuter rail line in what officials call a "state of good repair."

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Exclusive: Facebook offering e-retailers sales tracking tool

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc wants more credit for making online cash registers ring.

Facebook will begin rolling out on Friday a new tool which will allow online retailers to track purchases by members of the social network who have viewed their ads.

The tool is the latest of the new advertising features Facebook is offering to convince marketers that steering advertising dollars to the company will deliver a payoff.

Facebook, with roughly 1 billion users, has faced a tough reception on Wall Street amid concerns about its slowing revenue growth.

"Measuring ad effectiveness and outcomes is absolutely crucial to all types of businesses and marketers," said David Baser, a product manager for Facebook's ads business who said the "conversion measurement" tool has been a top customer request for a long time.

The sales information that advertisers receive is anonymous, said Baser. "You would see the number of people who bought shoes," he said, using the example of an online shoe retailer. But marketers would not be able to get information that could identify the people, he added.

The conversion tool is specifically designed for so-called direct response marketers, such as online retailers and travel websites that advertise with the goal of drumming up immediate sales rather than for longer-term brand-building.

Such advertisers have long flocked to Google Inc's Web search engine, which can deliver ads to consumers at the exact moment they're looking for information on a particular product.

But some analysts say there is room for Facebook to make inroads if it can demonstrate results.

"The path to purchase" is not as direct on Facebook as it is on Google's search engine, said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with research firm eMarketer. But she said that providing information about customer sales conversion should help Facebook make a stronger case to online retailers.

"It lets marketers track the impact of a Facebook ad hours or days or even a week beyond when someone might have viewed the ad," said Williamson. "That allows marketers to understand the impact of the Facebook ad on the ultimate purchase."

Marketers will also have the option to aim their ads at segments of Facebook's audience with similar attributes to consumers that have responded well to a particular ad in the past, Baser said.

Online retailer Fab.com, which has tested Facebook's new service, was able to reduce its cost per new customer acquisition by 39 percent when it served ads to consumers deemed most likely to convert, Facebook said. Facebook defines a conversion as anything from a completed sale, to a consumer taking another desired action on a website, such as registering for a newsletter.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Shares of Facebook, which were priced at $38 a share in its May initial public offering, closed Thursday's regular session at $22.17.

In recent months, Facebook has introduced a variety of new advertising capabilities and moved to broaden its appeal to various groups of advertisers.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in October that Facebook saw multi-billion revenue opportunities in each of four groups of advertisers: brand marketers, local businesses, app developers and direct response marketers.

Facebook does not disclose how much of its ad revenue, which totaled $1.09 billion in the third quarter, comes from each type of advertiser. Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser estimates that brand marketers and local businesses account for the bulk of Facebook's current advertising revenue.

Earlier this year, Facebook introduced a similar conversion measurement service for big brand advertisers, such as auto manufacturers, partnering with data mining firm Datalogix to help connect the dots between consumer spending at brick-and-mortar and Facebook ads.

And Facebook has rolled out new marketing tools for local businesses such as restaurants and coffee shops, including a revamped online coupon service and simplified advertising capabilities known as promoted posts.

The new conversion measurement tool is launching in testing mode, but will be fully available by the end of the month, Facebook said.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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Miguel Cabrera, Buster Posey win MVP awards

NEW YORK (AP) — Miguel Cabrera has a Most Valuable Player award to go with his Triple Crown. And Buster Posey has an MVP prize to put alongside his second World Series ring.

The pair of batting champions won baseball's top individual honors Thursday by large margins.

Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, won the AL MVP by receiving 22 of 28 first-place votes and 362 points from a panel of Baseball Writers' Association of America.

The Detroit third baseman easily beat Los Angeles Angels rookie center fielder Mike Trout, who had six firsts and 281 points.

Cabrera hit .330 with 44 homers and 139 RBIs to become the first Triple Crown winner since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Cabrera also led the league with a .606 slugging percentage for the AL champion Tigers.

Some of the more sabermetric-focused fans supported Trout, who hit .326 with 30 homers and 83 RBIs, and he led the majors with 129 runs and 49 steals and topped all players in WAR — Wins Above Replacement. Trout won AL Rookie of the Year earlier in the week.

"I was a little concerned. I thought the new thing about computer stuff, I thought Trout's going to win because they put his numbers over me," Cabrera said. "I was like relax. ... if he wins, it's going to be fair because he had a great season."

His victory is a win for the traditional statistics.

"At the end of the game, it's going to be the same baseball played back in the day," Cabrera said.

Posey, at a charity event at his mother's school in Leesburg, Va., followed the AL debate and Googled to find out the winner.

"I think it intrigued everybody," he said. "As a fan of the game, it was a fun race to watch."

With three fewer hits or two less homers, Cabrera would have fallen short of the Triple Crown. The last four Triple Crown winners have been voted MVP, including Mickey Mantle in 1956 and Frank Robinson in 1966.

"I think winning the Triple Crown had a lot to do with me winning this honor," he said.

Cabrera became the second straight Detroit player voted MVP, following pitcher Justin Verlander in 2011, and was the first Venezuelan to earn the honor. Countryman Pablo Sandoval took home World Series MVP honors last month.

Before the season, Cabrera switched from first base to third to make way for Prince Fielder, who signed with Detroit as a free agent.

"I focused too much in spring training about defense, defense, defense," Cabrera said. "I forgot a little bit about hitting, about getting in the cage like I normally do."

In spring training, Posey's focus was just to get back on the field. His 2011 season was cut short by a collision with the Marlins' Scott Cousins on May 25 that resulted in a fractured bone in Posey's lower left leg and three torn ankle ligaments.

Posey not only returned, he became the first catcher in 70 years to win the NL batting title and helped San Francisco win its second World Series championship in three seasons.

"I definitely have a deeper appreciation for being able to play baseball," he said. "I've seen that it can be taken away quick."

The first catcher in four decades to win the NL award, Posey got 27 of 32 firsts and 422 points to outdistance 2011 winner Ryan Braun of Milwaukee, who was second with 285 points.

Pittsburgh outfielder Andrew McCutchen (245) was third, followed by St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina (241).

Posey, a boyish-looking 25, was the 2010 NL Rookie of the Year as the Giants won their first World Series since 1954. This year he set career highs with a .336 average, 24 homers and 103 RBIs as San Francisco won again.

Posey took the NL batting title after teammate Melky Cabrera requested a rules change that disqualified him. Cabrera, who hit .346, missed the final 45 games of the regular-season while serving a suspension for a positive testosterone test and would have won the batting crown if the rule hadn't been changed.

Ernie Lombardi had been the previous catcher to capture the NL batting championship, in 1942.

"I think anybody that has caught before understands the grind of catching, not only the physical, the nicks, the wear and tear of squatting for nine innings night in, day out, but just the mental grind of working a pitching staff," Posey said. "It's demanding."

NOTES: In his first season with the Angels, Albert Pujols didn't finish among the top 10 for the first time in his career. While with St. Louis, he won three times, was second four times and also finished third, fourth, fifth and ninth. ... Catchers have won the NL MVP just eight times, with Posey joining Gabby Hartnett (1935), Lombardi (1938), Roy Campanella (1951, 1953, 1955) and Johnny Bench (1970, 1972). Posey became the first Giants player to win since Barry Bonds was voted his record seventh MVP award in 2004. ... Cabrera earned a $500,000 bonus, Adrian Beltre $150,000 for finishing third in the AL and Josh Hamilton $50,000 for fifth place. Braun gets a $75,000 bonus, and McCutchen and Molina $50,000 each. The Yankees' Derek Jeter finished seventh in the AL, one place below the level where his 2014 player option would have increased by $2 million to $10 million.

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Film defrocks church hierarchy over handling of sex abuse

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Four deaf Wisconsin men were some of the first to seek justice after suffering childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a priest, and a new documentary about the Catholic Church‘s poor handling of such cases stemming from the Vatican seeks to make their voices heard.

“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” explores the impact of the Roman Catholic Church’s protocol as dictated from the Vatican for dealing with pedophile priests. It opens in U.S. cinemas on November 16, and will air on cable channel HBO in February.

Though American media coverage about child sex abuse by clergy has been extensive since a slew of cases came to light in Boston in 2002, Oscar-winning documentary director Alex Gibney wanted to connect individual stories with what he sees as systemic failures stemming from the top of the church.

“A lot of individual stories had been done about clerical sex abuse, but I hadn’t seen one that really connected the individual stories with the larger cover-up by the Vatican, so that was important,” Gibney told Reuters in an interview.

The film centers on the group of deaf men and their experiences as young boys attending St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin.

In a letter to the Vatican in 1998, the late Rev. Father Lawrence Murphy admitted abusing some 200 deaf boys over two decades beginning in the 1950s.

Murphy claimed he had repented, and asked to live out his last years as a priest, and was never defrocked or punished by civil authorities. He died in 1998.

In the film, the men communicate their frustrating attempts to bring their experiences to the attention of religious and civil authorities with effusive sign language and facial expressions, paired with voiceovers by actors such as Ethan Hawke.

The film also traces a convoluted bureaucracy – right up to the cardinal who is now Pope Benedict – to reveal a set of policies that the film portrays as often seeming more interested in preserving the Church’s image.

STRUGGLING TO BE HEARD

“These were deaf men whose voices literally couldn’t be heard, so there was a silence from them, and there was also this silence coming from the church, a refusal to confront this obvious crime, in part because they were covering it up,” said Gibney.

The Vatican has denied any cover-up in the Murphy case and in 2010 issued a statement condemning his abuse. It has criticized media reports about the Church’s handling of the cases as anti-Catholic.

Contrasting that, the film shows interviews with former church officials who talk openly of church policies to handle cases by “rehabilitating” abusive clergymen and snuffing out scandal.

Gibney said that all of the Vatican officials he contacted declined his interview requests.

Raised Catholic himself, Gibney no longer practices organized religion, but empathizes with Catholics who feel a sense of loyalty to the religion’s institutions and acknowledges that criticism of the church can feel like a personal attack.

“Mea Maxima Culpa,” a Latin phrase meaning “my most grievous fault” focuses on the failures of the Catholic Church‘s hierarchy. But Gibney – who won an Oscar for “Taxi to the Dark Side” – said the film’s theme transcends religion and is also relevant for secular institutions.

“This is obviously about the church, but it’s also a crime film,” he said. “It’s about abuse of power and it’s about how institutions instead of reckoning with problems try to cover them up. It’s always the cover-up that creates the problem.”

He cited the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal that rocked Penn State University recently, and the BBC’s poor handling of abuse allegations against the late British TV personality Jimmy Savile as examples of secular institutions brought low by similar issues.

“The thing about predators is that they tend to hide in plain sight,” Gibney said. “You’re seeing it now with Sandusky, you’re seeing it now with Jimmy Savile in Great Britain, and you saw it with Father Murphy in the film.”

Gibney thinks that the public’s stubbornly rosy perceptions of charismatic authority figures, including priests, is a major factor in such scandals.

“They’re often involved in charity or good works,” he said of high-profile abusers. “That seems to give you license to do unbelievable things because people cut you all sorts of slack that they wouldn’t normally do for other people.”

(Editing by Christine Kearney and Richard Chang)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Jason Mraz to make historic appearance in Myanmar

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jason Mraz will make history next month when he performs in Myanmar to raise awareness about human trafficking.

Mraz will headline a free outdoor concert on Dec. 16 at People's Square in Yangon, at the base of Shwedagon Pagoda.

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is believed to be the first international artist to perform an open-air concert in the country. The show includes local acts and is hosted by MTV EXIT, the music channel's initiative to raise awareness about human trafficking and exploitation.

"That's pretty exciting," Mraz said of the history involved, "and I'm going there with an enormous amount of gratitude and respect, and I hope we can actually make a difference. I hope it's also a testament to the songs. I've always wanted my songs to be about healing and self-empowerment, and if this is the way MTV is acknowledging that, then I am incredibly grateful."

The show, which will include local acts, will be broadcast on Myanmar national television and will air on MTV's international network in 2013. Mraz hosted a similar concert in the Philippines last year. He first became interested in the issue about four years ago when he attended the Freedom Awards, an annual salute to those working against human exploitation put on by the organization Free the Slaves.

"I thought this was something that was abolished when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but all it did is become hidden from our view," Mraz said in a phone interview from Zurich, Switzerland. "There was a recent estimate that there are about 27 million people enslaved on the planet, certainly due to hard economic times not just in the Western world but certainly in Third World countries. Humans as a commodity is a great way to run your business. So I signed on, lent my voice, lent my music to the cause."

Myanmar is opening itself to the world since a military junta ceded power to a new elected government last year. President Thein Sein's government has pushed the country toward democracy, and this Monday Barack Obama is scheduled to become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country.

Mraz says there is concern predators will prey on the vulnerable in this time of great flux. The concert offers an opportunity to "educate, empower and engage." The 35-year-old singer says he plans to tailor his show to the message.

"I do curate a set list that I feel is going to be part of that educate, empower and engage (theme)," he said. "Obviously songs like 'I'm Yours,' 'I Won't Give Up' are great examples. Or '93 Million Miles' is a new one where it's about believing in yourself. And a lot of my songs are about that, about believing in yourself and really going for your dreams. Those are the kinds of songs I'll be playing at that show."

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MTV is a unit of Viacom Inc.

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott .

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No more Twinkies? Hostess plans to shut down, liquidate

Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies and other sugary snacks, has announced it's going out of business following a worker strike.

Hostess Brands on Friday received a court order for an expedited hearing on its request to
liquidate.

The hearing on liquidation request is scheduled for 2 p.m. Eastern time Nov. 19, in bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y.

The bankrupt maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, said it had sought court permission to go out of business after failing to get wage and benefit cuts from thousands of its striking bakery workers.

Hostess, which has about $2.5 billion in sales from a long list of iconic consumer brands of snack cakes and breads said it had suspended operations at all of its 33 plants around the United States as it moves to start liquidating assets.

"We'll be selling the brands and as much of the infrastructure as we can," said company spokesman Lance Ignon. "There is value in the brands."

Hostess said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities, and it had no choice but to give up its effort to emerge intact from bankruptcy court.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs.

In the Chicago area, Hostess employs about 300 workers making CupCakes, HoHos and Honey Buns in Schiller Park. Hostess also has a bakery in Hodgkins, where 325 workers make Beefsteak, Butternut, Home Pride, Nature’s Pride and Wonder breads.

Hostess spokesman Tom Becker confirmed that Hostess plants have closed, and the local factories in Hodgkins and Schiller Park ran their last production Friday morning. The company also has a plant in Peoria.

Calls to the Hodgkins and Schiller Park plants were not answered.

"I don't think it's a stretch to say there's a lot of sadness today," Becker said, adding that "18,500 people had jobs yesterday and knew they weren't going to have jobs anymore when they woke up today," referring to Hostess' total employee base.

"It's an extremely difficult decision for the company to have to make to shut down but unfortunately without the full involvement of its employees at the bakery, the company was unable to continue."

A statement on the Hostess Brands website begins with "Hostess Brands is Closed."

According to Becker, most of the company's employees had approved an 8 percent pay cut for the coming year, but the members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union had voted against the reduction and a change in the pension plan. 

Becker stressed that lingering pension obligations and other expenses felled the company, and not demand for its products.

"Demand was never the issue," Becker said, adding that company revenue for the year-ended May 11 was $2.5 billion. "We have very loyal customers who love our products and continued to buy our products."

Hostess had given employee a deadline to return to work on Thursday, but the union held firm, saying it had already given far more in concessions than workers could bear and that it would not bend further. Union officials blamed mismanagement for the company's woes.

The company, which filed for bankruptcy in January for the second time since 2004, said it had filed a motion with U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, for permission to shut down and sell assets.

Hostess has 565 distribution centers and 570 bakery outlet stores, as well as the 33 bakeries. Its brands include Wonder, Nature's Pride, Dolly Madison, Drake's, Butternut, Home Pride and Merita, but it is probably best known for Twinkies - basically a cream-filled sponge cake.

"We do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike," Chief Executive Officer Gregory Rayburn said in a statement. "Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders."

The company said in court filings that it would probably take about a year to wind down. It will need about 3,200 employees to start that process, but only about 200 after the first few months.

Union President Frank Hurt said the company's failure was not the fault of the union but the "result of nearly a decade of financial and operational mismanagement" and that management was trying to make union workers the scapegoats for a plan by Wall Street investors to sell Hostess.

Hostess said its debtor-in-possession lenders had agreed to allow it to retain access to $75 million to fund the wind-down process.

The company has canceled all orders with its suppliers and said any product in transit would be returned to the shipper.

In its filing with the court, the company said it would have incurred a loss of between $7.5 million and $9.5 million from Nov. 9 to Nov. 19 in lost sales and increased costs.

"These losses and other factors, including increased vendor payment terms contraction, have resulted in a significant weakening of the debtors' cash position and, if continued, would soon result in the debtors completely running out of cash," it said.

Hostess had already reached an agreement on pay and benefit cuts with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, its largest union.

In its January bankruptcy filing, Hostess listed assets of $981.6 million. In a February filing, it assessed the value of its patents, copyrights and other intellectual property at some $134.6 million, although it did not break down the value by brands.

The company's last operating report, filed with the bankruptcy court in late October, listed a net loss of $15.1 million for the four weeks that ended in late September, mostly due to restructuring charges and other expenses.

The case is In re: Hostess Brands Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-22052.

Tribune reporter Emily Bryson York contributed to this story.

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BP to pay $4.5 billion, admit guilt in deaths in Gulf oil spill

BP said Thursday that it will pay $4.5 billion in a settlement with the U.S. government over the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and plead guilty to criminal charges related to the deaths of 11 workers and lying to Congress.

The day of reckoning comes more than two years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill. The figure includes nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines — the biggest criminal penalty in U.S. history — along with payments to certain government entities.

A person familiar with the settlement said two BP employees will also face manslaughter charges over the deaths of 11 people in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that triggered the spill. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Up to now, the only person charged in the disaster was a former BP engineer who was arrested in April on obstruction of justice charges. He was accused of deleting text messages about the company's response to the spill, not what happened before the explosion.

"We believe this resolution is in the best interest of BP and its shareholders," said Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP chairman. "It removes two significant legal risks and allows us to vigorously defend the company against the remaining civil claims."

The settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, includes payments of nearly $2.4 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences and about $500 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

London-based BP PLC said in a statement that the settlement would not cover any civil penalties the U.S. government might seek under the Clean Water Act and other laws. Nor does it cover billions of dollars in claims brought by states, businesses and individuals, including fishermen, restaurants and property owners. A federal judge in New Orleans is weighing a separate, proposed $7.8 billion settlement between BP and more than 100,000 businesses and individuals harmed by the spill.

The charges BP will plead guilty to are 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect of a ship's officers, one felony count of obstruction of Congress and one misdemeanor count each under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Clean Water Act. The workers' deaths were prosecuted under a provision of the Seaman's Manslaughter Act. The obstruction charge is for lying to Congress about how much oil was spewing from the ruptured well.

Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to discuss the settlement at an afternoon news conference in New Orleans.

The penalty will be paid over five years. BP made a profit of $5.5 billion in the most recent quarter.

The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the U.S. Justice Department was a $1.2 billion fine imposed on drug maker Pfizer in 2009.

The Deepwater Horizon rig, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, sank after the April 20, 2010, explosion that was later blamed on time-saving, cost-cutting decisions made by BP and its drilling partners. The well on the sea floor spewed an estimated 206 million gallons of crude, fouling marshes and beaches, killing wildlife and shutting vast areas of the Gulf to commercial fishing.

After several failed attempts that introduced the American public to such industry terms as "top kill" and "junk shot," BP finally capped the well on July 15, 2010, halting the flow of oil after more than 85 days and putting a stop to what became one of the most closely watched shows on TV and the Internet: the live spill-camera image of the gushing well.

Nelda Winslette's grandson Adam Weise of Yorktown, Texas, was killed in the blast. She said somebody needs to be held accountable.

"It just bothers me so bad when I see the commercials on TV and they brag about how the Gulf is back, but they never say anything about the 11 lives that were lost. They want us to forget about it, but they don't know what they've done to the families that lost someone," she said.

The spill exposed lax government oversight and led to a temporary ban on deepwater drilling while officials and the oil industry studied the risks, worked to make it safer and developed better disaster plans. BP's environmentally-friendly image was tarnished, and BP CEO Tony Hayward stepped down after the company's repeated gaffes, including his statement at the height of the crisis: "I'd like my life back."

The cost of BP's spill far surpassed the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. Exxon ultimately settled with the U.S. government for $1 billion, which would be about $1.8 billion today.

The government and plaintiffs' attorneys also sued Transocean Ltd., the rig's owner, and cement contractor Halliburton, but a string of pretrial rulings by a federal judge undermined BP's legal strategy to pin blame on them.

U.S. District Carl Barbier in New Orleans will have the final say over the settlement. He is also the judge who is deciding whether to give final approval to the $7.8 billion settlement involving claims brought by Gulf Coast shrimpers, commercial fishermen, charter captains, property owners, environmental groups, restaurants, hotels and others who claim they suffered economic losses.

Relatives of workers killed in the blast have also sued. And there are still other claims against BP from financial institutions, casinos and racetracks, insurance companies and local governments.

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Associated Press writer Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this story.

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Panasonic executive: panel displays to return to profit in fourth quarter

IBARAKI, Japan (Reuters) - Panasonic Corp's panel display business should return to profit in the three months to March 31, as it decouples from Japan's struggling TV industry with stronger sales of LCD panels to makers of tablets and PCs, the head of the division said in an interview on Thursday.

"We are now making displays for more than 10 models of tablets and PCs," Yoshio Ito said at a former factory in the town of Ibaraki in Osaka, western Japan, once the hub of the company's TV production and which now serves as his headquarters and a research and development center.

Sales of small LCD panels will likely make up around 60 percent of the unit's sales in the October-March second half of the business year compared with 30 percent in the first six months, he said.

As Panasonic draws back from TVs it is looking to boost sales of smaller LCD panels used in tablet computers and mobile phones, a strategy also being pursued by local rival Sharp Corp.

In the three months to September 30, the company's audiovisual division posted a loss of 2.1 billion yen ($26 million), with sales down 7 percent from a year earlier. For the full year it cut its operating profit forecast for the unit to 36 billion yen from 121 billion yen.

Panasonic last month warned it will post a net loss of close to $10 billion in the year ending next March 31 as it writes off tax deferred assets and goodwill related to its mobile phones solar panels and small lithium batteries.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Reiji Murai; Editing by Michael Watson)

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