Tax Day extra difficult for many same-sex married couples

WASHINGTON — A necessary burden for most Americans, Tax Day is an accounting nightmare for thousands of gay and lesbian couples as they wrestle with the uneven legal status of same-sex marriage in the United States.

They live in a country that recognizes their marriages, but some reside in the 13 states that do not, an issue that will be argued before the Supreme Court later this month.

At tax time, and Wednesday is the filing deadline, it gets complicated because most state income tax returns use information from a taxpayer's federal return.

Straight couples simply copy numbers from one form to another. But that doesn't work for same-sex couples reporting combined incomes, deductions and exemptions on their federal tax returns. These couples must untangle their finances on their state returns, where they are still considered single.

"We're adults, we're contributing to the welfare of society and yet, here's this one thing that just reaches up every year and kind of slaps us in the face," said Brian Wilbert, an Episcopal priest who lives in Oberlin, a small college town in northern Ohio.

Wilbert married his husband, Yorki Encalada, in 2012, at a ceremony in upstate New York. He is filing a joint federal tax return for the second time this year. But Ohio, which doesn't recognize same-sex marriages, requires the couple to file their state tax returns as if they were single.

"It may not be the most burning thing," Wilbert said. "But as we think about equality and marriage equality, this is an important thing because it's part of what couples do."

The number of states that recognize same-sex marriages has grown to 37, plus the District of Columbia, since the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.

After the ruling, the IRS announced that it would recognize same-sex marriages for federal tax purposes, even if couples lived in states that did not.

The Supreme Court is scheduled hear arguments in another same-sex marriage case April 28. Advocates hope the court will compel the remaining states to recognize gay and lesbian marriages.

Opponents of same-sex marriage want the court to send the issue back to the states. They note that recognition of same-sex marriage has spread largely through court orders, rather than the ballot box.

"It's not about the rights of a handful of people who want to change the institution of marriage," said Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values, an Ohio group. "It's about the will of the people."

The benefits of marriage are a mixed bag when it comes to taxes. Some couples, especially those with disparate incomes, can lower their combined tax bills by getting married. Others pay a marriage penalty.

The vast majority of married couples in the U.S. file joint federal tax returns in which they combine their incomes, exemptions, deductions and credits to calculate their tax liability. But same-sex couples are not allowed to file joint tax returns in most states that don't recognize their marriages. Instead, they have to unravel their finances and file separate state returns.

"So you have this one return that would normally give you the numbers to do your state tax return, but instead you have to split all your incomes again and pretend like you're not married," said Deb L. Kinney, a partner at the law firm of Johnston, Kinney & Zulaica in San Francisco.

"Your health care benefits will be taxed differently and your credits will be different. Your interest deduction could be different, and then you have to go through the allocation on each return," Kinney said. "It's much more expensive and cumbersome."

With the tax filing deadline approaching on Wednesday, states that don't recognize same-sex marriages are dealing with these issues in different ways. Five states require same-sex couples to fill out multiple federal tax returns, sometimes called dummy returns, so they can come up with the appropriate numbers for their state returns. This is how it works in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and Nebraska.

First, a same-sex couple fills out a joint federal income tax return, just like any other married couple. This is the return they file with the IRS.

Next, each spouse fills out a separate federal return as if the filer was single. Information from these returns is used to fill out state income tax returns, which are filed as if each was single.

"You have to literally make out five returns and file three," said Scott Squillace, a tax lawyer who wrote a legal guide for gay and lesbian couples called, "Whether To Wed."

"It's dizzying."

There's more.

"If someone with a joint bank account writes a check for a charitable donation, the question is, do you split it 50-50? Or is it that person's deduction when they file a single return?" said Arianne Plasencia, a tax lawyer at the Carlton Fields law firm in Miami.

Kansas, North Dakota and Ohio take a different approach. These states provide worksheets that same-sex couples must complete to separate their finances. In Ohio, the form has 31 lines, though most couples don't need to fill out every line.

"There is no way that I, as a Joe Q. Public, who happens to be gay and in a same-gender marriage, would figure out how to fill this form out," said Wilbert, the Episcopal priest. "I mean, it's just impossible."

Wilbert said he had to hire an accountant to do his taxes for the first time in his life. "I also had to get an extension, which I never had to do."

The issue is moot in South Dakota because there is no state income tax. It's less of an issue in Arkansas and Mississippi because these states don't use information from federal returns on their state income tax forms.

Alabama has same-sex married couples divide the income and taxes they report on their federal returns, based on each spouses' share of their combined income.

Missouri doesn't recognize same-sex marriages, but Gov. Jay Nixon issued an executive order requiring gay and lesbian couples to file joint state tax returns if they file a joint federal return.

This is much simpler than in other states. But what if filing as a married couple causes your taxes to go up?

"For the people it hurts, how unfair," said Janis Cowhey, a law partner at the Marcum accounting firm in New York. "You won't recognize my marriage, but you're going to make me pay more in taxes because I got married somewhere else."

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

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Stringent reverse mortgage rules near implementation

WASHINGTON — Interested in a reverse mortgage without a lot of hassles? Get your application in now. On April 27, a series of extensive "financial assessment" tests will make applying for a reverse mortgage tougher — much like applying for a standard home mortgage.

Reverse mortgages always have been different — available only to seniors 62 and older who have equity in their homes that they want to convert to cash. There are no repayments required until the borrower sells the house, moves out or dies. Homeowners' main responsibilities are to keep current on local property taxes, pay hazard insurance premiums and keep the place in reasonable condition.

The Federal Housing Administration has for three decades run the dominant insured reverse mortgage program in the country, and it has been relatively easygoing when it comes to underwriting. If you qualified on age and equity, you had a good shot at getting a loan.

But during the recession and mortgage bust years, thousands of borrowers fell into default because they didn't pay required property taxes and hazard insurance premiums. Further, real estate values plunged, producing huge losses on defaulted and foreclosed properties for the FHA. The losses got so severe that the Treasury Department had to provide the FHA with a $1.7 billion bailout in 2013, the first in the agency's history since its creation in the 1930s.

All of which led to the upcoming dramatic changes. Applicants now must demonstrate upfront that they have both the "willingness" and the "capacity" to meet their obligations. Lenders are going to pull borrowers' credit reports, just as they do with other mortgages.

Applicants will need to show that they paid their real estate taxes, homeowner association fees and other property-related charges on time for at least the past 24 months. They will be asked to produce documentation of their employment status, income and financial assets, as well as undergo a "residual income" analysis that examines all their monthly expenses and cash flow.

Inadequate marks on these tests may require borrowers to create a "life expectancy set aside" — essentially a reserve account or escrow funded wholly or in part from their loan proceeds. For some borrowers, the set-asides may be so substantial they'll be left with minimal cash at closing, making the entire reverse mortgage process a waste of time.

All of which, say reverse mortgage industry experts, will exclude potentially thousands of senior homeowners from obtaining a reverse mortgage, especially those who are on the margins economically and need the cash to help pay for ongoing household expenses.

Reza Jahangiri, CEO of Orange, Calif.-based American Advisors Group, the highest-volume reverse mortgage lender, said his company expects a decline in loan activity by "8 to 10 percent" after the assessment rules take effect. He also expects a shift toward "mainstream" borrowers who seek to use a reverse mortgage as part of their overall retirement planning, including raising money to buy a new house or to establish a flexible line of credit they can draw from. Many seniors currently can't qualify for bank home-equity credit lines, he said, but with adequate credit, income and assets, can qualify for a reverse mortgage in the form of a credit line.

Maggie O'Connell, who originates FHA-insured reverse mortgages for The Federal Savings Bank from offices in Reno, Nev., and Danville, Calif., said she's been scrambling "to get people in before the deadline" who might encounter difficulty — or be turned off by all the required documentation — under the new rules. Though she may do fewer loans in the short term, she said, in the long term the tougher rules "are probably a good thing" because they will prevent weak borrowers from taking out loans they can't handle and that will eventually end up in default, "which is bad for them and bad for us."

Bottom line: Tougher credit standards have come to reverse mortgages — finally. Before applying, be aware of the types of documentation you'll need. And when you talk with a lender or financial counselor about a reverse loan, make sure you involve the entire family, so everybody knows what you are getting into.

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'Kids can smell fake': 5 insights from marketing pros at the massive summit

The room was buzzing with talk of data mining, viral campaigns and brand trust at Variety's Massive Entertainment Marketing Summit at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons on Friday, which brought together industry experts to weigh in the challenges and payoffs of digital marketing, among other topics. Marketing experts agreed that authenticity is the key for younger consumers. Here's a few other insights from the summit:

1. Kids can smell fake

Scott Birnbaum, Senior VP of marketing and e-commerce at Aeropostale, shared the story of launching a clothing line with YouTube star and social influencer Bethany Mota. At one point the campaign released photos of Mota that, to her fans, looked over-doctored and caused outrage on social media. "I even got a phone call from my daughter who was supposedly in school saying 'What did you do to Bethany?,'" Birnbaum recalled. Using this anecdote, Birnbaum emphasized the mantra that kids can smell fake. "Eventually, a single tweet that said 'Hey, we think Beth is beautiful too. It was a mistake. It's going to be fixed in 20 minutes,' made everything calm down," he said.

Moderator Jeetendr Sehdev, a celebrity branding authority, read from a study commissioned by Variety that found U.S. teens view YouTube stars to be 90 percent more authentic than traditional celebrities, 17 times more engaging and 11 times more extraordinary.

Mota, who was also on the panel, said that her philosophy relies on honesty and brand trust. "I will never talk about something or promote something that I don't actually use and that I don't care about because with the relationship being so strong between the creators and viewers, they can see when you don't truly like something. As long as you're honest and truthful then that's what builds that relationship. And the stronger that is, the more they're going to listen to what you say," she said.

2. Focus on the content, not the demographic

In a spotlight conversation with Movio CEO Will Palmer about how theaters and studios use data to target audiences, Palmer suggested gender and demographic info may be an old fashioned way of approaching an audience -- "assuming that somebody, the day they turn 36, is no longer going to be interested in 'The Avengers.' These films cross all quadrants and cross all segments. So sometimes you have to ignore the demographic information and start looking at the comparable titles. If you focus more on the content and less on the demographic, you'll likely get a better result," he said.

3. Help consumers discover what they want without being intrusive

Hulu's head of marketing, Jenny Wall and Facebook's global head of entertainment strategy Jim Underwood discussed the potential hazards of data mining and targeted advertising. Wall pointed out that consumers want to feel like they're discovering new things, but they need help because there is so much available. In order to give people what they want without creeping them out, Hulu uses a combination of algorithms and staff-curated lists. Wall also said when Hulu advertises on Facebook, the combined data is extremely valuable. "Facebook data mixed with Hulu data is the most amazing goldmine of data possible. And it actually is not really intrusive because they don't really understand, I think, that we're doing that... We have a thousand ads, and in real time we're quickly optimizing and shifting to serve the right ad and the personalized ad to the right person."

4. Embrace fan-generated content

Sima Sistani, head of media at Tumblr, explained her thoughts on how content producers can improve their digital presence, saying that fans will create opportunities. "You have fandoms out there who are taking the best moments from a movie or show and creating episode recaps or pulling out the best moments into gifs and even creating fan fiction and fan art," she explained. "One of my favorite things that I saw was the bacon and eggs version of the characters of 'Parks and Recreation.' If the 'Parks and Rec' Tumblr re-blogs that, it's so meaningful and that fan is just going to get more engaged and more excited."

5. Fail, fail fast and move on

Jill Hotchkiss, VP of marketing and creative at Disney XD shared the mantra "fail, fail fast and move on" which she uses when brainstorming ways to connect with a younger demographic. "You have got to try new and try different," she said. "We need to figure out how to be a kids space and do it in a different way when there are a lot of restrictions for us."

Caty Burgess, VP of media strategies at the CW, used an example of how her network has tried as many avenues as possible in order to be on the cutting edge of marketing. "Our first mobile campaign was little sticker mirrors you could put on the back of your cellphone for 'Gossip Girl.'"

The research team at a network is largely responsible for determining what will work, but beyond that there is still plenty of uncertainty when pitching a new idea, explained Jamie Cutburth, senior VP of marketing at Bravo and Oxygen. "That 50 percent of the unproven part is the culture and it is the risk-taking," he said. "It's very difficult because you're going to make sure that it hits every button or it's not going to move forward. But that's why we're able to do a lot of great stuff."

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Volkswagen's Piech draws criticism over CEO remark

BERLIN — Volkswagen patriarch and board chairman Ferdinand Piech is drawing criticism over a reported remark that raised questions over the future of the CEO of Europe's biggest automaker, Martin Winterkorn.

Piech, a key company powerbroker, was quoted by Der Spiegel magazine Friday as saying he was "at a distance from Winterkorn," who has been widely considered a likely successor as supervisory board chief. That prompted speculation about his position.

The head of Volkswagen's influential employee council backed Winterkorn. The governor of Lower Saxony state, a minority shareholder, criticized the public discussion about the company's leadership.

The Piech and Porsche families together control a majority in Volkswagen. Board member Wolfgang Porsche told news agency dpa in a statement Sunday that Piech's comment represents "his private opinion" and wasn't cleared with his family.

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IFF Panama: Central America on the right track for growth

PANAMA - As the leaders of the Americas, including U.S. President Barack Obama, meet in Panama City for the seventh Summit of the Americas, they will be all too aware that it is the economies of Central America that are leading growth in the region. And, according to a report published on Tuesday (April 7) by the United Nation's Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Central America will continue to lead the way in 2015 with Panama, with an expected 6 % increase in GDP over the coming year, at the forefront.

Central America, which consists of seven countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama), is also on the right track for growth in its theatrical movie market, according to Luis Vargas, Managing director of Rentrak for Mexico, Caribbean, Central America, Colombia and Venezuela.

"Central America is a region that you can consider as one country, one big country," Vargas explains. "It is a region that is growing very, very fast because of the amount of cinemas being developed. In the past three-or-four years the percentage increase in new cinemas has been at least 5% per year. A very good number, especially if you consider this compared to other regions of the world. It tells you that as an economy, it is a region that has potential for the future due to investment and the possibilities in this market."

The region, which is estimated to have a combined population of around 43 million, 3.6 million of which are in Panama, is also undergoing consolidation and modernization with old theatres making way for new, and many existing screens being digitalized and fitted with better, more modern and comfortable seats. All these elements have helped the growth of admissions and grosses.

In 2014, according to Rentrak, Central American cinemas grossed $107,184,606, up from $ 104,553,755 in 2013 and $ 94,814,293 in 2012: Growth of about 13% in two years.

There were 93 performing theatres in all of Central America in 2012, and 96 in 2013 and 2014, but, as Vargas explains: "In 2014 a lot of the existing cinemas were modernized. In 2015 we are expecting several new cinemas to be opened and less cinemas to be closed. For example, this number of 96 would suggest that no cinemas opened in the entire region, however, this number is the final total after taking into consideration the older cinemas that were closed."

In screen terms, the region has seen an increase from 489 in 2012 to 503 in 2013, and 507 in 2014. Again these are final numbers after taking in to account the closing of older screens and the opening of more modern, digitalized screens.

"Now that the digitalization is much more advanced, also by the independent exhibitors, we will see a decrease in the number of cinemas that are being closed due to economic factors, and more cinemas will be opened", Vargas adds. "We are expecting at least two new cinemas in Panama, and both are to be high end multiplex cinemas."

Across Central America in 2014 the highest grossing movies were all studio blockbusters. In order they were "Transformers: Age of Extinction," "Rio 2," "Maleficent," "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," "Captain America: The Winter Solider," "The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay - Part 1," "X Men: Days of Future Past," "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies," "How to Train Your Dragon 2," and "Guardians of the Galaxy."

In Panama, the top ten for 2014 were "Transformers: Age of Extinction," "Rio 2," "Maleficent," "X Men: Days of Future Past," "Captain America: The Winter Solider," "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," "The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay - Part 1," and "Annabelle."

Locally made films, however, have started to make an impact on the commercial cinema circuit in Central America, most notably Miguel Gómez's "Maikol Yordan" ("Maikol Yordan de Viaje Perdido"), an adventure, drama from Costa Rica that will open in Panama on May 14 following its international premiere at IFF Panama on April 13.

In Costa Rica. the film grossed $1,080,511 in 2014, and now has an accumulated gross of $3,528,104 since its Dec. 18 bow.

In Panama four local productions made their mark commercially in 2014. They included "Invasion" ("Invasión"), the country's first Oscar submission for the foreign-language category, "Historias del Canal", "Breaking the Wave" ("Rompiendo la ola") and "Reinas." All of which have played the IFF Panama.

The films, according to the Panama Film Commission, are just four of 13 features to be produced in Panama since 2012, and that compares with just three local productions completed between 2007 and 2012 and two between 2001 and 2007.

Vargas believes one solution for the growth of the local Central American film industry will be for governments to invest in art house cinemas.

"Gvernments should create alternative spaces of exhibition that are focused to exhibit product where the main goal is not to make money, but to promote art, or to promote a message," argues Vargas. "Otherwise, lower-budget films will be lost in the huge space of exhibition, and create unnecessary frustration for their producers.

"Why does a movie have to be exhibited on a commercial circuit?" he asks. "I believe that the only countries that have supported this type of circuit are Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Mexico has one of the highest capacities when it comes to these alternative exhibition spaces that are controlled by the government and that give low-budget films a space in which to be exhibited. We have to understand that the filmmakers can't do this on their own. It has to be a synergy, like team work, and the key people in the local film industry must ask their governments for the money for new cinemas, for the spaces in which to see their own local product."

The heads of those governments have all been meeting in Panama this weekend where the theme of their Summit of the Americas has been "Prosperity with Equity: The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas," a theme and a challenge that is equally on the minds of filmmakers across Central and South America as they look at ways to share screen time with the Hollywood blockbusters that remain popular with the growing theatrical audiences across the region.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Activists pushing bill they say would close tax loophole

BOSTON — With Tax Day approaching fast, activists are calling on Massachusetts lawmakers to crack down on what they describe as offshore tax haven abuse by large companies.

On Tuesday, the group MASSPIRG is planning to release a report detailing how they say companies use the tax code to shift profits made in America to areas like the Cayman Islands, where they pay little to no taxes.

A handful of lawmakers are planning to attend the Statehouse event, including Democratic state Sen. Mark Montigny of New Bedford.

The group says the report will estimate how much small businesses in Massachusetts would have to pay on average to make up for the money lost in 2014 to tax havens.

The activists are pushing a bill they say would tighten the tax code in Massachusetts.

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What could be causing 2004 Durango’s starting issues?

Q: My 2004 Dodge Durango with 170,000 miles has recently developed starting problems. It will start up in one of three ways: 1. Start fine. 2. Start with a knock and go right to idle rpm. 3. Start with a knock and stall. I then have to crank the motor for 5-10 seconds before the motor slowly starts and goes right to idle rpm. I have no dashboard warning lights, the battery is OK and the engine runs fine with no detectable power loss or knocking. My mechanic looked at it and drove it but was not able to diagnose the problem, even after replacing the cam and crank sensors and disconnecting various sensors, cables, etc., trying to identify the problem. Could this be an issue with the starter motor since the engine operates fine once it is running?

A: I wonder if the knocking noise is tricking the knock sensors into retarding ignition timing to protect the engine. Knock sensors are effectively small microphones that listen for the sound of detonation in the cylinders and signal the ECM, which retards the timing. Mechanical noises that mimic the sound of detonation may fool the ECM. The retarded ignition timing might explain the engine's idle rpm and restart characteristics.

You didn't identify whether your Durango is equipped with the 4.7-liter or 5.7-liter V8 engine, but both appear to utilize a geared starter motor. You could have the starter tested for amperage draw on or off the car. Once the starter is removed, the teeth on the flex plate ring gear can be inspected for damage. I found remanufactured starters for under $100.

One final thought: Years ago we had a Malibu wagon that developed an intermittent but very loud knocking noise. After much knuckle-busting, teeth-gnashing and head-scratching, it turned out to be a loose torque converter mounting bolt that intermittently hit the inside of the bell housing.

...

Q: My wife's 2001 Ford Escape has a problem with the cruise control. On a recent trip, when I turned on the cruise, the green light went on but when I attempted to set the speed control it would not set. The light to indicate that the speed control was set did not come on. Repeated attempts also failed. Then the green light indicating that the speed control was on also went off and wouldn't come back on. Yesterday my wife informed me that the green light did come on but the speed control would not activate. Could you help us diagnose this problem?

A: Your best diagnostic strategy is to use a scan tool and the cruise control's self-diagnostic capabilities to identify the problem. This may lead to pinpoint testing of the speed control switch, servo, deactivator switch, brake switch and other components. Also, make sure all brake lights are operational.

Please note that Ford issued a recall back in 2000 addressing potential corrosion or binding in the speed control cable.

L L L

Q: My Ford Fusion has about 85,000 miles on it. It has a set of Goodyear tires with about 12,000 miles on them. Both right-side tires leak air enough that the "Low tire" light comes on every two weeks or so. The tires have been removed and resealed to their aluminum rims by the tire shop where I bought them and by my Ford dealer. Nothing seems to work. I've thought of buying new tires or even trading the car, but I like it a lot.

A: Typically, there are two possible causes for air leaks from replacement tires on alloy wheels — corrosion around the bead contact area on the rim or porosity of the wheel itself. Shops remove the corrosion and apply a special sealant to the bead to seal the tire.

You have three choices — have a tire specialist try resealing the tires again, replace the wheels or replace the car. I'd go with option one.

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race-car driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or via email at paulbrand@startribune.com. Please explain the problem in detail and include a daytime phone number. Because of the volume of mail, we cannot provide personal replies.

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Mip TV: Drama dynamizes 2015 market

CANNES - Two big "Ds" - Dramas, Digital - look set to galvanize much Croisette business, as well as multiple conference panels, at next week's Cannes Mip TV, which catches part of the international TV business in the full flush of evolution, convulsed by ramping consolidation - Mip TV will be the first market for new joint venture Endemol Shine Group, for instance - and the ever-clearer emergence of international drama as a serious alternative to US fare.

As the number of high-end drama escalates, competition for top-notch show-runners - mostly based out of the U.S. will become all the more bitter.

Last Wednesday, Amazon Studios aconfirmed Diego Luna to play the lead in its untitled Casanova period drama, exec produced by Electus Ent.'s Ben Silverman and Stu Zicherman. Expect further high-end drama announcements - of epics and event dramas - or first-look talent deals at 2015's Mip TV.

Traditionally, May' L.A. Screenings, and October's Mipcom TV mart, have proved the biggest launchpads for new high-profile dramas. No more. Now Mip-TV looks to have joined the club, as the market launches a Drama at Mip TV forum and a veritable mini tsunami of high-end fiction is set to sweep the Croisette. Just some examples:

*One of the most active of Hollywood studios at Cannes, Twentieth Century Fox TV Distribution's will continue to roll out sales on "Empire," boosted by phenom first season ratings, the best for any regular broadcast drama since 2008, as well as the rave-reviewed "The Last Man on Earth."

*Warner Bros. Worldwide TV Distribution, will be pushing super-hero drama" The Flash," and DC Comics super-villains and vigilantes origin story "Gotham," picked up for SVOD by Netflix.

* With free-to-air broadcasters still seeking semi autonomous episode drama, CBS Studios Intl. will be shopping Patricia Arquette starrer "CSI: Cyber" and sci-fi thriller "Zoo," based on James Patterson's bestseller.

*In Europe, film-TV powerhouse Studiocanal bows its first-ever TV sales operation at Mip TV, led by two Canal Plus Original Series, the Tandem-produced "Spotless," now a Canal Plus hit, and futuristic "Section Zero," from Luc Besson's EuropaCorp, plus Tandem's "Crossing Lines 3," and Harlan Coben's "The Five" from Red Production Company.

*Flagship dramas at Endemol Shine Group include ITV series "The Frankenstein Chronicles," with Sean Bean, and AMC/Channel 4's "Humans" (pictured), an around mid-year bow which is "a relationship story with strong thriller elements" set in a world where robots, called synthetics, have developed human emotions, said Endemol Shine Intl. CEO Cathy Payne.

* At Mip TV, ITV Studios Global Ent. will hold a World Premiere Screening of "Texas Rising," co-produced with A + E, and talk up a rebooted "Poldark," and David Duchovny U.S. crime drama "Aquarius," set for NBC.

*From Germany, ZDF will be pushing pan-European crime thriller "The Team," starring Lars Mikkelsen ("The Killing"), Beta "Line of Separation," set in a Cold War-wracked Germany, and Tele München Group Dominic Graf's "Blender," based on a narcotics cop scandal.

The highest profile Mip TV 2015 keynote speakers look like "Modern Family" co-creator Steven Levitan and Sky group chief exec Jeremy Darroch, who will set out his vision for the push by a pan-European Sky, with now integrated pay TV operations in the U.S., Italy and Germany, into high-end drama.

And one of this year's large highlights will be Mip TV's Intl. Drama Screenings, which range from Starz Worldwide Distribution's ballet drama "Flesh & Bone" to "Follow the Money," from Danish pubcaster DR Fiction, "Deadline: Gallipoli," airing in Australia's Foxtel, and "Versailles," a flagship English-language series at France's Canal Plus.

"Great stories have no homeland," says a The Wit Mip TV study, "5 Drama Trends For 2015," citing the fact that the most-adapted scripted formats in 2014 came from Spain.

Of top fiction formats, CW's hour-long comedy "Jane the Virgin," its first Golden Globe nomination, is now in negotiations with a big German broadcaster. Exec producer Ben Silverman originally sourced it from Venezuela.

Reflecting the spread of series in partners, languages, shoots, setting, beyond its first five English-language skeins Federation Ent. is producing the "Boss"-style "Marseilles" for Netflix and espionage thriller "The Bureau" for Canal Plus, both in French, and co-producing hospital-set "The Replacements" in Finnish and season 2 of "Hostages," a Hebrew-language series, with Israel, Federation Ent.'s Breton said.

For Garaude: "We're continuing to notice a growing notion of market opportunities coming from all around the world. Drama production is thoroughly international and becoming more and more so every year."

For the world's biggest content suppliers, Mip TV remains a multi-purpose mart. "The L.A. Screenings very much focus on new TV series, "At Mip TV, we typically talk to everyone about everything, and what we discuss just depends on the relationship we happen to have with each client that we're meeting with. Conversations may turn on film, series or library content, depending on clients," said Gina Brogi, EVP, Worldwide Pay Television & SVOD, Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution.

But such, indeed, is the current dynamism of the drama sector, that one large question is where it leaves much else of the TV business.

In the non-fiction format sector, everybody's waiting for The Next Big Thing. "One big hit changes the way the whole market works. When I began my career, I was told that music was dead in primetime, yet you'd be hard pressed to say that now, with 'Idol,' 'The Voice,' and 'Popstars' in major roles in many territories," said Rob Clark, director of global entertainment, FremantleMedia. At Mip TV, FremantleMedia presents new BBC quiz show "Beat the Brain," "10 Questions You Wouldn't Ask On a First Date," and RTL 1 hit "The Most Beautiful Woman," a beauty contest for women of different ages and backgrounds which is "very engaging, about inspirational stories, female empowerment, with potential to be a long-running franchise for a broadcaster," Clark commented.

Endemol Shine Group will be selling talent show format "The Brain," from Endemol Shine Germany, a breakout hit in China, Spain, Italy, Brazil and France, plus human darts challenge "Bullseye," from Endemol Shine North America, which went straight to series at Fox. It will also be talking up "Junior Masterchef," which is now in over 20 territories as well, said Lisa Perrin, MD, Creative Networks, Endemol Shine Group.

Several "important new formats" will be announced during Mip TV, anticipated Garaude. New formats' challenge, said The Wit's Bertrand Villegas, is that the super-formats are not fading fast enough to allow new formats through.

Quite the contrary at times, as Endemol Shine's Perrin points out: Series 11 of "Masterchef" in the U.K. has launched to best-ever ratings; "Masterchef" has hit a 43% peak share in Argentina. In the last five years, there have only been four days in the world where "Big Brother," which is nearly 17 years old, has not been playing, by one estimate at least.

Some producers criticize TV channels' risk aversion. But, said Villegas, "broadcasters are not in the business of innovation but rather airing successful shows."

The problem is many producers wanting to sell their product but broadcasters not having so many slots. There are also semi-Big Things, such as kids' talent shows like Televisa's "Little Giants," re-versioned in Spain, he added.

For Endemol Shine Group's Perrin, "Regarding the Next Big Thing, I feel it's just around the corner, and I'm hoping it's going to come, but it's not there yet."

Digital is there, in contrast, and now shaping the TV landscape, as Mip TV reflects. The MIP Digital Fronts co presence is powering up, with a blockbuster line-up of 15 Digital Fronts partners and showcases, a large rise on 2014, said Garaude. One example: as Chinese appetite for entertainment formats ramps up, one top Mip Formats keynote speaker on Saturday was Yang Weidong, SVP Youku Todou, China's leading online TV co, which has bought "Big Brother" and "The Voice."

Fresh off a $50 million investment from venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz and the creation last August of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, which he heads up as president, BuzzFeed's Ze Frank will deliver the Digital Fronts keynote along with producer Michael Shamberg ("Django Unchained," "Erin Brokovich").

Other Digital Fronts speakers include Chad Gudstein, CEO of Machinima, the vidgame/fandom-themed digital co, teen YouTube destination channel Awesomeness TV's founder/CEO Brian Robbins, and Andrew Creighton, prexy of print/online publisher Vice Media.

A pumped-up Mip Digital Fronts kick off Tuesday afternoon. For most of Mip TV, however, it is drama that will be making the running. The high-end drama boom is, moreover, no passing fad.

Explaining the ramp-up of serialized drama, "The main key element is the media-technology landscape: Companies -Netflix, Amazon - leveraging premium content to differentiate their offer," said Electus Ent. founder-CEO Ben Silverman, who receives a Mip TV Medaille d'Honneur next Wednesday.

More European telecom giants will enter the TV fiction space, as serialized drama works especially well in an age of view anytime, anywhere, predicted Martin Moszkowicz at Germany's Constantin Film, which rolls this May on English-language "Shadowhunters," based on Cassandra Clares' YA book series, with writer/exec producer Ed Decter ("Unforgettable," "In Plain Sight").

The ramp-up has two large consequences. "The benchmark for drama has gone up. Competition is fierce and you need an attractive package. There's a cost to that. So broadcasters are looking to co-produce, so as to get a bigger budget," said Endemol Shine's Payne.

"Co-production is progressing enormously, becoming more and more important and successful," Garaude added. One 2015 Mip TV centerpiece is Tuesday's Intl. Drama Co-Production Summit; this weekend's Mip Doc featured, for the first time, a European Broadcasters Union Co-production breakfast.

And, currently, high-end drama is one place to be. For Twentieth Century Fox's Brogi: "One of the great things about competition for dramas in the market place right now is that there's something that works for everyone: It's just a matter of finding the right outlet for each piece of content that we make. There is increased demand and it's a great business to be in."

Elsa Keslassy and Leo Barraclough contributed to this report

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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CBS political director John Dickerson new Sunday show host

WASHINGTON — CBS News political director John Dickerson will replace the retiring Bob Schieffer as moderator of "Face the Nation."

Schieffer made the announcement on Sunday's show. Dickerson's first broadcast as host will come this summer.

Schieffer noted that Dickerson "sure has the right bloodlines" for the assignment. Dickerson's mother, Nancy, was the first female correspondent in the CBS News Washington bureau.

Schieffer — the 78-year-old chief Washington correspondent of CBS News — announced Wednesday that he would be leaving the job early this summer. Schieffer has been with CBS News since 1969.

John Dickerson says he's "honored and excited" by the new job.

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CBS news political director John Dickerson named anchor of 'Face the Nation'

CBS News has tapped its political director John Dickerson to succeed Bob Schieffer as anchor of "Face the Nation."

Schieffer announced the appointment at the close of Sunday's telecast. Dickerson is the son of Nancy Dickerson, the first female correspondent to work in CBS News' Washington bureau and an associate producer on "Face the Nation" at its inception in 1954.

Dickerson will take over the anchor desk on the Sunday morning public affairs show from Schieffer this summer, just in time to rev up for the 2016 presidential race. Schieffer confirmed his plan to retire after a 46-year career with CBS News.

"John is first and foremost a reporter -- and that's what he'll be as anchor of 'Face the Nation'," said CBS News president David Rhodes. "His work in the studio will always be informed by what he's learned in Iowa, in New Hampshire, on Capitol Hill--anywhere there's news. He has earned the respect of newsmakers across the political spectrum. With all our correspondents John will present comprehensive coverage on all our platforms."

Dickerson has been a regular on "Face the Nation" in recent years. Calling him "my friend," Schieffer noted he has made 83 appearances on the show "and he sure has the right bloodlines."

A Washington native, Dickerson joined CBS News in 2009 as an on-air political analyst. He's been political director since 2011. Before CBS, Dickerson was a reporter for Time magazine and Slate.

"I'm thrilled," Dickerson said. "I have watched Bob my whole professional life not just as a viewer but as a daily reporter who also covered the Hill. I'm honored to carry on his tradition on 'Face the Nation.' "

Dickerson is also the author of a book about his mother's pioneering role in TV news, "On Her Trail." Nancy Dickerson died in 1997.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Giant atom smasher starts up after 2-year shutdown

BERLIN — The world's biggest particle accelerator is back in action after a two-year shutdown and upgrade, embarking on a new mission that scientists hope could give them a look into the unseen dark universe.

Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, on Sunday shot two particle beams through the Large Hadron Collider's 27-kilometer (16.8-mile) tunnel, beneath the Swiss-French border near Geneva.

The collider was instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that had long been theorized but never confirmed until 2013.

Scientists are promising nearly twice the energy and more violent particle crashes this time around. They hope to see all sorts of new physics, including a first ever glimpse of dark matter, during the collider's second three-year run.

CERN said the restart went smoothly and faster than expected. Still, it will be a while yet before the accelerator is working at full speed and particle crashes start.

"It will take us about six weeks to two months to establish the first stable collisions for the experiments, because we have to commission all the instruments, all the systems one by one," said Joerg Wenninger, the accelerator's coordinator of operations.

Dark matter — and its cousin, dark energy — make up most of the universe, but scientists haven't been able to see them yet, so researchers are looking for them in high-energy crashes, in orbit in a special experiment on the international space station, and in a deep underground mine.

CERN spent about $150 million on the upgrade, opening the massive machine every 20 meters (66 feet), checking magnets and improving connections.

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Journalism school to release review of Rolling Stone article

RICHMOND, Va. — News organizations following up on Rolling Stone's horrifying tale of a gang rape at the University of Virginia exposed serious flaws in the report and the Charlottesville Police Department said its four-month investigation found no evidence that the attack happened — or that the man who allegedly orchestrated it even exists.

Now the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism is about to explain how it all went so wrong. The school's analysis of the editorial process that led to the November 2014 publication of "A Rape on Campus" will be released online at 8 p.m. EDT Sunday.

The article focused on a student identified only as "Jackie" who said she was raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house more than two years earlier.

It also described a hidden culture of sexual violence fueled by binge drinking at one of the nation's most highly regarded public universities. Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo said at a March 23 news conference that his investigators, who received no cooperation from Jackie, found no evidence to support either.

The article prompted protests on the Charlottesville campus, but the story quickly began to unravel. Other news organizations learned that the article's author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, had agreed not to contact the accused men. Three of Jackie's friends denied the writer's assertion that they discouraged the alleged victim from reporting the assault, and the man described as the person who led her to an upstairs room in the fraternity house to be raped could not be located.

By Dec. 5, Rolling Stone acknowledged that "there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account." The magazine asked for the independent review, which was conducted by the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

The fraternity has called the article defamatory and said it was exploring its legal options.

"These false accusations have been extremely damaging to our entire organization, but we can only begin to imagine the setback this must have dealt to survivors of sexual assault," said Stephen Scipione, president of the Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, after the Charlottesville police suspended their investigation.

Despite its flaws, the article heightened scrutiny of campus sexual assaults amid a campaign by President Barack Obama. The University of Virginia had already been on the Department of Education's list of 55 colleges under investigation for their handling of sex assault violations.

The article also prompted U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan to temporarily suspend Greek social events. Fraternities later agreed to ban kegs, hire security workers and keep at least three fraternity members sober at each event.

___

Online:

Release of report: http://www.RollingStone.com , http://www.CJR.org

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Iran stocks soar after nuclear framework deal

TEHRAN, Iran — The Tehran Stock Exchange has rallied after world powers clinched a nuclear framework agreement with Tehran, reflecting hopes that some crippling international sanctions could soon be lifted.

The official IRNA news agency says the Tehran Stock Exchange index rose 6.9 percent over two days. The agency says the index improved by 4,535 points to 70,261 on Sunday — the second working day of Iran's new year. It was the highest level in at least 18 months.

The framework deal announced Thursday envisions a final agreement that would pare back Iran's nuclear program for at least a decade in return for sanctions relief. Iran and six world powers, including the United States, hope to reach a final agreement by June 30.

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Techies mine data to reveal secrets about living in Boston

Allston-Brighton residents file the most complaints about graffiti, adding a bike lane on Blue Hill Avenue would be the best way to cut down on accidents, and Hub residents find trash problems more irritating than slow snow removal.

Those are some of the revelations from Boston's latest HubHack hackathon, which asked techies to dig into a haystack of data and come up with needles.

"We want to deliver services in a whole different manner as we move forward," Mayor Martin J. Walsh said. "This is an exciting time in the city of Boston, we're doing an awful lot around social media and hackathons ... things that the city has never seen before."

About 70 people in 17 teams worked with everything from traffic and accident data from GPS app Waze to census data to Boston's crime information, in order to highlight trends and uncover insights that could be useful to the city. Seven finalists unveiled their analyses yesterday at Faneuil Hall. Some things they found include:

•    Blue Hill Avenue has the highest collision rate for cyclists, so adding a bike lane there would give the city the most bang for its buck.

•    Commonwealth Avenue, widely considered the most dangerous for cyclists, has a relatively low collision rate based on how many people ride down that street.

• The day of the week with the most crime is Friday, followed by Saturday and Thursday.

•   Issues with trash pickup and sanitation make residents angrier than snow removal problems, according to a language analysis of Citizens Connect complaints.

• Beacon Hill ranks 14th in total Citizens Connect complaints, but ranks second for complaints about street lights. South Boston leads in complaints about trees, and Allston-Brighton leads in complaints about graffiti.

• A whopping 43.3 percent of the residents in the college-packed Fenway/Kenmore area are between 15- and 20-years-old.

•  Most neighborhoods are relatively split in terms of gender, except East Boston, which is 57 percent male.

"It's an exciting opportunity for us, for operational purposes, to help us better understand the city," said Jascha Franklin-Hodge, the Hub's chief information officer, adding the data visualizations could be used to improve city services. "The work that's being done around public safety and bike lanes may inform some of our priorities and our decision-making."

That project, which compared accident rates on streets with and without bike lanes, won first prize.

The hackathon marked the second time the city has opened up some of its information to outsiders. Last year, a hackathon focused on improving the city permitting system and three of the apps built then have been implemented.

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Exporting Philly: Cheesesteaks, ices and pretzels go global

PHILADELPHIA — The man intent on taking the Philly cheesesteak global saw a familiar sight from home on a recent trip to Florida: a Wawa.

The hoagie-making, coffee-brewing convenience and gas chain from the Philadelphia area is pushing hard into the Sunshine State, opening more than 60 stores since 2012 with another 25 planned by the end of the year.

Albie Misci, sales director at cheesesteak chain Tony Luke's, knows the idea.

He's helping take Philly's most famous culinary treat to Florida, California and even the Middle Eastern nation of Bahrain.

"The cheesesteak has grown from a Philadelphia sandwich, a local food, to a national sandwich. Everyone's familiar with it," Misci said in a recent interview. "When we're in Las Vegas or in L.A., they'll come up to us and say, 'Hey, Tony Luke's, you're from Philly!'"

Other staples from the City of Brotherly Love, including its beloved soft pretzels and water ice, are also going global, as their Philadelphia-based purveyors aggressively expand into national — and international — chains.

Tony Luke's has 22 stores, seven more in development and plans to grow to 360 locations within a decade.

Philly Pretzel Factory, started in 1998 as a single stand by friends who hawked pretzels as kids on the side of a busy Philadelphia boulevard, has 150 stores and plans to open 350 more and break into the international market by 2020.

Rita's Italian Ice, already up to 600 stores in the U.S., is expanding into six Middle Eastern countries and is looking to Canada and Mexico for further growth.

Rita's chief development officer, Eric Taylor, said its Philadelphia-bred franchisees — and customers who've relocated from the city or vacationers hitting the beach, the theme parks or Phillies spring training — have an emotional connection to the product.

"They want to bring water ice out to Arizona or Utah or wherever they are now," Taylor said of the sugary frozen treat, which is more sorbet than snow cone. "They take pride in bringing a Philly staple back to their home market."

Wawa skipped straight from its footprint in five mid-Atlantic states to Florida, where census data shows 3 percent of residents are natives of Pennsylvania and 8 percent are from other northeast states.

The company has stores in the Orlando and Tampa areas popular with retirees and tourists — including the one Misci saw near the Phillies' complex in Clearwater. It's opening three stores at once next week in Fort Myers.

Wawa spokeswoman Lori Bruce said the reception has been so strong in Florida, the company will continue to open 25 new stores there and 25 in the mid-Atlantic — further into northern New Jersey and south into Virginia — each year.

Across the company and employee-owned chain, its made-to-order Philadelphia-style hoagies remain a top seller.

"It speaks to the unique connection Philly foods have with people," Bruce said.

Philadelphia's boom in gastronomic exports comes at a heady time for the city.

It'll host Pope Francis in September and the Democratic National Convention next July and a major soccer championship this summer.

It's also been featured prominently on the television shows "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "The Goldbergs," which recreated Veterans Stadium — the former home of the Phillies and Eagles — for a recent episode.

The brands built around the city's iconic foods are following a trail blazed by every major chain before it — growing from a single store into a regional player before leaping into less familiar territory, said Penn marketing professor David Reibstein.

Think Starbucks, which started as a single-store operation at Seattle's Pike Place Market, or one of its main rivals, Dunkin Donuts, which evolved into a global coffee and pastry giant from a small chain of shops in the Boston area.

"Part of what it takes is, is that city or that region known for those particular products," said Reibstein. "We can think about Italian shoes. That's really well-known and if you say it's Italian, that must be really good. But, if we saw Slovakian shoes, no one's going to be really enamored with that."

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Regulators take comments in April on herring rule changes

AUGUSTA, Maine — Federal fishery regulators are taking comments until the end of the month about planned changes to the rules they use to set catch limits for Atlantic herring.

Regulators say they are planning to change the rules to make sure herring aren't overfished. The New England Fishery Management Council is working on an amendment designed to make sure future catch limits are based on "scientific uncertainty" and the status of the herring stock.

Regulators say the changes could be approved next year. The council is accepting comments until April 30.

Herring are important because they are sold as food and used as bait. They play a key role in the Atlantic Ocean food web. Maine and Massachusetts had by far the largest commercial Atlantic herring fisheries in the country in 2013.

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Indiana faces long road to restore image after religious law

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana tourism agencies are rolling out campaigns emphasizing that everyone is welcome, but it might not be enough to quickly restore the state's battered image after a backlash over its religious objections law.

An uproar sparked by fears that the law would allow discrimination against gays and lesbians led a few convention organizers and performers to cancel events and some state and local governments to ban travel to the state last week. Revisions to the law's language have eased some of the criticism, but experts say the state could be dealing with a damaged reputation for years to come.

In a sign that Indiana is still under close scrutiny, hundreds of gay rights supporters marched to the site of the NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis on Saturday as college basketball fans were arriving for the games. The marches called for the state to go further and enshrine in its civil rights law protection for gays and lesbians.

Chris Gahl, vice president of Visit Indy, the lead promoter for Indianapolis, said he has been in "full crisis mode" since the furor erupted after Gov. Mike Pence signed the law late last month.

Gahl said Visit Indy received more than 800 emails from people saying they were canceling trips for events such as the Indianapolis 500 or choosing a different vacation destination. The agency has been scrambling to prevent groups and businesses from either pulling out of negotiations for future conventions or canceling upcoming events altogether.

Two groups, including the public employee union AFSCME, have canceled conventions, and Gahl said two others were on the fence. He put the economic impact of those events at a "healthy eight figures."

"What keeps us up at night is the fact that 75,000 people depend on tourism for a paycheck," Gahl said. "And if we don't fill the city with conventions and visitors, they don't work."

The crisis isn't confined to Indianapolis. Fort Wayne, the state's second-largest city, has had six national conventions express concerns about continuing business in Indiana. If all six pulled out, it would represent about $1.2 million in revenue, said Dan O'Connell, president and CEO of Visit Fort Wayne.

Businesses say they've been inundated with emails from people asking for reassurance that they are welcome in Indiana, or canceling orders or plans. The famed French Lick Resort, a hotel in an historic town in southern Indiana, issued a statement Friday saying it has "always been open and inclusive" and that the new law won't change that.

Traci Bratton, owner of the Hoosier Candle Company in Dayton, about 50 miles northwest of Indianapolis, said she's received emails from out-of-state customers who like her products but say they won't be bringing their business to Indiana because of the law.

"Hoosier Hospitality has been thrown out the window," Bratton said.

But the impact is being most keenly felt in Indianapolis, which has earned national praise for its transformation from a place once referred to as "Naptown" and "India-No-Place" to a vibrant, friendly city that used sports and a downtown renaissance to land a Super Bowl and become a popular pit stop in what was once called "flyover country."

Indy Big Data, a tech convention slated for May, has lost nine national sponsors, including Amazon and Cloudera. GenCon, the city's largest convention, has a contract with the city until 2020, but Gahl said negotiations to extend the agreement for another five years could fall through because of the outcry over the law. A departure of GenCon, which brings in about $56 million each year, would be a huge loss, Gahl said.

Even though lawmakers have revised the language of the religious objections law to make clear that it's not intended to discriminate, Indiana still lacks statewide civil-rights protections for the gay and lesbian community. And economic experts said perceptions about the law could prevent companies from attracting and retaining young talent.

Kyle Anderson, a business economics professor at Indiana University said Indiana already had a hard time competing on a national level to bring in top talent. For young professionals who tend to be more progressive about social issues, the law could be another reason for them to avoid jobs within the state.

"The last week will perpetuate the notion that it's not a great place to live," he said. "And I think that will live on for quite a while, unfortunately."

Lawmakers and community leaders acknowledge they have work to do but say the state will recover.

If history is any indication, they're likely right.

Arizona battled a similar public relations crisis in 1987, when former Gov. Evan Mecham sparked an outcry when he rescinded Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday. The fallout, which included losing a bid to host the 1993 Super Bowl and a boycott of tourism and convention sites for much of the late 1980s, severely damaged the state's image for years.

In 1992, an initiative to restore Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Arizona was approved, making it the first state with a voter-approved King holiday. The state has hosted three Super Bowls since then.

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State doctors' group to meet on addiction crisis

WALTHAM, Mass. — The state's growing heroin and prescription drug abuse crisis is getting the attention of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

The group representing more than 24,000 physicians will devote its annual Public Health Leadership forum to the opioid epidemic. The meeting will be held in Waltham on Wednesday with topics expected to include overdose prevention and the safe prescription of pain medication.

Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, is among scheduled speakers.

State police reported 217 suspected heroin overdose deaths in the first three months of this year. Those figures did not include the state's three largest cities: Boston, Worcester and Springfield.

An opioid abuse task force created by Gov. Charlie Baker met at the Statehouse last week and is expected to make recommendations later this year.

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Kentucky's 1st loss draws best TV rating for semi since '93

INDIANAPOLIS — Wisconsin's win over previously undefeated Kentucky drew the highest preliminary television rating for an NCAA semifinal in 22 years.

The Badgers' 71-64 victory Saturday night averaged a 13.3 overnight rating and 24 share across TBS, TNT and truTV, according to Turner Sports and CBS on Sunday. That's up 48 percent from last season's matchup of the same teams.

It was the best rating for a semi since a 13.8/24 in 1993 when Michigan's Fab Five sophomores edged the Wildcats in overtime.

The two games Saturday averaged an 11.4/22, the best since 1995 and up 39 percent from a year ago. Duke's 81-61 win over Michigan State received a 9.6/20, the highest for the early game since Illinois-Louisville in 2005 and a 30 percent increase from last season's UConn-Florida matchup.

Viewership has been strong all tournament, with a string of upsets and close games the first Thursday building momentum and Kentucky's pursuit of perfection piquing fans' interest. A championship game between Kentucky and Duke on Monday on CBS would have attracted a massive audience, though the matchup of the Blue Devils and Badgers will likely still do well.

The main broadcasts Saturday aired on TBS, with "homer" coverage for the teams on TNT and truTV. When the Final Four aired on cable for the first time last year, viewership for the semis on TBS was down from the games on CBS the previous season. As has occurred with other sports whose biggest games migrated to cable, Saturday's ratings showed that the most attractive matchups can still draw big audiences even with the networks available in fewer homes.

Ratings represent the percentage of U.S. households with televisions tuned to a program, while shares represent the percentage of TVs in use at the time. Overnights measure the country's largest markets. Full viewership numbers were expected later Sunday.

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Massachusetts pension board to consider diversity proposal

BOSTON — Massachusetts' pension board is expected to debate a plan the week to use its shareholder muscle to press companies to include more women and racial minorities on corporate boards.

A committee of the Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, which oversees state's $61 billion pension fund, has already recommended the full board adopt the guidelines.

That vote could come Tuesday.

Under the new rule, the board would use its shareholder status in a company to vote against all corporate board nominees unless at least a quarter of them are women and racial minorities.

The rule was proposed by Democratic state Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who chairs the nine-member board.

The rule also seeks to use the board's proxy voting to push companies to adopt wage equality, renewable energy and human rights standards.

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AG developing online claims system for consumers

The state Attorney General's office is working on an online system for people to file claims when its Consumer Protection Division obtains judgments or settlements calling for restitution to consumers.

The idea of an online claims system was broached as a way to make the claims process easier on consumers in a recent Boston Herald Radio interview with Attorney General Maura Healey.

Earlier this month, Healey announced a $260,000 settlement with Isis Parenting, the Needham-based prenatal and parenting retailer that abruptly shut down last year, leaving many parents and expectant parents in a lurch. Customers still owed money for unpaid merchandise, classes and other services have been advised to start a claims process to recoup money by calling the AG's consumer hotline.

"Isis (Parenting) is the jumping-off point," Healey spokeswoman Cyndi Roy Gonzalez said. "If we can do an online claims process for Isis, then our hope is that going forward, when we have settlements of the same nature, we can put in place the same online process."

"Given that we are in 2015, it makes perfect sense," Gonzalez said. "Our whole effort right now is meeting people where they are. So if it's easier for them to do it online, we want to make that accommodation."

Isis Parenting customers who may be entitled to restitution include those who prepaid for classes never held or completed; prepaid for annual memberships after July 27, 2013; or prepaid for consultations never delivered. Customers with unfulfilled gift cards or credits issued after July 27, 2013, also may be entitled to some reimbursement.

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Mad*Pow forum mixes health care, design, tech

As co-founder and chief experience officer at Mad*Pow, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based company that has offices in Boston, Amy Cueva focuses on "human-centered" design that "involves people — the ones who'll be affected by the solutions we create — in the creative process."

But the health care industry is "a little behind" in how it uses design, Cueva said, because organizations such as hospitals and insurance companies, by their very nature, are risk-averse. So when she realized there was no forum that specifically addressed the overlap of health, design and technology, she created one.

This Wednesday and Thursday, about 500 designers, doctors, nurses and entrepreneurs from around the world will gather at the Westin Hotel in Boston's Seaport District for the fifth Health Experience Refactored conference.

"In the health care industry, one of the most complex problems is getting people to change their behavior," Cueva 
said. "We're telling people they need to lose weight, exercise more, eat better, watch their blood pressure. But behavior change really involves the overlap of design, technology and psychology. What leads to lasting change is finding out what people 
really want in their lives."

Cueva recalled one man who was diabetic and so overweight that he needed to use a wheelchair. He wanted to attend his daughter's wedding, but it was going to be held on a beach, which wouldn't be wheelchair-
accessible.

"So we designed a digital diabetic weight-loss program in partnership with Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston," she said. Mad*Pow took the classroom material from the center's weight-loss program and put it online, with videos and a social network for diabetics in the program.

"It was effective in supporting diabetic weight-loss," Cueva said. "Now, Joslin is exploring how to get that technology in the hands of other hospitals and clinicians so that it can help other patients."
Another of the 50 speakers at the conference is Jon Michaeli of MediSafe, an Israeli startup that raised $6 million earlier this year to open new office space in Boston.

MediSafe created an iOS and Android mobile app and cloud-synced database to remind people when to take their medication and alert their family or caretaker if they did not.

"It's really important to have a holistic approach," Michaeli said.

Another keynote speaker, Dr. Darshan Mehta, medical director of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, will focus on how stress affects health and how meditation can counter that stress. And, to help make his point, Mehta will lead the audience in a group meditation.

"This one will be unique, both in size and the number of savvy individuals with skepticism who'll be there, which is good," he said. "I'm hoping people will see that while we're talking about technological advances, let's not forget about the simple stuff."

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The Ticker

Fatal bird flu outbreak widens in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS — An outbreak of a bird flu strain that is deadly to poultry deepened yesterday when state and federal officials confirmed a third Minnesota turkey farm has been infected, this time in one of the state's top poultry producing counties.

The federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said a commercial flock of 39,000 turkeys in Stearns County of central Minnesota has been infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 strain of avian influenza, which also killed tens of thousands of turkeys at two other farms in Pope and Lac qui Parle counties of western Minnesota.

The confirmation at the Pope County farm on March 5 marked the first detection of H5N2 in the Mississippi Flyway, a major bird migration route. H5N2 also was found within the next several days in commercial and backyard flocks in Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas. The same strain also has turned up in several western states in the Pacific Flyway.

More than 40 countries have banned poultry imports from Minnesota, the country's top turkey producing state, since the virus was first detected in the state.

British Airways accounts hacked

NEW YORK — Some British Airways frequent flier accounts have been hacked, but the airline said most personal information is safe. The London-based airline did not say how many accounts were compromised, but said they have been locked down and can no longer be accessed.

The breach apparently was the result of a third party using information obtained elsewhere on the Internet, via an automated process, to try to gain access to accounts. It follows problems for hotel companies Hilton and Starwood as well as United and American airlines.

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BBC chief receives death threat over Jeremy Clarkson sacking

LONDON -- BBC chief Tony Hall is receiving around-the-clock protection after he received a death threat linked to his sacking of "Top Gear" presenter Jeremy Clarkson, according to reports.

Hall, the broadcaster's director general, received an email containing the threat on Wednesday. London's police service, which is investigating the threat, said the email appeared to have been sent from outside the U.K.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the BBC sought to hire an eight-man security team on Wednesday. A vehicle from a security company, London Protection Services, was stationed overnight at Hall's home in Oxfordshire. The company's bodyguards are all former members of the military or police.

Hall decided on Wednesday not to renew Clarkson's contract, after the "Top Gear" host allegedly attacked the show's producer Oisin Tymon while they were on location in Yorkshire, Northern England. According to Hall, Tymon had to be treated at a local hospital "after a physical altercation accompanied by sustained and prolonged verbal abuse of an extreme nature."

Hall said Wednesday: "For me a line has been crossed. There cannot be one rule for one and one rule for another dictated by either rank, or public relations and commercial considerations."

Since the alleged attack, the show has been off air, and Hall has asked BBC exec Kim Shillinglaw to look into how the broadcaster can "renew" the program.

Tymon has been the subject of violent threats on social media since Clarkson's dismissal.

© 2015 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Bird flu found in a top Minnesota turkey producing county

MINNEAPOLIS — An outbreak of a deadly bird flu strain spread to one of the top poultry producing counties of the nation's top turkey producing state of Minnesota, government officials confirmed on Saturday, raising fears that the that the highly contagious disease could seriously damage the industry.

The highly pathogenic H5N2 strain of avian influenza has infected a third turkey farm in the state, this time a commercial flock of 39,000 birds in Stearns county in central Minnesota. The county is No. 2 in turkey production in Minnesota and is also one of the state's top chicken and egg producers.

State Veterinarian Bill Hartmann said one of the four barns at the Stearns County farm was infected and that many turkeys in it had already died. As is standard procedure, the farm has been quarantined and the remaining birds will be killed. The discovery followed the infections of two other farms in Pope and Lac qui Parle counties of western Minnesota, which have killed thousands of turkeys.

"This is obviously a huge concern to the industry. We are very worried because of the increased turkey production in this specific area," state Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson said.

Hartmann said there is no apparent connection between this flock and the previous two but investigations continue.

The announcement came one day after authorities announced the outbreak at the Lac qui Parle County farm, where the virus quickly killed 22,000 turkeys in one barn. That farm had to kill 44,000 birds in two other barns.

Scientists consider wild migratory waterfowl to be a natural reservoir for avian influenza. While they don't generally get sick from flu viruses, they can spread them through their droppings, and farm workers and rodents can track the virus into poultry barns. But top researchers say they don't know how the virus got to Minnesota or how it got into the closed barns.

The confirmation at the Pope County farm on March 5 marked the first detection of H5N2 in the Mississippi Flyway, a major wild bird migration route. H5N2 was also found within the next several days in commercial and backyard flocks in Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas. The same strain also has turned up in several western states in the Pacific Flyway.

More than 40 countries have banned poultry imports from Minnesota since the virus was first detected in the state. Frederickson urged poultry producers in Stearns County and elsewhere to do everything possible to increase their biosecurity.

"This industry is so important to the economy of Minnesota. ... It is so important for all of us to continue to reassure our trading partners that our products are indeed safe," he said.

State Health Commissioner Ed Ehlinger reiterated that this H5N2 virus poses no threat to the general public and raises no food safety concerns, but farm workers who've had contact with the infected flocks will be monitored.

Hartmann said officials were counting up how many flocks are located within the 10-kilometer-radius restricted zone around the Stearns County farm. He said all flocks within that circle are under quarantine and will be tested. Farms in a ring extending 10 kilometers farther out will be notified and asked to watch for any increased mortality in their flocks.

It's not clear why only turkey farms have been affected in Minnesota because chickens can get the disease too, Hartmann said.

Hartmann said he didn't know where this farm's turkeys normally go. The Lac qui Parle County farm supplied Jennie-O Turley Store, but a company statement Saturday said the Stearns County farm did not. The Pope County farm was a breeding operation.

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In NYC, an unusual task force fights home-as-hotel rentals

NEW YORK — From an office by the Brooklyn Bridge, a specialized team of investigators tackles a fast-growing concern in the nation's biggest city: apartments being rented like hotel rooms.

Building and fire inspectors, police, lawyers, city tax specialists and others combine door-knocking, digital sleuthing and even video surveillance in an uncommon approach to an issue bubbling up around the country.

New York's investigators have cited over 7,000 fire and building code violations, shut down over 200 short-term apartments and sued several operators — ending an additional 250 short-term rentals — over the last nine years, according to the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement. With Airbnb and other websites sparking a short-term rental boom, some lawmakers now want to triple the illegal-hotel investigation staff and have it go beyond answering complaints to scour the web for suspect listings.

"The problem has skyrocketed in the past few years," and enforcement must keep pace, says City Council Housing and Buildings Committee Chairman Jumaane Williams.

But some proprietors have called the city's tactics heavy-handed. Airbnb says New York unfairly lumps occasional users in with hotel-scale operators, although officials say enforcement focuses on big players.

"It can get overzealous," says Airbnb public policy head David Hantman, who wants New York laws changed to exempt people renting out their own homes and "target the truly bad actors."

It's largely illegal in New York to rent entire apartments for under 30 days, though it can be OK to rent out spare rooms if a resident also stays home.

Yet vacation rental sites boast many apartments. The city fielded 1,150 illegal-hotel complaints last year, up 62 percent from 2013.

Hosts say "home sharing" helps them pay bills and makes traveling funkier and cheaper. But city officials note that guests generally don't get fire sprinklers and other safety features required in hotels, and residents contend with rotating casts of strangers.

"You get on the elevator, and you don't even know who's going to get on," says Audrey Smaltz, a fashion-industry entrepreneur whose Manhattan apartment building has been used as a $500-a-night hotel, according to a city lawsuit. "I don't feel safe."

Countless travelers have learned the front-door entry code, and a stranger wandered onto the roof and stared at Smaltz through her penthouse terrace window one night last fall, she said.

There are no short-term rentals in the building now, the owner said in court papers.

Many cities are addressing, and sometimes allowing, short-term vacation rentals. San Francisco is now crafting rules permitting some home-as-hotel stays and determining enforcement procedures. In Chicago, a business and consumer department handles unlicensed vacation rental complaints and can issue fines.

New York, meanwhile, uses its multi-agency Mayor's Office for Special Enforcement.

Investigations generally start with a police officer, fire inspector and building inspector knocking on doors and asking denizens whether they live there, acting director Elan Parra says. When investigators find a paying visitor, they'll request booking details.

That can lead to violation notices, fines, follow-up inspections and evacuations, if inspectors declare a serious safety threat.

The consequences might not end there. Using software to cross-reference information, investigators look for patterns in complaints, listings, lessees, building owners, managers, companies or other factors that might point to a multiple-apartment operation and warrant not just administrative fines but a lawsuit for damages. Occasionally, investigators will stake out a building with video cameras, Parra said.

"We focus on the places where people are complaining, where there are clearly presented concerns and issues. ... We want to make sure that we're allocating our resources to getting and eradicating the absolute worst operators" and safety risks, Parra said. This month, his office shut down three Brooklyn dwellings it said were bunk-bed-stuffed, fire-hazard hostels.

Meanwhile, City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal and several colleagues called for expanding the staff from 11 to about 36. Councilman Ben Kallos wants the city to post publicly how illegal-hotel complaints are resolved.

But some short-term rental proponents say the office has gone overboard.

Airbnb has spotlighted a Manhattan man who faced $2,400 in fines after renting his room to a tourist, although his roommate stayed in the apartment throughout. A city board ultimately agreed that was legal and nixed the fine.

Another man sued the city over an illegal-hotel inspection, saying investigators intimidated guests, grabbed him by the neck and pushed him. The city denied his claims and settled for what he says was $2,000; the city couldn't immediately confirm the amount.

The man, Mina Guirguis, says he started renting rooms in his Manhattan loft to visiting international students after he and his wife both lost jobs amid the 2009 recession. They soon expanded to a second loft and another whole building they rented. Guirguis says he was unclear on whether the short-term rental laws applied to his setup.

Now, Guirguis and his wife have been booted from the buildings, and the city sued them this fall.

"We have experienced something I could never even imagine could happen in the United States," Guirguis says. "There is something that needs to be stopped."

But the city may just be getting started.

"You'll see more enforcement as we go along," Mayor Bill de Blasio said this fall.

___

Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter: @jennpeltz.

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Experts: Sex bias case will embolden women despite verdict

SAN FRANCISCO — A long legal battle over accusations that a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm demeaned women and held them to a different standard than their male colleagues became a flashpoint in the ongoing discussion about gender inequity at elite technology and venture capital firms.

Though Ellen Pao lost her lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Silicon Valley observers say her case and the attention it received will embolden women in the industry and continue to spur firms to examine their practices and cultures for gender bias.

"This case has been a real wake up call for the technology industry in general and the venture capital community in particular," said Deborah Rhode, a law professor at Stanford University who teaches gender equity law.

The jury of six men and six women rejected all of Pao's claims against Kleiner Perkins on Friday, determining the firm did not discriminate against her because she is a woman and did not retaliate against her by failing to promote her and firing her after she filed a sex discrimination complaint.

In making their case during the five-week trial, Pao's attorneys presented a long list of alleged indignities to which their client was subjected: an all-male dinner at the home of Vice President Al Gore; a book of erotic poetry from a partner; being asked to take notes like a secretary at a meeting; being cut out of emails and meetings by a male colleague with whom she broke off an affair; and talk about pornography aboard a private plane.

But the heart of their argument was that Pao was an accomplished junior partner who was passed over for a promotion and fired because the firm used different standards to judge men and women.

Kleiner Perkins' attorney, Lynne Hermle, countered that Pao failed as an investor at the company and sued to get a big payout as she was being shown the door. They used emails and testimony from the firm's partners to dispute Pao's claims and paint her as a chronic complainer who twisted facts and circumstances in her lawsuit and had a history of conflicts with colleagues that contributed to the decision to let her go.

Rhode and other experts say Kleiner Perkins and the venture capital industry in general did not come out looking good even though they won the case.

"Venture capital firms recognize it's not appropriate to be out in the streets celebrating," said Freada Kapor Klein, founder of the Level Playing Field Institute, a nonprofit that aims to boost minority representation in science, technology, engineering and math fields. "They don't have the moral high ground."

Even before the Pao trial started, a succession of employment statistics released during the past 10 months brought the technology industry's lack of diversity into sharper focus.

Women hold just 15 percent to 20 percent of the technology jobs at Google, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo, according to company disclosures. The data were mortifying for an industry that has positioned itself as a meritocracy where intelligence and ingenuity are supposed to be more important than appearances or connections.

The venture capital industry is even more male-dominated, with a study released last year by Babson College in Massachusetts finding that women filled just 6 percent of partner-level positions at 139 venture capital firms in 2013, down from 10 percent in 1999.

Klein said before the verdict she was contacted by more than a dozen venture capital and technology companies asking how they could improve the environment as a result of the Pao case. She expects some firms will be "smug" after the verdict and do little to change for fear of being dragged through the mud while others will step up.

The attention surrounding the case makes it more likely other women who believe they have been discriminated against will go to court, said David Lewis, CEO of OperationsInc., a human resources consulting and contracting firm. Two women who formerly worked at Facebook and Twitter filed gender discrimination cases against the companies during the Pao trial. One of Pao's attorneys, Therese Lawless, is representing the plaintiff in the Facebook lawsuit.

At the very least, Pao's suit will prompt more women to open up about their experiences in the workplace, said Nicole Sanchez, founder of Vaya Consulting, which tries to help Silicon Valley companies increase diversity.

"I do see a trend now in the name of Ellen Pao," Sanchez said, pointing to the Twitter hashtag, "ThankYouEllenPao" that popped up as the verdict came in. "Women in technology are telling their stories."

___

Associated Press writers Michael Liedtke and Olga Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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Group to push for $15 an hour fast food "living wage"

BOSTON — A labor-backed group that pushed for a higher minimum wage in Massachusetts is setting its sights on a new goal: a $15 "living wage" for workers in fast food restaurants and big box stores.

The group Raise Up Massachusetts is backing a bill that would require the companies to pay their employees at least $15 an hour by 2018.

The higher wage would only apply to large corporations with over 100 employees, and would be phased in over three years.

Under a law approved last year, the state's minimum wage increased from $8 to $9 per hour. The increase will eventually bring Massachusetts' minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2017.

Raise Up Massachusetts said it also wants to push for paid family and medical leave for all workers and increased spending on transportation and education.

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Revamped prayer book offers 
modern take for Reform Jews

Hundreds of thousands of Reform Jews will celebrate the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur this fall with a revamped prayer book that puts a new emphasis on inclusiveness toward gays, lesbians and atheists, according to a Boston rabbi who was instrumental in the book's creation.

Mishkan HaNefesh, or "Sanctuary of the Soul," the Reform movement's first High Holidays prayer book in 37 years, includes gender-neutral blessings for transgender people and refers to God as both "Loving Father" and "Compassionate Mother," while leaving room for those who doubt that there is a God at all, said Rabbi Elaine S. Zecher of Temple Israel in Boston, who served as one of the editorial team's advisers.

"It's a monumental moment for the Jewish community because it's a beautiful work in lots of different ways," said Zecher, who also led the 2008 think tank that ultimately led to the consensus that a new prayer book for the High Holy Days was needed. "It is a recognition of the diversity of our community, a sense of welcoming for the lots of different people who come though our doors."

The prayer book — a major focus of this month's convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical arm of Reform Judaism — also includes poetry and artwork, and incorporates the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Langston Hughes with the Torah, transliterating Hebrew prayers into English so that anyone can participate, said Rabbi Denise L. Eger, who was installed as the group's first openly gay president.

"This book has had tremendous input — from rabbis, from lay people, from cantors," said Eger, the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood, Calif. "It takes the best of Jewish tradition and melds it with the hopes and anxieties and joys of today. The result is the product not of a top-down process, but really of a bottom-up one."

Of the first edition of 250,000 copies that will be available in June, about 150,000 already have been pre-ordered through the CCAR Press, she said, although she did not immediately have the dollar amount of sales because various discounts are available through April 1. After that, a two-volume set — one for Rosh Hashana, the other for Yom Kippur — will sell for $42, and a pulpit edition of the set will sell for $75.

"We're hoping it will go into multiple printing editions," Eger said, noting that there are about 1.5 million Reform Jews in more than 900 congregations in North America. Eventually, it also will be available electronically, she said.

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NBC News' boss faces challenge fixing MSNBC

NEW YORK — As he returns to run the NBC News Group, Andy Lack faces one of the same puzzles he tried to solve a decade and a half ago: how to make MSNBC work.

While he was gone, MSNBC changed from traditional news to a political network with a liberal lens. Now that it is mired in a ratings slump, Lack's mandate as chairman will be figuring out if MSNBC needs a complete overhaul or a sharpening of its mission.

The current picture is seriously ugly. Through early March, Chris Hayes' viewership at 8 p.m. on weekdays was down 23 percent from last year, Rachel Maddow was off 24 percent and Lawrence O'Donnell down 26 percent. Among the 25-to-54-year-old demographic that is the basis for advertising sales, the prime-time lineup lost nearly half its audience. Daytime isn't much better.

Fatigue is natural for fans of any presidential administration in its sixth year, and liberals are traditionally less loyal to political talk media than conservatives.

"Like political groups that raise money, they do better when they have something to rail against," said Mark Feldstein, veteran television journalist and professor at the University of Maryland.

Phil Griffin, MSNBC president, has lately sought to broaden MSNBC's outlook by taking on a greater variety of stories, even hiring a food correspondent, and there's been some uptick in the ratings the past few weeks. He changed the daytime lineup, ditching opinionated programs hosted by Ronan Farrow and Joy-Ann Reid and establishing a news-focused bloc with Jose Diaz-Balart, Andrea Mitchell and Thomas Roberts.

Griffin has run MSNBC since 2006. Normally, executives at networks with his ratings are looking for another job, especially with a new boss coming in. But he and Lack have a long relationship, and Griffin has credited Lack with kick-starting his career by assigning him to supervise NBC News coverage of the O.J. Simpson case.

The shift in focus during the day has led some fans to fear MSNBC may abandon its liberal focus altogether.

That's very unlikely. Despite the ratings, analyst SNL Kagan predicts MSNBC will earn $509 million in revenue this year. While that's below Fox News Channel ($2.18 billion) and CNN ($1.16 billion), that would still be slightly up from $501 million in 2014, Kagan said.

The financial health is largely due to long-term deals with cable and satellite operators to carry MSNBC, made when the network sold itself as a counterbalance to Fox News, said Derek Baine, Kagan analyst. Bad ratings depress advertising prices, and while they would hurt MSNBC's future if they persist, the advertising is not as important as the carriage deals.

Considering Lack spent much of his first go-round at NBC News struggling to find an identity for MSNBC, the idea of searching for a new one is no doubt unappealing.

Shifting to straight news would be even harder because MSNBC is no longer seen as a primary news source. Its viewership doesn't go up much during big news events, certainly not like CNN and Fox. While conservatives like getting news from Fox, liberals don't feel the same way about MSNBC. A Quinnipiac University poll of 1,286 registered voters a month ago found 29 percent of people said Fox was their most trusted news source, compared to 7 percent for MSNBC. Even among Democrats, more than twice as many people said they trusted CNN more for news than MSNBC.

To many fans, MSNBC's weakness isn't that it's liberal. It's that the network is boring.

"The solution is not that 'we need more news' or that 'we need to alter the political viewpoint,' but what does the content of the shows look like," said Keith Olbermann, former MSNBC prime-time host. "Do not be afraid to make good television. And in Rachel, Phil Griffin, and Andy Lack, they've got three people in place who've already done that there."

Olbermann single-handedly lurched MSNBC to the left during President George W. Bush's second term when his angry commentary attracted a loyal audience. He had the passion, Maddow the quietly analytical mind and together they formed a potent one-two punch.

After Olbermann left, MSNBC set about modeling its lineup after Maddow, its Rhodes scholar and highest-rated personality.

Liberal in outlook, MSNBC's programming approach is often conservative. Watching MSNBC can feel like a hidden camera picking up a discussion in the faculty lounge. Fox viewers often feel like they've stumbled upon a street brawl.

Setting politics aside, which is more fun to watch?

Many liberals feel MSNBC reflexively defends President Barack Obama when it could be challenging him, said Jeff Cohen, a former MSNBC producer and now an Ithaca College professor. The network needs more energy and independence, he said.

Olbermann said the network needs an infusion of new ideas and new blood. Lack's skill is in spotting and managing talent, often from unexpected places, "and I am the largest example of that," he said.

Feldstein said it would be unwise for MSNBC to throw away an identity built up over a decade, certainly not with a presidential election year looming.

"I think Lack will tinker with MSNBC," he said. "He'll bring in new hosts, he'll try to punch it up. He'll add a bit more charisma and maybe a little bit more substance, wait for 2016 to bring the numbers up and declare victory."

___

Follow David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder

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Paris hit by air pollution spike, halves cars on roads

PARIS — Paris will cut the number of cars on the road in half beginning Monday and is making public transit free to combat a spike in pollution that has obscured even the Eiffel Tower under a smoggy haze.

The mayor's office announced Saturday that only cars with odd-numbered plates will be permitted to drive Monday, as well as any electric or hybrid vehicles and any vehicles with more than three people. Public transit will be free, as will the electric car-sharing and bike sharing-programs

Pollution has spiked in the Paris region since Wednesday, when the city briefly had the world's dirtiest air, according to a monitoring company called Plume Labs.

Other cities in northern France affected by air pollution are also imposing various restrictions.

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Fed rate hike to have big impact

When the Federal Reserve finally raises interest rates, the ripple effect will hit everything from business investment to consumer borrowing, but that doesn't make it the wrong move, experts say.

"Short-term interest rates are going to go up, and that's going to affect a lot of things in the credit markets," said Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics for IHS Global Insight. "The Fed is going to make it more expensive to borrow."

Fed Chair Janet Yellen, has taken pains to be cautious, but the central bank last week gave signals that it will move slowly this year toward its first interest-rate increase since December 2008, when the economy was mired in the Great Recession and financial crisis.

One of the first and most notable ripple effects when the Fed raises rates will likely be on stock prices.

"When interest rates do go up, it is normal for that to have an effect on stock and bond markets," said Jeff Frankel, a professor at Harvard University and director of the Program in International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The initial market reaction would likely be just a blip, but higher interest rates could lead to more volatile stock prices.

"Keeping interest rates so low for six years is part of what has sustained the rallies," he said.

Higher interest rates will spread to other loans, including mortgages, and eventually to credit cards as banks pass on higher borrowing costs to customers.

"If you want to borrow to buy a home, it's going to get more expensive," Edelstein said.

At the same time, it will become more lucrative to save, Edelstein said, as rising interest rates usually increase the yields on savings accounts.

For businesses, more expensive loans could take a bite out of investment plans.

"The more they have to spend to borrow money, the less they have to spend on other things," said David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, "and the less they'll have to spend on big capital expenses like factories."

The effects of raising interest rates may seem largely negative, but it is important to return to normal levels, analysts say.

"It's really, really unusual for interest rates to be at zero for more than six years," Wessel said. "Interest rates were cut to zero when things were really screwed up."

The Fed has said it will only raise rates when the labor market improves and it is absolutely sure the economy can weather the storm.

"No one likes to spoil a party," Frankel said, "but you do it because you think it's necessary to keep the economy on the long term."

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