The fine line between legitimate businesses and pyramid schemes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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First lady joins hundreds at Hadiya Pendleton funeral

The funeral of slain teen Hadiya Pendleton began today amid large crowds, long lines and heavy security prompted by the attendance of first lady Michelle Obama.

While family and friends kept the focus on the 15-year-old girl who was shot dead in a South Side park, the first lady's appearance inevitably brought attention to anti-gun efforts nationwide.

Hundreds of mourners lined up early to pay respects to Hadiya, who was a majorette for King College Prep's band and performed during President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities just days before she was slain, shot in the back while hanging out with friends at a North Kenwood neighborhood park.

Thirty minutes before the doors were set to open, hundreds stood waiting in line amid heavy security to get into Greater Harvest Baptist Church in the Washington Park neighborhood, about two miles from where the 15-year-old girl was gunned down last month. Among the groups of high school-age students waiting in the line was the King College Prep majorettes team, who came together in their yellow and black majorette coats.

Guests who were invited by the family were given orange wristbands and were able to enter through a shorter security line. Classmates and friends of Pendleton were given green wristbands and allowed to enter through that same line.

Trinity Dishmon, 40, said her daughter Deja, 15, and Hadiya were close friends in middle school. The two girls stayed in touch and were texting about their upcoming 16th birthdays while Hadiya was in D.C. for the president's inauguration in January.

"Hadiya was a gift to everyone that knew her," Dishmon said, tearing up. "These last 12 days have been unbelievably numbing. It's not six degrees of separation anymore, it's one. It's just unreal."

Dishmon said she feared that the day was less about the teenager and more about a larger issue.

"This is Hadiya's day and should be about her -- not something sensational," Dishmon said. "But maybe by honoring her life we can help make a difference."

Inside the church, Hadiya’s silver casket was placed in the front, surrounded by flowers and two large hearts, one with her picture on it. Behind the casket, a TV screen showed pictures of Hadiya with her family, from birth to her teenage years.

At 9:09 a.m., friends, students and others with wristbands were allowed to file down the aisle to view the body. Her young friends were seated in the front pews, directly behind the casket. Her classmates and friends filled the middle section of the church — 11 rows in all. Members of the Crystal Elegance Majorette squad held on to each other as they filed down the aisle in pairs to view the body.

A funeral director wearing a suit and white gloves came outside at 9:40 a.m. to announce to the hundreds still waiting in line that the church was “at capacity.” Those still in line could come in and view the body, he said, but would have to leave before the services.

The funeral procession arrived at about 9:45 a.m., including three limousines and dozens of cars.

The first lady’s motorcade pulled into the church parking lot at about 10:15 a.m. She went in through a separate side entrance at the rear of the church, stepping directly from a vehicle into the building.

At about the same time, the funeral director came back out and announced to the hundreds still waiting in line that no one else would be allowed inside — not for the viewing or the funeral.

Even after those outside were told they would not be allowed in, many continued to gather around the church's front gate.

Some began to file out, having to hop over the metal barricades to exit the long line.

One man asked the funeral staff member if he could at least have a pamphlet from the funeral before he left.

"Oh sir, those are long gone. They only printed 1,500," the funeral staff member said.

Activists, religious groups and others passed out printed material to those standing in line. Some kept the papers, others were left on the snowy ground as the crowds left.

Michelle Obama's attendance puts Chicago solidly in the middle of a national debate over gun violence that has polarized Congress and forced President Obama to take his gun control initiatives on the road to garner more public support.

The first lady's visit is being seen not only as a gesture of condolence to the family but as part of an effort to draw attention and support for the president's gun initiatives.

But the visit also meant scores of security, police and Secret Service agents, metal detectors and other security measures.

Other dignitaries were expected to attend the funeral, including Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to Barack Obama.

The church is surrounded by an iron fence and all of the openings -- a pedestrian gate in the front, front and side doors to the church, and a driveway to the north -- are guarded by city police or men in white shirts, ties and long black coats. Chicago police vehicles -- two wagons, a handful of squads and SUVs -- guarded the outside of the church while other vehicles circle the block.

Chicago police staffing the event are wearing dress blues -- a blue overcoat with pockets that allow access to the duty belt, creased navy pants, and a hat.

King College Prep math and engineering teacher Alonzo Hoskins stood quietly in line with others. He said he taught Hadiya in his first-period geometry class, where he now has an empty desk.

"She was full of life," Hoskins said.

Hoskins looked at the sea of people that preceded him in line. "I want to support the family. For me, this isn't about the dignitaries," Hoskins said.

"But I don't know if I'll even get in."

Some waiting in line for the funeral said they didn't know the Pendletons personally but felt some connection to the teenager's death.

Earl Worthington, 51, said his mother was an elementary school teacher in Chicago and would have embraced a driven young student like Hadiya.

“She's the type of girl my mother would have produced in her class,” Worthington said. “I feel a connection to Hadiya's death through my mother. I feel my mother is with her right now in heaven.”

Nate Weathers, 16,  Jeramy Brown, 16, and Antoine Fuller, 15, all stood in line to see their former classmate. The three young men said they attended Carter G. Woodson Middle School with Hadiya.

“This tears me up,” Fuller said. “She was my 7th grade crush.”

Brown described Hadiya as “sweet and innocent.”

“Something like this should have never happened to her,” Brown said.

Police took two men into custody after they got into an altercation near the back of the long line of mourners waiting to get into the church. One man was agitated, complaining about the long wait to get in. A second man confronted him and they began shoving each other before police intervened.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @chicagobreaking 

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Charlie Sheen revisits alter-ego in movie “Mind of Charles Swan”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – It’s a downward spiral for Charlie, a successful professional whose life slides into despair when his girlfriend breaks up with him.

This Charlie could be Charlie Sheen, but it’s actually the fictional Charles Swan, a charming, immature character played by Hollywood’s favorite bad boy actor and filmed only a few months after Sheen‘s off-screen antics got him fired in 2011 from TV comedy “Two and a Half Men.”

Sheen stars in “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III,” opening in U.S. movie theaters on Friday. The film is directed and written by Roman Coppola, son of “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola.

Coppola, 47, who is Oscar-nominated for his work on the screenplay of “Moonrise Kingdom,” talked with Reuters about working with Sheen on the “playful romp” about lost love and revenge fantasies set in a stylized Los Angeles.

Q: Did you write the film specifically for Charlie Sheen to star in?

A: “I didn’t write it for him in mind. I was excited to write a piece about a very outlandish lead character, someone charming, immature, struggling and full of imagination. As I was finishing it, I kind of realized Charlie Sheen would be perfect. Both are larger than life. They use their wit and charm to smooth over problems in their life to not deal with things. But it’s a coincidence that it’s the same first name.”

Q: Both of you are part of Hollywood dynasties. Your father is Francis Ford Coppola and his dad is Martin Sheen. When did you and Charlie first meet?

A: “We met as boys when we were around 11 years old on the set of (the 1979 film) ‘Apocalypse Now’ (which Francis Ford Coppola directed and Martin Sheen starred in). Our families were in the Philippines (for the shoot) for many months so Charlie and I became pals. We have a lot of fond memories hanging out together in that exotic location.”

Q: What type of memories?

A: “I remember being with him when they built the (fictional) Kurtz Compound. Charlie and I would cruise around (the set) and there would be all sorts of skulls and weapons and things that are interesting to 11-year old boys. I was also interested in theatrical makeup, so I introduced Charlie to the hobby of making scars.”

Q: Did you get any pushback from family, friends or financiers when you decided to cast Sheen in “Charles Swan“?

A: “Basically there was no film company willing to finance the movie with Charlie. Insurance companies didn’t want my business, nor did any bond company. There was very little support in the film community to finance that picture. So I had to be very crafty about getting the financing.”

Q: Were you surprised at that?

A: “I was surprised to some degree because I had other talent attached to it like Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray. You’d think that would tip people’s curiosity. When people say ‘No’ or ‘Why would you want to cast Charlie Sheen?’ it makes me feel like everyone else is crazy.”

Q: But it’s Charlie who conjures up the images of crazy – public battles with “Two and Half Men” creator Chuck Lorre and his ex-wives, Denise Richards and Brook Mueller. He is the one who was in rehab for drugs, who damaged hotel rooms, lived with porn stars, and called himself a warlock with “tiger blood” and “Adonis DNA.”

A: “But that’s very comic book, that’s not a real person. That’s a portrayal that comes from wanting to make stories. He’s an individual. He’s obviously a talented guy and talent doesn’t go away. Ten years ago we’d be having this exact same conversation about Robert Downey Jr. and how crazy and irresponsible he is. Now we know he’s at the top of his game. So to me it’s kind of immature to cotton to that kind of stuff. It’s gossipy and phony.”

Q: So none of that was prevalent during the shooting of your film?

A: “Charlie was totally committed throughout the entire shooting. He showed up every day, he knew his lines, he learned Spanish and he learned to dance. I had a professional, fantastic experience with a highly skilled and dedicated performer.”

Q: How would you describe Charlie’s acting?

A: “He’s very intuitive. On a technical level, he’s very experienced and capable. He knows where to stand, where the light is. Then there is the magical aspect of acting where you’re able to create a see-through veil in which your feelings come out and they’re captured by the camera.

“No one knows how it works. Some people can do it and Charlie certainly has it. So despite all the chitter chatter of Charlie this and breakdown that, he’s a fine actor and he shines in this performance.”

(Reporting By Zorianna Kit, editing by Jill Serjeant and Doina Chiacu)

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In Nigeria, Polio Vaccine Workers Are Killed by Gunmen

At least nine polio immunization workers were shot to death in northern Nigeria on Friday by gunmen who attacked two clinics, officials said.

The killings, with eerie echoes of attacks that killed nine female polio workers in Pakistan in December, represented another serious setback for the global effort to eradicate polio.

Most of the victims were women and were shot in the back of the head, local reports said.

A four-day vaccination drive had just ended in Kano State, where the killings took place, and the vaccinators were in a “mop-up” phase, looking for children who had been missed, said Sarah Crowe, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, one of the agencies running the eradication campaign.

Dr. Mohammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s minister of state for health, said in a telephone interview that it was not entirely clear whether the gunmen were specifically targeting polio workers or just attacking the health centers where vaccinators happened to be gathering early in the morning. “Health workers are soft targets,” he said.

No one immediately took responsibility, but suspicion fell on Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group that has attacked police stations, government offices and even a religious leader’s convoy.

Polio, which once paralyzed millions of children, is now down to fewer than 1,000 known cases around the world, and is endemic in only three countries: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Since September — when a new polio operations center was opened in the capital and Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, appointed a special adviser for polio — the country had been improving, said Dr. Bruce Aylward, chief of polio eradication for the World Health Organization. There have been no new cases since Dec. 3.

While vaccinators have not previously been killed in the country, there is a long history of Nigerian Muslims shunning the vaccine.

Ten years ago, immunization was suspended for 11 months as local governors waited for local scientists to investigate rumors that it caused AIDS or was a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls. That hiatus let cases spread across Africa. The Nigerian strain of the virus even reached Saudi Arabia when a Nigerian child living in hills outside Mecca was paralyzed.

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who tracks vaccine issues, said the newest killings “are kind of mimicking what’s going on in Pakistan, and I feel it’s very much prompted by that.”

In a roundabout way, the C.I.A. has been blamed for the Pakistan killings. In its effort to track Osama bin Laden, the agency paid a Pakistani doctor to seek entry to Bin Laden’s compound on the pretext of vaccinating the children — presumably to get DNA samples as evidence that it was the right family. That enraged some Taliban factions in Pakistan, which outlawed vaccination in their areas and threatened vaccinators.

Nigerian police officials said the first shootings were of eight workers early in the morning at a clinic in the Tarauni neighborhood of Kano, the state capital; two or three died. A survivor said the two gunmen then set fire to a curtain, locked the doors and left.

“We summoned our courage and broke the door because we realized they wanted to burn us alive,” the survivor said from her bed at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital.

About an hour later, six men on three-wheeled motorcycles stormed a clinic in the Haye neighborhood, a few miles away. They killed seven women waiting to collect vaccine.

Ten years ago, Dr. Larson said, she joined a door-to-door vaccination drive in northern Nigeria as a Unicef communications officer, “and even then we were trying to calm rumors that the C.I.A. was involved,” she said. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars had convinced poor Muslims in many countries that Americans hated them, and some believed the American-made vaccine was a plot by Western drug companies and intelligence agencies.

Since the vaccine ruse in Pakistan, she said, “Frankly, now, I can’t go to them and say, ‘The C.I.A. isn’t involved.’ ”

Dr. Pate said the attack would not stop the newly reinvigorated eradication drive, adding, “This isn’t going to deter us from getting everyone vaccinated to save the lives of our children.”

Aminu Abubakar contributed reported from Kano, Nigeria.

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Rosenthal: Chevrolet restores style to Impala name

Because a brand embedded in our subconsciousness can find a space in our garage, the Impala endures.

About 16 million Chevys named for an African antelope have hit the road since 1958. And even though the one you recently returned to the airport rental lot bore little resemblance the one whose "giddy-up" the Beach Boys sang of a half-century ago, General Motors is betting the bloodline still can claim hearts.

A revamped 10th-generation 2014 model is now on display at the just-opened 105th Chicago Auto Show as a prelude to its dealership debut in a few weeks, a bid to re-establish its good name.

"It's always been a great brand name," Russ Clark, director of Chevrolet marketing, said alongside one of the made-over Impalas on the Auto Show floor at McCormick Place. "In fact, when we did research on the name, we found Impala is one of the strongest in terms of consideration and favorable opinion of any name in the industry. A lot of that is heritage. A lot of it is the fact that people say, 'I know people who have had them, and everybody loved them.'"

The brand has been ubiquitous for decades, even if you don't remember the Beach Boys immortalizing the vintage growl of a "four-speed dual-quad Posi-Traction 409" or how Robert Blake's 1970s TV tough guy Baretta drove a rusted-out Impala from '66, the era when Chevrolet could move about 1 million Impala sedans and station wagons a year. My own first car was a four-door V-8 '72 Impala, a powerful and roomy hand-me-down whose weather-beaten body — like the brand's identity — clearly had seen better days by the late '70s and early '80s.

More recent Impalas have hardly been the stuff of song, and it's hard to imagine them inspiring nostalgia. They've been too dully utilitarian to be iconic.

Nonetheless, although sales have slowed, it has been the overall best-seller among big sedans. Three-quarters of those sales have been as fleet vehicles for corporate salespeople, government agencies and rental companies. That means the premium has been on space, reliability and keeping costs down rather than the kind of panache and extras that might foster pride of ownership.

The goal of this Impala overhaul in both four- and six-cylinder iterations — drafting on similar nameplate revivals for models such as Ford's Taurus, Dodge's Charger and Chrysler's 300 — is to flip that 75-25 ratio of fleet sales to retail on its head.

"It makes perfectly good sense on General Motors' part to finally put some style back in the Impala," auto industry analyst Art Spinella, president of CNW Research, explained. "If you have a great brand name, to almost toss it off, treat it as an orphan and send it off to the fleet sales department with bland styling and cheap interiors, that's a disgrace. What they've done is kind of salvage themselves with this.

"It's finally dawned on General Motors that you can sell a consumer car to fleets, but you can't sell a fleet car to consumers. You always keep fleet cars (looking) relatively obscure and you keep the price way down, and that's what General Motors had been doing for years to keep the (Impala sales) volume up. Now they're taking another look. I don't think they've necessarily gone far enough, but it's a step in the right direction."

To wander through the vast Auto Show, which runs through Feb. 18, is to be reminded of how deeply many of us connect to vehicles, starting as children playing with toy trucks and cars. There's a teenage rite of passage when car keys and a license expand the world. Certain makes and models mesh with what played on their radios, the places traveled in them, the stage of life they marked.

That emotional bond doesn't form so easily with a mere box with wheels.

"What was it that made us fall in love with cars in the first place?" Henrik Fisker, executive chairman and co-founder of high-end hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive, asked the crowd at Thursday's Economic Club of Chicago luncheon. "It struck me that most of us, when we really start to get our heart pumping about cars, it's usually not the cars of today. It's usually the cars of the '50s and '60s."

Road salt, slush and rain were my old '72 Impala's kryptonite. In time, its front bench seat reclined like a La-Z-Boy whenever I hit the gas because the floor beneath had rusted through. Whatever my affection for the vehicle, I could see the road we were on — literally and figuratively — both looking ahead and glancing down.

Thirty years after I traded it in for a sporty red Pontiac with seats that reclined only how and when I wanted, I would not have expected my old flame to generate much heat.

Carmakers, like most marketers, know that even when a brand is disconnected from what it once represented, it still can resonate. The new Impala is neither the muscular car of old nor the generic conveyance of late. Yet Impala means something to would-be buyers, and good or bad, it gives them something to measure this latest version against.

"They have equity in the name and you never get rid of a brand that has a good reputation," Spinella said. "Some people will buy it because it's an Impala. Some people won't. But they'll look at it because it's an Impala and they remember the Impala. It's easier to reintroduce a name than to introduce a name nobody knows."

I can still remember driving around with my friends with no particular place to go, a song on the radio about a horse with no name. If there was a tune about a nameless car, I don't recall it.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Blizzard packing more than 2 feet of snow reaches Northeast

The leading edge of a powerful storm expected to bring driving winds and more than 2 feet of snow, along with the potential for coastal flooding, reached the Northeast early this morning, canceling thousands of flights in its wake.

Blizzard warnings were in effect from New Jersey through southern Maine, with Boston expected to bear the brunt of the storm. The day began with light snow and winds that were due to pick up with much heavier snowfall by afternoon.

"The snow has taken over and it is accumulating," said FOX CT meteorologist Joe Furey in Hartford, Conn. "This is really serious. This is a storm that can cripple all of southern New England. A blizzard is not about the amounts of snow. A blizzard is about sustained winds or frequent gusts of 35 mph or higher over three hours or longer."

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he will declare a state of emergency.

"People need to take this storm seriously. If current predictions are accurate, we will need people to stay off the roads so that emergency personnel and utility crews can get to the places they need to get to, and to make sure that our plows can keep critical roadways clear," Malloy said.

"Please stay home once the weather gets bad except in the case of real emergency."

In New York City, still not fully recovered from the effects of October's devastating Hurricane Sandy, officials said they had 1,800 Sanitation Department trucks equipped with snow plows ready to be deployed.

Motorists, mindful of the severe fuel disruptions after Sandy, rushed to buy gasoline, leading to shortages in New York City. A Reuters photographer reported at least three service stations had run out of gas in the borough of Queens on Friday morning, with long lines formed at others.

Sandy knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes, taking gasoline stations out of service, and damaged port facilities, exacerbating the shortages by preventing operable stations from refueling.

"You always get long lines ahead of a storm, but as the wounds from Hurricane Sandy are still so fresh, it's not surprising that people are rushing to fill up," said Michael Watt, executive director of the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association. "It's understandable. Even people like me who would normally think it was foolish to panic buy will be thinking about it."

Boston and surrounding communities said schools would be closed on Friday, and city and state officials told nonessential city workers to stay home.

Officials across the region ordered nonessential government workers to stay home, urged private employers to do the same, and told people to prepare for power outages and encouraged them to check on elderly or disabled neighbors.

In New Jersey, also hit hard by Sandy, state officials expected major coastal flooding, high winds, and possible blizzard conditions in the northeastern section of the state.

"This is a dangerous storm, and we ask motorists to be careful while driving," said Colonel Rick Fuentes, director of the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management. "(The) evening commute will be treacherous throughout much of New Jersey."

The National Weather Service, warning of a "major, maybe even historic, snowstorm," said Boston and much of New England could get up to three feet of snow on Friday and Saturday, its first heavy snowfall in two years. Winds could gust as high as 60 miles to 70 mph. If more than 18.2 inches of snow falls in Boston, it will rank among the city's 10 largest snowfalls. Boston's record snowfall, 27.6 inches, came in 2003.

Cities from Hartford, Connecticut, to Portland, Maine, were expected to see at least one foot of snow.

Airlines have canceled more than 3,000 flights for Friday, according to website FlightAware.com, with the largest number of cancellations at airports in Newark, New Jersey; New York City; Chicago and Boston.

Another 881 flights were canceled for Saturday, according to the flight-tracking site.

Boston's Logan International Airport warned that once the storm roars in, all flights would likely be grounded for 24 hours.

United Continental Holdings Inc, JetBlue Airways Corp and Delta Air Lines Inc all reported extensive cancellations.

For some in the Boston area, the forecast brought to mind memories of the blizzard of 1978, which dropped 27.1 inches, the second largest snowfall recorded in the city's history. That storm started out gently and intensified during the day, leaving many motorists stranded during the evening commute.

Dozens of deaths were reported in the region after that storm, many from people touching downed electric lines.

Officials warned of a high risk of extensive power outages across the region due to the combination of heavy snow and high winds. Residents were also at risk of losing heat at a time when temperatures would dip to 20 degrees. Across the region, store shelves were picked clean of food and storm-related supplies such as shovels and salt as residents scrambled to prepare.

Some big employers said they were considering pleas by officials to let workers stay home, including State Street Corp, one of Boston's largest employers in the financial sector.

Reuters and the Hartford Courant

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Katie Holmes takes fashion line crosstown

NEW YORK (AP) — Katie Holmes and her business partner and stylist Jeanne Yang joined the New York Fashion Week frenzy last season with a show at Lincoln Center, only to leave it behind this time around.

It wasn’t all the people, or even the paparazzi, that drove them away. It was their own clothes. Their look, which they describe as one of careful artistry and potential heritage pieces that women will keep a lifetime, is a little too quiet for all the splash, they said.

“We wanted to tell the full story behind the frivolity,” said Yang, adding: “It’s a quiet approach.”

Holmes and Yang sat down at a hotel on the opposite side of Manhattan with a handful of fashion journalists on Thursday, the opening day of fashion week, to walk them personally through 15 looks Holmes called their favorites.

Katharine Hepburn‘s practical-yet-chic look of the 1940s, Donna Karan‘s use of the shoulders and back as erogenous zones, Halston’s glamorous sportswear and Chanel’s mastery of seaming and studs were all in their minds as they built the pieces and outfits.

“We’re not trying to be trendy … but we’re trying to make high-quality pieces you’ll wear over and over again,” Holmes said.

Holmes was wearing an A-line shirtdress in the blue-and-black plaid that was dominant in the collection, while Yang wore one of the slouchy blazers that has become a key piece for the label, founded in 2009.

For fall, they’ll offer a peplum top with a suede waist band and maxi skirt in the same plaid. Holmes suggested that outfit for a dinner out. Swap the shirt for a tank top for brunch and a blouse to go to the theater. Yang said she hoped a customer would “feel smart” in a white cashmere-silk boucle sweaterdress with a strip of white silk at the hem.

Holmes, meanwhile, was partial to the baggy suede caramel-colored pants that hit just above the ankle, worn with a bow-neck blouse in a deep shade of lipstick pink.

The duo made a point of noting that 70 percent of production of Holmes & Yang happens in New York and the other 30 percent in Los Angeles.

___

Follow Samantha Critchell on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Fashion

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The New Old Age: The Executor's Assistant

I’m serving as executor for my father’s estate, a role few of us are prepared for until we’re playing it, so I was grateful when the mail brought “The American Bar Association Guide to Wills and Estates” — the fourth edition of a handbook the A.B.A. began publishing in 1995.

This is a legal universe, I’m learning, in which every step — even with a small, simple estate that owes no taxes and includes no real estate or trusts — turns out to be at least 30 percent more complicated than expected.

If my dad had been wealthy or owned a business, or if we faced a challenge to his will, I would have turned the whole matter over to an estate lawyer by now. But even then, it would be helpful to know what the lawyer was talking about. The A.B.A. guide would help.

Written with surprising clarity (hey, they’re lawyers), it maps out all kinds of questions and decisions to consider and explains the many ways to leave property to one’s heirs. Updated from the third edition in 2009, the guide not only talks taxes and trusts, but also offers counsel for same-sex couples and unconventional families.

If you want to permit your second husband to live in the family home until he dies, but then guarantee that the house reverts to the children of your first marriage, the guide tells you how a “life estate” works. It explains what is taxable and what isn’t, and discusses how to choose executors and trustees. It lists lots of resources and concludes with an estate-planning checklist.

In general, the A.B.A. intends its guide for the person trying to put his or her affairs in order, more than for family members trying to figure out how to proceed after someone has died. But many of us will play both these parts at some point (and if you are already an executor, or have been, please tell us how that has gone, and mention your state). We’ll need this information.

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Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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McDonald's January sales down 1.9%

McDonald's January comparable sales fell 1.9 percent, due to weakness in the Europe and Asia, the company said Friday. 

The Oak Brook-based burger giant warned during its fourth-quarter earnings release that sales at restaurants open more than one year would be down. But analysts polled by Consensus Metrix had expected a decline of 1.1 percent.

Shares rose nearly 1 percent in morning trading, to $95.38.

Of greatest concern to Wall Street, same store sales in Europe declined to 2.1 percent. The company cited particular weakness in Germany and France despite solid growth in the U.K and Russia. Europe is the chain's largest market.

Comparable sales fell 9.5 percent in McDonald's Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa division, for which the chain cited weakness in Japan, and declines in China, attributable to a calendar shift in the Chinese New Year, and the ongoing fallout from a poultry crisis.

In the U.S., comparable sales rose 0.9 percent. McDonald's cited popularity of its core menu and moving the grilled onion and cheddar burger onto the Dollar Menu.

Total sales rose in January 0.3 percent, or 0.7 percent adjusted for the impact of currency.

While McDonald's expects sales to improve later this year, the worst isn't over. The company said it expects a 3 percent hit to February sales as a result of a shorter month in 2013.

"While January's results reflect today's challenging environment and difficult prior year comparisons, I am confident that our unwavering commitment to delivering an exceptional restaurant experience will enhance our brand's relevance and drive long-term results," McDonald's CEO Don Thompson said in a statement.

In a Friday research note, Janney analyst David Tarantino wrote that McDonald’s performance in the U.S. was ahead of expectations and the broader quick-service restaurant industry.

Though he expects comparable sales to be down through March, "we remain optimistic that planned initiatives can support better operating momentum after the first quarter," he said.

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

Reuters contributed to this report.

MCD data by YCharts

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Ex-L.A. police officer suspected in cop killing, other slayings

A manhunt is under way for a double murder suspect, himself a former LAPD officer, after three officers were shot overnight, one fatally.

Authorities in California launched a statewide manhunt for a former Los Angeles police officer suspected in the Thursday morning shooting of three police officers after he threatened "warfare" on cops, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Former officer Christopher Dorner, 33, was suspected in the shooting of three police officers, one of them fatally, early Thursday, police said.

On Wednesday, police named Dorner as a suspect in the shooting deaths of the daughter of a former L.A. police captain and her fiance, whose bodies were found on Sunday.

"The violence of action will be high. ... I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty," Dorner wrote on Facebook, KTLA television reported.

Dorner's page appeared to have been removed from the social network site on Thursday.

The California Highway Patrol issued a "blue alert" on Dorner to law enforcement throughout the state after the shootings early Thursday in the Riverside area about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

"The suspect is considered armed and extremely dangerous," the alert said. "The suspect was involved in multiple shootings with multiple agencies in the Riverside CHP area."

One Los Angeles police officer was grazed on Thursday near Corona in Riverside County, Los Angeles police said. Later, two Riverside Police Department officers were shot in Riverside, and one of them died, Riverside police said.

Irvine police on Wednesday night named Dorner as the suspect in the shooting deaths of the recently engaged Keith Lawrence and Monica Quan, an assistant basketball coach at California State University Fullerton.

Police said they are searching for Dorner, whose last known address is in La Palma, and said he drives a blue 2005 Nissan Titan pickup with California license 7X03191. He is described as a 6-foot tall African American man weighing about 270 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information is asked to call a tip line at (714) 724-7192.

Irvine police on Wednesday night named Dorner as the suspect in the double slaying in the parking lot of an upscale Irvine apartment complex Sunday. Officials warned that Dorner is armed and dangerous. Law enforcement sources said police have placed security at the homes of LAPD officials named in the manifesto and believe Dorner has numerous weapons.

In the online postings, according to the Los Angeles Times, Dorner specifically named the father of Monica Quan. Randy Quan, a retired LAPD captain, was involved in the review process that ultimately led to Dorner’s dismissal.

A former U.S. Navy reservist, Dorner was fired in 2009 for allegedly making false statements about his training officer.

Dorner said in his online postings that being a police officer had been his life’s ambition since he served in the Police Explorers program. Now that had been taken away from him, he said, and he suffered from severe depression and was filled with rage over the people who forced him from his job.

Dorner complained that Quan and others did not fairly represent him at the review hearing.

“Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over. Suppressing the truth will leave to deadly consequences for you and your family. There will be an element of surprise where you work, live, eat, and sleep,” he wrote, referring to Quan and several others.

“I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own, I'm terminating yours,” he added.

Quan apparently served as Dorner’s representative, according to the manifesto. Of Quan, Dorner wrote: “He doesn't work for you, your interest, or your name. He works for the department, period. His job is to protect the department from civil lawsuits being filed and their best interest which is the almighty dollar. His loyalty is to the department, not his client.”

In the document, he threatens violence against other police officers.

“I know most of you who personally know me are in disbelief to hear from media reports that I am suspected of committing such horrendous murders and have taken drastic and shocking actions in the last couple of days,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately,” he added, “this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name.”

Quan, 28, and Lawrence, 27, had recently become engaged and moved into the condominium complex near Concordia University, where they had played basketball and received their degrees, authorities said. Lawrence worked as a campus officer at USC.

Dorner’s LAPD case began when he lodged a complaint against his field training officer, Sgt. Teresa Evans. He accused her of kicking a suspect named Christopher Gettler. An LAPD Board of Rights found that the complaint was false and terminated his employment for making false statements. He appealed the action.

He testified that he graduated from the Police Academy in February 2006 and left for a 13-month military deployment in November 2006.

“This is my last resort,” he wrote. “The LAPD has suppressed the truth and it has now led to deadly consequences.”

Dorner said it was the LAPD’s fault that he lost his law enforcement and Navy careers, as well as his relationships with family and close friends. Dorner wrote that he began his law enforcement career in February 2005 and that it ended in January 2009. His Navy career began in April 2002 and ended this month.

“I lost everything,” he said, “because the LAPD took my name and knew I was innocent.”

Los Angeles Times, Reuters and KTLA contributed

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