Cause of Super Bowl power outage remains unclear

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Who turned out the lights?

The day after the 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl, the exact cause — and who's to blame — were unclear, though a couple of potential culprits had been ruled out.

It wasn't Beyonce's electrifying halftime performance, according to Doug Thornton, manager of the state-owned Superdome, since the singer had her own generator. And it apparently wasn't a case of too much demand for power. Meters showed the 76,000-seat stadium was drawing no more electricity than it does during a typical New Orleans Saints game, Thornton said.

The lights-out game Sunday proved an embarrassment for the Big Easy just when it was hoping to show the rest of the world how far it has come since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But many fans and residents were forgiving, and officials expressed confidence that the episode wouldn't hurt the city's hopes of hosting the championship again.

To New Orleans' great relief, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the city did a "terrific" job hosting its first pro football championship in the post-Katrina era, and added: "I fully expect that we will be back here for Super Bowls."

Fans watching from their living rooms weren't deterred, either. An estimated 108.4 million people saw the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31, making it the third most-viewed program in television history. Both the 2010 and 2011 games hit the 111 million mark.

The problem that caused the outage was believed to have happened around the spot where a line that feeds current from the local power company, Entergy New Orleans, connects with the Superdome's electrical system, officials said. But whether the fault lay with the utility or with the Superdome was not clear.

Determining the cause will probably take days, according to Dennis Dawsey, a vice president for distribution and transmission for Entergy. He said the makers of some of the switching gear have been brought in to help figure out what happened.

An attorney for the state board that oversees the Superdome said the blackout did not appear to be related to the replacement in December of electrical equipment connecting the stadium to Entergy. Officials with the utility and the Superdome noted that an NFL game, the Sugar Bowl and another bowl game were played there in recent weeks with no apparent problems.

The blackout came after a nearly flawless week of activity for football fans in New Orleans leading up to the big game.

"I hope that's not what they'll remember about this Super Bowl," French Quarter artist Gloria Wallis said. "I hope that what they'll remember is they had a great time here and that they were welcomed here."

Ravens fan Antonio Prezioso, a Baltimore native who went to the game with his 11-year-old son, said the outage just extended the experience.

"The more time we could spend at the game was a good thing, as long as it ended the way it did," he said, laughing.

The city last hosted the Super Bowl in 2002, and officials were hoping this would serve as the ultimate showcase for the city's recovery. The storm tore holes in the roof of the Superdome and caused water damage to its electrical systems, and more than $330 million was spent repairing and upgrading the stadium.

Sunday's Super Bowl was New Orleans' 10th as host, and officials plan to make a bid for an 11th in 2018.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu told WWL-AM on Monday that the outage won't hurt the city's chances, and he joked that the game got better after the blackout: "People were leaving and the game was getting boring, so we had to do a little something to spice it up."

Jarvis DeBerry, a columnist for nola.com and The Times-Picayune, wrote that the power outage gave the media "an opportunity to laugh at the apparent ineptitude or suggest that the ghosts of Hurricane Katrina were haunting the Superdome."

"That's not the kind of attention the city was looking for, obviously," he wrote, "but it's certainly too soon to say if people will remember the power shortage over San Francisco's furious comeback attempt against Baltimore or if this will harm the city's future opportunities to host the Super Bowl."

Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's Center for Hospitality and Sports Management, said the episode shouldn't hurt the city's reputation as a big convention destination. "I think people view it for what it was: an unusual event with a near-record power draw," he said. "It was the equivalent of a circuit breaker flipping."

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons will meet in New Orleans from April 27 to May 1. Patty Anderson, director of meetings for the group, said of the blackout: "I never even gave it a second thought. To me, the city is bigger, stronger and more vibrant than it's ever been."

___

Associated Press writers Beth Harpaz, Brett Martel, Stacey Plaisance and Barry Wilner contributed to this report.

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Earth Safe from Asteroid’s Close Flyby Next Week

An asteroid will give Earth a historically close shave next week, but there’s no chance that the space rock will slam into our planet on this pass, experts say.

The 150-foot-wide (45 meters) asteroid 2012 DA14 will zoom within 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers) of our planet on Feb. 15, coming nearer than the ring of satellites in geosynchronous orbit. While the flyby will be the closest ever known in advance for such a large asteroid, there’s no reason to retreat to the doomsday bunker.

“NASA‘s Near-Earth Object Program Office can accurately predict the asteroid’s path with the observations obtained, and it is therefore known that there is no chance that the asteroid might be on a collision course with Earth,” officials at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., wrote in a statement Friday (Feb. 1).

“Nevertheless, the flyby will provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study a near-Earth object up close,” the statement added. [Asteroid 2012 DA14's Feb. 15 Flyby: Fact vs. Fiction (Video)]

NASA will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) this Thursday (Feb. 7) to discuss the space rock’s close flyby.

2012 DA 14 was discovered in February of last year by astronomers with the La Sagra Sky Survey in Spain. The near-Earth asteroid has recently been zipping around the sun once every 368 days, though next week’s close pass will reduce its orbital period to 317 days, researchers said.

At its closest approach on Feb. 15, the space rock will be just 1/13th as far from Earth as the moon is. 2012 DA 14 will whiz by our planet quickly, zipping through space at about 17,400 mph (28,000 kph) as it makes its closest pass for at least the next 30 years.

The asteroid will present an intriguing target for skywatchers, becoming visible as a point of light through binoculars and small telescopes during the close encounter. The best observing will be from Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia, NASA officials said. (2012 DA 14 will have faded considerably by the time Earth’s rotation brings the object into view for folks in the continental United States.)

Researchers at NASA and other institutions plan to take advantage of the flyby to learn more about 2012 DA14 and its orbit.

“Radar astronomers plan to take images of the asteroid about eight hours after closest approach using the Goldstone antenna in California’s Mojave Desert, which is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network,” space agency officials wrote in Friday’s statement.

Several other known asteroids have given Earth an even closer shave than 2012 DA14 will, but those objects were all smaller. Asteroids of 2012 DA14′s size probably make such close flybys once every 40 years and actually hit Earth every 1,200 years or so, researchers said.

Of course, other relatively large asteroids have probably zipped very close to Earth recently without being spotted. Astronomers have identified more than 9,000 near-Earth asteroids to date, but perhaps a million or more such space rocks are thought to exist.

If 2012 DA14 did strike our planet, it would likely cause serious damage on a local scale. An object of similar size flattened 800 square miles (2,000 square km) of forest when it exploded above Siberia’s Podkamennaya Tunguska River in 1908.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+. 

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Richard III still the criminal king

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Dan Jones: Richard III's remains found; some see chance to redeem his bad reputation


• Jones says the bones reveal and confirm his appearance, how he died and his injuries


• Nothing changes his rep as a usurper of the Crown who likely had nephews killed, Jones says


• Jones: Richard good or bad? Truth likely somewhere in between

Editor's note: Dan Jones is a historian and newspaper columnist based in London. His new book, "The Plantagenets" (Viking) is published in the US this Spring. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Richard III is the king we British just can't seem to make our minds up about.

The monarch who reigned from 1483 to 1485 became, a century later, the blackest villain of Shakespeare's history plays. The three most commonly known facts of his life are that he stole the Crown, murdered his nephews and died wailing for a horse at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His death ushered in the Tudor dynasty, so Richard often suffers the dual ignominy of being named the last "medieval" king of England -- in which medieval is not held to be a good thing.

Like any black legend, much of it is slander.

Richard did indeed usurp the Crown and lose at Bosworth. He probably had his nephews killed too -- it is unknowable but overwhelmingly likely. Yet as his many supporters have been busy telling us since it was announced Monday that Richard's lost skeleton was found in a car park in Leicester, he wasn't all bad. In fact, he was for most of his life loyal and conscientious.

Dan Jones

To fill you in, a news conference held at the University of Leicester Monday confirmed what archaeologists working there have suspected for months: that a skeleton removed from under a parking lot in the city center last fall was indeed the long-lost remains of Richard III.

His official burial place -- under the floor of a church belonging to the monastic order of the Greyfriars -- had been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries that was carried out in the 1530s under Henry VIII. A legend grew up that the bones had been thrown in a river. Today, we know they were not.

What do the bones tell us?

Well, they show that Richard -- identified by mitochondrial DNA tests against a Canadian descendant of his sister, Anne of York -- was about 5-foot-8, suffered curvature of the spine and had delicate limbs. He had been buried roughly and unceremoniously in a shallow grave too small for him, beneath the choir of the church.

He had died from a slicing blow to the back of the head sustained during battle and had suffered many other "humiliation injuries" after his death, including having a knife or dagger plunged into his hind parts. His hands may have been tied at his burial. A TV show aired Monday night in the UK was expected to show a facial reconstruction from the skull.

Opinion: What will the finding of Richard III mean?

In other words, we have quite a lot of either new or confirmed biographical information about Richard.

He was not a hunchback, but he was spindly and warped. He died unhorsed. He was buried where it was said he was buried. He very likely was, as one source had said, carried roughly across a horse's back from the battlefield where he died to Leicester, stripped naked and abused all the way.

All this is known today thanks to a superb piece of historical teamwork.

The interdisciplinary team at Leicester that worked toward Monday's revelations deserves huge plaudits. From the desk-based research that pinpointed the spot to dig, to the digging itself, to the bone analysis, the DNA work and the genealogy that identified Richard's descendants, all of it is worthy of the highest praise. Hat-tips, too, to the Richard III Society, as well as Leicester's City Council, which pulled together to make the project happen and also to publicize the society and city so effectively.

However, should anyone today tell you that Richard's skeleton somehow vindicates his historical reputation, you may tell them they are talking horsefeathers.

Richard III got a rep for a reason. He usurped the Crown from a 12-year old boy, who later died.

This was his great crime, and there is no point denying it. It is true that before this crime, Richard was a conspicuously loyal lieutenant to the boy's father, his own brother, King Edward IV. It is also true that once he was king, Richard made a great effort to promote justice to the poor and needy, stabilize royal finances and contain public disorder.

But this does not mitigate that he stole the Crown, justifying it after the fact with the claim that his nephews were illegitimate. Likewise, it remains indisputably true that his usurpation threw English politics, painstakingly restored to some order in the 12 years before his crime, into a turmoil from which it did not fully recover for another two decades.

So the discovery of Richard's bones is exciting. But it does not tell us anything to justify changing the current historical view of Richard: that the Tudor historians and propagandists, culminating with Shakespeare, may have exaggerated his physical deformities and the horrors of Richard's character, but he remains a criminal king whose actions wrought havoc on his realm.

Unfortunately, we don't all want to hear that. Richard remains the only king with a society devoted to rehabilitating his name, and it is a trait of some "Ricardians" to refuse to acknowledge any criticism of their hero whatever. So despite today's discovery, we Brits are likely to remain split on Richard down the old lines: murdering, crook-backed, dissembling Shakespearean monster versus misunderstood, loyal, enlightened, slandered hero. Which is the truth?

Somewhere in between. That's a classic historian's answer, isn't it? But it's also the truth.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Jones.

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Defendant's teen lover: She forced me to help attack her ex

Sandra Rogers convinced her 17-year-old lover to help her in the 2003 sledgehammer attack of her ex-husband and his new wife by threatening to tell his 14-year-old girlfriend – her daughter – about their affair, the now-26-year-old man testified Monday at Rogers’ trial in Lake County.

Jonathan McMeekin testified that the woman he referred to as “Sandy” allowed him to move into her home – and sleep in the same bed as her daughter Robin – when Robin was 13. He said Sandra Rogers bought him gifts including football cleats; let him use her car, though he didn’t have a license; took him out to dinner; and bought him marijuana.

“She would cook for me, clean, do my laundry, give me lunch money, those kinds of things,” McMeekin said. “She told me that I owed her.”

Nearly a decade after he pleaded guilty to attempted murder for his part in the near-fatal attack in Lincolnshire, Jonathan McMeekin was on the stand Monday as a witness against Rogers, now 56. Rogers had also pleaded guilty in 2004 to the attack the previous year, but she was allowed to retract her guilty plea and stand trial in the case.

Authorities assert that McMeekin and Rogers drove together to her ex-husband's home in the middle of the night on May 19, 2003, broke in and surprised the couple in bed. Rogers struck both of them over the head multiple times with a sledgehammer, nearly killing the couple, prosecutors say.

Rogers’ lawyers have attempted to show that the it was Robin Rogers who participated in the attack with McMeekin, not her mother. They have cited statements that Robin Rogers made about wanting to kill her father; she denied that those comments were serious, and prosecutors chalked them up to harmless teenage rebellion.

In his testimony, McMeekin said Sandra Rogers had her own motives: She was distraught over her ex-husband regaining custody of their two daughters, and child support payments had stopped, McMeekin said Monday. Also, Sandra Rogers told McMeekin she feared she was going to be arrested because she allowed her daughter to continue to see McMeekin against her father’s wishes, he testified.

McMeekin said he smoked pot and drank eight to 12 beers before Rogers told her of his plan.

“She started talking about how she didn’t want to be arrested the next day,” he said. “She started talking about Rick, how she wanted to kill him. She said if I didn’t go with her, she would tell Robin that we had sex together.”

McMeekin testified that, after the pair arrived at her ex-husband Rick Rogers’ townhome that night, Sandra Rogers pulled out two ski masks from behind the seat, McMeekin said. She also pulled out a sledgehammer and tried to hand it to McMeekin, but he refused to take it, he said.

McMeekin took the stand Monday dressed in a navy blue prison jumpsuit, his legs shackled. He had initially told police that he acted alone and, after giving a detailed statement, led police to a river near the beaten couple's home, where a hammer and bloody clothing belonging to McMeekin were found. Several months later, McMeekin told police that Sandra Rogers orchestrated the attack and wielded the hammer.

Also taking the stand Monday was Rick Rogers’ wife Angela Gloria, who said she remembered going to bed at about 9:30 or 10 p.m. on the night of the attack. The next thing the now-46-year-old woman remembered is waking up in a hospital and talking to her priest.

“I called myself Peanuthead,” said Gloria, who still has visible scars on her face from the attack. “I had an indent on the side of my head. I looked like Frankenstein.”

Gloria’s speech is labored and halting, and she said her short-term memory is damaged. She had to re-learn how to walk, she said.

McMeekin is expected to continue testifying Tuesday.

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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government on Monday to start talks for its departure from power and save the country from greater ruin after almost two years of bloodshed.

Seeking to step up pressure on Assad to respond to his offer of talks - which dismayed some in his own opposition coalition, Alkhatib said he would be ready to meet the president's deputy.

"I ask the regime to send Farouq al-Shara - if it accepts the idea - and we can sit with him," he said, referring to Syria's vice president who has implicitly distanced himself from Assad's crackdown on mass unrest that became an armed revolt.

Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials, Alkhatib said none of them had an answer to the 22-month-old crisis and Syrians must solve it themselves.

"The issue is now in the state's court...to accept negotiations for departure, with fewer losses," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Arabiya television.

The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on opposition contacts with Damascus and angered many in its ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.

Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.

"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he said in separate comments to Al Jazeera television.

Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".

Syria's defense minister said the army had proved it would not be defeated in its confrontation with rebels but declined to say whether it would respond to an Israeli air strike last week.

Security sources said the Israelis bombed a convoy of arms destined for Assad's ally Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, in neighboring Lebanon. Syria said the attack struck vehicles and buildings at a military research center near Lebanon's border.

Syria's uprising erupted in March 2011 with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war pitting mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority. His family has ruled Syria for 42 years.

ANGER AT IRAN

The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions isolating Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional supporter.

Alkhatib met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at a security conference in Germany at the weekend.

"Iran's stance is unacceptable and I mentioned to the foreign minister that we are very angry with Iran's support for the regime," Alkhatib said.

He said he asked Salehi to pass on his offer of negotiations - based on the acceptance of the Assad government's departure - to Damascus. The two men also discussed the need to prevent Syria's crisis spreading into a regional conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, he said.

"We will find a solution, there are many keys. If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."

One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought that could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.

Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, an opposition activist said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 people were killed by dusk on Monday.

It said 180 people were killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.

Assad has described the rebels as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.

The majority of the insurgents are Islamists but those affiliated with al Qaeda are smaller in number, although their influence is growing. For that reason, Western states have been loath to arm the rebels despite their calls for Assad's ouster.

Rebels and activists say that Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant movement Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - an accusation that both deny.

ECONOMIC SUPPORT

"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iran's Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.

"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq; we have not been successful."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said later on Monday that Syria's crisis could not be solved by military means and he called for a national accord leading to elections.

"War is not the solution...A government that rules through war - its work will be very difficult. A sectarian war should not be launched in Syria," he told Al Mayadeen television.

"We believe that (deciding) whoever stays or goes is the right of the Syrian people. How can we interfere in that? We must strive to achieve national understanding, and free elections."

Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.

Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.

But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad. Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.

"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Asian shares edge higher after U.S. jobs, ISM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares edged higher on Monday, buoyed by U.S. data which maintained expectations for a mild recovery and continued loose Federal Reserve monetary policy to support it, bolstered by solid manufacturing data from Europe and China.

The yen hit its lowest since August 2008 against the Australian and New Zealand dollars early on Monday and stuck near lows against the euro and the U.S. dollar and confidence of bold monetary support to overcome Japan's stubborn deflation.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.2 percent after posting a weekly gain of 0.7 percent.

"Asian shares are likely to take the cues from the rise in U.S. equities and prices of risk assets are generally expected to face upward pressures," said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose to 14,000 for the first time since October 2007 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> hit its highest point since December of that year.

U.S. data showed on Friday payrolls rose by 157,000 last month, with upward revisions for November and December, while the Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity rose to its highest since April.

China followed with positive news over the weekend, saying growth in its official purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the non-manufacturing sector ticked up in January for the fourth straight monthly rise, confirming the world's second-largest economy was showing a modest recovery.

Resources-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> edged up 0.2 percent, after jumping 0.9 percent to a 21-month high on Friday. Positive economic news from China, Australia's largest export destination, usually boosts Australian investor sentiment.

South Korean shares <.ks11> opened up 0.6 percent.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> opened 0.6 percent higher, climbing to a fresh 33-month high as the yen declined. The index logged its 12th straight week of increases last week, the longest run of weekly gains since 1959. <.t/>

The dollar steadied at 92.83 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 92.97 on Friday, while the euro was up 0.1 percent to 126.71 yen, near its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 touched on Friday.

In early Monday trade, the yen plunged to its lowest since August 2008 against both the Australian dollar, at 96.78 yen, and against the New Zealand dollar at 78.74 yen.

The euro inched 0.1 percent higher to $1.3649, off Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711 hit after data showed euro zone factories had their best month in January in nearly a year.

On Friday, the dollar index measured against a basket of key currencies fell to a 4-1/2-month low of 78.918 <.dxy>.

"It is well understood that the EUR has been boosted by the perception of reduced financial stability risks in the euro area and the resulting rebalancing moves out of the CHF, JPY and GBP. As a result, strong trends are in place in EUR/GBP, EUR/USD and EUR/JPY," Barclays Capital said in a research note. "The US economy has maintained its momentum, but not so much as to alter our view that the Fed will remain accommodative."

As economic optimism rose and concerns about the euro zone's debt difficulties eased, investors took on more risk.

Research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said on Saturday investors poured a record $77.4 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, surpassing the previous monthly record of $53.7 billion in February 2000.

In the oil market, tension across the Middle East put Brent crude on track to its biggest weekly gain since mid-November, and U.S. crude rose for an eighth straight week, although it eased 0.3 percent to $97.53 a barrel early on Monday.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Lights out: Power outage stops game at Super Bowl

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Power went out at the Superdome early in the third quarter of the Super Bowl on Sunday with the Baltimore Ravens leading the San Francisco 49ers 28-6.

The majority of the lights failed shortly after Jacoby Jones returned the opening kickoff of the second half for a touchdown. There was 13:22 left in the quarter.

After a few minutes, the public address announcer said the Superdome was experiencing an interruption of electrical service and encouraged fans to stay in their seats.

Some fans did the wave to pass the time. Players milled around on the sidelines, some took a seat on the bench, other on the field. A few of the Ravens threw footballs around.

Officials gathered on the field and appeared to be talking to stadium personnel.

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Energy industry develops nontoxic fracking fluids

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The oil and gas industry is trying to ease environmental concerns by developing nontoxic fluids for the drilling process known as fracking, but it’s not clear whether the new product will be widely embraced by drilling companies.

Houston-based energy giant Halliburton Inc. has developed a product called CleanStim, which uses only food-industry ingredients. Other companies have developed nontoxic fluids as well.

“Halliburton is in the business to provide solutions to our customers,” said production manager Nicholas Gardiner. “Those solutions have to include ways to reduce the safety or environmental concerns that the public might have.”

Environmental groups say they welcome the development but still have questions.

The chemicals in fracking fluids aren’t the only environmental concern, said George Jugovic, president of PennFuture. He said there is also concern about the large volumes of naturally occurring but exceptionally salty wastewater and air pollution.

It’s premature to say whether it will ever be feasible to have fluids for fracking that are totally nontoxic, said Scott Anderson, a senior adviser for the Environmental Defense Fund.

“But we are encouraged to some extent by recent industry efforts to at least reduce the toxicity,” Anderson said.

Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, has made it possible to tap into energy reserves across the nation but also has raised concerns about pollution, since large volumes of water, along with sand and hazardous chemicals, are injected deep into the ground to free the oil and gas from rock.

Regulators contend that overall, water and air pollution problems are rare, but environmental groups and some scientists say there hasn’t been enough research on those issues. The industry and many federal and state officials say the practice is safe when done properly, but faulty wells and accidents have caused problems.

Halliburton says CleanStim will provide “an extra margin of safety to people, animals and the environment in the unlikely occurrence of an incident” at a drilling site.

Gardiner said Halliburton has developed a chemistry-scoring system for the fluids, with lower scores being better. CleanStim has a zero score, he said, and is “relatively more expensive” than many traditional fracking fluids.

Both Jugovic and Anderson noted that one of the most highly publicized concerns about toxic fracking fluids hasn’t really been an issue: the suggestion that they might migrate from thousands of feet underground, up to drinking water aquifers.

“Most people agree there are no confirmed cases so far” of fracking chemicals migrating up to drinking water, Anderson said. But he added that simple spills of fluid on the surface can cause problems.

“The most likely of exposure is not from the fracking itself. It is from spills before the fracking fluid is injected,” Anderson said.

There also may be technical and cost issues that limit the acceptance of products such as CleanStim. There is tremendous variation in the type of shale rock in different parts of the country. For example, drillers use different fluids even within the same state, and the specific mix can play a large role in determining how productive a well is.

Gardiner wouldn’t say how widely used CleanStim is. “The customers who do use it certainly like the material,” he added.

Terry Engelder, a geologist at Penn State University, said he visited a well in that state last year that used just water, sand and three additives in the fracking fluid.

But Engelder added that “green” and “toxic” can be “soft words without real meaning.” He noted that consumers, businesses and farms use vast quantities of chemicals that can contribute to pollution, from cleaners and soaps to fertilizers and pesticides. Yet all those compounds are routinely flushed down the drain, ending up in nearby rivers and streams.

“Eventually industry would like to end up with a mix of just water, sand, and food-grade additives,” Engelder said of fracking. “Companies are learning to deal with fewer and fewer additives.”

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Police: 3 men face charges in slaying of Aurora woman

Three suburban men have been charged with the slaying of an 18-year-old Aurora woman whose beaten and burned body was found Saturday morning in a wooded area, police said Sunday night.

The last homicide in Aurora occurred 400 days ago, in 2011, city spokesman Dan Ferrelli said.

Aurora residents Juan Garnica Jr., 18, of the 400 block of East Ashland Avenue;  Enrique Prado, 19, of the 400 block of Jefferson Street; and Jose Becerra, 20, of the 0-99 block of Seaton Creek Drive in Oswego, have been charged with the murder of Abigail Villalpando, 18, of the 1900 block of Lilac Lane in Aurora, according to a statement from Aurora police.

Garnica was charged with two counts of first degree murder and one count of arson, Prado with single counts of arson and concealment of a homicide, and Becerra with one count of concealment of a homicide, according to the statement.

They are all scheduled for Monday morning video bond calls in front of a Kane County Judge.

Villalpando’s body, which was burned beyond recognition, was discovered by a Kane County Sheriff’s Department K-9 in a wooded area just inside the village of Montgomery near the intersection of Fifth Street and Wabansia Avenue at around 9 a.m. Saturday, the statement read.

Confirmation of her identity was made through dental records at an autopsy conducted Sunday at the Kane County Coroner’s Office.

The preliminary cause of Villalpando’s death at a Sunday autopsy was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head, according to the statement.  

Villalpando had been reported missing by a family member at around 2:30 a.m. Friday after she failed to show up for work at Denny’s Restaurant on Thursday afternoon. Her empty car, a 2003 Nissan Altima, was found fully engulfed in flames underneath the High Street Bridge over the Burlington Northern Rail Road Tracks on the City’s near east side at about 10:40 a.m. Friday, the statement said.  

Villalpando was last seen by the family member who had reported her missing Thursday afternoon at around 1 p.m., when she left her home for her job at the eatery, 4330 Fox Valley Center Dr., according to the statement.

A Denny’s employee called Villalpando’s home at around 5 p.m., saying she never showed up for work. 

During the investigation into her disappearance, detectives learned she went to visit Garnica and Prado, both of whom she knew, at Prado’s home shortly after leaving her home, according to the statement.

During that meeting Garnica allegedly hit Villalpando several times in the head with a hammer after Prado left the room.  It is not clear why Garnica started beating the victim. He then stuffed the girl’s body into a tote-type container and hid it in Prado’s garage, according to the statement.

During the overnight hours on Thursday, Garnica allegedly drove Villalpando’s vehicle to the area where it was found torched, the statement read.

At around 9 a.m. Friday morning, he met Prado, and the two went to a downtown gas station and filled a gas can with gasoline.  After dropping off Garnica at the scene where he parked the vehicle, Prado returned to his home, the statement said.

Garnica set the vehicle on fire and ran back to Prado’s house. He then burned Villalpando’s body in a barrel in the backyard and enlisted Becerra’s help in dumping the body at the location where it was found, according to the statement.  

Police have recovered several pieces of evidence but cannot elaborate further.

Garnica and Prado showed up at the police department for questioning at around 3 p.m. Friday, and were taken into custody. Becerra was taken into custody Saturday afternoon at his home, the statement said.

At around 5:30 p.m. Sunday, the Kane County State’s Attorney authorized the charges.

Detectives have not established a motive. 

rsobol@tribune.com

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Iran hedges on nuclear talks with six powers or U.S.

MUNICH (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it was open to a U.S. offer of direct talks on its nuclear program and that six world powers had suggested a new round of nuclear negotiations this month, but without committing itself to either proposal.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects is intended to give Iran the capability to build a nuclear bomb, have been all but deadlocked for years, while Iran has continued to announce advances in the program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said a suggestion on Saturday by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington was ready for direct talks with Iran if Tehran was serious about negotiations was a "step forward".

"We take these statements with positive consideration. I think this is a step forward but ... each time we have come and negotiated it was the other side unfortunately who did not heed ... its commitment," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference where Biden made his overture a day earlier.

He also complained to Iran's English-language Press TV of "other contradictory signals", pointing to the rhetoric of "keeping all options on the table" used by U.S. officials to indicate they are willing to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"This does not go along with this gesture (of talks) so we will have to wait a little bit longer and see if they are really faithful this time," Salehi said.

Iran is under a tightening web of sanctions. Israel has also hinted it may strike if diplomacy and international sanctions fail to curb Iran's nuclear drive.

In Washington, Army General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the United States has the capability to stop any Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian "intentions have to be influenced through other means."

Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his comments on NBC's program "Meet the Press," speaking alongside outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta said current U.S. intelligence indicated that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.

"But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability," he said. "And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing."

The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has said he will give diplomacy every chance of solving the Iran standoff.

THE BEST CHANCE

With six-power talks making little progress, some experts say talks between Tehran and Washington could be the best chance, perhaps after Iran has elected a new president in June.

Negotiations between Iran and the six powers - Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany - have been deadlocked since a meeting last June.

EU officials have accused Iran of dragging its feet in weeks of haggling over the date and venue for new talks.

Salehi said he had "good news", having heard that the six powers would meet in Kazakhstan on February 25.

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates the efforts of the six powers, confirmed that she had proposed talks in the week of February 25 but noted that Iran had not yet accepted.

Kazakhstan said it was ready to host the talks in either Astana or Almaty.

Salehi said Iran had "never pulled back" from the stuttering negotiations with the six powers. "We still are very hopeful. There are two packages, one package from Iran with five steps and the other package from the (six powers) with three steps."

Iran raised international concern last week by announcing plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines. The EU said the move, potentially shortening the path to weapons-grade material, could deepen doubts about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's mission to stop its arch-enemy from acquiring nuclear weapons was "becoming more complex, since the Iranians are equipping themselves with cutting-edge centrifuges that shorten the time of (uranium) enrichment".

"We must not accept this process," said Netanyahu, who is trying to form a new government after winning an election last month. Israel is generally believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.

(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald and Stephen Brown in Munich, Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Will Dunham)

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