Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.

The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.

Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.

At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.

By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.

"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.

The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.

Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.

Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.

"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.

Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.

During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.

Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.

"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship

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Singer Mindy McCready dies in apparent suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Mindy McCready, who hit the top of the country charts before personal problems sidetracked her career, died Sunday in Arkansas in an apparent suicide. She was 37.

The Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that McCready was found dead at a residence in Heber Springs from what appears to be a single, self-inflicted gunshot to the head. An autopsy is pending.

It wasn't the first suicide attempt for the troubled singer, whose list of problems only continued to grow in 2013.

McCready entered court-ordered rehab earlier this month after her father told a judge she was no longer taking care of herself or her children and was abusing drugs and alcohol. Her sons were put in foster care at the time, but it's not clear where Zander and Zayne were at the time of McCready's death.

McCready's longtime boyfriend David Wilson, the father of her younger son, died last month in Arkansas. Authorities found his body on the same porch where they discovered McCready's on Sunday, and his death also was investigated as a suicide.

The front porch light remained on Sunday night at McCready's home in the wooded lakefront community filled with large homes. Yellow crime-scene tape blocked off the front of the house, and a deputy sat watch over the property, referring questions to the sheriff. A pickup truck remained in the driveway.

Wilson's passing struck McCready hard. She issued a statement last month lamenting his death. She called him her soul mate and a caregiver to her sons in an interview with NBC's "Today." She said she'd never gone through anything as painful as his death.

"I just keep telling myself that the more suffering that I go through, the greater character I'll have," she said, according to a transcript of the interview.

News of McCready's death spread quickly Sunday night on Twitter, with major country stars paying their respects to the onetime Nashville darling.

"Too much tragedy to overcome. R.I.P Mindy McCready," wrote Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks.

And Jason Aldean added: "Just heard about Mindy McCready. My thoughts and prayers are with her 2 boys and her family."

Melinda Gayle McCready arrived in Nashville in 1994 still in her teens with tapes of her karaoke vocals and earned a recording contract with BNA Records.

In 1996, her "Guys Do It All the Time" hit No. 1 and its dig at male chauvinism endeared her to females. Her other hits included "Ten Thousand Angels," also in 1996, and her album by that title sold 2 million copies.

She spent the next 15 years chasing another hit as personal problems began plaguing her. Her problems included a custody battle with her mother over one of her sons, an overdose and discord in her love life.

McCready took her older son, Zander, from her mother and the boy's legal guardian, Gayle Inge, in late 2011. She fled to Arkansas without permission over what she called child abuse fears. Authorities eventually found McCready hiding in a residence without permission and took the boy into custody.

She and Wilson had a son, Zayne, in April 2012. The older son's father is McCready's former boyfriend Billy McKnight.

In May 2010, she was hospitalized briefly after police responded to an overdose call at a home in North Fort Myers, Fla., owned by her mother. This followed a stint on "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew," where she declared herself to be clean from drugs. She is the fifth celebrity appearing on that show to have died.

But her troubles began earlier. In 2004, she was charged with obtaining the painkiller OxyContin fraudulently at a pharmacy. She pleaded guilty and was placed on three years' probation.

She violated the probation with a drunken driving arrest in May 2005. A few days after that arrest, she was beaten and her boyfriend at the time was charged with attempted criminal homicide. Then she attempted suicide in July 2005, overdosed in September 2005 and slit her wrists in December 2008.

Also that year, McCready was charged in Arizona with hindering prosecution and unlawful use of transportation. Those charges stemmed from an alleged attempt in June 2005 to purchase two high performance boats, but she claimed she was trying to stop a con man.

In July 2007, she was arrested in her hometown of Fort Myers, Fla., on misdemeanor charges of scratching her mother on the face during a scuffle and resisting sheriff's deputies.

She made headlines again in April 2008 when she claimed a longtime relationship with baseball great Roger Clemens. Published reports at the time said she met the pitcher at a Florida karaoke bar when she was 15 and he was 28 and married.

In June 2008, McCready was arrested and charged with violating her probation by falsifying her community service records relating to the 2004 drug charge. A month later, she entered an extended care facility for undisclosed treatment, and followed that with a 60-day jail sentence in the Williamson County jail.

McCready found some peace after her appearance on "Celebrity Rehab" and told The Associated Press in early 2010 she hoped to get her career restarted, write a book about her experiences and begin production on a reality show. She felt she'd finally gained some control over her life.

"It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time," she said. "I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that's really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality."

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Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. Associated Press writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from Tampa, Fla.

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U. of C. Medicine's leader gears up for challenges

Nearly every morning, before 7 a.m., Dr. Kenneth Polonsky is dropped off near the Lakefront Trail on Chicago's South Side, a few steps from Lake Michigan.

He carries no briefcase, wears no suit and has no cup of coffee, the standard trappings of his executive contemporaries.

Instead — at least in the winter — he's covered in high-tech running gear, leaving only a small patch of skin around his eyes exposed to the weather. The outfit, he muses, must raise suspicions among cab drivers.

"It's 6:30 in the morning, it's dark and can be, maybe, 10 degrees outside," he says. "When I ask the driver to drop me by the side of (the road), they must think, 'What's going on with this guy? There's something funny here.'"

Twelve months a year, through heat waves, cold snaps, rain, sleet and snow, the top official at University of Chicago Medicine starts most mornings running 5 miles to work.

It's a routine that reflects lessons learned from decades of studying diabetes and treating patients with the disease and one he pairs with watching his diet "like a hawk." The daily run also is a vehicle for the cerebral 62-year-old M.D. to contemplate the challenges that lie ahead.

There are many, starting with the massive transformation of the way medical care is paid for and delivered as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul.

Polonsky also faces cuts to research funding that flows to the Pritzker School of Medicine through the National Institutes of Health and growing financial pressure from Illinois' Medicaid program, the federal-state health insurance program that serves a substantial percentage of the hospital's South Side patients.

All this while christening and trying to pay for a $700 million, 1.2 million-square-foot new hospital, a 10-story, boxy, modernist structure that towers above a campus better known for its ubiquitous, early-20th-century red-roofed Gothic buildings.

The hospital, dubbed the Center for Care and Discovery in the absence of a donor willing to lay down $50 million for naming rights, is scheduled to open Saturday.

With 240 private patient rooms, 28 supersize operating rooms and seven advanced imaging rooms, the hospital will specialize in neuroscience and the treatment of cancer and gastrointestinal diseases.

But even what is supposed to be a celebratory, clink-the-glasses moment for Polonsky and the university has been sullied by controversy.

An estimated 50 protesters entered the hospital on a Sunday afternoon in January, holding placards and using a megaphone to voice their displeasure that such a costly facility was not outfitted with a trauma unit.

University police with batons were videotaped shoving protesters to the ground. Four were arrested in the melee.

Polonsky said the system is re-evaluating its role in trauma care, "a legitimate question for discussion and debate and one we are looking at again in detail."

Managing this issue will be a major test of Polonsky's leadership in 2013 and will occur against the backdrop of the largest upheaval to the health care industry in a generation.

"We're in a really vulnerable situation at the moment; there's no question about it," Polonsky said of the shift under way in health care. "But that's one of the reasons I'm interested in my job. I believe I can impact a series of big issues."

Many people, he said, go through life wondering whether what they're doing is worthwhile or significant in the big picture of things.

"I'm very fortunate to never, ever have had that problem," Polonsky said.

A boy in South Africa

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Hutchinson expected to drop out, endorse Kelly in Jackson Jr. contest

State Sen. Toi Hutchinson is expected to drop out of the 2nd District special Democratic primary on Sunday and throw her support behind former state Rep. Robin Kelly in the contest to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in Congress, multiple sources said late Saturday.

The move, expected to be announced in a morning news release, shakes up the Democratic field just nine days before the Feb. 26 primary election.

Hutchinson recently experienced a pair of setbacks during the short campaign. A super political action committee run by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg started airing a TV attack ad backing Kelly and attacking Hutchinson and another candidate, former one-term U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson of Crete, for past support from the National Rifle Association. Gun control has loomed as a big issue in the contest.

In addition, Hutchinson had to deal with a recent news report detailing how she paid her mother as a campaign consultant. Hutchinson also was not listed as a participant in upcoming WTTW-Ch. 11 candidate forums.

Hutchinson's camp began contacting supporters tonight telling them of her intention to drop out of the contest, said two sources with knowledge of the decision. Word of Hutchinson's plan to endorse Kelly on Sunday via a news release also surfaced, according to a source familiar with the situation.

If Hutchinson exits the contest, there will be three major Democratic candidates left in a 15-candidate field: Kelly, Halvorson and 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale of Chicago.

Hutchinson got an early boost in the contest when Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle endorsed her instead of Kelly, who served as a top aide to Preckwinkle.

As of Feb. 6, Kelly trailed Hutchinson in cash available to spend. Kelly reported $88,820 available while Hutchinson had more than double at $199,901. Hutchinson’s campaign has engaged in a significant direct-mail campaign since that time. For the entire campaign, through Feb. 6, Hutchinson reported raising $281,106. Hutchinson has been endorsed by Preckwinkle, who gave her $1,000.

Overall, campaign disclosure reports showed Kelly has raised more than $303,725 since the start of the short campaign through Feb. 6. Campaign aides to Kelly said she has raised $417,727 for the campaign cycle through Wednesday.

Tribune reporter Bill Ruthhart contributed to this report.

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Facebook hacked, social media company says

(Reuters) - Facebook said on Friday that it been the target of a series of attacks by an unidentified hacker group, but it had found no evidence that user data was compromised.

"Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack," the company said in a blog post. "The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised."

The social network, which says it has more than one billion active users worldwide, added: "Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well."

Facebook's announcement follows recent cyber attacks on other prominent websites. Twitter, the microblogging social network, said this month that it had been hacked, and that approximately 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information including user names and email addresses.

Newspaper websites including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have also been infiltrated, according to the news organizations. Those attacks were attributed by the news organizations to Chinese hackers targeting their coverage of China.

(Reporting By Tim Reid; Editing by Gary Hill)

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No. 2 Duke falls to Maryland 83-81

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — As the final horn sounded and Maryland fans rushed the court to celebrate a rare victory over its bitter rival, weary Duke had just enough energy left to escape the mayhem for the safety of its locker room.

Seth Allen broke a tie by making two free throws with 2.8 seconds left, and the Terrapins stunned the second-ranked Blue Devils 83-81 Saturday night to end a six-game skid in the series.

Coming off a five-day break, Maryland notched its most significant win of the season at the expense of a tired Duke playing its fourth game in 10 days.

The Blue Devils were worn out, and it showed.

Duke was outrebounded 40-20, never led in the second half and got only four points and three rebounds from 6-foot-10 senior center Mason Plumlee.

"This has been an exhausting schedule for our team," coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "We're playing on fumes and I think you could tell that with Mason. I thought he looked exhausted the whole game. He's been great. Obviously not good tonight."

The Terrapins (18-7, 6-6 Atlantic Coast Conference) did not trail after halftime but never could pull away.

Duke (22-3, 9-3) was down by 10 with 3:39 left but pulled even when Rasheed Sulaimon made three foul shots with 16.7 seconds to go. Quinn Cook then fouled Allen as the freshman guard drove through the lane, and Allen made both shots.

After a Duke timeout, Cook's desperation 30-footer bounced off the back rim. Chaos ensued as the fans immediately rushed the court.

"I thought it was in when I got it off," Cook said of his final attempt.

Alex Len had 19 points and nine rebounds for Maryland, and Allen scored 16. The Terrapins had lost 12 of 13 against Duke, including a 20-point embarrassment last month.

"I told our players before the game, there's a lot of pride in Maryland basketball," coach Mark Turgeon said. "There's also a lot of passion about Maryland basketball. We talked about playing with those two things for us and for our fans. Our fans were just tremendous."

From the end of the Star Spangled Banner to the final buzzer, the crowd never stopped shouting for the Terps, who rewarded their fans with a memorable victory in a rivalry that appears destined to end when Maryland leaves for the Big Ten in 2014.

"I have a great deal of respect for Maryland," Krzyzewski said. "If it was such a rivalry they'd still be in the ACC. Obviously they don't think it's that important or else they wouldn't be in the Big Ten."

Oh, but it's very important to Maryland and its coach.

"This win was for my family and the fans," Turgeon said. "I know what this win means for our fan base, and I really wanted to beat Duke."

The Blue Devils had their six-game winning streak end. Seth Curry scored 25 and Cook added 18. But Plumlee was completely outplayed by the 7-1 Len, who went 6 for 8 from the field and 7 for 8 at the foul line.

"There's so much pressure for Mason to play outstanding," Krzyzewski said. "That wears on you as the season goes on. He just didn't look fresh tonight."

Said Plumlee: "I didn't show up to play today and I let my teammates down. It's all on me."

Maryland committed a whopping 26 turnovers, eight by Allen. The Terrapins shot an impressive 60 percent from the floor and finished with a 40-20 rebounding advantage.

Maryland played without reserve guard Pe'Shon Howard, who was suspended for violating team rules. Despite being demoted from his starting role last month, Howard still leads the Terrapins in assists.

Maryland led 66-63 before Allen scored on a drive. Dez Wells then stole the ball from Cook and went in for a dunk for a seven-point lead with 5:20 left. After the Blue Devils closed to 71-63, James Padgett made a layup for Maryland and Wells made two foul shots for a 10-point cushion.

The crowd increased its volume with every subsequent basket by the Terrapins, whose previous win over Duke came in March 2010, when Greivis Vasquez celebrated Senior Night with a 20-point performance.

In this one, it was 80-72 before Curry made two straight 3-pointers to bring Duke to 80-78 with just under a minute left. After Wells was called for a charge, Curry had a 15-footer bounce in and out of the basket.

It was that kind of night for the Blue Devils.

This score was 39 all before Allen hit a 3-pointer to spark a 10-2 run that included five points from freshman Shaquille Cleare. It was 53-43 before Curry bagged a 3-pointer, Alex Murphy made a layup and Curry drove the lane following Maryland's third turnover in a 60-second span.

That cut the gap to three points, and seconds after a 3-pointer by Cook got the Blue Devils to 55-53.

After the Terrapins went up by six, they committed turnovers on three straight possessions. That enabled Duke to close to 59-57 on a dunk by Murphy, but four straight free throws by Len gave Maryland a 64-59 advantage with 7:20 remaining.

The first half featured two ties, 10 lead changes and ended with the Terrapins up 35-34. Curry (14 points) was one of only four Duke players to score before halftime.

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Romanian movie ‘Child’s Pose’ wins at Berlin fest

BERLIN (AP) — A Romanian drama that centers on a woman’s effort to cover up her son’s responsibility for an accident in which a boy is fatally injured won the Berlin film festival‘s top Golden Bear award on Saturday.

“Child’s Pose,” directed by Calin Peter Netzer, emerged as the winner from a field of 19 films that included a strong eastern European contingent this year — the 63rd edition of the event, the first of the year’s major European film festivals. Netzer said he was “a little bit speechless” at the award.

The tale of corruption and guilt depicts the efforts of an upper-class mother, played by Luminita Gheorghiu, to bribe witnesses to give false statements and keep her son — the driver, who was speeding at the time of the accident — out of prison.

“This is about a … pathological relationship between mother and son,” he told reporters later. “The rest is really just a backdrop,” Netzer told reporters, stressing that it is “a very universal story” and that “corruption is not something which is only taking place in Romania.”

A runner-up Silver Bear went to “An Episode In the Life of an Iron Picker,” in which a Bosnian Roma, or gypsy, couple re-enact their own struggle to get treatment after their baby died in the womb. The movie was made on a tiny budget by Danis Tanovic, whose “No Man’s Land” won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2002.

Nazif Mujic, the husband, was voted best actor by the festival jury.

“Of course, I’m not an actor — I simply played my own story. I played myself in my family. I don’t know what I should say,” Mujic, who says that he still has no regular job and collects scrap metal as he did at the time the drama played out, told 3sat television.

Best actress was Paulina Garcia for the title role in Chilean director Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria.” Garcia plays a divorcee at the end of her 50s trying to stave off loneliness, rushing into singles’ parties but struggling to overcome disappointment.

American filmmaker David Gordon Green was honored as best director for “Prince Avalanche,” a movie about two road workers whiling their way through a long, monotonous summer with little more than each other for company. It’s a remake of an Icelandic film, “Either Way.”

The best script award went to dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi for “Closed Curtain,” a movie he co-directed with longtime friend Kamboziya Partovi in defiance of a ban on filmmaking.

The film, in which the two directors play the main roles, reflects Panahi’s frustration at being unable to work officially — it’s set inside an isolated seaside villa, much of the time with the curtains drawn.

Partovi accepted the award on behalf of Panahi, who wasn’t allowed to leave Iran, telling the audience that “it’s never been possible to stop a thinker and a poet.”

The prize for outstanding artistic achievement went to Aziz Zhambakiyev for his camerawork in Kazakh director Emir Baigazin’s “Harmony Lessons,” which centers on a teenager tormented by his schoolmates.

The festival’s Alfred Bauer prize for innovation went to Canadian director Denis Cote’s “Vic+Flo Saw a Bear.”

A seven-member jury led by filmmaker Wong Kar-wai chose the winners.

Wong said the jury gave “special mentions” to two more films that didn’t win awards, acknowledging “the integrity of their vision and their conviction that cinema can make a difference.”

Those were Matt Damon’s Gus Van Sant-directed drama on shale gas drilling, “Promised Land,” and South African director Pia Marais’ “Layla Fourie.”

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

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TV show with Pistorius' dead girlfriend airs

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Reeva Steenkamp's last wish for her family before she was shot dead at boyfriend Oscar Pistorius' home was for them to watch her in a reality TV show that went on air in South Africa on Saturday night, two days after her killing.

Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, told The Associated Press that the model and law graduate was "proud of being in the show" and reminded them in their last conversation to make sure that they watched it.

The South African Broadcasting Corp. aired the "Tropika Island of Treasure" program, showing the late Steenkamp — the victim of a Valentine's Day shooting at the home of Pistorius, the Olympic star and double-amputee athlete. She is laughing and smiling, and blowing a kiss toward the camera in Jamaica when it was filmed last year.

South Africans also saw her swimming in the ocean and watching people jump off a cliff and into the sea, shaking her head as they leaped.

SABC said it was dedicated to Steenkamp and displayed the words "Reeva Steenkamp 19 August 1983 - 14 February 2013" between images of a rose and a candle in a short tribute before the show aired. She was also seen blowing the kiss as she sat on a Jamaican beach and her name again appeared on screen with the years of her birth and death.

The country was rocked Thursday when news broke of Steenkamp's shooting death at the upscale house of the star athlete. Pistorius was arrested and charged with her murder and remains in custody in a police station. His family has strongly denied prosecutors' claims that he murdered her.

Steenkamp's family said earlier Saturday that it had not been contacted by either the SABC — South Africa's national broadcaster — or the show's producers for permission to air it, but were not opposed to it because Reeva wanted everyone to see it.

"Her last words to us personally were that she wants us to watch it," Sharon Steenkamp said, hours before the program was shown.

SABC aired the reality show on its main channel, which prominently featured Steenkamp.

The show's executive producer, Samantha Moon, said going ahead with the show "is what she would have wanted."

Steenkamp, a 29-year-old blonde model who graduated from law school, died after suffering four gunshot wounds, police said. Officers recovered a 9-mm pistol from Pistorius' house and quickly charged the Olympian with murder for Steenkamp's killing.

Pistorius will appear in court Tuesday for a bail hearing, something police have said they oppose. Prosecutors also say they will pursue upgraded charges of premeditated murder against him, which means the disabled icon and double-amputee runner could face a life sentence.

Steenkamp was known in South Africa for appearing in commercials and as a bikini-clad model in men's magazines.

Pistorius and Steenkamp met Nov. 4 at the Kyalami race track, which sits between Pretoria and Johannesburg and has been used for Grand Prix and Formula 1 races, said Justin Divaris, a mutual friend.

Divaris said his own girlfriend was a close friend to Steenkamp. Pistorius and Steenkamp immediately hit it off and decided in the spur of the moment to attend a sports award ceremony together the same night, Divaris said. At the time, Pistorius had been dating another woman and his personal life was constant fodder for gossip pages.

Later, however, problems may have started, as police have said there were previous domestic altercations at Pretorius' home in a gated community near South Africa's capital, Pretoria.

A Steenkamp family spokesman said late Friday that relatives still faced a long struggle to come to terms with her killing.

"I can't see the family getting over this shortly," said Reeva's uncle, Mike Steenkamp. "It's going to be a long, long-term reconciliation with a lot of things and issues."

Family members plan for a memorial service Tuesday for the model in Port Elizabeth, her hometown on South Africa's southern coast. Pistorius has a court appearance scheduled in Pretoria on the same day for his lawyers to argue that he can be released on bail.

Portions released earlier Saturday of the reality show, sponsored by a milk fruit drink, feature Steenkamp laughing and smiling on the beaches of Jamaica. Another portion shows her swimming with two dolphins, which tap her on the cheek with their snouts.

"I think the way that you go out, not just your journey in life, but the way that you go out and the way you make your exit is so important," Steenkamp says in the video. "You either made an impact in a positive or a negative way, but just maintain integrity and maintain class and just remain true to yourself.

"I'm going to miss you all so much and I love you very, very much."

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this report.

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Gerald Imray can be reached at http://twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP

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Daley turns focus toward Gary

Richard M. Daley has kept a low profile since leaving office in 2011.

That doesn't mean he has lost interest in urban issues. The former mayor has turned his attention in a surprising direction, beyond Chicago's borders to one of the most intractable urban tragedies in America: the collapse of Gary, Ind.

"I always believe no part of America should be forgotten, and I think Gary has been forgotten," Daley said.

Daley is using his influence at the University of Chicago, where he is a distinguished senior fellow, to push a modest but growing amount of manpower toward Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson.

With guidance from Daley and Freeman-Wilson, University of Chicago graduate students are trying to figure out what to do with Gary's abandoned buildings and how to promote greater use of technology to help the city accomplish more with less, among other projects.

The hope is that the students will go on to help other cities after graduation. If successful, the U. of C.-Gary partnership could be replicated in other industrial towns grappling with decline.

Gary spans about 55 square miles, nearly a quarter of the size of Chicago. Yet the steel town's population has plummeted to an estimated 80,000, meaning the city has lost about half its people since 1960. The city's problems have mounted, including abandoned buildings and homes, sagging infrastructure and a declining budget to pay for services.

Outsiders have tried to fix Gary since at least the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. Freeman-Wilson, a former Indiana attorney general, judge and Harvard College and Harvard Law School graduate, has reinvigorated Gary's renewal efforts. And she's unafraid to ask for help.

Immediately after winning the 2011 Democratic primary, Freeman-Wilson called Daley for advice. They met, and Daley invited her to be the first guest speaker at his lecture series at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy, where Daley has a five-year appointment.

This quarter, 11 students from the university's public policy, business and social services schools are getting course credit for working on projects for Gary.

"It was Mayor Daley's idea," Freeman-Wilson said as she rode from a meeting on Chicago's West Side to Gary. "I had always envisioned getting the support and work from (University of Chicago Law School) alums, because there were issues around codes and things of that nature. It was not until the mayor came up with the idea of using students from the (Harris) School of Public Policy that I said, 'Oh yeah, that would work. That would work very well.'"

Daley does not teach a class at the University of Chicago. He runs an occasional lecture series.

Carol Brown, his last policy chief at City Hall, leads the program and the class, which is called the "Urban Revitalization Project: City of Gary, Ind." Grants from the Chicago-based Joyce and MacArthur foundations help pay administrative costs, including Brown's salary and that of a part-time assistant.

Last quarter's class was divided into three project teams. One team is cataloging Gary's abandoned buildings, which are magnets for crime and eyesores that further depress surrounding property values. Another is trying to recruit pro bono legal and consulting services for the city. And a third is trying to craft a strategy to clean up front stoops and empty lots one block at a time. This quarter's class also is tackling untapped funding opportunities and economic development.

Freeman-Wilson said a major benefit of the partnership is the fresh ideas from students "who aren't jaded by the limitations of government, whereas a 20-year employee might say, 'Oh, no, we can't do that in government because we don't have X, Y and Z.'"

Already their work has prompted more widespread use among Gary employees of a technology that stores and analyzes geographic data. City workers are now using the technology to map potholes, fallen tree limbs and illegal dump sites. That way work crews can be dispatched to neighborhoods where the problems are most severe.

"This partnership encourages urban planners to think broadly about regions instead of cities — greater Chicago instead of the city of Chicago," said Stephen Paul O'Hara, a historian at Xavier University who wrote a book about Gary.

The students operate as consultants. They gather best practices and ideas from cities around the country and then recommend a course of action. At the end of each 10-week quarter, students present their recommendations to Daley, Freeman-Wilson and their staffs. Their grades are based on those presentations and supporting reports.

"I will tell you, it never stops getting nerve-wracking," second-year graduate student Jocelyn Hare said of presenting to Daley. "But it gets easier."

Last spring, Hare, 32, responded to an email seeking student volunteers to conduct preliminary research to test the idea of a partnership. Hare then interned for the city of Gary during the summer. The Harris school paid her $15 an hour. She then enrolled in the first class in the fall and again this winter, when it was opened to graduate students outside of Harris for the first time.

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