Classes resume today as suburban teachers end strike

Teachers in Community Unit District 300 reached a deal with the school board late Tuesday to end a one-day walkout in the large far northwest suburban school district.

Talks had broken down late Monday, prompting the district's more than 1,200 teachers to go on strike Tuesday and leaving more than 20,000 students out of class.

School board member Joe Stevens announced after 9 p.m. Tuesday that, following talks that resumed at 2 p.m., the two sides has struck a three-year deal. No other details were immediately provided, but a union official called the agreement "fair to the teachers and responsible to the taxpayers."

Stevens said no further details would be released until the deal is ratified by the union and the school board. A board vote isn't expected until Dec. 18 at the earliest.

Just hours earlier, a union official had reported little progress at the resumed talks.

District 300, based in Carpentersville, was the latest among at least six Chicago-area school systems — including Chicago Public Schools — whose teachers have gone on strike this school year. Many of the same issues — class size, pay and benefits, equity of compensation compared to similar districts — have been repeated, as school boards seek new ways to control spending amid new mandates from Springfield and more modest tax receipts than before the economic downturn.

Tuesday, much of the public back-and-forth between the union and district officials was over class size. Currently, elementary classes are capped at 33 to 37 students, according to district figures, but some high school classes top 40 students, teachers said.

“You can't teach equitably that way,” Tom Domenz, an art teacher at Jacobs High in Algonquin, said from the picket line Tuesday. “Classes are all over the board. It's not fair to the kids. Parents are paying the same taxes and (students) are not getting the same attention.”

Steve Pittner, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Algonquin Middle School, said there has been “tremendous support” from parents and teachers. Students also were seen joining the picket line.

“They got to do something about the class size,” Pittner said while picketing at Algonquin Road and Main Street. “(Large classes) are not creating a culture of learning that's conducive for our students. This is the worst I've seen it. As far as class size goes, this is bad.”

But district officials said they offered a deal to teachers on Monday in which class sizes would be capped next year at 27 students in kindergarten through second grade and 30 students in grades three to five. The plan would also add 60 new teachers throughout the district.

Williamson, however, said those class sizes aren’t low enough to satisfy teachers. He also said teachers want an increase in their base salary.

The district counters that the union returned with new salary demands after the school board made its offer to lower class sizes. The district say it has offered teachers raises of 3 percent this year, 2 percent next year and 3 percent in the following — figures that include both base pay and “step increase,” additional raises that teachers in most Chicago-area districts receive each year for adding another year of seniority.

Union officials have also argued that teachers are underpaid compared to other suburban districts, according to a statement on the teachers union website.

Of the teachers strikes that have occurred so far this year in the Chicago area, Evergreen Park District 124’s was the longest, lasting 10 days.

Chicago Public School teachers were off the job for seven days, and Lake Forest High School teachers for five days. Strikes in Crystal Lake-based Prairie Grove District 46 and Highland Park-based North Shore District 112 also each lasted for one day before deals were reached.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

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EU imposes record $1.92 billion cartel fine on Philips, five others

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Philips, LG Electronics, Samsung SDI and three other firms were fined a record 1.47 billion euros ($1.92 billion) by EU antitrust regulators for fixing prices of TV and monitor cathode-ray tubes for nearly a decade.

The European Commission slapped the biggest penalty, of 313.4 million euros, on Dutch-based Philips on Wednesday. LG Electronics came in second with a 295.6 million euro fine.

The EU competition authority fined Panasonic Corp 157.5 million euros, Samsung SDI 150.8 million euros, Toshiba Corp. 28 million euros, and French company Technicolor 38.6 million euros.

Two Panasonic joint ventures were also fined. Taiwanese firm Chunghwa Picture Tubes blew the whistle on the cartels in TV and computer monitors and escaped a fine.

The two cartels, one involving TVs and the other computer monitors, operated worldwide between 1996 and 2006, during which company executives discussed how to fix prices and share markets at "green meetings", so-called because the events often ended with a round of golf.

"These cartels for cathode ray tubes are 'textbook cartels': they feature all the worst kinds of anti-competitive behavior that are strictly forbidden to companies doing business in Europe," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.

He said the violations were especially harmful for consumers, as cathode ray tubes accounted for 50 to 70 percent of the price of a screen.

Cathode ray tubes have largely been replaced by more advanced display technologies such as liquid-crystal display (LCD), plasma display and organic light-emitting diodes.

The biggest fine prior to the cathode-ray tube cartel was 1.38 billion euros imposed on participants in a car glass cartel in 2008.

The Commission's sanctions followed a total fine of 128.74 million euros levied last year against four producers of the glass used in cathode-ray tubes.

And Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Samsung Electronics, LG Display and three other LCD companies were penalized a total 648 million euros two years ago for taking part in a cartel.

($1 = 0.7642 euros)

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Rex Merrifield)

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Jets going with Mark Sanchez as starting QB

NEW YORK (AP) — Rex Ryan is sticking with Mark Sanchez as the New York Jets' starting quarterback.

The team has announced Wednesday morning that Sanchez, benched last Sunday against Arizona, will get the start over Greg McElroy and Tim Tebow when the Jets play the Jaguars at Jacksonville.

Sanchez was pulled late in the third quarter, and McElroy came in and led the Jets to the only touchdown of the game on his first NFL drive and helped New York to a 7-6 victory. Sanchez was 10 of 21 for 97 yards and three interceptions, while McElroy was 5 of 7 for 29 yards.

Ryan, who will address reporters later Wednesday, said Monday that he needed "a little more time" to consult with his staff before making the decision for this week.

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Longer tamoxifen use cuts breast cancer deaths

Breast cancer patients taking the drug tamoxifen can cut their chances of having the disease come back or kill them if they stay on the pills for 10 years instead of five years as doctors recommend now, a major study finds.

The results could change treatment, especially for younger women. The findings are a surprise because earlier research suggested that taking the hormone-blocking drug for longer than five years didn't help and might even be harmful.

In the new study, researchers found that women who took tamoxifen for 10 years lowered their risk of a recurrence by 25 percent and of dying of breast cancer by 29 percent compared to those who took the pills for just five years.

In absolute terms, continuing on tamoxifen kept three additional women out of every 100 from dying of breast cancer within five to 14 years from when their disease was diagnosed. When added to the benefit from the first five years of use, a decade of tamoxifen can cut breast cancer mortality in half during the second decade after diagnosis, researchers estimate.

Some women balk at taking a preventive drug for so long, but for those at high risk of a recurrence, "this will be a convincer that they should continue," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director of the breast cancer program at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study, which was being presented Wednesday at a breast cancer conference in San Antonio and published by the British medical journal Lancet.

About 50,000 of the roughly 230,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States each year occur in women before menopause. Most breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, and hormone blockers are known to cut the risk of recurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was the top choice, but newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors — sold as Arimidex, Femara, Aromasin and in generic form — do the job with less risk of causing uterine cancer and other problems.

But the newer drugs don't work well before menopause. Even some women past menopause choose tamoxifen over the newer drugs, which cost more and have different side effects such as joint pain, bone loss and sexual problems.

The new study aimed to see whether over a very long time, longer treatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the University of Oxford in England and other researchers assigned 6,846 women who already had taken tamoxifen for five years to either stay on it or take dummy pills for another five years.

Researchers saw little difference in the groups five to nine years after diagnosis. But beyond that time, 15 percent of women who had stopped taking tamoxifen after five years had died of breast cancer versus 12 percent of those who took it for 10 years. Cancer had returned in 25 percent of women on the shorter treatment versus 21 percent of those treated longer.

Tamoxifen had some troubling side effects: Longer use nearly doubled the risk of endometrial cancer. But it rarely proved fatal, and there was no increased risk among premenopausal women in the study — the very group tamoxifen helps most.

"Overall the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially," Dr. Trevor Powles of the Cancer Centre London wrote in an editorial published with the study.

The study was sponsored by cancer research organizations in Britain and Europe, the United States Army, and AstraZeneca PLC, which makes Nolvadex, a brand of tamoxifen, which also is sold as a generic for 10 to 50 cents a day. Brand-name versions of the newer hormone blockers, aromatase inhibitors, are $300 or more per month, but generics are available for much less.

The results pose a quandary for breast cancer patients past menopause and those who become menopausal because of their treatment — the vast majority of cases. Previous studies found that starting on one of the newer hormone blockers led to fewer relapses than initial treatment with tamoxifen did.

Another study found that switching to one of the new drugs after five years of tamoxifen cut the risk of breast cancer recurrence nearly in half — more than what was seen in the new study of 10 years of tamoxifen.

"For postmenopausal women, the data still remain much stronger at this point for a switch to an aromatase inhibitor," said that study's leader, Dr. Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a paid speaker for a company that makes one of those drugs.

Women in his study have not been followed long enough to see whether switching cuts deaths from breast cancer, as 10 years of tamoxifen did. Results are expected in about a year.

The cancer conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Health Science Center.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Capitalism and socialism wed as words of the year

NEW YORK (AP) — Thanks to the election, socialism and capitalism are forever wed as Merriam-Webster's most looked-up words of 2012.

Traffic for the unlikely pair on the company's website about doubled this year from the year before as the health care debate heated up and discussion intensified over "American capitalism" versus "European socialism," said the editor at large, Peter Sokolowski.

The choice revealed Wednesday was "kind of a no-brainer," he said. The side-by-side interest among political candidates and around kitchen tables prompted the dictionary folk to settle on two words of the year rather than one for the first time since the accolade began in 2003.

"They're words that sort of encapsulate the zeitgeist. They're words that are in the national conversation," said Sokolowski from company headquarters in Springfield, Mass. "The thing about an election year is it generates a huge amount of very specific interest."

Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot — all touched by politics — made the Top 10, in no particular order. The latter two were driven in part by the fight for same-sex marriage acceptance.

Last year's word of the year was austerity. Before that, it was pragmatic. Other words in the leading dictionary maker's Top 10 for 2012 were also politically motivated.

Harken back to Oct. 11, when Vice President Joe Biden tangled with Mitt Romney running mate Paul Ryan in a televised debate focused on foreign policy — terror attacks, defense spending and war, to be specific.

"With all due respect, that's a bunch of MALARKEY," declared Biden during a particularly tough row with Ryan. The mention sent look-ups of malarkey soaring on Merriam-webster.com, Sokolowski said, adding: "Clearly a one-week wonder, but what a week!"

Actually, it was more like what a day. Look-ups of malarkey represented the largest spike of a single word on the website by percentage, at 3,000 percent, in a single 24-hour period this year. The company won't release the number of page views per word but said the site gets about 1.2 billion overall each year.

Malarkey, with the alternative spelling of "y'' at the end, is of unknown origin, but Merriam-Webster surmises it's more Irish-American than Irish, tracing it to newspaper references as far back as 1929.

Beyond "nonsense," malarkey can mean "insincere or pretentious talk or writing designed to impress one and usually to distract attention from ulterior motives or actual conditions," noted Sokolowski.

"That's exactly what Joe Biden was saying. Very precise," especially in conversation with another Irish-American, Sokolowski said. "He chose a word that resonated with the public, I think in part because it really resonated with him. It made perfect sense for this man to use this word in this moment."

An interesting election-related phenom, to be sure, but malarkey is no dead Big Bird or "binders full of women" — two Romneyisms from the defeated candidate's televised matchups with Obama that evoked another of Merriam-Webster's Top 10 — meme.

While malarkey's history is shaded, meme's roots are easily traced to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a Brit who coined the term for a unit of cultural inheritance, not unlike genes and DNA. The retired professor at the University of Oxford made up the word in 1976 for "The Selfish Gene," a book he published light years before the Internet and social media's capacity to take memes viral.

Sokolowski said traffic for meme more than doubled this year over 2011, with dramatic spikes pegged to political-related subjects that included Romney's Big Bird and binders remarks, social media shares of images pegged to Hillary Clinton texting and Obama's "horses and bayonets" debate rebuke of Romney in an exchange over the size of the Navy.

Dawkins, reached at home in Oxford, was tickled by the dictionary shoutout.

"I'm very pleased that it's one of the 10 words that got picked out," he said. "I'm delighted. I hope it may bring more people to understand something about evolution."

The book in which he used meme for the first time is mostly about the gene as the primary unit of natural selection, or the Darwinian idea that only the strongest survive. In the last chapter, he said, he wanted to describe some sort of cultural replicator.

And he wanted a word that sounded like "gene," so he took a twist on the Greek mimeme, which is the origin of "mime" and "mimesis," a scientific term meaning imitation.

"It's a very clever coinage," lauded the lexicographer Sokolowski.

Other words in Merriam-Webster's Top 10 for 2012:

— Touche, thanks in part to "Survivor" contestant Kat Edorsson misusing the word to mean "tough luck" rather than point well made, before she was voted off the island in May. Look-ups at Merriam-webster.com were up sevenfold this year over 2011.

— Schadenfreude, made up of the German words for "damage" and "joy," meaning taking pleasure in the misery of others, was used broadly in the media after the election. Look-ups increased 75 percent. The word in English dates to 1895.

— Professionalism, up 12 percent this year over last. Sokolowski suspects the bump might have been due to the bad economy and more job seekers, or a knowing "glimpse into what qualities people value."

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Online: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

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South Loop residents oppose DePaul arena

The prospect of a DePaul University men's basketball arena being constructed on land just north of McCormick Place is drawing strong opposition from the Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance, a South Loop residents' organization, according to a letter released Tuesday.
 
A survey of 700 neighbors of the site, conducted by the community group, found more than 70 percent oppose construction of a Blue Demons arena there, Tina Feldstein, president of the organization, stated in the letter.
 
An arena would not fit within the residential and historic character of the area and could put two landmark structures, the Harriet F. Rees House and the American Book Co. building, at risk, the letter stated. It would also add to traffic congestion and potential rowdiness in an area already overburdened when conventions are in progress at McCormick Place or major events, including Chicago Bears games, are taking place at Soldier Field, Feldstein said in an interview.
 
"We're not against vibrant development, which hotel and retail would bring," Feldstein said. And the group would support an arena at an alternate site on the Near South Side, she said.
 
The letter was written in support of an alternate plan for the so-called "Olde Prairie" blocks, which is being put forward in bankruptcy court by developers Pam Gleichman, Karl Norberg and Gunnar Falk. Their plan calls for hotel and retail development on property directly north of the McCormick Place administrative offices and West Building on Cermak Road.
 
If they lose control of the property, it is expected to go up for auction, making it possible for the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, the state-city agency that owns McCormick Place, or other parties to make a run at it.
 
DePaul is weighing several sites, including property near McCormick Place and the United Center on the Near West Side. As well, the Allstate Arena in Rosemont is fighting to retain the team.
 
The neighborhood's opposition adds to resistance by Ald. Robert Fioretti, whose 2nd Ward includes McCormick Place.
 "That is not a place to put an arena -- far away from the school," he said. "I think there are traffic issues related, and it would be a bad deal for taxpayers in these economic times."

Fioretti noted such a project likely would require public subsidy.
 
The Olde Prairie blocks have not been officially designated as a potential site for a DePaul arena, but Fioretti said it is his understanding that they are being seriously considered.
 
Jim Reilly, chief executive officer of the exposition authority, known as McPier, has publicly acknowledged that there have been talks with DePaul. A spokeswoman on Tuesday said it would be premature to comment further at this point.

A DePaul spokesperson could not be reached for immediate comment.
 
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said he would like DePaul to bring men's basketball back to the city. A spokesman declined comment beyond that.
 kbergen@tribune.com | Twitter @kathy_bergen

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More than 1,000 teachers on strike in District 300

District 300 teachers walk picket line this morning. (WGN-TV / December 4, 2012)

Staff report

7:55 a.m. CST, December 4, 2012

Teachers in Carpentersville School District 300 went out on strike this morning after failing to reach an agreement on a new contract.

Negotiators for the teachers union and the school district met for nearly nine hours Monday but failed to reach an agreement, according to a statement posted by the school district.

Union officials have argued that teachers are underpaid compared to other suburban districts, yet administrators have portrayed them as “greedy and unreasonable,” according to a statement on the teachers union website.

The district in the far northwest suburbs has more than 20,000 students in grades kindergarten through 12 and employs about 1,200 teachers.

Several suburban teachers unions have staged walkouts since Chicago Public Schools teachers went on strike this fall. Most of the strikes lasted between one day and about a week.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Swiss spy agency warns U.S., Britain about huge data leak

ZURICH (Reuters) - Secret information on counter-terrorism shared by foreign governments may have been compromised by a massive data theft by a senior IT technician for the NDB, Switzerland's intelligence service, European national security sources said.

Intelligence agencies in the United States and Britain are among those who were warned by Swiss authorities that their data could have been put in jeopardy, said one of the sources, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information.

Swiss authorities arrested the technician suspected in the data theft last summer amid signs he was acting suspiciously. He later was released from prison while a criminal investigation by the office of Switzerland's Federal Attorney General continues, according to two sources familiar with the case.

The suspect's name was not made public. Swiss authorities believe he intended to sell the stolen data to foreign officials or commercial buyers.

A European security source said investigators now believe the suspect became disgruntled because he felt he was being ignored and his advice on operating the data systems was not being taken seriously.

Swiss news reports and the sources close to the investigation said that investigators believe the technician downloaded terrabytes, running into hundreds of thousands or even millions of printed pages, of classified material from the Swiss intelligence service's servers onto portable hard drives. He then carried them out of government buildings in a backpack.

One of the sources familiar with the investigation said that intelligence services like the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, routinely shared data on counter-terrorism and other issues with the NDB. Swiss authorities informed U.S. and British agencies that such data could have been compromised, the source said.

News of the theft of intelligence data surfaced with Switzerland's reputation for secrecy and discretion in government and financial affairs already under assault.

Swiss authorities have been investigating, and in some cases have charged, whistleblowers and some European government officials for using criminal methods to acquire confidential financial data about suspected tax evaders from Switzerland's traditionally secretive banks.

The suspect in the spy data theft worked for the NDB, or Federal Intelligence Service, which is part of Switzerland's Defense Ministry, for about eight years.

He was described by a source close to the investigation as a "very talented" technician and senior enough to have "administrator rights," giving him unrestricted access to most or all of the NDB's networks, including those holding vast caches of secret data.

Swiss investigators seized portable storage devices containing the stolen data after they arrested the suspect, according to the sources. At this point, they said, Swiss authorities believe that the suspect was arrested and the stolen data was impounded before he had an opportunity to sell it.

However, one source said that Swiss investigators could not be positive the suspect did not sell or pass on any of the information before his arrest, which is why Swiss authorities felt obliged to notify foreign intelligence partners their information may have been compromised.

Representatives of U.S. and British intelligence agencies had no immediate response to detailed queries about the case submitted by Reuters, although one U.S. official said he was unaware of the case.

SECURITY PROCEDURES QUESTIONED

Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber and a senior prosecutor, Carolo Bulletti, announced in September that they were investigating the data theft and its alleged perpetrator. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said she was prohibited by law from disclosing the suspect's identity.

A spokesman for the NDB said he could not comment on the investigation.

At their September press conference, Swiss officials indicated that they believed the suspect intended to sell the data he stole to foreign countries. They did not talk about the possible compromise of information shared with the NDB by U.S. and British intelligence.

A European source familiar with the case said it raised serious questions about security procedures and structures at the NDB, a relatively new agency which combined the functions of predecessor agencies that separately conducted foreign and domestic intelligence activities for the Swiss government.

The source said that under the NDB's present structure, its human resources staff - responsible for, among other things, ensuring the reliability and trustworthiness of the agency's personnel - is lumped together organizationally with the agency's information technology division. This potentially made it difficult or confusing for the subdivision's personnel to investigate themselves, the source said.

According to the source, investigators now believe that in the months before his arrest, the data theft suspect displayed warning signs that should have been spotted by his bosses or by security officials.

The source said that the suspect became so disgruntled earlier this year that he stopped showing up for work.

However, according to Swiss news reports, the NDB did not realize that something was amiss until the largest Swiss bank, UBS, expressed concern to authorities about a potentially suspicious attempt to set up a new numbered bank account, which then was traced to the NDB technician.

A Swiss parliamentary committee is now conducting its own investigation into the data theft and is expected to report next spring. Investigators are known to be concerned that the NDB lacks investigative powers, such as to search premises or conduct wiretaps, which are widely used by counter-intelligence investigators in other countries.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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NFC East wide open after Redskins top Giants 17-16

LANDOVER, Md. (AP) — There was the fumble by Robert Griffin III that turned into a Washington Redskins touchdown. There was the fumble by teammate Alfred Morris that led to a melee of leg-pulling followed by a kick to the midsection and something dangerously close to a stomp.

The quartet of flawed teams that make up the NFC East sure do make things interesting.

The division title that seemingly belonged to the New York Giants is up for grabs after their 17-16 loss Monday night to the Redskins, who are back in the running thanks to a rookie quarterback and a three-game winning streak.

"We had an opportunity here today," New York coach Tom Coughlin said. "But now there's one team with seven and two teams with six wins. There's four games to go."

That about sums it up.

Now that the Giants (7-5) have lost three of four, the Redskins (6-6) and Cowboys (6-6) are squarely in the hunt despite mediocre records. Washington has dispatched each of its division rivals — Philadelphia, Dallas and now New York — one by one over the last three weeks to recover from a 3-6 start that prompted coach Mike Shanahan to talk about evaluating players for future seasons.

"We know that our backs are against the wall," said Griffin, whose Redskins host Dallas in what they hope will be a meaningful season finale. "And even though we won tonight, our backs are still against the wall."

It'll be hard to count the Redskins out as long as Griffin is on the field. He completed 13 of 21 passes for 163 yards and a go-ahead, 8-yard touchdown to Pierre Garcon in the fourth quarter to finish with a 101.9 passer rating. He also ran for 72 yards to get to 714 for the season, breaking Cam Newton's NFL record for a rookie quarterback.

It was his sixth game with a 100-plus passer rating, his eighth without an interception — and his second in which one of his fumbles turned into a Redskins score.

On the way to the turf after a 12-yard run, Griffin was stripped by Stevie Brown — but the ball flew right to teammate Joshua Morgan 3 yards upfield. Morgan then ran 13 yards for a first-quarter touchdown no one would ever diagram on a whiteboard.

"We didn't run it in practice because we wanted to save it for the game," Griffin said with a grin. "I knew he was going to be there for it. ... Joshua did a good job being in the spot where he was supposed to be."

The game's other fumble was just as chaotic — and a little scary. After Morris was stripped during a third-quarter run, New York defensive tackle Linval Joseph yanked at Redskins center Will Montgomery's leg while players were fighting for the ball in the pile.

Montgomery kicked out in response, a swipe that Joseph said hit him in the groin.

"I was just trying to get my leg loose," Montgomery said.

Joseph then stomped at Montgomery, appearing to pull back at the last second but still making contact.

"It took me everything not to kick him back because I didn't want hurt the team, and I didn't want to get fined and none of that," Joseph said. "I started, then I stopped."

Joseph and a Redskins player were whistled for offsetting unnecessary roughness penalties.

Morris finished with 124 yards, reaching 1,106 for the season to break Reggie Brooks' franchise rookie rushing record of 1,063, set in 1993. Garcon caught eight passes for 106 yards, showing no signs of the painful toe injury that forced him to miss six of the season's first nine games.

Eli Manning completed 20 of 33 passes for 280 yards and a touchdown, and Ahmad Bradshaw ran for 103 yards on 24 carries for the Giants. Victor Cruz, who caught the game-winning score when the teams met in the Meadowlands in October, had five catches for 104 yards.

The Giants moved the ball well, but they only managed three field goals by Lawrence Tynes and one touchdown — Manning's 4-yard pass to Martellus Bennett late in the second quarter.

Tynes also missed a 43-yard field goal, and the Giants were uncharacteristically penalty-prone, getting flagged nine times for 73 yards. New York led 13-10 at the half, but scored only three more points.

"This is not real complicated. I don't know what happened in the second half," Coughlin said. "We certainly didn't come out and play. Penalties. Sloppy football."

NOTES: The Giants had won 26 in a row on the road when holding a halftime lead. They last failed to finish the job in 2006 against Tennessee. ... The Redskins snapped a 10-game home losing streak in Monday night games. ... Shanahan got his 171st win (regular and postseason), tying him with Redskins' Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs for 12th all time. ... New York S Tyler Sash left the game with a hamstring injury, and RT Sean Locklear was carted off in the fourth quarter with a knee injury.

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Follow Joseph White on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

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“Boardwalk Empire” creator on legalizing drugs and making Nucky likeable again

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – The prohibition drama “Boardwalk Empire” wrapped its spectacular third season Sunday night just weeks after the states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana.

To “Boardwalk” creator Terence Winter, who has immersed himself in the history of prohibition to research his gangster epic, the votes feel like a move in the right direction.

“It’s great. I think they should legalize drugs in general,” Winter told TheWrap. “The war on drugs is clearly not working, and I think they should take the profit motive out of being a drug dealer. And maybe kids will go to college and do something else.”

Winter, who reassembled his writers a few weeks ago to begin work on the show’s fourth season, talked to us about whether they ever go out of their way to slow down the action, making Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) likable again, and whether things are worse today than they were in the 1920s.

TheWrap: Is ‘Boardwalk’ making a case for drug legalization?

Winter: Well, I think history made it for us with prohibition. We’re just reflecting the reality of how it went down. I’m not trying to bend the reality or the truth of what happened. It clearly didn’t work. I don’t think people were more disposed to drink when alcohol was legal.

Actually, it had the opposite effect. Women didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted and college students didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted. Leaving the mystery aside might have had a better impact on the country – keeping it legal. In my personal opinion I don’t think making drugs legal would make anybody more likely to become a heroin addict, for example.

This is going to sound strange, but I mean it as a compliment. “Boardwalk” has a way of lulling you into looking at the costumes, and listening to the dialogue, and marveling at how pretty everything is. There are times when I almost want to nod off, it’s so comforting – and then suddenly someone gets set on fire. I feel you’re making a conscious effort to use boredom to really shock us at other times. Do you ever put in a scene that’s deliberately slow?

No, we don’t. I would disagree and say – slow or boring – there is dialogue that needs to be attended to and I think you need to pay attention to what’s going on. The pacing can sometimes be slower than certainly an action scene or a scene with incredible violence. Because we have such wide-ranging characters and such wide-ranging circumstances, some things might seem slower by comparison.

Obviously a scene involving a political figure or Margaret’s storyline, as opposed to something Al Capone is doing, is just by the very nature of it going to feel slow. But no, none of it is done by design.

I mean it in a good way. If you think things are slowing down, they’re not. It’s almost a trick.

The audience is so wide-ranging, too. We have people who can’t stand the violence and they’re much more entertained by the family stuff. One person’s slow is another person’s fascinating.

With the final episodes we got to see Nucky become really likable again. He’s always been generous, but at times he seemed a little too caught up in himself to care about the people around him. Was there an effort to make him a good guy again?

One of the points of this season is that he does get caught up in himself. That all comes home to visit in a big way in episode 11. He doesn’t know anything about Eddie Kessler the guy who works really closely with him. He doesn’t know if he has a family. He doesn’t know Chalky White’s phone number. It becomes apparent that he’s spent way too much time concerned with himself and his own affairs.

If you depict any character honestly, and show all of their colors, you’re going to find something relatable or likeable with anybody. And that’s certainly the truth with Al Capone or Luciano or Tony Soprano or any other famous character.

And certainly Steve Buscemi has an inherent likable quality to him. So when you add that to the mix you can’t help but like the guy.

Imagery is so important to the show, and I feel like at one point this season you did something just because it was gorgeous. When Billie changes her hair color to blonde, was there any reason to do that besides how incredible it looked in the explosion?

Well, she was sort of finally coming to terms with who she really was. That was the episode where she dropped the façade of Billie Kent and told Nucky her real name. She was going through a metamorphosis and that sort of illustrated that a little bit. They were sort of not pretending with each other any more.

Is Billie a natural blonde?

That color wasn’t natural. She wasn’t being Billie Kent that night. She was being the real person underneath. … But I agree it did look great in the explosion. Meg Chambers Steedle, who plays Billie Kent, is absolutely one of those people the camera just falls in love with. Unfortunately the context was terrible. But it was extremely cinematic.

Harrow kind of became the hero of the show this season. His scene of taking down the entire house full of gangsters: Wow. We’ve always been fascinated with the character and for me this season I was more interested in seeing who he is as a person and seeing him take that journey and fall in love and really explore that side of him. Given the way the story was, we knew it would end in violence.

But following the trajectory from the end of season 2, we knew this guy was very loyal to Jimmy and Angela and we knew he would stick around and take care of that kid. And of course Gillian being who she is, it wasn’t going to end well.

Is Gillian kaput at this point? The last time we saw her she was in a heroin daze, and she’s kind of lost everything.

She will be back on the show. She’s certainly still alive.

Is there anybody on the show you think you can’t kill?

Nope. Everybody’s up for grabs and that’s from the top on down. Anything can happen.

We hear so much about how much trouble our country is in. Do you think things are worse than they were in the 1920s?

No, and if anything, reading about how bad things were in the 1920s is strangely comforting in terms of how we think about things today. The level of corruption and the whole idea of going to hell in a hand basket is certainly nothing new. You look back and think, this pales in comparison. I think the more things change the more they stay the same.

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