Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

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Iceland, Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns

Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

"Greed is not a crime. But the question is: where does greed lead?" said Olafur Hauksson, a special prosecutor in Reykjavik.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — As chief of police in a tiny fishing town for 11 years, Olafur Hauksson developed what he thought was a basic understanding of the criminal mind. The typical lawbreaker, he said, recalling his many encounters with small-time criminals, “clearly knows that he crossed the line” and generally sees “the difference between right and wrong.”

Today, the burly, 48-year-old former policeman is struggling with a very different sort of suspect. Reassigned to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, to lead what has become one of the world’s most sweeping investigation into the bankers whose actions contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Hauksson now faces suspects who “are not aware of when they crossed the line” and “defend their actions every step of the way.”

With the global economy still struggling to recover from the financial maelstrom five years ago, governments around the world have been criticized for largely failing to punish the bankers who were responsible for the calamity. But even here in Iceland, a country of just 320,000 that has gone after financiers with far more vigor than the United States and other countries hit by the crisis, obtaining criminal convictions has proved devilishly difficult.

Public hostility toward bankers is so strong in Iceland that “it is easier to say you are dealing drugs than to say you’re a banker,” said Thorvaldur Sigurjonsson, the former head of trading for Kaupthing, a once high-flying bank that crumbled. He has been called in for questioning by Mr. Hauksson’s office but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Yet, in the four years since the Icelandic Parliament passed a law ordering the appointment of an unnamed special prosecutor to investigate those blamed for the country’s spectacular meltdown in 2008, only a handful of bankers have been convicted.

Ministers in a left-leaning coalition government elected after the crash agree that the wheels of justice have ground slowly, but they call for patience, explaining that the process must follow the law, not vengeful passions.

“We are not going after people just to satisfy public anger,” said Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, Iceland’s minister of industry, a former finance minister and leader of the Left-Green Movement that is part of the governing coalition.

Hordur Torfa, a popular singer-songwriter who helped organize protests that forced the previous conservative government to resign, acknowledged that “people are getting impatient” but said they needed to accept that “this is not the French Revolution. I don’t believe in taking bankers out and hanging them or shooting them.”

Others are less patient. “The whole process is far too slow,” said Thorarinn Einarsson, a left-wing activist. “It only shows that ‘banksters’ can get away with doing whatever they want.”

Mr. Hauksson, the special prosecutor, said he was frustrated by the slow pace but thought it vital that his office scrupulously follow legal procedure. “Revenge is not something we want as our main driver in this process. Our work must be proper today and be seen as proper in the future,” he said.

Part of the difficulty in prosecuting bankers, he said, is that the law is often unclear on what constitutes a criminal offense in high finance. “Greed is not a crime,” he noted. “But the question is: where does greed lead?”

Mr. Hauksson said it was often easy to show that bankers violated their own internal rules for lending and other activities, but “as in all cases involving theft or fraud, the most difficult thing is proving intent.”

And there are the bankers themselves. Those who have been brought in for questioning often bristle at being asked to account for their actions. “They are not used to being questioned. These people are not used to finding themselves in this situation,” Mr. Hauksson said. They also hire expensive lawyers.

The special prosecutor’s office initially had only five staff members but now has more than 100 investigators, lawyers and financial experts, and it has relocated to a big new office. It has opened about 100 cases, with more than 120 people now under investigation for possible crimes relating to an Icelandic financial sector that grew so big it dwarfed the rest of the economy.

To help ease Mr. Hauksson’s task, legislators amended the law to allow investigators easy access to confidential bank information, something that previously required a court order.

Parliament also voted to put the country’s prime minister at the time of the banking debacle on trial for negligence before a special tribunal. (A proposal to try his cabinet failed.) Mr. Hauksson was not involved in the case against the former leader, Geir H. Haarde, who last year was found guilty of failing to keep ministers properly informed about the 2008 crisis but was acquitted on more serious charges that could have resulted in a prison sentence.

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Edward Koch dies at 88; outspoken mayor led New York City comeback

In the late 1970s when Edward I. Koch won his first term as mayor of New York, the city was in shambles, its coffers and confidence sapped by financial crises and a paralyzing blackout. It needed a fighter and found one in Koch, a well-practiced pol with the determination — and bite — of a bulldog.

He steered the city out of bankruptcy and restored its swagger, a one-man cheerleading squad who personified the witty and feisty New Yorker.

The three-term mayor of New York and perennial civic combatant, who rallied and riled the city in and out of office with his tenacious style and irrepressible opinions, died Friday of congestive heart failure at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital, said his friend and spokesman George Arzt. He was 88.

Koch had been hospitalized Monday, a day before a documentary about him, "Koch," premiered in New York City. He had been hospitalized several times in recent months for breathing problems and other ailments.

For most of his adult life, Koch had lived alone in an apartment off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. It was where he departed the morning in 1978 when he rode a public bus to City Hall to be sworn in as the city's 105th mayor and where he returned 12 years later, after a disastrous fourth run to keep the job he clearly relished and worked hard at. He spent the rest of his life out of public office but rarely out of public view.

He juggled almost a dozen jobs — including law partner, columnist, author, radio show host, playwright, movie reviewer and lecturer — and appeared relentlessly in the media, a shtick-artist with one of the most recognizable New York accents in the world. When he wasn't bellowing at opponents on political round tables, he was hawking such products as diet aids and soft drinks in advertisements and popping up in screen cameos as himself, the quintessential New Yorker, alongside Carrie and the girls in television episodes of "Sex and the City" or with Big Bird in the 1984 film "The Muppets Take Manhattan."

His support was pivotal in Republican Bob Turner's victory in the September 2011 special election in the heavily Democratic congressional district that had been represented by Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was forced to resign in a "sexting" scandal. "Ed Koch was enough to turn this around," Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said after Turner's win.

For his 86th birthday in 2010, New York's current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, renamed the bridge linking Manhattan to Koch's home borough of Queens the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, saying it was, like Koch, "a resilient, hard-working New York City icon."

"He was a great mayor, a great man, and a great friend," Bloomberg said Friday in a statement. "In elected office and as a private citizen, he was our most tireless, fearless and guileless civic crusader. Through his tough, determined leadership and responsible fiscal stewardship, Ed helped lift the city out of its darkest days and set it on course for an incredible comeback."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo echoed the sentiment: "No New Yorker has — or likely ever will — voice their love for New York City in such a passionate and outspoken manner than Ed Koch."

"He was the epitome of New York — loud, funny, opinionated, smart," said Arzt, who was Koch's City Hall spokesman and part of an administration alumni group that lunched with him every Saturday after he left office. "Ed was very much a straight-shooter, a champion of the middle class, a moderate Democrat akin to a Harry Truman. He defied categories."

In fact, Koch loved to enrage liberals by doing and saying the unthinkable — endorsing Republican politicians such Rudolph Giuliani and George W. Bush. But Koch also held fast to many liberal values. One of his first executive orders as mayor was adding sexual preference to a citywide ban on job discrimination.

He invited controversy and enjoyed confrontation. He once wrestled an egg-throwing heckler to the floor before the police could move in.

Altogether, Koch wrote or co-authored 17 books, including eight autobiographies, two children's books and multiple mystery novels starring himself as the detective.

Koch opined freely, never mincing words: Movie tickets were too expensive; the United Nations, after an anti-Israel vote, was "made up of gangsters, cutthroats and piranhas"; a Puerto Rican mayoral rival was a "poverty pimp"; Sarah Palin was likable but "scares the hell out of me." He never lost interest in his favorite subject — himself. "How'm I doin'?" was his trademark question.

The only topics that remained off limits were his heroic service as an infantryman in World War II — he was awarded two battle stars — and his sexuality. A lifelong bachelor, he was dogged by questions about his sexuality, which he largely ignored, although he did on two occasions describe himself as heterosexual. "I ran in a total of 24 elections and won 21," he once told the New York Times. "I will not be a coward and say I am straight or I'm gay, because it's no one's business. I got where I am today not because of sexuality or gender but because people thought I was the best at what I did...."

In recent years, Koch appeared to mellow, seeking reconciliation with former rivals, but he refused to yield when it came to standards for public service. As recently as the summer of 2010, the octogenarian ginned up a campaign called "New York Uprising" to reform state government. Despite a history of heart disease that left him with two pacemakers and a degenerative spinal disorder that caused the once-strapping 6-foot-1 former mayor to be stooped in old age, he embarked in a Jeep on a campaign-style press tour around upstate New York to shame reluctant legislators in their home districts into signing a pledge to "clean up Albany."

This was shortly after Koch, ever the showman, revealed he had finalized plans for his funeral and penned his epitaph. His gravestone will declare his pride in his religion — "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish" — and his "fierce" love of his city and country.

Edward Irving Koch was born Dec. 12, 1924, in the Bronx and spent his early years in Newark, N.J., where his family moved after his furrier father went broke during the Great Depression. Koch attended the City College of New York before being drafted into the Army; he eventually graduated from New York University's law school and joined a liberal political reform group in Greenwich Village, the Village Independent Democrats. He served as a district leader, city councilman and for 10 years represented the East Side and lower Manhattan in Congress.

The second of three children, Koch is survived by his sister, Pat Koch Thaler. A brother, Harold, died in 1995.

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BlackBerry chooses more traditional route to drum up buzz over Super Bowl ad

TORONTO – After a week of massive hype for its new smartphones, BlackBerry has decided to remain secretive about its Super Bowl commercial in an effort to squeeze every bit of juice out of the pricey advertising campaign.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company, formerly known as Research In Motion (TSX:RIM), released a single frame of the 30-second TV spot on Friday, without any explanation of what it was, or what it meant.

The move goes against the trend of unleashing Super Bowl ads on the Internet ahead of the big game in an effort to generate extra hype.

This year, smartphone competitor Samsung chose to release its commercial starring comedians Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd on Thursday. Other major companies like Mercedes and Coke have also put their ads online.

Recent statistics have shown that advertisers gain more traction from their Super Bowl TV spots if they’re released online before the event, which takes place on Sunday.

Last year, the Super Bowl ads uploaded to YouTube before the game were viewed 600 per cent more times, an average of 9.1 million views, compared to the ones that were put online after the game, according to the streaming video service owned by Google.

Going against the trend, the BlackBerry maker will keep smartphone users guessing about what their advertisement is about and who it might feature. Certainly the company’s publicity team carefully chose which frame to release as its sneak preview.

The frame shows an early 1980s Honda Accord is parked alongside a meter. Behind it, there’s a colourful explosion of powder in front of stairs leading up to apartment No. 437.

The clues would suggest harkening back to the birth of the IBM personal computer, introduced to the market in 1981 using the coding 437 as its original character set, or more simply, the appearance of its font on screen.

It may be a clue because BlackBerry chief executive Thorsten Heins has touted the launch of the new smartphones this week as a new era in mobile computing because the devices have nearly the same amount of processing power as a personal computer.

All of that won’t be proven true or false until the game on Sunday evening where the BlackBerry ad will air sometime after the third quarter, the company said.

The Super Bowl is the most-watched television event of the year, drawing 111.3 million U.S. viewers in 2012.

In Canada, last year’s broadcast drew a record 8.1 million viewers.

The event is also the most expensive event for advertisers, costing an average of $ 3.4 million for a 30-second spot on NBC last year, according to ratings firm Nielsen.

This year, estimates for how much CBS is charging for a 30-second spot vary wildly from between $ 3.6 million to $ 4 million. CTV declined to say how much it charges for Canadian airtime.

Also slated in the Super Bowl commercial lineup are advertisements from the Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO), with different versions airing on both sides of the border.

In the U.S., the company has purchased airtime in the midwest where its banks have a strong presence under the BMO Harris Bank brand. In the commercial, dubbed “Dream Home,” a young couple ponders the possibilities of buying a home, before they’re surprised when a real estate agent throws up a “For Sale” sign right in front of them.

BMO has also bought airtime in Canada, though it will be showing a commercial that has already aired during prime time.

Last year, a Harris-Decima Canadian Press poll found that more Canadians planned to watch the Super Bowl ads than the football game itself.

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Mike Tyson’s Controversial ”Law & Order: SVU” Episode Moved Up a Week

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – NBC is sticking with its decision to cast Mike Tyson in an upcoming episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” In fact, it’s moving the episode up a week from its original air date.

Tyson’s guest spot on “SVU” – which sparked outrage online, in light of Tyson’s rape conviction – will air February 6. The episode was originally scheduled to air on February 13.

On the episode, former boxing champ Tyson plays Reggie Rhodes, a murderer on death row who was the victim of a difficult childhood. (Andre Braugher, most recently of ABC’s “Last Resort,” also guest-stars.)

After news of the episode broke, a petition was posted on Change.org, urging NBC to cast someone other than Tyson in the role, or to pull the episode altogether.

“Am I the only one who remembers that Mike Tyson was CONVICTED and sent to prison for raping Desiree Washington?” Marcie Kaveney, an abuse survivor and advocate who started the petition, wrote in her online plea. “I am sorry but I see this as just another way to clean-up his image.”

“While we understand Mr. Tyson has served his time; it seems as though the only person who will benefit from his guest appearance will be him,” the petition, addressed to various NBC executives as well as “SVU” creator Dick Wolf and showrunner Warren Leight, reads. “There are many sexual assault survivors as well as others who consider your decision to be in poor judgment. Mr. Tyson has never publicly apologized to his victim nor has he admitted his crime. In fact, he has publicly ridiculed his victim.”

The petition has so far amassed more than 12,000 signatures.

In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping beauty pageant contestant Washington. Sentenced to six years in prison, he ultimately served three.

NBC had no comment for TheWrap on why the episode was rescheduled. However, an individual with knowledge of the shuffle told TheWrap that, contrary to earlier reports, the rescheduling is unconnected to the fact that One Billion Rising, a protest in support of female abuse victims, is scheduled to take place the day after the original air date.

Tyson has dabbled in show business in recent years, appearing in cameos in “The Hangover” movie franchise, and performing in a one-man show, “Undisputed Truth,” which is scheduled to begin a tour next month.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Birth Control Rule Altered to Allay Religious Objections

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday proposed yet another compromise to address strenuous objections from religious organizations about a policy requiring health insurance plans to provide free contraceptives, but the change did not end the political furor or legal fight over the issue.

The proposal could expand the number of groups that do not need to pay directly for birth control coverage, encompassing not only churches and other religious organizations, but also some religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and social service agencies. Health insurance companies would pay for the coverage.

The latest proposed change is the third in the last 15 months, all announced on Fridays, as President Obama has struggled to balance women’s rights, health care and religious liberty. Legal experts said the fight could end up in the Supreme Court.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the proposal would guarantee free coverage of birth control “while respecting religious concerns.”

But Kyle Duncan, the general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington, which is representing employers in eight lawsuits, said the litigation would continue. “Today’s proposed rule does nothing to protect the religious freedom of millions of Americans,” Mr. Duncan said.

Religious groups dissatisfied with the new proposal want a broader, more explicit exemption for religious organizations and protection for secular businesses owned by people with religious objections to contraceptive coverage.

The tortured history of the rule has played out in several chapters. The Obama administration first issued standards requiring insurers to cover contraceptives for women in August 2011, less than a month after receiving recommendations to that effect from the National Academy of Sciences. In January 2012, the administration rejected a broad exemption sought by the Roman Catholic Church for insurance provided by Catholic hospitals, colleges and charities. After a firestorm of criticism from Catholic bishops and Republican lawmakers, the administration offered a possible compromise that February. But it left many questions unanswered and did not say how coverage would be provided for self-insured religious organizations.

Under the new proposal, churches and nonprofit religious organizations that object to providing birth control coverage on religious grounds would not have to pay for it.

Female employees could get free contraceptive coverage through a separate plan that would be provided by a health insurer. Institutions objecting to the coverage would not pay for the contraceptives.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who helped develop the proposal as deputy director of the federal office that regulates health insurance, said: “Under the proposed rule, insurance companies — not churches or other religious organizations — will cover contraceptive services. No nonprofit religious institution will be forced to pay for or provide contraceptive coverage, and churches and houses of worship are specifically exempt.”

Moreover, she said, “Nonprofit religious organizations like universities, hospitals or charities with religious objections won’t have to arrange, contract or pay for coverage of these services for their employees or students.”

But some of the lawsuits objecting to the plan have been filed by businesses owned by people who say they have religious reasons for not wanting to provide contraceptive coverage. Under the proposed rule, “for-profit secular employers” would have to provide birth control coverage to employees, even if the business owners had a religious objection to the idea.

Insurers said they were studying the proposal, but had questions about how it would work. Many insurers asked where they would get the money to pay for birth control pills if — as the proposed rule says — they cannot “impose any premium, fee or other charge” for the coverage. The 2010 health care law generally requires employers to provide women with coverage at no cost for “preventive care and screenings,” which the administration says must include contraceptives for women under most health plans.

The administration says employers must cover sterilization and the full range of contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including emergency contraceptive pills, like those known as ella and Plan B One-Step. Employers that do not provide such coverage will be subject to financial penalties.

The proposed rule is somewhat ambiguous about exactly who would pay the cost of contraceptive coverage.

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Media Decoder Blog: In Wake of Restructuring, NBC News President Quits

8:30 p.m. | Updated

The longest-serving president of any of the three network news divisions, Steve Capus of NBC News, stepped down from his position on Friday, six months after Comcast restructured its news units in a way that diminished his authority.

Pat Fili-Krushel, chairwoman of the NBCUniversal News Group, said in a brief telephone interview on Friday that she would “cast a wide net” while searching for a successor to Mr. Capus. In the interim, the leaders of the news division will report directly to her.

Ms. Fili-Krushel became Mr. Capus’s boss last July when Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBCUniversal, consolidated all of NBC’s news units — NBC News, the cable news channels MSNBC and CNBC, and its stake in the Weather Channel — under a new umbrella, the NBCUniversal News Group. Mr. Burke asked Ms. Fili-Krushel, one of his most trusted lieutenants, to run it, while keeping Mr. Capus and the heads of the other units in place.

Ms. Fili-Krushel worked early in her career at HBO and Lifetime. A veteran of the Walt Disney Company, where she helped program ABC, and  Time Warner, where she was an administrator, she is by her own admission not a journalist.  But now she is, by default, the highest-ranking woman in the American television news industry — not just at the moment, but in the history of the medium. The heads of the news divisions at ABC and CBS are men, as are the heads of the Fox News Channel, CNN, and Bloomberg.

Ms. Fili-Krushel has kept a low public profile, but has been a forceful presence behind the scenes, recently moving from her office on the 51st floor of 30 Rockefeller Center, near Mr. Burke’s, to a new one on the third floor, where NBC News is based. On Friday, she said she had spent her first six months “learning, listening and getting to know the players here.” She called the News Group an “unbelievably strong organization.”

Though Mr. Capus’s exit saddened many at NBC News on Friday, it came as little surprise. He had previously reported directly to Mr. Burke, but after the restructuring he reported to Ms. Fili-Krushel, and he made no secret of his unhappiness with the change. His contract had a clause that allowed him to leave in the event that he no longer reported to Mr. Burke, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement at NBC, and he decided to exercise that right after months of contemplation. The people insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized by the network to speak publicly.

Mr. Capus told Ms. Fili-Krushel of his intent to leave last Friday. It is likely that he would have left sooner, but a series of major news stories kept him busy late last year — including Hurricane Sandy, the presidential election and the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Mr. Capus also oversaw the network’s response to the kidnapping of Richard Engel and an NBC News crew in Syria last month.

“It has been a privilege to have spent two decades here, but it is now time to head in a new direction,” he wrote in an e-mail to staff members on Friday afternoon.

Mr. Capus guided NBC through a revolutionary time in news-gathering and distribution. He maintained the news division’s profitability, managed tensions between NBC News and its increasingly liberal cable channel MSNBC, and fostered new business ventures like an in-house production company and an annual education summit. Last year, he unwound an old deal with Microsoft to give the news division complete control over its Web site, now named NBCNews.com, for the first time.

Ms. Fili-Krushel wrote in a separate e-mail to staff members that “NBC News is America’s leading source of television news and Steve has been a big part of that success.”

NBC News is the producer of the most popular evening newscast in the country. But its single biggest source of profits, the morning show “Today,” fell to second place last year, behind ABC’s “Good Morning America,” for the first time since the 1990s. The decline caused widespread anxiety inside the news division and speculation that Mr. Capus would be relieved of his duties.

Inside NBC, both Mr. Capus and the executive producer of “Today,” Jim Bell, received much of the blame for the botched removal of Ann Curry from “Today” last June, which worsened the show’s already tenuous position in the ratings. Ms. Fili-Krushel was put in charge just a few weeks later.

Mr. Bell was replaced at “Today” last fall and is now the executive producer for NBC Olympics. Savannah Guthrie is now the co-host of “Today,” and Ms. Curry is a national and international correspondent for the network, but is rarely seen. Mr. Capus’s exit was seen by some at the network as the last shoe that had to drop.

In his e-mail to staff members, Mr. Capus called it an “extremely difficult decision to walk away,” noting that he started at NBC as a producer 20 years ago this month. He did not make any mention of what he would do next. “Journalism is, indeed, a noble calling, and I have much I hope to accomplish in the next phase of my career,” he wrote.

“Today” continues to lose to ABC’s “Good Morning America” among total viewers, but lately it has won a few weeks in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic that advertisers covet.

“NBC Nightly News” has more successfully fended off ABC’s “World News,” despite an aggressive push by ABC. Mr. Capus said, “NBC News has grown in all key metrics — from ratings and reputation to profitability.”

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Hagel hearing reopens Senate wounds

WASHINGTON — Chuck Hagel, who was twice wounded as an enlisted soldier in Vietnam, came under withering attack Thursday as he battled former Republican colleagues in the Senate who sharply questioned whether he should be secretary of Defense.

In a daylong confirmation hearing notable for its raw emotion, Hagel was challenged to explain — and often to retract — earlier comments critical of Israel, his onetime skepticism of the nuclear threat from Iran, and perhaps most memorably, whether he could name a single "dumb" action the Senate had taken under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.

Hagel, who appeared beleaguered at times, said he could not.

The spectacle often seemed more about Republicans publicly settling scores with the 66-year-old Nebraskan, who spent two terms in the Senate and retired in 2009. He grew increasingly estranged from his GOP colleagues after he began to criticize the war in Iraq, expressed doubts about use of force against Iran and lent support to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

Hagel sometimes stumbled answering the rapid-fire questions, at one point misstating — later correcting himself — the White House policy on preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

He still appears likely to win confirmation by the full Senate, which has a Democratic majority.

If confirmed, Hagel would be the first Vietnam combat veteran to lead the Pentagon. The former Army sergeant, who spent 1967-68 fighting in the Mekong Delta, would inherit a Defense Department facing potentially drastic budget cuts, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the war in Afghanistan, a growing debate over targeted killings by drone aircraft, an emerging conflict with insurgent groups in North Africa, the integration of women into direct ground combat roles, and other tasks.

But on Thursday, the battle over his nomination reopened contentious national security debates from years past. At times the session seemed more an inquisition than a typical confirmation hearing.

In the most striking example, Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who lost to Obama in 2008, ripped into Hagel for his critique of the Iraq war, displaying how the bond forged between the former colleagues by their military service in Vietnam had been torn apart by another war.

"The question is, were you right or were you wrong?" McCain demanded, pressing Hagel on why he opposed President George W. Bush's decision to send 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the so-called surge.

"I'm not going to give you a yes-or-no answer. I think its far more complicated than that," Hagel responded calmly. He said he would await the "judgment of history."

Glaring at Hagel, McCain ended the exchange with a bitter rejoinder: "I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, sir, and you are on the wrong side of it."

Hagel faced tough questioning even from Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee who have announced they intend to vote for him.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, took issue with what he called Hagel's "troubling" statements about Israel, his calls for direct talks with the militant group Hamas and his advocating against isolating Iran.

"While there is value in communicating with our adversaries, the formulation used by Sen. Hagel seemed to imply a willingness to talk to Iran on some issues that I believe most would view as nonnegotiable," Levin said.

When the hearing began, Hagel said he stood by his record in public service even as he urged lawmakers to look beyond his now-controversial votes and statements. He noted that he had cast thousands of votes during his Senate career and given hundreds of interviews and speeches.

"As you all know, I am on the record on many issues," he said. "But no one individual vote, no one individual quote, no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record."

Since his nomination last month, Hagel has clarified or apologized for several controversial statements. He also sought to rebut critics who warned he may not push hard enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

"We were in a different place with Iran at that time," Hagel said Thursday, explaining why he once voted against imposing unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran. "It was never a question of did I disagree with the objective" of denying Iran nuclear weapons.

But he clearly didn't satisfy Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who seemed outraged at Hagel's 2006 remark in an interview that "the Jewish lobby" had intimidated members of the Senate into doing "dumb things" not in the interest of Israel.

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BSkyB to offer sports channels online for daily fee

LONDON (Reuters) – BSkyB will offer its popular sports channels online for a daily fee, seeking new customers to offset slowing growth at its core pay-TV service amid sluggish consumer spending.

Sky, Britain’s dominant pay-TV group which provides fixed-line telephony, TV and broadband to 10.7 million households, has adapted its strategy during the economic downturn after years of chasing new subscribers to its core TV offering.

The group added 25,000 subscribers to its pay-TV service in the three months to the end of December, well down on the more than 100,000 users it used to routinely add each quarter.

In response, it has focused on selling more products such as high definition TV and broadband to existing customers, and moving online to reach those not willing to sign up to a monthly contract. The approach has enabled the group to consistently post strong financial results and pay higher dividends.

“Although we expect the consumer environment in 2013 to remain challenging, we have a strong set of plans for the year ahead,” Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch said on Thursday.

Darroch said the group would offer its sports channels, which show everything from Premier League soccer to Formula One motor racing and cricket, on its new online service called Now TV in the next few months.

Viewers, who do not need to sign up to a contract, will be able to pay 9.99 pounds to watch all six Sky Sports channels for 24 hours. It has already shown movies via the online offering to 25,000 customers since its launch last year.

The new internet drive will help BSkyB compete with existing online services such as Lovefilm and with BT Vision, which has won the right to show its own sports content, but it is also having to bet that its existing customers will not downgrade to the cheaper online offering to save money.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

The group’s performance in the first half of the year showed that, despite the pressures on consumer spending, customer loyalty had remained relatively solid, with subscribers spending on average 568 pounds a year, up 24 pounds on the year before.

“Net additions were slightly below our estimates reflecting the tough consumer environment,” analysts at Numis said. “(But) encouragingly, take up of new products continues to increase, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.”

Those customers taking all three main services – TV, broadband and telephony – accounted for 33 percent of the user base, up 4 percentage points year on year.

The rise in customers helped the group to post first-half operating profit up 8 percent to 647 million pounds ($ 1 billion) against a forecast of 632 million pounds. Cost control helped the group pay an interim dividend up 20 percent to 11 pence.

“We believe the BSkyB investment case has evolved over the past year or so, with the challenging consumer environment making the addition of new households to the (pay-TV) service more difficult,” Numis said.

“The group has rightly prioritized the increased penetration of multiple products, notably HD and broadband, which drive average revenue per user and reduce churn over the medium/long term. We are supportive of investment in products such as Now TV which offer an attractive risk/return in our view.”

Shares in BSkyB were up 1 percent to 819 pence in mid-morning trade, following a 21 percent rise in the last 12 months, and valuing the group at 13.2 billion pounds.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Rhys Jones and Mark Potter)

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Relativity Buys Into Jim Carrey Heist Comedy ”Loomis Fargo”

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Relativity Media has acquired worldwide rights to the Jim Carrey heist comedy “Loomis Fargo,” which it will finance, produce and distribute, the studio announced on Thursday.

Jared Hess, who co-wrote and directed “Napoleon Dynamite,” will direct the movie from a script by Emily Spivey that also counts Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer as writers. Inspired by true events, it tells the story of four Southerners who stole nearly $ 20 million from an armed Loomis Fargo truck in 1997.

“Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn are producing the movie while Danny McBride, Jody Hill, Michael Aguilar, Kevin Messick are executive producing with Relativity CEO Ryan Kavanaugh and president Tucker Tooley.

Brett Dahl will oversee the project for Relativity, which is aiming for an April start to production.

Carrey can next be seen in “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” which will premiere at South by Southwest before it theatrical release. Relativity just acquired Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut “Don Jon’s Addiction” at Sundance and will next release the romantic thriller “Save Haven.”

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