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Actress Joan Fontaine, wearing a beautiful gown, was accused by a few critics of being over-dressed in this photo.

 1945 Actress Joan Fontaine, wearing a beautiful gown, was accused by a few critics of being over-dressed in this photo. AP

 Joan Fontaine, an Academy Award-winning actress whose delicate beauty made her a movie star in the 1940s and who excelled at portraying romantic vulnerability in such films as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion” and “Rebecca,” died Dec. 15 at her home in Carmel, Calif. She was 96.

 An assistant to Ms. Fontaine confirmed the death to the Hollywood Reporter.

 Ms. Fontaine was the younger sister of Oscar-winning actress Olivia de Havilland, with whom she endured one of the longest-running sibling feuds on record. Their rivalry began in childhood and was encouraged by their ambitious stage mother.

 The rupture deepened over the decades, with spats over movie roles and the attention of powerful men such as oil magnate and film producer Howard Hughes. When de Havilland wed the five-time married novelist Marcus Goodrich in 1946, Ms. Fontaine reputedly quipped, “It’s too bad that Olivia’s husband has had so many wives and only one book.”

 Ms. Fontaine, a teenager when she began her Hollywood career in 1935, was best remembered for playing elegant Englishwomen, fragile society ladies and wide-eyed innocents dominated by men. She could play chic and she could play demure.

 Six years later, she earned her only Oscar, opposite Cary Grant in “Suspicion” as a rich bride uncertain whether her ne’er-do-well bridegroom is a murderer. That same year, she was pitted against her sister for the most prestigious honor in Hollywood. De Havilland was Oscar nominated for her dramatic leading role in “Hold Back the Dawn.”

 In her memoir, “No Bed of Roses,” Ms. Fontaine described the tension of the awards ceremony.

 “I froze,” she wrote. “I stared across the table, where Olivia was sitting. ‘Get up there!’ she whispered commandingly. Now what had I done? All the animus we’d felt towards each other as children, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collarbone, all came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery. My paralysis was total. I felt Olivia would spring across the table and grab me by the hair.”

 The relationship grew more strained when de Havilland won the best actress Oscar for “To Each His Own” (1946). Ms. Fontaine recalled that when she walked over to congratulate her sister at the awards fete, “She took one look at me, ignored my hand, clutched her Oscar and wheeled away.”

 Years passed before they spoke again, but the truce did not hold. Ms. Fontaine said the break became permanent after their mother’s death in 1975. When she was not invited to the memorial service, Ms. Fontaine said she threatened to leak the news to the press unless she were permitted to attend with members of her family.

 The two sisters had to be separated by an entire room during a 1979 Oscar winners’ reunion. A year earlier, she had told the Hollywood Reporter, “I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she’ll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!”

 Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo to English parents on Oct. 22, 1917. Her father, Walter, headed a patent firm, and her mother, Lilian, was an aspiring actress trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art who pushed her daughters toward acting careers.

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 The de Havillands divorced when their daughters were toddlers, and the father stayed in Japan while the mother took their daughters to California. The move was prompted partly for Joan’s health; she was a frail and sickly child.

 Lilian de Havilland remarried, to department-store manager George Fontaine. In her autobiography, Joan Fontaine said her stepfather made sexual overtures to her and that she ran away from home. She was equally discontent living with her father in Japan for two years and moved back to the United States in 1934 to begin her acting career.

 She confronted a dilemma: What would she be called? By the mid-1930s, Olivia had taken the de Havilland name.

 In Ms. Fontaine’s earliest roles, she was billed as Joan St. John or Joan Burfield. She recounted in her memoir that she met a fortune teller who advised her to choose a stage name that would end with an “e.” With no great affection for her stepfather, Fontaine was the only name she could muster.

 Unlike her sister — who early on starred in the hits “Captain Blood” (1935), “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938) and “Gone With the Wind” (1939) — Ms. Fontaine was initially unable to break out of low-budget films despite occasional opportunities. As Fred Astaire’s partner in “A Damsel in Distress” (1937), Ms. Fontaine called herself “terrible” and joked that the title was apt.

 The critics agreed and in 1939, RKO Pictures dropped her. She later wrote in her memoir that she also was let go because she would not participate, as was expected of starlets, in cozy retreats with male guests of the studio. She often fought for better parts and compromised by appearing in some of her best and worst films simultaneously.

 Her first widespread good notices came in 1939 when she was cast in “The Women,” the all-

 female catty comedy by Clare Boothe Luce and made at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. She played the “good” girl in a film that included established players such as Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard and Rosalind Russell.

 Holding her own in “The Women” against a high-electricity cast earned her a seven-year contract with David O. Selznick, who produced “Gone With the Wind.”

 After Ms. Fontaine was turned down for the role of the plain Southerner Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in that 1939 epic, she suggested her older sister for the part. De Havilland got it and was nominated for a supporting Oscar but was said to have resented the help from her younger, lesser-known sibling.

 To win what she hoped would be her breakthrough role, Ms. Fontaine read the Daphne du Maurier story on which “Rebecca” was based — about the insecure wife of a brooding widower — and so identified with the part of “the second Mrs. de Winter” that she lobbied Hitchcock for the job.

 “When I was a little girl unable to hold my own with those who should have been my friends, I knew the same quality of unhappiness the second Mrs. de Winter knew,” Ms. Fontaine said at the time. “I was fearful and timid. And I lived in constant horror of criticism.”

 Cast opposite Laurence Olivier, she earned an Oscar nomination for “Rebecca” (1940) in a role that critics praised for her complex and expressive performance. Ms. Fontaine followed with some of her finest work: “Suspicion”; “The Constant Nymph” (1943), as a young girl in love with a mature composer (Charles Boyer); and “Jane Eyre” (1943), as the young bride opposite Orson Welles’s Rochester in a film based on the Charlotte Bronte novel.

 The rest of her career was a long descent into supporting roles in mediocre fare, although she stepped out of type in several roles. including . Her films included “Frenchman’s Creek” (1944) a 19th-century romance with Arturo de Cordova and based on a du Maurier novel; the comedy “The Affairs of Susan” (1945) with George Brent; and the drama “Letter From an Unknown Woman” (1948) as a woman desperately in love with a concert pianist (Louis Jourdan).

 She was a love interest in the swashbuckler “Ivanhoe” (1952) opposite Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor.

 Ms. Fontaine also stepped out of type in several roles: a poisoner in the Victorian suspense drama “Ivy” (1947) with Richard Ney; a manipulative society woman in “Serenade” (1956), opposite opera singer Mario Lanza; and the chic Baby Warren in “Tender is the Night,” a tepid 1962 version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

 She said she received hate mail for playing opposite black entertainer Harry Belafonte in “Island in the Sun” (1957), a torrid drama that explored race relations.

 In the mid-1960s, she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for her work with children at a New York school for the deaf. She periodically returned to acting, appearing in soap operas such as “Ryan’s Hope” and series including ”The Love Boat” and “Hotel.”

 Her marriages to actor Brian Aherne, producers William Dozier and Collier Young and Sports Illustrated golf editor Alfred Wright Jr. ended in divorce. She had a daughter from her second marriage and one from her third marriage, but a complete list of survivors could not be immediately confirmed.

 Ms. Fontaine was the niece of British airplane manufacturing pioneer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland and was a skillful pilot and prize-winning balloonist in her own right. She also was reportedly a Cordon Bleu chef, a licensed interior decorator and an excellent tuna fisherman. ||||| The star of the Hitchcock classics "Suspicion" and "Rebecca" famously won an Oscar in 1942 over her bitter rival -- her older sister, Olivia de Havilland.

 Joan Fontaine, the polished actress who achieved stardom in the early 1940s with memorable performances in the Alfred Hitchcock films Suspicion -- for which she earned the best actress Oscar over her bitter rival, sister Olivia de Havilland -- and Rebecca, has died. She was 96.

 The Hollywood Reporter awards analyst Scott Feinberg spoke with Fontaine's assistant, Susan Pfeiffer, who confirmed the actress' death of natural causes Sunday at her home in Carmel, Calif.

 Fontaine earned a third best actress Oscar nomination for her role in The Constant Nymph (1943). She also was notable as Charlotte Bronte's eponymous heroine in Jane Eyre (1944) opposite Orson Welles; in the romantic thriller September Affair (1950) with Joseph Cotten; in Ivanhoe (1952) with Robert Taylor; and in Island in the Sun (1957), where she plays a high-society woman in love with an up-and-coming politician (Harry Belafonte).

 It was Hitchcock, with his penchant for "cool blondes," who brought Fontaine to the forefront when he cast her as the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca (1940), the director's American debut. Her performance as the new wife of Laurence Olivier in a household haunted by the death of his first wife earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress.

 A year later, Hitchcock placed her opposite Cary Grant in Suspicion, and she won the Oscar for her turn as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth, a shy English woman who begins to suspect her charming new husband of trying to kill her. She thus became the only actor to win an Oscar in a Hitchcock film.

 Among those Fontaine beat out at the 1942 Academy Awards was her older sister, de Havilland, up for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Biographer Charles Higham wrote that as Fontaine came forward to accept her trophy, she rejected de Havilland's attempt to congratulate her and that de Havilland was offended. (There may have been another similar incident after de Havilland won her first Oscar for To Each His Own in 1947.) The sisters, who never really got along since childhood, finally stopped speaking to each other in the mid-'70s.

 De Havilland, a two-time Oscar winner, is 97 and living in Paris.

 PHOTOS: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2013

 Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo on Oct. 22, 1917, to British parents. Her father was a patent attorney who had a thriving practice in Japan. Due to the ill health of both her and Olivia, their mother, Lilian, moved them to California and pushed them into acting.

 While de Havilland pursued acting, Fontaine returned to Tokyo and attended the American School. Ultimately, their parents divorced and Fontaine returned to the U.S. at age 17 to live in San Jose, Calif. As de Havilland was already having some success as an actress, Fontaine joined a local theater group and moved to L.A.

 She received a screen test at MGM and was given a bit part in No More Ladies (1935), credited as Joan Burfield. After changing her last name to Fontaine (from her stepfather, George Fontaine) to avoid confusion with her sister, she signed with RKO and garnered small parts in several movies, including The Women and Gunga Din, both released in 1939.

 Capitalizing on her emotional turns in Rebecca and Suspicion, Fontaine appeared in several romantic films in the '40s, including Constant Nymph (where she falls for composer Charles Boyer), Frenchman's Creek (1944), The Affairs of Susan (1945), From This Day Forward (1945) and Ivy (1947).

 Fontaine moved into more mature roles in the movies and starred on Broadway opposite Anthony Perkins in Tea and Sympathy in 1954. Her last movie appearance was in The Witches (1966).

 Fontaine made regular TV appearances in the late '50s and early '60s and served as a panelist on the game show To Tell the Truth from 1962-65. In 1986, she co-starred in the TV movie Dark Mansions and the miniseries Crossings. Her last credited performance came in the 1994 telefilm Good King Wenceslas.

 Fontaine was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1980 for her guest-starring stint in the soap opera Ryan's Hope and served as jury president at the 1982 Berlin International Film Festival.

 In 1978, she published her autobiography, No Bed of Roses, which detailed her feud with de Havilland.

 Off the screen, Fontaine was a licensed pilot, an accomplished interior decorator and a Cordon Bleu-level chef who was married and divorced four times. In the '40s, she and William Dozier, the second of her four husbands, formed Rampart Productions, which oversaw her 1948 film Letter From an Unknown Woman, Billy Wilder's The Emperor Waltz (1948) starring Bing Crosby and Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) with Burt Lancaster.

 In 1939, Fontaine married British actor Brian Aherne, and they divorced in 1945. She was married to Batman TV show producer Dozier from 1946-51, to producer Collier Young from 1952-61 and to journalist Alfred Wright Jr. from 1964-69.

 Duane Byrge contributed to this report.

 Twitter: @mikebarnes4 |||||

– Joan Fontaine, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 1941 for her role opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion, died peacefully in her sleep at her Carmel, Calif., home yesterday at age 96, the AP reports. Fontaine was also nominated for Oscars for her lead roles in The Constant Nymph and Hitchcock's Rebecca; played Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles; appeared in films by Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, and Nicholas Ray; played opposite stars including Bing Crosby, Elizabeth Taylor, and Joan Crawford; and was nominated for an Emmy in 1980. She was also involved in what the AP calls "one of Hollywood's legendary feuds" with her own older sister, Olivia de Havilland, who lost out on the Best Actress to Fontaine in 1941. "I felt Olivia would spring across the table and grab me by the hair," Fontaine later wrote, according to the Washington Post. Fontaine later wrote in her memoir about a rivalry that had existed since childhood, and once told a reporter, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she’ll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" (De Havilland, who ended up besting Fontaine with two Oscars, is currently living in Paris, age 97, the Hollywood Reporter notes.) When de Havilland won her own Oscar in 1947, Fontaine tried to congratulate her and was rebuffed. Fontaine ultimately left Hollywood after being asked to play Elvis Presley's mother, explaining that the role simply "wasn't my cup of tea." She spent 25 years in New York, appearing in dinner theater plays and on Broadway, and appeared on TV quite a bit in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. She was married four times, and had two children. Click for more on her 71-year feud with de Havilland.


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 In a new Vanity Fair article, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince fashions himself as a swashbuckling Wild Bill Donovan recruited by the CIA to pull off the toughest, most clandestine operations. He comes off as vain and insecure. But if his account is correct, it rips open a closed package of secrets.

 Prince offers details on the targeted assassination program that CIA Director Leon Panetta terminated earlier this year. He reveals something long-rumored but kept secret, even from the journalists who leaked details of the program. According to Prince, the Blackwater team traveled to Germany, surveilled Al Qaeda financier Mamoun Darkazanli, and prepared to assassinate him. The CIA did not inform its own station chief that the team was in the country, and they did not inform the host country. What Prince describes is a serious violation of NATO intelligence sharing arrangements -- and certainly provides an example of why the CIA's association with Blackwater became so controversial within the agency. It would also contradict what CIA Director Leon Panetta and others have told Congress, namely, that the program was never operational. As recently as two months ago, Prince and a team were overseeing intelligence missions in one of the Axis of Evil countries -- Iran, probably -- from a location inside the United States. ||||| Iput myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions,” says Erik Prince as he surveys his heavily fortified, 7,000-acre compound in rural Moyock, North Carolina. “But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.” Prince—the founder of Blackwater, the world’s most notorious private military contractor—is royally steamed. He wants to vent. And he wants you to hear him vent.

 Erik Prince has an image problem—the kind that’s impervious to a Madison Avenue makeover. The 40-year-old heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, and a former navy seal, he has had the distinction of being vilified recently both in life and in art. In Washington, Prince has become a scapegoat for some of the Bush administration’s misadventures in Iraq—though Blackwater’s own deeds have also come in for withering criticism. Congressmen and lawyers, human-rights groups and pundits, have described Prince as a war profiteer, one who has assembled a rogue fighting force capable of toppling governments. His employees have been repeatedly accused of using excessive, even deadly force in Iraq; many Iraqis, in fact, have died during encounters with Blackwater. And in November, as a North Carolina grand jury was considering a raft of charges against the company, as a half-dozen civil suits were brewing in Virginia, and as five former Blackwater staffers were preparing for trial for their roles in the deaths of 17 Iraqis, The New York Times reported in a page-one story that Prince’s firm, in the aftermath of the tragedy, had sought to bribe Iraqi officials for their compliance, charges which Prince calls “lies … undocumented, unsubstantiated [and] anonymous.” (So infamous is the Blackwater brand that even the Taliban have floated far-fetched conspiracy theories, accusing the company of engaging in suicide bombings in Pakistan.)

 In Hollywood, meanwhile, a town that loves nothing so much as a good villain, Prince, with his blond crop and Daniel Craig mien, has become the screenwriters’ darling. In the film State of Play, a Blackwater clone (PointCorp.) uses its network of mercenaries for illegal surveillance and murder. On the Fox series 24, Jon Voight has played Jonas Hodges, a thinly veiled version of Prince, whose company (Starkwood) helps an African warlord procure nerve gas for use against U.S. targets.

 But the truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction. For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.’s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into “denied areas”—places U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating—to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than $1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009—by acting, among other things, as an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officials—Prince became a Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his indefatigable ambition—the very attributes that have galvanized his critics—also made him extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence. (Full disclosure: In the 1990s, before becoming a journalist for CBS and then NBC News, I was a C.I.A. attorney. My contract was not renewed, under contentious circumstances.)

 But Prince, with a new administration in power, and foes closing in, is finally coming in from the cold. This past fall, though he infrequently grants interviews, he decided it was time to tell his side of the story—to respond to the array of accusations, to reveal exactly what he has been doing in the shadows of the U.S. government, and to present his rationale. He also hoped to convey why he’s going to walk away from it all.

 To that end, he invited Vanity Fair to his training camp in North Carolina, to his Virginia offices, and to his Afghan outposts. It seemed like a propitious time to tag along.

 Split Personality

 Erik Prince can be a difficult man to wrap your mind around—an amalgam of contradictory caricatures. He has been branded a “Christian supremacist” who sanctions the murder of Iraqi civilians, yet he has built mosques at his overseas bases and supports a Muslim orphanage in Afghanistan. He and his family have long backed conservative causes, funded right-wing political candidates, and befriended evangelicals, but he calls himself a libertarian and is a practicing Roman Catholic. Sometimes considered arrogant and reclusive—Howard Hughes without the O.C.D.—he nonetheless enters competitions that combine mountain-biking, beach running, ocean kayaking, and rappelling.

 The common denominator is a relentless intensity that seems to have no Off switch. Seated in the back of a Boeing 777 en route to Afghanistan, Prince leafs through Defense News while the film Taken beams from the in-flight entertainment system. In the movie, Liam Neeson plays a retired C.I.A. officer who mounts an aggressive rescue effort after his daughter is kidnapped in Paris. Neeson’s character warns his daughter’s captors:

 If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills … skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you [don’t] let my daughter go now … I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

 Prince comments, “I used that movie as a teaching tool for my girls.” (The father of seven, Prince remarried after his first wife died of cancer in 2003.) “I wanted them to understand the dangers out there. And I wanted them to know how I would respond.”

 You can’t escape the impression that Prince sees himself as somehow destined, his mission anointed. It comes out even in the most personal of stories. During the flight, he tells of being in Kabul in September 2008 and receiving a two a.m. call from his wife, Joanna. Prince’s son Charlie, one year old at the time, had fallen into the family swimming pool. Charlie’s brother Christian, then 12, pulled him out of the water, purple and motionless, and successfully performed CPR. Christian and three siblings, it turns out, had recently received Red Cross certification at the Blackwater training camp.

 But there are intimations of a higher power at work as the story continues. Desperate to get home, Prince scrapped one itinerary, which called for a stay-over at the Marriott in Islamabad, and found a direct flight. That night, at the time Prince would have been checking in, terrorists struck the hotel with a truck bomb, killing more than 50. Prince says simply, “Christian saved Charlie’s life and Charlie saved mine.” At times, his sense of his own place in history can border on the evangelical. When pressed about suggestions that he’s a mercenary—a term he loathes—he rattles off the names of other freelance military figures, even citing Lafayette, the colonists’ ally during the Revolutionary War.

 Prince’s default mode is one of readiness. He is clenched-jawed and tightly wound. He cannot stand down. Waiting in the security line at Dulles airport just hours before, Prince had delivered a little homily: “Every time an American goes through security, I want them to pause for a moment and think, What is my government doing to inconvenience the terrorists? Rendition teams, Predator drones, assassination squads. That’s all part of it.”

 Such brazenness is not lost on a listener, nor is the fact that Prince himself is quite familiar with some of these tactics. In fact Prince, like other contractors, has drawn fire for running a company that some call a “body shop”—many of its staffers having departed military or intelligence posts to take similar jobs at much higher salaries, paid mainly by Uncle Sam. And to get those jobs done—protecting, defending, and killing, if required—Prince has had to employ the services of some decorated vets as well as some ruthless types, snipers and spies among them.

 Erik Prince flies coach internationally. It’s not just economical (“Why should I pay for business? Fly coach, you arrive at the same time”) but also less likely to draw undue attention. He considers himself a marked man. Prince describes the diplomats and dignitaries Blackwater protects as “Al Jazeera–worthy,” meaning that, in his view, “bin Laden and his acolytes would love to kill them in a spectacular fashion and have it broadcast on televisions worldwide.” |||||
What is a summary?

– Erik Prince says he and Blackwater—the defense contractor now known as Xe—got a raw deal from the government. "I put myself and my company at the CIA's disposal for some very risky missions," the firm's founder tells Vanity Fair. "But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus." Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic says if Prince's venting is correct, it "rips open a closed package of secrets," specifically about the now-terminated assassination program the company ran in cahoots with the CIA. A Blackwater team tracked an al-Qaeda financier to Germany and prepared to kill him, and the CIA informed neither its own station office nor German officials. That's a "serious violation of NATO intelligence sharing arrangements," writes Ambinder, and it contradicts Leon Panetta's claim that the program was never operational.


With Verizon’s long-anticipated bid to buy Yahoo finally official, speculation turns to what happens to the Internet giant’s CEO, Marissa Mayer.

 In a Tumblr post, Mayer wrote on Monday, “I’m planning to stay... It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter,” a position she reiterated in a CNBC interview Monday morning, although she also said she was “open minded” about the future.

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 For some, this indicates that the onetime Google wunderkind might depart after the deal is finished in the first quarter of next year.

 “It might be for a short period,” Morningstar equity analyst Ali Mogharabi said of the prospect of Mayer’s staying on. “They might need her input during the integration process.”

 After that, though, all bets are off.

 RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney said he expected AOL chief Tim Armstrong to lead the combined AOL-Yahoo company, calling him “a very seasoned internet executive,” in the CNBC interview. “He’s the right person to be running the combined assets,” Mahaney said.

 Ultimately, staying at Yahoo might not be Mayer’s choice to make, pointed out Scott Kessler, equity analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

 “She started out with just so much interest and enthusiasm and and excitement… and the last year or two have been tremendously disappointing,” he said.

 Since being tapped to run Yahoo in 2012 after a scandal involving previous CEO Scott Thompson misrepresenting his credentials, Mayer initially boosted her standing with workers by bringing in Google-style staff perks like free lunch and phones.

 Her elimination of telecommuting in 2013 was less well received, though. Aside from running counter to the typical Silicon Valley corporate culture, which tends to encourage remote work, some charged that Yahoo’s ban was unfair to working parents, especially since it was widely reported that Mayer had a nursery built near her office to accommodate the baby boy she had a few months after taking the top spot at Yahoo. Mayer’s two-week maternity leaves, both in 2012 as well as three years later, when she had twin girls, also sparked a larger conversation about parental leave in the tech industry.

 “She has become the face of Yahoo, for better or worse. She has become a lightning rod,” Kessler said.

 Some of her choices when it came to Yahoo’s operations were also questioned, especially as the promised turnaround failed to materialize.

 Read More: Yahoo to Lay Off 15 Percent of Workforce, Revamp Company

 “I would say it’s pretty much a mixed bag,” Mogharabi said. “The acquisition of Brightroll was a good one,” he said of Yahoo’s 2014 purchase of the ad platform, but he pointed out that its 2013 purchase of microblogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion didn’t pay off the way the company hoped.

 “While Marissa stabilized Yahoo during her tenure, she missed on the big trends,” Constellation Research founder and principal analyst R “Ray” Wang said via email. “Most folks would expect Marissa to leave within a year,” he noted.

 Leaving could be lucrative for Mayer. According to Equilar, a compensation data and research firm, she will make just under $57 million if Verizon decides not to keep her on. Through the end of last year, Equilar estimates that Mayer earned nearly $219 million, including $115 million in “realized pay,” which includes her cash earnings, value of shares vested during her tenure and gains from exercising options.

 That kind of money would give Mayer enough breathing room to take some time deliberating her next moves, which might be the best plan for her, Kessler suggested.

 “I think she would benefit from some time between what she‘s doing now and what she’s going to do next,” he said. “There are a lot of options out there for her.” ||||| Marissa Mayer hits out at 'gender bias' as Yahoo is sold for $5bn

 Verizon agreed to buy Yahoo’s core internet business for $4.83bn (£3.62bn) in cash on Monday, marking the final chapter in the struggling fortunes of the fading web pioneer.

 Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive officer, has faced a barrage of criticism over her tenure. She hit out at “gender-charged” reporting in an interview with the Financial Times after the sale.

 “I’ve tried to be gender-blind and believe tech is a gender-neutral zone but do think there has been gender-charged reporting,” she said. “We all see the things that only plague women leaders, like articles that focus on their appearance, like Hillary Clinton sporting a new pantsuit. I think all women are aware of that, but I had hoped in 2015 and 2016 that I would see fewer articles like that. It’s a shame.”

 Verizon, the US’s largest telecommunications company by subscribers, will combine Yahoo with another fallen giant of the first internet age, AOL, which it bought last year for $4.4bn.

 By the numbers: why big-name businesses are bidding for Yahoo Read more

 After the deal, expected to be complete in 2017, Yahoo will be left as a holding company for its valuable stakes in web businesses in China and Japan. Yahoo has a 15% stake in the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and a 35.5% interest in Yahoo Japan.

 “The sale of our operating business, which effectively separates our Asian asset equity stakes, is an important step in our plan to unlock shareholder value for Yahoo,” Mayer said in a statement on Monday.

 Founded in a Stanford University dorm room in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo as “Jerry and David’s Guide To The World Wide Web”, Yahoo grew rapidly through the 1990s to become one of the pre-eminent internet companies of its generation.

 Offering email, news, shopping and search, Yahoo went public in 1996, with its share price soaring 154% on day one. In January 2000, Yahoo was valued at $125bn. But the company failed to keep pace with the changing tech landscape as Google came to dominate search and Facebook social media.

 Microsoft launched a $44.6bn hostile bid for Yahoo in 2008. On Monday, the company was valued at $37bn while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was valued at $518bn and Facebook at $349bn.

 The new generation of tech companies have also outstripped Yahoo. Mayer’s company may still have more than one billion active monthly users but Verizon’s price is less than a quarter of Snapchat’s current valuation.

 Yahoo will continue as an independent company until the deal receives shareholder and regulatory approval, the companies said.

 The sale is an ignominious end to Mayer’s plans to turn Yahoo around. Mayer, a highly rated Google executive, joined Yahoo in July 2012. Before her arrival the company was in disarray and had had four CEOs in three years.

 Mayer promised a “renewed focus on product innovation to drive user experience and advertising revenue”. But shareholders lost faith in her after a wild spending spree in which she tried to build Yahoo’s content business by adding the blog site Tumblr, for $1.1bn, and signed deals with TV news anchor Katie Couric and the National Football League that failed to pay off.

 In a Tumblr blogpost, Mayer said she planned to stay at Yahoo, but Verizon’s Marni Walden, who will head the combined company, told CNBC the new leadership team had yet to be determined.

 Should Mayer be forced out, she is in for a payoff of $137m. Yahoo’s boss has already taken home $78m since she was installed as CEO, according to the stock analytics firm MSCI. Based on the terms of the company’s most recent proxy statement, she will take home another $59m if she’s dismissed from the company after a buyout.

 Some commentators were skeptical about the combined power of AOL and Yahoo. John Colley, a professor at Warwick Business School, said the merger was an alliance of two weak companies unlikely to form a single strong one. “Technology history is littered with the remnants of once all-powerful businesses – take Nokia and RIM, makers of the Blackberry,” Colley said. He said it was difficult to see how Verizon would benefit from this acquisition.

 The sale does not include Yahoo’s cash, its shares in Alibaba, its shares in Yahoo Japan, Yahoo’s convertible notes, certain minority investments and Yahoo’s non-core patents.

 The Alibaba and Yahoo Japan investments are worth about $40bn, while Yahoo had a market value of about $37.4bn as of Friday’s close.

 Verizon prevailed over rival bidders for Yahoo, including AT&T; a group led by the Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert and backed by the billionaire Warren Buffett; the private equity firm TPG Capital; and a consortium of buyout firms, Vector Capital and Sycamore Partners.

 The telecoms company is hoping that a combined AOL and Yahoo will create a strong third player to compete with Alphabet and Facebook for online revenues.

 Reuters contributed to this article |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Marissa Mayer says coverage of her four years at the helm of Yahoo has been "gender charged." "We all see the things that only plague women leaders, like articles that focus on their appearance, like Hillary Clinton sporting a new pantsuit," she tells the Financial Times. "I think all women are aware of that, but I had hoped in 2015 and 2016 that I would see fewer articles like that. It’s a shame." It was announced Monday that Verizon would acquire the struggling Internet pioneer for $4.83 billion, which, per the Guardian, puts an "ignominious end to Mayer’s plans to turn Yahoo around." Mayer has been oft-criticized for how she has run Yahoo, with much of the criticism centering on "bad acquisitions and poor hires," per the Times, such as buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion—part of what the Guardian calls a "wild spending spree." In a post on that platform, Mayer writes, "I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter." But how long that will be remains to be seen. "It might be for a short period," an analyst tells NBC news. "They might need her input during the integration process."


– Joe Miller's fight to keep Alaska's Senate race alive ended with 2010. After nearly 2 months of working full-time on legal challenges to Lisa Murkowski's write-in victory, the Republican nominee told supporters yesterday that he plans no further action, Politico reports. Murkowski had been officially certified as winner the day before. Miller said he hadn't conceded to her personally. “I have not called her. In fact, I don't have her number," he told CNN. Miller, whose appeals went as far as Alaska's Supreme Court, says he still disagrees with the rulings against him but he won't appeal the case to federal courts. The time has come "to accept the practical realities of our current legal circumstances," he told supporters. Miller says he doesn't believe the drawn-out battle has hurt him politically and he intends to keep fighting for Tea Party issues, although he has no immediate plans for the future apart from a family trip to Disneyland.

Expand this summary.

Posted: 09:30 PM ET

 From CNN’s Abby Livingston and Joe Von Kanel

 Washington (CNN) - Joe Miller is giving up, but he isn’t standing down.

 He also needs Senator Lisa Murkowski’s phone number. Miller won Alaska’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, lost the general election to a write-in campaign waged by incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, then unsuccessfully challenged the results in court. Today in Anchorage, he told supporters the time has come, " to accept the practical realities of our current legal circumstances. We shall abide by the court's decisions even if we do not agree with them."

 He also sounded a defiant note, adding: “I know for a fact that standing down is not an option, and I will continue to sound the alarm about our state and the nation.”

 Eleven minutes after his news conference, Senator Murkowski’s campaign issued the following statement, “I was glad to learn that Joe Miller has bowed to the rulings of the Alaska courts and decided to abandon his challenges. Although certification was a long time coming, it does not diminish the historic accomplishment of our campaign. All Alaskans, regardless of how they voted, can be assured that I will continue to work in Alaska’s interest for the next six years.”

 In his first interview after his public concession, Miller appeared on “John King, USA,” where CNN’s Ed Henry asked him if he had called Murkowski to personally concede. Miller said, “I have not called her. In fact, I don't have her number.” When asked if he had sought out her phone number through the Alaska GOP, he answered, "Well, I think we already have conceded. We've asked for it before. I don't have it."

 After the brutal campaign, Miller also addressed any unresolved issues with the Murkowski camp, “Well, I'm not going to talk about sour grapes. There are a lot of things during the campaign that obviously I think should have been done differently, but frankly, what this is about is two completely different ideologies.”

 He added, “We have no ill will toward Senator Murkowski. We have absolutely nothing to dispute as far as the finality of this race right now, but we have significant differences of opinion about where this nation needs to head.”

 Miller was also asked if there was anything to be read into his highest profile backer, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, taking a lower profile in the campaign while the courts sorted out a resolution. Miller said, “Not at all. In fact, the argument that was had during the … post-race, is a legal argument. It's not one where campaigning is appropriate. It's not one where somebody gets out and starts making stump speeches for a candidate. Certainly, SARAHPAC donated to our recount fund. We're very gracious to have received that. A number of other groups, a number of other people also donated. Senator Demint was key to assisting in that effort as well, and they certainly continue to stand behind us.”

 Filed under: JKUSA ||||| Joe Miller finally conceded the Alaska Senate race to Sen. Lisa Murkowski Friday, indicating he would not pursue further legal action in the last unresolved race of the 2010 cycle.

 At a news conference Friday, Miller told a group of supporters he would not appeal Murkowski's 10,000-vote write-in victory, effectively ending two months of legal battles in which the GOP nominee challenged the legitimacy of the incumbent's win.

 On Thursday Murkowski was officially certified the winner, allowing her to be sworn in on Jan. 5 along with the full slate of newly elected senators. Her victory over Miller marks the first time a senator has won as write-in candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954.

 Miller had sued the state over what he considered its improper attempts to determine voters's intent, arguing statute required voters to spell Murkowski's name correctly.

 A federal judge ruled against Miller saying that voter intent was paramount and that Miller's interpretation "would erode the integrity of the election system."

 While he declined to attempt an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Miller defended his legal actions Friday saying his challenge will lead to "more transparent, clearer standards" in Alaska.

 "The legal fight has been very involved. It's been a full time job." he said. "This has been good for the state."

 Despite speculation that he might run for the state's House seat in 2012, Miller said he had not yet contemplated any plans for another campaign. |||||


Summarize this article:

Photo by James Nielsen/AFP/Getty Images

 Ten years ago this morning, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Ricks faced a dilemma. As the forecast coordinator that day for the Slidell, Louisiana, office—which has responsibility for New Orleans—he needed to find a way to convey the urgency and seriousness of the situation his region would face the next day as Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

 This is what he came up with:

 National Weather Service

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 These bold words, considered by many to be the most dire—and effective—weather forecast ever issued by the National Weather Service, are now in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, along with a rosary from Ricks’ grandmother he held as he and his fellow forecasters rode out the storm.

 At a conference of broadcast meteorologists earlier this year, Ricks said, “On that particular fateful day, when I issued that product … I was awestruck.”

 Another, less widely circulated official forecast he issued that day, the Area Forecast Discussion, was more to the point: “Godspeed to all those in the path of this storm.”

 Bold statements like Ricks’ have been occasionally used—and officially encouraged—in recent years by the National Weather Service, as part of an effort to increase the effectiveness of sometimes bland government bulletins during true weather emergencies. Most notably, meteorologist Gary Szatkowski’s “personal plea” during Hurricane Sandy’s New York City-area landfall in 2012—which included gut-wrenching statements like “if you are still reluctant (to evacuate), think about your loved ones”—earned him hero status. ||||| NEW ORLEANS — On Aug. 28, the storm was still a day away. Evacuations were under way and people were just starting to arrive at the Superdome.

 At his desk at the National Weather Service office in Slidell, outside New Orleans, meteorologist Robert Ricks knew he had a job to do. He knew he probably had one remaining chance. And so, using computers, history and his fellow forecasters, he sat down to write.

 "I happened to be on the shift," Ricks says. "I happened to pull the trigger. It just happened to be me that day.

 Over the newswires — at NBC News headquarters in New York and across the country — came a document, titled: "URGENT... SPECIAL MESSAGE." It was an extraordinary bulletin. It warned of a most powerful hurricane with unprecedented strength. It predicted: "MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS. PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL-CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL. THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. OTHERS WILL BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED."

 Perhaps most remarkably, Ricks' document predicted: "WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS."

 That was the day before the storm. The images of devastation make it clear what happened.

 Brian Williams: Did a part of you want to be wrong?

 Robert Ricks: I would much rather have been wrong in this one. I would much rather be talking to you and taking the heat and crying wolf. But our local expertise said otherwise. You know, "Hey, let's gear up for the big one, this is going to be the big one."

 Williams: How much of you is in that statement? What of you is in that wording?

 Ricks: I also had to validate each one of those statements and I was, in my mind, I was saying, "I'm not going to take this out, it sounds valid. I'm not going to take this part out, it sounds valid.

 Williams: So you went through point by point?

 Ricks: Yeah, I read each one. I was trying to find things to actually take out. And I said, "I cannot find it in myself to take these out, because they seem very valid for the situation." And I came from the experience of going through Betsy and Camille myself in the Lower Ninth Ward.

 But his document was right. And now this lifelong resident of New Orleans, who grew up in the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward section of the city, is back at work alongside co-workers who have no homes and are wearing the clothes they wore that day.

 Williams: If you knew the damage was going to be like this, you did everything in your power to tell people a monster was coming, did the response break your heart?

 Ricks: Yes, it did. Because we always prepare for the big one; we just didn't think it was going to come this soon. |||||

– It's one of the most famous weather forecasts of the modern era, and it came out exactly 13 years ago to the day. That would be Aug. 28, 2005, one day before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Ricks issued a forecast so dire that some news agencies thought it was a hoax, writes meteorologist James Spann in a tweet commemorating the Ricks forecast. As it turns out, Ricks was spot on. "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks…perhaps longer," he wrote. "At least one half of well constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail…leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed." And this: "Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards." (Spann's tweet includes the full text.) The forecast has been credited with saving lives, and it is now in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, as noted by Slate on the 10-year anniversary. Ricks told Brian Williams of NBC News on Sept. 15, 2005, that he went through the warning line by line to verify each doomsday-sounding statement before making it public. He ended up removing nothing. "I would much rather have been wrong in this one," he told Williams. "I would much rather be talking to you and taking the heat and crying wolf. But our local expertise said otherwise. You know, 'Hey, let's gear up for the big one, this is going to be the big one.'" (Read about what JJ Watt's crowdsourced fundraiser accomplished in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.)


Here is a news article: The mogul reveals plans for international speaking engagements, more scripted shows and why she's passing on Broadway production ' 'night, Mother.'

 Oprah Winfrey and her collection of shows are settling in Hollywood.

 By year’s end, Winfrey’s Chicago-based Harpo Studios will close its doors, with the 26-year-old company's productions transitioning to OWN headquarters in Los Angeles. The news, which Winfrey delivered in person to her Harpo staff on Tuesday morning, comes two months after her burgeoning cable network moved into a new space in West Hollywood. Though the Chicago lease continues through April 2016, Winfrey and her key executives intend to stop the back-and-forth routine they've been balancing for nearly half a decade sooner than that.

 In a phone interview from the Harpo offices in Chicago, Winfrey acknowledges a mix of excitement and nostalgia. "[Chicago has] been everything for me. I've spent more hours in this building than I have any other building on Earth. ... We were here when there was nothing but hoes and rats on the street, and now it's one of the hottest neighborhoods [in Chicago]," she says, noting that OWN will stop shooting shows there as of Tuesday. "The time had come to downsize this part of the business and to move forward. It will be sad to say goodbye, but I look ahead with such a knowing that what the future holds is even more than I can see."

 Winfrey, 61, along with OWN and Harpo presidents Sheri Salata and Erik Logan, emphasize the significance of having their team all under one roof, particularly when the 4-year-old network is still in an early growth stage, expanding both its offerings and its reach. Though it's narrower than many top cable offerings, OWN, co-owned by Winfrey and Discovery Communications, has posted three consecutive years of growth and, in February, ranked as the No. 20 ad-supported cable network among women. It fares even better among its African-American core audience, with ratings up 12 percent year-over-year in that demo. The closure of Harpo, which had produced more than 800 hours of original programming exclusively for OWN, will impact roughly 200 employees, who will remain employed through December.

 While running OWN will remain a primary focus for Winfrey going forward, she has and will continue to pursue interests outside of the executive suite, too, including a cadre of film projects (she acted in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Selma, which she also produced) and this past fall’s eight-city "Oprah's The Life You Want" arena tour. More recently, Winfrey announced that she'd be moving in front of the camera at her eponymous network, with a recurring role in Queen Sugar, from Selma’s Ava DuVernay. “That’s been my goal,” she says of making her OWN acting debut, calling the drama opportunity a “seminal moment.”

 See more The Resurgence of Oprah Winfrey

 In fact, the high-end DuVernay drama, inspired by Natalie Baszile's acclaimed novel of the same name, is key to Winfrey's ongoing scripted push at OWN. DuVernay is set to deliver a pilot draft script to Winfrey in the coming days, having spent her post-Oscar week at Winfrey’s Maui writers’ cottage pulling it together. The drama will chronicle a spirited woman who leaves her upscale Los Angeles lifestyle behind to claim an inheritance from her recently departed father — an 800-acre sugarcane farm in the heart of Louisiana.

 Once a shooting schedule for Queen is set, Winfrey will be able to figure out what more she can — and cannot — do as an actor. Despite recent reports of her circling the upcoming Broadway revival of 'night, Mother, in which she would have played a mother struggling to prevent her daughter from killing herself, she says she has opted against it. “I just didn’t want to be in the space of suicide every night for six months,” she explains, adding: “I’d like something with a happier ending.”

 Without rattling off titles, Winfrey reveals that she will be heading to New York in the next couple of weeks to take a closer look at two other potential plays. Additionally, she’s set to reunite with Daniels for his upcoming biopic, Pryor, in which she’ll portray Richard Pryor’s grandmother Marie Carter. (Her own Los Angeles-based Harpo Films will remain active, too, with a development slate that includes Henrietta Lacks at HBO and Oprah's Book Club 2.0 picks Ruby and The Invention of Wings.) And though she says she has "no plans" to embark on another weekend fan experience tour — an experience she calls "spectacularly rewarding" — she does intend to do international speaking engagements.

 See more Hollywood's 100 Favorite Films

 Among the other things still on her to-do list: more scripted programming at the network. “For all of those years on the Oprah Show, we were able to encapsulate the stories that connected to our audience in a way that nobody else could,” says Winfrey. “I love telling the real stories of peoples’ lives, and now we get to create them, make them up, and I get to be part of them as an actor and producer.”

 At OWN, Queen Sugar will join a quartet of Tyler Perry-scripted series — all of which recently secured additional episode orders — as well as the upcoming two-night Octavia Spencer-led miniseries, Tulsa, already in development. The latter, the network's first in the genre, centers on the story of the largest race riot in U.S. history, in which more than 300 people are believed to have been murdered. OWN will continue to develop projects in other areas, too, including a seven-part event series, Belief, which will explore humankind’s ongoing search to connect with something greater than ourselves when it bows this fall. The remainder of Winfrey's lineup, including Master Class and Iyanla Fix My Life, will now be produced within Los Angeles-based OWN.

 The Harpo move comes nearly a year after real estate developer Sterling Bay Cos. closed a deal for the production company's four building facility, reportedly paying a combined $30.5 million. At that time, Sterling agreed to lease the space back to Harpo for two years. "We have been fortunate to have this spectacular city of Chicago as our home for over 25 years," said Logan and Salata in a joint statement, "and are thankful to everybody who has been a part of this great company.”

 A small group of the Chicago-based Harpo staffers will join the approximately 140 OWN employees who have moved into the network's newly constructed three-floor space at West Hollywood's The Lot. The latter not only offers sound-stages and post-production studios, which OWN's previous Miracle Mile location did not, but also a rich Hollywood history: “The idea of being on the lot where Natalie Wood filmed West Side Story or Marilyn Monroe did Some Like it Hot,” says Winfrey, “you automatically feel like you’re part of a community that’s larger than you.” ||||| It's a wrap for Harpo Studios in Chicago.

 The facility, which Oprah Winfrey opened in 1990 to house her talk show empire, helped turn Chicago into a bustling television center and the West Loop into a resurgent urban neighborhood. But on Tuesday, she came to Chicago to tell employees that Harpo was closing for good.

 Production is migrating to the West Coast, four years behind Winfrey, who left town to start her own cable network, OWN, in 2011. The work, which had dwindled to mostly postproduction editing on a handful of shows, is expected to wind down in phases, leaving about 200 staffers out of a job and Chicago's place in the television industry diminished.

 The lease on the space, where Winfrey's eponymous show was recorded for decades, runs until April 2016. The last day of production will be Dec. 11, sources said.

 Oprah Winfrey is leaving Chicago...and 200 employees behind Oprah Winfrey is bidding her longtime home, Chicago, adieu, now that her Windy City-based Harpo studios are transitioning full-time to their new location in West Hollywood. (Inform) Oprah Winfrey is bidding her longtime home, Chicago, adieu, now that her Windy City-based Harpo studios are transitioning full-time to their new location in West Hollywood. (Inform) See more videos

 Harpo Studios had been at the center of Winfrey's broadcast universe since it opened, hosting her syndicated daily talk show through its finale in 2011. Chicago-based real estate developer Sterling Bay Cos. bought the four-building Near West Side facility in 2014, paying a combined $30.5 million for about 170,000 square feet of space.

 Executives with the Oprah Winfrey Network and Harpo Studios said the Chicago studios will be moved to network facilities in West Hollywood, Calif., by December.

 About 200 people are employed by Harpo Studios in Chicago, doing production work for OWN cable shows such as "Super Soul Sunday," "Oprah's Master Class," "Oprah: Where Are They Now," "Oprah Prime" and "Iyanla: Fix My Life." That work will continue in Chicago for now, but most of those jobs will be phased out as production on the shows transitions to OWN, a Harpo spokeswoman said Tuesday.

 Active filming on the Chicago studio lot, minimal in recent years, ended as of Tuesday, a Harpo spokeswoman said.

 A small group of Harpo employees from Chicago have been offered jobs with OWN in Los Angeles, according to sources. Others may have the opportunity to continue working on the shows on a freelance basis. But by December, only a skeleton crew will remain in Chicago, charged with shutting down Harpo Studios.

 Harpo had about 580 employees and full-time contractors when Winfrey wrapped up her daily talk show, according to studio executives.

 "We have been fortunate to have this spectacular city of Chicago as our home for over 25 years and are thankful to everybody who has been a part of this great company," Erik Logan and Sheri Salata, presidents of OWN and Harpo Studios, said in a statement.

 Winfrey held an emotional meeting at Harpo Studios at 9 a.m. Tuesday, sources said. The agenda was not announced, but it was expected by some employees, especially those who had seen production wane from the studio's heyday, when "The Oprah Winfrey Show" was the hottest ticket in town and the envy of both coasts.

 Returning to announce the closing of the home that launched her television empire, Winfrey addressed the remaining staffers, thanking them and telling them the decision did not come lightly. She reminisced about 25 years in the building but said that from a business standpoint, it made more sense to consolidate everything under one roof in Los Angeles.

 "It was kind of surreal for a lot of people," said a 10-year production veteran, who asked that his name not be used. "We all knew it was coming, but we were holding out hope that there would be a smaller crew remaining here, but that's not going to be the case moving forward."

 The exodus of Harpo Studios may be a tipping point for TV production in Chicago, which has seen both wins and losses in recent years. "The Jerry Springer Show" moved from Chicago to Connecticut in 2009, but comedian Steve Harvey began recording his syndicated daytime talk show in Chicago in 2012. Prime time shows like NBC's "Chicago Fire" and "Chicago P.D." also will help keep the city on the TV production map. But staffers are doubtful that there will be enough jobs in Chicago to handle the influx of Harpo veterans.

 "There's going to be a lot of talent on the streets in Chicago. I'm not sure there's enough open positions to absorb everybody here," the staffer said. "I think there's going to have to be a lot of people that are going to have to look to moving out to the coasts, New York or LA, where most of the production is still being done."

 In a statement, Winfrey said: "Harpo Studios in Chicago was not just my home but also my life for nearly 30 years. I've spent more time there than anywhere else. I am so proud of what we created. It has been a blessing in my life and I thank everyone who has been a part of this great run. I am now looking ahead to inhabiting the new space on The Lot in California and carrying on the legacy of Harpo Studios with OWN programming."

 OWN, a venture between Winfrey and Discovery Communications, struggled initially after its launch in January 2011. It has since gained traction, posting double-digit ratings increases for three consecutive years, executives said. OWN is available in 85 million homes.

 Although Winfrey moved West with OWN, Harpo Studios was integral to the cable network's launch. It also was home to OWN's most prominent year-one flameout, "The Rosie Show," a talk show hosted by O'Donnell and filmed in Chicago. Winfrey pulled the plug on "Rosie" in March 2012 after five months of tweaking and downsizing failed to boost anemic ratings. That led to staffing reductions and a lesser role for Harpo Studios, culminating in Tuesday's announced closing.

 Harpo is leasing two of the four buildings on the campus. Sterling Bay remains in discussions with potential tenants and redevelopment partners. A decision about the future of the property has not been made, the West Loop-based real estate developer said.

 Beyond her television legacy, Winfrey leaves behind a monument to the "Oprah Effect" in the form of the massive facility she built, and the West Loop neighborhood she helped revive.

 A large part of her former complex is occupied by 120 Sports, an over-the-top streaming national sports network that employs 150 people and has major backers, including Time Inc., and Bulls and White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. It is leasing a sprawling 17,000-square-foot space once occupied by O'Donnell's short-lived talk show.

 While the neighborhood surrounding the studio may feel an economic pinch from the loss of Harpo jobs, boosters are hopeful it will continue to thrive.

 Roger Romanelli, executive director of the Randolph/Fulton Market Association, a community organization, said Harpo had "brought so much bounty" to the West Loop. It drew tourists, made people feel safer walking around day and night, and its employees shopped at local businesses. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Chicago is losing a big piece of its broadcasting history—and around 200 jobs—with the closure of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios. Winfrey came to Chicago yesterday to tell staff in person that production work for Oprah Winfrey Network shows like Super Soul Sunday and Oprah's Master Class is being shifted to OWN headquarters in West Hollywood and that the Chicago facility will be completely shut down by December, reports the Chicago Tribune. The West Loop facility hosted Winfrey's talk show from 1990 until it finished in 2011. Chicago has "been everything for me," Winfrey tells the Hollywood Reporter. "I've spent more hours in this building than I have any other building on Earth. We were here when there was nothing but hoes and rats on the street, and now it's one of the hottest neighborhoods" in the city she says, adding that it "will be sad to say goodbye, but I look ahead with such a knowing that what the future holds is even more than I can see." Staffers say there might not be enough TV jobs in Chicago for people affected by the closure and some people are going to have to seek work in New York or Los Angeles, the Tribune reports.


On His Way to Speak At FBI, Trump Slams The Bureau And Opens Door To Pardoning Flynn

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Evan Vucci/AP Evan Vucci/AP

 President Trump, minutes before heading to speak at the FBI's National Academy, lashed out at the bureau, saying, "It's a shame what's happened with the FBI" and claiming there are "a lot of very angry people that are seeing it."

 Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn, Trump said, "We're going to rebuild the FBI" after what he described as "really, really disgraceful" documents. He appeared to be referring to text messages the Justice Department provided Congress this week in which a senior agent described candidate Trump as an "idiot" and made other political remarks in the course of the presidential campaign.

 Trump's comments are the latest in a barrage of criticism he has directed at the FBI. Earlier this month, he declared on Twitter that the bureau's reputation is "in Tatters — worst in History!"

 That assessment came days after special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation, secured a guilty plea from Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

 Trump opened the door Friday to pardoning Flynn.

 "I don't want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn — yet," Trump said. "We'll see what happens. Let's see."

 Flynn has not been sentenced and appears to be a cooperating witness as part of Mueller's Russia probe. Trump called the investigation a "Democrat hoax," "an excuse for losing the election" and claimed again "there is absolutely no collusion."

 toggle caption Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

 Later, White House lawyer Ty Cobb said, "There is no consideration at the White House of a pardon for Michael Flynn."

 Trump's remarks on his way to Quantico, Va., carried new potency given the president's audience Friday morning: the latest graduating class at the FBI's National Academy for law enforcement managers.

 In his speech, the president refrained from attacking the FBI. He made only passing references to the bureau in his remarks before U.S. and international law enforcement officers who were graduating from a program at the FBI's prestigious training center.

 Instead, Trump's speech focused on his "law and order" agenda, and he echoed comments Attorney General Jeff Sessions has frequently made since Inauguration Day: The administration backs the police.

 "With me as your president, America's police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House. More loyal that anyone else can be," Trump said. "You very rarely get the recognition you deserve."

 He promised to work with law enforcement to crack down on drug cartels and gangs, such as MS-13, whose members he referred to as "savages."

 "We'll get rid of them completely, very soon, right?" Trump said as he turned and pointed to Sessions. "To any member of MS-13 listening: We will find you; we will arrest you; we will jail you; we will throw you the hell out of the country."

 While Trump refrained from criticizing the FBI in his speech, his comments earlier in the day hung over his appearance in Quantico — and dominated TV news coverage leading up to his address.

 That is because it's unusual for a president to blast the bureau — the premier law enforcement agency in the country.

 In fact, over the past 15 years, it has been the other way around. President Barack Obama famously visited bureau headquarters a few months after he took office in 2009, donning an FBI baseball cap and sharing "the thanks of a grateful nation." A year earlier, President George W. Bush praised "the character and courage of those who carry the badge."

 The appearance at the FBI had already promised to be complicated for Trump, given his record of derogatory public statements and negative tweets about the FBI this year.

 Recently, Trump tweeted that the FBI's reputation was in "Tatters - worst in History!" He called popular former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May, "a liar" and "a leaker." Trump also accused the FBI, without providing any evidence, of illegally wiretapping Trump Tower in 2016. And he continues to cast doubt on a conclusion by the bureau and other intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in last year's presidential election.

 On Friday morning, Trump reaffirmed to reporters, "there is absolutely no collusion. I didn't make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it. That was a Democrat hoax. It was an excuse for losing the election."

 Another source of awkwardness: the FBI's longtime former leader, Mueller, is the man running the ongoing special counsel probe into election interference — and into whether anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign took part. So far, Mueller's team has secured indictments against Paul Manafort, Trump's onetime campaign chairman, and won guilty pleas from a campaign foreign policy official and Flynn.

 That last development, on Dec. 1, prompted a new wave of attacks from Trump and his supporters on the integrity of the FBI and the Justice Department, fueled by the disclosure that the Justice Department Inspector General had uncovered text messages in which a senior agent working on the Russia probe had called Trump an "idiot" during the campaign.

 While Mueller removed the agent from the investigation months ago, one of Trump's lawyers, Jay Sekulow, has cited the matter to call for a second special counsel to investigate conflicts of interest at the bureau.

 In response to a stream of harsh criticism this month, the FBI Agents Association mounted a rare public defense.

 "Every day, FBI special agents put their lives on the line to protect the American public from national security and criminal threats," President Tom O'Connor tweeted. "Agents perform their duties with unwavering integrity and professionalism and a focus on complying with the law and the Constitution. This is why the FBI continues to be the premier law enforcement agency in the world."

 Trump's pick to lead the FBI, former Justice Department official Christopher Wray, also raised his voice to defend the workforce in congressional testimony last week.

 "Let me start by saying that it is for me the honor of a lifetime to be here representing the men and women of the FBI," Wray said. "There is no finer institution than the FBI and no finer people than the men and women who work there and are its very beating heart."

 Trump appeared on stage with Wray to welcome the new class of National Academy graduates at what is known as the agency's "police training center."

 The program puts attendees through a series of academic and physical challenges, building partnerships between police and the FBI. Nearly 10 years ago, Mueller told an FBI graduating class at Quantico, "For the past 100 years, the FBI has stood for the best of America."

 It remains to be seen whether the new president agrees. ||||| President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd at the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, in Quantico, Va. Trump said Friday "it's a shame what's happened" with the FBI, calling... (Associated Press)

 President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd at the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, in Quantico, Va. Trump said Friday "it's a shame what's happened" with the FBI, calling the agency's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation "really disgraceful." The comments... (Associated Press)

 QUANTICO, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump laced into FBI leadership Friday, while proclaiming his loyalty and support for law enforcement in an address at the agency's training academy.

 "It's a shame what's happened" with the FBI, the president said as he left the White House for a speech at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia. He called the agency's handling of Hillary Clinton's email investigation "really disgraceful" and told reporters "we're going to rebuild the FBI."

 Shortly afterward, Trump lavished praise on graduates of a weeks-long FBI National Academy program and their families, touting their accomplishments and pledging his unwavering support. Trump told law enforcement leaders he is "more loyal than anyone else could be" to police.

 "Anti-police sentiment is wrong and it's dangerous," he added. "Anyone who kills a police officer should get the death penalty."

 Trump used the speech to promote his administration's tough-on-crime policies, delivering a stern warning to members of the international gang MS-13 that his administration will root them out and arrest them.

 He also celebrated his decision to make it easier for local police forces to purchase surplus military equipment, and questioned rising violence in Chicago.

 "What the hell is going on in Chicago? What the hell is happening there," he asked.

 Hours before, White House Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News Channel that edits to former FBI Director James Comey's statement on Clinton's private email server and anti-Trump texts from a top agent are "deeply troubling."

 "There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time," Gidley charged, as special counsel Robert Mueller pushes on with a probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. Gidley says Trump maintains confidence in the FBI's rank-and-file.

 Edits to the Comey draft appeared to soften the gravity of the bureau's finding in its 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state.

 "It is very sad when you look at those documents, how they've done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of really angry people who are seeing it," Trump said of the document.

 Gidley said the disclosure of politically charged text messages sent by one of the agents on the Clinton case, Peter Strzok, were "eye-opening." Strzok, who was in the room as Clinton was interviewed, was later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's team to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. He was re-assigned after the messages were uncovered this summer.

 About 200 leaders in law enforcement from around the country attended the weeks-long FBI National Academy program aimed at raising law enforcement standards and cooperation. Coursework included intelligence theory, terrorism and terrorist mindsets, law, behavioral science, law enforcement communication, and forensic science. |||||

Write a summary.

– President Trump laced into FBI leadership Friday, while proclaiming his loyalty and support for law enforcement in an address at the agency's training academy. "It's a shame what's happened" with the FBI, the president said as he left the White House for a speech at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia. He called the agency's handling of Hillary Clinton's email investigation "really disgraceful" and told reporters "we're going to rebuild the FBI," per the AP. Shortly afterward, Trump lavished praise on graduates of a weeks-long FBI National Academy program and their families, touting their accomplishments and pledging his unwavering support. Trump told law enforcement leaders he is "more loyal than anyone else could be" to police. Trump used the speech to promote his administration's tough-on-crime policies, delivering a stern warning to members of the international gang MS-13 that his administration will root them out and arrest them. He also celebrated his decision to make it easier for local police forces to purchase surplus military equipment, and questioned rising violence in Chicago. "What the hell is going on in Chicago? What the hell is happening there," he asked. In his comments before the speech, Trump also mentioned former national security adviser Michael Flynn. "I don't want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn—yet," Trump said, per NPR. "We'll see what happens. Let's see."


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China is planning on sending the first-ever lunar probe to the dark side of the moon by 2020, a leading engineer announced on state-run television. The goal of the mission would be to examine the geological conditions there with the ultimate aim of installing a radio telescope.

 China's lunar exploration program -- known as Chang'e -- is leading the mission, Zou Yongliao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' moon exploration department told CCTV in an interview shown Wednesday. A successful landing, which would be the first of its kind, could enable the Chinese to place radio transmitters on the far side of the moon, which currently can't be reached with transmissions from Earth. This new look at the universe woud “fill a void” in humanity's understanding of outer space, Zou said, as quoted by the Associated Press.

 The dark side of the moon is not visible from Earth. While China became the third country (after the United States and the Soviet Union) to land a probe on lunar soil in 2013, reaching the dark side of the moon will require more satellite technology to communicate with the probe, simply because the moon itself is blocking radio transmissions.

 “The communication problem will be solved by having a spacecraft orbiting the moon to relay radio signals from the far side of the moon back to earth,” Michael Brown, an observational astronomer at Monash University in Austrailia, told Al Jazeera. “This shouldn't be too difficult a problem to solve, given spacecraft orbiting Mars regularly relay signals from the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers that are driving around on that planet.” ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| BEIJING (AP) — China's increasingly ambitious space program plans to attempt the first-ever landing of a lunar probe on the moon's far side, a leading engineer said.

 The Chang'e 4 mission is planned for sometime before 2020, Zou Yongliao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' moon exploration department told state broadcaster CCTV in an interview broadcast on Wednesday.

 Zou said the mission's objective would be to study geological conditions on the moon's far side, also known as the dark side.

 That could eventually lead to the placement of a radio telescope for use by astronomers, something that would help "fill a void" in man's knowledge of the universe, Zou said.

 Radio transmissions from Earth are unable to reach the moon's far side, making it an excellent location for sensitive instruments.

 China's next lunar mission is scheduled for 2017, when it will attempt to land an unmanned spaceship on the moon before returning to Earth with samples. If successful, that would make China only the third country after the United States and Russia to have carried out such a maneuver.

 China's lunar exploration program, named Chang'e after a mythical goddess, has already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes, and in 2013 landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard.

 China has also hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon.

 China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003 and has powered ahead with a series of methodically timed steps, including the deploying of an experimental space station. |||||

– If everything goes to plan with China's space program—which so far everything has since the country launched its first astronaut in 2003—it will become the first country to land a probe on the "dark side of the moon," the AP reports. This week, Zou Yongliao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced plans to send a probe designated Chang'e 4 to the moon's far side by 2020, according to the Asia Times. "China will be the first to complete the task if it is successful," Zou said. In 2013, China became the third country to land a probe—Chang'e 3—on the moon, following the United States and Soviet Union. China plans to study the geology of the far side of the moon—which is never visible from Earth—in order to put a radio telescope there. The dark side of the moon would be ideal for studying radio waves because the moon itself blocks any interfering waves coming from Earth. However, that also makes landing a probe on the moon's far side more difficult, according to the International Business Times. Without radio signals from Earth, China will require additional satellite technology to communicate with the probe. In the meantime, the AP reports that China will be sending an unmanned spaceship to and from the moon to collect samples in 2017. (NASA recently captured an amazing shot of the far side of the moon.)


Article:

Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham settles with band after being axed from tour

 Updated

 Lindsey Buckingham's civil lawsuit against his former Fleetwood Mac bandmates has been settled after he was axed from a series of concerts in North America.

 Key points: Buckingham said he was "entirely cut off" by the band in January

 He was replaced on tour by Mike Campbell and Neil Finn

 The guitarist said an agreement was made, but he did not elaborate on the terms

 In October he accused other members of the band of a being in breach of contract by cutting him from their tour in January, a move he said cost him $27 million in earnings.

 In his first television interview since he was dropped by the band, Buckingham did not disclose the terms of any settlement agreement, but he expressed little hope of rejoining Fleetwood Mac.

 "I'm pretty much figuring that I won't," Buckingham told CBS News.

 Buckingham was replaced by Mike Campbell of Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House.

 He did not describe the terms of the settlement and a copy of the agreement has not been made available to the media.

 "We've all signed off on something," Buckingham said.

 "I'm happy enough with it."

 The agreement was reached a few weeks ago, Buckingham said.

 Representatives for Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac could not immediately be reached for comment.

 At the time the lawsuit was lodged, Buckingham's legal team said he was "cut off entirely" from Fleetwood Mac.

 He said the dispute stemmed from a clash between the planned 2018/19 Fleetwood Mac tour and his wishes to play some solo dates.

 "Not a single member of the band called Buckingham to break the news to him," the court documents said.

 "In fact, not a single member of Fleetwood Mac has returned any of Buckingham's phone calls to provide him with an explanation for his purported expulsion from Fleetwood Mac."

 At the time, a spokeswoman for Fleetwood Mac told the BBC the press was notified of the lawsuit before the band's legal team.

 In April, Buckingham's former bandmate and ex-girlfriend Stevie Nicks told CBS the decision to drop the guitarist was about scheduling.

 "This team wanted to get out on the road," she said.

 "And one of the members did not want to get out on the road for a year.

 "We just couldn't agree."

 Buckingham, however, said he had agreed to put his solo shows on hold to join the band on its North American tour.

 In his appearance on CBS last week, he said did not want to "twist the knife" after the settlement was reached and that he had tried to approach the situation with "compassion".

 Buckingham joined the band in 1975 with his then-girlfriend Nicks, before leaving in 1987.

 He then rejoined in 1997 and remained with the band until January, when he was cut from the latest tour.

 Topics: arts-and-entertainment, music, music-industry, united-states

 First posted ||||| Even in a group notorious for turmoil, it came as a shock when earlier this year Fleetwood Mac fired Lindsey Buckingham, a key member of what many consider the band's classic lineup. Buckingham sued, and in his first television interview since being ousted, he revealed that he and the band have settled that lawsuit.

 "I'm happy enough with it," Buckingham said. "I'm not out there trying to twist the knife at all. I'm trying to look at this with some level of compassion, some level of wisdom."

 "It hurt for a while," he said. "I did walk around for a few months with a visceral reaction to that."

 Buckingham has a 43-year history with Fleetwood Mac. He helped shape their classic sound and wrote some of their biggest hits. In January, the band was honored at the MusiCares Benefit Grammy weekend, but it would be Buckingham's last performance with Fleetwood Mac. Two days later, he heard from their manager.

 "Irving Azoff called me up and he was basically screaming at me," Buckingham said. "He was screaming at me on the phone saying, 'You've really done it this time.' And I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, 'Stevie never wants to be on stage with you again,' and I'm going, 'Why?'"

 In an interview with CBS News earlier this year, bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks blamed it on Buckingham's reluctance to sign off on a new tour. "This team wanted to get out on the road. And one of the members did not want to get out on the road for a year," Nicks said.

 Buckingham insists he had agreed to postpone his own solo tour to join the band, but said Azoff told him Nicks didn't like his behavior at the MusiCares event. She complained that he had smirked behind her when she gave her acceptance speech.

 "It appeared to me that she was looking for something to hang on me, in order to instigate some kind of coup. Irving told me a couple of days later that she'd given the band an ultimatum and either I had to go or she was going to go," Buckingham said.

 Asked if he has any sense of why Nicks would have reached that point, Buckingham said, "I don't know. None of it makes sense to me, you know? Fleetwood Mac, the five of us together is in my mind, is a very sacred thing."

 Buckingham and Nicks were a duo, professionally and romantically, when they joined Fleetwood Mac together in 1975. But they broke up during the recording of the landmark "Rumours" album. The song "Go Your Own Way" is about their breakup.

 "I was not the one doing the leaving. She left me. But there was never really any chance to get anything like closure because that takes perhaps some distance," Buckingham said.

 Buckingham described his relationship with Nicks as "fragmented," but he believes there's "still a lot of love there." Over the years, Buckingham said the two have spent time together outside of the band.

 "In sort of spurts though, you know? In 2011 when I did my solo album, 'Seeds We Sow,' I spent a ton of time over at her house …and we got along great. I mean the chemistry is the chemistry," he said.

 Buckingham also revealed that he hasn't spoken to any member of the band since his firing almost a year ago.

 "I have had, only in the last couple of weeks, I have gotten an email, which I expected to get, from Christine McVie," he said. Buckingham and McVie recorded an album together last year and went on tour.

 "She wrote me an email and basically said, 'Dearest Lindsey, just know that I had nothing to do with any of this. Know that I miss you so much.' She said, 'I believe deep in Stevie's heart that she would like you to come home,'" Buckingham said.

 He believes it could mean Nicks may have already gotten over what happened earlier this year.

 "That maybe, underneath everything, Stevie would like to see me back already, that maybe she feels ambivalent about what's going on. This could just be Christine expressing wishful thinking or expressing something she thinks will make me feel better," he said.

 Buckingham said he's open to getting back with Fleetwood Mac but isn't expecting a reunion.

 "I'm pretty much figuring that I won't because a lot of people who know how convoluted Fleetwood Mac's politics have been will say two years from now they're gonna … and I'm like, 'I'm not so sure.' You know, it's something is a little different this time," he said.

 What's different? He's not sure. Instead, Buckingham has spent the year putting together a retrospective of his solo work and will tour behind it into the New Year.

 "I'm not someone who necessarily likes to look back. I like to look forward. And that certainly served me well this year. But I was quite taken by curating a 35-year plus body of work … to be able to go out and celebrate that has been really very cathartic. Yeah. So I am having a great time." |||||
What is a summary?

– Lindsey Buckingham's exit from Fleetwood Mac is official—legally speaking—and he sounds like a man who's getting close to acceptance: "I'm happy enough with it," the guitarist tells CBS News, saying the band has settled their lawsuit. "I'm not out there trying to twist the knife at all. I'm trying to look at this with some level of compassion, some level of wisdom." But he admits "it hurt for a while. I did walk around for a few months with a visceral reaction to that." The 69-year-old, who helped forge Fleetwood Mac's unique sound, says he was kicked out of the band earlier this year for smirking when frontwoman Stevie Nicks spoke on stage. Band manager Irving Azoff "called me up and he was basically screaming at me," says Buckingham. "He was screaming at me on the phone saying, 'You've really done it this time.' And I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, 'Stevie never wants to be on stage with you again,' and I'm going, 'Why?'" The band blamed the breakup on Buckingham's disinterest in touring again: "This team wanted to get out on the road," says Nicks. Buckingham kept mum about their settlement terms and dismissed the prospect of rejoining the group, per ABC News Australia. "I'm pretty much figuring that I won't," he says. (A metal band broke up in an "epic way.")